SUNDAY 1ST NOVEMBER 2020

U.S., Niger, Nigeria Coordinated to Rescue American Hostage Bayo Akinloye The United States Government working with the governments of Niger Republic and the Nigerian government rescued an American citizen abducted last week in Niger but held hostage in Nigeria, according

to a U.S. television channel, ABC News. The daring high-risk U.S. military raid in neighbouring Nigeria, took place early Saturday morning in Sokoto State, according to sources familiar with the operation.

President Donald Trump,

who tweeted the development as a show of support, however, called the operation a "big win" for the elite force.

Trump further announced in a tweet; "last night our country's brave warriors rescued an American hostage in Nigeria. Our nation salutes

the courageous soldiers behind the daring nighttime rescue operation and celebrates the safe return of yet another American Citizen."

White House Press Secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, was quoted as saying the decision to pull the trigger on the operation

was tough, "but ultimately the president prioritises the safety of American citizens.

"They're very tough ones to make, because you're right it has to be conducted just perfectly. But the President always puts the American interest first. It takes a lot

of planning.

"A lot of keeping things quiet until that moment, when you get the go ahead and I was talking to some of our soldiers and they said to me, we pray to get the green Continued on page 5

UK Announces Four-week National COVID Lockdown in England… Page 5 Sunday 1 November, 2020 Vol 25. No 9337

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To Save Nigeria, Fayemi, El-Rufai Insist Restructuring is the Way Out Ekiti Governor: Youth population now a ticking time bomb Kaduna Governor: Our electioneering calendar presents a narrow window for significant reforms We must not let the country break, Gana pleads Chuks Okocha in Abuja and John Shiklam in Kaduna The Chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) and Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi with his Kaduna State counterpart, Governor Nasir El-Rufai, yesterday, reiterated the need for restructuring the Nigerian state as the only way to go if

there was any sincere intention to make the country work better for everyone.

The two governors spoke in Kaduna at the 50th anniversary of the Centre For Historical Documentary and Research otherwise known as Arewa House.

While Fayemi described Continued on page 8

How SARS Tortured a Pregnant Woman for 22 Days Till She Lost Her Baby Bayo Akinloye The Lagos State Judicial Panel of Enquiry and Restitution for Victims of SARS related abuses and other matters yesterday heard the chilling account of how the now dissolved Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad

(SARS) of the Nigeria Police allegedly tortured a pregnant teacher and her husband for 22 days, till she lost her baby.

Okwuchukwu Obiechina and his wife, Ndubuisi, told the panel that the incident Continued on page 5

AREWA MARKS GOLDEN JUBILEE...

L-R: Representative of President Muhammadu Buhari/Minister for Water Resources, Engr Suleiman Adamu; Ekiti State Governor/Guest Speaker, Dr. Kayode Fayemi; and Kadana State Governor, Mallam Nasiru El-Rufai; at the Arewa House 50th anniversary lecture in Kaduna...yesterday

Sanwo-Olu Lifts Curfew in Lagos… Page 68

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UK Announces Four-week National COVID Lockdown in England Bayo Akinloye with Agency Report A second national lockdown will be imposed across England from midnight on Thursday with all nonessential shops, restaurants, pubs and leisure facilities to close for at least four weeks, Boris Johnson has said.

The prime minister dramatically escalated the country’s response to the pandemic in a press conference on Saturday evening, telling the public that “we must act now to contain this autumn surge�, with measures due to remain in place until 2 December.

People have been told to “stay at home� where possible, but will be allowed to leave their homes for education, medical appointments, to shop for

essential goods, and to work if they cannot work from home.

Outdoor exercise will also be permitted, with members of the same household or one person from another household.

People will be allowed to leave home to care for vulnerable people, or to escape injury or harm. Takeaways and deliveries will continue to be allowed.

The furlough scheme, covering 80% of the wages of workers who are temporarily laid off, will be extended throughout November, the prime minister said.

Announcing the extension, Johnson apologised for the impact of coronavirus measures on businesses, saying: “I’m under no illusions about how difficult this will be for businesses which have already had to endure such hardship this year and I’m truly, truly

sorry for that.�

Under the new regulations, which will be published in full on Tuesday and voted on by MPs on Wednesday, households will be banned from mixing indoors, with the exception of for childcare and other forms of support.

Support bubbles will remain in place, and children will still be able to move between homes if their parents are separated.

Unlike the first national lockdown introduced in March, schools, colleges and universities will remain open, as will childcare and early years care. “We cannot let this virus damage our children’s futures any more than it has already,�

Johnson said.

People who can work from home will be asked to do so, but those working in

manufacturing and construction will be encouraged to continue going to work.

Johnson also announced a ban on overnight stays and outbound international travel, unless the trips are for work, while places of worship will be open for private prayer but not for services. He also confirmed that the Premier League would continue.

Despite the imposition of stricter new measures, shielding guidance will not be reinstated.

However, Johnson said those who are over 60, or have health conditions that make them more vulnerable to the virus, should be especially careful and minimise their contact with others.

He said it was vital to keep non-coronavirus healthcare operating, and insisted that

people should continue to attend appointments and use NHS services.

The prime minister said the government would seek to end the measures in early December, but said the exit strategy from the regulations would vary according to the severity of the virus transmission rates in different areas of England.

He said he hoped the measures could enable families to reunite over Christmas. “Christmas is going to be different this year, perhaps very different. but it’s my sincere hope and belief that by taking tough action now we can allow families across the country to be together,� he said.

Adam Marshall, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, described the restrictions as “a devastating

blow� to business communities.

Market confidence has been “hit hard by the unclear, stop-start approach� taken by governments across the UK during the pandemic, he said.

He added: “Many firms are in a much weaker position now than at the start of the pandemic, making it far more challenging to survive extended closures or demand restrictions.�

He called for government support for businesses facing hardship, whether through loss of demand or closure, to be boosted.

He said: “The government must not squander the time afforded to them through another lockdown to enable mass testing and fix test and trace systems – which hold the key to a lasting exit strategy for both public health and the economy.�

Concern grew quickly after the kidnapping that an opportunity to rescue Walton could become much more dangerous if he was taken by or sold to a group of Islamist militants aligned with either al Qaeda or ISIS and American special operations commanders felt they needed to act swiftly before that could occur, said one counterterrorism official briefed on the hostage recovery operations.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson confirmed after the kidnapping that an American citizen had been abducted in Niger and said the U.S. government was "providing their family all possible consular assistance." The spokesperson declined to comment on the case, citing "privacy considerations,"

but added, "When a U.S. citizen is missing, we work closely with local authorities as they carry out their search efforts, and we share information with families however we can."

Another American, Christian humanitarian aid worker Jeffery Rey Woodke, 60, has been held hostage for the past four years since being kidnapped in northern Niger by armed militants.

Niger, home to 22 million people and three times the size of California, is one of many Sahel nations plagued by terrorism and instability, but its military has been a close U.S. partner in the fight against regional jihadist groups, including affiliates of both al Qaeda and ISIS.

U.S., NIGER, NIGERIA COORDINATED TO RESCUE AMERICAN HOSTAGE light, "McEnany said.

It is however not clear what form of support Nigeria rendered towards the rescue operation, as no official statement had been issued as at the time of going to press. Efforts to get presidency's comments did not yield any result.

The mission was undertaken by elite commandos as part of a major effort to free the U.S. citizen, Philip Walton, 27, before his abductors could get far after taking him captive in Niger on Oct. 26, counterterrorism officials told ABC News.

The operation involved the governments of the U.S., Niger and Nigeria working together to rescue Walton quickly, sources said. The CIA provided intelligence leading to Walton's whereabouts and Marine Special Operations elements in Africa helped locate him, a former U.S. official said.

Then the elite SEAL Team Six carried out a "precision" hostage rescue mission and killed all but one of the seven captors, according to officials with direct knowledge about the operation.

"They were all dead before they knew what happened," another counterterrorism source with knowledge told ABC News.

President Donald Trump called the rescue mission a "big win for our very elite U.S. Special Forces" in a tweet and the Pentagon lauded the rescue mission in a statement. “U.S. forces conducted a hostage rescue operation during the early hours of 31 October in Northern Nigeria to recover an American citizen held hostage by a group of armed men," said Pentagon chief spokesperson Jonathan Hoffman. "This American citizen is safe and is now in the care of the U.S. Department of State. No U.S military personnel were injured

during the operation.

"We appreciate the support of our international partners in conducting this operation."

And Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said: "Thanks to the extraordinary courage and capabilities of our military, the support of our intelligence professionals, and our diplomatic efforts, the hostage will be reunited with his family. We will never abandon any American taken hostage."

ABC News consultant Mick Mulroy, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense and retired CIA officer, said preparations for Walton's rescue likely started when he was abducted. “These types of operations are some of the most difficult to execute," he said. "Any mistake could easily lead to the death of the hostage. The men and women of JSOC [Joint Special Operations Command], and the CIA should be proud of what they did here. And all Americans should be proud of them. “ Eric Oehlerich, an ABC News consultant and retired Navy SEAL, said Walton was "lucky" that such a mission was possible such as short time after he was abducted, when others have been held for years.

"Men in these top-tier special forces units train their entire adult lives to be ready when called upon, hostage rescue operations are inherently dangerous," he said. "Those men put someone else's life above their own, they do so selflessly....it's an illustration of utter commitment."

A former U.S. counterterrorism official emphasized generally how long the odds are for rescue in the "highly dangerous" missions -- less than 30%. But the official said that it's crucial to act as quickly as possible so that hostages don't wind up in the hands of al Qaeda or ISIS.

"The longer a hostage is held the harder it is to find an exact location to be able and conduct a rescue operation," the official said.

U.S. and Nigerien officials had said that Walton was kidnapped from his backyard last Monday after assailants asked him for money. But he only offered $40 USD and was then taken away by force, according to sources in Niger.

Walton lives with his wife and young daughter on a farm near Massalata, a small village close to the border with Nigeria.

Niger lies in the heart of the vast Sahel region, which is struggling with a jihadist insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives and driven hundreds of thousands from

their homes.

According to reports, six gunmen riding motorcycles and armed with AK-47 assault rifles kidnapped Walton from his home on the edge of a rural village in neighboring southern Niger early on Tuesday.

Niger, like much of West Africa’s Sahel region, faces a deepening security crisis as groups with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State carry out attacks on the army and civilians, despite help from French and U.S. forces.

Nigerien and American officials told ABC News that they believed the captors were from an armed group from Nigeria and that it was not considered terror-related. But hostages are often sold to terrorist groups.

JONATHAN HONOURS LATE COUSIN...

L-R: Former President Goodluck Jonathan, Bayelsa State Governor, Senator Douye Diri, and Speaker of the House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Abraham Ingobere, at the commendation service in honour of Dr. Jonathan's cousin, late Mrs. Mercy Arugu, at the St. Matthew Anglican Church in Akipelai community, Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa State.....yesterday

HOW SARS TORTURED A PREGNANT WOMAN FOR 22 DAYS TILL SHE LOST HER BABY occurred in June 2017 after the operatives falsely labelled his wife a thief and kidnapper.

Mrs. Ndubuisi, who spoke for the couple, said she was two months pregnant at the time, stressing that during the beatings, the men threatened to “force the baby out of me�. She testified that following further trauma from the torture SARS operatives meted out to her husband during his second arrest in October 2017, she lost her pregnancy.

The woman said men of SARS also stole her husband’s N50, 000 and compelled them to pay N400,000 for bail, before they were freed. She told the panel that the couple had in 2017 sued the Nigeria Police at the Federal High Court in Lagos and won.

Justice Mohammed Idris

ordered the police to pay them N2 million as compensation, she said.

The couple also won at appeal in 2020, but the police refused to comply with the judgement. rs Ndubuisi identified some of her torturers as Phillip Rilwan, Christian, and Haruna Idowu.

Panel chair, Judge emeritus Doris Okuwobi, adjourned sitting to enable the mentioned operatives an opportunity to appear and respond to the allegations.

The Obiechinas’ testimony was the first of four petitions for the third day of sitting since the Lagos State Government set up the nine-member panel on October 15, following weeks of nationwide #EndSARS protests.

The other petitioners were

Olusegun Openiyi, Francis Idum (deceased), and Olajide Fowotade. The fourth petition did not go on.

Giving more details, Mrs. Ndubuisi, a private school teacher, said on June 1, 2017, she received a text message from an unknown number saying she had a parcel from DHL. A caller using different numbers asked for her home or office address and she gave him her school address upon her husband’s advice, she said.

It was the next day, June 2, 2017, that her ordeal began as the men arrived at her school in a black Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV).

She explained, “I saw a black jeep with huge men inside it.

One of them was in a DHL

uniform. Immediately, they approached me, they started beating me. They said I should enter inside. They said I was a thief, an armed robber. The one in the DHL uniform removed it. My HM (Headmistress) was peeping at us. I said let me go and tell her. They said no.�

The petitioner also said she had a five-year-old son at the school, but the SARS men did not care about her son.

"I said my kid is there, they said no, that I should follow them, that my kid would die there. My HM came to the gate; they pointed a gun at me. She asked what was going on. They said, 'This woman is a thief, a kidnapper. She must follow us and go.’ They said they were police, SARS," Mrs Ndubuisi

explained.

She added, “They pushed me inside the car and moved. The men were slapping, beating me.

I was two months pregnant. I started vomiting. That's when they found out I was pregnant.

But they kept torturing me. I told them I did not know the suspect.

"They took me to their office at Ikeja. They took me to a shrine. They hanged me; beat me. They said they would force my baby out of me. They said I must produce the person or die there.�

The witness testified further that while the SARS operatives held her, her husband searched for her at different police stations in Lagos. When he eventually found her, he was

also arrested and tortured, she said.

Mrs. Ndubuisi explained her husband’s ordeal, saying, "Immediately they saw him, they started beating him. They put a tyre on his head, and said they would burn him alive.

They started interrogating him, beat him with gun butt; hit him on the head with a stone.

"During the beating, I urinated on my clothes; they said my pregnancy was not my husband’s, that I should bring the man who impregnated me."

She told the panel that she and her husband were put in different cells.

"I told them I had a five year-old son in school. They said 'let him die there,’� the petitioner reiterated to the panel.

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NEWS TO SAVE NIGERIA, FAYEMI, EL-RUFAI INSIST RESTRUCTURING IS THE WAY OUT the country as an unfinished greatness and warned that the growing youth population had become a ticking time bomb if not invested in, El-Rufai regretted that the nation’s electioneering calendar presented only a narrow window for significant and consequential action to reform the political and structural framework that could enable rapid, peaceful and inclusive development of the country.

In the same breath, a former Minister of Information and one of the founding fathers of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Professor Jerry Gana has tasked the current political actors to do everything humanly possible to ensuring that Nigeria did not break up, because that’s not the intention of the founding fathers whom he would describe as patriotic.

Fayemi: Nigeria's UnďŹ nished Greatness Delivering his paper titled: “Unfinished Greatness: Towards a More Perfect Union in Nigeriaâ€?, Fayemi, who was the guest speaker declared that, the evolution of Nigeria’s federalism has not served the best interests of Nigerians and that it was not surprising that there had been protests and attempts at constitutional reengineering of the country.

According to him, the events of the past few weeks had brought the contradictions of the Nigerian state into a sharper focus, stressing that, “This is why anyone who holds a semblance of power or authority in this country should be deeply worried by the events of the past few weeks. “What started as an innocuous online protest over police brutality snowballed before our very eyes into a mass movement that assumed more frightening dimensions. From the demand to #EndSARS, we have seen vigorous demands for greater accountability, and greater efficiency in government. What I understand the youths to be saying is that we the older generation has failed them by our inability to create a system that supports their dreams and accommodate their aspirations. “From the language of their protests, we can see clearly that our youths feel pushed to the margin of our nation’s socio-political and economic structures. It is incumbent on us to listen to what they are saying and a lot more that they are probably not saying yet. “For over a decade, several analysts have noted that our massive youth population could be a major demographic advantage to our country if it is properly harnessed. Years of neglect and failure to make the right investments to support this population is now, quite predictably, turning it to a major disruptive force and a time bomb. I am afraid that the bomb has started to tick; we must therefore act fast and start now to create systems that provide opportunities for our young people and make it possible for them to attain their God-given potentials.�

Speaking specifically to the issues, Fayemi said, “Whether your immediate concern is police brutality and the need for police reform or you reflect upon the rationale and the challenges of those who

insist that unless and until Nigeria becomes a theocracy, there shall be blood and tears unlimited; whether you look towards the Niger Delta where, despite the amnesty and the industry of graft and greed that it has re-produced, there is a continuous and bloody demand for justice and equity; “Or you examine the endless pretexts for ethnic strife and blood-letting between the so called indigenous people and the ‘settlers’ in the Middle Belt; whether you scrutinise the regular apocalyptic predictions of highly placed Nigerians about the fate of the country, or you contemplate what would happen if measures are not taken to arrest the drift, you cannot but come to the conclusion that Nigeria needs to be re-created�, he contended.

Fayemi, however, said “What we need is a fundamental re-engineering of our governance system in a way that will make our country work better for everyone,� noting that in the quest for a more perfect union, the main challenge is re-creating the union and the basis of its fundamental national association. “Unfortunately for us as a people�, he continued, “it is a challenge that has been affected by mutual suspicion and unnecessary brickbats.

Caught in our politics of difference and otherness, devolution, decentralisation and restructuring often used as synonyms and such other epithets have come to mean different things to different peoples, depending on the ethnic and regional toga they wear. “Our age-long distrusts and suspicions of one another are now being tested and contested on these epithets.

The evolution of Nigeria’s federalism has not served our best interests and it is not surprising that there have been protests and attempts at constitutional reengineering. “Two prominent examples were the 2005 Constitutional Reform Conference convened

by President Obasanjo’s administration and the 2014 National Conference at the instance of President Jonathan’s. In the two conferences, one recurrent and topical issue remains how to remake and allocate powers and resources. “However, the truth is that in a democratic dispensation, roots and branch structural changes (like region or state creation) would appear to me unrealistic as we cannot easily go back to the pre-1966 regional structure nor is the 54 federating units proposal of the 2014 conference realistic, no matter the appeal or attraction. “Rather, our preoccupations should be, how can we better organise, mobilise, and collaborate for the inevitable task of stability, nation-building and economic productivity. Even at that, the more contentious parts of our quest for a more perfect union resonates/revolves around devolution of powers – that is, re-allocation of powers and resources and reconfiguring the country’s federating units.�

Throwing more light to the discourse, the Ekiti governor explained that, “The reasons for this are not far-fetched. First, long years of military rule have

produced a concentration of powers and resources at the centre to the detriment of the federating units. Two, the 1999 constitution, as has been argued by several observers, was hurriedly put together by the departing military authority and was not a product of sufficient inclusiveness. “The focus of the reconfiguring exercise should be: what items should remain on the exclusive legislative list and which ones should be transferred to the concurrent and residual lists? Other topical issues include derivation principle; fiscal federalism and revenue allocation; land tenure, local government creation and autonomy; etc. “Again, in arriving at a position on what ought to be in the quest for a more perfect union, I wish to further say that my sentiments are more associated with strengthening the sub-national units in the re-allocation of powers and resources. “The assignment of functions that would be consistent with a devolved but strengthened federal system would have a short, exclusive federal list focusing on national defence and security, macro-economy, foreign affairs, customs and excise; joint responsibility in respect of certain functions that are currently assigned exclusively to the federal government (for example, internal security and policing) and primary responsibility of the sub-national governments in respect of the other functions in the second schedule of the 1999 constitution whilst the remaining powers devolve to states.�

On Revenue Collection and Sharing On revenue collection and sharing, Fayemi said the position of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum was that it should be reviewed in favour of the states, “especially given the argument of devolved responsibilities to the subnationals. “In the context of the proposed new Federal structure, governors have argued for a formula along the lines of 42% to states, 35% to the federal and 23% to local governments. Remaking Nigeria through devolution of powers and re-organisation of the federating units is an idea whose time has come,� he maintained.

El-Rufai on True Federalism On his part, El-Rufai, who claimed to be passionate about a constitutional framework that would enable the country to manifest, said, “I will not hesitate to admit that I am passionate about what constitutional framework will best enable the promise of this country to manifest. “I had the privilege of chairing the All Progressives Congress (APC) Committee on True Federalism with membership across the political and demographic spectrum to lay out our party’s roadmap for our nation’s greatness,� adding that the committee, in its report, defined the values that, in its opinion, promoted and connoted ‘True Federalism’ therefore and proposed a clear

roadmap for implementing the recommendations.

In his words: “As its report show, the APC Committee on True Federalism produced clear recommendations to strengthen federalism and achieve national cohesion and healthy subnational competition. The committee also made efforts to accelerate the implementation of its recommendations by producing draft bills that incorporate the recommendations either as proposed amendments to our Constitution or our national laws. “It is a matter for regret that for some reasons, the consequential action by the APC leadership to adopt and implement the report has not happened since it was submitted in January 2018. The urgency of our challenges dictates that we should move fast with a sense of purpose to remove the structural bottlenecks that hobble our country. “There is very little time left to secure and begin to implement the necessary constitutional amendments.

While the report of our committee was well received, some people complained that it was coming too close to the 2019 elections, for a report submitted in January 2018.�

El-Rufai, however, captured the thrust of his submission, when he argued: “The point here is that our electioneering calendar presents only a narrow window for significant and consequential action to reform the political and structural framework to enable rapid, peaceful and inclusive development of our country. The Committee on Federalism recommended that the federation be rebalanced, with more powers and responsibilities devolved to the states. “The committee also clarified that the federation is a relationship solely between the states and the Federal Government, and that each state should be allowed to operate the system of local government that best suits its circumstances, culture and diversity. It was the committee’s considered opinion that in a country as diverse as ours one size or structure of local governance does not fit all. “The Committee’s recommendations also cover how the states can generate the resources that will fund their envisaged expanded burdens, responsibilities and authority. This includes a holistic review of the share of federation revenues accruing to the states and federal government. “Our report also upheld the derivation principle as a primary component of fiscal federalism and recommended that control of mineral resources be vested in the states who will then pay applicable royalties and taxes to the Federation Account for distribution between all tiers of government. “To make this work, we proposed and drafted the amendments of extant laws such as the Petroleum Act, the Nigerian Mining and Minerals Act, the Land Use Act and the Petroleum Profits Tax Act. Our report regarded derivation as being applicable as well to hydro-power, solar, wind and other forms of

renewable power generation.�

Further to this, he recalled that the APC Committee on True Federalism proposed significant devolution of powers between the national government and the 36 States, and recommended further devolution of responsibilities between the States and Local Governments depending on local circumstances, culture, capacity and capability, even as it “suggested a remedy for the anomaly of a federation that has a more or less unitary judiciary.�

Concluding, El-Rufai, posited that, “I am firmly convinced that restructuring our current constitutional and statutory framework on the lines proposed by our committee is a unique nationbuilding opportunity. I am not aware of any significant constituency that is against the idea that states should exercise consequential powers; assume more responsibilities and control resources to enable them deliver better outcomes for those they govern. “In the last 20-25 years, Nigerian citizens and political groupings have used different registers to convey their demands for a loosening of the centralised arrangements that have increasingly prevailed since the military disrupted our parliamentary democratic order in 1966. “They have consistently asked for devolution of powers to the states, and see subnational competition as the path to rapid progress.

We are all witnesses to the regional competition in the 1950s and 1960s that gave us universities like ABU, Radio and TV stations, stadiums, generous scholarships and affordable yet quality public education. “The report of our APC True Federalism Committee puts in one place the recommendations, and the legislative amendments to give life to a restructured polity. I, therefore, call on our federal legislators and the National Assembly Ad-Hoc Committee on Constitutional Review to take advantage of our report and initiate the constitutional and legislative amendments in either a piece-meal or comprehensive manner without further delay. Our report and draft bills are all available online. Just Google APC True Federalism Report and download it today. “We therefore have no excuse not to seize this moment and do the heavy lifting for our country and our people. It is in our hands to make the structures, laws and constitutional arrangements in our country conducive to modern governance that will ensure our nation thrives in the 21st century. “We must move from a century of being ‘a nation of great potentials’ to summoning a determined national effort to achieving near-developed country status. Singapore, South Korea and China did it in a generation. Rwanda, Botswana and Ethiopia in Africa are well on the way.

Why can’t we do the same?

Our progress is in our hands,� he maintained.

Jerry Gana: Nigeria Must Not Break Up In what seemed like a shared position on the state of the nation, Gana, who urged that

everything must be done to keep the nation together, said the founding fathers of Nigeria were inspired towards the founding of the country and as such, called for an immediate signing into law of a credible electoral process that would guarantee a free and fair election in the country.

He said the idea behind the founding of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was to sustain the continued unity of Nigeria as a sovereign nation.

"The G34 that formed the PDP were essentially patriots. They love Nigeria tremendously – every single one of them. I would like to say a few words on their behalf to you young ones.

Nigeria must not break! It is extremely important for you to take note of what I am saying now on behalf of the elders," he said.

Gana, a former chairman of the social mobilisation and reorientation agency in the days of Military President Ibrahim Babangida, who spoke in his house in Abuja during a courtesy call by VITALDI, a leadership development initiative of patriots from all parts of Nigeria, seeking the intervention of credible elder statesmen to help preserve the peace and stability of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, said Nigerians needed each other to survive.

His word: "The founding fathers, who came together and put Nigeria together as a federal republic, were very highly inspired. Highly inspired, because we need each other. At the last count, for example, as at two weeks ago, there were 14 million people, men and women from Igbo land that are in the northern part of Nigeria.

Over 14 million and this is real. “In my village, if you remove the Igbo community, then, the place is lifeless. If you now come to the Southwest, the number of people from Yorubaland in the whole of northern Nigeria may also be nearly double of that 14 million, because they are traders and have settled down peacefully and living together.

You can't even separate them anymore. This is the reality. “So anyone staying abroad and talking don't know the reality. It is not possible. In this city, I am talking about Abuja, 80 per cent of properties in this city, does not belong to us – those of us who come from here; it belongs to other Nigerians, because this area was selected. This is Sahara area. “I was teaching in Suleja that used to be Abuja, Abuja Secondary School in 196667, and Gen. Gowon, who selected this area deliberately chose this area as a place, where all Nigerians can be as one and at home, because those of us who belong here, we are very welcoming.

"The communities that were here love people and therefore Nigeria must not break, we must be together.

I have mentioned the big groups now: the Igbo, the Yoruba, the Hausa Fulani and the ones that Nigeria was created for because they can't be a nation. The Igbo can be a nation. They have big people and they have big language. Yoruba can be a nation. The Hausa Fulani can be a nation. We cannot be a nation,� he stated.

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Maritime Security: Controversy Trails Amaechi's Quest for Another $22.9M Despite Uncompleted $195M Contract to Israeli Firm Eromosele Abiodun In a move that has raised eyebrows in government circles, and among stakeholders, Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi is seeking a whopping $22.99 million from the federal government to hire fast intervention vessels to tackle insecurity in Nigerian waters, THISDAY has learnt.

This comes hard on the heels of the $195 million maritime security contract approved for the same purpose by the federal government in 2017, which was also pushed through by Amaechi.

A source familiar with the matter said, “That contract is yet to be fully executed.�

The federal government had in 2017 approved a $195 million maritime security contract with an Israeli firm, HLS International Limited, under the Integrated National Security and Waterways Protection Infrastructure, also called the Deep Blue Project. The company allegedly got the contract on the strength of its relationship with Amaechi, even though stakeholders alleged lack of transparency.

The contract was in line with efforts to curb increasing incidents of piracy, sea robbery, kidnapping, oil theft, illegal bunkering, smuggling, and illegal trafficking of drugs and persons within the Gulf of Guinea. Under the initiative, the government was supposed to have commenced the deployment of security assets in January this year.

But in a memo to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) dated July 22, 2020, Amaechi sought another FEC approval for the renewal of leases of fast intervention security vessels for a period of one year, aside the $195 million already approved for the same purpose from which $70 million was said to have been used to procure equipment.

However, sources within the Federal Ministry of Transportation alleged that the $195 million contract was yet to be fully executed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which affected the timeline for manpower training and asset deployment.

Amaechi's latest memo reads in part, “The purpose of this memorandum is to seek the consideration of the FEC for the extension of the contract for the lease of 6 no. units of fast intervention security vessels (FISV) on the same terms and conditions as earlier approved by the FEC in 2018 in favour of the following 6 no. service

providers: Pearl HPW Limited, Thamson Energy Services Limited, Fairway Offshore Limited, Aquashiled Oil & Marine Services Limited, XPO Marine services Limited, and Peace Marine and Energy Limited. “Council is invited to recall that at its EC(2018)40 meeting held on Wednesday, 5 December 2018, it considered and granted approval for the renewal of the contract for the lease of six (6) fast intervention security vessels for a period of one year, at the reviewed daily rate of $10,500 per vessel-making a total sum of $22.995, 000.00 on an annual basis which is equivalent to N7,013,475, 000.00, at the exchange rate of $1.00 to N305.00, inclusive of all taxes.�

THISDAY checks revealed that FEC could not agree on Amaechi’s memo after it was tabled, causing President Muhammadu Buhari to refer the memo to a committee to review and recommend action to guide FEC to a well-considered decision.

But stakeholders in the maritime industry are concerned about the latest development because the minister had told the world in February that he had received some of the equipment for the Deep Blue Project and that 70 per cent of the equipment would arrive Nigeria few weeks after. A presidency source told THISDAY, “Security contracts of doubtful benefit appear to have become another avenue of frittering away scarce national resources. We are disturbed that despite these multimillion-dollar security contracts, criminalities are still rampant on our waterways.�

Stakeholders in the maritime sector are also worried that the hundreds of millions of dollars spent by the minister in hiring fast moving vessels over the years are enough to acquire better and sophisticated brand new vessels for the country. They say despite the huge spending, Nigeria still ranks high on piracy, kidnaping, and other sea crimes.

"Why do we neglect our Navy and pay out huge sums to private firms? Why has this become so attractive to these people in government,� a security expert wondered.

Two weeks ago, a report by the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) revealed a 40 per cent increase in the number of kidnappings reported in the Gulf of Guinea in the first nine months of 2020, compared with the same period in 2019. That was as Director-General, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Bashir Jamoh, disclosed recently that

the agency’s investigation had revealed that Somali pirates were now active in Nigerian waters and the Gulf of Guinea.

The IMB said there were 132 attacks reported since the beginning of 2020, up from 119 incidents in the same period last year.

It added, “Of the 85 seafarers kidnapped from their vessels and held for ransom, 80 were taken in the Gulf of Guinea, in 14 attacks reported off Nigeria, Benin, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, and Ghana. By the end of the third quarter (Q3), seafarers reported 134 cases of assault, injury, and threats, including 85 crewmembers being kidnapped, and 31 held hostage onboard their ships. A total of 112 vessels were boarded, and six were fired upon, while 12 reported attempted attacks.�

IMB warned that pirate gangs in the area were well organised and targeted all vessel types over a wide range.

The IMB report said, “On 17 July 2020, eight pirates armed with machine guns boarded a product tanker underway around 196 nautical miles

southwest of Bayelsa, Nigeria.

They held all 19 crew members hostage, stole the ship’s documents and valuable items, and escaped with 13-kidnapped crew. The tanker was left drifting with limited and unqualified navigational and engine crew onboard. A nearby merchant vessel later helped the tanker to sail to a safe port. The 13 kidnapped crewmembers were released safely one month after.�

Last week, a group of Nigerian stowaways who hijacked a UK-bound ship were arrested after a 10-hour standoff. The alleged Nigerian hijackers had threatened to kill the crew of the oil tanker – Nave Andromeda – bound for the UK. The Nave Andromeda departed Nigeria on October 6 bound for Southampton. UK authorities believed the stowaways had boarded in the port of Lagos through the vessel’s rudder trunk, an opening near the ship’s hull.

THISDAY learnt that the Navy top brass were unhappy with the latest developments.

Nigerian Navy sources, who pleaded anonymity, said the

vessels being used by the firms hired by the minister were in deplorable state and largely not seaworthy. One of them revealed, “The vessels are in terrible state and unseaworthy but due to political pressure the high command is forced to go along. Everything has taken a disturbing turn with vested interests pursuing their own agendas."

Some stakeholders are of the opinion that the $195 million contract breached procurement process because there was no open tender before it was awarded.

A top player in the industry, who did not want to be named, queried, “Which other company bided with the Israeli firm? Did the minister bypass lay down procedure? These are questions begging for answer.�

Recently, former Chief of Naval Staff, Rear Admiral Dele Ezeoba, said the $195 million maritime security contract entered into by the federal government and an Israeli firm, Messrs HLSI Security Systems and Technologies, would fail.

Ezeoba, who also frowned on the government’s decision to contract maritime security issues to a security firm, said the government should, instead, provide adequate funding for the Nigerian Navy.

He said, “I feel pained because having been an active participant in all these matters, it becomes disheartening to note that we are still in a country where people play to the gallery. We have a constitutional mandate that anything that has to do with maritime security is the sole responsibility of the Nigerian Navy. The country owes us a responsibility to fund the Nigerian Navy adequately to discharge its responsibilities.

But, instead, they go through the backdoor to create some façade and instead of funding the lead agency that should create the initiative to do the needful, they do the more you look, the less we see.�

Ezeoba also stated that with Falcon Eye, there wouldn’t have been any reason to contract security of the country's waterway to a foreign firm.

UGWUANYI SYMPATHISES WITH ACCIDENT VICTIM...

Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State (right) sympathizing with one the hospitalised pupils of Presentation Nursery and Primary School, Awgu Local Government Area, who were involved in a recent road accident in the council area. With him from the left are the Deputy Minority Leader and member representing Aninri/Awgu/Oji River Federal Consituency, Rt. Hon. Toby Okechukwu; Prof. Joy Ngozi Ezeilo of Women's Aid Collective (WACOL); wife of the Nigeria's ďŹ rst President, late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Prof. Uche Azikiwe; President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Nnia Nwodo (behind); a priest and the Chairman of Awgu LGA, Hon. Pedro Nwankwo, among others.

Okowa Optimistic Buhari‘ll Sign Electoral Bill Omon-Julius Onabu in Asaba Delta State Governor, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, has expressed optimism that President Muhammadu Buhari would sign the amended Electoral Bill into law this time round.

Okowa attributed the refusal to sign the Electoral Bill during the president's first term and before the 2019 general election to what he called political considerations.

The governor made the remarks on Friday at a town hall meeting with representatives of youth bodies in Delta North senatorial district, including organisers of the recent #EndSARS protest, students, community youth and civil

society groups.

The President had declined assent to the 2018 Amendment to the Electoral Bill four times, saying he was concerned that passing a new electoral act could create uncertainty and interrupt or disrupt the 2019 general election, which was then close.

Buhari, who had earlier declined assent on the grounds that there were drafting issues and that he did not want anything that might usurp the constitutional powers of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), expressed his position in a letter to the National Assembly in December, 2018.

However, Okowa assured

the people that the President would not, at this time, hold back his assent to the amendment to the Electoral Bill, which is intended to provide solutions to the numerous problems associated with elections in Nigeria, including compulsory use of card readers as well as fines and jail terms for officials, who are found guilty of omitting logos of parties from ballot papers.

"I agree that there is need to re-work our electoral processes, but we need to re-engineer our minds, because we have lost it and it’s time we began to talk to ourselves.

"The electoral amendment law wasn't signed (by President

Buhari) because of politics but I am sure it will be signed this time round; and so, as youths, you must get yourselves engaged so that we can get them closer into politics," he said.

