In the next few days, the Fourth Republic will be 25 years. In the same vein, President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu will be one year in office and APC will mark its nine years as a ruling party in Nigeria. The indisputable reality is that it is difficult for any rational thinking Nigerian to celebrate where we are today as a nation. If anything, our experience in the last 25 years reechoed Amartya Sen’s warning in the book Development as Freedom when he cautioned that ‘Democracy does not serve as an automatic remedy of ailment as quinine works to remedy malaria. The opportunity it opens up has to be positively grabbed in order to achieve the desired effect. This is, of course, a basic feature of freedoms in general – much depends on how freedoms are actually exercised.’

Interestingly, Amartya Sen’s book was first published in 1999, the very year Nigeria’s Fourth Republic was inaugurated. Although many Nigerian’s read the book and admired his deep intellectual insight, and foresight, but the cautionary note about the prospect or potentials of democracy to cure societal ailments was simply overlooked. Perhaps, in 1999, when Nigerians welcome democracy with very high expectations, most citizens, across the nation were more absorbed by the relief of having to bid goodbye to military rule. Having spent close to fifteen years uninterrupted and more than thirty years of our life as an independent nation at the receiving end of successive military governments, with the attendant consequences of loss of freedoms, helplessly reduced to being distant observers of poor management of Nigeria’s resources, the expectation was that democratic dispensation will change all that.

Unfortunately, here we are, twenty-five years after, welfare condition of Nigerians is unarguably worse. Unemployment and poverty incidences have increased. Poor management of national resources has continued so much so that crisis of insecurity and threat to human lives is the new normal. Worse part of it is that we have elected governments, virtually at all levels performing worse than military rulers. Although theories of democracy and politics have unquestionably proven that elected leaders will be more accountable, twenty-five years of democratic rule in Nigeria is yet to produce leaders that are predisposed to accommodating the interests of citizens. Instead, we keep moving almost in opposite direction to whatever could be estimated as the interest of Nigerians, no matter how narrowly defined. Is it that Nigeria’s democracy is yet to open the expected opportunity? Or is it that majority of Nigerians are unable to ‘positively grab’ the opportunity, which democracy presents? What is the opportunity, which democracy presents?

These are fundamental questions, which we must interrogate to be able to come to terms with our Nigerian reality and perhaps develop creative initiatives on how to exercise the freedoms that comes with democracy based on which the opportunities it presents can be ‘positively grabbed in order to achieve the desired effect’ of resolving our national challenges. First, while interrogating this issue, I want to affirm my membership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and recognise that the last nine years disappointingly dashed the expectations of Nigerians. I make this admission as someone who is committed to progressive politics based on the conviction that the first thing that qualifies anyone to be a progressive is the capacity to recognise challenges based on correct assessment of realities. Correct assessment of reality is about honest criticism and taking responsibility. It is not about rationalising choices or denial of challenges and realities.

When leaders of opposition parties in the country successfully merged in July 2013, the expectations of Nigerians were that APC will produce more responsive leaders both in terms of ability to undertake honest criticisms as well as take responsibility in a direction that pulls the nation out of its development challenges. Without going into details, these are unanswerable expectations, which are today sources of frustrations for Nigerians with both the APC, as a party, the leaders it has produced, and democracy as a political system. The heartbreaking reality is that anytime some glimmer of political hope presents itself, even when supported by popular votes, it turns out to be moonlighting, basically a case of being stuck with illusive politics. APC is one glimmer of political hope, which emerged in 2013, elected as the ruling party since 2015, but emerging, so far, as another moonlighting phenomenon.

Being a party founded with the vision of becoming a progressive party, it has crashed below whatever a political party represents, not to talk of being progressive. As it is today, its leadership doesn’t obey its own constitution, it doesn’t hold meetings and it is accountable to no one. Since 2015, when the party was elected as a ruling party, with former President Muhammadu Buhari inaugurated as President of the Federal Republic, the manifesto of the party has been virtually abandon and leaders of the party have little or no say in the management of governments it produced at all levels. Processes of appointments into government and policy decisions have been made prerogative of the President at national level and Governors at state levels. Like under military rule when citizens were reduced to distant observers, under the APC, party leaders and members have also become distant observers.

Because leaders of the APC are not obeying the rules of the party, we have produced several electoral disasters whereby the courts have to intervene to nullify electoral victories of the party. These are issues bordering on culture of impunity in the process of candidates selection. A situation, which invariably forsaken the commitment of the party to change Nigerian politics, instead further entrenched politics of godfatherism with the attendant consequences of widespread rigging of elections. So far, culture of impunity is pervasive in APC. A glimmer of hope that the party may overcome the culture of impunity emerged when ahead of the 2023 elections, President Asiwaju Tinubu led the struggle against imposition of a so-called consensus Presidential candidate.

The emergence of President Asiwaju Tinubu as the Presidential candidate of the APC for the 2023 election rekindled the hope of many party leaders and members about the possibility of returning the APC to its founding vision and engendering progressive governance in the country. After one year in office, the government of President Asiwaju Tinubu has turned out to be another experience replicating reality of illusive politics, which has reduced citizens, party leaders and members to being distant observers. Painfully, against every expectation that President Asiwaju Tinubu will reignite the Lagos success story at national level, his government is more and more creating doubts in the minds of Nigerians about the prospect of resolving the country’s challenges with incidences of policy missteps and reversals.

