Dele Farotimi: Is Afe Babalola After The Truth Or A Pound Of Flesh?

 By Olu Fasan

Most of those who have commented or are commenting on the Dele Farotimi-Afe Babalola saga have not read the book at the heart of the story: Farotimi’s Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System. I have. I bought a digital copy from Amazon last week, and spent four hours slowly reading – more appropriately, perusing – the 115-page book on Kindle.

*Farotimi 

Why did I buy the book? Two reasons. First, column-writing is about topicality and informed commentary. A good columnist should comment on any topical issue of significant public interest and do so from an informed perspective. The Farotimi-Babalola story has gripped Nigeria and has wider implications for the principle of legality. I decided to read the book so I could offer an informed opinion. Second, I wanted to know what irked Aare Afe Babalola so much that he went for the nuclear option, seeking to crush Farotimi personally and professionally. Well, answer: the book is a dynamite! 

Okonjo-Iweala, Kemi Badenoch: The Shaming Of Nigerian Statehood

 By Olu Fasan

The strength of any country consists of its natural resources, human resources and capital assets, namely, the economic wealth that delivers higher living standards. The first two determine the third. If a country can successfully harness its natural resources, using its human talent, it will prosper; if it can’t, it will fail.

*Kemi Badenoch and Okonjo-Iweala

Now, Nigeria is known worldwide for its abundant human and natural resources, so why is it one of the world’s poorest countries? Why is Nigeria run so badly that it’s utterly dysfunctional, verging on state failure? The commonest answer people give is “leadership”. But Nigerians run world bodies and lead major Western political parties, so why can’t Nigerians run their own country well? How can Nigerians provide leadership abroad, but not at home?

Hunger: Nigeria Is Starving Its Own People; That’s Iniquitous!

 By Olu Fasan

Recently, the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, published the results of the General Household Survey Panel, which showed that 63.8 per cent of households face severe food insecurity and are skipping meals, some for a whole day.

Nigeria is not in war or ravaged by famine, so why should two-thirds of the population be in the throes of hunger and starvation? How can one explain the savagery of hunger that has reduced many Nigerians to scavenging for food? Well, here’s the harsh truth: the Nigerian state is starving the Nigerian people through deliberate policy choices.

Tax Reform Bills: Tinubu Lacks The Will For National Consensus Building

 By Olu Fasan

Hardly anyone will disagree that Nigeria needs a fundamental tax reform. This, after all, is a country with one of the most cumbersome tax regimes in the world, where tax laws and regulations are overlapping and burdensome, where the administration and collection of taxes, and their spending, are ridden with inefficiency and corruption, and where tax avoidance and evasion are prevalent. Nigeria’s tax system is in deep crisis.

*Tinubu

However, while crises are a trigger for fundamental reforms, making the status quo unsustainable, they are not sufficient for reform success. In a democracy, there’s a critical need for an explicit electoral mandate for reform and for a carefully crafted policy design, shaped by a broad consensus for change.

Yorubanisation Of Tinubu’s Government: Nigeria’s Fate Is Now In Yoruba Hands!

 By Olu Fasan

Shortly before the 2023 presidential election, I wrote a piece titled “Yoruba ronu: A Tinubu presidency would tarnish your race” (Vanguard, February 16, 2023). The premise of that thoughtful and, in my view, patriotic intervention was threefold. 

*Tinubu

First, Bola Tinubu’s miasmic past was the antithesis of the honour-signalling ‘omoluabi’ ethos that Yorubas claim define them. His self-serving and feudalistic politics was entirely at odds with the ‘omoluabi’ core values. Second, Tinubu staked his presidential bid on “Emi lokan” (It’s my turn), but also on “Yoruba lokan” (It’s Yoruba’s turn).

Donald Trump’s Return: Americans Put Economic Self-Interest Above Moral Values

 By Olu Fasan

There are two views of human behaviour. One is that people are primarily motivated by self-interest – what’s in it for me? The other is that people are primarily influenced by deeply ingrained moral values – what’s right and wrong? The first view comes from the rational choice or game-theoretic school, the second belongs to what scholars call constructivism.