The Delta governor also noted that the ongoing new wards creation process by the Delta State Independent Electoral Commission (DESIEC) was to correct certain imbalances in the system, saying by existing law, every local government area in the state should have a maximum of 20 wards.

For any election, he appealed to leaders to avoid imposition of candidates but to build consensus or conduct free and fair primary elections for

aspirants and to ensure that youths do not spend much to contest or participate in the processes.

He said the youths should understand that politics was about learning along the line and picking the good things they have seen in good politicians and discarding the bad.

"You must truly begin to organise yourselves in truth with a common goal and focus and whoever you select must stand for the common good of others.

"We are building a new Nigeria with the youths and we must shun acts capable of reducing us when we leave office. We will continue to allow

youths, including females, to be part of the governance process, because in learning you are building yourself for the future.

"If you are a youth and you want to be active in politics you must respect your leaders and you must learn to pray a lot.

I am encouraged to see many more youths go into politics and I hope it is for the right reasons. I know we have some youths representing their people but are they showing examples to others?

"The act of leading requires deep thought, sincerity and leadership quality, because there is a difference between an orator and the person who is able to lead," he explained.

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NOVEMBER 1, 2020 ˾ T H I S D AY, T H E S U N D AY N E W S PA P E R

EDITORIAL

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

BEYOND THE LOOTING ACROSS NIGERIA The authorities must do more to brighten the economic conditions

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or a period of 10 days, thugs and hoodlums, cashing in on the near absence of the police on the streets of major cities across the country seized, vandalised or stole whatever was available from business premises, public buildings, homes, shopping malls, banks and warehouses. From Lagos to Calabar to Ilorin to Jos and Yola, the looting was uncontrollable and anarchic. In Edo State where it all started, the governor was forced to impose a 24-hour curfew as some hoodlums forcibly opened two prison gates for inmates to flee. In a daring raid in Ilorin, Kwara State capital, a soldier had no choice but to ask the invading crowd to “go peacefully and come out peacefully.”

However, there was also targeted looting of COVID-19 palliative materials that could be described as a demonstration of anger by the people over the perceived hoarding of food items that ought to have been shared during the lockdowns. The explanation by the governors through the Nigeria Governors' Forum (NGF) that the food items were stored in anticipation of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic has been met with scepticism. But from statement by business persons and corporate organisations, under the umbrella of Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID), the problem may not be that of the governors. According to CACOVID, the delay in the distribution was to ensure a transparent distribution processes as well as tracking to ensure that the palliatives get to the end users.

Meanwhile, video footages of all manner of ragtag urchins who overran the sumptuous lounges of some of our politicians to treat themselves to the good things of life should be a lesson. Citizens who believe that what is meant for them never gets to them due to misappropriation may have decided

to take the laws into their own hands.

The weakness of our national security architecture was also badly exposed in the manner some of these criminal elements easily overwhelmed the system and operated largely unchallenged for days.

What is no longer in doubt is that Nigeria is at a crossroads.

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The only antidote to the crisis is to reignite the economy, which has been stagnant for decades

Letters to the Editor

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S U N DAY N E W S PA P E R EDITOR SHAKA MOMODU DEPUTY EDITORS OLAWALE OLALEYE, TOBI SONIYI MANAGING DIRECTOR ENIOLA BELLO DEPUTY MANAGING DIRECTOR KAYODE KOMOLAFE CHAIRMAN EDITORIAL BOARD OLUSEGUN ADENIYI EDITOR NATION’S CAPITAL IYOBOSA UWUGIAREN MANAGING EDITOR JOSEPH USHIGIALE

T H I S DAY N E W S PA P E R S L I M I T E D EDITOR-IN-CHIEF/CHAIRMAN NDUKA OBAIGBENA GROUP EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS ENIOLA BELLO, KAYODE KOMOLAFE, ISRAEL IWEGBU, IJEOMA NWOGWUGWU, EMMANUEL EFENI DIVISIONAL DIRECTORS BOLAJI ADEBIYI , PETER IWEGBU, ANTHONY OGEDENGBE DEPUTY DIVISIONAL DIRECTOR OJOGUN VICTOR DANBOYI SNR. ASSOCIATE DIRECTORS ERIC OJEH, PATRICK EIMIUHI ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR SAHEED ADEYEMO CONTROLLERS ABIMBOLA TAIWO, UCHENNA DIBIAGWU, NDUKA MOSERI DIRECTOR, PRINTING PRODUCTION CHUKS ONWUDINJO HEAD, COMPUTER DEPARTMENT PATRICIA UBAKA-ADEKOYA TO SEND EMAIL: first name.surname@thisdaylive.com

hat the whole problem started from civil protests by what ought to be the country’s most valuable future assets should compel serious attention. The anger of young Nigerians may have been stirred by the excesses of the dissolved Police Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), but the challenge runs deeper. According to the latest official records, some 27 per cent Nigerians are without jobs. This is unmistakably reflected in the world’s poverty index as more than 100 million Nigerians are extremely poor. And Nigeria is demographically a country of young people. Hunger also drives people to the extreme and we saw a little bit of it in the past two weeks. While we condemn in the strongest term the recourse to barbarism, we must also remind our political leaders that the bulwark against mob action is to work in service of the people.

The only anti-dote to the crisis is to reignite the economy, which has been stagnant for decades. Some of the factors responsible for this state of affair include a growing population amid declining financial resources. The economy relies predominantly on oil which is subject to the vagaries of the international market. The Covid-19 pandemic has almost brought the economy to its knees. Public infrastructure is aging or decayed. A nation of 200 million is still struggling with about 5000 megawatts of power.

But the looming catastrophe is enhanced by lack of transparency and accountability in government.

The system is abysmally corrupt as money voted for infrastructure and other projects in most cases ends up in private pockets. Thus while there is the absence of good governance at all levels, there is also a serious structural problem.Indeed, many critical stakeholders have been pushing persistently for decentralisation so that the federating units can think more and innovate, diversify their economies and by so doing strengthen the structural design for good governance and human development.

On the whole, President Muhammadu Buhari must give some dynamic leadership to the reforms Nigeria badly needs. And there is no better time to start than now!

TO OUR READERS 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.

NIGERIA’S NEW WAVE OF PROTESTS

he botched #EndSARS protest came like a thunderbolt and took the entire country by surprise. The protest, which kicked off to end police brutality morphed into a powerful and formidable platform seeking among other things, an abrupt end to bad governance. As expected, the nationwide demonstration was ticked to wear off in couple of days, especially with regard to previously held ones spearheaded by NLC/ TUC. But cynics and critics had their prophecies and predictions crumbled like pack of cards.

While that peaceful protest went on with

camaraderie, powerful elements across political and economic lines in the country felt uneasy and a surge of chills up their spines with the attendant toll on disruption and destruction of property.

Sensing the protest may be heading the way of Arab spring which erupted after a fruit seller, Muhammed Bouazizi self-immolated himself following Police corruption and ill-treatment in the tiny village of Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, the federal and Lagos State governments in a swift and bizarre manner connived to unleash mad dogs on peaceful protesters in Lekki, leaving innocent lives

ricocheted with bullets, and paving the way for hoodlums, miscreants and thugs to have field day to loot, and wreak havoc on public and private infrastructure.

Almost as usual, bickering, allegations, counter-allegations and counterintuitive bantering ensued between Lagos and Abuja with confusion renting the air. President Muhammadu Buhari did not address the nation two days after the killing at Lekki and when he did it was omitted.

As characteristics of the government, the president rolled out his government's empowerment initiative especially

the one targeted and directed at the youths in the last five years, mentioning top to bottom policy that include: N-Power, N-Agro, N-Teach, among others. The president also enjoined youth to embrace and apply for N75 billion investment fund made available through the Ministry of Finance in collaboration with Ministry of Sport and youths development.

These policy framework, the president and handlers of his next level government thought are enough to keep millions of unemployed graduates at bay, busy and away from protests and other agitations for a better country.

Interestingly, the flip side to the president's speech is that his call and concern seem

to fall on deaf ears as most young Nigerians interpreted it to mean the continuation of the status quo which originally gave birth to the #EndSARS protest.

Indeed, the body language of the government gave most Nigerians a leap of faith to look forward to another exciting, worthwhile and new wave of protests where sheer brilliance and tech power would be displayed to the admiration of the world - again.

Fortunately, the government has the ample opportunity and time to turn the tide by doing the needful but in a brilliant, well-thought out and innovative ways.

––Muftau Gbadegesin, muftaugbadegesin@gmail. com.

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OPINION

TRUMP VERSUS BIDEN: AND THE WINNER IS… Head or tail, Joe Biden will win the Presidential elections in the US, writes Tiko Okoye

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he 2020 US elections are billed for Tuesday, November 3, 2020. As many as 13 state and territorial governorships, as well as numerous other state and county elections, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate will be contested. But by far the most keenly followed and most widely reported would be the contest for the presidency between Republican Donald Trump, the incumbent president seeking a second term, and Democrat Joe Biden, a former vice-president.

Both are septuagenarians – Trump is 74 years old, while Biden is 78. Both also followed a similar trajectory in clinching the nomination of their respective parties.

The Republican Party establishment never wanted to touch Trump even with a mile-long pole. But he went on to not only win the party primaries but also the presidential election. And like his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, recently disclosed in a recently released taped interview, the erstwhile business mogul made short work of accomplishing a “hostile takeover” of the party, such that the fear of Trump has become the beginning of conventional wisdom in the latter-day Grand Old Party (GOP), as the Republican Party is also known!

On his own part, Biden has tried in the past to attain the pinnacle of his illustrious political career but has twice failed to clinch the nomination of the Democratic Party. It was crystal-clear that he was spurned by the party establishment as well as by the rank and file during the early phase of the 2020 primary contests.

After embarrassingly finishing a distant fifth in February’s New Hampshire’s primary, he was practically given up for dead. But a predominantly Black electorate in South Carolina breathed a new lease of life into his candidacy and he eventually became the biggest beneficiary of the “Super Tuesday” sweepstakes! Even so, many in his party viewed his nomination with forlorn resignation.

They felt he would stumble in debates with Trump and that his gaffes would serve as ample ammunition to an opponent known not to give any quarter in a fight to the death!

But that is where the similarity ends. Both men are actually as different as day is from night. Where Trump is erratic and

impulsive, Biden is steady and plodding. Where Trump is daring and sensational, Biden presents an empathetic grandfatherly figure – Trump even derisively mocks him with the moniker of “Sleepy Joe.” In fact, Biden can be described as the tortoise to Trump’s hare in that local folklore of a race between both animals.

The contrast between the strategic thrusts of both candidates is really stark. Biden’s message is the exact opposite of Trump’s. Trump has settled for the traditional GOP strategy of divide-and-rule to work up a dominant White bile against minority groups. Except in a handful of cases, such as that of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, it is a racist card that has worked very well for GOP candidates in various elections from county to state and national levels held in the past 50 years because Whites constitute a clear majority of the total population.

What it requires is just to stoke feelings of anxiety, apprehension and fear among White folks that a government run by Democrats would use taxes levied on them to fund “socialist” programmes targeted at “indolent” black families, and that crimes would ratchet up dramatically and the values of their suburban homes consequently suffer a decline if Democrats alleged to be very weak on “law and order” hold high elective positions. Republican candidates frequently resorted to acts of voter suppression and intimidation to disenfranchise non-Whites unlikely to vote for them.

On his own part, Biden went out on a limb by betting that most of the country shares his optimism and will reject a president who consistently fanned fears of minorities, disdainfully hurled abuses

Best case scenario: Biden would blow out Trump in a manner that has not been seen since 1984 when Ronald Reagan took Democratic challenger Walter Mondale to the cleaners.

Worst case scenario: Trump would prove yet again to be the political cat with nine lives – but Biden would win the Electoral College vote by the slimmest of margins

and invectives at his political opponents, and cast urban centres where minority ethnic nationalities resided as hell-holes. Biden very carefully pitched himself as a “unifier” while trying to de-market Trump as a “divider.”

Nothing fully captures the essence of the times that the 2020 US presidential election is being conducted like that verse from the Book of Ecclesiastes: “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.” Indeed, timing is everything in life.

The peculiar circumstances of this year’s contest – a devastating pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and an economic collapse throwing millions into the labour market and making those still employed very nervous and vulnerable – call for the very same character traits that would have marked a candidate like Biden as a weak leader under a different scenario: unassuming, grandfatherly, staid, steady hand, calm and reassuring. Talk of the stone the builders rejected suddenly becoming the chief cornerstone!

And, the election just around the corner, Biden appears to hold an unassailable double-digit national lead and narrower but stable leads in many battleground states, including the Rust Belt/ Great Lakes states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that Trump won in 2016. To make matters worse, Biden has even become very competitive in previously solid GOP states like Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa and Ohio where he is leading Trump in the polls!

But Biden and the Democrats are far from being complacent.

They know that Trump is the grandmaster of the “Art of the Deal,” and that the higher the stakes and the more daunting the odds, the greater the likelihood of getting Trump’s adrenalin dangerously up and going! They very well remember that at about this same time four years ago Clinton Hilary was similarly leading Trump in almost every poll, only for Trump to put political pundits and bookmakers to shame by winning the crucial Electoral College vote. Still, the circumstances between 2016 and 2020 are very different in several important aspects.

–– Okoye, Boston University Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow, wrote from Abuja.

(See concluding part of the article on www.thisdaylive.com)

#EndSARS Protests And The Shooting of Unarmed Youths The killings at Lekki are unjustifiable, writes Magnus Onyibe

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igeria has become the cynosure of all eyes globally.

Not for the positive contributions or inventions by its citizens that would move mankind a tad forward in positive progress , such as when man first visited the moon on July 20, 1969- all hail the pair of American Louis Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin; or when penicillin was discovered for the cure of small pox in 1928thanks to Alexander Fleming of Scotland.

But Nigeria is in the eyes of the storm for a negative reason globally, because our country’s soldiers allegedly turned their guns on innocent youths who dared to protest police brutality.

The situation becomes even more gruesome, when it is considered that the youths whose bodies were pierced viciously with bullets from the barrels of guns paid for with Nigerian tax payers funds, and fired by military men, who are also paid with tax money from the sweat of patriotic Nigerians.

Guess what, all these happened to the youths while they were only armed with Nigerian flags and singing the national anthem while seating down. Can you imagine the USA army opening fire on USA athletes when they take ‘a knee’ in solidity with Black Lives Matter, (BLG) campaign before engaging in their sporting activities?

The only time that Nigerians have been killed in the manner that Lekki youth protesters were fired upon with live bullets would be during the civil war 1967-70.

And of course the sad event of Asaba massacre, October 5, 1967 perpetrated by the federal troops comes to mind. As horrific as the Asaba tragedy that claimed about 1, 000 lives was, it was perpetrated under the cloak of war.

The other time that such barbarism was exhibited would be during the so-called ‘bar-beach shows’ from 1971 to the 1990s when convicted armed robbers or drug traffickers were tied to the stake by the bar-beach in Victoria Island, Lagos and executed by a firing squad in the full glare of members of the public.

Remarkably it happened for the last time on April 10, 1985, when five Nigerian youths were tied to the stake and executed behind Kirikiri prison complex in Lagos for drug trafficking which was punishable by death under the retroactive military decree No 20.

The difference between those presumably misguided and convicted drug traffickers, and the youths slaughtered at the Lekki toll gate on October 20, 2020, is that while the alleged armed robbers and drug traffickers were tried and convicted by fire arms tribunals before execution, the October 20, 2020 victims were not tried by even a kangaroo court. But sadly, they got viciously executed in cold blood allegedly by their country’s army that was supposed to protect them from external aggression.

And it is even more gut wrenching that their offense, for lack of a better term, is that they dared to peacefully speak up against police

brutality in a country operating a multi party democratic system of government, which obviously cannot pride itself of liberalism, in the 21st century.

Yes, there was a period in medieval European history, when the Queen of England would say “off with the head “and an indicted or convicted bandit’s head was cut off with alacrity. But that was centuries ago compared to the fact it is barely one week ago that the dastardly act of murdering innocent youths at Lekki toll gate in a similar fashion was carried out. The question of who gave the order to pull the trigger which is reminiscent of the practice of the Queen of medieval England , giving the order, about a century ago, has so far remained a mystery , as it is being attributed to an unknown soldier or possibly emperor.

As a fallout of such barbarism, and better still government’s act of terrorism against its citizens , look at where we are now in the optics of the free world and it’s leaders : The United Nations Secretary General , Antonio Guteres, African Union, AU leaders, former Vice President of the USA , Joe Bidden, who is currently the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party ; the former Secretary of State of the USA and ex presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton; and the current Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, as well as Karen Bass , chair of the Congressional Black Caucus of the USA , including parliamentarians in the United Kingdom ; plus Archbishop of Canterbury, William Shelby have all weighed in with a word or two of advise and caution to our country’s current leaders.

Even Pope Francis of the Catholic Church, with over a billion followers, from the 7.8 billion people on earth, prayed last Sunday for the repose of the souls of the #endSARS protesters .

That simply means that practically the whole world is aware of abysmal human rights record of our government. When the list of global celebrities, ranging from sports to movie and pop music stars have added their voices included , the names of Nigerian international footballer, Odion Ighalo, along with other soccer stars plying their trade in Europe- Ozil, Rashford, Rudiger, Kanoute, race car driver, Lewis Hamilton, music stars would be on parade.

The catalog of world famous people who see Nigeria from a negative prism would also include pop stars-Beyonce, Cardi B and Nicki Minaj, Treyz Song, Kanye West, Gabrielle Union and Noami Campbell as well as Rihanna amongst many others too numerous to mention in this piece.

That ignominious and moronic act of butchering Nigerian youths on October 20,2020 for daring to express dissent against violent policing as evidenced by the epidemic and heinous crime of extra judicial killing by SARS, has now eclipsed, (amongst other sterling attributes) the settled wisdom in the world that Nigerians are the most educated set of immigrants in the USA, which is one

of the laudable accomplishments of our compatriots internationally. How can such a grisly event at Lekki toll gate, Lagos on 20, 10, 2020 define the good people of Nigeria and the Nigerian army that has won several professional excellence awards while on United Nations peace keeping missions abroad?

It was bad enough that our country has in the past five years taken over from India as the world’s poverty headquarters, according to the rating by the world’s poverty index; and it is competing with the Syria, lraq , Afghanistan, and Pakistan as one of the five most terrorized countries based on the survey by global terrorism index , and ranks at no 18 in the top 20 corrupt countries in Africa just as she occupies the no 144 position in the world’s most corrupt countries rating, using the corruption perception index of the anti -corruption watch dog, Transparency International, TI. How can it be explained that on top of the woeful records highlighted above, the killing of protesting youths in Lekki toll gate, another negative epitaph or toga that makes our country one of the most dangerous places in the world for youths to thrive, has just been added. The ignominious and an unenviable position which is shared with countries like Libya and Somalia, to say the least, is a very frightening, disheartening and dreadful place to be as a nation.

Given the fact that the whole of northern Nigeria, including the middle belt states of Benue and Plateau, have literarily been floating in the blood of innocent victims of insecurity in the past half decade, owing to the unrelenting mowing down and hacking to death of our compatriots by terrorists, bandits as well as herdsmen; one is compelled to conclude that our leaders may be the equivalent of the mystical movie character, Dracula- a vampire that takes pleasure and delight in sucking human blood .

That seemingly harsh conclusion is underscored by the fact that after all the terrorists and bandits engendered blood shedding in the north east and the herdsmen blood-letting nationwide, the shooting to death of youths protesting violent policing in the heart of Lagos-the economic nerve center of the nation, would be taking total disregard for lives in Nigeria , beyond the imagination of the producers of the movie “Killing Fields”, which is a movie depiction of Hobbesian state of life in Cambodia in 1984.

––Onyibe, an entrepreneur, public policy analyst , author, development strategist, alumnus of Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Massachusetts, USA and a former cabinet member of Delta State government, wrote from Lagos (See concluding part of the article on www.thisdaylive.com)

T H I S D AY, T H E S U N D AY N E W S PA P E R ˾ NOVEMBER 1,2020

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LETTERS

ENDSARS VIOLENCE AND IMPERATIVES OF STATE POLICE

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he spate of insecurity across the country occasioned by the activities of hoodlums, who hijacked the hitherto peaceful #EndSARS protest, no doubt calls attention once again to the recurring subject of the need for the establishment of state police.

Before now, the most vociferous advocates of State Police have been notable civil society and good governance advocates. It is, however, interesting to note that increasing agitation for the creation of state police can no longer be viewed as a partisan crusade.

Neither can it be said to be the handiwork of mischief-makers or rabble-rousers. Today, serving governors and other prominent political leaders, that transcend political borders, are in the forefront of a renewed call for state police.

Though, for some time, there have been several opposing arguments concerning the subject, it has become reasonably necessary for appropriate authorities to take a deeper look at the need for state police, especially with regard to the fallouts of the #EndSARS protest. Without a doubt, the central policing system has not really been effective and it is only logical that we consider other probable alternatives.

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Buratai, Chief of Army Staff State police is an important component of true federalism and emblem of authority of governance, since sovereignty is divided between the federal authority and the federating components. It is not a new concept in Nigeria, but is rather a clamour for modification to the colonial legacy of Native Authority Police which successfully worked alongside the Nigeria Police Force till the 1970s before it was abolished and integrated into a single

Police Force by the military junta to achieve a unitary command system.

Though the 1999 Constitution provides for a single federal police, this precludes states from taking charge of the protection of lives and properties of their people as chief security officer and denying them the emblem of authority. If Nigeria is really a federation, this is a constitutional lacuna that must be addressed through constitution amendment to pave way

for State police.

Aside from the well accepted philosophy that policing is essentially a local matter, every crime is local in nature. Hence, it is only rational to localize the police force. No matter its form, crime detection needs a local knowledge that state police can better provide.

Similarly, police officers who serve in their indigenous communities are stakeholders with vested interests in such places. Considering the reality that they will always be part of their respective communities, even after retirement, it is doubtful if they will perpetuate anti-social activities in such communities. A recent Human Right Watch survey reveals that most of the accidental and other extra judicial killings that have taken place in the country were perpetrated by officers posted outside their states of origin.

Also, knowledge of the local environment is needed for effective policing. It is only logical that to fight crime in the same locality; you need law enforcement personnel familiar with the terrain.

Using police officers from Jalingo, for instance, to burst a crime in Onitsha could at best be counter- productive.

The local criminals with good knowledge of the area will always outwit such ‘foreign’

ATTACK ON T HE POLICE

he recent attack and destruction of police stations, instruments and killing of its men by hoodlums who hid under the cover of #EndSARSprotest stand condemned by all patriotic and peace-loving people of Nigeria. The attack on properties of the police and killing of its men is not new but the recent one by these hoodlums appears to be the worst in Nigeria’s history.

An attack that has, for more than a week kept the police off duty, demoralized and instilled fear into the body and soul of the police. A peaceful protest by Nigerian youths in major cities of the country to demand for immediate action by the authorities to the killing, torture, extortion, maiming, and rape of some female victims by the police was hijacked by some unscrupulous elements in the society. The police from media evidence played a very dirty role by sponsoring and ferrying thugs to the protest grounds of these peaceful protesters. The sole intention of the police cannot be far from dubbing these youths as disgruntled elements, enemies of the state with the aim of disturbing public peace. The police did not realize they were planting what could also consume them at the end, and it indeed boomeranged.

A peaceful protest to attract attention of the government is a legitimate right that the police as an institution with the license to maintain law and order must endeavour not only to allow but, provide

protection for the protesters and disallow infiltrators. The usual approach of the police in civil disobedience is to suppress peaceful protests without respect to our laws.

Nigeria is a country governed by rules, democratic rules that allows for decent ways of doing things. But every now and then, representatives of government, security agencies do not want the governed to air their views on social, economic and political matters affecting them.

Much as we condemn the hoodlums for havoc they wreaked in the last few days, we must not fail to also condemn the police for the role they played in attacking and sponsoring thugs to attack the peaceful protesters.

We must also not forget the dastardly acts some members of the police have done in the name of fighting crime which ostensibly led to the #EndSARS campaign that snowballed into destruction of lives and property.

Let us not forget that the call for scrapping ofSARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squad) began in 2017 because of their numerous evils without any action taken by the government other than mere public statements and apologies.

We cannot forget the heartbreaking tales of extrajudicial killing, extortion, torture and rape that angered our young people to come out in this recent street protests in the first instance. We remember Linda Nkechi Igwetu, who was reportedly shot at in 2018

by SARS operatives, a day before herNYSC passing out

parade. What has happened to her case, any justice? How many of us are doing anything to bring her killer(s) to book? We cannot forget Stella Ifeoma Abugu, another NYSC member that was reportedly raped and murdered while being unlawfully detained by SARS officials in Abuja.

What about the case of Kolade Johnson, the young man who ran back to his fatherland for safety from South Africa only to be killed here by his own country’s police for doing no wrong.

What about the Awkuzu SARS killings and dumping of corpses in a river? We can go on and on. The government and police hierarchy must do a thorough surgical operation on its men and officers, their mode of operation to curb this unnecessary brutalization and waste of lives.

When the police are fighting crime we are aware and commend them for the good work. But, we can quickly distinguish between the criminality of some of the bad eggs amongst them. They have committed heinous crimes over the years with nobody, no power, no institution called them to order until the youths took to the streets in protest. So, we are all culpable.

How many known and unknown souls have they killed since the coming of SARS in 1992? Are those souls not humans? What has the state or police authorities done to curb their excesses? How many of these men are under interrogation or punishment for the inhumanity?

In like manner, we also remember those unsung heroes of the Police, men and women who, despite being part of an institution that has the worst welfare package, work condition, treated like a pariah by government, reputation for corruption and ineptitude usually seen in our public system, yet they serve with bravery, not minding the dangers to their lives.

Right now, what is needed is building of confidence between the police and the people. The police, community relations introduced by the first pragmatic Lagos State Police spokesperson, Alozie Ogugbuaja, must be strongly re-organized for effectiveness and efficiency. This forum should be empowered by the Inspector -General of Police to be strong, functioning in all police formations and communities across the country. Community and Police relationship must be restored for effective policing.

The police must be well kitted with uniforms and gadgets. Their salaries and welfare, housing condition, health, retirement benefits should be adjusted upwards to bring out the best in their services.

The recruitment, training and re-training of men and officers must be seriously approached by the government.

Police is a noble profession that requires humane, intelligent, honest people to be involved in. The government must invest in our security forces to serve the people better.

––Uzodinma Nwaogbe, uzodinne50@yahoo.com.

police officers.

Intelligence gathering is an indispensable necessity in crime fighting. But this seems to be currently lacking in the system. It is difficult to access high-quality intelligence, unless you know the people very well, and they in turn trust you. The present arrangement certainly negates credible intelligence gathering. We live in a society where people treat perceived strangers with lots of reservation.

This, no doubt, is quite understandable. It is difficult to trust somebody whose language, culture and tradition you are unfamiliar with.

The truth is that people will always be afraid of passing on information to those they don’t trust, and this is for obvious reasons.

Perhaps more importantly, it is important that a state governor, who ought to be the chief security officer of his state, has the control of the police command in the same state. The current trend where the Commissioner of Police in a state takes orders from the central authority is not too tidy for attainment of internal security.

It has been argued severally that state police is nothing but a recipe for anarchy as it could be abused. Those who hold this

view believe that it could lead to abuse of power and political vendetta by the various state governors. Others are of the opinion that it could lead to political turmoil.

But then, this argument is neither here nor there because the present policing structure can equally be subjected to abuse either covertly or overtly.

In spite of all the arguments against state police, the incontrovertible truth is that Nigeria is too huge and complex to be policed centrally.

If state governors could effectively manage other institutions of governance, there is no reason why they should manage state police. For instance, in Lagos, the combined team of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority, (LASTMA), Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), officials along with the police are all collaborating and complementing one another on Lagos roads to maintain traffic and instill discipline in motorists. Just imagine Lagos roads with just only traffic police in control!

––Tayo Ogunbiyi, Deputy Director, Public Affairs, Ministry of Information and Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja (See concluding part on www.thisdaylive.com)

Governor Fintiri And Palliatives

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he most senseless ‘#ENDSARS’ looting in Nigeria happened in Adamawa State.

The weirdest response from a state governor and his handlers came from Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri and some of his aides.

In an interview with a radio station on Sunday October 25, 2020 Gov. Fintiri said the state government didn’t receive any food item from the federal government, despite the glaring videos, photos and written pieces of evidence, showing that Adamawa did receive over 100 trucks of food items from the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.

The minister, Sadiya Umar Farouq, was physically in Adamawa to handover the items. Fintiri’s Chief of Staff Professor Maxwell Gidado and the Secretary to the Adamawa State government represented the government to receive the food items.

Secondly, in his statewide broadcast on Sunday, Oct 25, 2020. Gov. Fintiri also said: “Plans have been concluded to commence the distribution of what is available (food items) on Monday the 26th October 2020 before the latest incidence occurred (looting on Oct 24, 2020). Furthermore, how can you celebrate a governor’s birthday in the middle of a grave social disorder? Some commentators even questioned the idea behind the governor's threat to demolish houses of the looters if the stolen

items were not returned.

Though it worked, the political consequences would be felt in 2023. Also, with his statement, Fintiri didn’t only goof but have successfully discredited what he ever said and what he would say in the future.

On the other, there are viral audios on social media: Gov. Fintiri in an uncalled-for engagement with an opposition individual and Fintiri’s supporter threatening a local blogger/journalist. These are a ‘low’ for a state governor and his government including the political party in power.

Reflecting on the senseless and wanton lootings in Adamawa State, many people were shocked that the hoodlums/looters had a field day for more than 72hrs, despite the fact that the locations of the targets are many kilometres apart and JimetaYola has well-spread security formations. The answer maybe that there is no well-placed coordination in Fintiri’s cabinet; Fintiri doesn’t have a rapport with his security council or there is inadequate communication within the council or it is poorly funded. Political analysts may be wrong; since it is a security matter. Experts will be in the know of the real issue. But there is a problem.

In summary, from the first day of the looting, one can deduce three salient things: lack of maturity in governance, poor crisis communication management, inexperience and poverty of ideas.

––Zayyad I. Muhammad, Jimeta, Adamawa State

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˞ ͚˜ 2020

BUSINESS

Editor: Kunle Aderinokun 08033204315, 08111813084 Email:kunle.aderinoku@thisdaylive.com

As Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s WTO Appointment Hits Speed Bump...

The World Trade Organisation is currently engaged in frenzied activities to ensure Nigeria’s Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who came tops in the election process having secured crossregional backing against strong US’ opposition, is given the job she deserves. Nosa JamesIgbinadolor looks at why the U.S is opposing the candidacy of Nigeria’s two-time finance minister, and why she will surmount the challenge and win again

Okonjo-Iweala

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or a few keen observers of the unending hunt for a new Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the hurriedly organised meeting in mid-October, in Abuja, between Nigeria’s candidate and former Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and President Muhammadu Buhari did not smell so aromatic.

While the agenda between the President and the former Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister

for the Economy wasn’t publicly declared, a statement issued by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, proclaimed that President Muhammadu Buhari assured former Minister of Finance, Ngozi OkonjoIweala, that the Federal Government will do all within its power to ensure that she becomes the Director-General of World Trade Organisation (WTO) as the country will push until she wins. “I assure you that we will do all that we can to ensure that you emerge as the Director-General of WTO, not only because you are a Nigerian,

but because you are a hardworking Nigerian. You deserve this,� Mr. Buhari had said He assured Dr. Okonjo-Iweala that he would make more phone calls and send letters to some world leaders for more support.

What is now obvious from the tenor and setting of the hurriedly arranged meeting is that there was a recognition at that time by Dr. Okonjo-Iweala and her team of the looming threat to the country’s desire to assume the leadership of the WTO from the United States.

US Trade Representative Robert

Lighthizer critical of the WTO’s handling of global trade, has been pushing for South Korea’s candidate, Yoo Myung-hee, even though OkonjoIweala gained US citizenship in 2019.

Sources close to Mr Lighthizer say he views Dr. Okonjo-Iweala as being too close to pro-trade internationalists in Washington like Robert Zoellick, a former U.S Trade Representative who worked with Ms Okonjo-Iweala when he was president of the World Bank.

A source told THISDAY that at the meeting with the President, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, a former World Bank Managing Director impressed on Buhari, the need for the President to push harder on her candidacy by engaging further and concretely with world leaders through letters and phone calls.

The push partially worked. The former finance minister, received a key endorsement on Wednesday October 26, from the WTO selection committee, which moved her a step closer to becoming the WTO’s first female director-general. However, the fourmonth selection process to find the next WTO director-general hit a road block when Washington said it would continue to back the South Korean trade minister.

The US could not support a consensus decision to appoint Okonjo-Iweala, Deputy US Trade Representative Dennis Shea said during a meeting of WTO delegates in Geneva. Mr Shea said the US disagreed with the way in which the process was being carried out.

In a statement critical of the WTO, the Office of the US Trade Representative, which advises President Donald Trump on trade policy, said the organisation “must be led by someone with real, hands-on experience in the field�.

Ms Yoo had “distinguished herself� as a trade expert and “has all the skills necessary to be an effective leader of the organisation�, the statement said.

It added: “This is a very difficult time for the WTO and international trade. There have been no multilateral tariff negotiations in 25 years, the dispute settlement system has gotten out of control, and too few members fulfill basic transparency obligations.

The WTO is badly in need of major reform.�

William Reinsch, a former senior Commerce Department official now with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies told Reuters that the U.S. move was likely to worsen trade tensions already running high within the WTO. “It’s very Trumpian. They’re basically saying ‘We want to get our way and we’re willing to throw sand in the gears if we don’t get it’,� he said, adding that it was possibly a bid to gain concessions in other disputes.

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˞ ͚˜ 2020

BUSINESS As Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s WTO Appointment Hits Speed Bump...

Buhari

U.S President Trump has in the past described the WTO as “horrible� and biased towards China, and some appointments to key roles in the organisation have already been blocked.

Nigerian officials and Dr. OkonjoIweala’s team continue to meet and engage with global leaders to solidify her candidacy against vigorous U.S opposition. A statement from the Federal Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry last week announced “Nigeria is currently reaching out to all members of the WTO including the United States and South Korea to overcome the impasse as well as persuade the United States to join the consensus.�

The ministry said the WTO’s 164 member states were expected to adopt Okonjo-Iweala as the organization’s director-general by consensus, but the United States was the sole country to oppose her, flouting the organisation’s rules.

At the end of last week, President Buhari had spoken to the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, who reiterated Europe’s support for Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala bid, to become the next Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

The Nigerian government further announced that it was reaching out to the United States and other members of the WTO to clear all bottlenecks to the emergence of Okonjo-Iweala as DG. It is unlikely that high stakes diplomacy by Nigeria would change the strong position of the United States.

One of the U.S’ foremost fears, is the strong and economic relationship between Nigeria and China. The U.S and institutions close to it have consistently warned the country to be wary of China’s economic and political relationship. Former U.S Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, in 2018, told African countries to be wary of the Chinese government and its loan facilities. Mr. Tillerson warned that African countries should weigh Chinese loans carefully, saying that China “encouraged dependency, utilised corrupt deals and endangered Africa’s natural resources.� In 2019,

Onyeama

the IMF urged Nigeria to curb its large appetite for Chinese loans as the country struggles with a â‚Ź70 billion debt burden.

The U.S considers the latter to be its main economic and commercial rival and the major threat to its hegemony.

Most economists estimate China will overtake the United States as the largest economy in 10 to 15 years. And some senior officials in Washington now view China as a steely ideological rival.