As a result, crisis of insecurity has remained. Problems of inflation, unemployment and poverty are on the increase. Politically, the APC has continued to follow the track of being disrespectful to its own rules so much so that we have shamelessly produced a serving Governor who is using his immunity to block law enforcement officials from undertaking their responsibility to investigate corruption allegations against his predecessor. The bigger disappointment is the troubling reality whereby political mercenaries who fought against President Asiwaju Tinubu’s election during the 2023 elections are now his strongest allies with free access and party loyalists who campaigned and stood by him have been denied access and are being held in contempt.

To make matters worse, illusive politics would appear to have been adopted with the emergence of Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje as the National Chairman of the APC. So far, since his emergence, he basically confirmed all the fears against him. He has managed or mismanaged affairs of the APC blindly without respect to the provisions of the party’s constitution. Almost ten months since his emergence, with the possible exemption of the National Working Committee (NWC), no meeting of any organ of the party at national level has taken place. With elections in Edo and Ondo States coming up, the risk of reproducing another electoral disasters are high if the party fail to convene appropriate meetings of organs such as the National Executive Committee (NEC) to ratify some of the decisions taken by NWC, which were outside its mandate.

The other reality is whether the tenure of President Asiwaju Tinubu will continue moving in the path of illusive politics based on which Nigerians, inclusive of APC leaders and members, will remain distant observers, unable to influence decisions and directions of the President Asiwaju Tinubu’s government. As things are, the body language of President Asiwaju Tinubu is disrespectful and contemptuous to many party leaders and members, especially those that are outspoken and critical of his decisions. So long as this remain the case, the prospect of returning APC to its founding vision and engendering progressive governance will be weak. Inability to return APC to its founding vision and failure to engender progressive governance could mean inability to positively grabbed the opportunity, which democracy presents. This could also mean that the crisis of insecurity, unemployment, poverty, etc. could remain with us and become worse.

Given all these danger signals, it is important that APC leaders and members who are truly committed to developing Nigerian democracy based on progressive principles take up the challenge of organising themselves to reverse the current decline towards illusive politics in the country. Achieving that will require APC leaders and members who are truly committed to progressive politics to demand immediate reform of both the party and all governments at all levels controlled by the APC. To mainstream the reform so that it conforms with the statutory requirement of reviving the structures of the party and enabling them to affirm the supremacy of the party, processes of consultations to re-organise the leadership of the party so that respected party leaders with unblemished records of integrity emerge.

Certainly, with persons like Dr. Ganduje with all the many controversies around him vested with the responsibility of leading the party makes nonsense of all the sacrifices made by party leaders to ensure successful merger and the defeat of PDP in 2015. A clear message therefore must be sent to President Asiwaju Tinubu that as much as, being party leaders and members, we are committed to supporting his leadership and just like we have worked hard to produce the victory of 2023, which crowned him the victory of becoming the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, under no circumstances must he take for granted our support and the support of Nigerians. We must, in strong terms, remind President Asiwaju Tinubu about the power of possibility, which in fact was the main propelling factor that made the merger negotiation that produced the APC in 2013 successful. It was also the propelling factor that made the electoral victory of 2015 possible.

In fact, more than anything, it was the same factors that made the defeat of so-called consensus Presidential candidate possible. The point must be made that on no account must any leader of APC, including President Asiwaju Tinubu, be allowed to live with the illusive reasoning that Nigerians will continue to tolerate a situation whereby their hopes and aspirations are constantly being dashed by political leaders. If the hallmark of the tenure of former President Buhari is the trauma of dashed hopes for citizens, we must, as Nigerian citizens and as committed progressive politicians wake up and remedy the ugly and despicable experience of illusive politics. After one year in office, the unmistaken message must be conveyed to President Asiwaju Tinubu and by extension all APC leaders that the democratic future of Nigeria is not negotiable.

Just like Nigerians were able confront military rulers and PDP leaders when they trampled on the rights and freedoms of citizens, if APC leaders tow the same path, it is incumbent on all true progressives and patriots to organise themselves and arrest any further drift towards illusive politics. However, first thing first, the message must be communicated in unmistaken terms that President Asiwaju Tinubu should come clean and truly demonstrate that he is indeed both a democrat and a progressive politician by initiating deeper political reforms of both the APC and all governments controlled by the APC at all levels. If truly President Asiwaju Tinubu is a democrat and a progressive politician, the current lawless disposition of APC leaders must be ended. Also, inattentive conduct of President Asiwaju Tinubu, which hold APC leaders and members in contempt must change.

