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Nigeria’s Money-guzzling Power Sector

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Savannah State As A Priority

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Emmanuel Onwubiko

In early May I travelled to Owerri, Imo State and traversed over five local government councils and finally spent few days in Aronziuogu before heading right back to Orlu Senatorial Zone.

Mind you, from Owerri to Arondizuogu and back to Orlu town, translates to traversing the three senatorial zones of Owerri, Orlu and Okigwe in Imo State.

Cumulatively, my journey lasted a little over a week. However, I got a trailerload of lamentation from the dozens of persons I had interactions with in the three senatorial zones covering all of Imo State.

The principal complaints of most of these persons I had comprehensive conversations with was on the critical absence or lack of electricity power from the national grid in over 75 per cent areas of Imo State. I built a family house in Owerri but since nearly a decade, each time I travel home to Owerri, I do not enjoy electricity power from the national grid even as I pay each month of the year since my area has no rechargeable meter.  So, combining my personal ordeals for a decade with the conversations I had with many of the persons I met during my last journey,  the problems have become even much more complicated.

I came out with the idea that small- and medium-sized business outfits are folding up rapidly due to lack of affordable electricity to power their business ventures. The continuous shutdown of these small-scale businesses imply one thing – unemployment .

These enterprises that are forced to wind down are mostly run by young people who are university graduates and school leavers who are now made redundant due to power failures.

READ ALSO: Conversation Nigeriana (5)

I saw it myself. But the electricity power issue in Imo State is not much different than in Kafanchan in Kaduna State and much of the Federal Capital Territory. I have sufficient personal knowledge of these places.

In both my office environment and my place of residence spanning so much distance but all within the metropolitan area of Abuja, the crisis of electricity power has become of disturbing dimension resulting in the use of generators to power both the home and office.
I am certainly not alone. I am told by some persons who came to my office that some of them have spent greater part of this year staying in darkness but the bills for electricity have really not gone down especially for the thousands of Abuja residents who are yet to be connected to the rechargeable meters.

In Kafanchan, around April I watched in the media as hundreds of the residents protested against prolonged electricity power failures and till date there appears to be no improvement.

Amidst dwindling electricity power supply, there has been a heated debate on the reason the erratic electricity power issue may not abate soon. To certain characters working within the electricity power sector in both the private and public institutions, there is this plain illogical argument that the investors who buy and resell electricity power to the end users are asking for increment in the purchasing price of electricity as the only way to boost supply.

To millions of dissatisfied customers of electricity power in the country, what matters to them is the frequency of supply and not necessarily the cost which the investors are lobbying the government to hike.

There is, however, something sinister happening within the electricity power sector  which has defied transparency and the principle of accountability, coupled with the fact that the electricity power sector is one industry not too many observers have vast working knowledge about. It’s also a sector that is opaque and lacks everything to do with openness.  The electricity power sector is organised in such a way that you would think the people in charge are members of a sophisticated organised criminal gangs.

The above sentiment has to do with the use to which the tons of money poured into the electricity sector are being utilized.

Government officials are too quick to announce approval of credit facilities from international finance institutions but aren’t in any hurry to tell the citizens the progress of work done with these humongous amount of money even amidst dwindling electricity power supply situation all over Nigeria.

There is the believable suspicion that the electricity power sector is the most corruption- ridden institution in government. It is more or less like the more cash injected into the sector, the poorer the services rendered by the players in the electricity power industry becomes. It is a cash-Guzzling machine for politicians.

The most disastrous thing about this is that the bulk of the investments done by government are financed with borrowed money that would be repaid and nearly all of the operators are said to be private investors. It is then a mystery how government has kept funding private businesses with borrowed cash that would be repaid by the same tax payers who still are exploited by the private suppliers of the erratic electricity power supply.

READ ALSO: An Interview Summary With Prof. Abiodun Ogunyemi, The President Of The Academic Staff Union Of Universities (ASUU)

The question begging for answer therefore is, where is all this cash borrowed from a diversity of financing institutions around the world and then why has electricity supply remined so poor so much so that only an insignificant number of Nigerians get up to two hours of electricity power per day since the last six years? This government before assuming office had castigated the immediate past administration for corruption in the power sector but six years down the line, this government has the biggest thieves embedded in the electricity power sector.