The National Security Strategy issued by the White House in December 2017 sounded the alarm: The United States was re-entering an era of great power competition, in which China and Russia “want to shape a world antithetical to U.S. values and interests.�

In late October, The U.S. State Department directed some of its local embassy officials in a diplomatic cable to gauge whether their host country supports selecting South Korean Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee to be the next director general of the World Trade Organization, according to U.S magazine, POLITICO. The cable directed U.S. diplomats to attempt to gauge where their host governments stood on the race for WTO chief, and

that if they didn’t have a commitment or a decision, to gently nudge them to back Yoo rather than Okonjo-Iweala.

According to a retired Nigerian diplomat and former National Security official, “there is nothing cast in stone about the U.S position. It is most likely that at the end of the day, a deal would be done between the U.S and Dr. Okonjo-Iweala; a deal that recognises the U.S trade position by the former Minister‌Every country acts in its own national interest and once the U.S interest is taken on board

by Dr. Iweala, I do not see why the U.S would continue their opposition to her candidacy�.

He added that the U.S might also be miffed by the former Nigeria Finance Minister’s run for the position of President of the World Bank in 2012 and 2019, despite the unspoken rule that the United States always produces the Bank’s president.

In 2019, the Dr. Okonjo-Iweala announced she would consider the post “if nominated to the position and if the circumstances are right.�.

Speaking to CNN’s Richard Quest at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland Thursday, Okonjo-Iweala said she would run but only under the right conditions.

Nigeria is currently reaching out to all members of the WTO including the United States and South Korea to overcome the impasse as well as persuade the United States to join the consensus,�

The ministry said the WTO’s 164 member states were expected to adopt OkonjoIweala as the organization’s directorgeneral by consensus, but the United States was the sole country to oppose her, outing the organisation’s rules

“I know that because I contested the last time in 2012... many people were asking that question,� she said. “It is a shareholder’s decision and they have to decide how they want it.

Someone has to nominate. If the right person were to nominate, and if the circumstances are right and people feel I can do the job, yes!�

Dr. Okonjo-Iweala’s candidature in 2012 was the first time a challenge was mounted to the US nominee in the institution’s history.

According to the former Nigerian official, “the current U.S position regarding her aspiration to run the WTO might just be their own way of paying her back for trying to break the long-standing agreement about U.S leadership of the World Bank�.

An impasse in the WTO leadership race wouldn’t likely bother President Donald Trump, who has blasted the Geneva-based organization as a tool for globalists who allowed China’s economic rise to go unchecked.

If Trump wins the U.S. election next week, his aides have indicated they plan to continue to reshape the WTO with a narrower scope to resolve trade disputes.

If it’s not possible for the general council to agree on a consensus candidate, WTO members can consider the possibility of recourse to a vote as a last resort by a procedure to be determined at that time. Such a development would be unprecedented for the WTO. It is expected that at the end of the day, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala would be selected to run the WTO over U.S objections. This decision would become even more easier if Mr. Trump loses the election in November to Joe Biden.

While the next few days are uncertain, what is certainly obvious is that members of the WTO would continue to engage in feverish activities to ensure that a candidate is selected on November 9.

If Dr. Okonjo-Iweala is eventually appointed she will have a full in-tray, chief among which would be assuaging the hurt feelings of the United States.

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˞ ͚˜ 2020

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

2021 Budget Projections and the Revenue Challenge As in previous years, bridging the revenue gap poses a key challenge in financing the proposed 2021 Budget. Ndubuisi Francis examines the various measures explored by the federal government to stem the tide

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hile presenting the 2021 Appropriation Bill to the National Assembly on October 8, President Muhammadu Buhari emphasised that,“Revenue generation remains our biggest challenge.â€?This is not strange. Over the years, revenue shortfalls have continued to be the bane of implementation of government’s ďŹ scal plans.

The proposed 2021 budget with an aggregate expenditure, which includes government-owned enterprises (GOEs) and project-tied loans is projected at N13.08 trillion. This represents a 21 per cent rise over the revised 2020 budget.

The aggregate revenue available to fund the 2021 budget is projected at N7.89 trillion, which is 35 per cent more than the 2020 Revised Budget of N5.84 trillion. In aggregate, 31 per cent of projected revenues is to come from oil-related sources, while 69 per cent is to be earned from non-oil sources.

Overall, the size of the budget has been constrained by the relatively low revenues.

Measures to Boost Revenue At the recent public presentation of the 2021 budget proposals, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, listed a number of measures to boost revenue generation and block leakages.

She said:“Several measures are being instituted to improve government revenue and entrench a regime of prudence with emphasis on achieving value for money. The goal of ďŹ scal interventions will be to keep the economy active through carefully calibrated regulatory/policy measures designed to boost domestic value-addition, de-risk the enterprise environment, attract external investment and sources of funding, etc.â€?

The minister noted that, among others, the administration would improve the tax administration framework to optimise government revenue as a major thrust of the Strategic Revenue Growth Initiative (SRGI), adding that a Tax Expenditure Statement (TES) had been included as part of documents accompanying next year’s budget to the National Assembly.

To enhance independent revenue generation and collection, Ahmed noted that the government would aim to optimise the potential, operational and collection efďŹ ciency of GOEs with a view to generating signiďŹ cantly higher revenues required to fund the federal government’s budget from this source.

To give practical expression to this with a view to promoting ďŹ scal transparency, accountability and comprehensiveness, Ahmed disclosed that the budgets of 60 GOEs are for the ďŹ rst time integrated in the FGN’s 2021 Budget proposal.

Providing further insight into why greater attention is being focused on the GOEs, the minister said:“The 60 government owned enterprises are agencies or businesses that are owned by government. Government provided the capital to run them. In fact, government in one way or the other is still sustaining them. But over the years, they have been having their own individual budgets, not integrated with the national budget. “The fact is that we are not seeing the total government spend by leaving them sitting on their own as individuals and in service.

We have brought them in so that you see the total revenue performance, the total

Ahmed

expenditure performance, and you see the total debt, and it has helped us in terms of showing the world the total spending--the total budget of the government. The agencies will be monitored by the Budget OfďŹ ce of the Federation, Accountant General of the Federation, the Auditor General also has a statutory functions to monitor these agencies, the Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) also has the responsibility to monitor these agencies. “This is in addition to what the revenue directors will be doing on daily basis. So, we just put in more pressure on these enterprises because government investment is not yielding much in terms of returns.â€?

Before the recent public presentation of the 2021 budget proposals , the minister had revealed about plans to deploy directors of ďŹ nance and accounts to 10 select federal government owned enterprises (FGOEs) to help improve revenue performance, ensure transparency and prevent further leakages in accruals.

Among the 10 are the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN). Other are the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC) and Nigerian Port Authority (NPA).

In an interview with THISDAY on the 2021 budget proposals, a ďŹ nancing expert and President, Capital Market Academics of Nigeria, Prof. Uche Uwaleke, commended the executive arm for submitting the budget proposal in good time to allow the National Assembly sufďŹ cient period to consider and

pass the appropriation bill.

Uwaleke believes the assumptions and budget parameters are realistic except for the exchange rate of N379 to the dollar that may not hold due to the ongoing process of unifying exchange rates across all forex windows by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) consistent with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) prescription. “I also think the real GDP growth rate projected at 3 per cent is a little ambitious in view of the impact of COVID’19 on the economy expected to linger till next year.

This is why the recent Fitch report on Nigeria projects a GDP growth rate of 1.3 per cent for the country in 2021. “I wish to note that the budget proposal seems to have set the right priorities with the bulk of capital spending going to Works and Housing, Power and Transport. For the ďŹ rst time in many years, the capital allocation to Education and Health are above that of defense. “I must add however, that new borrowings of over N4 trillion to part-ďŹ nance a deďŹ cit of over N5 trillion is worrisome given the already huge amount of over N3 trillion allocated to debt servicing alone. “COVID-19 notwithstanding, the deďŹ citto-GDP should have been kept within the 3 per cent threshold stipulated in the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007. I hope the National Assembly will consider any amendment within the budget envelope of N13.08 trillion and not end up jacking up the ďŹ gure.â€?

On the increased role of monitoring GOEs by the OfďŹ ce of the Auditor General for the Federation (OAuGF) and the Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) despite the low budgetary allocation to the two agencies, Uwaleke said their expected roles will be

more in the area of monitoring to ensure that revenue collected by MDAs are remitted to the federal government after making permissible deductions in line with the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2007.

He said:“This has not been the practice, which is why the government hardly meets its independent revenue targets. It is for this reason that directors of ďŹ nance are being posted to MDAs to monitor revenue collections. The government has also placed a limit on the ratio of cost to revenue that MDAs are allowed to incur. “This does not require additional funds per se since the ofďŹ cers are already in the employ of the government. I think the effective implementation of these measures will enhance government independent revenue. “Their expected roles will be more in the area of monitoring to ensure that revenue collected by MDAs are remitted to the federal government after making permissible deductions in line with the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2007. “This has not been the practice which is why the government hardly meets its independent revenue targets. It is for this reason that Directors of Finance are being posted to MDAs to monitor revenue collections. “The government has also placed a limit on the ratio of cost to revenue that MDAs are allowed to incur. This does not require additional funds per se since the ofďŹ cers are already in the employ of the government. I think the effective implementation of these measures will enhance government independent revenue,â€?he said.

Also in his reaction, the Lead Director, Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), Eze Onyekpere, said the revenue challenge“is a serious one which is compounded by the refusal of the authorities to come clean with the ďŹ gures in some instances and in others, deliberate understatement and mischief.â€?

According to him, while giving the breakdown of the 2021 budget estimates, the Minister of Finance indicated that stamp duties collected between January and September 2020 had yet to be brought into the ďŹ scal account.

He stressed:“So, there are no ďŹ gures for actuals. What exactly does this mean at a time the government is looking for money to fund the budget and borrowing excessively?

It means nothing short of the fact that the authorities are withholding ďŹ scal information from Nigerians; that the books and accounting for stamp duties have not been properly kept and done and some backroom negotiations and cleaning out are ongoing. “Otherwise, why is the government not able to account for stamp duties after nine months of collecting the same? Where is the detailed account of the collection in previous years? “Check the projection for revenue from minerals and mining for 2020, N1.90billion was projected and only N1.45 billion is the actual collection. For 2021, only N2.6 billion is projected for the revenue head and when this projection is pitched with recent media reports on the gold transaction between the Central Bank of Nigeria and Governor Matawalle of Zamfara State, we will realise the massive fraud and shortchanging of the treasury going on in the sector. “The value and quantum of solid minerals mined in Nigeria on a yearly basis will be in trillions, if the federal government lives up to its sacred duty of harnessing public resources to develop Nigeria. This duty should not only be activated in the pursuit of oil and gas, but also must extend to all mineral resources, from gold to bitumen, etc.â€?

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˞ ͚˜ 2020

19

BUSINESS/ MEDIA

ARISE, AIT, Channels Fine: Did NBC Act in Hurry?

The decision of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to slam fine on the management of three broadcasting organisations, namely, AIT ARISE TV and Channels Television, has continued to generate debates. Raheem Akingbolu reports

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t the peak of the #EndSARS protest last week, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) wielded the big stick; it imposed fines on, ARISE NEWS Channel, Channels Television and Africa Independent Television (AIT) over their coverage of the protests. As at the time, the decision was taken, the premises of Television Continental, in Ikosi, Ketu, had been visited by hoodlums, who set the company ablaze together with vehicles belonging to the company and its official.

Of course, Nigerians reacted negatively to what they call ‘NBC’s draconian decision taken too early.’ Many analysts had concluded that the fine was meant to stifle free press, especially when one of the stations –TVC was already down.

But NBC stood its ground. The regulatory body accused the three broadcasting organisations of violating broadcasting codes for broadcasting footages obtained on the Lekki shooting by soldiers from unverified and unauthenticated social media sources.

It alleged that the three stations aided in the escalation of tension through coverage of the protests in the country.

However, many commentators disagreed with NBC, arguing that the television stations, ought to be commended for giving Nigeria alternative and professional channels to access information, instead of relying on social media pundits. Again, the failure of the regulatory body not to indicate the part of the regulation that was breached appears to have made the fine unfounded in the light of the NBC code.

A lawyer and public commentator, Festus Ogun, while analysing the issue, concluded that government just couldn’t condone the truths being reported by the stations, hence the urgent need to clamp down on them. “There can be no democracy without a free press. The NBC should not continue to weaponise its regulatory powers against media freedom. Making critical reports and exposing the failures of the government should earn the broadcast stations some accolades, not illegal fines.

Ogun also argued on the basis of the controversy that has continue to trail the 6th edition of the nation’s broadcasting code and admitted that any sanction, penalty or fine that comes as a result of the defectively amended NBC Code would amount to zero at the centre of nothing and consequently be of no effect whatsoever. “In worth, the paper upon which the amended NBC Code was written has more value than the code itself,� he stated.

A Lagos Human Right Lawyer, Gabriel Uduafi, though tasked broadcasting organisations to always operate by the rules of the broadcasting business, he criticised NBC for not stating the portion of the regulation that was violated by the television stations. “My first take is that the statement credited to the Ag. DG of NBC, Prof.

Idachaba

Armstrong Idachaba, in imposing the fine on those media houses did not state any paragraph of the regulation which was breached or violated by the media houses in the coverage of the protests.

To that extent, the imposition of the fine seems to lack any form of justification in light of the NBC Code. “The second point is that Sections 22 and 39 of the Constitution gives the press the right to uphold accountability and responsibility and the freedom to receive and impart ideas and information without interference. So, I do not see the reason for trying to stifle these constitutional rights. Any derogation from the constitutional safeguards has to be done in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution and this is not the case with the NBC fine. “Third, the press/media merely performed their constitutional duty in the coverage of the protests; and even if there is any provision of the NBC that contradicts the constitutional provision, such would be unconstitutional.

Having said that, I would also opine

that the press should always refrain from projecting any piece of unverified information, especially when the source is from the social media. If any of the affected media houses projected any of such information without a caveat, and the information turns out to be patently false, then such media outfit should be held accountable according to law,� Uduafi stated.

A member of the Community Radio Coalition, CRC and Mass Communication Lecturer at the Lagos State University, Dr Tunde Akanni, is however of the opinion that if the fine is recognised by the law, the stations should work around it, if not, it’s dangerous to broadcasting industry. “If the fine is recognised by the law, no problem. Otherwise, arbitrariness is dangerous and all stakeholders must rise up not only to condemn it but to resist it and register the fact that arbitrariness doesn’t have a place in any democracy. Rule of law should be deemed supreme,�

Earlier, the Socio-Economic Rights

and Accountability Project (SERAP) the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) and various organisations, had criticised NBC for imposing the fine.

While calling on NBC to withdraw it immediately, SERAP had threatened to sue the regulator. The PDP and the NUJ in condemning the fines described the sanctions as an attempt to cow the media.

Also, a pro-democracy group, Concerned Nigerian Group, has also kicked against the fine and described it as not only draconian, but antidemocratic.

In a statement, the Convener, CNG, Deji Adeyanju also called on the Nigerian Union of Journalist (NUJ) to boycott Federal Government event for two weeks until the m fines are reversed.

Today, as Nigerians begin to review the activities of all the stakeholders, during the protest, the three broadcasting organisations appear to be the toast of all, the NBC sanction notwithstanding.

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˞ ͚˜ 2020

20

BUSINESS/ FOCUS

#EndSARS Protesters Ruin Access %DQN¡V 2QLUX %HDXWLÀFDWLRQ 3URMHFWV The Oniru axis of Victoria Island, leading up to Lekki, was beginning to wear a new look and was easing a breath of fresh air that characterises a new environment, particularly an upscale setting, until that mindless pillage that marred the peaceful #EndSARS protest. This refreshing rebirth that was introduced through a careful redevelopment, planned and executed by Access Bank Plc. It all came to ruin during the recent #EndSARS unfortunate mayhem. The bank suffered more than a distortion of its upscale corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects from activities of irate mobs. Bennett Oghifo writes

I

t is difficult to tell why a mob that stole livestock and even pets will resist temptation to break into a bank, hoping to score big. They tore into automated teller machines and broke into banking halls in search of cash and other valuables and what could not be removed was set ablaze by these committed arsonists.

Whenthesmokecleared, severaltoptierbankbranches had been vandalised. Of the lot, close to 20 branches of Access Bank across the country were vandalised and looted and cars parked in the premises were also torched. Of particular note were the newly commissioned roads constructed by Access Bank few weeks ago, linking Yesufu Abiodun, Ligali Ayorinde, Akinbolagbe and Muri Okunola Extension, had their dressings (direction signs), street and traffic lights destroyed. Young trees, including ornamental palms that were planted to beautify the environment, as well as to help clean the air of carbon dioxide and cushion traffic noise, were uprooted with the vases broken, as if to kill any future growth. “All the beautiful palm trees planted were removed. Flower pots used in lining the roads, as seen in developed economies, were destroyed, concrete pots, submersible pumps for watering flowers were all destroyed and removed by the hoodlums,� an official of the bank said. Why did the protesters vent their anger on the beautification projects remains a thing of conjecture. It was appalling to see such beautiful enviroment created from the chaos destroyed by hoodlums hiding under the guise of protest.

It is the understanding of town and country planners that urban renewal recreates neighbourhoods and communities left behind due to demographic/population increase and economic change, by bringing back character and a sense of place.

Dilapidated areas can be reinvigorated, through land, building and infrastructure development, which allows cities to further their growth, asAccess Bank Plc did on the Oniru, Victoria Island-Lekki axis of Lagos.

The Victoria Island and Lekki axis are two very busy commercial areas in Lagos State with huge exchange of economic activities daily, according to the bank. These areas easily provide employment opportunities for a large number of the people, explaining that this axis has close to 40 per cent of total employment opportunities within the formal sector.

The rejuvenation was undertaken after a careful and comprehensive study of the Victoria Island-Lekki area, including location of hubs that attract high traffic like hotels, estates, malls and banks, among others.

Interestingly, Access Bank has its Head Office on the Oniru axis and experienced the horrendous traffic first hand and this motivated them, as a problem-solving institution, to provide freedom in a hitherto chaotic environment.

The Access Bank intervention, known as Victoria Island-Lekki Traffic Circulation Project-OniruAxis, was a step-by-step approach that had the unprecedented backing of the Lagos State government.

It incorporated effective road expansion, including reconstruction of junctions and roundabouts, to improve traffic flow.

The Victoria Island - Lekki Circulation Solution was conceptualised by Planet Projects Limited (PPL) at the instance of Access Bank Plc., and its target was to eliminate noise and chaotic motor vehicle traffic that backup for kilometres, fueling man-hour loss to those caught in it, particularly business people and residents.

Access Bank considered the chaotic situation offensive to its status as a first-rate financial institution and its Managing Director, Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Herbert Wigwe thought it necessary to make it go away.

The project executor identified the challenges and proffered solution to each of them, setting goals like reduced traffic congestion; improved accessibility options for ingress and egress between Victoria Island and Lekki; improved traffic flow between both places; improved environment and living standard; and enhanced security and safety.

LagosStatecontinuestoexperienceexponentialgrowthindifferent areas, notably its population. “The population of Lagos offers the state a competitive advantage economically, however, on the down side, it creates challenges in terms of traffic congestions. Traffic congestion in cities typically occurs as more and more people travel to reach their desired destinations. “Hence, there are a lot of people moving in and out of these areas in the mornings and evenings respectively. This generates a lot of traffic especially going across the critical zone that straddles these two areas, and thus leads to a lot of traffic congestion.

MD/CEO, Wigwe

“The congestion is so severe, that vehicles sometimes spend close to one hour to navigate through this axis that is just about 2 km. This is mainly caused by the current travel pattern around this axis.�

This project improved the traffic linkage and travel time between this highly economic and commercial axis of Lagos by reducing traffic congestion, experienced around this axis with huge productive man-hour loss.

Giving specific accounts of the challenges and solutions, the bank officials said at the areas identified as J1 – Sandfill Junction and J2 –AbilaAbiodun, Oniru Junction, the existing issues were “traffic congestion at Sandfill and Abila Abiodun Oniru junctions caused by disruption of inflow of traffic due to left turn into Lekki– Epe Expressway and Abila Abiodun Oniru Street; poor pavement conditions and silted drains leading to flooded roads.

Solutions proffered were junction improvement works; restricting of left turns into Lekki – Epe Expressway andAbilaAbiodun Oniru; roads and drain rehabilitation. They also turned Abila Abiodun Oniru into a one-way street and YesufuAbiodun Oniru (up to Four Points by Sheraton Hotel). There is an option of U-turn before the Toll Gate on Lekki – Epe Expressway.

A business owner, Bamidele Olufemi, who commutes daily between Oniru and Victoria Garden City in Lekki, said the rejuvenation of the Oniru axis has improved his travel time remarkably. “I never expected the reconstruction work to have so much good effect on the chaotic traffic between Oniru here and Lekki. It is very easy now to join the main carriage way from the link roads because of the expansion and removal of obstructions.�

Ataxi driver stationed at Four Points By Sheraton, known simply as Mr. Suleimon, said, “Since the road was repaired, I have been able to move several times unlike before when the traffic was very bad.�

A traffic warden, Dele said, “Apart from reckless driving by some people, the traffic is fine. We don’t spend much time directing as we used to do.�

The specific work done by Planet included easing of movement at Four Point By Sheraton Junction, where the existing issues were traffic congestion, caused by six conflict movements at the junction; poor pavement conditions and silted drains leading to flooded roads.

To solve this problem, they did junction improvement works, and implemented one-way street along Chief Yesufu Abiodun Way and Prince Alaba Oniru Road to nullify conflict movement at this junction. There is also restriction of left turns into Lekki – Epe Expressway and Abila Abiodun Oniru.14 The existing issues at Akinbolagbe Junction (Chicken Republic)

were traffic Congestion at Four Point Sheraton junctions caused by faulty traffic signal, and poor pavement conditions and silted drains leading to flooded roads.

They performed junction improvement works to resolve this, in addition to installation of new traffic signals, adding that the expansion of Akinbolagbe Street will improve the efficiency of this junction.

The Muri Okunola Roundabout has existing issues such as traffic congestion and delay at the roundabout due to reduced road width, which is worsened by commercial activities and onstreet parking. Road capacity is also constrained as there is only one-lane in both directions from the roundabout to Aboyade Cole Street. To resolve this, they removed roundabout and replaced with signalised junction; improved turning radius of the junction.

The Ligali Ayorinde/Akinbolagbe/Okene Road Junction has existing issues at the junction due to proximity of Akinbolagbe, Ajose Adeogun and Abdulrahman Okene junctions. There is also traffic congestion from Muri Okunola Roundabout, and the capacity of the junction is constrained due to 90 degrees corners, pavement failure and flooding.

They proffered solutions which included improvement of the Ligali Ayorinde /Akinbolagbe Junction to increase capacity. They made effort to prevent left turns from Abdulrahman Okene Close; installed traffic signals at the junction; dualized Ligali Ayorinde Street from Ajose Adeogun to Muri Okunola junctions.

ExistingissuesatAjoseAdeogunJunctionincludetrafficcongestion and delay at this junction, caused by dysfunctional traffic signals.

There is also traffic congestion from Ligali/Akinbolagbe junction.

They resolved this through installation of new traffic signal; and right turn flare lane to improve turning radius.

Another crucial area attended to was New Road Extension (Maroko), where the issue was that the existing path is used for various activities ranging from market to mechanic workshops To resolve this, they constructed a new road from Muri Okunola Roundabout to Yesufu Abiodun Oniru Road, to increase capacity and provide another alternative.

AtAkinbolagbe Street, the existing issues were major bottleneck between Oniru and Victoria Island due to insufficient road width (less than two lanes per direction) and high vehicular volumes – over 1,500 vehicles/hour) and 1,200 vehicles/hour, in the morning and afternoon peak periods. Also, pavement failure is widespread with silted drains all along the length of the road.

They solved this challenge by expanding Akinbolagbe Street to ensure there are two lanes per direction. They constructed drains along Akinbolagbe Street; installed traffic signals at both ends of the road.

To help traffic circulation, they proposed one-way streets such as Chief Yesufu Abiodun Way and other roads; Abila Abiodun Oniru Road; Yesufu Abiodun Oniru (up to Four Points); Elegba Festival Road and implementation of a one-way system on Prince Alaba Oniru Road.

During the ribbon-cutting event to inaugurate the project recently, the Chief Executive Officer ofAccess Bank Plc., Mr. Herbert Wigwe said the bank’s desire was to offer more to its customers and host communities. “Ourtrackrecordspeaksforitself,�hesaid,referringtopastprojects like that in Oyin Jolayemi and Danmole Streets in Victoria Island. “Indeed, community and social impact have become enshrined parts of our DNA as a bank.�

Wigwe specifically lauded the Lagos State Governor Sanwo-Olu “for the incredible support received during the execution of this project. Our commitment to facilitating a greater Lagos will not end here and I am truly excited about the infrastructural, technological and social advancements that our partnership will foster.�

The governor, who cut the ribbon, said the roads network and improvement works provided by Access Bank would impact the lives of workers and commuters in the area, positively, stating “We achieved more than just creating a world-class road network. We have improved the drainage system of the community, reduced traffic and this has shown our drive to make the life of Lagosians easier. “I am absolutely delighted with Access Bank as they have continued to support Lagos State Government and working with us on numerous projects across the State. “Herbert Wigwe and his team have worked really hard to bring this project to life and have supported us on other projects like this.

We appreciate the bank for its contribution to public infrastructure improvement.�

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˞ ͚˜ 2020

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

Ahmed

EmeďŹ ele

Domestic Capital Market as New Haven for Resource Mobilisation James Emejo aggregates opinions of analysts on the federal government’s resolve to jettison the Eurobond and explore other viable means of funding its budget deficits and financing capital projects

T

here is a general consensus that the country must spend its way out of the current economic quagmire in order to return to the path of recovery and growth.

But the situation is further compounded by the fact that the economy is presently faced with acute revenue crisis as severally attested to by top government officials lately.

Crude oil, which provides more than 80 per cent of government’s revenue has dwindled dramatically in the wake of the global fiscal crisis occasioned by the outbreak and spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to demand slump and major fall in oil prices.

As a result, borrowing has remained one of the immediate available options for the government to bridge its fiscal deficits.

However, with Nigeria’s public debt stock at N31.01 trillion as at June 2020, with debt service obligations at N921.9 billion for local debts and and N288.6 billion ($759.6 million) on foreign debts, bringing the total to about N1.21 trillion, according to data from the Debt Management Office (DMO), analysts believed it was high time the country exercised restraint over future borrowing.

Yet, borrowing is not entirely bad in itself if the resources are committed to developmental programmes for the overall beefits of Nigerians- a major shortcoming in the country’s borrowing pattern in recent times as analysts argued that debts are most often siphoned by politicians.

President Muhammadu Buhari, during the presentation of the N31.08 trillion 2021 Budget proposal, termed, “Budget of Economic Recovery and Resilience�, to the joint session of the National Assembly, stated that the N5.20 trillion deficit will be financed mainly by new borrowings totalling N4.28 trillion including N205.15 billion from privatisation proceeds and N709.69 billion in drawdowns on multilateral

and bilateral loans secured for specific projects and programmes.

Also debt service obligations in the proposed budget which is currently before the legislature is valued at Debt Service of N3.124 trillion, while oil revenue is projected at N2.01 trillion as well as Non-oil revenue estimated at N1.49 trillion.

However, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, citing associated expense, recently foreclosed further issuance of the Eurobonds to raise funds to finance the budget, adding that the government will rather explore other means to mobilise funds including seeking credit from the World Bank amidst the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as an imminent recession confronting the economy.

The government’s decision came despite a track record of successes of the eurobond issuance in the international market.

In 2018, Minister Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed said that the country’s 2018 Euro bond, which was the sixth since 2011, was three times oversubscribed.

This followed the approval by the National Assembly for the issuance of $2.786 billion from the International Capital Market to partly finance the 2018 budget.

Following the success recorded, the minister had said:�In a demonstration of confidence in Nigeria’s economy, the $2.86 billion Eurobond road show in London was oversubscribed three times from leading global institutional investors with a peak combined order book of over $9.5 billion. “The Eurobond oversubscription is owed largely to Nigeria’s successful engagement with the Fitch Rating Agency. The agency had changed the outlook on Nigeria’s sovereign rating from B+ (negative) to B+ (stable), based on improving macro-economic fundamentals.�

However, analysts have backed the government’s decision to stay away from the international capital market amidst the fiscal challenges facing the economy.

In separate interviews with THISDAY, they believed eurobond which often attracted high yields with be too costly for a fragile economy, urging the government to consider sale of its moribund assets among other things to fund its budget instead of seeking to borrow more.

Analysts, however, said the nation’s capital market provides a veritable source of cheaper funding for government if it must borrow at this critical time.

Managing Director/Chief Executive, Credent Investment Managers Limited, Mr. Ibrahim Shelling, told THISDAY that with bearish oil prices, foreign exchange liquidity is currently stretched, adding that eurobonds may not be the best option to finance government expenditure going forward.

He said while the capital market is ripe for government to access funds because with low yields in fixed income, investors are looking for options and are willing to invest at lower rates.

Shelling added that the government also needed to engage private sector to create structures, stressing that Sukuk bonds can be used for infrastructure projects.

Explaining why the government may be currently averesed to eurobond, he said it was important to understand that, “Eurobonds attractive to investors, the rates offered have to be competitive. Eurobonds are dollar-denominated bonds and coupons are paid in dollars. Therefore a devaluation of the Naira automatically increases the cost of the bonds.�

According to him, other options available to the government to raise funds include privatising some moribund government assets.

Also, an economist, Dr. Muhammad Rislanudeen, said though eurobond rates are high and repaymeant tied to the capacity of the country to generate more foreign exchange from exports, the government should desist from persistent borrowing to meet up with annual budget deficits, but rather explore and incentivise the public private partnership arrangements particularly

for capital projects.

He said given that eurobond is largely depended on oil export for foreign exchange revenue, vulnerability to external shocks in terms of vagaries of unpredictable change in price of the crude oil could impact negatively on the country’s capacity to honour obligations and meet up with local demand.

Rislanudeen said:�This problem is further accentuated by the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Increased appetite for local borrowing will simply jerk up the rates in the fixed income market as witnessed in 2016 and 2017.�

On his part, Professor of Capital Market and President, Capital MarketAcademics of Nigeria, Prof. Uche Uwaleke, said amidst the current economic reality, the domestic capital market provides a veritable source of financing government deficit if the right instruments are used.

Specifically, he said the government should explore options in infrastructure bonds particularly Sukuk as well as Green bonds to fund environmentally friendly projects that most times are self liquidating and hardly add to the debt burden.

According to the former Imo State Commisioner for finance:�Eurobonds are not contracted on commercial terms. They are non concessional loans and are therefore relatively expensive.

Eurobonds exposes Nigeria to exchange rate risk. “The government should focus on increasing non oil revenue by getting the revenue collecting agencies to widen the tax net and improve collection efficiency. Efforts should also be geared toward plugging revenue loopholes and ensuring that MDAs remit to the Treasury every Kobo that belongs to it. “I also think a lot of money can be made through privatisation of government enterprises.

The country cannot afford further loans until the revenue challenges are sorted out.�

Also commenting on the development, an Associate Professor of Agricultural Economics at University of Port Harcourt, Anthony Onoja, pointed out that the decision of the federal government to discontinue the use of eurobonds was a step in the right direction as this would return the country on the path of economic recovery and growth following the twin challenges of COVID-19 and the recently #ENDSARS crisis.

He said the government must embrace entirely new approaches to adapting to the crisis by leveraging on incentivising the use of emerging and existing technologies especially in the ICT space to adopt innovative financing models.

He said:�In Nigeria for instance some universities and schools have massively introduced online education. The public universities and schools are yet to see such reforms. Nigeria needs massive infrastructural development to adapt.

This is one point of contention in the current crisis between the Federal government andAcademic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). In the SMEs, we see many restaurants in Nigeria too now are delivering meals and drinks for the first time using online platforms. Supermarkets and shops are also adapting their business models.�

According to him, “Governments should not try to save the old models and methods which they believe keep economies running. Instead, Nigerian government authorities should aim to embrace new models that have emerged in times of crises. Creative destruction has been identified as a driving force of economic growth which compels countries to look at the status quo and drastically reform it instead of trying to save it as it is. “Improved tax regimes e.g. progressive taxation (taxing those in very high income groups higher), building of correct data base to capture businesses that are evading taxes and ensuring tax evasion are minimized to its bares level can go a long way in generating funds to finance Nigerian economic growth and recovery plan.

The stock markets also needs more reforms to remove barriers against participation by investors.�

Onoja added�Eurobonds patronage is a mega blow to incentivising economic growth in any country.

Eurobonds, are sometimes referred to as ‘coronabonds’ due to the fact that coronacrisis, have made it attractive as instruments that allow governments to jointly finance debt. “The draw back is that for financially stronger member states, the cost of funding these increases when weaker member states are able to leverage their creditworthiness, which in turn removes an important incentive for these countries to implement sound fiscal policies in the long term. This is why Germany and the Netherlands have been openly opposed to use of Eurobonds as financing instruments.�

22

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˞ ͚˜ 2020

BUSINESS OUTSIDER

The Business of Lobbying in Nigeria Tunji Adegbite

I

n recent times, stakeholder management has become particularly important for businesses partly because of the increasing complexities of the political and business environment, locally and globally. These stakeholders include Governments at all levels, communities, consumers, etc. Lobbying has existed for centuries, however, in light of the Nigerian Government’s recent institution of more revenue generating regulations due to economic downturn, it is imperative for businesses to up the ante with respect to influencing policies and laws within their operational domain.

Unlike what many may think, Lobbying and Public Relations (PR) are different though the line of variance between both has become blurred. While PR practitioners influence public opinion, lobbyists influence the decisions of government, regulatory agencies, and sometimes other businesses. The Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) defines lobbying as a discipline within Public Relations where the general intention of the activity is to inform and influence public policy and law.

Typically quiet and operating behind closed doors, the influence they enjoy is constructed consciously and they are known by names such as political consultants, government/public affair representatives, etc. The structure of the Nigerian economy and inherent gaps have indicated that the market for lobbying services is still nascent unlike in the USA, UK, EU, China amongst others, where lobbying has been accepted as profession (over 100,000 registered lobbyists), with complementary regulatory framework. Lobbying in these countries has become bigger, bolder and a money spinner. In the US, the “K Street� (like Wall Street for Financial services) has become synonymous with America’s lobbying firms as most have their offices there. In 2019, American companies spent approximately US$3.51 billion on lobbying, the highest amount since 2010, in a bid to influence some Trump administration policies that affect their bottom-line.

The Pharmaceutical and Insurance industries together accounted for more than a 10% of total spending on lobbying in the USA. Some of the world’s most renowned lobbying firms include Albert & Geiger, Patton Boggs LLP, Racepoint Group, Whitaker Group, etc.

In Africa, Rwanda and South Africa have guidelines on lobbying.

To become a force within the lobbying landscape, one would need skills such as networking, research, design/systems thinking, negotiation, communication (both oral and verbal) alongside core technical skills required for drafting and analysing laws or policies. For instance, a lobbyist needs to keep abreast with information flow through constant research and must articulate issues in a persuasive, and confident manner. Lobbyists typically possess deep understanding of the intricacies of government’s policies and processes, and could include lawyers, economists, PR practitioners, former employees of the government and policy experts. In Nigeria, there are few lobbying organisations, many of whom are law or consulting firms which are not necessarily set up solely to carry on the business of lobbying. As unstructured as the industry appears, organisations such as Chambers of Commerce, NESG, OPTS already exist to seek opportunities and enhance the

Top 10 Industries by Lobbying spending in the U.S.A

thresholds, so that an individual is required to register after receiving over $400 in compensation.