Failure of APC and its leadership since the time of former President Buhari to meet the expectations of Nigerians by delivering on our campaign promises has debase our democracy and made a mockery of all the gains we have made as a nation. It is not enough to change leaders. Once change of leaders doesn’t come with increased capacity to respond to national challenges, the value of democracy will be questionable. As patriots who fought for democracy, we have the responsibility to continue to engage our leaders to ensure that our democracy opens the ‘opportunity’ which should ‘be positively grabbed in order to achieve the desired effect’ of improving the lives of citizens. Anything short of that is unacceptable and is not the democracy Nigerians want. Our democracy must serve as remedy for all our societal ailments!

An increasing number of Nigerians are being driven into poverty, not by choice, but by the current political and economic climate, shaped by stringent macroeconomic policies. These policies, such as subsidy removal, devaluation of Naira, and increase in electricity tariff, have had unintended consequences. For instance, removing subsidies has led to a significant increase in the cost of living, while the devaluation of Naira has made imported goods more expensive. These factors, combined with the high level of insecurity, have affected food security in Nigeria, and created a perfect storm of economic hardship. The signs of this unavoidable reality are readily apparent. The interventions to prevent this descent into poverty are either ineffectual or remedy the condition too slowly. 

An unprecedented rise in inflation has destroyed households’ disposable incomes and pushed many families into poverty. Spiralling inflation is having a devastating impact on all, but especially on households in the lower rungs of the working class, who in their millions are joining the already over 133 million multidimensionally poor Nigerians struggling to earn a living because high inflation has eroded the value of their income. As shown by the NBS Consumer Price Index of April 2024, published in May 2024, the headline inflation rate rose to 33.69% in April 2024 compared to March. The headline inflation rate was 11.47% higher in April 2024 compared to the previous year. During the same period, inflation in urban areas was higher than in rural areas. Even worse, the food inflation rate in April 2024 was 40.53%, increasing by 15.92% compared to April 2023. What does this mean for the ordinary citizen? More money can purchase fewer goods and services.

We cannot dismiss the direct correlation between rising inflation and rising poverty in Nigeria. A household with a monthly income of N300,000 in April 2023 would have lost 33.69% of its real purchasing power if it earned the same amount in April 2024. This means that the same amount of money can now buy significantly fewer goods and services, putting a strain on the household’s budget. Imagine this household struggled in 2023 to make ends meet; how will it cope with less than 33% of its value in goods and services this year? It is little wonder many Nigerians are in despair and are calling on the government to tweak its policies and salvage the situation before it is too late. Families in the earning bracket mentioned above are even better than many whose total income is less than N100,000 if both parents in the household earn minimum wages per month. 

The government intervention so far, with the best of intentions, has yielded little result as inflation continues unabated. The monetary policies of increasing base interest rates to above 22%, improving the cash reserve ratio by banks to above 40%, and constantly engaging in the money market to mop up excess liquidity have yielded less than the expected result in curbing inflation. More is needed, and my little knowledge of street economics shows me that the Nigerian economy often defies some fundamental economic concepts that work in developed countries because of our economy’s informal and unregulated nature. The Nigerian government must creatively use other bespoke and practical fiscal and monetary measures to tame our raging inflation.

Paradoxically, there is compelling evidence that inflation continues to rise because of critical government policies. Instead of providing more concerted anti-inflationary measures, the government has added more inflationary steps to the economy. The government cannot confront inflation while imposing limitless taxes, tariffs, and charges on the things that people spend money on daily. The impact of excess tax is on everybody, but the burden is more on people experiencing poverty whose purchasing power has been eroded by inflation. The government cannot tax itself out of our economic predicament. Increasing personal income tax is one way government reduces disposable income to curb demand pull inflation, but the inflation in Nigeria is not because of increase in household income, but caused by cost induced factors. So tax on people whose income have not increased in the past year is a recipe for hardship. 

Other factors also imperil government efforts to curb inflation. Imported inflation has been the bane of Nigeria, given the number of raw materials and goods imported into Nigeria from countries with high inflation rates. This is not helped by the new exchange rate regime that has seen the Naira fall to its lowest value in a generation. The government has been trying to control the erosion of the value of Naira to no avail. Increasing cost of energy has pushed  some  businesses to  pack up. These factors have exacerbated the rise of inflation, and unless the government starts tackling them, it cannot effectively win its fight against runaway inflation.  

The consequences of inaction are severe and far-reaching. The system requires a set of anti-inflationary measures to relieve the people and companies so that livelihoods can improve, and real incomes recover from shock to encourage people to live and save. Savings and prosperity will fire up investment, production, supply, and consequent demand. If inflation worsens, the economy will, at best, go into stasis, further regression, and possibly a depression. More manufacturers will quit, and unemployment will worsen with even more crime and insecurity. The picture I painted above is not far from us. 

Recent statistics about the hunger level in Nigeria occasioned by food inflation are alarming. There is a deteriorating food security and nutrition crisis in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe (BAY) states this lean season between May and September 2024. According to the Government-led Cadre Harmonise analysis released in March this year, in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states, some 4.8 million people are estimated to be facing severe food insecurity, the highest levels in seven years. Children, pregnant and lactating women, older persons, and people living with disabilities are among those who are most vulnerable. About 2.8 million of these people need urgent interventions.

