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OPINION: El-Rufai, Obasa And Other Godfather Stories [Monday Lines]

Published

7 months ago

February 10, 2025

By Lasisi Olagunju

It happened one sunny day in mid-May 2003. I was preparing to go to the office around noon when Tayo, the editor’s secretary, called me. “Mr Olagunju, don’t come to the office, Baba Adedibu is here looking for you. He came with his boys.” There were no two birds bearing ‘hawk’ in the skies of Ibadan at that time. Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu was the strongman of Ibadan politics. He earned that appellation in practical terms on the field of battle. Adedibu was death that thundered before killing; he was lightning that shrieked before striking. Alhaji Adedibu was the buyer who entered the market, bought all and paid for none. Before him, there was none so hard; after him, there has been none so dreaded.

What did I buy on credit from Alhaji Adedibu’s tray? If you offended him and he wanted you, you would surrender to him or find yourself in his presence. That was the man who came looking for me. He had enough big, street boys who made things happen for him and they were with him on that visit. I quickly checked the gate to my house and the door to my flat. I did a mind check of my recent activities. There was nothing that should make me a candidate for Adedibu’s trouble.

Tayo’s voice on the phone brought me back. “Baba said there is a report against him in the paper today and that you wrote it. He said someone in Tribune hinted to him that any story published without the author’s name was written by you, the news editor.” I laughed at that conclusion. I remembered that report. ‘Adedibu demands 12 out of 14 commissioner slots.’ The headline was something like that. I didn’t write the story. A colleague did. But I passed the story for publication because the source was very credible. The godfather didn’t like the report. He was livid at the audacity of the writer, and possibly wanted to use his visit to get a hint on who spilt the beans.

Chief Adedibu came fully prepared for me, the supposed writer of the story. He was adequately briefed on when I would arrive at the office. But he didn’t meet me. He couldn’t have met me. My masquerade did not put on its costume in the city centre and so would not suffer Adedibu’s rending effect. Eégún t’ó bá tì’gboro se l’aso won máa nya. Before that moment, I had spent all my years in Ibadan avoiding having anything to do with the old man. As a reporter, I always had excuses for not going for official duties at his popular palace at Molete, a place noted for anything and everything. Yet, Alaafin Molete’s palace was just five minutes’ drive from Tribune House and of the same distance to where I lived.

The story we published was correct. Adedibu, Ibadan’s kingmaker, wanted more than enough from the governor he made just three weeks earlier. The godfather wanted to govern the new governor and run the coming government from his home. Adedibu’s godson, Senator Rashidi Ladoja, who had just won the governorship had not even been sworn in when Chief made that demand. Fortunately, both were Ibadan – very heady, crafty and stubborn – and so were a perfect match for each other in the unfolding war. Godfather wanted everything as fruits of his labour; godson thought he could be independent of the kingmaker. The result was that they fought. If Ruth Watson’s ‘Civil Disorder is the Disease of Ibadan’ was acted as a drama, one of the two would be the hero, the other the anti-hero. Ibadan had them and felt them. Limbs were broken; heads got cracked; there were accidents at home and on the road; lives got lost; tenure got truncated. The rest is history.

Four years earlier in Maiduguri, a similar incident had opened the floor for godfathers to drag godsons. Governorship elections were held across Nigeria on Saturday, 9 January, 1999. For Borno State, Mallam Mala Kachalla of the All Peoples Party (APP) won the seat with 388,058 votes. His opponent, Baba Ahmad Jidda of the PDP polled 348,800 votes. The victor and his followers started preparing for the swearing-in ceremony scheduled for May 29, 1999. But, amid all the preparations, the state’s outgoing military administrator felt a storm gathering. He got a troubling intelligence report in March that there were plans to impeach the man who had not even taken the oath of office. It was funny; it was not funny. But it was true.

Ali Modu Sheriff, born 1956, was Kachalla’s godfather. Kachalla was born in 1941, 15 years before his godfather was born. Before the election, Ali Modu Sheriff called Kachalla ‘Baba’. He was his father’s friend. During the election, there was a reversal of role; Kachalla worshipped the 43-year-old Sheriff. It is never by age, it is a matter of cash and Ali Modu Sheriff had it and gave plenty of it in service of Kachalla’s ambition. Godson won. Godfather wanted returns from his investment; he drew a list of cabinet members for the governor-elect. Godson said no; he picked some and dropped some. He flapped his wings and thought he could fly independent of the godfather who bought him the throne. He paid dearly for it. There was turbulence. His plane fatally suffered loss of altitude. Sheriff created ECOMOG; Kachalla countered with his own ECOMOG. But if iron hits iron, one will bow to the other. Kachalla’s iron got bent and broken; the earth quaked. The next election, power changed hands, kingmaker made himself king. Godson lost everything. Life continued.