Lobbyists employ different strategies to actualize their goals but one that features prominently is relationship building or networking. By building a strong network with politicians, legislators and even media houses, lobbyists can effectively increase their popularity which in turn makes them more influential. More so, networking is an excellent way of building trust and fostering credibility which enhances access to information that are sometimes not in the public domain.

business objectives of their members.

The unstructured nature is predicated on the dearth of regulations that support it as a business though there are already influential and well-connected people in Nigeria who are into the business of lobbying.

Key challenges with lobbying in Nigeria include lack of regulatory structure/framework, perception of non-transparency and the big question of “is lobbying legal�? In 2016, the 8th Senate tried to address this gap by debating a bill for an “Act for the Regulation and Registration of Lobbyists in Nigeria and for other matters connected therewith�, as proposed by Senator Dino Melaye. It was designed to make provision for intending lobbyists to be duly registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and the Ministry of Justice to practice.

Unfortunately, the bill did not scale 2nd reading and nothing has been heard about it since then.

Lobbying as a profession has come under intense criticism with critics equating it to bribery and corruption which is a key factor that undermines the smooth running of the democratic process since it concentrates power to influence public policy on few wealthy individuals or corporates. However, there is a huge difference; while bribery and corruption seek to “buy� power, lobbying on the other hand seeks to “influence� power by offering intellectual contributions. In most cases, the existence of appropriate legislative framework confers legality on their operations and controls the overreach of overzealous lobbyists.

For instance, the State of Arkansas in the USA stipulates compensation

Where do the opportunities lie?

Opportunities in this somewhat controversial profession lie in the seemingly large market size and increasing complexity of doing business in Nigeria. While Nigeria appears as one of the top-ten improvers in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing business ranking in 2020, significant challenges still exist in getting the regulatory environment right. Consequently, firms or individuals who want to play in this market would require an approach such as operating as an image-maker for Nigerian companies seeking to raise capital and their profiles globally, or as a niche business i.e. with focus on either an Industry, Government parastatal (e.g NAFDAC, NCDMB, etc.), or State governments.

In conclusion, there is a need for Nigeria to put in place the regulatory structure for lobbying as a business and profession given the role they play in shaping markets, legislations and policies that can be beneficial for corporates, individuals and the Nigerian economy.

About Author Tunji Adegbite (MBA, FCCA, MCIPS) is a thought leader in Strategy, Supply Chain and Business transformation and has worked with leading organisations like PwC and an IOC. He is also the founder of Naspire, a research and business strategy platform using contextual knowledge to help entrepreneurs and professionals in Africa succeed. He can be reached via tunji@naspire.com.

23

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˞ ͚˜ 2020

BUSINESS/PERSPECTIVE

&%1¡V &RPPRGLWLHV 'HYW 'L͞XVLQJ WKH 8QHPSOR\PHQW 7LPH %RPE

A hacker perpetrating his nefarious act

Armsfree Ajanaku

E

ven as the whole world grapples with the realities of a new economic normal, imposed by the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nigeria’s political elite have carried on as if nothing has changed. They do not appear to understand the urgency which the current times require. The bulk of Nigeria’s selfabsorbed public officials do not appear to know, neither do they seem to understand the fact that in terms of the health of the economy, the country is sitting on a time bomb. The bomb is fast ticking away, and unless it is quickly diffused, it will go off, precipitating serious consequences for the stability of the country.

According to the World Economic Forum, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have led to huge losses in jobs. The realities of unemployment continue to stalk the country with no clearly defined path to economic recovery. In the second quarter of 2020 for instance, Nigeria’s economy is reported to have contracted by 6.1 percent year on year. Ominously too, a sizeable 27 percent of the country’s labour force, over 21 million citizens are reported to be currently unemployed. Hopes of quick recovery to enable the economy get back to a footing, where it can create jobs and boost growth, have been blunted by more pessimistic projections.

The World Bank predicts that Nigeria is

set for its worst recession in four decades.

Given this grim outlook, citizens expect government institutions and the functionaries manning them to respond quickly to these great challenges. The realities of the new economic normal require leadership with astute problem solving skills to rise to the challenge of tapping the country’s vast potential.

Put differently, the times require initiatives, which explore high impact economic activities with the capacity to create millions of jobs in a short time. Government at all levels, federal, state and local are agreed that agriculture constitutes the lowest hanging fruit, which can be tapped to address the monster of youth unemployment in the short run. Government has also mouthed the need to refocus the economy away from its dependence on volatile oil revenues.

Effectively, the realisation of the goals of making agriculture a job creator, and diversifying the oil dependent economy, lies in practical problem solving steps, which will keep the eyes of the policy implementers on the big picture of job creation. This is where the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has risen tall to be recognised. The apex bank is apparently leading the race for smart, accountable and tailor-made solutions to the challenges of the times. Accordingly, the bank has moved beyond the rhetoric of what is to be done to walking the talk.

It is doing what should be done.

In contextualizing its policy implementation, the CBN must have reasoned that with a total land area of about 910, 768 Km2 of which 33.02 per cent is arable and about 3.14 per cent suitable for permanent crops,

Nigeria has no business playing host to the highest number of poor people in the world.

The bank has therefore continued to harp on the need to tap Nigeria’s massive potentials for agricultural commodities such as cocoa, peanuts, palm oil, corn, rice, sorghum, millet, cassava (tapioca), yams, and rubber.

Outside its monetary policy role, the CBN has been pushing the handlers of the broader fiscal policies to be more strategic in exploring the potentials of agriculture for wealth creation. One way it is doing this is through surveillance on domestic and international commodity production and prices with a view to providing policy advices to government. This has kept the CBN way ahead of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in terms of proactively engaging citizens and government through targeted seminars, workshops and actual interventions to boost the production of identified commodities such as rice, sesame seed, cocoa, neem tree, cassava and others, which are on high demand domestically and internationally.

The CBN is also a member of various international commodity organisations such as the International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO), the International Coffee Organisation (ICO), International Natural Rubber Organisation (INRO), Cocoa Producers Alliance (CPA), amongst others. The bank has also been on the frontlines of monitoring and collecting Export Levy on various export commodities, just as it has been providing funding for the development of export commodities.

One of the bank’s recent interventions within the purview of the Commodities Development Initiative is in the Cotton

Textile and Garment (CTG) sector. This is intended to bring back Nigeria’s glorious days in textile production, which were allowed to dim due to bad policies. Beyond the lure of returning Nigeria back to its preeminent position as the textile hub of West Africa, the intervention will return thousands of jobs, which were lost to the unfortunate collapse of the sector.

Another key objective is to make Nigeria self-sufficient in cotton production, with the attendant benefits of saved foreign exchange that would have gone into cotton importation.

In pursuant of these goals, the CBN had invested over N120b across CTG value chain with more than 320,000 farmers between 2016 – 2020 to massively increase the cultivation of cotton. With what has been deployed, expected output for seed cotton in 2020 is put at about 300,000 metric tons. The CBN also wants to expand the production capacity of Ginneries to over 102,000 metric tons of cotton lint which is expected to meet and even surpass the cotton lint requirement of Nigeria’s textile industries. Similarly, there have been moves to resuscitate 19 ginneries across the country, and the projection is that more will come on stream before the end of 2020.

Whichever way it is measured, CBN’s policies have impacted positively on domestic local production of staple food, especially rice. According to figures from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, rice production increased from an annual average of 7.1 million tonnes between 2013 and 2017 to 8.9 million tonnes in 2018. In 2019, the CBN set up a $130m initiative offering farmers who had at least 1 hectare of land loans at a 9% interest rate, which is below the benchmark interest rate of 14%. In 2018, the Bank of Agriculture (BoA) declared that Nigeria was able to save $800 million in the preceding year by ramping up production of local rice alone.

In real terms, these efforts are capable of removing two million people from the unemployment market. But given the huge population of unemployed Nigerians, what the CBN is doing can only create a demonstration effect. This is therefore the time for other agencies of government with the mandate to promote agricultural production to pick the gauntlet and complement the CBN for maximum impact. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development comes to mind in this respect. A look at the ministry’s website gives the impression that those running the place are yet to come to terms with the programmes that could massively put Nigerians back to work in these difficult times. One expects to see text and images portraying ministry officials robustly engaging farmers on how to boost Nigeria’s agricultural production, instead of endless speeches and symposium reports.

At the time of the COVID 19 pandemic, Nigerians should be able to go on the website of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to know how they can startup ventures in agribusiness, as well as other forms of support to help citizens realise these goals.

Over all, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development should take a cue from the CBN which has since gone beyond talking to getting things done. Such a synergy, if pursued with sincerity of purpose, will create a win-win situation of more jobs in the agricultural sector for unemployed Nigerians who are currently in dire straits as well as save the country the foreign exchange that will have been used to import food items that are now produced locally. This way, the ticking time bomb of unemployment and a volatile domestic currency as a result of the pressures of importation, will be diffused.

t"KBOBLV XSJUFT GSPN "CVKB

͚˜ ͺ͸ͺ͸ Ëž T H I S DAY, T H E S U N DAY N E W S PA P E R

24

MARKET NEWS

Custodian Investment Grows Profit before Tax to N7.3bn

Goddy Egene Custodian

Investment

Plc

has announced an impressive result for the nine months period ended 30th September

A Mutual fund (Unit Trust) is an investment vehicle managed by a SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) registered Fund Manager.

Investors with similar objectives buy units of the Fund so that the Fund Manager can buy securities that willl generate their desired return.

An ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) is a type of fund which owns the assets (shares of stock, bonds, oil futures, gold bars, foreign currency, etc.) and divides ownership of those assets into shares. Investors can buy these ‘shares’ on the

2020. Despite the challenging operating environment, the group’s profit before tax rose

floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

A REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) is an investment vehicle that allows both small and large investors to part-own real estate ventures (eg.

Offices, Houses, Hospitals) in proportion to their investments. The assets are divided into shares that are traded on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

GUIDE TO DATA: Date: All fund prices are quoted in Naira as at 28Oct-2020, unless otherwise stated.

to N7.3 billion from N7.0 billion achieved in the comparable period of 2019 and profit after

tax rose more than 10 per cent to N6.0 billion. Shareholders’ funds rose to N47 billion (748

kobo/share) from N44.7 billion (743 kobo/share) at December 31, 2019.

Offer price: The price at which units of a trust or ETF are bought by investors.

Bid Price: The price at which Investors redeem (sell) units of a trust or ETF. Yield/Total Return: Denotes the total return an investor would have earned on his investment. Money Market Funds report Yield while others report Year- to-date Total Return.

NAV: Is value per share of the real estate assets held by a REIT on a specific date.

DAILY PRICE LIST FOR MUTUAL FUNDS, REITS and ETFS MUTUAL FUNDS / UNIT TRUSTS AFRINVEST ASSET MANAGEMENT LTD aaml@afrinvest.com Web: www.afrinvest.com; Tel: +234 818 885 6757 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Afrinvest Equity Fund N/A N/A N/A Afrinvest Plutus Fund N/A N/A N/A Nigeria International Debt Fund N/A N/A N/A ALTERNATIVE CAPITAL PARTNERS LTD info@acapng.com Web: www.acapng.com, Tel: +234 1 291 2406, +234 1 291 2868 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn ACAP Canary Growth Fund 0.99 1.01 10.67% ACAP Income Funds 0.85 0.85 11.11% AIICO CAPITAL LTD ammf@aiicocapital.com Web: www.aiicocapital.com, Tel: +234-1-2792974 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn AIICO Money Market Fund 100.00 100.00 3.68% AIICO Balanced Fund 3.69 3.81 50.55% ANCHORIA ASSET MANAGEMENT LIMITED info@anchoriaam.com Web:www.anchoriaam.com, Tel: 08166830267; 08036814510; 08028419180 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Anchoria Money Market 100.00 100.00 1.08% Anchoria Equity Fund 116.57 116.98 12.56% Anchoria Fixed Income Fund 1.47 1.47 22.45% ARM INVESTMENT MANAGERS LTD enquiries@arminvestmentcenter.com Web: www.arm.com.ng; Tel: 0700 CALLARM (0700 225 5276) Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn ARM Aggressive Growth Fund 16.61 17.11 8.42% ARM Discovery Balanced Fund 375.19 386.51 8.62% ARM Ethical Fund 32.11 33.08 10.42% ARM Eurobond Fund ($) 1.16 1.17 16.26% ARM Fixed Income Fund 1.13 1.13 12.88% ARM Money Market Fund 1.00 1.00 2.58% AXA MANSARD INVESTMENTS LIMITED investmentcare@axamansard.com Web: www.axamansard.com; Tel: +2341-4488482 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn AXA Mansard Equity Income Fund 112.65 113.44 17.24% AXA Mansard Money Market Fund 1.00 1.00 2.15% CAPITAL EXPRESS ASSET AND TRUST LIMITED info@capitalexpressassetandtrust.com Web: www.capitalexpressassetandtrust.com ; Tel: +234 803 307 5048 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn CEAT Fixed Income Fund N/A N/A N/A Capital Express Balanced Fund(Formerly: Union Trustees Mixed Fund) N/A N/A N/A CHAPELHILL DENHAM MANAGEMENT LTD investmentmanagement@chapelhilldenham.com Web: www.chapelhilldenham.com, Tel: +234 461 0691 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Chapelhill Denham Money Market Fund 100.00 100.00 4.26% Paramount Equity Fund 13.75 14.00 9.86% Women's Investment Fund 122.51 123.75 11.03% CORDROS ASSET MANAGEMENT LIMITED assetmgtteam@cordros.com Web: www.cordros.com, Tel: 019036947 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Cordros Money Market Fund 100.00 100.00 2.76% Cordros Milestone Fund 2023 122.17 122.71 Cordros Milestone Fund 2028 133.61 134.65 Cordros Dollar Fund ($) 103.49 103.49 CORONATION ASSEST MANAGEMENT investment@coronationam.com Web:www.coronationam.com , Tel: 012366215 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Coronation Money Market Fund 1.00 1.00 2.33% Coronation Balanced Fund 1.09 1.10 17.54% Coronation Fixed Income Fund 1.75 1.75 31.76% EDC FUNDS MANAGEMENT LIMITED mutualfundng@ecobank.com Web: www.ecobank.com Tel: 012265281 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn EDC Nigeria Money Market Fund Class A 100.00 100.00 2.26% EDC Nigeria Money Market Fund Class B 1,000,000.00 1,000,000.00 1.23% EDC Nigeria Fixed Income Fund 1,185.89 1,201.38 7.02% FBNQUEST ASSET MANAGEMENT LTD invest@fbnquest.com Web: www.fbnquest.com/asset-management; Tel: +234-81 0082 0082 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn FBN Fixed Income Fund 1,533.34 1,534.91 25.04% FBN Balanced Fund 168.70 169.99 14.90% FBN Halal Fund 109.34 109.35 9.34% FBN Money Market Fund 100.00 100.00 2.23% FBN Nigeria Eurobond (USD) Fund - Institutional N/A N/A N/A FBN Nigeria Eurobond (USD) Fund - Retail N/A N/A N/A FBN Smart Beta Equity Fund 134.65 136.76 3.47% FCMB ASSET MANAGEMENT LIMITED fcmbamhelpdesk@fcmb.com Web: www.fcmbassetmanagement.com; Tel: +234 1 462 2596 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Legacy Money Market Fund 1.00 1.00 2.51% Legacy Debt Fund 3.84 3.84 5.19% Legacy Equity Fund 1.33 1.36 17.71% Legacy USD Bond Fund 1.13 1.13 4.18% FSDH ASSET MANAGEMENT LTD coralfunds@fsdhgroup.com Web: www.fsdhaml.com; Tel: 01-270 4884-5; 01-280 9740-1 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Coral Growth Fund 3,398.64 3,434.20 11.70% Coral Income Fund 3,212.28 3,212.28 4.43% FSDH Treasury Bills Fund 100.00 100.00 3.43% GREENWICH ASSET MANAGEMENT LIMITED assetmanagement@gtlgroup.com Web: www.gtlgroup.com ; Tel: +234 1 4619261-2 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Greenwich Plus Money Market Fund 100.00 100.00 2.80% Nigeria Entertainment Fund 124.96 125.49 14.39%

GROWTH & DEVELOPMENT ASSET MANAGEMENT LIMITED assetmanagement@gdl.com.ng Web: www.gdl.com.ng ; Tel: +234 9055691122 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn GDL Money Market Fund N/A N/A N/A INVESTMENT ONE FUNDS MANAGEMENT LTD enquiries@investment-one.com Web: www.investment-one.com; Tel: +234 812 992 1045,+234 1 448 8888 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Abacus Money Market Fund 100.00 100.00 2.42% Vantage Balanced Fund 2.50 2.55 14.12% Vantage Guaranteed Income Fund 1.00 1.00 7.50% Kedari Investment Fund (KIF) 152.69 153.50 6.54% LOTUS CAPITAL LTD ďŹ ncon@lotuscapitallimited.com Web: www.lotuscapitallimited.com; Tel: +234 1-291 4626 / +234 1-291 4624 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Lotus Halal Investment Fund 1.26 1.28 12.18% Lotus Halal Fixed Income Fund 1,128.48 1,128.48 8.61% MERISTEM WEALTH MANAGEMENT LTD info@meristemwealth.com Web: http://www.meristemwealth.com/funds/ ; Tel: +234 1-4488260 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Meristem Equity Market Fund N/A N/A N/A Meristem Money Market Fund N/A N/A N/A PAC ASSET MANAGEMENT LTD info@pacassetmanagement.com Web: www.pacassetmanagement.com/mutualfunds; Tel: +234 1 271 8632 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn PACAM Balanced Fund 1.48 1.50 20.36% PACAM Fixed Income Fund 11.77 11.86 4.74% PACAM Money Market Fund 10.00 10.00 2.68% PACAM Equity Fund 1.32 1.33 PACAM EuroBond Fund 108.87 111.18 SCM CAPITAL LIMITED info@scmcapitalng.com Web: www.scmcapitalng.com; Tel: +234 1-280 2226,+234 1- 280 2227 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn SCM Capital Frontier Fund 125.52 127.54 1.71% SFS CAPITAL NIGERIA LTD investments@sfsnigeria.com Web: www.sfsnigeria.com, Tel: +234 (01) 2801400 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn SFS Fixed Income Fund 1.01 1.01 7.96% STANBIC IBTC ASSET MANAGEMENT LTD assetmanagement@stanbicibtc.com Web: www.stanbicibtcassetmanagement.com; Tel: +234 1 280 1266; 0700 MUTUALFUNDS Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Stanbic IBTC Balanced Fund 2,521.35 2,532.80 18.15% Stanbic IBTC Bond Fund 210.33 210.33 5.82% Stanbic IBTC Ethical Fund 0.88 0.89 15.00% Stanbic IBTC Guaranteed Investment Fund 273.87 273.95 6.85% Stanbic IBTC Iman Fund 154.92 156.64 17.47% Stanbic IBTC Money Market Fund 100.00 100.00 2.73% Stanbic IBTC Nigerian Equity Fund 7,674.15 7,756.30 10.78% Stanbic IBTC Dollar Fund (USD) 1.21 1.21 4.62% Stanbic IBTC Shariah Fixed Income Fund 110.18 110.18 5.73% UNITED CAPITAL ASSET MANAGEMENT LTD Web: www.unitedcapitalplcgroup.com; Tel: +234 803 306 2887 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn United Capital Balanced Fund 1.30 1.32 8.85% United Capital Bond Fund 1.87 1.87 7.98% United Capital Equity Fund 0.75 0.77 6.15% United Capital Money Market Fund 1.00 1.00 3.52% United Capital Eurobond Fund 115.50 115.50 5.69% United Capital Wealth for Women Fund 1.03 1.04 -1.81% QUANTUM ZENITH ASSET MANAGEMENT & INVESTMENTS LTD service@quantumzenithasset.com.ng Web: www.quantumzenith.com.ng; Tel: +234 1-2784219 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Zenith Equity Fund 11.35 11.48 10.40% Zenith Ethical Fund 12.53 12.64 7.78% Zenith Income Fund 24.59 24.59 8.27% Zenith Money Market Fund 1.00 1.00 2.39%

REITS NAV Per Share

Fund Name SFS Skye Shelter Fund

Yield / T-Rtn

119.09

6.12%

53.51

2.80%

Bid Price

Offer Price

Yield / T-Rtn

9.56 105.01 77.49

9.66 105.01 78.92

14.36% 9.98% 3.15%

Union Homes REIT

EXCHANGE TRADED FUNDS Fund Name Lotus Halal Equity Exchange Traded Fund SIAML Pension ETF 40 Stanbic IBTC ETF 30 Fund

VETIVA FUND MANAGERS LTD Web: www.vetiva.com; Tel: +234 1 453 0697 Fund Name Vetiva Banking Exchange Traded Fund Vetiva Consumer Goods Exchange Traded Fund Vetiva GrifďŹ n 30 Exchange Traded Fund Vetiva Money Market Fund Vetiva Industrial Goods Exchange Traded Fund Vetiva S&P Nigeria Sovereign Bond Exchange Traded Fund

funds@vetiva.com Bid Price

Offer Price

Yield / T-Rtn

3.72 5.13 13.86 1.00 12.48 231.89

3.76 5.21 13.96 1.00 12.68 233.89

8.71% -13.07% 13.88% 2.43% 19.96% 21.42%

NAV Per Share

Yield / T-Rtn

108.03

15.02%

INFRASTRUCTURE FUND Fund Name Chapel Hill Denham Nigeria Infrastructure Debt Fund

The value of investments and the income from them may fall as well as rise. Past performance is a guide and not an indication of future returns. Fund prices published in this edition are also available on each fund manager’s website and FMAN’s website at www.fman.com.ng. Fund prices are supplied by the operator of the relevant fund and are published for information purposes only.

A

WEEKLY PULL-OUT

01.11.2020

PROF. ABDULRASHEED NA’ALLAH

INSIDE THE WORLD OF A DISTINGUISHED ACADEMIA He’s an embodiment of sterling qualities; an outstanding scholar.

Commitment, patriotism and dedication are second nature to him. Prof.

Abdul-Rasheed Na’Allah, pioneer Vice-Chancellor, Kwara State University and current VC of UniAbuja is legendary for his unique ability to attract grants for research and development to universities. Funke Olaode writes about the renowned professor of Comparative Literature and his world of wonder ASSISTANT EDITOR OLUFUNKE OLAODE/funkola2000@gmail.com

50

T H I S DAY, T H E S U N DAY N E W S PA P E R Ëž ÍŻËœ Í°ÍŽÍ°ÍŽ

COVER

A DISTINGUISHED COMPATRIOT

H

e is distinguished as a scholar. A compatriot with a Midas touch.

If he were to be a businessman, he would be the head of a conglomerate raking in billions of dollars every year giving the likes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet a run for their money.

He has the vision, ambition and mission even in the ivory tower where he has held sway for many years. Yet he remained humble and unassuming. From Canada to America and back to Nigeria, he has written his name on the sands of time and left an indelible mark. Meet Prof. Abdul-Rasheed Na’Allah, the current Vice-Chancellor, University of Abuja. You may wonder why an academia’s life is intertwined with a Midas touch often associated with business magnate.

His career trajectory says it all.

Prof. Abdul-Rasheed Na’Allah is legendary for his unique ability to attract grants for research and development to universities. As department chair, African-American Studies, Western Illinois University, USA, he attracted a grant of $100m college/university grants for the renovation of offices, conference travel funds, technology innovation and technology funds in 2004.

Also, in his capacity as the chair, Western Illinois University Minority Internship Program (MIP), he attracted $50 million grants from the Illinois Higher Education Cooperating Act grant for minority internship’s intern stipends, overhead, and MIP administration and honorarium (5-University Consortium) in 2004. He further attracted $25,000 grants from Visiting Speakers funds for honoraria, travel and hotel costs for visiting speakers as Director of the Indigenous Africa and Diaspora Discourse Project (IADDP) at the same University.

Typically, Prof. Na’Allah also attracted many funds both internally and externally during his tenure at Kwara State University (KWASU) including the $15.3m budget for the UNESCO Chair in Alternative Energy, established at KWASU by UNESCO in 2011; the $45,701 Funding from SSHRC Insight Development Grant, Canada in 2012 for digitalization of traditional African oral tradition; over N8 Billion in regular, special and high impact intervention grants from TETFUND in 2010 and 2016; and $15,000 grant by Academics for Higher Education and Development to KWASU’s Centre for Innovation and International Studies, amongst many others.

Na’Allah, a professor of Comparative Literature was born on 21 December 1962 in Ilorin, Kwara State. He started his early education at the Demonstration 1 Primary School, Sokoto, where he obtained his First School Leaving Certificate (FSLC) in 1976 and Government Teachers’ College, Birnin Yauri for his Teachers’ Grade II Certificate in 1981.

The young Na’Allah proceeded to the University of Ilorin where he graduated with the Upper Division in B.A. (Ed) English Education in 1988, and in 1992. He obtained a Master of Literature in English from the same University, and a doctoral degree from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada in 1999. With many laurels in his kitty as an outstanding scholar, he remains an epitome of humility.

He said, “My personality, home training and exposure as a global person. I always believe that people who have no much to show make the loudest noise and wellendowed people are generally humble and happy to contribute and share views and respect other people and their views.�

For Prof. Na’Allah, his charity begins at home as his early life was influenced by his father and his environment. “It actually started from home, my very scholarly father and scholarly Ilorin environment, Arabic and Islamic scholarship. My father studied under the popular Shaikh Muhammad Kamaludeen and attended SOAIS Kano for HIS and the then Abdullahi Bayero College and taught at Sultan Abubakar College Sokoto and GSS Koko and later GSS Bachita before he became a judge of the Area Court for years. “So I had a great scholarly home and admire my intensive scholarly training from my father who was my role model. Then, my Islamic school training, my elementary

NA’ALLAH

schools at Ansarul Islam Primary School, Ilorin; Demonstration Primary School, Sokoto; and Malam Salihu Primary School, Koko, all oiled my strong scholarly foundation.�

Having been firmly rooted at home Na’Allah’s post-primary school became a platform for great skill development for him.

While his training as a Grade II teacher at GTC Birnin Yauri, now Federal Government College, Birnin Yauri, was incredible. “I was lucky to have highly talented teachers from all over the world: Britain, India, Pakistani, Nigerian, Ghana, and more! My school was the best of its type, and I was active as a debater and started writing scholarly essays, poetry, and drama sketches published in school magazines. I was an active member of the debating society and represented my schools in inter-school debates and also on debate competition at NTV Sokoto. I was a member of the dramatic society and performed plays in my school and featured our plays on NTV (now called NTA) station in Sokoto. Some of my teachers of English, Arithmetic, Further Mathematics, Sciences, Geography, Principle and Practice of Education, and more were simply among the best you can get anywhere! I was a member of the Boy Scout Movement and became Troup Leader of the 1st Birnin Yauri Troop. I graduated as Head Boy in Birnin Yauri.�

Prof. Na’Allah wouldn’t admit to being a gifted child but self-discovery of the path he wanted to toe accelerated his career journey.

Again, he was lucky to have met great teachers who aided his journey and with hard work he conquered his career world. “After I graduated,� he recalled, “I taught in elementary school for some years before I gained admission into the Better by Far University, the topmost University of Ilorin, and I assure you, it is the best of all, that strengthened in me a solid scholarly endeavor. My teachers included David Cook, Olu Obafemi, Stephen Lubega, Prof.

Adewoye, Dr. Gabriel Ajadi, Bayo Ogunjimi and many more.�

As an undergraduate student, he didn’t restrict himself and he was ready to explore.

His exploration led him to Radio Kwara where he anchored a radio programme. He wrote frequently for newspapers, including The Herald, New Nigerian, The Punch, The

Guardian, and several other newspapers. “The topics of my newspaper writings were always scholarly apart from occasional poems. I remember such topics as ‘The Africanness of African Poetry.’ I wrote on the oral poets of Ilorin such as Jaigbade Alao and Odolaye Aremu, and on Mamman Shata and Dan Marayan Jos. And often much more on criticism and theoretical frameworks of African literature. I wrote on African languages and cultures.�

He is a teacher with his eyes on journalism but with a vision to be a distinguished scholar.

And by the time he arrived for his PhD at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, in the early 1990s he had authored strong scholarly articles published around the world and written books on African oral literature.

But has it always been his childhood dream to be a teacher? “Yes, it has, given the value set by our parents, as my father clearly told us frequently that teaching was the noblest profession and he wanted us to be teachers.

The later training I had both at Birnin Yauri and at Unilorin capped it for me. Whatever I become now, it is my parents, Birnin Yauri, the greatest Unilorin and the University of Alberta, Canada!�

As an undergraduate, Prof. Na’Allah considered studying law which he later jettisoned. “Actually, after my 100 level, I was encouraged to go into law and almost changed my course to law, then newly introduced at the University of Ilorin. But it just did not feel right in my mind, and Russ Chambers, one of my teachers also discouraged me, insisting that what he had observed in me, it was better I finished my degree in English. “I never discussed this with my parents or anyone else. I just abandoned the move. I have not regretted this as I am always proud of my teaching profession because as long as I was able to teach and make an impact on the young ones and write my essays and poetry, that was all my ambition, and that would have been what would make me very happy and fulfilled. “The ice in the cake is becoming a higher education leader right from the United States where I taught for more than a decade

and became a full professor. The chance to become the pioneer vice-chancellor of Kwara State University was just a destiny for which I cannot thank God enough. I got the chance to put my ideas, my theories and my development and skills in higher education into practice at the university. As vicechancellor of the UofA of Nigeria, University for National Unity, the University of Abuja, we have the duty to make it the model University in Nigeria. By destiny of location, the UofA is the number one university in this country and we are all at UniAbuja determined to make it so and since we have the goodwill of Nigerians and the Nigerian leadership and leaders of higher education in this country, and of staff and students of the University of Abuja, no impediment will stop us, by the grace of God!�

Prof. Na’Allah left several legacies in both Chicago where he attracted a multimilliondollar grant and also Kwara State University where he held sway as vice-chancellor for two terms. You may conclude that his type is rare. “Well, have I done something extraordinary?� He asked rhetorically. “For me, humanity is the basis of African values and it is the basis of what I was taught as a child by my parents and my Ilorin, Sokoto, Koko, Yauri and all the cultures abroad that converged into the values that developed me into the person that I am.

My life’s commitment is to uplift others and contribute my best to the development of my community. To serve God Almighty and be fair and kind to humanity. “I am a very lucky person, the opportunities that I have around the world, as I think I have visited all world’s continents and lived with people from virtually everywhere in the world, as a professor at Illinois, I came across students and staff from virtually everywhere and formed strong ties, networks and associations with them, and from this, I know that I have gained rich experience that has made me into the person I am and what I am able to mobilize in the performance of my job as vice-chancellor of the great UofA of Nigeria! A lifetime service in which God Almighty has been very kind to me and my parents and to which I am forever grateful.�

Reeling out his plans for the ivory tower, he assures that the University of Abuja must be a model university in Nigeria as all plans and vision are geared towards achieving that. “Imagine the massive land we have at the university. The founding fathers then understood that it was a university for the future, and they set machinery in motion to provide a great university that Nigeria deserves at its nation’s capital. That university will bring people and industry and scholars, and researchers and people from around the world to our campus each pursuing what they like to pursue. The UofA must be a tourist attraction apart from being a centre for academic excellence. I see how during big holidays when Abuja residents and visitors have no place else to go apart from Shoprite and the like, they should be able to come to the campus of the great UofA of Nigeria and visit the zoo, botanical gardens, enjoy beautiful mountains, relax in different social and artistic and cultural engagements right on our campus. The UofA will bring businesses and industries that set up joint laboratories and workshops and entrepreneurial stations where our young people, our academics and the industries can innovate and create and contribute massively to national development and advancement of humanity.�

He was in Chicago for over a decade where he became a professor before coming home. Why did he decide to leave the comfort of the US to come back to Kwara as VC? “I came back to give back to my community. Most of us can remember our elementary schools and post-primary schools and university education. This country has given so much to us, public schools that many of us went through charged no fees, instead, we were given books, clothes, food and even journey money to go home and return during holidays, how can anyone not return to such a nation when a call came asking to give back? It was tough because of family and especially young children, it takes the faith in God and the upbringing of our parents and all the foundation already solidly laid in me to draw me like a magnet from the United States of America back home to Nigeria.�

T H I S DAY, T H E S U N DAY N E W S PA P E R ˾ NOVEMBER 1, 2020

51

GLITZ PERSONALITY

The Tranquillity of Muyiwa Oluyeba Filmmaker Muyiwa Oluyeba is a man of few words but is keen on good storytelling and grooming the next generation of filmmakers, writes Vanessa Obioha

F

Oluyeba

or someone who’s been in front and behind the camera, Muyiwa Oluyeba is uncannily shy. He barely speaks in public unless in the company of friends. Even then, his words are not in streams, they are meticulously selected. Part of this may be because of his stutter but there is no mistaking the nimbus of tranquillity that surrounds him.

With a towering height and body build, the film producer paints the picture of a gentle giant.

As we digitally connect from the comfort of our homes, his gentle mien is conspicuous.

It’s in the way he bends his head, almost in obeisance; the modest way he accompanies each answer with polite expressions, and the humble grin that spreads across the corners of his white-bearded mouth.

This matured visage contrasts sharply to the restless youth he was decades ago.

Oluyeba comes from a conservative family.

As a young man, he was groomed to follow the rules: behave properly, dress decently and study to become a lawyer, doctor, banker or an engineer. There was no room for the arts. In his case, he was to become a banker.

But the artist in him rebelled against the rules. He wore his hair in dreadlocks to the ire of an aunt who couldn’t fathom why his father would allow him to wear his hair that way.

“She believed it was a taboo and considered dreadlock generally dirty even though mine was kept clean.”

That encounter brings to mind the recent #EndSARS protest against police brutality.

The scrapped Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) were accused of the wrong profiling of young people as criminals because of their appearances. Oluyeba sees it as an age-old problem.

“The only people that wore dreads those days were reggae artistes and they were known with certain lifestyles. So, the general perception was that whoever had dreads must be living the same way,” he explains.

The filmmaker argues that though the hairstyle is one of the ways to identify a creative person, it doesn’t make them irresponsible.

“People find it hard to believe that an artist can be successful and an intellectual.”The short dreadlocks have since been replaced with a clean shave. Oluyeba ended up bending to the rules by studying banking and finance in Kwara State Polytechnic. He even worked in the bank but not for long.

“I got tired of sitting down in one place. I was very restless.”

That restlessness led him to become a modelling agent, working with companies that needed models for their TV commercials.

Back then, the business was very lucrative.

“I had many female friends from university. If 30 models were needed, 25 of them would come from me,” he reveals.

It was during this period that he met the late filmmaker Amaka Igwe. She pointed his direction to the film industry and Oluyeba has never looked back. Filmmaking, it turns out helped him to tame his restive mind.

Nowadays, he channels that restlessness to creativity.

His first encounter into the make-believe world was with Solar Productions. He would later dabble into visual special effects by partnering with a friend to run a company Mega Visions. The company was responsible for the visual effects in home videos such as ‘Haunted’, and ‘Oshodi Oke’. He also worked with Reuters News Agency and Bi-Communications. The film director owns the Phoenix Visions Limited – a company that offers consultancy services in the broadcast industry.

Today, he is recognised as a filmmaker, a broadcast technology consultant and a director.