The prices of staple foods like beans and maize have increased by 300 to 400 percent over the past year because of a cocktail of reasons. Inflation is outpacing the ability of families to cope, making essential food items unaffordable. Furthermore, the report stated that “malnutrition rates are of great concern. Approximately 700,000 children under five are projected to be acutely malnourished over the next six months, including 230,000 who are expected to be severely acutely malnourished and at risk of death if they do not receive timely treatment and nutrition support.”  The Acting Representative of UNICEF Nigeria argues that “this year alone, we have seen around 120,000 admissions for the treatment of severe acute malnutrition with complications, far exceeding our estimated target of 90,000”.  This statistics are for only 3 states in the Northeast Nigeria. Imagine what it will be for the whole 36 States in Nigeria. There is real fire on the mountain!

This rising hunger is not peculiar to the Northeast. From my knowledge of street economics, hunger and poverty is pervasive across all six geopolitics zones. Increasing poverty is directly linked with more severe economic outcomes. Increasing poverty can result in a more divided society, Issues with housing, homelessness, limited access to healthcare, nutrition poverty and poor living conditions that have a detrimental effect on one’s health. Children living in poverty have less access to education, which will reduce their chances in the future. More families facing poverty will experience conflicts, stress, and domestic violence. Poverty can set off a vicious cycle in which the effects of it act as catalysts for additional episodes of poverty. Increasing inflation and poverty are bad omens that blow us no good. They are bad for our economy. They are bad for our people. The government must pay attention to these factors and be more sensitive in our economic policy choices. 

Only some anti-inflationary measures that comprehensively capture the macroeconomic dimensions and provide solutions may work. Poverty alleviation measures are barely temporary and, at best, work in the short run to cushion the effect of heightened inflation and food insecurity. The government should provide solid medium- to long-term solutions to tackle these problems. They should re-evaluate some of their policies to see whether they are inflationary and jettison them to allow good policies to thrive. We can only imagine the unintended consequences of allowing poverty and inflation to fester. The increasing inflation and poverty are creating desperation among a portion of society, which is increasingly becoming despondent and seeing itself at the fringes of society. The implications of this are plausible. Many ordinary citizens are burdened by poverty, hunger, and severe inflation, which have made their lives miserable. The government must take action to alleviate this scourge and help Nigerians lead meaningful lives.

Gov. Biodun Oyebanji of Ekiti State is, without doubt, one of the country’s best performing governors. He works hard, talks less, evades the limelight but his Ekiti people describe him as an achiever. He was in Dallas, United States of America recently to urge foreign investors to take advantage of the current economic reforms in Nigeria to invest in the country.

“This is the right time for any investor to invest in Nigeria”, Oyebanji declared at a panel session, one of the major events at the 2024 US-Africa Business Summit organized by the Corporate Council on Africa (CCA), citing the current reforms of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration and the synergy between the Federal Government and the country’s 36 state governments, which includes his own Ekiti.

In attendance at the session were heads of national and sub-national governments; investors; policy-makers and development agencies drawn from different parts of the world, including the Chairman of the Board of Corporate Council on Africa, Mr. John Olajide.

To buttress his assertion, Oyebanji cited a few successful collaborations between Ekiti and some international investors, including Cavista Holdings and Promasidor, to make a case for more direct investment in the state, stressing that the right time to invest in the state is now.

“Now, we have a reform-minded government that is visionary and we have 36 state governors that have keyed into the vision of the President Tinubu administration. The economy of sub-nationals are critical to the Nigerian economy itself. So, for any investor that wants good returns on their investment, this is the time to invest in Nigeria because the market is readily available, the people are ready, we have a government that is reform-minded and all the governors have keyed into the vision as well. So, the time to invest in Nigeria is now”.

Wooing investors to Ekiti in particular, Oyebanji said the State Government is strong on regulatory frameworks designed to protect investors and their investments. His exact words: “What we are doing is to ensure that we have a stable and predictable regulatory framework and there must be trust because I believe that for any business to thrive, trust is key. You must have a leader that is visionary, trust-worthy, and transparent. All these we have in Ekiti State”.

Ekiti’s vast mineral resources as well as its agricultural and tourism potentials beg to be tapped. Fresh from the launching of a book on creating values by Ademola Akinbola (more on this later), it must be stated that tapping into Nigeria’s vast human and material resources is the antidote to the country’s crippling economic crisis seemingly defying solution. What with the Naira rising today and falling tomorrow!

Each time I travel in Ekiti – as in other parts of the country – and see vast agricultural and tourism potentials waiting to be tapped, it saddens me. I refrain from using the expression “wasting or rotting away”! It gladdens the heart, then, to see that there is a governor in Ekiti working silently to change the narrative. The two years that I spent in Ekiti towards the tail end of the Ayo Fayose administration and the unique opportunity I had traversing the whole state on campaign hustings with Prof. Kolapo Olusola Eleka opened my eyes to the immense agricultural resources of the state.