The World Bank recently was quoted as saying that about 90 million homes are without electricity in Nigeria.
The immediate consequences as highlighted earlier is the shutdown of businesses and for those who chose to use generators, the cost of fuel which is extremely high, means that the cost of production would multiply and then passed on to the poor Nigerians who are not less than 100 million households.

The British Broadcasting Corporation in 2015 reported that Nigeria is being crippled by the fuel shortage that the country has been experiencing for more than a month.

It reported then that Nigerian banks had shortened opening times, flights had been cancelled and phone companies might restrict services.

The BBC quoted the party of President-elect then Muhammadu Buhari as accusing the then outgoing government of “sabotage” for failing to deal with the crisis.

The wholesale fuel sellers have been withholding petrol as they say they are owed $1bn (£625m) by the government.
The Guarantee Trust Bank says its branches will close at 12:00 GMT as it struggles to get fuel for its generators.
The shortening of its opening times is the latest sign of the impact of the fuel shortage.

Most Nigerian businesses and homes rely on diesel-powered generators because of the poor electricity infrastructure.
The shortage means that Africa’s biggest economy is slowly grinding to halt, says the BBC’s Will Ross in Lagos.

Three of the country’s mobile phone companies, MTN, Airtel and Etisalat, have warned that the fuel scarcity could affect their services as they are finding it difficult to supply diesel to the base stations. Traffic on the roads is also reducing as many fuel stations have stopped selling petrol and there are long queues at places where they are selling petrol.

Many domestic flights have been cancelled and some international flights are having to land in neighbouring countries to refuel.
Radio stations are also restricting their broadcasts and some have gone off air altogether.

It appears the fuel importers and marketers who operate a multi-billion dollar scam are blackmailing the government into agreeing to one more massive payout as they are not sure how much longer the fuel subsidy racket will go on.

They are literally shutting down the nation saying they are owed $1bn in arrears, but no-one gets to see how that figure is worked out. Many government officials, including employees of the state fuel company, are so intertwined in the fraud it is hard to know who is scamming who.

One thing is clear. Nigerians across the country trying to earn a living to feed their families are facing a new level of hardship.
The incoming president is inheriting one hell of a mess.

At the heart of the shortage is a row over the payment to wholesalers of the difference between the subsidised pump price and the international market price. The wholesalers are waiting for a $1bn payout from the government before they release more fuel.

It is thought that President-elect Buhari, who takes power on Friday, may move to end the petrol subsidy and so the wholesalers are trying to get something from the outgoing administration., so BBC reported then.

The BBC reported then that opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) thought government inaction was deliberate so that Mr Buhari would take over a “nation in deep crisis”.

Then APC spokesman Alhaji Lai Mohammed said in a statement that the “departing office holder [was] defecating on the chair he is vacating”.

The People’s Democratic Party of outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan said that it was the opposition which was behind the crisis “to create an impression that the APC is inheriting… a complete system breakdown”.

The fuel subsidy has become an enormous scam The wholesalers often pretend to bring in a lot more oil than they do and pocket the money they get for the petrol that is not delivered. But wait for it, what is the situation six years after Muhammadu Buhari took office?
Six years down the line, with humongous cash borrowed and reportedly injected into the electricity power sector, Nigeria’s energy poverty has worsened and nose- dived.

READ ALSO: Why I Was Absent From Southwest APC Leaders’ Meeting – Fayemi

Where is the borrowed cash?
On September, 2019 the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo  said the federal government had pumped about N1.5 trillion in intervention fund into Nigeria’s power sector in the last two years.Mr Osinbanjo said this at a power sector roundtable hosted by Mainstream Energy Solutions Limited (MESL) at its Kainji Hydropower Plant in Niger State on Tuesday.The MESL meeting was tagged, ‘Next Level for the Nigerian Power Sector – Unlocking Real Liquidity,’ Daily Trust reported.

The Vice President who was represented by the Minister of Power, Sale Mamman, said “the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved the third round of intervention funding for the sector, with a total of about N1.5 trillion in the last two years.

“However, if the country is to achieve its aim of channelling funding to other critical sectors, it is pertinent that structural reforms be put in place to enable the power sector to fund itself sustainably,” Mr. Osinbajo said.

The Central Bank of Nigeria in May announced the disbursement of N120.2bn to different electricity distribution companies (DISCOs), power generating companies (GENCOs), service providers and gas companies, in order to address the liquidity and funding challenges facing the sector.