The godfather is the consummate ego tripper. Phillip Athans, author of ‘Devils of the Endless Deep’, describes the godfather as the “invader” who is determined “to be in charge of something, from the entire universe down to some back alley in the thieves quarter of the city.” The characterization is right. Even when they know that no king wants to share his throne, they still make a dash for power and the palace. Take Olusegun Obasanjo as an example. He was made president by some people in 1999; some people picked the bills. He became president and announced that if anyone thought his presidency was an investment, they had lost that investment. And for eight years, he did exactly as he promised. The same Obasanjo picked his successors in 2007 and 2011. Did he let them be? He wrote in his ‘My Watch’ (Volume 3, page 3): “I have learned from the Yoruba adage that ‘the kingmaker who does not hide his head after the installation of the king will be the first victim of the king’s wrath.” Now, did Obasanjo “hide his head after the installation of the king” as preached by him? He didn’t. The result is the long list of complaints we read in most of the pages of his three-piece memoir. It is the nature of power. The godfather is the kingmaker. He is never satisfied with half measures. The reason they are endangered and in perpetual state of war. It is the reason those very deep in Yoruba power-play say that the kingmaker’s blood provides the canvas for the king’s coronation dance (eni bá fi wón j’oyè, èjè rè ni wón máa ntè wo’lé). I heard that from my late father.

Nasir el-Rufai is fighting two wars at the same time. He is fighting the power caucus in Abuja and fighting local with Governor Uba Sani, his protégé in Kaduna. He tried to link the two fronts in a social media post last week. El-Rufai is angry because he lost his investment in Governor Sani to a more wily partner who has chased him out of a profitable partnership in Abuja. He spanked his governor for his undisguised support for President Bola Tinubu: “Every day I see this governor embarrassingly and sycophantically rambling, I used to wonder why? However, confirming that Federal Government ‘reimbursements, interventions, and grants’ in excess of N150 billion have been given selectively to Kaduna by Tinubu in the last 18 months now explains everything. By all means, defend Asiwaju for the conditional cash transfer. Asiwaju has earned it, coming from you. The people of Kaduna State will judge at the right time and place. Have a nice day,” the former governor wrote on X.

El-Rufai is (or was) godfather in Kaduna; he thinks he deserves that title too in Abuja – he, after all, led northern governors’ 2023 rebellion against Buhari’s from-north-to-north succession agenda. He thinks the revolt provided the wings for Tinubu’s eagle to fly into the northern space and into power. Truly, Bola Tinubu’s 2023 victory dress was sewn by a large confederation of provincial godfathers. El-Rufai was just one of them. Now, he, like many of the kingmakers, is down, locked out of the luxurious palace since May 2023. His lockout will be two years in May this year. He is very hurt and very angry. And justifiably so. If you eat gbì, you must be ready to die gbì. Watch him. He won’t stop until he is done. He has just started.

Follow closely the Mudasiru Obasa saga in Lagos. It is a tragedy that closes and unfolds like abracadabra. Some agents are said to have usurped the powers of the principal. They crossed the red line and are digging in. It is the digging in that intrigues me. Does it mean the palace eunuchs have grown balls, and boys have become men? Whatever answer that question attracts, I see this matter having very profound implications for politics at the national level. I see slithering snakes waltzing into the yawning walls of Lagos.

The noise over Lagos’ speakership today is because a pride of cats thought they could barbecue Mr Jones’ bull in the Animal Farm and get away with it. Imperial Lagos is a mafiadom. There are rules governing every mafia’s operations. The bojúbojú removal drama of Obasa as Lagos speaker resembles more an operation by the Mafia of Sicily. Norman Silverstein says in ‘The Godfather- A Year After’ (1974) that “What makes the Mafia frightening is its creeping secrecy, its being a closed society, its weapon (of) secret terror – defending and offending.” That reads like Lagos’ conclave. It is an elaborate structure that diminishes the intelligence of those who contrived democracy as the best form of government. What next for Lagos? Read Orwell’s 1984: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.”

The godfather may also have a godfather to whom he does not say no. The senior godfather may not necessarily be a politician. He may be the king’s son, his brother or, more insidiously, his marabout, babalawo, pastor or Imam. In the south, pastors and Alfas call the shots; in the north, the clerics hold the yam and the knife.