The tourism potentials of Ekiti, if tapped, is a gold mine that can sustain the State and wean it from over-dependence on Abuja for bailouts and doleouts. Last Easter witnessed a giant step taken by the state governor, with the concurrence of the Minister of Tourism, to begin to tap into this money spinner. Having enjoyed Ekiti’s tourism potentials in the past, Arinta waterfalls and Ikogosi warm springs to be specific, I intend to make a return visit to those spots and other Ekiti tourism potentials to highlight them for potential investors and tourism enthusiasts alike. We need to know that what we travel abroad to enjoy at prohibitive costs abound right at our backyard at affordable costs.

This is also the right time for Ekiti to tap into its mineral resources. The state is fortunate to have the hard-working Minister in charge of mineral resources development, Dele Alake; let Dele’s charity begin from home! After Ekiti, Dele should please come to my home state of Ondo to help us, before making the rounds all over the country. Lest you forget, Ondo and Ekiti used to be one state! As they say, every politics is local! Synergy is required between Minister and governor to deliver the goods to Ekiti. The human resources abound in Ekiti, which is touted as the state with the highest concentration of professors and academics in Nigeria.

If Ekiti must move from being a sleepy civil service state to a business destination of choice, the time is now! It is do-able. Otunba Gbenga Daniel started a similar revolution in Ogun state and, today, that state is no longer the sleepy civil service state that it used to be but has one of the highest IGR in the country. Ekiti can follow suit.

If Oyebanji and Alake achieve that for Ekiti, their names with be etched in gold, just as we mention Gbenga Daniel’s today.

“Nigeria is a composite of contradictions; what is poison in the south is sweet sauce in the north. The Ovimbundu (Bantu) people of Southern Africa say that the mist of the coast is the rain of the desert. In the place where I come from, mass children is interpreted as mass misery (omo beere, òsì beere). We also warn that marriage is easy to contract, what about soup money? Mass weddings were conducted yesterday, last year and in the last decade in the North. What happened to them? Where are the benefits beyond their adding to the hardship of the destitute? Where I come from, we say a mother does not feel the weight of her baby (omo kìí wúwo l’éhìn ìyá è). But the trunk of the North’s elephant is, by choice, made a burden for it to carry. The North’s way of life hurts where I come from – Western Nigeria. I am not the only one who has this thought. While the southern bird avoids waters that degrade the girl-child, the duck of the North preens and bathes in them. Embarrassing stories such as of this mass wedding stuff are so common with northern political and religious leaders. A hail of threats against counter views comes common too. And when they happen, questions are asked down south about the sense in sharing this Nigerian complex.”

A minister suffered severe abuse and reprimand from the elites of the North last week because she asked the North to choose mass education first before mass marriage. Sixty-four years after independence, we are still struggling to understand Nigeria’s Muslim North and its ways. A 1950 letter to the editor of Gaskiya, northern Nigeria’s preeminent Hausa newspaper, should tell us something about the mystery of the region.

The letter appeared in the newspaper’s number 391 of 8 March, 1950 on page 2.

It reads:

“To the Editor – I beg to lay this complaint before you, so that you may approach the Sultan in order that I may achieve my desire. I am of slave descent, belonging to one of the families of court slaves. Both my father and mother were slaves of a certain emir. My mother’s name is Munayabo, and my father’s Ci-wake. A well-to-do man has fallen in love with me, and I love him too, but he has got four wives already. For this reason, we find it difficult to make arrangements for living together. I asked a learned mallam, who told me to ask my father’s consent first, according to Islamic law, and also that of the authorities. If they agree to the proposal, I can become his concubine, Islamic law allows it. This is what the mallam told me. Well, Mr. Editor, my father, Islamic law, I myself and the rich man have agreed, only the authorities remain. May they agree to make proper arrangements for me so that I may be allowed into the harem of the man. My father’s and my mother’s names show that I really belong to a family of former slaves.

“I believe there are quite a number of girls such as me in the North. We have found that if girls in our position were allowed by the authorities, as is permitted by the law, to live as concubines in the harems of princes and well-to-do and important officials, the number of prostitutes who walk the streets would be reduced considerably. In this way, it may be possible for some of us to give birth to children who will one day be useful to the country. In this way, I may give birth to a son who may even one day become an emir. This will be better than our walking about in the towns and giving birth to children without proper fathers. Our religion permits it, but it is the authorities that are closing the door against us. I am sure that if the authorities allowed it, certain great houses in the North would accommodate thousands of us.

“Mr. Editor, I have given you a full explanation. We have come to an agreement with the said rich man, and are only waiting for the consent of the authorities on behalf of the Sultan. I wish you would lay my statement, as set out here, before the authorities and not allow room for destructive criticism. I should like the critics to understand that it is not my father who is trying to sell me into slavery. It is at my own free will that I desire to live in a big harem with a man who has already got four wives. I adjure you by Allah, Mr. Editor, to publish this letter so that I may get a reply and permission from the authorities.

(Signature)”.

I got the above letter from Joseph Schacht’s ‘Islam in Northern Nigeria’, published in Studia Islamica, 1957, No. 8. The author said the signatory of the letter was “a well-educated young girl who had passed with distinction through the modern Government College for Girls.” Note that the letter was not written in the 19th century. It was written a few years before independence.