Oluyeba acquired most of his filmmaking skills on the job by working with famed filmmakers like Tunde Kelani and Tade Ogidan. He is presently with Zuri24 Media, a production outfit owned by prolific filmmaker Femi Odugbemi. He served as the Series Producer for the critically acclaimed TV series ‘Battleground’. The family drama series was recently adapted in French for the Frenchspeaking world by Cote Quest Audiovisual. It was also dubbed in Yoruba and is reportedly garnering rave views.

Another successful production from the company is the recently concluded series ‘Brethren’, a daily crime show.

“Only 50 per cent of Battleground fans watched ‘Brethren’, the rest was an entirely new audience,” he says.

A campaigner for good storytelling, Oluyeba points out that the Nigerian TV audience has “grown to a point where they understand what they want and they go for it.

They want quality but good storytelling first.

Good storytelling that they can relate with.

They want to be able to identify a character in their neighbours or anyone they know.”

“For instance,” he continues, “it got to a point that people started thinking ‘Brethren’ was a Lagos story, but honestly, we didn’t have that in mind. Everybody knows somebody that has a character in all of our shows. If you can do that to your audience, they will stick with you. It is equally important that you don’t make the story too familiar because the audience is analytical. They always put us on the edge of creativity.”

As 2020 presented unprecedented challenges with the global pandemic and the recent wave of protests against police brutality, the filmmaker sees more narratives woven from the experiences. He advises that filmmakers need to preserve the historical event by deliberately capturing as many perspectives as possible.

“Regarding #EndSARS protest, a good filmmaker will capture the protest from a personal perspective to the perspective of people that were in forefront of the protest; the perspective of government and policymakers, the perspective of families of people that were killed and many more. By the time people can produce documentaries and all sorts of content out of it, I am sure it will go a long way to preserve the event.”

As much as he loves working with the camera, Oluyeba is also keen on grooming budding filmmakers. He takes pleasure in imparting knowledge of filmmaking on them.

Perhaps, that is the only time you will see him divested of his shy nature.

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NOVEMBER ͯ˜ ͰͮͰͮ ˾ THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER

High Life Who is after Tunji Olowolafe?

T

he Chinese say that when an elephant falls, even the ants are quick to come for a bite. That is what is going on among the powers of Lagos State. Since the disheartening Lekki Toll Gate shooting, one public figure after another has been falling from their high stool. Considering the current cloak-and-dagger operations of his adversaries, Tunji Olowolafe is obviously next on the list.

Every resident Lagosian felt the ripples of the Lekki Toll Gate incident, whether small town or bigwig. However, those in the administrative field felt it more than others. Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for instance, was more rattled by the event than his business and political colleagues—on account of his affiliation with the Lekki Concession Company (LCC).

Recent suppositions have it that the rattling of Tinubu is not unrelated to the machinations of Tunji Olowolafe.

According to the reports, Tinubu is the chief object of query and dissatisfaction because Tunji Olowolafe set him up. Why? Because Olowolafe is very unhappy with Tinubu. Why? Because of conflicting business interests.

Tunji Olowolafe is renowned for the extensiveness of his political and business connections, as well as the thickness of these associations.

Reportedly, he is the proud owner of Deux Projects Limited and LCC. Moreover, it wasn’t so long ago that Olowolafe was hailed as the biggest contractor in Lagos. All these facts are proof of the fact that his business ventures and enterprises are his lifeline. Considering the length of Tinubu’s sickle of alliance and loyalty, he might not even break a sweat touching this sickle to Olowolafe’s lifeline—that is what folks are saying.

It is alleged that Olowolafe is set in his ways to oppose Tinubu, all because the latter does not condone the expansion of Olowolafe’s business interests (especially to have LCC taking over Ikoyi-Lekki Link Bridge). Thus, Olowolafe has got into bed with Babatunde Fashola to defang Tinubu and diminish—if not eradicate—his influence.

Those in the know believe that all this is a backhanded effort to slash Tunji Olowolafe and accelerate his downfall.

Needless to say, there are more threatening eyes and intentions at work, and they may just be gunning for Tunji Olowolafe himself, rather than Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu.

Olowolafe

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

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

Support all The Way as Tinubu’s Men Rally Round Him It’s been a few days since the Lekki Toll Gate shooting, and the ripples continue to spread farther than anybody imagined. For many people, life continues. For others, October 20, 2020 is the day things began to really fall apart.

But for the intervention and backing of certain individuals, Tinubu might have fallen into the second category.

It is no secret that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu commands a respectable stake in many flourishing enterprises in Lagos, including The Nation newspaper and TVC Communications. With allegations positioning Tinubu as being responsible for the alleged shoot-out, it was no surprise that these flourishing enterprises were the target of vandals.

Beyond the loss of properties, Tinubu has been the object of manyfanged criticisms. Following the notorious WhatsApp chat alleging that Tinubu sanctioned the shoot-out, Asiwaju’s reputation was sullied beyond recognition. Currently, public figures have begun to speak up regarding Tinubu’s blamelessness in the matter.

It is noteworthy that Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu was amongst the first—when the allegations started piling up—to host Tinubu at his residence. From the Government House, Tinubu was able to defend himself, consoling families that are affected, and promising—on the integrity of Governor Sanwo-Olu—that justice will be served.

The Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, has also taken a firm position either to hold Tinubu responsible or thoroughly investigate the shooting. Insiders reported that the speaker is on the side of Tinubu, and is convinced that there are insidious elements at work that are interested in making the statesman the fall guy.

A host of others have also rallied behind Tinubu, some of whom have openly maintained that he is in no way involved the shooting incident, or the skewed politicking that led to it. Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola (Yayi) has allegedly also taken a stand by Asiwaju Tinubu.

The 2023 presidential election is just

Tinubu

around the corner whether or not the allegations against Tinubu will bear some fruit before then remains to be seen. In the meantime, the statesman is not as caged as his detractors would have him—not with his men and brethren around him.

The World Celebrates Nigeria’s Biggest Philanthropist, Femi Otedola, at 58

Otedola

Femi Otedola is great in many things—businessman and investor, husband and father, all-round public figure. However, to the average news-sensitive Nigerian, Otedola is a philanthropist extraordinaire. On his 58th birthday, felicitations will be pouring in Precious few Nigerians can hold a candle next to the beauty and grace of Gail Fajembola. But for her name, falcon eyes and a faultless Western figure, one might mistake the beautiful lady for those ivory queens that mesmerised the generals of Caesar and Pharaoh alike.

Truth be told, Lady Gail has done—one might even say, continues to do—her bit of mesmerising. But she has been missing in action for quite a while now, and the spotlight of the Nigerian up-and-up society is significantly monotonous without her.

Gail Fajembola is, without mincing words, a super personality for those who can count their onions. With both beauty and brains at her disposal, Fajembola has brought the society on its knees more times than one, although on a considerably micro scale—the scale of the upper classes. An entrepreneur through and through, Fajembola’s reputation in enterprise has been blazing since 2018, when she officially became the MD of Cynosure Interiors and Designs. Regardless, this has not eclipsed her presence on the social scene.

To borrow the words of Homer, the feet of Gail Fajembola are tender

from all angles to celebrate a man whose prestige is built around the people.

Femi Otedola was born on November 4 in the imperial city of Ibadan. Within this length of time, Otedola has managed to give breath to his origin, and he isn’t shaming his forebears at all.

To the business community, Femi Otedola is a champion of long-term investments. Alongside a markedly instinctive grasp of the threads of fortune and Providence, Otedola’s mainstream business polishing is such that he never falls short of the mark, as evidenced by the long strings of success. This is why his former status as Forte Oil Chairman did not at all bruise his other chains of enterprise, especially shipping, real estate and finance.

But who knows Femi Otedola better than his family? His wife, Nana, is lovely and un-aging, and their four kids are their heart and joy. Little needs to be said about his second daughter, Florence Ifeoluwa ‘DJ Cuppy’ Otedola, who is herself a flint off the Otedola gemstone.

But Femi Otedola’s primary status is that of a super philanthropist.

It is rare to find true benefactors, people whose hearts beat for the underprivileged, and to whose credit both friends and foreigners are grateful for every cup and every plateful. Femi Otedola is the people’s darling for this very reason.

From UniUyo lecturer, Inih Ebong, to Super Eagles coach, Christian Chukwu, to Tinsel actor, Victor Olaotan, to former Super Eagles goalkeeper, Peter Fregene, to reggae icon, Majek Fashek, and actor, Sadiq Daba, the number of those who have received life-saving help from Femi Otedola continues to grow. As a reference, Otedola donated $50,000 (19 million) for Chukwu and exactly double that amount (38 million) for Olaotan.

It’s so not unexpected that the world is standing on its toes to wish Femi Otedola a happy 58th birthday and many merry returns. As ThisDay’s Philanthropist of the Decade award has shown (alongside myriad others, including the South African 2019 African Philanthropist of the Year award), the man has earned it.

Where is Gail Fajembola?

Medayese

Fajembola

because she sets her steps not on the ground but on the hearts of men and women.

The rumour of Fajembola’s alleged romantic swing with a former chairman of a defunct bank has only recently lost its bite.

It used to be compound gossip that a word from Fajembola could summon the bank chief from oceans away. Alas, the rumour was never confirmed, although it allegedly did no small damage to his matrimony and prestige.

The most recent of Fajembola’s alleged romance involves oil and gas top shot, Roland. Here again, the rumour mills purported that Ewubare was charmed by Gail Fajembola to an astounding degree, enough to love and to cherish. No confirmation here too.

The last snippets heard of Gail Fajembola is that she is chilling in her luxurious Banana Island apartment, relishing the life of a successful, 52+ years single woman. And while there are shadows of her swagger in high places, the substance remains sorely absent.

NOVEMBER ͯ˜ ͰͮͰͮ ˾ THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER

53

Adebayo Adeoye bayoolunla@gmail.com; 08054680651

SOCIETY WATCH

Ita-Giwa’s Teary Face Melts Hearts of Stone in Cross River

Durotoye

Top Beautician, Tara FelaDurotoye’s Armour She is arguably the biggest name in the make-up business in the country at the moment.

But it is doubtful if Tara FelaDurotoye could have imagined that what she ventured into as a mere passion, while she was an undergraduate student of Law at the Lagos State University, would be a money-spinning venture many years after.

But in reminiscence, one may say that she was being led in hand by Providence when she resolved to follow her first love, make-up art.

Following the opening of the now famous House of Tara, many have come to appreciate that make-up business, contrary to some erroneous beliefs, thrives only on creativity.

She has, in the past years, trained uncountable numbers of younger ones in the art of make-up, some of whom are also doing wonders in the business.

In all of this, she has always recognized God as the unseen hand behind her success, and she submits absolutely to His will.

In other words, her armour against failure is ceaseless prayers.

Only last week, the famous beauty entrepreneur showed her abiding trust in God in the face of the havoc wreaked on her outlet by hoodlums.

The lawyer and beautician had, on Monday, October 26, 2020 taken to her Instagram page and shared videos of her vandalized store.

The high-flying entrepreneur also enjoined other affected entrepreneurs to say after her: “The Sovereign Lord is my strength”, adding that “I got the courage to visit my vandalized store yesterday to see the extent of the damage. The destruction to economic assets in this singular mall alone is disheartening.

“Spoke to some entrepreneurs who are BROKEN as a result. I always find comfort in the book of wisdom. This is where I found comfort today. Habakkuk 3:17-19, which says “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, (A) though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,” yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour.”

A few days ago, Senator Florence ItaGiwa shocked the world with a humane act that melted the hearts of some fire-spitting individuals.

That was when she had bravely moved to plead with a group of youths baying to deal with politicians in her home state, Cross River.

Her presence could not have been less apreciated considering the fact that most Cross River’s aristocrats were so scared stiff and unwilling to approach or plead with the raging youths.

But when Ita-Giwa, a former Senior Special Assistant to former President Olusegun Obasanjo on National Assembly, decided to bell the cat, the Governor of the state, Prof. Ben Ayade, also followed suit and offered them the olive branch.

When the news went viral, many were astounded and even wondered the magic she had wrought in the face of death on bended knees.

But as many are still seeking to know how she had successfully pacified the obviously angry youths on that day, those who know her too well recalled that she had done a similar thing in the past and achieved results at the height of the militancy in the Niger Delta.

Also, the woman of substance, who is endowed with grace and charm, is also said

Ita-Giwa

to have worked her way into the hearts of her people through her genuine humane gestures over the years.

Indeed, in the area of humanitarian services, she has received a lot of kudos.

For her, service to humanity seems to be a covenant she has entered into with her creator.

She is buoyed by Anatole France’s words: “Without genuine love towards humanity, there is no love for motherland.”

To her, giving is like a hobby and she does that effortlessly without blinking her eyes.

Besides, as a bibliophile, she has read a volume of memoirs of great individuals in history who lived exemplary lifestyles. Also in her peregrinations, she has encountered many whose lives have impacted humanity greatly, albeit quietly.

Perhaps, this explains why she has been very supportive of the hoi polloi in the society; she gives without making a noise about it.

Since she left the corridors of power, she has proved to the world that no joy is equal to the joy of serving others.

Her service to her immediate environment is almost unequalled; she expends millions of Naira every year for the education of the less-privileged children she brought out of Bakassi, many of whom school abroad.

Worries over Kola, Ayodeji Karim’s Unresolved Dispute

Karim

Political office, particularly in Nigeria, is sweet.

Power too, in this clime, is loved by many because of all that it confers on the one who is vested with it! Little wonder, brothers, friends and relatives battle one another to a standstill to have it.

If you are in doubt, you would have a rethink when you check out the alleged smoldering war between these two brothers, Kola and Ayodeji Karim.

Society Watch gathered that Kola, owner of Shoreline Natural Resources, had, in late 2018, confided in his brother, Ayodeji, who sits atop Costain West Africa that he wanted to contest the governorship election of Oyo State in 2019.

But Ayodeji, who had reportedly assured his brother of his support to actualise his governorship ambition, later had a change of mind and subsequently launched his own campaign for the same position.

Shocked beyond disbelief, Kola, who saw this as the height of treachery, was said to have vowed to deal with his brother accordingly.

Subsequent developments in the state had, however, made a mess of Ayodeji’s ambition, as he was shown that the business climate is a different ball game from the murky waters of Nigeria’s politics.

Even now, both are still not seeing eyeto-eye, in spite of intervention by friends and families.

In view of this, the question on the lips of many is: Who will reunite these once loving and jolly brothers?

Ayodeji, a businessman-turned politician, had extensive training in the military from the British Army. He heads thriving businesses like Fortis Construction and Costain (West Africa) Plc, among others.

Kola, on the other hand, is the Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Shoreline Energy International Nigeria, a conglomerate with interests that span oil and gas, power generation, engineering, commodities trading, infrastructure and construction across sub-Saharan Africa.

Ex-ICAN Boss, Catherine Okpaleke, Battles Professional Body When Dr. Catherine Okpareke, a former president of Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, approached her friend and professional colleague, Ada Chidume-Okoro, in August 2016, for a N15m loan to complement the money needed for logistics to finance a business plan, little did she know that she was inadvertently inviting trouble upon herself.

She had reportedly promised and also signed an undertaking to pay back the loan with interest, on successful execution of the business.

Sadly, the whole business plan turned awry, as she not only lost her huge investment but also the borrowed money.

In spite of this, it was gathered that she was still committed to the repayment of ChidumeOkoro’s money.

As the popular saying goes, misfortune sometimes comes not singly but in myriads.

And this was the fate that befell Okpareke when she fell ill and was later flown to the United States in 2018 for medical attention, while she was still struggling to recover from the shock of the loss. As if that was not enough, she had to also face ICAN’s disciplinary tribunal on matters bordering on personal transactions as against professional issues.

Perhaps, what seems to have hurt Okpareke most is the fact that she was charged with professional misconduct based on the said personal business transaction between her and Chidume-Okoro.

Miffed by this development, the former

ICAN boss, through her lawyer, approached the Federal High Court, Ikoyi, Lagos urging it to determine whether by virtue of paragraph 1.2.0.(e) and 1.2.5.of chapter 1 of the professional code of conduct and guide of members and section 12(1)(a)of the ICAN Act cap 185 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 1990 her failure to repay a personal loan of N15 million borrowed from her colleague amounts to professional misconduct capable of being investigated and tried by the professional body.

However, in a counter-affidavit sworn to by one Adedamola Adedokun, an officer of ICAN, and filed before the court by a Lagos lawyer, Funke Loko, the body averred that it received a complaint dated November 6, 2017 together with a sworn affidavit dated 7 June, 2017 against Okpareke.

In the said complaint, which had five exhibits attached, the complainant, Chidume-Okoro, alleged that sometime in August 2016, the plaintiff, Okpaleke, approached her for a personal loan of N15 million to carry out an urgent business, with a promise to pay back, within two weeks, the sum of N45 million representing the interest and the principal.

With this, the complainant averred that she had thereafter advanced the said sum to the plaintiff. However, the plaintiff, she claimed, had since failed and neglected to repay the principal loan as well as the agreed interest despite repeated demands.

Consequently, upon receipt of the complaint

Okpaleke

and in line with its procedures by a letter dated December 19, 2017, the panel secretariat had requested Okpaleke’s comments to the complaint within 14 days of receipt of the letter.

The body also submitted that reminders were sent to Okpareke, while both parties were summoned to appear before the panel investigating the matter.

But because Okpareke allegedly failed to turn up, the matter was, thereafter, referred to the Accountants’ Disciplinary Tribunal for prosecution on act of professional misconduct.

But Okpareke was said to have filed a legal action rather than continuing the process at the tribunal, even when she is aware that the body’s decision can only be appealed against at the Court of Appeal.

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NOVEMBER 1, 2020 ˾ THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER

LOUD WHISPERS

with JOSEPH EDGAR (09095325791)

Babajide Sanwo–Olu –Restraint is Key Bro, you have to slow down a bit. I know you are trying your very best to calm things down and ensure that we achieve normalcy in no time.

This your abutata tactic is causing more damage.

The way you are making proclamations that will now turn around not to be totally correct is not making the best of our situation. Me, I like you.

You have my support that is why I am writing

this at this point. If not, I for just keep quiet and be doing my own thing.

First, nobody died. Then someone died and then off to CNN and then back to all sorts of media organisations, even on social media opening yourself up to ridicule.

Calm down, bro. These things will even themselves out. The most important thing is your sincerity which I am very sure is not in doubt. Me I am even

NGOZI OKONJO IWEALA – A SILVER LINING? With the way things have been happening all over, Nigerians are in dire need of just one positive story no matter how minute. That is why we have been seeing so many proclamations of our mummy and aunty as the new director general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The fact that most of us do not even know what they do in that place or where it is stationed for all it matters has not stopped us from fighting for her presidency. We still need something to latch on in this dour and sad period. With Nigeria and Nigerians at our lowest ebb in national cohesion, this positive news will go a long way to give us a tiny glimmer of hope. The fact that the US is still not standing with her on this and also that she now carries an American citizenship has not stopped or even reduced the patriotic zeal.

We just want something to hold on to. She will emerge, she has to, if for nothing else we need the PR fix. God will make it happen. Oya prayers!

beginning to reconsider Buhari’s tactic of not even saying anything. Even though that one is taking his own to the extreme but you as governor must be very tactical and strategic in your utterances otherwise, they will be dragging you like the way these children are dragging you all over Twitter. Calm down, you are on track and I know God will guide and protect you. It cannot be easy.

his home and the warm bosom of his very beautiful Onari to go try calm nerves must be commended.

He apologized, he exhorted, he begged and he stated that all exgovernors would have to at some point apologize for the wrongs. This was my leader; I supported his run for the presidency even though I had said it was half-hearted but his presidency would have surely taken a different path from the taciturn and very detached one we are seeing now. Well done, Akpaneka.

Blessing!

DONALD DUKE – MY LEADER Of all the video clips during this wahala, it was the one of former Governor of Cross River State, Mr. Donald Duke, that really caught my attention. He confronted some very angry people and engaged them. The fact that this would have been very impossible if locations were changed from Calabar to Orile or Mushin is not lost on me but the courage to leave the comfort of

SENATOR ITA-GIWA – A BORN PEACEMAKER AND PACIFIER As I was watching footages of the mayhem being unleashed in Calabar, I suddenly remembered my Mummy that I had not heard from her in a bit. So, I placed a call and she picked and I was relieved.

Mbok, you should eat her afang at that her place on Victoria Island and you will understand my trepidation.

She was fine but was preparing to go into the creeks to meet with the Bakassi boys, saying that if those ones start their own, it is not palliative looting we will be seeing.

She was excited and energetic and I was happy for her. She invited me to join her on the trip. I say no thank you, my mandate no reach that one before one funny rebel will go and pluck my eyes. I wished her well and told her to call me when she come back that I will be waiting. She laughed and said, ‘This my son, what will I do with you?’

I say mummy just come back and tell your girls to send me the afang you promised. I am not Buhari, I do

Iweala

Duke

Sanwo-Olu

not have 15m votes and Adesina is not my spokesman, just give me my own afang and that is my own palliative. Mummy I have not heard from you since. I hope you are still not inside the creeks and if you are still there, I hope you have signal on your phone to send to your girls that I will be there on Sunday.

Please nothing must do my afang, like I say, no be me get national mandate. I cannot suffer when him day for Aso Rock dey pick teeth.

Thank you.

his studios with a brilliant idea for something much bigger. Watch out.

KELECHI AMADI OBI – A ‘MAD’ GENIUS I got to better understand this ‘mad’ genius on a trip to Accra with Mudi. We had gone to give Mudi support. Mudi was showing at a huge Ghanaian Fashion Festival. I saw Kelechi in action. The fixation with his camera and its angles were just so intoxicating. The lengths he had to go to capture the perfect shot was amusing to watch. At some point, I was wondering if we may need an orthopedic surgeon by the time we were through. The way he was wringing his neck, with his legs in the air and his head on the floor just to capture a shot was incredible. It was also on that trip that I found out that he was first, a painter, before making his name as yet one of the most influential contemporary photographers in our clime. I spent one morning last week in his studios trying to get him to write the foreword to my upcoming book, Anonymous Nipples, and must say I came out of that session after listening to him, going through

IT’S JOSEPH OLOFINSOLA ALL THE WAY My position is very clear and that is, we cannot begin to change the narrative in our political process as a nation from the Presidency. It must come from the community level especially with those who should understand the issues and the know-how. It is on this that I am giving my very strong endorsement to this my brother, Joseph Olofinsola, as chairman for our Estate in Magodo. I am sorry if you begin to wonder wetin concern una with Magodo. The estate has over 5,000 units with thousands of residents from all over the country.

It is a microcosm of Nigeria so the issues that bedevil our country have seeped into it. For me, this is a classic test case to see if we can get it right by trying from this little sample case. Joseph has run an above-the-board campaign on very strong issues of infrastructural development and security. The others have been pushing the usual ethnic and shallow-based vehicles hoping to secure votes based on primordial sentiments. The same thing we lament in national politics. This process must throw up the best - the ones who focus on issues and capacity. Once we can achieve the change in the narrative at the community level and escalate all over, then we just might see true change in this generation. So, for me, na Joseph. I go pay my dues this week. Well done, bro.

Ita-Giwa

Obi

ARTS & REVIEW A

PUBLICATION

01.11.2020

DIGITAL REVOLUTION AS HOPE FOR PRESERVINGARTS,CULTURALHERITAGE Cover continued on Page 56 Idia mask

EDITOR OKECHUKWU UWAEZUOKE/ okechukwu.uwaezuoke@thisdaylive.com

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ARTS & REVIEW\\DOCUMENTATION

DIGITAL REVOLUTION AS HOPE FOR PRESERVINGARTS,CULTURALHERITAGE Digitising Nigeria’s arts and cultural heritage is crucial to protecting archival materials following the attacks on one of the long-standing colonial heritage by some arsonists in Lagos, writes Yinka Olatunbosun

T

he news on October 21 was spine-chilling. One of the surviving homes of colonial artefacts, the High Court of Lagos State, Igbosere had been razed down by arsonists during the curfew period that trailed the post-EndSARS violence. The court is the oldest judicial building in Nigeria, dating back to the period of the cession of Lagos to the British colonial government. Lagos was made the capital of Nigeria after the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern protectorates. Initially known as the Supreme Court in colonial Lagos, this burnt edifice housed the picture gallery of past colonial judges and the earliest known Chief Judges in Lagos as well as other colonial records dating back to 1860s. Similarly, the newlybuilt Lagos Theatre, Oregun which is yet to be open to public use was torched. That was a worrisome development to many artists and cultural activists.

The German Cultural centre, Goethe-Institut, Lagos was not spared in this spree of vandalism. As the hoodlums swarmed the Lagos City Hall at Lagos Island where the German cultural hub is domiciled, the Goethe Institut has announced its temporary closure. Interestingly, Goethe Institut, Nigeria has been one of the cultural institutions in Nigeria that had organised workshops and conversations with stakeholders in Nigeria’s cultural sector with the view to reforming the process of archiving cultural and historical materials. Also, famous Lagos collectors, curators and senior cultural workers at the National Museum in Lagos had been involved in some of these talk sessions that are aimed at canvassing for a digital revolution that would preserve what is left of Nigeria’s cultural heritage. Through its programmes, Goethe-Institut, Nigeria had explored the possibility of cross-pollinating arts and technology. In many cultural sites across the globe, efforts had been made to make new media installations that may include videos, photographs and voice overs that can transport a viewer through history.

In recent media reports, the state of the National Archives of Nigeria in Ibadan, Enugu and Kaduna had been described as deplorable. Many visitors had corroborated this finding. The archival facilities are poorly funded, parading obsolete equipment and without websites for quick online access. Many Nigerians are even unaware of their existence. Scholars in history and arts across Nigeria had deliberated on how to revamp these cultural institutions.

One of the first steps to digital archiving was taken by the Pan-Atlantic University (PAU) with its Centenary Project in 2014.

The project was aimed at digitally capturing and showcasing the cultural and historical expressions of Nigeria as a nation and to inform and educate the world about its creative treasures. Most of the exhibits can be accessed on Google Arts and Culture. Asides this institutions, some private individuals have established their own platforms to create digital archives on Nigerian history and culture. One of them is ASIRI Magazine, founded in 2013 by Oludamola Adebowale, a curator and cultural activist. ASIRI introduced history to new audiences with the aid of technology.

“ASIRI Magazine was created to digitalise Nigerian history,’’

Lagos High Court after its destruction by hoodlums Adebowale said in an exclusive interview. “It was also based on the s that the world has turned into a global village. Writing about history in books won’t go anywhere. I want people in the diaspora to connect with the Nigerian history and learn it at their fingertips. The reason why I started ASIRI was to get history on-the-go. We started with a digital magazine 10MB. It was very expensive to reproduce so after we were done with it, we were able to produce eight editions which were translated into 11 languages. Right now, we are telling actual stories about Nigerian history and culture. And that is what we have done for the last seven years impacting an average audience of about 1.8m users on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram platforms. We have a lot of content on Nigerian history and culture that you can actually see on our platforms.”

Adebowale, who had curated exhibitions on iconic figures in Nigerian history such as Professor Wole Soyinka, Chief Ebenezer Obey, Fela Sowande and Ayinla Omo-Wura, revealed some of the on-going projects that would revolutionalise the system of documenting Nigeria’s cultural heritage.

“We are trying to create an online museum of Nigerian history,” he said. “We have a lot of materials that we have gathered over the years and a lot of associates. Having curated a museum booth for Chief Ebenezer Obey at the Federal Polytechnic, Osiele,

Abeokuta, and others, I have people who are willing to contribute artefacts that we can put in the online museum. Some of them are collectors of Nigerian visual arts and music. We are trying to build a rich online museum and we are still looking for funds to achieve that before the end of December. We will also create an ASIRI App where we can archive and create a database on Nigeria’s cultural heritage. The App will become a database for anything on Nigerian history and you can search for topics for research purposes.”

The ASIRI brand has been associated with campaigns towards digitising history and culture. At the moment, ASIRI is set to partner with Rockefeller Foundation on a project that will be kicking off next week on curating a digital content to celebrate Nigeria at 60.

“It is a year-long celebration. We will be collaborating with other archival organisations outside Nigeria on ASIRI Magazine art project. ASIRI will be doing more projects in future and continue with advocating for the digitization of Nigerian history and cultural heritage. Apart from what we do as an organization, we also put ourselves in position to consult for the government to digitalise archive centres around the country. It is about time that we move these platforms into a digital space and spin it out as a source of revenue,’’ he declared.

EXHIBITION NURTURING MASTERLYDREAMS, MYDRIM NOWHOSTS GENERATIONS 4 ON NOV. 8 Okechukwu Uwaezuoke

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ould this be a subtle act of defiance against the stormdriven tide of conceptualism?

This is not only what Generations 4: The Future Masters Series looks like, but it is also what the declared intention of the organisers corroborates.

For four uninterrupted years, the juried annual exhibition has been unwavering in its stated objective, which it says is “to raise the deteriorating standards of craftsmanship by promoting young skilled artists...” Perhaps, it would be better to substitute the word “craftsmanship” with “draughtsmanship” for better understanding.

This year, eight artists – described as both “talented” and “young” – are being featured in the group exhibition, whose opening date has been shifted from Saturday, October 31 to Saturday, November 8. The artists – Ademuyiwa Ladega, Akintomide Aluko, Akintunde Odesola, Ayooluwa Akinrinola, Opeyemi Olukotun, Olalekan Adebiyi, Folashade Fagorusi and Tosin Toromade – express themselves in such well-known traditional mediums as oil, acrylic, pastel, charcoal, metal and wood. Their works,

enthuses the Mydrim Gallery's director, Sinmidele Adesanya, “make very interesting viewing. We are happy that after each edition of this exhibition, the artists benefit from additional exhibition opportunities.”

Talking about this exhibition, it is an initiative of a leading Nigerian artist Abiodun Olaku, who is renowned for his realistic landscape paintings, in collaboration with the Ikoyi, Lagos-based gallery.

Olaku, whose faith in the artists’ “unadulterated creative prowess” is unshaken, looks forward to their becoming reckoned with as future masters.

But then, how does this purist allusion to masterhood skirt around potential minefields of controversy? To the gallery, this exhibition is just one of its annual endeavours to promote excellence in the visual arts space. Yet, it chimes well with its plans of “reviving sound art practice based on firm foundational principles of observation, creativity, skill and draughtsmanship.”

Judgemental though this position may sound to the partisans of the modern artistic trends, it appeals to the sensibilities of many artists who feel left behind by the ever-shifting boundaries of what qualifies to be called art. Back to the exhibiting artists, who are so to speak the bastions of resistance against the rampaging conceptualism. They have been hailed by the renowned Nigerian art educationist, Dr Kunle Filani as “young and dynamic individual artists”. Indeed, the only female among them, Folashade Fagorusi, would have been part of a Nigerian Off exhibition

at this year’s edition of the Dakar Art Biennale (called Dak’Art), which was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic. This was because she was one of the Life in My City Art Festival’s top 12 winners – six each from the 2018 and 2019 – whose all-expenses-paid trip to the Senegalese capital was to be sponsored

by Professor El Anatsui. Athree-time category prize-winner at the Life in My City Art Festival grand finale exhibitions in Enugu – in 2015, 2016 and 2019 – the Obafemi Awolowo University graduate was selected to represent Nigeria at the International Women Art Exhibition and Conference in Dubai, UAE in 2019 and 2020. She was also The Entrepreneur Africa Awards 2019 nominee in the Creative Arts Category and was featured in the fifth edition of the book, Women Artists around the World in 2020.

Among Fogorusi’s seven male co-exhibitors, two (Olalekan Adebiyi and Ayooluwa Akinrinola) are sculptors, while the rest are painters.

Dr Filani sees the “the variety of sub-styles, materiality and creativity that each generation of Nigerian artists adds to the visual arts field” as the “most significant impact of the continuing tradition of naturalism”. He also hails the gallery’s “seeming specialisation in naturalistic style”, which he says makes it “more professional and far-sighted.”

Against the Light I Charcoal on paper Signed and dated 2019 (Lower left) 71.1 x 60.9cm (28 x 20inches)

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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 ˾ NOVEMBER 1,2020

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Editor:Olawale Olaleye Email:wale.olaleye@thisdaylive.com, SMS: 08116759819

IN THE ARENA

#EndSARS: As Judicial Panels Settle Down to Work Hope or despair beckons as the Judicial Panels of inquiry ordered by the presidency across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, to investigate allegations of grievous human rights violations by the defunct Special Armed Robbery Squad, set sail. Louis Achi writes

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ccording to the late US Ambassador to the UN, Richard Holbrooke, “Freedom is the Century’s most powerful idea, but the struggle is far from over.” Modern discourse over the nature of evil is still an infectious subject. The debate goes back to Socrates, who argued that anyone acquainted with good could not intentionally choose evil instead.

As it were, actions and inactions under Nigeria’s leaders apparently confound modern ideas about good and evil. They saw and still see it as no less than matters of taste, reflections of social class, power and status. But the recent upheavals sparked by angered youths have apparently challenged old assumptions and put the nation’s fractured elite on the spot.

The National Executive Council (NEC), chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, had ordered the setting up, across the 36 states and Federal Capital Territory Abuja, of judicial panels of inquiry, to x-ray and remediate allegations of numbing, bloody infamy against the special police squad (SARS).

This followed the well-organised peaceful protests by the nation’s youths demanding an end to the bloody reign of SARS, and subsequent contrived infiltration of its ranks and the bloody Lagos Lekki tollgate shooting.

Given its natural socio-political centrality, Lagos State significantly bore the brunt of both the SARS impunity and youth reaction. But if the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry’s recent experience in its outing to Ikoyi Military Hospital in Lagos is indicative of the toughness or fogginess of the task ahead, then, Nigerians may need to mute their Uhuru song.

The Lagos State Government had inaugurated an 8-man Judicial Panel of Inquiry and Restitution to investigate cases of police brutality in the state even as the protests continued. Lagos State Governor, Babajide revealed this.

“In Lagos, beyond setting up this panel, which we hope will serve as a representation of our broader interests, we have established a N200 million fund for compensation to families and individuals, who have been victimised by officers of the disbanded SARS,” the governor said.

He added that the Lagos Government had witnessed the cries of the youth against police brutality and admitted that the pains were legitimate.

“We have witnessed the protests of our youth against police brutality. The pain of this generation has been felt in various parts of our state and country, as well as in the diaspora, all speaking with one voice against the unbridled violation of their rights and lives,” he further said.

Members of the Lagos State Panel include Justice Doris Okuwobi (Rtd), Chairman of the panel; Rinu Oduala and Temitope Majekodunmi.

Others are Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa; Director, Lagos State Directorate of Citizen’s Rights, Mrs Oluwatoyin Odusanya; a representative of the civil society groups, Ms Patience Udoh, and a hu-

Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu with President Muhammadu Buhari, when the governor submitted a letter containing the demands of the end SARS protesters man rights activist, Lucas Koyejo, the Zonal Coordinator (South-West Zone), National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), and Mr Segun Awosanya (Segalink).

Military personnel, who claimed they could not be allowed in except they get a directive from their superior, initially denied the impressive panel and accompanying journalists, access to the hospital.

The military personnel apparently were not impressed, when a member of the panel, Adegboruwa, SAN, told them that they were not just at the Ikoyi Military Hospital, controlled by 65 Battalion, on the authority of the governor of Lagos State, but also that of the president.

According to Adegboruwa, “We have confidential information that facilities at the Military Hospital in Ikoyi here may be relevant to our investigation, we have a pathologist with us and our interest is to inspect the Mortuary hospital, we don’t know what we would find there.

“The visit to the Military hospital absolutely has something to do with the Lekki event of the 20th of October 2020. Well, like I said, we have no conclusion in our minds as to what we would find here. But we have

intelligence to the extent that our work requires that we inspect the mortuary of the military hospital of here.”