*Trump

Now, Europeans are generally believed to privilege high principles over narrow self-interest. By contrast, Americans have long been seen as mostly self-interested, individualistic people, to whom moral values are secondary considerations. That caricature of the Americans played out powerfully last week when they overwhelmingly returned to power Donald Trump, president from January 20, 2017 – January 20, 2021, notwithstanding his deeply flawed character and untoward past behaviour!

Stop Blaming IMF, World Bank; Nigeria’s Economic Woes Are Self-Inflicted!

 By Olu Fasan

The International Monetary Fund, IMF, and the World Bank have long struck a raw nationalistic nerve in Nigerians. Romantic patriotism drives the nationalistic urge to reject any perceived IMF/World Bank ‘interference’.

*Tinubu

Several years ago, as a magazine publisher, I interviewed Dr Kalu Idika Kalu, then finance minister under General Ibrahim Babangida’s regime, when he stopped over in London on his way to the IMF/World Bank meeting in Washington. I asked him why Nigerians detested the multilaterals. “I think in Nigeria we’ve tended to be isolationist,” he said. Nigerians, he implied, loathed foreign institutions telling them what to do, even in the face of a self-inflicted crisis.

Beyond The Economy, Why Is Tinubu So Unpopular? It’s Arrogance Of Power!

 By Olu Fasan

Recently, Indermit Gill, the World Bank’s chief economist and senior vice-president for development economics, wrote an article in the Financial Times urging Nigerians to embrace the economic reforms of their president, Bola Tinubu. “The country’s elites must forge a political consensus in support of these reforms,” he said.

*Tinubu

Like every seasoned policy expert, Gill knows that without a political consensus, no reform, especially a radical one, can succeed. However, what he failed to say is why there is no political consensus in favour of Tinubu’s economic reforms. Yet, addressing that point is, in part, key to understanding why Tinubu is so unpopular, and why few embrace his “reforms”.

Regional ‘Development’ Commissions: A Perversion Of Regionalism In Nigeria

 By Olu Fasan

Every senator and every member of the House of Representatives who voted to create a regional ‘development’ commission in Nigeria claim it is a game-changer that will radically transform the geopolitical zone concerned. But that’s not true; rather, it is another unaccountable federal agency that will induce the squandering of public funds and do little to support regional development.

Tinubu

Similarly, every president who signs into law a bill to establish a regional ‘development’ commission has fostered another opportunity for patronage politics and all types of corruption and abuse of entrusted power.

Cabinet Reshuffle? Tinubu Is The Problem, Not His Inept Ministers

 By Olu Fasan

Ever since the presidency confirmed that Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s ineffectual president, would reshuffle his utterly incompetent cabinet, speculations have been rife about who would be in and who would be out. The Guardian newspaper set the hares running with a front-page story titled: “11 ministers, senior officials may go as Tinubu reshuffles cabinet.” 

*Tinubu

Then, Dr Doyin Okupe, a former presidential spokesman and director-general of Peter Obi’s presidential campaign, now a fawning Tinubu loyalist, said that Tinubu’s two-week trip to Europe was not, contrary to the presidency’s claim, a holiday but “an essential break to carefully consider changes in his cabinet without undue interference”. Nigeria is probably the only country where a president must cocoon himself in cosy foreign hotels to “wilfully separate himself from officials, friends, and associates” in order to appoint or reshuffle his cabinet.

Of course, Nigeria is a global outlier, exceptional in many perverse ways. Here’s a country where a president can do anything, and where the citizens are indifferent to whatever their president does. In his book titled Reclaiming the Jewel of Africa, Dr Olusegun Aganga said that then President Goodluck Jonathan once remarked that “the Nigerian president was vested with so much power that it was best to check oneself in the exercise of those powers”. In other words, in Nigeria, only the president can check himself, no one else can check him. And if you have a president like Tinubu who likes to exercise power arbitrarily based on his hunches and predilections, everyone just has to accept and live with the consequences. For, let’s face it, there is no accountability for bad executive decisions or failures in Nigeria. 