Now, how did we arrive here? A northern Nigerian story gives some insights:

Northern region’s first and only premier, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, had this young Islamic scholar called Sheikh Abubakar Gumi. Sheikh Gumi was the father of the Sheikh Ahmad Abubakar Gumi that you are very conversant with today. The older Sheikh Gumi, who died in September 1992, did humanity a lot of good by documenting his everything in an autobiography. ‘Where I stand’ is the title he gave that book of enlightenment, and I wish we all read it to understand how the Nigerian rain started and why it is still pouring.

The Sardauna loved Gumi, his brilliance and his ways and took him as his son. Godfather confided in godson on almost all matters. One day, the two had a deep discussion that changed radically the course of the Sardauna’s political career and the direction of (Northern) Nigeria’s politics.

“I was with the Premier in his house one day when he began to lament to me openly about the money he spent in the course of his political campaigns,” Gumi writes on page 101 of his ‘Where I stand’. He writes that the Sardauna lamented further that “he had spent whatever personal money he had almost to the point of bankruptcy.” The premier was disappointed in some of his lieutenants who were not as committed as he was to their joint political journey. And what was Gumi’s response? I quote Gumi in the book:

“But if it costs you personally and the party so much, why don’t you do something that would make you more popular, not only with the people but also with God?” I suggested to him.

“What could that be?” he asked.

“You see”, I explained, “if you spent, say, ten percent of the money you now lose to politics to promote the religion, it would earn you more supporters. This is beside the fact that it would be more directly in the service of God.” Gumi said the Sardauna “listened carefully and I explained to him further.” Gumi did not state what his further explanation was but he believed that was the point the Sardauna began to “pay more attention to Islamic matters”, courting local Imams for his politics, and giving “them some money, whenever he went out on campaign visits” (page 102). Mighty oaks from little acorns grow. From that point, Gumi became the guide, the godfather showing the leader the way.

Today, religious leaders play godfathers to the godfather. Behind the crisis in Kaduna and Lagos are some prophecies and predictions about 2027. The clerics are the prophets. They are the gods to appease if there will be peace.

News

Access Holdings Names New GMD/CEO

Published

1 minute ago

August 28, 2025

Editor

Access Holdings Plc has appointed Mr. Innocent Ike as its substantive Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, effective August 29, 2025, following regulatory approval.

The announcement, contained in a statement released on Wednesday and signed by the company secretary, Sunday Ekwochi, comes hours after Roosevelt Ogbonna resigned from the company’s board in compliance with new corporate governance rules issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Ike takes over from Ms. Bolaji Agbede, who has steered the company in acting capacity for the past 18 months after the death of former Group CEO, Herbert Wigwe, in 2024.

She will now return to her role as Executive Director, Business Support.

According to the statement, Access Holdings Chairman, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, said Ike’s appointment signals a new phase for the group.

He said, “We are thrilled to welcome Mr. Innocent Ike as we move forward. At the same time, we want to express our deepest gratitude to Ms. Bolaji Agbede.

“Her outstanding contributions over the past 18 months have been invaluable, and we appreciate her dedication in navigating the Company through challenges and opportunities. While regulatory requirements necessitate this change, we are grateful for the strong foundation that has been laid.”

Under Agbede’s leadership, the company achieved major milestones, including workforce stability, the execution of a N351bn rights issue, and the seamless hosting of two annual general meetings.

Speaking on the appointment, Ike said, “I am honoured to take on the role of Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer and excited to work alongside the talented team at Access Holdings.

“I look forward to building on the strong legacy established by Herbert Wigwe and Bolaji Agbede, and driving our vision forward, ensuring we continue to deliver exceptional value to our shareholders and stakeholders.”

Ike, a graduate of the University of Lagos and Best Graduating Student in Accounting in 1988, is a Fellow of both the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria.

He is also a certified IFRS expert.

With over 30 years’ experience in banking and financial services, Ike previously spent a decade at Access Bank, rising to General Manager before serving as Managing Director/CEO of Polaris Bank from 2020 to 2022, where he introduced VULTe, the bank’s award-winning digital platform.

News

Group Fumes As Rivers CJ Inaugurates LG Poll Tribunal

Published

14 minutes ago

August 28, 2025

Editor

A rights group, the Pilex Centre for Civic Education Initiative, has faulted the inauguration of the Local Government Election Petition Tribunals in Rivers State, accusing the state Chief Judge, Justice Simeon Amadi, of lending credibility to what it described as an “illegal” electoral process.