When newsmen sought to know what the panel will do if the military ultimately denied them access to the hospital facilities they needed to see, the learned silk stated, “We would take up, other options. There are other options open to us. If we are not allowed access, we can’t force ourselves on them. If they don’t allow us access, we would go back and take other options.”

Also, five bullet shells were found at the scene of the Lekki tollgate, protest venue of the #ENDSARS, October 20, 2020, shootings, during the Lagos State Judicial panel’s visit to the tollgate.

The emerging consensus then is that if hurdles were continuously put in the path of the judicial panels across the country, then, not much substantial progress would be expected. However, giving teeth to the sincerity of the presidential directive might become dubious at best.

When threats produce resolve, when terror engenders courage, when an ultimate challenge to principles has the effect of making principles stronger, then, certainly the flip side of evil is good. The Nigerian youths’ message resonates.

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

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Fashola

Talking About ‘Agent Fash’

he Minister of Works and former governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, was in the news for the better part of last week, as he was pilloried by some Nigerian youths for discovering a “mystery camcorder” at the Lekki Toll Plaza, after many rounds of cleaning. They’d insinuated that the camcorder was not only planted but part of the game plan by the government to decimate the facts of the alleged Lekki shooting by soldiers.

But, how about getting a bit experimental? First off, Fashola was not at the scene alone or by accident. He was there on a visit with some of his colleagues from the federal executive cabinet and governors. Two, there were media representatives from all over the country, many of whom had arrived the scene before the visitors.

Therefore, while the social media, as it is typical, had gone on overdrive, literally making a joke of the scene as though it was impossible, not one of the media representatives had come up to give a more critical account of what really happened, but almost

pandering to the social media sentiments, all of which were lacking, both in substance and sound reasoning.

Above all, assuming the camcorder was critical to unraveling the answers to the many Lekki questions, how has it as evidence been tampered with? A camcorder was found, picked up with a piece of cloth and handed over to the authority, what was out of place in that? Sadly, they were quick to first question the possibility of discovering anything in the place after several cleanings.

That belies logic.

Two, they queried the fact that Fashola almost had a piece of cloth waiting to be used. Does it not sound pedestrian? And now, you’re claiming evidence had been tampered with. How? Was the camcorder opened or viewed at the scene? Was the content edited there? Was it picked up with bare hands? Just how exactly was evidence tampered with?

Whatever it is, the herd mentality of the social media space has shown to be of no serious value to any content debate and this particular incident is not an exception. After all, the social media has proven to be as much a blessing and a curse, perhaps, in equal measures. And to ‘Agent Fash’, well done!

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˾ NOVEMBER 1, 2020

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BRIEFINGNOTES Mahmood Yakubu: A Chance to Right the Wrongs The reappointment of Professor Mahmoud Yakubu as Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, has presented him with a rare opportunity to conclusively see to some of the ongoing reforms in the nation’s electoral system, writes Shola Oyeyipo

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he announcement by President Muhammadu Buhari that the Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission, Professor Mahmood Yakubu has been reappointed, and his name forwarded to the Senate for confirmation, was not unexpected and many analysts are of the opinion that the government took the best decision in the circumstance.

The reasons are not far-fetched. But crucial is because there is a need for the current INEC leadership to sustain the recent level of improvement in the general conduct of elections, ensure reforms that would make the votes count and actualise the president’s promise to reform the electoral process.

The main problem confronting Nigeria’s democratic system has been the inability of INEC to get to the point where it conducts hitch-free, transparent, fair, and credible elections. This challenge is one that every successive chairman of the electoral body has made frantic efforts to confront with little success.

There was pressure on Yakubu’s predecessor, Prof Attahiru Jega, acclaimed to have conducted one of the freest elections in Nigeria’s modern political history in 2015, to have a second term as the INEC chairman so as to improve upon the good work he started.

But he declined the offer. So, in line with the provision of Section 154 (1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), President Buhari presented the incumbent INEC chairman to the Senate for confirmation.

With the ruling APC dominating the Senate and the applauds he is getting even from the opposition parties over the recent Edo and Ondo States elections, it is expected that he would be confirmed without any serious opposition from the lawmakers.

Yakubu..an instructive second chance This would make Yakubu, who was first appointed as INEC chairman in November 2015, the first INEC chairman to have a second term and serve for 10 years, backSenate. to-back. He would also be the first chair of the commission to But Yakubu has said time and time again that elections have supervised two presidential elections. were declared inconclusive whenever violence perpetrated However, the debate among Nigerians has been whether by political thugs prevented INEC officials from carrying out or not he really deserved such a consideration going by his their electoral duties. Politicians sponsor violence; hire thugs record at the initial stage. His critics are likely to antagonise to snatch ballot boxes, mutilate election results and try to take President Buhari’s choice of Yakubu on the grounds that at over election on the field and create situations that often lead the inception of his tenure, a number of elections conducted to inconclusive elections. were poorly done and largely inconclusive.

According to him, the best option open to INEC was to Within his first 11 months in office, INEC conducted 163 declare elections inconclusive in such circumstances, when elections and 21 of them were inconclusive. Notable was the the number of cancelled ballots based on Permanent Voting off-season governorship election in Kogi Sate, when former Cards (PVCs) is more than the number of votes separating governor and All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, the the winner and the person coming second. late Alhaji Abubakar Audu, died while the election was still Drawing inference from what transpired in Akun, on. That unprecedented development put Yakubu’s INEC in Nasarawa State, during one of his media interviews, Yakubu a precarious, albeit constitutional situation. noted that whereas there were 1,181 registered voters, 200 The era of inconclusive election under Yakubu’s watch did accredited voters and 779 valid votes, making additional 579 not go down well with a lot of Nigerians and he also did not votes, he queried the excess. get fair commentaries from the media.

There is no doubt that the Yakubu-led INEC has been makThis is particularly so, because despite the activities of the ing frantic efforts to change the narratives about the Nigerian Boko Haram insurgency, inadequate infrastructure, and the electoral system. He is trying to introduce openness into the do-or-die attitude of politicians, four political parties merged process of collating results and announcing it. into APC, contested against the then ruling Peoples DemoThis was part of why the recent elections in Edo and Ondo cratic Party (PDP) president in the 2015 presidential election, States were acceptable as credible, because INEC deployed won the presidency, and a lot of governorship positions INEC Result Viewing (IReV) that enabled Nigerians to with majority in both the House of Representatives and the view Polling Unit results real time for as long as the collation

lasted.

The viewing portal, where results were uploaded at every level of the collation process, made it practically impossible for anyone to tamper with the results. The simultaneous accreditation and voting process invented under his leadership has significantly helped in reducing time spent at polling units by voters and in effect, improved time spent voting.

Likewise, the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) conducted between April 27, 2017 and August 31, 2018, significantly helped in capturing more voters. Before, the total number of registered voters in Nigeria was 69,720, 350 but with the CVR across the country, 14, 283, 734 new voters were registered bringing the total number of registered voters to 84, 004, 084.

Though Yakubu is already working on the idea of electronic voting, expectation is that given the rare opportunity to serve a second term, he should endevour to really overhaul the Nigerian electoral system by bringing in more technological innovations, and electoral reforms that would make votes count.

Already, the reforms in INEC are making some of the politicians reconsider their tactics as the rate of electoral violence is reducing, although they are largely resorting to vote buying instead.

Curiously, Nigeria’s main opposition party, the PDP did not oppose Yakubu’s reappointment, instead, the party advised him to use the opportunity to deliver credible and conclusive elections. The party also urged him to use the next five years to fix all the problems he encountered during his first five years.

PDP’s spokesperson, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, said in a statement that the INEC boss has the delicate responsibility of preserving the fate, hope and future of over 200 million Nigerians as well as that of generations yet unborn.

Also, the National Chairman, the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), Dr. Leonard Nzenwa, attributed the success of the Edo and Ondo elections to the introduction of technology and digitization brought in by Yakubu.

“We urge him (Yakubu) to continue with the strident effort to help in the reformation of the electoral process, even as we urge the chairman to put his foot down to ensure that Nigerians’ votes count in all elections in the country, going forward,” he said.

There is no point belabouring the matter, what every Nigerian want is an electoral umpire that is able to conduct credible elections, therefore, Yakubu must put forward wellinformed reforms with global best practices to the National Assembly.

The INEC boss has earned his date with destiny as the first ever-electoral boss in Nigeria to be nominated twice, in addition to being the first to superintend over two presidential polls. He is believed to have demonstrated commitment to reforming the electoral process in the country and a lot of Nigerians will be watching to see what he makes of the next five years.

NOTES FOR FILE

Again, Ngozi Is in the Eyes of the World!

Okonjo-Iweala

In its March 31, 2012 edition, The Economist, in the run-up to the race for the World Bank Presidency, did a special edition on Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a renowned global economic and finance expert with requisite knowledge in governance, titled: “Hats Off to Ngozi”.

With a thematic introduction that states: “A golden opportunity for the rest of the world to show Barack Obama the meaning of meritocracy”, The Economist made no pretence about where it stood.

Reeling off the facts to justify its position, The Economist stated: “When economists from the World Bank visit poor countries to dispense cash and advice, they routinely tell governments to reject cronyism and fill each important job with the best candidate available. It is good advice. The World Bank should take it. In appointing its next president,

the bank’s board should reject the nominee of its most influential shareholder, America, and pick Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.”

But that didn’t wrap it up for the foremost magazine. The subsequent paragraph did. Here: “The World Bank is the world’s premier development institution. Its boss needs experience in government, in economics and in finance (it is a bank, after all). He or she should have a broad record in development, too. Ms. Okonjo-Iweala has all these attributes, and Colombia’s José Antonio Ocampo has a couple. By contrast, Jim Yong Kim, the American public-health professor, whom Barack Obama wants to impose on the bank, has at most one.”

Today, again, Okonjo-Iweala isn’t just on the verge of history, history, as it is fast unfolding, is about to repeat itself. Her nomination to the Word Trade

Organisation as the next DG was not without some reservations by those supposedly intimidated by her well-off resume, even more confounding are the hurdles being daily mounted in her way just so she did not get the job.

With America openly opposed to her choice despite the overwhelming support from the rest of the world, the same way the Obama presidency stood in her to the World Bank leadership, perhaps, the rest of the world would come together this one time to prove they are not subservient in an affair that is structurally collegiate.

Therefore, as the world looks up to November 9th for that critical choice between merit and favouritism, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala remains the one democratic choice that ticks all the boxes for the desirable WTO job. Fingers crossed!

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˾ NOVEMBER 1,2020

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#EndSARS Panel and The Weighty Allegations Against Police Poster Boy, Abba Kyari Until a begrudged businessman stepped onto the stage of the Lagos State (#EndSARS) Judicial Panel of Inquiry, there were only kudos for DCP Abba Kyari, the commander of the Inspector General of Police’s Intelligence Response Team, setting the scene for the scrutiny of one of Nigeria’s most decorated police officer, writes Bayo Akinloye

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hen a begrudged businessman, Afeez Mojeed, opened a can of worms in a petition to the Lagos State (#EndSARS) Judicial Panel of Inquiry that Nigeria’s arguably most decorated policeman, Abba Kyari, extorted N41 million from him, it may seem easy to pronounce the cop guilty as charged.

Until that weighty allegation, Kyari – considered a super-cop and incorruptible – was viewed as one of the very few exemplary Nigerian policemen. He has records to back that up. From the Presidency to the House of Representatives, Kyari is held to the highest esteem.

A deputy commissioner of police, Kyari, is the commander of the Inspector General of Police’s Intelligence Response Team. He has been credited with more than 80 high-profile arrests in Nigeria and is considered as the most decorated police officer in the country.

In 2016, President Muhammadu Buhari honoured him with the presidential medal for courage. A couple of years earlier, the Nigerian Police Force awarded Kyari the commendation medal for courage, three years in a row – 2012, 2013 and 2014. In 2011, 2012 and 2013, the Lagos State government honoured him with the Governor’s Award for Gallantry, Leadership and Service Excellence.

Kyari is just 45 years old and considered one of the very few Nigerian policemen untainted by corruption and extrajudicial brutality but Mojeed’s accusations against him are sordid; illustrating details as dark as a bad cop’s thriller movie.

Kyari has denied the weighty allegation. His counsel, Barrister Hanzu Nuhu, said the businessman was playing the victim when, in fact, he is the culprit.

Nuhu explained, “Afeez Mojeed defrauded a victim of N94 million. He was arrested six years ago and N41 million was recovered from the proceeds of the crime which he voluntarily paid the victim back directly through the victim’s account.

“He confessed on video and in writing that he bought Honda Account 2008 model and N7 million land from the N94 million he defrauded and that he has squandered the remaining N31 million on hotels and girlfriends.

“He submitted the car and land documents which were registered as exhibit before He was charged to court and after some years he was discharged not acquitted from court because the complainant was not coming to court as most Nigerians do.”

Here is a snapshot of what Mojeed is accusing Kyari of: the businessman said the policeman while in charge of the publicly-dreaded but now disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) extorted N41 million from him in 2014 and was detained for 14 days.

“It is our client’s brief that on 18th October, 2014 at about 8.30 pm — 9.00 pm, he was at home his wife who was five months pregnant, his 18-month old son and his mother-in-law, when suddenly he heard a bang on his door and within minutes, the banging continued unabated and he started hearing loud noise screaming, ‘Open the door now or you will hate yourself if we come in.’

“That our client and his people were confused as they did not know what was going on and who was after their lives. Before one could say ‘Jack Robinson’ the door had been pulled down and four impostors burst in with gun in their hands and asked them to lie face down and started ransacking the house.

“In the process, they forcefully took his wedding ring and that of his wife from them, opened their wardrobe and took the sum of N280, 000 (Two Hundred and Eighty Thousand Naira Only) and the sum of N50, 0OO (Fifty Thousand Naira only) was also taken from his car, after which the Honda Accord (2008) model car was seized and taken away to date.”

According to Mojeed, the police seized from him “iPhone 5 worth N135,000; Airtel Phone — N7,000; Nokia Phone – 15,000; German invitation letter; landed properties documents; two shops documents; a set of wedding rings; dell laptop; Diamond Bank cheque book; Zenith Bank cheque book; and Zenith Bank ATM card. The petitioner said he was later arraigned on “trumped-up charges.”

These allegations are reminiscent of a 2017 allegation against Kyari and his team. But it was dismissed by the police and it appeared nobody paid attention to it, largely because the accusation came from a discredited source.

Olukoya Ogungbeje, counsel for alleged kidnap kingpin, Chukwudumeme Onwuamadike (Evans),

DCP, Abba Kyari petitioned the Police Service Commission, calling for the probe of the policemen who handled the case of his client. In a petition dated October 13, 2017, it was alleged that members of the Inspector General of Police Intelligence Response Team extorted Evans.

The team, led by Kyari, was said to have “forcefully and corruptly extorted” from Evans cash in local and foreign currency as well as various items including phones, wrist watches, jewellery, television, cars and trucks; that the policemen took N50 million from Evans, while his wife was also forced to part with another N5 million; that $10,000, was also forcibly taken from the suspect by the police.

Other items allegedly taken from Evans by the police, according to the petition were a Brigade wristwatch, valued at $117; a pendant cross, worth $70,000; a necklace, worth $25,000; a Virtu phone, worth $30,000; a Virtu Signature phone, valued at $17,000; and five pieces of Saphono Ruccu diamond rings worth $100,000. Others included 85-inch Samsung TV, worth N6.5m in Evans’ apartment; 25 Mack trucks; a Lexus 470 SUV; a Grand Cherokee jeep; a L400 Mitsubishi bus and a gold-coloured Toyota Highlander SUV. Apart from Kyari, other policemen mentioned in the petition were ASP Phillip Rieninwa, who was specifically accused of obtaining $10,000 from the suspect; ASP Sunny Ubua; ASP Emmanuel Ali; Inspector Idowu Haruna; Inspector Egunjobi Segun and “other policemen attached to the IGP Intelligence Response Team.”

Kyari’s team was also accused of sexually “molesting” and “abusing” Evans’ girlfriend, Amaka Offor.

The police had denied any wrongdoing in the alleged extortion of Evans.

But there is the ring to the latest accusation against

Kyari: extortion. Mojeed claimed in his petition that he was arraigned for stealing N97 million and for over one year that the matter was in court, the police did not show up or brought any witness, after several adjournments.

The case was eventually struck out.

“It needs be pointed out that,” stated the businessman’s lawyer, “while in detention, the police under the supervision and threat by Abba Kyari (OC SARS) forced him (Mojeed) to sign three Zenith Bank cheques in the sum of N150,000 each making N450,000 in total on October 2-23, 2014 and gave same to One Alabi Olawale Nurudeen, who is also one of their cronies to withdraw.

“They also forcibly obtained the password to his ATM card of this same bank with which they withdrew from his account severally from 20 – 23 October, 2014 to the tune of N395,000. As if these were not enough, the police, led by one Inspector Fola, Corporal Bolu Corporal Akeem under the directive of Abba Kyari and J. Okeke (second-in-command of SARS) Ikeja then took our client to Diamond Bank, Ajah Branch, on 23 and 24 October, 2014 to forcefully transfer the sum of N41, 000, 000 and N800,000, respectively from his corporate account, M. Mateen Concepts, into the account of one Obinna Edward, whom our client had never seen or heard of before, after which they shared the money.”

Not a few Nigerians will want Kyari, the apparent poster boy for Nigeria’s police, to come out and clear his name. On the other hand, people may have to wait until the ongoing panel completes its hearing. Dirty cops, many Nigerians say, have had a field day in the country and noting that the public have only been able to have their say.

Will justice be served on this panel? Will Kyari be a scapegoat? Only time will tell.

T H I S D AY, T H E S U N D AY N E W S PA P E R ˾ NOVEMBER 1,2020

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SUNDAYINTERVIEW Seyi Makinde

Makinde...It would have been counterproductive to introduce curfew in Oyo

Engaging the Youths Proved More Effective Than Using Force During #ENDSARS Protests Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, recently engaged some newsmen on a number of issues in the wake of the #ENDSARS protest and its attendant violence, specifically addressing the need for a concerted effort to grow back the economy, productively engage the youths and redress the trust deficit between the police and the people. Excerpts:

Y

ou are seeking a second term in office, therefore, it’s legitimate to ask: on what record are you asking the people to vote for you again?

Well, I have a lot to show people that we have done in our first term. I can point to a number of our schools. We have touched over 600 primary schools; we have renovated and built new classrooms all over. There is nowhere in the state that is not touched on the issue of schools.

Now, on issue of roads, as I mentioned to you about infrastructural deficit, I have always believed in what one of the American lead The first major flashpoint in the #ENDSARS issue was Ogbomoso, where Isiaka Jimoh and two others were said to have lost their lives. The palace of Soun of Ogbomoso was also targeted by angry youths. That set the stage for other crises. How did you manage through all that?

I had to make a statewide broadcast on Monday, October 19, 2020, to appeal for calm and lay out our position on the protests. I supported the protests and we made it clear that

I was for peaceful protest. On Tuesday, I visited the palace of the Soun of Ogbomosoland, Oba Oladunni Oyewumi Ajagungbade III, and I did not expect the level of destruction we witnessed there.

I accept the fact that peaceful protest is legitimate, and it is guaranteed under our Constitution; but the type of destruction at the palace should not have happened at all. This is because the state government is not in control of SARS. Even though they will say the governor is the Chief Security Officer for the state, I always say it that we are not in control of the Commissioner of Police as governors. As a Governor, I am not in control of who they will post here as Commissioner.

We just work with whomever we meet along the way.

We made commitments to support the renovation of the palace and the repairs or replacement of the vehicles that were damaged – some of the vehicles are beyond repairs.

I also visited the families of the deceased and told them that there is no amount of money we can give that could pacify the irreplaceable loss of their children. But I assured them that the government would assist. We put up a team to meet with the families and explore ways of assistance on a sustainable basis beyond cash provision.

So, how did you manage the protesters, afterwards?

When I returned from Ogbomoso later that evening, I addressed the protesters, who had massed at the Secretariat here in Ibadan. Do you know that earlier, someone had suggested that we use force? But I said we could not use force, because I went to these youths when I was looking for votes.

And I must say this, the approach we employed, which dwells more on reasonable engagement rather than the use of force, has paid off greatly.

This dovetails into our decision not to impose a curfew, because we came to the informed conclusion that imposing a curfew at a period that tensions were high would only result into one thing: rebellion, and to check rebellion, you may want to exert pressure or force, which in the end will lead to whatever you wanted to avoid by imposing the curfew in the first place.

Instead of imposing a curfew, we closed the schools within Ibadan, the state capital – that was penultimate Wednesday – and I made it clear that the closure of the schools would be reviewed on Friday, October 23, 2020. We did. And our pupils and students resumed last Monday.

So, rather than use force, I reminded the protesters that they organised themselves and voted for me. And it was time for

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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 ˾ NOVEMBER 1,2020

SUNDAY INTERVIEW t &/("(*/( 5)& :065)4 1307&% .03& &''&$5*7& 5)"/ 64*/( '03$& %63*/( &/%4"34 1305&454 t me to listen to them and ensure that whatever it is that they wanted done by our government, we would find a means to do it and we have stayed on that course.

There was a problem at Iwo Road penultimate Thursday. We learnt that some policemen lost their lives in the mayhem and the youths were hell-bent on torching police stations especially the Testing ground. What has government done to uphold justice?

That was unfortunate, very unfortunate. But we thank God that quick intervention prevented further loss of lives that day.

I had a serious exchange with the Commissioner of Police. This is also true for the Police hierarchy. They were losing men and police stations and they needed to act.

But I said we have to act with caution. It was difficult to understand what I was trying to say in the heat of things but they understood in the end and we agreed and proceeded with caution. That is why the situation did not really go beyond what we saw.

We deployed men of the ‘Operation Burst’ (a state-backed security outfit comprising soldiers, men of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and the Nigeria Police) as a result of the new dimension the #EndSARS protest was taking, because we discovered that hoodlums had started taken advantage of the protests to harass citizens, perpetrate uncivil acts and disturb residents from carrying out their legitimate businesses.

The outfit was also charged to take the responsibility of protecting peaceful protesters, while the police were told to step back from protest venues. When we heard that there were disturbances around Idi-Ape/Iwo Road axis, I had to go there myself.

How did it go when you addressed the protesters?

When we got there, I saw the youths and I first called for calm, because the scene was very riotous. I then asked them some questions. First, I asked if they were the ones that installed this government? I asked if they were assured that this government would always do what is right for them? I told them that since they installed this government, I wanted to assure them that we would do what is necessary for them.

I told them that I wanted them to trust me, because whatever affects the eyes equally affects the nose. In other words, whatever affects them also affects me. So, I urged them to be peaceful, because I didn’t want it to escalate beyond that point.

I admonished them not to destroy anybody’s property. We needed to engage them at that point and we did, because as I said to the youths, my life is not worth more than any of theirs.

I didn’t want anybody’s life to be wasted. I also asked my people to collect the list of those who were affected; those whose houses were burnt, those whose property were destroyed, including those whose cars were set ablaze and we promised to attend to their issues.

Let me tell you, the truth of the matter as I know it, is that the needs of our people are such that we need to sincerely and honestly engage them. Let them know that we feel their pain and we, too, must attend to those needs.

I want to reassure the good people of Oyo State that all criminal elements that took part in the destruction of properties will be dealt with. I can give you that assurance, because killing, arson, destruction of means of livelihood is not part of us. They are not the things that we stand for as a people. Our state is a state of Omoluabi.

But a lot of people were of the view that you should have imposed a curfew like your colleague governors in other Southwest states. Does your refusal to toe that line have anything to with the fact that you are the only PDP governor?

The issue of curfew is a delicate thing and something similar happened during the very dark days of Covid-19. It’s a catch 22 scenario. At a wedding penultimate Saturday, I told the gathering that the rest of the country is acknowledging the fact that normalcy has returned to Oyo State without locking anywhere down. And I used the opportunity to thank everyone in the state for their cooperation particularly, our youths.

They protested and communicated the grievances they had.

Because of the love our people have for us, during this same #ENDSARS crisis, we were on the road inspecting projects, because we were able to let our people know that we needed to think of solutions and not creating more problems or being destructive.

Now, during Covid-19, most states were on lockdown, but we didn’t fully lock our state down. We imposed a curfew, first from 7pm to 5am. Later we relaxed it to 8pm to 5am and later from 10pm to 4am. That was because of our farmers, who needed to go out early to their farms, especially in the rural areas.

I’m sure you all saw what happened to the states where total lockdown was imposed – the misery, the attendant discomfort of not being able to make a living for some time; and it was worse for petty traders and artisans, who form the bulk of the population.

We looked at the situation and decided that since this was a government of the people for the people and by the people, and since these same people voted for us massively, we needed to create a balance between public health and economic health of our people, through a creative and sustainable process that would cause minimal crisis and disruption to their lives.

Those who imposed curfew meant well but look at how it turned out. Yes, God has been good to us and we thank Him

for His grace.

Talking about Covid-19 and the looting of palliatives.

How do you situate that?

In Oyo State, our Covid-19 Task Force is made up of seasoned scientists, medical practitioners, administrators and persons of tested intellect. If you noticed, most of the decisions we took as a Task Force appeared strange to many but, after a while, those decisions became the national benchmark as they were adopted in some other quarters.

Our decisions were based on sound data, science and logic.

It was based on these same parameters that the state has been able to achieve a mileage in terms of distribution of palliatives.

We have already distributed four rounds of palliatives to our people. The first phase was for the poorest of the poor among us. In the second phase, we took care of the farmers. In the third phase, we took care of civil servants and political office holders, who of course have a lot of dependants. In the fourth phase, I believe we took care of the vulnerable within our environment.

We run a transparent government. And if you have followed the steps of the state’s Task Force, you would notice that all donations in cash and kind have been published on the state government website. The website is updated from time to time, so whatever anyone has given Oyo State since Covid-19 started is captured and published. Anyone can access the website and confirm. So, I don’t think anyone can accuse us of hoarding palliatives.

The issue is that we are waiting for the rice promised by the CACOVID. It has not gotten here but we have now decided to go ahead with the fifth phase of palliatives distribution, which will also go to the poorest of the poor. We will be proceeding with the fifth phase distribution of palliatives by the end of this week, having completed the verification of the individuals, who qualify for them. Again, that relates to data.

Unfortunately, someone who got a contract to supply palliatives on behalf of CACOVID, lost millions to hoodlums, who looted his warehouse in Ibadan. Again, anyone who is conversant with the developments will recall that state government palliatives were 25/30kg packages and they didn’t contain rice.

What we did was to meet directly with the farmers/sellers of the items that we packaged for our palliatives within the location of distribution and buy from them. What that did for the state was that the funds circulated within the state and among the people - to add to their prosperity while simultaneously boosting the economy of the state.

Some people are of the view that quick fixes may not solve the issues thrown up by the #ENDSARS protests. What steps are you exploring with a view to demonstrating to the people that you mean well?

We have set up an initial Five Hundred Million Naira (N500 million) Compensation Fund for victims of police brutality and injustice. So, I encourage everyone who has suffered any form of injustice in the past or as a result of the #EndSARS protests, to please take advantage of the platforms we have provided to log their cases.

We have an email service and a direct reporting portal on the Oyo State Government website. Residents of the state can report cases of police violations via the email address, reportpolice@mail.oyostate.gov.ng or through the link on the Oyo State website, https://oyostate.gov.ng/reportpolice/, where they can fill out a form.

It is domiciled in my office to demonstrate my determination to address the menace of police brutality, rights abuse and extortion. As at Tuesday, 46 persons had reported infractions

and rights abuses. Secondly, in line with the national directive that every state should set up a Judicial Panel of Enquiry, the panel will be inaugurated his week to investigate cases of injustice and I have assured that representatives of the youths and artisans will serve on the panel.

We know that the protests have been as a result of simmering anger among the youths. We are aware of the economic situation especially, the reduced income of many due to the COVID-19 pandemic and also the general unemployment situation in the country. Let me reassure the people that we will continue to prioritise actions that will positively impact the youths.

We have also taken the following immediate actions to address some of the issues raised by the youths during the protest. I have directed that a 500 Million Naira MSME fund be set up. This fund will be disbursed to youths, who have bright entrepreneurial ideas that will provide further employment and improve the economic landscape in Oyo State.

That is not all. I have directed the employment of 5,000 young persons across all government agencies over the next few months. We have been talking to Oyo State Road Maintenance Agency, OYSROMA, before now. We have been talking about AMOTEKUN and the recruitments of health workers and teaching and non-teaching staff, which had been slowed down by Covid-19 will be completed shortly. When completed, close to 12,000 youths will be taken off the streets.

We have to, immediately, wrap some of those recruitments up and put these people off the streets. The criteria for employment and the dates for assessment for the 5,000 jobs will be announced by the government.

We have also decided that starting from 2021, there will be provisions made for the Direct Labour Agency in the budget.

This will ensure more employment opportunities for residents, who have requisite skills when projects are awarded.

How do you plan to ensure that the peace many see now endures?

We have already met with different publics within our space. We want peace that will endure in Oyo State and to have peace that will endure, every one of us must contribute.

Political actors, traditional rulers, clerics, artisans, drivers and youths must organise structures in their different localities and spheres – we have already met with them.

At the meetings, I said we needed to all work together to bring the police back to the streets to perform their functions.

And I am happy that the police authorities and other security agencies in the state are all working hard together and cooperating to bring enduring peace to the state.

We also need to bring the AMOTEKUN in and I believe in the days and weeks to come, they will come and study how we are ensuring peace in Oyo State. It’s a collective enterprise and all hands must be on deck.

Oyo State has passed a law for the operation of AMOTEKUN. Only last Monday, I signed off for them to immediately recruit 1,500 personnel. They have conducted an interview and I am sure that the personnel will start their training by the 1st of November and we will have the passing out for them about the 15th of November.

We have 351 wards in Oyo State and I give you the assurance that there will be an AMOTEKUN operative in all the wards in the state. They will work hand-in-hand with the police authority, but they will also report to me directly. And I will take the responsibility for their actions.

If any Amotekun operative in any corner of Oyo State behaves unruly, hold me accountable. We need to let the people know that both the Police and the people have to come together, work together and build a better society together.

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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 ˾ NOVEMBER 1,2020

CICERO/ISSUE

Some of the end SARS protesters in Alausa, Ikeja

#EndSARS Protests: When Nigerian Youths Spoke, Ageing Leaders Quaked Regardless of how the #EndSARS protests might have turned out, Nigerian youths have made a statement, a valid one, writes Amby Uneze

T

he eruption of protests by Nigerian youths tagged #EndSARS protests, which began almost a month ago, has indeed opened the eyes of many to the fact that for the country to be great again, its success lies in shared ideas.

What the people want is what they get in terms of achieving greatness. But in an orderly way, when people are tepid over the affairs of their country, definitely, it takes a miracle for such a country to move forward.

A lot of decay had taken place in the country and the leadership has no doubt brought the nation on her knees, making it difficult for the rots to end. Since independence in 1960, the country has had deep-seated problems arising from leadership – largely.

Corruption among the leaders has risen to high heavens and every effort to bring it low proves abortive. Over the years, it has been looting upon looting, while the led have continued to suffer, making it impossible for citizens to partake in the God-given resources that abound in the country.

Even more unfortunate is that names that have been ringing bells as leaders of the country for the past 50 years are still in power. The old men and women, who have nothing else to offer to the country, are still in power and that remains largely the problem of Nigeria.

There is no gauge to measure the alertness and mental alacrity of these old men and women in government and compare it with those of their children, who are eager and swift to change the narrative for a better country.

Granted that there are no new ideas left with the old generations, who have been occupying positions of authority for almost five decades

other than to replicate those policies that have made the country stagnant.

The #EndSARS protests have actually erased the notion that only the old can bring about the desired change and the development Nigeria desires. The events of the past weeks have also brought to the fore, the message that Nigerian youths could fight for their rights, even as they’ve had to endure so many injustices by those who swore to protect and defend the democracy of the country.

By so doing, they seem to have approached the issue with all sense of purpose, sending the signal of readiness to take back their country and manage it better than their fathers and grandfathers.

While commending the Nigerian youths for their peaceful protests, it is also regrettable that some hoodlums later hijacked the protests to loot and vandalise public and private properties.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), for instance, saluted the courage and patriotism of Nigerian youths for standing up to defend the fundamental freedoms and dignity of Nigerians.

National Chairman of the party, Uche Secondus, said, “Your exemplary patriotism, using peaceful and constructive protest, to retrieve the country from the path of failures and creeping authoritarianism, sends a strong message that democracy is alive in Nigeria. The fact that our youths have not submitted to cynicism and hopelessness gives us hope to continue to fight for a democracy that respects the freedom and creativity of young Nigerians.”

The President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief John Nnia Nwodo, said the youths’ revolt in the country against the menace of police brutality as mirrored by Special Armed Robbery Squad (SARS) had its root in the existing politi-

cal injustice in the country.

He noted, “It has shown that the surface scratching by the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, in dissolving SARS and raising SWAT, goes far away from addressing the deep rooted problems of policing in the country.

SARS menace has also thrown a challenge to the country’s elites and government over prolonged neglect of that critical arm of our life as a nation.”

On its part, Yoruba’s socio-cultural group, Afenifere, also threw its weight behind the #EndSARS protesters and pitched its restructuring idea to the government, saying it is the only solution to the current struggle.

Afenifere, in a statement signed by its leader, Chief Reuben Fasoranti, said, “This is not the time for long speeches. The message is clear: Let us now rescue Nigeria from imminent disintegration and destruction. Let us restructure our country into a fairer, more just, and equitable polity now.

“To enhance nationwide development and progress return control of resources to states now. To ensure peaceful and harmonious coexistence devolve more power to the states now.

To reduce corruption and cost of governance, reduce the size of government now. Now is the time. Tomorrow may be too late.”

Although with the current turn of events, it might seem that the quest for social justice is temporarily on hold while the rebuilding process takes the centrestage, one thing that cannot be taken away from the protests even when it was evident that the youths had no exit strategy as should have been in a better planned and coordinated movement, is the fact that they made a strong statement that has left the leadership of Nigeria pondering its future.

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THISDAY, THE SATURDAY NEWSPAPER ˾ NOVEMBER 1, 2020

WORLD OF SCIENCE

with Kofo Babalola

Science in Film

T

here is a futuristic element to many of the movies we watch today. Whether it is for a scientific-fiction movie or a marvel one, the film industry has channelled the futuristic theme through their works as a form of entertainment.

It gives movies an exhilarating nature as we, the watchers, are made to feel many emotions at once. As we go through the tumultuous journey of a sci-fi movie, we are either left at the edge of our seats or curled up into the seats with our teeth clenched in fear and excitement.

The director’s purpose is to take us on an adventure where we are made to think deeply about the topics explored in the film. The act of implementing science into film has given many of the stories that are told today, purpose.

In the science fiction movie sequel of ‘The Hunger Games,’ we see human’s attempt of exploration into the future. There is still an element of fiction to many of these movies as the creators of these movies get ahead of themselves as they intertwine their imagination with advanced technology that has yet to be developed.

Looking into the future is the main focus of ‘The Hunger Games,’ as it is set in the future dystopian nation. The technological advancements in the film include the use of hovercrafts - also called air cushion vehicles – as a form of transport. The scientific element to these plane-like structures is based on the hovering of the aircraft on a cushion of pressurized air. The engine of the hovercraft powers the fans which blow air below the hovercraft.

This creates an upwards force on the structure, causing it to hover above the ground due to a pressure difference.