Think about it. A key test of leadership is judgement. A leader must exercise sound judgement and make good decisions. Tinubu fails that test. Truth be told, in a true democracy, with proper checks and balances and accountability mechanisms, Tinubu would be held to account for the way he has mismanaged Nigeria through poor judgements and bad decisions since he assumed power. Held to account? How? Well, first, peaceful protests are legitimate tools of democracy. Second, the media should be fiercely intolerant of bad governance. And, of course, third, the National Assembly should never be the president’s poodle. 

But what happens in Nigeria? Well, the public and the media are all bark and no bite. As for the National Assembly, it simply rubberstamps everything Tinubu does and rewards his failure. For instance, it was recently reported that the National Assembly wanted to establish a university and name it after Tinubu. And some states have named airports after him. What a country! Why is being a president in Nigeria not about self-sacrifice but about self-service?

Dr Aganga added in his book that “the Nigerian presidential constitution vests so much power in the president that only conscious and conscionable exercise of these powers can save the holder of the exalted office from themselves”. Surely, if Tinubu consciously and conscionably exercises presidential powers, he will reject any attempt to deify him. He will know that he has done absolutely nothing transformative and life-enhancing in his one-and-a-half years in office to deserve an airport or a university being named after him. It is a mark of Tinubu’s self-entitlement and utter insensitivity that he is making the presidency about his self-glorification and personal comfort. According to one recent report, “the Presidency spends N16.06 billion to buy foreign currencies for international trips in one year.” That’s the extent of Tinubu’s profligacy and extravagance amid excruciating pains across Nigeria.

All of which brings us to the so-called cabinet reshuffle. Now, if a president has to reshuffle his cabinet within one year of constituting it, what does that tell us about his judgement? Everyone knows that Tinubu was not thinking about good governance when he formed his cabinet. Rather, he was thinking about his personal and political interests. As result, his ministers fell into three categories: those, like Nyesom Wike, he appointed to return political favours and shore up support for his re-election bid in 2027; those, like former Governor Adegboyega Oyetola of Osun State, who lost elections and who, for personal reasons, Tinubu wanted to rehabilitate; and his longstanding acolytes in Lagos State, who are  supposedly technocratic but are personally too close to him to be genuinely technocratic. 

Last year, I wrote a column titled “Tinubu’s ministers: A bunch of political rewardees and cronies” (Vanguard, August 10, 2023). I argued that Tinubu should have appointed ministers from the pool of Nigeria’s brightest and best, but put party, politics and self above country. It took Tinubu three months in office before picking his ministers. Yet, he came up with such a hollow cabinet. Those now hailing him for wanting to reshuffle his cabinet should, in fact, be questioning his judgement and leadership.

As Tinubu was swearing in his ministers on August 21, 2023, I was being interviewed on News Central TV along with Dr Elijah Onyeagba, Nigeria’s ambassador to Burundi. Dr Onyeagba said it was all about Tinubu, not his ministers, because he was in charge. I was aghast. I told him a president is as a good as his team, and a cabinet reflects the president. If a president is visionary and focused on problem-solving, he will assemble the best possible team. If he is fixated on politicking and the next election, he will assemble a mediocre team of yes-men and yes-women, who see their positions as political favours and owe loyalty to their benefactors. Tinubu’s cabinet is full of such people. 

For instance, not long ago, Heineken Lokpobiri, the minister of state for petroleum resources, said he owed his appointment to Wike. Of course, nothing qualifies him for the position beyond cronyism. That unfitness was evident when, recently, Lokpobiri said that Nigeria “is expecting $50 billion worth of investment in the oil sector before the end of the year.” At a time when international oil companies, IOCs, are deserting Nigeria in droves, and when Western governments are no longer investing in fossil fuels projects in developing countries, Lokpobiri was saying that foreign investors would pour $50 billion into the oil sector by December. 

The thoughtless comment so irked Dr Rueben Abati that he upbraided the minister on Arise TV, telling him to “keep quiet” if he “has nothing to say”, adding that “he doesn’t know what he is talking about, and constantly puts his foot in his mouth.”