Also in response to challenges in the power sector, especially in the generation sector, PREMIUM TIMES reported in September, how the World Bank announced it was in talks with the Nigerian government for a $2.5 billion loan to resolve the problems of the country’s power sector.

The bank in 2018 approved an estimated $486 million to improve and upgrade electricity transmission’s network of infrastructure and rehabilitate substations and lines in Nigeria.

On March 14th 2021 the Muhammadu Buhari’s administration said the Federal Government of Nigeria planned to spend $3 billion on the energy sector in the next 24 months and end the current electricity subsidies by December 2021.

The spending is expected to increase the power being wheeled by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) from the current 4,900MW to at least 7,000MW.

During a webinar hosted by the Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI), Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Infrastructure, Ahmad Zakari, said that following the $500 million loans the government secured from the World Bank earlier this year, it was expecting another facility from the African Development Bank (AfDB), saying that the gestures were a demonstration of confidence in the reforms being currently made in the sector.

On 6 October 2020 www.brettonwoodproject.org reported that as Nigeria entered a deepening economic recession following a 6.1 per cent contraction in the second quarter of 2020, a $750 million World Bank Group (WBG) Program for Results (P4R) loan for the power sector approved in June had resulted in increased electricity rates.

The Power Sector Recovery Operation seeks to reform Nigeria’s power sector, including by establishing “sustainable and appropriate electricity tariffs.” Although it incorporates limited measures to mitigate the impact on the poorest consumers, including capping rates for unmetered customers and maintaining an affordable tariff for those consuming less than 50kWh of energy per month, according to Nigerian news site Nairametrics, the new tariffs mean “most Nigerians will now have to pay more for electricity.”

As noted in a 2019 report by UN Women and the International Labour Organization, “Higher energy prices… tend to slow down economic activity and thus generate unemployment. The sudden removal of fuel subsidies and consequent increases in prices have sparked protests and violent riots in many countries.”

READ ALSO: Akeredolu Supports South-West APC Leaders Meeting, Explains Absence

Around February 2021, the World Bank approved a $500 million loan to improve access to electricity in Nigeria and expand the metered network of power distributors.

The money the bank said would help distribution companies “make necessary investments to rehabilitate networks, install electric meters for more accurate customer billing and to improve the quality of service for those already connected to the grid,” the Washington-based lender said in an emailed statement Friday.

To qualify for funds, private distribution companies must meet various criteria including connection targets, financial management and network expansion, the lender said.

The loan follows the World Bank’s backing last year of a $750 million project to boost the energy sector of Africa’s biggest economy.
Nigeria lost about $26.2 billion as a result of unstable power supplies and 43% of the country’s 200 million people aren’t connected to the grid, the World Bank said.

Can we justify this poor electricity power situation vis-a-vis these humongous amount of borrowed money most likely mismanaged by government officials under the guise of  investment into improving electricity power infrastructures?

Can this government please tell us where these huge sums of money are because as far as electricity power supply is concerned, we are worst off than we were prior to 2015.

Onwubiko is head of the Human Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) and was a federal commissioner at the National Human Rights commission of Nigeria.

 

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Opinion

Overcoming Policy Execution Trap As Nigeria’s Development Challenge

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Prof. Tunji Olaopa

By Tunji Olaopa

If I am asked to give a succinct and apt summary of the entire challenge faced by the Nigerian state in terms of her policy architecture and development management, in spite of contestation in the development literature, I will not hesitate in stating clearly and unambiguously that it is the challenge of policy implementation; the whole dynamics of getting things done. By elimination, the implication is that the challenge cannot be located as that of the dearth of development ideas, insights, models and paradigms. Right from her independence, Nigeria has been inundated with several ideas, both local and global, about development policy and frameworks. And yet, policy outcomes keep getting bogged down in the murky waters of political shenanigans. This means that the new administration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu has its challenge mapped out, in red, for it.

There is no shying away from this postcolonial predicament that has limited and kept limiting Nigeria’s capacity to honour the terms of her social contract with Nigerians. Hence, the Tinubu government will soon be inundated with the impatient agitations of Nigerians for a quick and tangible fix that will address their sufferings. And they are justified since they have not been given any real deal for the past sixty-three years of sovereign independence. And the new administration is obligated because that is the reason for seeking office in the first place.