Despite the fictional world created in this movie, certain scientific topics that are being discussed in the real world are being explored in this film. Genetic modification is shown in the movie as a powerful tool as it helps craft the animals that play a vital role in the game which the film is based on.

The genetically modified animals in the film are created to torment the people in the game as they are engineered further to play with their senses as they target their fear for example taking on a certain smell that reminds them of a fearful or disturbing time in their life.

This is created to get into their heads, preventing them from completing the game. The use of science in creating a deathly obstacle is a forewarning sign of how impactful

science will be to our future.

The mark science has had in the film industry is seen through the eyes of a director making a movie in the sci-fi genre. The artistry in the making of these futuristic films has sparked many conversations that bear the title of the scientific discoveries that are being unravelled. A topic, in particular, is that of Artificial Intelligence that has sparked an uproar of the possibility of the creation taking advantage of its creator.

We have never seen a world whereby the creator is outsmarted by its invention. It is in these movies that we are allowed to play out many hypothetical situations that surround the what-ifs. They have not only found a way to channel these situations through the screen but have also found a way to entertain us in the process.

Once science coalesces with fiction, one can finally see the interesting element in the world of science as there is more to science than what we have already seen through the academic lens. Filmmakers have channelled many science-based phenomena to the big screen with the help of their imaginations. Their creativity has helped elevate the boredom that people often face in a scientific documentary.

The act of creating inventions that could possibly outsmart the creator is shone through the film, ’Avengers: Age of Ultron.’

The Ultron programme which was created to protect turns into an enemy that poses a threat to mankind. These movies allow us to explore the questions that we find hard to face in our real lives. Through the lens of those on screen, we are allowed to imagine a world fully controlled by Artificial Intelligence. These films press us in the direction of questioning the dangers of the science that we are thrusting ourselves into.

Are we getting ahead of ourselves when it comes to how much we are digging deep into the world of science? Should we slow down or keep going at a fast pace?

Filmmakers of today that have a mind that is fuelled by science have changed the way we view science. The blockbuster, ‘Black Panther,’ originally playing a role for blacks to be featured as superheroes, eventually became a showcasing of the scientific nature of black nations.

It managed to show us the richness of science in Africa as we were able to see the made-up land of ‘Wakanda’ -- which acted as a representation of black nations -- having a futur-

istic outlook to life. The act of living in this land surrounded around this fictional element ‘Vibranium’ as it acted as a remedy for many of the diseases they faced.

The cinematography of this film played a vital role in letting us into the high-tech environment that the filmmakers envisioned. We were able to see African leaders, leading a nation that was ahead of others. They were surrounded by many of the scientific inventions those in other parts of the world were still seeking to find. Although all this was fictional, I can’t help but wonder whether this could be a reality that we could one day work towards.

Imagine a world led by the scientific discoveries found in Africa as we are able to find the many things that our world needs today. The amount of recognition that we would get from one scientific finding could make a worldwide impact.

This is far beyond the small businesses that we often see coming into fruition. These small enterprises created by the youth predominantly have a short-lasting effect and lacks the vision of the bigger picture.

They act to solve immediate needs like hunger and thirst rather than the problems that are going to be eventually faced years to come. There is a desperate need for us to have a broader outlook on what we can do to make the situation and the environment we are in better.

Films like Black Panther were made to do more than to act as a form of entertainment. They were made to inspire Africa to think big. Could we eventually make this futuristic scene, filled with out-of-this-world forms of transportation, become our reality?

The many ideas explored in these sci-fi movies are often neglected as we allow the fictional part of its name to dictate its reality. We often see the unrealistic nature of the scenes curated in the film and we forget that the other half of its foundation is based on scientific findings that have been proven. These movies are not entirely made up as many of the topics explored through the artistic use of themes are based on real scientific discoveries.

The other extra parts are added so we can make a better sense of these technical phenomena explored. The act of synthesising fiction with science is a powerful tool in creating shockwaves in the film industry. There is more to movies than just the unrealistic scenes painted out before our eyes.

Instead, subtle imprints of science are dotted around for us to unpick.

PERSPECTIVE

Reclaiming Our Public Spaces - Lagos City Hall Siba Agbeyegbe

F

acing the glass entrance of the imposing building that is Lagos City Hall is a little observed memorial to an elder stateman of Nigeria. The memorial bust is a tribute to Dr Isaac Ladipo Oluwole O.B.E (1892-1953) and was erected by the Public Health Society of Nigeria in appreciation of his very great health care initiatives to Lagos and the nation. The placement of the monument is significantly strategic as it showcases the pioneering and all embracing spirit of our founding fathers who faithfully occupied public office.

Lagos City Hall was established in 1900 as the secretariat to the Lagos Island local government and since then it has gone through several rebirths. Now It must go through another rebirth after being destroyed by looting and arson as rioters hijacked the peaceful #EndSARs protests initiated by our disaffected youths.

It is one thing to observe the impact of wanton destruction on an unfamiliar place in an unfamiliar city, it is quite another thing to see an admired edifice that holds personal memories succumb to the fight for justice.

Twenty-seven years ago I got married at the Lagos Island marriage registry which was then situated in the City Hall complex. I recall happily walking along the corridors as a newly-wed celebrating with delighted family and friends in what at that time was the Lagos Island local government headquarters.

I also worked there as recently as 2 years ago when I joined in the social reformation work of the likes of Incubator Africa Ltd and the Education Hub under the strong leadership of social reformer Mrs Alero Ayida-Otobo who provided vision and support to young and emerging social entrepreneurs.

Lagos City Hall is the birthplace for a healthcare inequality platform known as Justice in Healthcare Initiative and from this has emerged the soon to be published book “Nigeria’s Econo-Me” which outlines proposals to reform our healthcare system. City Hall is also the birthplace of my like minded friend’s vision to provide comprehensive primary healthcare free of charge to the impoverished and underserved population dwelling in the Lagos Island vicinity (Fruitful Vine Clinic).

Lagos City Hall is a public asset that was built using public funds and it therefore belongs to the public as a civic asset. At law such assets are held on trust for the public and they are expected to be used for the common good of the citizens of the state.

Although City Hall was renovated quite beautifully in 2009 unfortunately since then this civic building has not provided services to the general public as one might expect. Instead the edifice has been converted to a commercial entity that collects high commercial rents from all its tenants regardless of whether or not they are providing charitable services.

One of those tenants should not have paid any commercial rent at all. That tenant is Fruitful Vine Healthcare Initiative whose God fearing founder is Shola Adeyemi-Bero, a fellow lawyer that I met at the Nigeria Law School 32 years ago. Shola is the daughter of the first secretary of the First Military Administrator of Lagos State and the visionary of the free at the point of use health centre set up to provide medical and preventive care to children and women of child bearing age. The clinic also has a mandate to help the elderly manage chronic diseases like high blood pressure, diabetes and arthritis.

Shola’s observation of the squalor in the city coupled with her belief system led her to set up a state of the art licensed medical facility, at her own personal expense, for the use of the underserved community members.

I watched her as she converted the office space diligently to the high standard blue print that was in her mind. I observed that the end result was world class and that I for one would be comfortable accessing the services myself.

This was no dingy back office – light poured in as the white fittings reflected the sun rays that hit the surfaces during the day time.

Shola’s attention to detail, her focus on identifying competent staff and her excellence was commendable. We were both excited to see the first medical practitioner, lab scientist and mid-wife come on board. It was even more exciting to see the patients slowly but surely emerge from the community and begin to access the medical care provided for their wellbeing.

Shola delved into areas many observers did not expect – her keen eye spotted infant patients that were malnourished and her driven focus helped her to obtain the scarce plumpy nut nutrition recovery formula distributed by aid agencies.

Ultimately thousands of patients attended the clinic and each patient’s medical intervention was captured on their electronic health management system. Fruitful Vine’s pioneering electronic system was a testament to their innovative spirit. Shola garnered as much medical equipment as she could to meet the needs of the community; the ultrasound scanner; the audiology equipment; laboratory analysers; electrocardiogram machines… all costing millions of naira. The day to day operation of the clinic was possible because of the supportive network and donations of those who were moved into action by the clinic’s good works.

As an eye witness I observed a heavily pregnant woman who was unable to afford the one thousand naira registration fee at the Onikan Primary Health Centre being directed to Fruitful Vine by a passer by. As she waited in the free clinic she suddenly stood up and

commenced to give birth even though the facility is not a hospital. Thankfully the lives of mother and baby were saved on account of the capable doctor and the foresight of the founder, who had a birthing kit available in the clinic just in case such an emergency arose. When eventually the new mum and child returned to their home – a rented space on the floor of the nearby market…. I wondered to myself, what if the clinic was not there?

Sadly what I wondered about on that day has become our reality. The Fruitful Vine Clinic was looted and vandalised on the 21st October 2020, as was the case with every other tenant occupying the building. Almost forty million naira of equipment and medication was stolen; nothing was left. Eye witness accounts have it that some of the perpetrators were patients of the clinic; members of the community that the Fruitful Vine clinic had reached out to.

Shola is stoic in her response – a visionary always looks beyond what is immediately in front of them. She intends to carry on…her mandate never came from man in the first place.

Lagos City Hall has been rebuilt before BUT this time the rebuild must consider that this is a civic asset belonging to the entire community so state of the art facilities must be put in place that are freely accessible to all. By taking this approach we can avoid similar tragedies in the future. There must be no social divide in the distribution and use of public assets. It is only by engaging and carrying along all members of the society that we can rebuild our ruined monument buildings and other public assets.

We must be intent about reducing the gaps between those who have and those who do not through social inclusion.

––Siba Agbeyegbe, Economic Justice and Healthcare Reform Advocate Author of Nigeria’s Econo-Me (available in bookshops first quarter 2021)

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ENGAGEMENTS

THISDAY, THE SATURDAY NEWSPAPER ˾ NOVEMBER 1, 2020

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

Trump’s Long Good Night

I

n a matter of days, America’s democracy will self -correct and present a bulky casualty. Mr. Donald Trump’s presidency is unlikely to be revalidated for a second term. As the various polls indicate once again, the American electorate seems poised to deal the disruptive Mr. Trump a merited ‘F’ grade.

The imminent calamity is unlike 2016 when Mr. Trump defied the projections of most pollsters to clinch an electoral college based victory. Then, he was untested and something of a fresh vacation from the humdrum predictability and boring correctness of political Washington. For most of the rural populace and the unschooled artisans and calloused work hands in rusty industrial cities, he represented something of a hope for the renascence of classic America as it once was. Now is different. He has presided over the world’s most powerful and richest nation for four turbulent years mostly with tragic consequences. Mr. Trump is leaving the White House in smoky a trail of serial disruptions, scandals, epic incompetence and divisiveness.

In many ways, Mr. Trump’s imminent humbling is more than a personal travail. Democracy itself is on trial. So are the many issues that define its credibility and global preference.

Even Alexis De Tocqueville, the French writer and definitive authority on American democracy (Democracy in America) did not foresee the aberration that periodically, democracy will present a defective outcome. The people will go out to elect a leader who ends up as the opposite of their best intentions.

Ironically, only democracy can correct its own mistakes at the next election. In many ways then, this US election is a classic test of democracy’s self -correcting capacity.

The dastardly rehearsal for the impending anti climactic moment for Mr. Trump is the last four years in which he literally subverted the most powerful political office on earth.

For a rare moment in the history of the world’s beacon of democracy, the electoral process had produced a president who was a cross between a third world autocrat and 19th century Trump European fascist dictator. While Trump held sway, the world held whose history is rooted in a network of alliances and alignments across the globe, Trump ended up converting more allies into its breadth out of the fear that a highly unstable deviant genius potential adversaries in four years than American has known in in the White House could press the wrong button on the nuclear 75 years after World War II. His personalization of foreign policy code with dire consequences for mankind. Every moment of the was bound to escalate global tension. In an unusual transactional Trump presidency was minimally nightmarish and sometimes approach to foreign policy, Mr. Trump sought to make nations pay apocalyptic.

In his ill-digested bid to ‘make America great again’, Mr. Trump for their international defence and security obligations especially within the NATO orbit. spent a whole four years regaling his countrymen and indeed the Mr. Trump failed to realize that as US president, he was the whole world with glimpses of his troubled mind and arguably demented vision. It was a tragedy foretold and a disaster perenni- inheritor of the historic burden of sustaining global order and security as handed down by successive presidents since after the ally in the making. Perhaps the greatest triumph and vindication Second World War. By rolling back the bulwark of US security of the liberal international order that was instituted after the guarantees to its allies, Trump was literally permitting nuclear Second World War is the fact that the world survived the disrupcapable and wealthy nations like South Korea, Germany, Japan nd tive tsunami of the Trump Presidency and now looked poised to perhaps Saudi Arabia to develop the appetite to acquire and use reestablish a disrupted world order. nuclear weapons. He made no secret of his admiration for all manFor four years, the world has been treated to a quaint mixture ner of autocrats and dictators to the discomfiture of time honoured of adolescent bluster and crude reality television entertainment American values. He openly admired and worshipped Vladimir as political leadership. Where his support base and the rest Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jung Un and Mohammed Bin Salman. of America expected purposeful conservative leadership, It is true that US foreign policy has often had a destabilizing Mr. Trump offered an overdose of unthinking posturing and effect on parts of the world. It has felled bloody dictators only to showmanship. In a country where fact and statistics constitute allow the rise of dangerous armed factions in Iraq, Libya and parts the bedrock of governance and public policy, Mr. Trump offered of Syria. It has destabilized whole regions (the Middle East) and an unrelenting cascade of lies, half truths and phoney figures to upset traditional balances of power in Latin America (Venezuela, back up claims fueled more by a bloated ego than realities on the Cuba) while problematizing territorial disputes like in Yemen and ground. over the South China Sea. Mr. Trump’s temperamental diplomacy To Trump’s curious credit is the emergence of the novel concepts of ‘alternate truth’ and ‘fake news’. Under Trump, fiction merely exacerbated these trends and made the world a more dangerous place. came to compete with fact as the currency of public affairs. The On the domestic front, Trump may have had a few disjointed credibility of the media as an institution of free democratic society welcoming sound bites about bringing back American jobs from came under systematic and unrelenting assault. Not even the Mexico and China. He probably forgot that US manufacturers American political establishment was spared the scalding marks shipped their operations abroad in search of cheaper labour and of the Trumpian blitzkrieg. He routinely insulted the leadership lower production costs following the aggressive unionization of the Democratic party just as much as he disoriented and of US labour in the Ronald Reagan days. He could be excused astonished the leadership of his own Republican party. By the pre- election convention of the Republican party in 2020, the party for appealing to the popular sentiments of America’s rural folk, farmers, rust belt technicians and non -college majority for political of Ronald Reagan had shrunk to the party of the Trump family. advantage.

Over 70% of speakers at the convention were either members of Trump’s appeal to base instincts of racism and white supremacy Mr. Trump’s family or his direct cronies. weaponized American society against itself. He inherited a relaYet it is in terms of serial policy failures and administrative tively united country and a healthy economy from Barack Obama incoherence and mayhem that Mr. Trump is most likely to be but ended up creating a divided nation in which skin colour and remembered. In four years, he failed to fill more than 60% of systemic racism ignited a series of clashes and civil protests. In a jobs in the US government system. He hired and fired key White belated attempt to appear like an advocate of law and order, Mr. House appointees with the regularity of underpants. Renowned Trump employed the strong arm tactics of autocratic dictators to professionals, decorated generals and other persons of high quell the very riots and protests his divisiveness had ignited. He repute who came to serve under his administration either left in called in federal troops into the streets of Washington and other frustrated anger or were unceremoniously humiliated out by the troubled cities to teargas peaceful protesters. He vicariously suptemperamental fits of an egotistic president. ported police brutality and the frequent street executions of mostly His campaign promises ended up more as advertisement pay black citizens for minor infractions in various cities. off lines than well thought out policy propositions. He was going Revelations about his moral deficits especially in his relationto build a wall at the US-Mexico border at Mexico’s expense ship with women are legion. Nearly every high profile defendant to keep illegal Mexican immigrants out of the US. He would in cases involving sexual offences and financial crookedness in shut out unwanted aliens especially Muslims from the United America in the last four years either involved a Trump associate States and subject those who must enter to a series of ideological or made mention of Trump’s links with the accused. Mr. Trump’s pre-entry tests. An anti-immigrant task force went knocking on all too frequent flirtations with all manner of criminal schemes doors in search of illegal immigrants before a court halted Mr. ended up sending more than half a dozen of his associates to jail Trump. Never in the history of the United States has the policies for offences ranging from perjury, forgery, money laundering to and executive actions of any president been subjected to such multiple campaign fund infractions. Mr. Trump’s closeness to serial litigation in various courts as under Trump. these convicts was sometimes so close that only the of his office His international disruptive value was endless. For a nation

prevented him from being thrown into jail.

Mr. Trump’s singular qualification for seeking the job of US president was his over advertised standing as a successful real estate businessman. He endlessly brandished an unverified but over bloated net worth. Even then, he mystified his tax returns and muffled his massive exposures to banks. Though Mr. Trump’s endless bragging about his wealth remains very un-American in many senses.

This, after all, is the nation of Sam Walton, founder of the WalMart behemoth whose choice work location was behind the shop till and whose favourite transportation was a pickup truck. It is the nation of Bill Gates, one of the world’s richest single individuals who still drives himself to work and resisted that Microsoft should buy him a business jet to ferry him to and from meetings around the world. Not to talk of the great Warren Buffet who has lived in the same modest apartment almost all his life. Let us not talk of younger really wealthy Americans like Mark Zuckerberg with his $38 billion net worth, who is so enamoured of his jeans and t-shirts that he hardly varies their colours!

In a nation that has long been greeted as the bastion of global capitalism, the minimum expectation is that anyone who hoists a business credential would at least pass the minimal tests of compliance and relative transparency. Not for Trump. He refused to disclose his tax returns and the brief details that the media sneaked out indicated that the man had not paid personal income tax for close to two decades while the maids and janitors in his gleaming high rise hotels sweated to pay personal income tax from their starvation wages.

Mr. Trump brought into the White House his personal creed of ‘transactional everything’. Not for him the nuanced refinement of political rhetoric. Not for him the candour and modesty of high office and immense power. Not for him the depth of knowledge on policy issues that should guide the business of governance let alone the higher requirements of diplomatic candour needed in managing the world’s most powerful office.

I doubt that Mr. Trump understood the higher need to protect capitalism from its own excesses. Instead, he proceeded head-on to pursue policies of protectionism, isolationism and shutting out immigrants and competitive trade arrangements with other countries. Some of these agreements had enabled American business to embrace global competitiveness. He would erect trade and tariff barriers against China, South Korea, Japan, Mexico and even Canada only to replace them with unworkable lopsided transient arrangements. For the United States, this meant a recourse to the early 19th century populism of Andrew Jackson who appealed to ‘the common man’ or the protectionist isolationism of the 1930s associated with men like Smoot-Hawley and Charles Lindbergh.

Of course Trumpism as a decadent iteration of conservatism has had its followership not just in the United States but elsewhere by other names. Its primary appeal is the urge to constrict national spaces and resources to a native square. The nation state becomes more or less a tribe of narrow-minded demagogues, a playground for opportunistic troublemakers and part time political rascals intent on hacking down long standing institutions of state. The rhetoric is a drive for ‘change’ from politics as usual to transactional politics, a shorthand for political anarchism. It is an autocratic populism that demolishes but hardly has a plan to reconstruct.

In the case of Trump and the United States, however, the pursuit of policies and rhetoric that promotes isolationism and shrinkage run counter to the bedrock of the founding vision of America, a robust civilization founded by immigrants with a global world historic mission and vision. America was founded as a nation of immigrants, a place of great diversity and immense opportunity for those ready to work. Its strength and purpose derive from these fundamental values, which have catapulted it in a quarter of a century from an experimental creedal nation into a global civilization. It was designed as diverse, expansive and inclusive force for global good, not the bastion of smallness and divisive meanness that Trump reduced it to.

In America’s presidential system, the title of “Commander in Chief” has more than a ceremonial purely military meaning. It places on the shoulder of the president the burden of defending and protecting the nation from every threats: military, climatic, epidemiological and even doctrinal. Unfortunately for Trump, while he was busy retooling America’s awesome war machine for strategic military eventualities, the Coronavirus struck. It was perhaps the unseen enemy of this virus that has dealt the lethal blow to the Trump presidency. Owing squarely to Mr. Trump’s recklessness and plain incompetence, the US has recorded the highest figures of infection (over 9 million) and death (9over 225,000) of all nations of the world. Mr. Trump’s leadership in this historic national emergency is a grave embarrassment to the world’s richest and most advanced nation.

There is therefore a larger sense in which the imminent US Presidential election is a referendum on the Trump presidency.

The imminent rejection of Mr. Trump at the polls would be a loud rejection not only of his decadent brand of conservatism but also of his embarrassing incompetence. It is the fitting punishment for a commander in chief who could not protect himself, his family and the White House from a virus that small nations had under control.

From the myriad negatives of the Trump Presidency the road map for the first term of the imminent Biden presidency have been sketched. Even if Mr. Biden had no agenda of his own, just a serial reversal of most of Trump’s footprints is work enough.

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 1, 2020 • T H I S D AY

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NO ͚˜ ͺ͸ͺ͸ Ëž THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER

INTERNATIONAL Nigeria without Nigerians and EndSARS: The Epicentre and Concentric Circles of Nigeria’s Problems

T

he EndSARS protesters believe that there is Nigeria, and therefore, not only want an end to police brutality in Nigeria, but also want a Nigeria that will be completely free from political chicanery and from socio-economic irrationalities, by kneeling down at the Lekki toll plaza with Nigeria’s National Flag in their hands and singing Nigeria’s NationalAnthem. Most unfortunately, however, the EndSARS protesters were still brutally killed by the military and are no more. It is their shadows that remain. The National Flag was tainted with the blood of the innocent. The NationalAnthem was corrupted with rounds of live ammunitions.And Nigeria was killed more than softly. The soul and freedom of protest, the spirit and freedom of the press was bastardised with reckless abandon.

With this, there is no Nigeria, and if there still is, it is a Nigeria without Nigerians.

Even though international law enables the existence of ‘Nigerians’ by virtue of the requirement of population, along with an effective government and territory as constitutive elements of a modern state in international relations, there is nothing to suggest that in Nigeria, as presently constituted, there are Nigerians in terms of belief in, and commitment to Nigeria, hence our caption, ‘Nigeria without Nigerians.’ In this regard, if there is Nigeria but there are no Nigerians, how do we still explain the citizenship of Nigeria as provided for in Chapter III of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution as amended?

The Constitution defines a Nigerian by various factors: duties to Nigeria, blood descent, time and place of birth, registration, naturalisation, etc. For example, Section 24 (a) says ‘it shall be the duty of every citizen to abide by this Constitution, respect its ideals and its institutions, the National Flag, the NationalAnthem, the National Pledge, and legitimate authorities.’’ Put differently, every citizen, to be so recognised, must accept the Constitution by respecting its provisions.Any disregard for the National Flag or the National Pledge does not make one a citizen, and if one is, probably the citizen is not a good or a law-abiding citizen. In this regard, what type of citizens are the military officers who shot at holders of Nigeria’s National Flag and singing the NationalAnthem?

For instance, the factor of blood descent (principle of ius sanguinis) and the factor of place of birth (principle of jus soli), in international law, confers Nigeria’s citizenship on whoever meets the required qualifications for it. The same is true of those (foreigners), who, in the eyes of the President of Nigeria, have good character, or want to be domiciled in Nigeria and also take the Oath ofAllegiance to Nigeria. The critical point of interest here is the issue of Oath ofAllegiance which cuts across all categories of citizenship.

For us, what truly defines a Nigerian is the extent of patriotism and commitment that an individual has towards Nigeria, whether under an oath or not.

Nigeria without People’s Commitment

In 1953, Northern Nigerians considered breaking away from amalgamated Nigeria. The Kano riot of 1953 was a manifestation of the breakaway agitation. Dr. NnamdiAzikiwe responded to the northern agitation for secession on May 12, 1953 at a meeting of the caucus of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC). He told the caucus meeting that ‘the Northerners are perfectly entitled to consider whether or not they should secede from the indissoluble union which nature has formed between it and the South, but it would be calamitous to the corporate existence of the North should the clamour for secession prevail.’ He counselled ‘Northern leaders to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of secession before embarking upon this dangerous course.’’ Additionally, in the eyes of Dr.Azikiwe, ‘it would be a capital political blunder if the North should break away from the South’ for seven different reasons. First, secession could lead to internal convulsion in the North. Second, it could lead to economic nationalism in the Eastern Region, ‘which can pursue a policy of blockade of the North.’ Third, the richness in mineral resources of the North does not mean that the North would be capable of ‘growing sufficient food crops... to feed its teeming millions, unlike the East and the West.’ Fourth, there could be war because of possible dispute over the right of flight over the territory of the Eastern or Western Region. Fifth, even though such a dispute could be addressed diplomatically, ‘if civil war should become inevitable..., security considerations must be borne in mind by those who are charged with the responsibility of government of the North and South... If that is not to be the case, any of the regions can obtain military aid

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IGP, Adamu from certain interested powers.’ Sixth, and perhaps more important, if the British left Nigeria to its fate and the Northerners were to continue their uninterrupted march to the sea... the Easterners will defend themselves gallantly, if and when they are invaded. Seventh, and above all, considering that the North and South had been ‘indissolubly united in a political, social and economic marriage of convenience’ Dr.Azikiwe said ‘’there is no sense in the North breaking away or the East or the West breaking away. It would be better if all the regions would address themselves to the task of crystallising common nationality, irrespective of the extraneous influences at work. What history has joined, let no man put asunder. But history is a strange mistress which can cause strange things to happen.’ Some points are noteworthy from the seven reasons given as to why it was not advisable for the North to seek secession. First, the would-be Nigerians in a united Nigeria were, ab initio, divided against themselves. This was the first main foundation and manifestation of non-commitment to Nigeria of Nigerians. Second, the position of Dr.Azikiwe could be explained by the factor of his place of birth: Zungeru in the North. He strongly believed that Northern secession would be more detrimental to the interest of the North than it would be to the South. He was both a Northerner and a Southerner, meaning that he had to protect the interests of both sides. Third, one other major reason for Dr.Azikiwe’s discouragement of Northern secession was the fear of Northern invasion and inevitability of war whenever the North became landlocked.

Fourth, Dr.Azikiwe believed that the North and the South are indissolubly united politically, socially and economically to which no one should put asunder.

The aspect of indissolubility of Nigeria is quite arguable. If Dr. Azikiwe were to be correct, there would not have been the 1953 Kano riot and there would not have been any good justification for his plea against the secession of the North. If, admittedly, history truly joined the North and South together, it must also be admitted that the same history has also put asunder to the marriage, because, asAzikiwe himself rightly put it, ‘history is a strange mistress which can cause strange thing to happen.’ Without any scintilla of gainsaying, Nigeria of today is a terra cognita where strange things always happen. For examples, it is quite a strange thing for the statue of Dr. NnamdiAzikiwe, a chief apostle

Nigeria’s problems vary according to schools of thought. Some observers identify the problems from the perspectives of governance, and therefore talk about poor leadership,bad governance,bad followership,institutional corruption,social injustice, etc. Some others consider sustainable indices of governance, such as economic resources, impact of national and international environment, implications of monocultural economy or excessive dependence on crude oil as foreign exchange earner.

Many observers also held the civil and public service responsible for poor service delivery.The proponents of ethnic chauvinism are also there. In fact, there was the Yakubu Gowon main school of thought which argued shortly after the end of the civil war in January 1970 that Nigeria’s problem was not money but how to spend it

of national unity, of non-secession, to be set on fire and destroyed in Port Harcourt by hoodlums within the framework of the EndSARS protests. Such destruction is simply to suggest that Dr.Azikiwe was wrong for promoting national unity and for eventually preventing the Igbo people from breaking away.

In the same vein, it is also a strange thing for anyone to remove the pair of glasses on the statue of Chief ObafemiAwolowo in Ikeja. The removal of the glasses is again an abuse of efforts of the founding fathers to build a Nigeria where no man is oppressed and where there is fairness and justice. Most unfortunately, such objective of building a truly Nigerian nation has been to no avail in spite of the agreement reached and foundation laid to enable Nigeria achieve her independence on October 1, 1960. It is useful at this juncture to recall the conditions agreed to by the nationalists in order to enable Nigeria’s independence. Without the agreement, there would not have been a united Nigeria of Nigerians that would be eligible for political independence in 1960.

As explained by Chief Olu Falae, Nigeria’s Independence Constitution was specially negotiated among the then three regions of the country: Northern, Western and Eastern. The three regions were, to a great extent, autonomous. Every region not only collected its own revenue, but also contributed the agreed proportion to the central government. Each region had its own Constitution and also accredited its own ambassador to London. For instance, while Chief (Dr) M.T. Mbu was Nigeria’s High Commissioner to London, it was Mr. Jonah ChinyereAchara, Mr. Omolodun andAlhajiAbdul Malik who were Principal Representatives of the Eastern, Western, and Northern Regions respectively. Thus, the three regions operated as Federating Units and not as Federating Regions as we have it today.

As further recalled by Chief Olu Falae, When Chief Obafemi Awolowo wanted to introduce free education in the Western Region, the other two regions were not ready for reasons of affordability, and ChiefAwolowo went ahead with his free education programme, and for that matter, very successfully.Again, Chief Awolowo came up with the policy of a Minimum Wage of five shillings per day, as against the policy of two or three shillings in other regions. The other regions again were not solvent enough to adopt the policy of five shillings.And more interestingly, the Constitution of the Western Region provided for both the House ofAssembly and the House of Chiefs, while the Eastern Region made it clear that it did not need any of them. It was on the basis of this policy of regionalisation and substantial autonomy that was agreed to during the negotiations for Nigeria’s independence in the late 1950s that enabled the country’s independence in 1960.

However, the way it was planned before independence did not go along that direction after independence. The 1962 crisis in the Western Region lends much credence to this observation. In fact, the military intervention of January 15, 1966 threw to the dustbin of history the regional arrangements and replaced them with unitary and centralised constitution. General Yakubu Gowon restructured the three regions into 12 States and thus began not only agitations against it and quests for self-determination, but also the genesis of Nigeria’s problems to which no enduring solutions have been found, and which, largely explain the protests of the EndSARS Movement or the October 8Anti-Police Brutality Movement.

The Problems: Epicentre and Concentric Manifestations

Nigeria’s problems vary according to schools of thought. Some observers identify the problems from the perspectives of governance, and therefore talk about poor leadership, bad governance, bad followership, institutional corruption, social injustice, etc. Some others consider sustainable indices of governance, such as economic resources, impact of national and international environment, implications of mono-cultural economy or excessive dependence on crude oil as foreign exchange earner. Many observers also held the civil and public service responsible for poor service delivery. The proponents of ethnic chauvinism are also there. In fact, there was the Yakubu Gowon main school of thought which argued shortly after the end of the civil war in January 1970 that Nigeria’s problem was not money but how to spend it.

Put differently, there is a general acknowledgement that Nigeria is faced with many challenges but no one has a good idea of the root causes. We have observed in this column in the past that Nigeria’s main problem is that Nigerians do not really know what their main problem is all about. Is it really about leadership? Is it lack of capacity to manage economic resources? Nigeria is, more often than not, compared with theAsian Tigers in terms of their efforts at economic transformation. People believe that good leadership and good governance was largely responsible for the economic breakthrough of theAsian Tigers.

True enough, theAsian Tigers exist more as a sociological nationstate than Nigeria. The Chinese believe in China. Singaporeans believe in Singapore. Taiwanese believe in Taiwan. South Koreans believe in South Korea. Malaysians are Malaysians. Indonesians are always Indonesians. But where are the Nigerians who believe in Nigeria? Chief ObafemiAwolowo is on record to have described Nigeria simply as a geographical expression. This observation has remained incontrovertible.

Indeed, Nigeria’s main problem is beyond the mismanagement of need, feed, greed and deeds, and de-emphasis on social justice, equity and nation-building. It is more profound.

Read full article online - www.thisdaylive.com

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NEWS

Acting News Editor ĂŒĂ™ĂŁĂ?Ă‘Ă‹ Ă•Ă“Ă˜Ă?Ă‹Ă˜Ă—Ă“ E-mail: Ă‘ĂŒĂ™ĂŁĂ?Ă‘Ă‹Ë›Ă‹Ă•Ă“Ă˜Ă?Ă‹Ă˜Ă—Ă“ĚśĂžĂ’Ă“Ă?ĂŽĂ‹ĂŁĂ–Ă“Ă Ă?Ë›Ă?Ă™Ă—ËœÍ¸Î€ÍšÍ˝ÍşÍťÍ˝Î ÍşÍ˝Íť Ě™Ă?Ă—Ă? Ă™Ă˜Ă–ĂŁĚš

Gbajabiamila: Ethnicity Not Sufficient to Determine Federal Character Udora Orizu in Abuja The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila yesterday disclosed that ethnicity or tribe was not a sufficient parameter for determining the true definition of federal character.

Rather, the speaker noted that

age, gender and religion should be part of the parameters that would define federal character, a principle designed to ensure fairness in appointment into public service institutions.

He made this suggestion at the national strategy retreat of the Young Parliamentarians Forum

(YPF), thus calling for the review of the extant definition of the federal character in the 1999 constitution.

At the retreat, Gbajabiamila said as presently defined in the 1999 Constitution, the federal character “is at variance with the country’s realities as it limits opportunities to geographical location.�

Gbajabiamila, therefore, challenged young legislators to chart a course in preparation for the Nigerian youth taking the mantle of leadership at all levels of government in the country.

He said: “In thinking outside the box, I think we should consider an amendment in the

BUILDING DEFENCE CAPACITY . .

Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen Yusuf Buratai (m) with Commander, Nigerian Army Depot Engineering,Maj,-Gen Sunday Araoy (r) inspecting facilities at the Nigerian Army Manufacturing Depot during Buratai’s visit to Kaduna... Friday

constitution to the definition of federal character because when we talk about federal character within the context of appointments, infrastructure and the rest of it in the constitution, federal character as it is, is limited to where you are from, like your ethnicity. “In other words, the constitution says that appointments and all those other things shall be based on federal character and federal character as we know it now, we have the Igbos, we have the Hausas, the Yorubas. There should be a geographical spread. “It is time we expand the definition of federal character because the character of a nation is not just based on your tribe. It is based on religion. It is based on where you are from. It is based on your sex. It is based on your age.�

The speaker, however, challenged the young lawmakers on proffering answers to some pertinent questions while commending the YPF for the initiative of taking up youth matters, He said: ‘’This is an inspired choice because we know from the evidence of numbers, that any vision of our nation’s future that does not address the expectations of Nigeria’s youth and fails to meet them at the point of their needs, will fail “Therefore, in thinking about the future, we must dedicate ourselves to asking three crucial

questions. The first is how do we provide jobs that pay a living wage that allow young people to live full lives of achievement and contribution to our society? “The second question is, how do we ensure that young people who want to participate in governance, who have valid contributions to make, have a clear path to political participation at all levels. “And how do we ensure that the systems of justice in our country are sufficiently robust to protect our nation’s young people from exploitation and abuse in whatever form it might take? “Intricately linked to these three questions, is a fourth, more fundamental question about education in Nigeria. Education is the silver bullet that solves problems and a key that opens doors.’’ In his remarks, the Clerk of the National Assembly (CNA), Olatunde Amos Ojo, while commending the young lawmakers noted that there was no better time than now for the retreat considering the nationwide youth restiveness that followed the Endsars protests.

He also urged the group to chart a result-oriented course that would be of benefit to Nigerian youths.