But I repeat: a cabinet reflects the president. Matthew Parris, a British writer, once said that every government needs “the presiding intellect with the intelligence to grasp the problem.” That requires leadership and judgement. Tinubu has demonstrated neither as president. That’s why reshuffling his cabinet will change nothing. A fish rots from the head down! 

*Dr. Fasan is a commentator on public issues

Nigeria Is Failing At 64; Sadly, Its Leaders Are In Denial

 By Olu Fasan

Every nation that secured independence from its colonial rulers celebrates the freedom annually, as Nigeria did recently on its 64th Independence anniversary. However, such events transcend the symbolism. The real worth of an independence anniversary lies in whether a nation is better off today than it was at independence.

On that score, several former colonies have advanced in leaps and bounds. For instance, India of today is a world apart from India of 1947.

Oil Refineries: Nigeria Ignores The Green Energy Transition At Its Peril

 By Olu Fasan

Last  week, I wrote about the dire economic consequences for Nigeria as a petrostate almost solely reliant on oil and gas exports. This week, I want to address another aspect of that intervention: the climate impacts of Nigeria’s deepening commitment to burning fossil fuels.

Nothing demonstrates this commitment more than the excitement over the Dangote Refinery and the government’s determination to license more private oil refineries while pursuing new hydrocarbon exploration. The economic and climate impacts of Nigeria’s fossil-fuel dependency pose existential threats to the country’s future stability. Yet, Nigeria is entrenching itself as a hydrocarbon country while paying lip service to energy transition.

'Oil Curse’: Nigeria Has No viable Future As A Petrostate

 By Olu Fasan

The latest foreign trade data show that Nigeria recorded a trade balance of N6.52 trillion in the first quarter of this year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS. Expectedly, President Bola Tinubu seized on the figure as evidence that his economic reform is working. Given that the positive trade balance significantly reversed the negative balance of minus N1.4 trillion recorded in the fourth quarter of last year, one should cut Tinubu a slack. After all, a trade surplus, any trade surplus, is better than a trade deficit! 

However, dig deeper, there’s little to gloat about: for nothing has changed in the structure of Nigeria’s export trade. Crude oil exports, at N15.5 trillion, account for 80.8 per cent of the total exports. If you add other petroleum oil products, including natural gas, at N1.9 trillion or 9.92 per cent, oil and gas represent 91 per cent of Nigeria’s total exports. Thus, non-oil exports, at N1.8 trillion, account for a minuscule nine per cent of Nigeria’s total exports. Surely, then, Tinubu’s economic reform has done nothing to change the structure of Nigeria’s export trade, which remains almost totally dominated by crude oil and natural gas. 

Governing Nigeria: Does The Economy Trump Politics? No, It Doesn’t!

 By Olu Fasan

It is the age-old chicken and egg question. Which comes first: the economy or politics? That’s the question at the heart of this intervention, and it was triggered by two recent events. The first was President Bola Tinubu’s response to the call for a new Constitution. The second was Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s speech at this year’s Annual Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, in which she called for a social contract for Nigeria. Everyone knew about those events, but few detected their logical fallacies. So, first, let’s recall the events.

Recently, in August, the highly venerated elder statesman Chief Emeka Anyaoku led a group of eminent Nigerians under the aegis of The Patriots to meet Tinubu at the State House and asked him to convene a constituent assembly to produce a draft people’s constitution for Nigeria.

Nigeria’s GDP ‘Growth’ Is Anaemic; It’s Nothing To Celebrate!

 By Olu Fasan

Trust Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s self-assured yet bumbling president. He will claw at any piece of seemingly good news. Recently, when the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, reported that Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product, GDP, grew to 3.19 per cent in the second quarter of this year, from 2.51 per cent at the same period last year, Tinubu was overly exultant.