Justice Amadi had on Tuesday sworn in chairmen and members of the tribunals for the state’s three senatorial districts ahead of the August 30 local government elections.

He charged the appointees to be fearless, firm and impartial in discharging their duties within the 30 days provided by law for determination of petitions.

But reacting shortly after the inauguration, Pilex Coordinator, Courage Nsirimovu, said the action of the Chief Judge amounted to endorsing an election already tainted by legal controversy.

“The action of the Chief Judge in setting up the tribunal is tantamount to endorsing illegality. He has just attempted to clothe an illegal process with legality, but it won’t work. The judiciary should have resisted this capture by the executive,” Nsirimovu said.

He argued that Justice Amadi ought to have boycotted the exercise or even resigned, insisting that his involvement eroded the moral authority of the judiciary.

“Outside this country, people resign to protect the rule of law. Here, the Chief Judge knows the law yet still went ahead. There is no moral justification for all of this,” he added.

Justice Amadi, however, defended his action, stressing that the establishment of the tribunal was a statutory duty under the Rivers State Local Government Elections Tribunal Law 2000 (as amended). He dismissed suggestions that he acted under political pressure.

“What I have done is the statutory duty of the Chief Judge. That is what the law provides — when there are local government elections, the Chief Judge must set up a tribunal. I didn’t do it under pressure,” he said.

Justice Amadi reminded the tribunal members that, unlike before when tribunals had three months, they now had only 30 days to conclude petitions.

“Many lawyers will come there and start objections to delay. You have to be firm,” he told them.

News

Strike Threat: ASUU, VCs Decry Profs’ N525,000 Monthly Pay

Published

46 minutes ago

August 28, 2025

Editor

Following the conclusion of its nationwide protests on Tuesday, members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities are set to hold congresses to decide their next line of action, The PUNCH reports.

This comes as the Federal Government meets today to address long-standing agitations over the implementation of the renegotiated 2009 FGN-ASUU agreement, which triggered nationwide protests across universities on Tuesday.

Earlier this year, the President Bola Tinubu administration released N50bn to settle earned academic allowances owed to university lecturers and staff.

However, ASUU has consistently demanded clear commitments on improved salaries, conditions of service, university funding, autonomy, and a review of laws governing the National Universities Commission and the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board.

The meeting, expected to be attended by the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa; the Minister of Labour and Employment, Muhammadu Maigari Dingyadi; and representatives of the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission, is expected to produce a timetable for signing and the phased implementation of the renegotiated agreement, along with related reports.

Government sources in the Education and Labour ministries told The PUNCH that today’s discussions would focus on reconciling the Yayale Ahmed committee draft concluded in December 2024 with the original 2009 agreement and subsequent recommendations, including the Nimi Briggs report.

Also on the table is how to phase the fiscal commitments into the national budget and produce a legally binding instrument for signature.

Speaking with our correspondent on Wednesday, ASUU president, Prof. Chris Piwuna, said the union expected commitment from the government.

“I truly hope they will come up with something tangible. Our members are tired of words and no action.”

Piwuna, however, clarified that ASUU was not invited for today’s meeting.

Piwuna affirmed that the union was done with nationwide protests and was poised to hold congresses to decide on its next line of action.

“We don’t have any meeting with the Federal Government tomorrow (today). It’s their meeting, we’re not involved. We have not received any invitation yet for a meeting with the Federal Government.

“However, we’ll let Nigerians know our next line of action after the protests. We operate from the bottom up. The protests are over, so we’ll go back to our members and ask them what is next, and we’ll do exactly what they want us to do as elected representatives,” Piwuna said.

Ahead of Tuesday’s protests, ASUU branches had warned that their patience was exhausted after the renegotiation concluded in December 2024 and was formally submitted to the government in February.

At a press conference in Abuja, ASUU’s Abuja zonal coordinator, Prof. Al-Amin Abdullahi, said the union had fulfilled its part of the bargain and expected the government to adopt the report without delay.

He noted that earlier reports never advanced beyond “filing cabinets” and stressed that failure to act could trigger another shutdown of public universities.

ASUU had also rejected the government’s offer of loan-style “support funds” in place of cash entitlements.

Today’s meeting comes as ASUU members had consistently lamented poor pay, worsening state of academics, with professors earning about N500,000 monthly, sleeping in officers ‘ quarters, and reportedly struggling to join buses meant for students.

Documents obtained by The PUNCH show that under the Consolidated University Academic Salary structure, Graduate Assistants earn between N125,000 and N138,020 monthly, while professors earn between N525,010 and N633,333.