In his welcome address, the Chairman of YPF, Hon. Kabir Tukura said the forum visited the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo and Gbajabiamila and it was agreed that the YPF should come up with a white paper to be submitted to President Muhammadu Buhari.

NNPC Seeks N’Assembly’s Support on Prompt Passage of PIB Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has said it would collaborate with the National Assembly to ensure speedy passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), which has been in the works for close to two decades.

NNPC’s Group Managing Director, Mallam Mele Kyari made the remarks at a meeting with the Chairman House Committee on Gas Resources, Mr Nicholas Mutu and his team visited him in his office.

At the meeting, Kyari said the national oil company “would work closely with the lawmakers in its efforts to get budget approvals for critical projects.�

Kyari, also, said that the corporation would work closely with the lawmakers in its efforts to get budget approvals for critical projects.

A statement by Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division of the Corporation, Dr. Kennie Obateru, said Kyari expressed gratitude to the committee for its continued support to the corporation. “The GMD, who was represented by the Chief Operating Officer, Gas and Power, Mr. Yusuf Usman, said NNPC will continue to engage and seek further support for approvals of budgets appropriated for critical gas infrastructure projects as well as the speedy passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB)

2020 which is currently before the National Assembly. “He reiterated NNPC’s commitment to the provision of alternative fuels for Nigerians through the deployment of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) skids at filling stations for automobiles. “This will give Nigerians more opportunity to enjoy cheaper fuels for their vehicles as well as reduce carbon emission footprints in line with the global environmental aspirations,� he said.

Responding, Mutu said the committee was satisfied with the provisions of the PIB 2020 on gas resources development, particularly Section 52 which provides for the establishment of a Midstream Gas

Gunmen Abduct Three Persons in Ondo James Sowole in Akure Gunmen suspected to be kidnappers yesterday abducted three persons, who were travellers in Ikakumo Akoko in Akoko North East Area (LGA), Ondo State.

The incident occurred at Ikakumo, a border town between Ondo and Edo states about five months after a captain in the Nigerian Army was kidnapped alongside three others in the local government area.

THISDAY findings revealed that the assailants also clamped down on a commercial motorcycle operator, who unknowingly ran into the scene of the incident.

Some residents of the community, according to the findings, later came to the rescue of the

commercial motorcycle operator after his assailants abandoned him.

Reacting to the incident, the Police Area Commander for Ikare Police Area Command Mr Razak Rauf confirmed the incident.

He said that police had commenced investigation into the incident.

Meanwhile, Akoko residents had expressed concern over alleged attitude of police in the area since the #EndSARS protest ended in the state.

The residents alleged that police had abandoned their regular patrols especially on flash points on Akoko roads where armed robberies and abduction were rampant.

The regent of Akunu Akoko, Princess Tolani Orogun reaffirmed

the earlier call for a military post in the area, which shared boundaries with Kogi and Edo States with a large forest being used as a hideout by the criminals.

The regent claimed that the situation had made many farmers in Akunu, Ikakumo and Auga desert their farms for fear of being kidnapped.

Gunmen had kidnapped four persons, including a captain of the Nigerian Army, D. Gana, along the Kabba-Auga-Akoko expressway in Akoko North-East LGA, Ondo State.

The army captain and others were said to be travelling from Abuja when they ran into the ambush laid by the kidnappers.

Infrastructure Fund. “He applauded the Mallam Mele Kyari-led Management team of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) for its achievements in the areas of gas infrastructure development, gas supply obligations for the domestic market and the NLNG Train 7 Project,� the statement said.

It also quoted Mutu as saying

the committee was pleased with the ongoing drive by the corporation to promote the use of gas as a cheaper and cleaner form of energy. “It is a step in the right direction.

Indeed, gas resources have come to take the pride of place in our national development agenda, and given the quantum of proven gas reserves in the country, we can rightly declare that Nigeria is more

of a gas country. “We acknowledge the efforts of the management of NNPC in developing the gas sector, and we commend them on the existing projects. The Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) gas pipeline that was recently launched by Mr. President is an exhibition of total commitment by the NNPC.�

LASAA Faults Bode George’s Claim against Tinubu’s Son Segun James The Lagos State Signage and Advertising Agency (LASAA) yesterday faulted a former Deputy Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Bode George’s claim that it had surrendered its regulatory power to Loatsad Media Limited, a firm owned by Mr. Seyi Tinubu.

LASAA, an outdoor advertising regulatory body, added that it “is still in charge of regulating outdoor advertising and signages in the state contrary to George’s spurious claim that Loatsad regulates and controls the erection of billboards and signages in Lagos.�

LASAA’s Managing Director/ Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Adedamola Docemo made this clarification in a statement he issued yesterday, faulting George’s allegation against the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Bola Tinubu’s son.

Docemo said there was no iota of truth in an interview George granted to Arise TV, which according to him, Loatsad Media now regulates and controls the

erection of billboards and signages in Lagos.

He said Loatsad Media Limited “is merely one of the companies that have subjected themselves to the rigorous process of registration with LASAA. Over 200 other practitioners too numerous to mention in the outdoor advertising space in the state have also registered. “This is available in our registry and on our website, www.lasaa. com,� he said.

He stated that the current relationship with the Outdoor Advertising Agency of Nigeria (OAAN) is a testament to the fairness the agency has demonstrated in its regulatory functions. “Our relationship today with OAAN is a manifestation of our commitment to collaboration and professionalism in the last 14 years of our operations. We have indeed achieved so much in this regard,� the managing director said.

He said since the company “is duly qualified to practise in the state, it would be unfair to deny it registration based on the personality of its owner.�

He added that LASAA regulation “provides a level playing field for all players.

It is therefore nothing more than wishful thinking, for any individual to insinuate that the agency has yielded its fiduciary responsibility to an advertising company that it regulates. “We believe in a liberal market economy where all players will compete for the benefit of the market,� LASAA’s managing director said in the statement.

He said the agency “is a professional body with clear methods and processes. LASAA is not interested in politics. We do not play politics in our operations and processes. LASAA model of operation has become a model template for many states to adopt in their effort to achieve sanity in their states.�

He said the outdoor advertising space and signages in Lagos “are still under the regulation and control of LASAA which is statutorily empowered by law to carry out such responsibilities. It has not transferred such to any other organisation.�

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NEWSXTRA Lagos, Ekiti Lift Curfew as Delta Relaxes Victor Ogunje in Ado-Ekiti Lagos and Ekiti States yesterday lifted the curfew imposed on the state due to the fallout out of the #EndSARS protests against police brutality.

Likewise, the Delta State Government announced a further relaxation of the curfew imposed following violence by hoodlums who hijacked the #EndSARS protests.

While Lagos lifted the curfew with immediate effect, the lifting of the curfew in Ekiti became effective at 6 am today.

A statement issued by the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotoso announcing the lifting of the curfew said the curfew imposed on Lagos State after the hijack of the peaceful #EndSARS protests have been lifted immediately. “The 12 a.m. to 4 a.m. curfew imposed by the Federal Government to curb the spread of COVID-19 remains. Lagosians

are free to go about their business without any hindrance whatsoever. Security agencies will continue to discharge their duties. “Lagosians are urged to cooperate with them to maintain the status of our state as one of the most peaceful “Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu thanks security agencies for their efforts in restoring peace to our troubled communities. He commends Lagosians for observing the curfew and ensuring the return of normalcy.�

In a statement by its Commissioner for Information and Values Orientation, Akin Omole, the Ekiti State government disclosed that Governor Kayode Fayemi lifted all restrictions earlier imposed on worship centres in the state.

The statement read in part: “The Ekiti State Government has lifted the curfew imposed on the state with effect from 6am on Sunday, November 1, 2020. “The decision to lift the curfew

was taken after an assessment of the security situation and the restoration of relative peace in the state,� the statement said.

It explained that Fayemi also “approved the lifting of the restrictions placed on religious gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic with effect from the same date, November 1.

“He, however, emphasised the need for worshippers to continue adhering to the Covid-19 protocol, adding that they must wear facemasks, maintain social distancing and properly wash their hands or sanitise their hands before joining their respective congregations. “He also stressed the need for residents in the State to be law-

abiding, vigilant and promptly report suspicious movement to relevant authorities, assuring that the State Government would leave no stone unturned towards ensuring the safety of lives and property of the people in the State.�

Also in a statement by its Commissioner for Information, Mr Charles Aniagwu, Delta State

said the curfew would now be from 8:00 pm until 6:00 am daily, adding that the change would come into force from Saturday, October 31, 2020.

He expressed the state government’s appreciation to Deltans for observing the curfew, which he said was aimed at restoring normalcy in the state.

20 Feared Killed in Ondo Auto-Crash James Sowole in Akure Many people were yesterday feared killed when a rice-laden trailer lost control and rammed into the market at Ibaka Area of Akungba Akoko, Akoko South-West Local Government Area of Ondo State.

The State Police Command confirmed the accident, but did not give an accurate account of lives lost and property destroyed due to the accident.

But an eyewitness said the trailer loaded with bags of rice had a brake failure, causing the driver to lose control of the vehicle.

The eyewitness said: “The accident occurred at about 7.30pm, when the trailer loaded with bags of rice rammed into the stalls in

the market. “As I am talking to you about 20 people must have been killed because we have removed over 10 dead bodies under the trailer and many are still trapped under the trailer.�

Confirming the accident yesterday, the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), of the state police command, Mr Tee-Leo Ikoro said about eight persons had been confirmed dead. “As we speak now eight people have been confirmed dead in the accident and we can still have more because we still have many people trapped under the trailer,�

Ikoro said.

However, the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) was yet to confirm the report.

Imoke Condemns Hoodlums’ Attack on Calabar A former Cross River State Governor, Senator Liyel Imoke has condemned looting and destruction visited on Calabar by hoodlums following the EndSARS agitation.

He expressed concern over the attack in a statement he issued yesterday, appealing to all elders in the state to join forces to rebuild the state.

According to him, seeing the monumental destruction and looting hoodlums inflicted on Calabar last week, nobody can refuse to accept the evidence of their eyes.

He explained that the sheer mindlessness of the vandalism “tugs at every heart. In the wake of that unfortunate incident, leaders in and outside the state have been lending their time, voices and resources to seek ways to avert future occurrences. “It was on that premise that I led a delegation to the palace of the Obong of Calabar, His Eminence Edidem Ekpo Okon Abasi Otu V, as well as other paramount rulers in Calabar

municipality and Calabar south, which were the epicentre of the carnage. “In the course of our interaction, His Eminence, as well as other royal fathers expressed very strong views about both the political leadership and the political class of the state. “These are views that call for sober reflections on our part as political leaders.

Virtually, every state and city in the country has been left prostate by arson and vandalism. “It is in moments like these that we come together with a view to healing our wounds and proffering solutions on how to pick ourselves up as a state,� he said.

He said preferring solutions should include “the political class, our royal fathers, opinion leaders as well as our youths. “Together, and with singleness of mind and working in concert with the government, I believe our dear state will pull through this dark phase of its existence.�

ARISE FOR WOMEN. . . .

L-R: Chairman, Access Bank Plc, Dr. Dere Awosika; Senior Special Assistant to the President on SDG, Mrs. Adejoke Orelope Adefulire; Commissioner for Health, Ogun State, Dr. Tomi Coker; CEO, Emzor Pharmaceutical Limited,Dr. Stella Okoli; Commissioner for Health, Lagos State, Prof. Akin Abayomi and Convener/CEO Arise Women, Dr. Siju Iluyomade, at the Arise Women’s Conference held in Lagos ... yesterday

ASUU Rejects Exclusion of State Lecturers from VC Job Victor Ogunje in Ado Ekiti The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has kicked against the restriction of application for the position of vice chancellor of the Federal University, Oye Ekiti (FUOYE) to only professors working in federal universities.

The Coordinator of ASUU, Akure Zone, Prof Olu Olu Olufayo rejected the criterion at a press conference he addressed at the Ekiti State University (EKSU), Ado Ekiti yesterday.

At the conference, Olufayo said it was unfair and discriminatory to disqualify professors from state universities from vying for the

vice chancellorship position of the institution.

He, also, accused FUOYE’s Vice Chancellor, Prof. Kayode Soremekun of plotting to impose the deputy vice chancellor, Prof.

Abayomi Fasina, as his successor in violation of the university’s statute.

Olufayo said: “About 70 Professors applied, nine were shortlisted, but we learnt Prof Fasina came first. In the advertorial, professors from state universities were shut out from applying . “We will not resort to brigandage. But we will continue to speak against despotism, disorderliness, brutishness and arm twisting at FUOYE. We call on President

Muhammadu Buhari to urgently stop the impunity and the attempt to institutionalize the same at FUOYE. “For some time now, ASUU has been calling out different agencies of government to address the rot, extraordinary corruption, ineptitude and moral decadence at the university under the direction of Soremekun, Fasina and a host of others.

If this is left unchecked, it would be a fallacy to address FUOYE as a university. Under Professors Soremekun and Fasina, FUOYE has become an enslaved and conquered territory where academic freedom has long been mortgaged to nepotism, parochialism and patronage.

Soremekun and Fasina have continued to run a private enterprise and surprisingly, as the tenure of the VC is coming to an end, we learnt that there are clandestine plans to enthrone Prof.

Fasina as an anointed successor in a bid to enshrine a dynasty of impunity. “Fasina was granted a sabbatical appointment in FUOYE from 2nd January 2015 to terminate on 31st December 2015. He sought and got an extension to utilise his deferred accumulated leave still at FUOYE between 4th January and 22nd September 2016. He duly returned to EKSU on 23rd September 2016 and later absconded in the same month till now.�

CISLAC Asks N’Assembly to Probe Delay in Palliatives Distribution The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) yesterday asked the National Assembly and all anti-graft agencies to look into why the federal, state and local governments did not distribute the palliatives, which the Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID) donated to the people.

CISLAC, an anti-graft nongovernmental organisation, said current distrust of the population, social disorder and raids on government and private assets “are a consequence of non-existent transparency and communication to the public about government’s measures taken to combat the pandemic.�

It expressed concern in a statement its Executive Director, Mr. Auwal Rafsanjani issued on Friday, lamenting the discovery of

undistributed palliatives, which was kept in various warehouses in most states across the country.

Rafsanjani faulted the attempt by the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) to clarify why some items were not distributed, saying it was scandalous that the palliatives were left undistributed by the federal, state and local governments.

He wondered why it took this long to distribute essential goods that were meant to alleviate the hardship faced during the lockdown period (April-June, 2020).

He therefore, said the condemnable act “is a clear abuse of entrusted power for personal gain.

Meanwhile, certain lawmakers also issued statements to defend why they stored valuable goods that were supposed to be distributed

to the population that they are supposed to serve. “No lawmaker has any business storing public property in private quarters! This display of monumental arrogance bordering on corruption should not only be condemned,� the executive director observed.

He, also, called on the relevant anti-graft agencies, the National Assembly and all other relevant stakeholders “to investigate why the palliatives were not distributed in a timely and transparent manner to the target vulnerable groups.�

He noted that CISLAC “has been in the forefront demanding for transparency and accountability in the distribution of the palliatives in the context of the devastating economic impact

of the Covid-19 pandemic. “Part of our demands was the involvement of stakeholders - both state and non-state actors - which would have included genuine CSOs, community-based organisations, religious institutions and anti-corruption agencies that would have forestalled the current crisis faced by the country emanating from the undistributed palliatives,� he observed.

He, therefore, demanded a transparent and verifiable system of the distribution of the palliatives so that the government could earn public trust.

He advised states that are yet to distribute their palliatives to emulate the few states that have distributed essential goods to the citizens judiciously.

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CICERO/REPORT

How Shaibu’s Loyalty Helped Obaseki Win Edo Election The success recorded by Godwin Obaseki in the Edo State governorship election would not have been possible without the steadfastness of his deputy,Philip Shaibu, writes Tobi Soniyi

T

he Edo State governorship election held on September 19, 2020 which returned Governor Godwin Obaseki of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has come and gone, but pleasant memories around it linger.

By the final score, Obaseki polled a total of 307,955 to defeat his rival, Pastor Osagie IzeIyamu of the APC who scored 223,619 out of the 557,443 accredited voters and was accordingly returned elected by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

While the feisty battle led to the retirement of a godfather and his followers in Edo State, one individual and key player in the exercise whose position and loyalty to his boss, Governor Obaseki, would reverberate for years to come is the Deputy Governor, Philip Shaibu.

A longtime ally of Oshiomhole, Shaibu cut his political teeth as student union activist when he became the National President of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) in 2000, from where he delved into mainstream politics to become representative of the Etsako West in the Edo State House of Assembly for eight years.

After serving as Majority Leader in the Edo House of Assembly, he was elected into the House of Representatives, as a federal lawmaker representing Federal Constituency in the for 18 months, where he built a political pedigree.

As a state lawmaker, he was nicknamed Mr. Constituency because while he served for eight years, he attracted 49 projects to his constituency. In the 18 months in the House of Representatives, he had nine projects to his credit.

In the run off to the governorship election in Edo State, especially during Obaseki’s faceoff with his godfather and a former National Chairman of the APC, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, and the consequent disqualification, Shaibu remained loyal to Obaseki, expressing readiness to sink with him, where necessary.

In an interview before the elections, Shaibu said: “Oshiomhole wanted me to join him knowing that I was close to the

Shaibu members elect then of the Edo State House of Assembly. This was because I spent eight years as a member of the Edo State House of Assembly and about 18 months in the House of Representatives. I have goodwill among the lawmakers because of my own style.

“He wanted me to use this goodwill that I have to remove the governor and succeed him and I said no, because it is not in my nature to betray anyone. If I did not betray Oshiomhole when I was NANS president and he was NLC president, when I was offered money to get Nigerian students out of the planned strike then, and I did not betray him when I was chased with money

and a plot of land in Maitama, Abuja, to support his impeachment when I was in the state assembly, then I cannot betray my own governor.

“And I said ‘I don’t have those tendencies.’ I pleaded with Oshiomhole, I knelt down before him that this government is doing well and we are taking the policies that we adopted during his own time to the next level.

“I begged him that no matter and when I asked what errors Obaseki committed, he gave flimsy excuses and when I could not hold anything against him, I knelt down and pleaded that I’m your son, why not forgive him, no matter what offence he may have committed. But instead of listening to my plea he said my action was an indication that I have taken sides with the governor.

“I stood up and told him that if you want to remove the governor, you will have to remove both of us, but you cannot use me to chase him away. If the governor leaves, I leave. The truth is that I hate oppression. When Oshiomhole was being oppressed we fought on his side. I was brutalised and my family was at risk. Hired assassins came to my house at the Lawmakers Quarters…They shattered the house with guns and the cars there were badly damaged. I threw my family across the fence and that was how they were saved. All of these were in efforts to save Comrade Oshiomhole from impeachment.

“I told him the same energy I used to fight on his side when they wanted to impeach him would be used for Governor Obaseki.

“I became an activist because of my hatred for oppression. If you check my records during the military rule, I was part of the struggle for this democracy and Oshiomhole had the plans for the House of Assembly. All these members of the House were not those who won the APC primaries, but Oshiomhole got up and replaced all of them, Damian Lawani and the rest and put all his stooges,” he said.

Read full article online - www.thisdaylive.com

NEWSXTRA

Again, Power Supply Rises to 5,530 Megawatts Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) said yesterday that the country had, again, successfully generated, transmitted and supplied a new national peak, a few days after it said a fresh record was achieved.

In a statement yesterday, TCN’s General Manager, Public Affairs, Mrs. Ndidi Mbah noted that the feat was recorded consequent upon improved coordination and synergy in the country’s electricity supply industry.

The TCN added that the national peak generation of 5,520.40MW was achieved on 30th October 2020 at 9.15pm, surpassing the previous 5.459MW recorded on 28th October

2020 by 60.90MW. “Thenewnationalpeakisaresultofcontinued collaboration among players and the gradual increase in capacity in the power sector. On her part, with the current capacity of 8,100MW, TCN seamlessly transmitted the new peak at a frequency of 50.11Hz. through the nation’s grid.

As players in the power sector value chain continue to work together to improve the nation’s power supply, TCN implores everyone to help protect power infrastructure nationwide and desist from bush burning or burning of trash beside transmission towers or under power line cables nationwide,” the company appealed.

TCN added: “It is peak for all sector players because if generation generates and it is not

evacuated and used, then it is useless. In other words, it is peak generation that was successfully evacuated through the grid.”

The announcement came three days after the TCN said that it had reached an all-time national peak of 5,459.50MW, which it said was efficiently transmitted through the nation’s transmission grid at a frequency of 50.26Hz by 8.15pm on the 28th of October, 2020.

“The Acting MD/CEO, TCN, Mr. Sule Abdulaziz commended all the players in the power sector value chain and attributed the gradual but steady improvement in the quantum of power delivery to collaboration by the sector players.

“It is also attributable to the unbridled effort by the federal government, through the ministry

of power, in setting the right environment for seamless operations.

“Abdulaziz expressed optimism that stakeholders in the sector would continue to work together towards ensuring the continued increase in the quantum of power available to consumers nationwide,” the statement stressed.

TCN, it noted, is committed to working with the generation and distribution companies to ensure sustained improvement in the sector for the benefit of the nation.

However, the announcement comes amid a huge deficit in power supply and reliability in the country, with several homes still partly dependent on generating sets for their electricity needs.

Masari to Complete Ongoing Projects Before 2023

Group Urges FG to End Lingering ASUU Strike

Francis Sardauna in Katsina

Academic Frontier Initiative (AFI), a non-partisan organisation, has called on the federal government to urgently meet the demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in order to re-open public universities across the country.

ASUU embarked on industrial action over eight months ago citing the non implementation of the 2009 Agreement, 2019 Memorandum of Action, Arrears of Earned Academic Allowance (EAA), revitalisation funds, among other issues.

In a statement by its National President, Dr. Chinedu Onyeizugbe and Secretary, Dr. Tochukwu Oguegbe, the group urged the federal government to delay no further in attending to the agitations of ASUU. The statement noted that recent youths #EndSARS protests sweeping across the country were fuelled by continued closure of universities.

It said people “are looking at these protests

Katsina State Governor, Alhaji Aminu Masari yesterday said that he would complete all ongoing projects initiated by his administration before the end of his tenure.

The governor gave this assurance during the inspection of the ongoing comprehensive renovation of the Katsina State House in Abuja, the nation’s capital at the weekend.

In a statement by his Director-General Media, Mr. Abdu Malumfashi, Masari said his administration would complete all the ongoing projects within the shortest period of time.

He said all ongoing projects and future ones that might be embarked upon would be quality-driven, so that they might remain in good condition to serve generations to come.

He further added that all future projects

would be strictly based on the need of the community within which they are located, noting that his administration would not bequeath white elephant projects to its successor.

He said: “We have come a long way in our partnership with the good people of Katsina State. We shall remain steadfast in our commitment to serving them in the best possible way we can.

“Let it be clear that we will not relent. We will never waiver in our focus and commitment to moving Katsina State forward in both human and infrastructural development, within the limits of the resources available at our disposal.

Masari then urged the people to give peace a chance, avoid utterances and actions inimical to peaceful coexistence, support the leadership at all levels of government and remain prayerful as well as law abiding for the overall progress of a united Nigeria.

as a mere campaign against police brutality but the truth is that it is tilting towards revolution.

Nigerians are no longer happy the way our leaders are handling issues in this country.

“Look at how the federal government is crippling the public university education.

How long will members of ASUU and even non-academic staff continue to embark on strike as a last resort?

“Is not time for the government to be responsible and committed for once by honouring the agreements between them and ASUU? Enough is enough, let the federal government address this issue once and for all”, the statement reads in part. It urged youths to avoid violence in their peaceful protests, while regretting that some hoodlums and miscreants used the opportunity of the protest to unleash mayhem on unsuspecting public and unlawfully cart away other people’s belongings.

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rs. Blessing Bolorundo, a United Kingdom-based nurse, supported by her husband Abraham, paid her mother the late Mrs Felicia Adewunmi Fashoro the last respects at St. Peter’s Anglican Church, Ayetoro Gbede Kogi State last weekend. Family members, friends and associates of the couple graced the occasion.

Photos: Julius Atoi

Abraham Bolorunduro and wife, Blessing

Adewumi Dare and wife Funmilayo

L-R: Dr. Mike Ayo Bello and Mr. Simon Adedoyin

L-R: Comfort Ore and Ruth Taiwo

L-R: Dr. Tope Adedoyin and Gbenga Bello

L-R: Femi Bello; Segun Bello and Rufus Bello

L-R: Mrs Remilekun Ologunla; Mama Elizabeth Bello and Dr Grace Adedoyin

L-R: Joseph Aina and Joseph Olufemi Ajetunmobi

T H I S D AY, T H E S U N D AY N E W S PA P E R ˾ NOVEMBER 1,2020

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IMAGES

L-R: Mrs Adeola Folorunsho; Hon Olusola Folorunsho and Mrs. Folarinde Temitayo

L-R: Mrs J A Ayeni and Adewumi Olufunke

L-R: Mrs. J.A. Ayeni; Mrs. Blessing Bolorunduro; Adewunmi Dare, Kehinde and Taiwo Omowunmi

L-R: Mrs. Olufunmilayo Osibanjo and Mrs. Abisoye Ogunmokun

L-R: Solomon Onyelowe; Dele Olaore and Patrick Okorie

Paul Ajetunmobi and wife, Funmi

L-R: Taiwo and Kehinde Omawumi

L-R: HRH Eze Nyema Wokeh and Jesse Louis

Sunday November 1, 2020

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Price: N400

MISSILE

Ezekwesili on #ENDSARS “Everything wrong with Nigeria traces back to the deep disregard our ruling class has always had for the sacredness of the human life. Is there anything greater than life? Yet a barrel of oil gets more respect than the lives of fellow citizens. This must change” – A former Minister for Education, Obiageli Ezekwesili on why Nigeria must put an end to police brutality.

SIMONKOLAWOLE SIMONKOLAWOLELIVE!

simon.kolawole@thisdaylive.com, sms: 0805 500 1961

What #EndSARS Mayhem Tells Us

Y

ears ago, as we were driving through some Lagos streets early morning on a weekday, we saw idle young men sitting in front of their houses, some with wrappers surrounding their waists and toothbrushes dangling from their mouths. They stared at us. Their faces instantly instilled the fear of God in me. In a sober tone, I told my driver: “I can see bile in the eyes of these guys. One day, they will start attacking anyone who drives a clean car or looks decently fed.” I could sniff the tension, the resentment. Something was going to give sooner or later. For effect, I added: “I pray I won’t be in town that day.” That was meant to be a joke. We both laughed it off. But is it still funny now?

In an article published on July 7, 2008, “One Day, the People Will Rebel”, I did warn our leaders that Nigerians would take to the streets one day if they would not change their ways. In another article, “Whatsoever a Man Soweth” — published on May 12, 2019 — I resurrected the warning, adding: “We have sown the wind and we are reaping the whirlwind. The teens and teenagers that we refused to care for yesterday have become our nemesis today. They are now in our neighbourhood and on the highway, making life unbearable for us. The security system we failed to overhaul and modernise for ages — despite security budgets in billions of dollars — is now unable to protect us.”

I was not saying anything extraordinary. It was just logical. For many years, even when the economy was much better than this, we were perching on a ticking time bomb. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) kept estimating that 70 percent of Nigerians were living on less than $1 a day. It was all statistics to us.

Instead of creating jobs, we were busy banning and unbanning okada. The police, FRSC, VIO, LASTMA, tax collectors and task forces were terrorising bus drivers, okada riders, traders and other self-employed Nigerians. We thought there would be no consequences. State-society relations were tense. Social unrest was within a sneezing distance.

In other news, ordinary Nigerians struggling for daily bread were regularly reading and watching dramas of stolen billions in the media. We were buying presidential jets and budgeting N37 billion to renovate the National Assembly complex in a country mired in abject poverty. Hospitals, roads and schools remained in a terrible state. Politicians were partying in Dubai and piling up luxury cars which they showed off on Instagram for our viewing pleasure. Civil servants and politicians were openly celebrating their children’s graduation from secondary schools in the UK and the US. Longsuffering Nigerians were watching all these things. Resentment was inevitable.

When the #EndSARS protests started early October and began to gather momentum, it did not dawn on me that finally, the stage was set and a nationwide conflagration was at hand. I surely feared that things could get out of hand — prolonged street protests could be unpredictable — but not in my wildest calculations could I have foreseen anything near the scale of the disorder, destruction and death. I never imagined that harmless BRT buses would be burnt, or private businesses, including cinemas, would be razed, or warehouses would be looted.

I never expected hospital beds and toilet seats to be stolen, or security agents to be involved in wanton criminality. But here we are.

That is why every public protest needs an exit plan. The #OccupyOjota protests of 2012

Buhari would have ended in bloodbath but for the experience of some of the organisers. President Goodluck Jonathan had agreed to most of the demands of the protesters, but some people insisted the protests must go on. Jonathan decided to deploy troops. Before then, the word going round was that militants were planning to take advantage of the chaos to bomb Lagos. Imagine a bomb being thrown into the crowd! The protest leaders quickly got the people off the streets. Wisdom is profitable to direct. You can retreat without surrendering.

It is not cowardice. Rather, you can see the bigger picture.

I will continue to argue, nonetheless, that nothing whatsoever justifies the Lekki shootings or any killings at all. In fact, I had been praying that soldiers would not be deployed to “restore order”. It can never end well. It does not matter if they used blank, rubber or live bullets. Military involvement in civil protests is a no-no. Also, anyone who has been around for a little bit would know that peaceful protests cannot be guaranteed for long across the country. Things can degenerate quickly. Disorder puts everyone at risk. We all need to be more interested in prompt crisis resolution. We live in a fragile country, where class, ethnicity and religion can easily blow things out of proportion.

But, like I wrote in my previous article, the youth should not be discouraged. Yes, it is true that they did not know how to manage their victory. But we are all entitled to our mistakes and misjudgements. It is a teachable moment for everybody, including the government. The carnage aside, the youth should be proud of themselves. I am one of those who believe that this is a watershed moment in our history. If Nigeria remains the same after the #EndSARS protests, then we are eternally doomed. Call me naïve, but I expect the police and politicians to start paying more attention to the cries of Nigerians. #EndSARS is more than SARS. It says a lot about Nigeria.

One thing for sure: Nigerians are angry and frustrated. Make no mistakes about it: the burning of police stations and the offices of FRSC, VIO and LASTMA was not accidental. These are the uniformed people who torment Nigerians the most on a daily basis. They represent the oppressive state. This was the opportunity for the oppressed to get even or hit back, as it were. Sit down with commercial bus drivers or petty traders and ask them what they go through in the hands of some of these guys

daily. The #EndSARS mayhem gave them an opportunity to vent their anger. Let me state this clearly: arson is wrong and criminal — but let us have that argument some other day.

Also, Nigerians are hungry. Food is increasingly out of reach for many. We cannot glorify looting, but when you see what people were stealing — bread, noodles and garri — you would understand that a major motivation was what they would eat for a few days or weeks. We should not be surprised. People collect loaves of bread and tiny bags of rice to sell their votes, aware that they may never benefit anything else from the politician again. Nigerians who are comfortable economically cannot understand this mentality. There are people who wake up every day without an idea of where the next meal would come from. Things are that bad.

Stealing foodstuff is, to them, not a sin.

What else does the mayhem tell us? People are wicked. Why would you set fire to private property? In the past, anger was directed at public buildings — in the mistaken belief that it would hurt only the government. This time, private businesses were targeted. The miscreants did not only pillage the shops, they defecated in them and burnt down many thereafter. Some rioters, after stealing TV sets, smashed the screens of the ones that were too big to be carried away.

I saw a video of people removing roofs. This is not #EndSARS. This is wickedness feasting on public disorder. Let’s not confuse this with anger. The situation only brought out the sick sadists in them.

What’s more, robbers were on the prowl. We should not for one minute assume that robbers were on break during the protests. The anarchy provided a great opportunity for them to strike.

When you see ATMs being smashed, you know that this is not part of the drill. You may want to attribute it to exuberance but I would say they were looking for something else. When you steal motorcycles and tractors and then dismember them to sell in bits and pieces, there is every indication that you are a professional robber disguising as a hungry, angry or disgruntled Nigerian. With due respect, your night job is armed robbery. Or you are an aspiring robber.

The protests only helped your case.

Anything else? Many people have argued that the looting spree puts our youth on the same level with politicians. The argument is that if they too have the chance, they will steal.

This seems to question their moral right to complain about corruption. Someone even said Nigeria has no future if these are the people that will be calling the shots later. While not justifying the looting, I will argue that we can only make a defining judgement if we were in normal times. You cannot have anarchy on this scale and expect rational behaviour. More so, you cannot use the behaviour of probably 100,000 rioters (some might not even be youth) to judge 100 million young Nigerians.

In all, the looting of warehouses storing COVID-19 relief materials tells us that Nigerians are neither deaf nor blind. They were aware of the billions of naira said to have been spent on palliatives. They listened to news regularly. They knew the miserable packages they received — if they got anything at all — during and after the lockdown. They knew when the trucks brought the materials. They knew where the warehouses are. Some of them had even been engaged to off-load the materials. The fact that Nigerians go about their daily business peacefully — suffering and smiling — does not mean they are ignorant of the fraud or are happy with their condition. Is the message clear to all?

And Four Other Things…

LEKKI SHOOTINGS Nearly two weeks after the Lekki shootings, we are still trying to know the truth. Certain facts have now been well established.

Governor Jide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos state declared a curfew and invited the army to restore order. The army has finally admitted that the men that “restored order” were Nigerian soldiers, not impostors. It is also clear that there were shootings. It is further confirmed that people were hit. The injured were taken to the hospital. But how many people died? Where are the dead bodies?

The Lekki incident will not go away like that.

All the facts must be established. No matter how long it takes, I’m confident the whole truth will come out one day. Irrefutable.

WTO POLITICS The US opposition to Dr Ngozi OkonjoIweala’s election as the next director-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO) tells us something about the rigged world order: that one powerful nation can override the choice of every other. Okonjo-Iweala polled 110 votes to her rival’s 54, and the panel that makes the final recommendation said she was the woman for the job. But the US would have none of that. Those who said it was President Donald Trump, and not President Muhammadu Buhari, that nominated Okonjo-Iweala for the job should be better educated now. Most essentially, though, I hope the almighty America would be forced to eat the humble pie this time.

Absurd.

POLICE, YOUR FRIEND? Hate them, love them: you need the police. The unchecked anarchy during the #EndSARS mayhem says it all. When I was a newspaper editor and was closing as late as 2am every day, I was never at ease if I did not see police on the road on my way home. Not that I trusted them so much, but I felt more secure. The absence of police on the streets during the mayhem and the ugly consequences that ensued should remind us once again that we cannot do without the police. Therefore, the first visible fruit of #EndSARS should be the birth of a modern, smart, humane and professional police force committed to protecting life and property.

Let’s keep our eyes on the ball. Focus.

YAKUBU ‘RE-ELECTED’ While all eyes were on #EndSARS, President Buhari renewed the tenure of Professor Mahmood Yakubu as the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). All things equal, Yakubu will be in office for 10 years. For the record, this is the first time since Independence that an electoral boss has been re-appointed. Mr Eyo Esua (1964-66), Chief Michael Ani (197679), Justice Victor Ovie-Whisky (1979-83), Prof Eme Awa (1987-89), Prof Humphrey Nwosu (1989-1993), Chief Sumner DagogoJack (1994-98), Justice Ephraim Akpata (1998-2000), Dr Abel Guobadia (2000-05), Prof Maurice Iwu (2005-10) and Prof Attahiru Jega (2010-15) all spent one term or less. Remarkable.

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