*Tinubu

His newspaper, The Nation, screamed on its front page: “Tinubu hails GDP surge, assures of stronger economic performance.” Surely, describing the anaemic and shallow GDP growth rate as a “surge” shows how Tinubu grasps at straws, denying reality. Interestingly, while Tinubu gloated about the GDP figure, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s two-time Finance Minister and current Director-General of the World Trade Organisation, WTO, lamented Nigeria’s perennially sluggish GDP growth rate at this year’s annual conference of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA. So, who is right?

Nigeria Made Dangote A Colossus, It Must Now Handle Him Wisely

 By Olu Fasan

Aliko Dangote, the richest man in Africa, is a product of the Nigerian state. By deliberate policy choices, the state made Dangote Nigeria’s foremost oligarch with presidents on speed dial. However, recent rifts between Dangote’s oil refinery and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company, NNPC, as well as the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, NMDPRA, not to mention the raid on his business headquarters by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, suggest that all is not well with the long-running relationship between Dangote and the state. Yet, having turned Dangote into a commercial Leviathan, the state must now wisely recalibrate and manage the relationship.  

*Dangote 

To be clear, Dangote was not born poor. He was born into wealth and became a millionaire very early in life. However, his transition from a millionaire to Africa’s richest man would not have happened without a leg-up from the state, without special favours and preferential treatment from the Nigerian state. To this credit, Dangote himself admits this. Before we come to the refinery saga, let’s tell the fascinating story, as Dangote himself narrated it.

#EndBadGoverance: Nigeria Must Stop Killing Its Rightly Aggrieved Youth

 By Olu Fasan

Nigeria is one of the few countries where the young far outnumber the old. The average age in Nigeria is about 18.6 years, and the youth, aged between 15 and 30, account for 70 per cent of Nigeria’s population. Unfortunately, at about 54 per cent, Nigeria has one of the highest youth-unemployment rates in the world with equally high rates of youth anxiety and depression.

That’s enough to frustrate young people anywhere in the world. Yet, whenever young Nigerians ventilate their grievances through public protests, the state is quick to clamp down brutally on them. Put simply, Nigeria kills its youth for daring to protest bad governance. There’s no better definition of barbarism. 

Shock Therapy? Tinubu Is insensitive To Human Suffering

 By Olu Fasan

Recently, the Financial Times interviewed me for a special report on Nigeria. The FT had interviewed me a few times before. So, when I received a call from David Pilling, the newspaper’s Africa Editor, I knew he probably wanted to interview me again. “I read your article on Tinubu’s economic reforms,” Pilling said. “I want to speak to you about it as I am writing a report on Nigeria.” We spoke. 

*Tinubu

About two weeks later, on July 10, the report titled “Tough times and tough measures” was published in the newspaper’s “Big Read” section. The FT said, rightly, that I described the economic reforms of Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s president, as “half-cooked”, and criticised the excesses and profligacy of his administration. “You cannot say the economy is bad and spend money like a drunken sailor,” the FT quoted me. 

Appeal To Patriotism: Nigeria’s Future Must Not Be Left To Politicians

 By Olu Fasan

There is no shortage of talent in Nigeria. Yet, the country is so badly governed. Why? The answer is two-fold. First, the Constitution allows predatory politicians to gain power without a popular mandate and to capture the entire public realm. Second, Nigeria lacks a critical mass of patriots who can mount an effective rearguard action against bad governance. 

*Tinubu 

Take the first. Nigeria’s Constitution does not require a government of, by and for the people. Rather, it allows any self-interested politician to win a narrow victory through wedge issues and allows a determined government to do what it will without let or hindrance. 

Judges Are The Biggest Bribe-Takers In Nigeria: Wow! What A Country!

 By Olu Fasan

IT is official! The judiciary is the most corrupt institution in Nigeria; judges are the biggest takers of bribes in this country. A few years ago, I wrote a piece titled “Lord, give Nigeria bold and incorruptible judges”, (Vanguard, April 25, 2019). When I said that Nigerian judges are fantastically corrupt, it seemed as if I was just making an assertion, as if I was just expressing an opinion as a columnist.

But now, we have an official confirmation. According to a recent survey conducted and published by the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, in collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC, Nigeria’s public officials received N721billion cash bribes in 2023, and judges topped the list of the recipients.