For better or for worse, a lot has shifted since that letter was composed. I do not think girls are still born over there into ‘slavery’ and thus have to beg to be allowed to marry. What I know (and everybody knows) is that the North routinely stages mass weddings for hordes of nameless girls and ladies. Are they children of slaves?

I am a Muslim from southern Nigeria and each time strange things happen in the North in the name of Islam, I exchange glances of surprise with my brothers here. Schacht (1902-1969), the author of ‘Islam in Northern Nigeria’, was a British-German professor of Arabic and Islam at Columbia University in New York. He was the leading western scholar on Islamic law. In that article, he said the Muslims of our North whom he saw in 1957 “form a very isolated community.” He wrote that “most of their isolation is voluntary and intentional” and that “they are generally afraid of being contaminated by modern ideas, and particularly by the non-Islamic South.” I strongly believe they still prefer their isolation from “modern ideas” and from the South. And we are still in the same country. Shouldn’t we just restructure and redefine boundaries and contacts?

I am being very careful choosing my words as I write this. I have written some paragraphs and cancelled them because I am, like the girls of Niger State, an orphan with no capacity for self-defence. But, it would appear that northern Nigeria’s biggest business today is mass wedding and mass production of children. After child-making, it has religion, very economically lucrative political religion. With this combo, it wrecks itself and stunts the country, and sows contagious poverty across the land. I hope no one is going to contest these.

I will be shocked if you did not follow last week’s big fight between the Minister of Women Affairs, Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, and the northern elite led by imams from Niger State. The woman offended the North because she said no to a plan to shell out 100 orphaned girls to some randy men in a mass wedding. And because of that, press conferences and acid rains of sermons poured across the swarthy region on Friday. They said the ‘condescending’ female minister from the South overstepped her bounds. They said it was their religious culture to assist female orphans to solve their problems by marrying them off en masse, so that they can multiply and fill the earth with children. They did not tell us if their culture has plans only for the girls while male orphans are left to roam the street as Almajirai.

The image a mass-wedding evokes in me is that of tethered rams at sallah markets. Or, more appropriately, a mass of what slave merchants called dabukia (female with plump breasts) and farkhah (female with small breasts) in mid-19th century Sokoto, Kano and Katsina slave markets. I have read some defences for the botched mass wedding of Niger State. Some said the girls and their families begged for it and the speaker paid as a man of God. Let us assume the girls truly begged for the weddings, couldn’t their helper just give the ‘help’ without the humiliation of a mass sale?

Yet, it is said that the loud mass weddings we see in the North are followed almost immediately by quiet mass divorces. Yusuf M. Adamu and Rabi Abdulsalam Ibrahim, both of Bayero University, Kano, did a seminal work on what they call “the rashness of divorce in Hausa society.” In their ‘Spheres, Spaces and Divorcees in Zawarawa: A Hausa movie (2018)’, quoting Solivetti (1994:252), they say Hausa Muslim society has “one of the highest rates of divorce and remarriage in the world.” It is also in that piece that I see a raw passage on commodification of marriage in Hausa land. A character in the movie exclaims: “The prices of things in Nigeria are rising, especially crude oil, gold and diamond. The prices are rising. But why has the value of women fallen so low? (Tattalin arziki ya na ta tashi a Nijeriya, musamman ma na man fetur da gwalagwalai da lu’ulu’u. kullum dada hauhawa su ke. Amma farashin mata, ya a ke ya fadi wanwar?).” Read the various defences in support of the controversial mass wedding in Niger State. Do a character assessment of the suitors, especially the two said to have assisted their in-laws to pay ransom but now want “marriage without delay or their money back.” Have the angry Imams and mallams asked what kind of husbands those ones will be?

Nigeria is a composite of contradictions; what is poison in the south is sweet sauce in the north. The Ovimbundu (Bantu) people of Southern Africa say that the mist of the coast is the rain of the desert. In the place where I come from, mass children is interpreted as mass misery (omo beere, òsì beere). We also warn that marriage is easy to contract, what about soup money? Mass weddings were conducted yesterday, last year and in the last decade in the North. What happened to them? Where are the benefits beyond their adding to the hardship of the destitute? Where I come from, we say a mother does not feel the weight of her baby (omo kìí wúwo l’éhìn ìyá è). But the trunk of the North’s elephant is, by choice, made a burden for it to carry. The North’s way of life hurts where I come from – Western Nigeria. I am not the only one who has this thought. While the southern bird avoids waters that degrade the girl-child, the duck of the North preens and bathes in them. Embarrassing stories such as of this mass wedding stuff are so common with northern political and religious leaders. A hail of threats against counter views comes common too. And when they happen, questions are asked down south about the sense in sharing this Nigerian complex.

‘Season of Migration to the North’, described by a reviewer as a “sensual work of deep honesty and incandescent lyricism”, is a 1966 novel by Sudanese novelist, Tayeb Salih. Its setting should have been northern Nigeria. Forced marriage is part of that story. And, in that story, we hear the voice of Hosna bint Mahmoud promising “like the blade of a knife” that “if they force me to marry, I’ll kill him and kill myself.” And, she does just that. Such involuntary, fatal nuptials are routinely tied in our North. They always do it. We will always beg them to stop because their way hurts us.