Prof. Olaopa’s new book on public policy and development challenges

How then can we begin to understand this policy execution challenge? It is simple: how can an administration in Nigeria transition from governance vision and policy intention to policy outcomes that elevate and transform the quality of life of its citizens? Failure to understand and give critical and political attention to this question lies at the heart of the governance failures of successive Nigerian administrations. The new Tinubu administration cannot afford such a glaring mistake. And so, a fundamental case must be made out of the question of how policy intentions get circumscribed in the dynamics of policy execution that occasions policy failures in past administrations.

Modern states all across the world are distinguished by the traditional four functions they discharge as part of their administrative responsibilities—security i.e. securing the sovereign territory against lawlessness, policy formulation and implementation, governance regulation and service delivery.The capacity to perform each and all of these functions very well within an integrated framework in the governance context is what delivers the dividends of democratic governance to the citizens, and it enhances the state’s competitive and human development rating in global reckoning. With these functions, we have the metrics to differentiate between high-performing states like China, India, the United States,Botswana, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirate, Germany, Rwanda and the Asian Tigers (Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea), and low- or even under-performing countries like Nigeria that is still cluelessly stuck within a dysfunctional vicious cycle within her arrested development.

From the perspective of governance, there must be something these states are getting right in the connection between leadership, politics, and policy articulation. For instance, there is a trajectory of relationship that links elite bargains to development bargains. In other words, development is a
function of elite nationalism and the extent to which the political class of a state can commit elite suicide and gamble on development on behalf of the people they are leading. In Nigeria, low
manifestation of elite nationalism has made it really difficult for the political class to set aside their personal and egoistic class interests in ways that enable them to clearly and ideologically discern and navigate the deadly developmental landmines strewn all over our governance landscape by the
neoliberal implication of ideological apparatuses and frameworks to which Nigeria is beholden. And here, the factor of development gamble of the Asian Tigers’ elites comes into bold relief. From within the ideological ambit of the developmental state, the leadership of the Asian Tigers were able to define a policy space that consciously and critically weighed the benefits and shortfalls of external influences, especially the type that came from the World Bank, IMF and the other cohorts of the neoliberal policy dynamics. Their developmental circumspection paid off!

Since we cannot argue that Nigeria has been stumped by the lack of vision documents, development plans and blueprints, or even policy expertise, the locus of the new administration’s focus  must be directed at the possibility of mustering the political will to undermine the mystified Nigerian Factor, and face the global neoliberal consensus in order to begin the crafting of an enabling policy architecture to drive development. And to achieve this translates to creating the delicate balance between ‘doing the right things’ (a function of decision making quotient) and ‘doing it right’(project and change management effectiveness), and overcoming the various political, cultural, structural and systemic constraints that trapped past well-meaning policies and intentions of Nigerian leaders in the dynamics of implementation.

There is first the conspiracy of elitist interest that ensures there is a poor resource allocation that focuses on elite bargain than development calculations and taking care of the national interest. Other constraints follow: (a) the disconnect between policy design and implementation due to  weak  implementation planning, risk assessment and incompetent change management strategies; (b) unstable and poorly managed macroeconomic policies; (c) policy and project discontinuity; (d) public service low capability readiness; (e) political interference; and finally (f) deep-seated political and bureaucratic corruption. In essence, development has failed not because Nigeria lacks the blueprint or paradigms to make it happen, but due to the dynamics of the politics that the political elite plays with Nigeria’s development potential.

Let me outline what we can regard as the “politics of policy implementation” that Nigeria has played for many years, a politics the new administration must take into serious consideration if it
does not want to fall into the category of failed administration right before it commences. This politics throws Nigeria’s development and policy non-performance right into the frame of the 2005 World Bank review findings about policy and development projects in Africa. According to the finding, 29% of development projects ever get completed, 45% of on-going projects are rated as satisfactory, while 26% of such projects invariably get cancelled. Such a review can never backstop a solid development project of a developmental state.