Assistant Lecturers earn between N150,000 and N171,487; Lecturer II (N186,543–N209,693); Lecturer I (N239,292–N281,956); Senior Lecturer (N386,101–N480,780); and Readers (N436,392–N522,212).

A former Vice Chancellor of the University of Lagos, Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, lamented the erosion of morale among lecturers.

Ogundipe said, “The lecturers are tired, the morale is low, and lecturers are poorly paid. Academic staff members are on the edge, itching to leave. The standard of teaching is going down. As Vice Chancellor, I earned N900,000 as salary. My present salary as a professor, still in the system, is N700,000. My son saw my pay slip and described it as a joke. Do you know that some lecturers sleep in the office?”

ASUU president Piwuna said many lecturers earned just over N400,000 and accused the government of neglecting academics while prioritising pay raises for politicians.

He described as unsurprising the FG neglects the lecturers while the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission was proposing an upward review of the salaries of public office holders.

He added that stagnant salaries had crippled universities’ ability to attract quality lecturers, worsened morale, and affected output.

Piwuna said, “Well, from experience, Nigerian elites or the political class always look after themselves. So, we’re not surprised that the arms of government that Nigerians are most dissatisfied with are the ones that are getting the pay rise, while those who work day and night to ensure that the country keeps moving, who are making tangible contributions to the growth of this country, are being neglected.

“Our salaries have remained stagnant, and that has affected the quality of lecturers that we can attract into the universities. That has also affected our morale, and because our morale is low, certainly the output would also be affected. And so our salaries have been a major area of concern for our members.

“Our salaries, our condition of service have always been a product of collective bargaining. And the last time this was done was in 2009. Talking about increases, for instance, this government has made an increase through the minimum wage, but all that was added to our salaries, and it’s for every public service, is N40,000.

“So, professors that were earning a little over N400,000 have still not been able to get to the N500,000 mark that you’re talking about, except for professors that have had annual increases for maybe 10, 20 years.”

In the same vein, a Senior Lecturer, Department of Economics, University of Lagos, Prof. Tunde Adeoye, urged the Federal Government to urgently review salaries of lecturers to avert another industrial strike.

According to him, the Federal Government needs to be sensitive to the plight of lecturers and engage them in renegotiating the 2009 agreement, adding that the major issue is improving the salary structure of academics.

Adeoye stressed the need for the Federal Government to increase the salaries of university lecturers to reflect the current economic realities in the country.

He added that the salary of a professor in a Nigerian university was about N500,000 without any deductions, adding that after deductions, it comes to about N300,000.

He noted that in some African countries like Kenya and Zimbabwe, lecturers were paid better than in Nigeria, and urged the federal government to make concerted efforts toward improving the living standards of lecturers and their condition of service to prevent brain drain.

Adeoye said, “The ASUU members equally have families and aged parents to cater for. As it is now, many of our members cannot pay their house rents.

“Many of our members who were sick have died, while some with hypertension cannot even afford to buy their routine drugs.”

In the same vein, Secretary of the Committee of Vice Chancellors, Prof. Andrew Haruna, faulted successive Nigerian governments for neglecting the education sector and reducing the value of academics to mere salary figures, stressing that what lecturers truly need is an enabling environment to teach, research, and contribute meaningfully to national development.

Speaking with The PUNCH, Haruna, who has taught in over 10 European universities, lamented that academics in Nigeria were undervalued compared to their peers abroad.

Haruna said, “I have taught in many countries in Europe. If you go through my CV, you will see that I taught in more than 10 different universities in Europe, and I was trained in Europe, and I came back to Nigeria to help. Now, if I were trained in Europe, I would know what I am worth.

“So, if you get just a meagre salary in Nigeria, just because I have decided to come and contribute, it simply shows the kind of leadership we have. Do they really respect the Nigerian citizens? If they respect the Nigerian citizens, do they really respect the Nigerian academia?”

He argued that the problem was not just low pay, but the lack of infrastructure and conducive conditions for intellectual work.

On the international value of academics, he stressed that professors remained globally mobile, unlike many other professions.

He added, “If I earn $4,000 a month and I decide to come to Nigeria and you pay me N400,000, you simply show the kind of value you put on me. Professors, academics, are highly mobile. We are the only category of workers who have a professor in Nigeria, a professor in America, and a professor in Germany. Just like the degree we get in a Nigerian university, the Nigerian student will go to America and do a master’s degree, and go to Japan and do a PhD. So, this is the only job that is international.”