The people I am begging here are the real kabiyesis of the North – the Imams and the mallams. They make the rules and reign as the lords of the north-west, the north-east and parts of the north-central. But, will they listen and stop? They will not. They are what the Yoruba call kò níí gbà, omo elétíkunkun. And we won’t keep quiet.

Nigeria is an unending struggle against conscientious ignorance. The fundamentalism that rules Afghanistan has its professors in northern Nigeria. It is not edifying to faith. Read again the letter I started this article with. Pre-independence northern Nigeria had what was called ‘Fight Against Ignorance Committee’. There is no need to ask what the result of that initiative was. If the committee succeeded, the North would not have the world’s largest number of out-of-school-children; it would not attack a minister for asking it to choose education over marriage; banditry and terrorism and mass poverty would not be the region’s stable staple.

So, when we ask the elite of the North to drop their bad ways, it is not because we hate them and their North. No. It is because we benefit from the Hausa wisdom that emphasises peace over pie: “it is easy enough to find food but hard to get away to a place where you can eat it in peace (Ba samu’n abinchi ke da wuya, wurinda zaka chishi ke da wuya)”. We live in the same house with the North, and while doing so, we strongly believe that we deserve our peace. That was why that woman minister from the south, Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, tore the North’s mass-wedding scroll and insisted on Nigeria adding real value to the lives of those 100 hapless girls. It is the reason I wrote this.

Ex-Big Brother Naija (BBNaija) housemate, Ka3na, has been criticized for claiming that she recently made about a billion dollars while asleep.

In a post via Instagram on Monday, Ka3na said she made $900 million from selling properties in London, United Kingdom.

While sharing the screenshot of a message from her agent informing her of the success of the transaction, the former BBNaija housemate boasted that she would retire as a young billionaire.

“$900,000,000 while I sleep. Retiring as a young billionaire. [hash tag] Ka3naTheBossLady,” she captioned the post.

Her claim, however, stirred criticism from fans and friends.

@karo_okogbe said: “You go school? You know wetin be 900 million??”

@germanyhiltonn: “Lol, you lie alot Sha”

@adenlylfatima: “even if it’s true, must u bring it here”

@smoochleezeagu: “What is now our business”

@realnexy: “Na which kind of play be this, $900,000,000 aunty why you Dey lie to all this gullible people ??? Ehn baby why”

@chldora5: “Believe the Internet at your own risk.”

@official_assurance03: “If this convo is real then you don fall victim with this I dey see that’s pure scam conversation there.”

@onyl_best_girl: “Be like dem don hack Bosslady acc.”

@queenjey_abikwl: Looks like those photos yahoo boys dig up to use for scam anyway.”

@soniaemodi: “this one resemble photo wy dem dy send give client and the story too.

[DailyTrust]

Liverpool have officially confirmed that Arne Slot will be their manager from the 2024/2025 season.

The Dutchman replaces Jurgen Klopp, who took charge of his last game on Sunday.

Slot will resume work on June 1 with the Premier League side.

He emerged as Liverpool’s top choice, after they missed out on Xabi Alonso and Ruben Amorim.

In April, Slot disclosed that Feyenoord and the Reds were in talks over a compensation package.

It is believed Liverpool have paid around £9.4million (£7.7m plus £1.7m in add-ons) for the 45-year-old.

“Liverpool Football Club can announce Arne Slot has agreed to a deal to become the club’s new head coach, formally taking up the position on June 1, 2024, subject to a work permit.

“The 45-year-old will join the Reds from Feyenoord ahead of the 2024-25 season after a deal was reached with the Eredivisie club for his services,” Liverpool said in a statement on Monday.

The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi SAN, on Monday, May 20, supported the proposed 300 percent increase in the salaries and allowances of judicial office holders in the country by President Bola Tinubu.

The National Judicial Council (NJC), Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), and the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Allocation Commission (RMAFC), among others, also endorsed the proposal.

The AGF, NBA, NJC, RMAFC, and other critical stakeholders spoke during a one-day public hearing on a Bill titled: “A Bill for an Act to Prescribe the Salaries and Allowances and Fringe Benefit of Judicial Office Holders in Nigeria and Related Matters, 2024.”

The public hearing was organised by the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights, and Legal Matters chaired by Senator Mohammed Tahir Monguno (APC – Borno North).

Fagbemi in his presentation, urged the committee to note that the efforts to improve the remuneration of judicial officers in the country has a chequered history.

He said: “I wish to remark that the Judicial Office Holders (Salaries and Allowances, etc.) Bill 2024 is quite innovative, aside from the increment in the basic salary, it also took cognizance of certain peculiarities of the administrative structure and operation of the judiciary.

“This Bill will birth an appropriate and commensurate remuneration that will ensure judicial independence and integrity.

“The present-day but sad reality is that the judiciary has stagnated on the same salary scale for over 16 years, this is totally unacceptable and quite antithetical to any meaningful judicial reform.

“I strongly commend this Bill for your kind consideration and do urge the Senate to support and ensure the passage of this Bill in the national interest of promoting the rule of law.”