The politics of policy implementation in
Nigeria is founded on the following assumptions and practices. One: there is that dangerous presumption, that the new administration must resist, that once policies and development plan are designed, they are automatically implemented by the public service. And such a presumption is against the background of a scant investment in implementation analysis and planning, as well as the failure to facilitate the capability review, determine public
administration system’s capability readiness, and strengthening of the MDAs as the powerhouse of government administrative functionality. The MDAs, that is, are not working according to any
specific theories or praxis of change that can guide the functional integration of blueprints or paradigms. This kind of policy inattention draws attention to the policy contradiction: launching a
national development plan and strategy that are not implementation- ready in terms of adequate capability review of the MDAs integral to ensuring implementation success. Two: this
presumption is compounded by the uncritical reliance of past governments on policy experts and consulting firms who are tasked with designing high-end policies that are then dumped on MDAs whose capability reviews and implementation readiness have been neglected in the first place. The
extroversion of the policy design is then compromised by poor functional integration. The truth is that most of these consulting firms lack the appropriate deep content and solution frameworks that are in tandem with the context of policy dysfunction they are supposed to work with. Three: governance policy or project are hardly subjected to feasibility test determined in terms of scope and expectation that are captured by their framework of time, cost and risk assessments before
they are pushed into implementation. This makes it very difficult to benchmark funding projections for these policies and projects against revenue estimations, as well as facilitating in-built flexibilities that enable the policies and projects to adjust to volatilities and contingencies.

All the issues raised above constitute binding constraint that will undermine any governance possibilities the new administration requires to make a success of democratic governance. Undermining the binding constraints demands returning to the fundamentals. The first and most significant is that the new administration needs to interrogate the framework of how government business is currently being conducted. Governance successes are necessarily a function of how government business engages the complexities of the policy design and execution processes within a results-oriented frame. And that entails undermining the structural gaps between policy objectives, development strategies and policy outcomes. This demands second, setting the public service on a performance curve with the institution of a performance management system. This means that the public service must, for example, unfailingly now deploy KPI-based metrics to replace the cumbersome annual performance evaluation report (APER). And at the backend, it becomes imperative to have a monitoring and evaluation system supported by databases that enable staff and program continuous assessment, human resource development rooted in iterativep performance gap identification, supervisors-staff dialogue and multisource feedback mechanismsf for overall national development policy tracking and reporting.

The governance mantra must be on getting the balance between doing the right things and doing it right. And this cannot be achieved through the wanton multiplication or even duplication of
governance plans, programs and blueprints. What is needed is sequencing the blueprints into a coherent and feasible implementation programme, with the right amount of political will behind it. This gives the success of democratic governance a 95% chance of succeeding. The new administration  needs that fighting chance!

. Olaopa, a retired Federal Permanent Secretary, and Professor of Public Administration .
tolaopa2003@gmail.com

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Rigged Elections And The Moral Burden Of Illegitimacy

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Prof. Hope Eghagha

By  Hope O’Rukevbe Eghagha

Adamu: A man who rigs his way to power carries a moral burden!

Orezime: A moral what?

Adamu: You heard me, didn’t you?

Orezime: I’m not sure I heard you right. Moral what you said?

Adamu: A moral burden, I said!

Orezime: Hahahahahahaha! You make me laugh! Are you from the moon?

Gani: Or Mars?

Emeka: In which country? In Nigeria? That principle does not apply in Nigeria! There is no moral burden on anybody in this country! The election which produced Bubu in 2015 was rigged. Where are the two million voters from Kano State who voted in 2015? Was an INEC official not burnt alive after that election? The one which brought Obj to power was also rigged by the forces which wanted him to ease the tension of the Abiola tragedy on the Yoruba people. Yet those men had the temerity to preach against corruption!

Orezime: The international community winked at the whole exercise.

Gani: Yes! That’s why those two could only preach; they couldn’t really act decisively. A moral burden? They spoke from both sides of their mouths on the issue of corruption. The late President Yar Adua confessed that the election which produced him was compromised. An honest man, he didn’t live long enough to right the wrong of the period!

Orezime: That’s why I laughed when Adamu talked about a moral burden arising from rigged elections.

Bankole: In the ideal world, any power that is stolen and acquired through a dubious means imposes a moral burden on the power holder. No matter what the person does, that power remains stained.

Orezime: What does that amount to in our country? Even the brigands who shot their way to power in the notorious days of military misadventure in Nigeria soon became legitimate.

Emeka: You are going too far in our history. See what happened in Lagos State in the governorship elections of March 18. Ethnic jingoists went about preaching hatred against Igbo people and warned them against coming out to exercise their constitutional rights. Security officials looked the other way when ballot boxes were snatched in broad daylight in places where the opposition was leading.

Gani: A serving state governor personally went about snatching ballot boxes and threatened to shoot whoever got in his way. The same governor declared somebody wanted without recourse to the Inspector General of Police! He worked against the party on which platform he won the seat to spite the party hierarchy!

Adamu: And to think that this is the President-elect’s state. He kept mute through the horrendous attacks on Igbo people in Lagos State just the way the incumbent president has looked the other way when herdsmen went on the loose!

Bankole: Rigged elections are so familiar yet notorious in our land. It was the main trigger to the crisis in the Western Region in the First Republic because the people reacted when they saw a rape of their rights and wishes! It soon snowballed into a conflagration that consumed the nation in the late 1960s. Already, the youths are talking about a protest in the ENDSARSNOW# manner. I hope it doesn’t result in disaster. We have lost too many lives already!

Orezime: What I fear is the rise of ethnic profiling in a supposedly democratic society. To be sure, Governor Sanwo-Olu and the party hierarchy did not single out any ethnic group for verbal attacks. They even courted them. Yet they didn’t caution their followers to stop the degeneration into ethnic hatred. It is a dangerous curve what is happening in Lagos. I don’t subscribe to the Lagos is no man’s land nonsense which some misguided fellows are spewing, but threatening anybody not to vote their candidate is a new low! Can a Sanwo-Olu victory be said to be legitimate if a significant percentage of the electorate is disenfranchised?

Emeka: Good question. They did not stop there. They rolled out the culturally dreaded Oro rituals on election night. Come on! Who is fooling who? The Oro festival was designed to drive fear into non-Yoruba in Lagos. In the 21st Century?

Gani: I am sure the reports from election observers will be damning.

Bankole: I don’t care about those biased observers.

Adamu: Where are we headed in this country?

Orezime: We are on the road to Kigali!

Bankole: May we not travel that route!

Orezime: It’s a good prayer. But what are we doing to avoid the descent into anarchy? Nothing. Those monkeys are simply interested in acquiring power.

Gani: The Obedient Movement seems to have lost steam once it was misbranded as an ethnic agenda to grab power at the national level. Peter Obi needs to tread carefully so he doesn’t become another June 12! Some people are egging him on to challenge INEC through protests.

Orezime: If he decides to lead a protest, it would be within his constitutional right to do so, especially as INEC is stalling on the issue of inspecting elections materials despite an order from the courts. Peaceful protests are guaranteed by the Constitution.

Adamu: No one can be sure whether a peaceful protest will remain peaceful after it starts. That’s the experience the ENDSARS people had.

Gani: It’s not enough to stop people from taking to the streets. Protests are fundamental to democracy.

Adamu: We do not want dead heroes! Mark my words.

Bankole: That’s ominous!

Emeka: It means nothing. Nigeria must change. We cannot go on like this forever! Things are just going down. No cash. No fuel. No power supply. No security. No nothing.  Peter Obi gave a glimmer of hope. Now that has been dashed to the ground.

Adamu: Rigging will remain a moral burden each time our President-elect travels outside the country, each time he meets foreign observers, especially those ones who have a dossier on him. History will also judge him and assess how he came to power. This applies to all the states as well where some politicians have turned themselves into demigods and have compromised poor INEC officials with mouthwatering sums. This is not how to build a democracy. The votes must be counted and must count. Seventeen people have their lives during the governorship and House of Assembly elections. We are supposed to count ballot papers, not bodies. Sad!

Bankole: The moral burden of rigged elections is on all of us. Without our connivance there would be no rigging. We can only hope that this will end some day!

Emeka: Tough luck!

 

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Opinion

Professors On INEC’s Will (2)

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Readers’ Showers Of Encouragement
Prof. Tony Afejuku

By Tony Afejuku

On Thursday, 2 March, 2023, the Financial Times based in London, England published a blistering editorial on the February 25, 2023 Presidential election which up to now is the talk of everywhere beyond our shores. The said Financial Times editorial was entitled “Nigerians badly flawed election fails to set an example.”  Indeed, it was a positively blistering presentation as any positively blistering presentation can be. Professor Olu Obafemi FNAL; NNOM drew the attention of the literati to the editorial that argued succinctly that “If Tinubu’s victory is challenged the courts should take a hard` look.”  In his summation of the editorial Professor Olu Obafemi, who headed the debating literati, said he had nothing to add to the efficacious editorial but he would be happy – by my inference – to have the viewpoints of others. Thereafter the debate began. The arguments and counter-arguments began. Whose will was INEC propagating:  Was it its will or the will of the cabal in the presidency or the will of the Nigerian people?