He added: “In consultation with the judiciary and other key stakeholders, we are also interested in ensuring a holistic review of our judicial system to respond to the justice needs of Nigeria.

“This is why I am taking immediate/urgent steps to establish a Working Group on the review of the Constitution and other relevant laws. The Working Group will, among others, focus on the key provisions aimed at achieving the judiciary that responds to the evolving justice needs of Nigerians.

“At the appropriate time, and I promise very soon, we will come up with proposals for Constitutional and Statutory reforms of the Judiciary in particular, and the Administration of the Justice System in general.”

Details shortly…

[TheNation]

Ahead of the formal opening of the Students’ Loan portal this Friday, the Nigeria Education Loan Fund has said it will commence with students in federal tertiary institutions.

This comes as the Fund has said only students whose institutions have uploaded their data on its dashboard would be eligible to apply.

Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Fund, Akintinde Sawyerr, stated this on Monday at a Pre-Application Sensitisation Press Conference in Abuja.

He said 1.2 million students from federal government-owned universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, and technical colleges would benefit from the first phase of the scheme.

While calling on students in federal tertiary institutions to visit the website, www.nelf.gov.ng to apply from May 24, the Managing Director said students in state universities and vocation skills centres would apply at a later date.

He said the requirements to apply include the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board admission letter, National Identity Number, Bank Verification Number, and a completed application form from its website.

“The loan application process has been streamlined to ensure easy access for all eligible students in federal tertiary institutions.

“Applicants can access online support to assist with any questions or concerns during the application process.

“We believe that education is a vital investment for the future. We envisage that the student loan initiative of Mr. President is a testament to this commitment,” he said.

One of the key features of the programme, he stressed, is the absence of physical contact between the loan applicant and NELFUND.

According to him, the portal provides a user-friendly interface for students to submit their loan applications conveniently.

He encouraged students in federal tertiary institutions to take advantage of this opportunity to secure the required financial assistance for their education, even as he urged applicants to submit their applications as soon as possible to ensure timely processing.

He revealed that in addition to the interest-free loan, applicants will also receive monthly stipends for upkeep. He, however, did not state the amount, saying: “That figure will be capped.

We will look very closely at each application and make a decision based on several factors as to what fees will be paid to them.

“The fees for the institution are going to be paid not to the students but to the institution.

And that will be paid at the maximum of that fee per session. We will only pay for a session at a time. Because people drop out of institutions, they change institutions.”

The NELFUND boss also pointed out that institutions have vital roles to play in providing the Fund with data on fees payable by students at the institution, departmental, faculty and other levels.

Sawyerr said the agency is also working with security agencies to ensure that people do not take advantage and defraud the process.

President Bola Tinubu had last month signed the Student Loans (Access to Higher Education) Act (Repeal and Re-Enactment) Bill, 2024, into law, with a promise that no student would be denied the opportunity to build his future regardless of background.

The Act empowers the Nigeria Education Loan Fund to provide loans to qualified Nigerian students for tuition, fees, charges and upkeep during their studies in approved public tertiary institutions and vocational and skills acquisition establishments in the country.

The new law which repeals the Student Loan Act, 2023, removes the family income threshold so Nigerian students can apply for these loans and accept responsibility for repayment according to the Fund’s guidelines.

[Punch]

Leaders of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and their Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, counterparts have put the civil society allies on notice over their planned industrial action should government fail to reverse the hike in electricity tariff and conclude the minimum wage by May 31.

In a joint communique issued today leaders of the two labour centres, gave the federal government and National Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, month ending to reverse the hike.

This came as they reiterated their May 31 ultimatum for government to conclude the new minimum wage or face a national strike.

Details soon...

[Vanguard]

Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest person, says he still faces difficulties travelling in Africa with his Nigerian passport.

Dangote spoke recently at the Africa CEO Forum Annual Summit in Kigali, Rwanda.

“I still complained to President Kagame. I told him that as an investor, I have to now apply for 35 different visas on my passport, and I told Mr. President, I really don’t have the time to go and be dropping my passports in embassies to get a visa,” he said.

“But you see, the most annoying thing is that yes, if you are treating everybody the same, then I can understand.”

Using the French passport as an example, Dangote said Patrick Pouyanne, chairman of Total Energies, does not need 35 visas on his French passport to gain access to African countries.

“You don’t need 35 visas on your French passport. This means you have a freer movement than myself in Africa,” he said.

Speaking further on businesses within Africa, he said right now, “our main job is to make sure the regional markets all work. Once they work, then we can now go to Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA). But then, for AfCFTA also, we need to make sure that it works”.

“We cannot have a very promising continent and our intra-trade rate is less than 16 percent. Okay, so we Africans will have to do it. If we are waiting for foreigners to come and do it, both the development of Africa, it’s not going to happen,” he said. 

“So it can only happen to us Africans. We must risk our sources and make sure that we lead, then we will have people who actually trust and believe in Africa like Patrick to come and help us to push to the next level.”

Also, at the event, the business mogul announced that Nigeria will not have to import petrol into the country by June when Dangote refinery commences production of the product.

[TheCable]