    By the way, be it noted here and now that the Financial Times, though headquartered in London as already indicated, is owned by Japanese, by Nikkei, a Japanese holding company with “core editorial offices across Britain, the United States and continental Europe.” Why this point is necessary here will reveal itself in the debate I hereby tender to fit my creative and journalistic purpose. But you will notice that there is a shift in focus from the substance of the editorial to the question of anti-black or anti-African Western propaganda.

This is how Professor Ademola Da Sylva, FNAL puts it:

    “The Western media are so powerful that they have their ways of turning non-Western genuine patriots and revolutionaries to look like some nameless demons all because they failed to toe servile line as underdogs! Idi Amin, for example, might not get it right in his choice of modus operandi, but he knew what he wanted for his Uganda people. His successful ejection of the British Asians was one of his policies that did not go down well with the hegemons because it devastated the British economy. So the Western media descended on him and painted him as a blood-sucking Dracula! Of course, there were Uganda compradors and cronies of multinationals from within who tried to undermine Amin’s revolution, too. Dedan Kimathi was also considered a “terrorist and a bandit” by the British imperialists; they got him arrested and hanged him, but we know he wasn’t a demon they tried to make us believe he was! Furthermore, no matter what we may think of Mugabe, the immediate past Zimbabwe President, he meant well for his country, he revoked the licences of large parcels of fertile lands, and also a large chunk of the lands from the White occupants and re-distributed the lands among the black peasants. That was ordinarily unthinkable in Africa by an African leader who wanted justice and equity for his people, but he did it and called the bluff of the West. Again, the Western media took over from there, painted a devil of him, and many Africans uncritically swallowed the gambit, too!  The first accusation of the West against these patriotic leaders has always been that they were antidemocrats! Democracy is anti-African governance principles. It is the primary reasons why we never get it right, but it has always paid the West because it keeps Africa underdeveloped to the advantage of the West. The truth is: Why would you want to change a leadership that is up and doing, responsible and responsive, and doing very well, why? That principle foregrounds our sense of monarchy. A king remains on the throne for as long as his reign brings progress and security. Where a king fails, as in the cases of the indigenous Yoruba Obas, he is made to commit a voluntary suicide, and another Oba replaces him. Anyway, let me pause here.”

    Professor Ibrahim Bello-Kano’s stroke goes thus: “My view is that if humans have (or bear) an original sin, according to Christian eschatology, and if humans need to pray and carry out religious duties to be worthy of divine grace, and if secular education requires progressive edification of humans, and if humans are brutes unless they are inserted into a humane culture complete in all its sides (as Matthew Arnold has argued), and if the classical calculators looked forward not to human nature, with its brutal immersion in self-interest and wars and strife, and if humans have repeatedly to struggle to rise above their petty narrowness, then how can their voting behaviour or action be perfect, pristine or excellent? Those who expect a perfect electoral behaviour or outcome in a country brutalized by a savage economic policy and an insensitive and thieving cast of state officials, and the electors riven by religious and ethnic divisions are expecting a miracle. Yet at the local level, the electors did succeed in electing a new set of people to represent them. The problem with macro analysis is that it is positivism at its worst. At the micro level, the elections were expressive of the will of the people. In Kano State, for example, the newly formed NNPP swept the board with more than 18 out of the available 22 seats for the House of Reps and 2 out of the 3 Senate seats.  Thousands turned out to vote. Finally, why should we believe anything the Western press says about us? Look at their reporting of the war in Ukraine. They keep saying, against the evidence and the facts, that Ukraine is winning the war with Russia, despite the former being slaughtered on the battlefield and having lost a staggering number of soldiers.

    “Humour comes from the ridiculous and the ridiculous from the comical. Here is an example of a statement that is hilarious because it is ridiculous and ridiculous because it is comical: “Ladies and gentlemen, meet the newly elected President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Reverend Mullah Professor Mr. Mallam IBK of Madagascar!”

 Do I have any doubt that our readers will find it hard and uneasy to follow the mind patterns and strokes of the debaters who are trying in their peculiar ways to say something tangibly tangible about our will as voters and INEC’s will as electoral umpire? Not at all!

To be continued.

Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.

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