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OPINION: Time To Question Buhari

Published

3 months ago

February 26, 2024

Editor

By Lasisi Olagunju

Preparatory to his exit from power last year, President Muhammadu Buhari warned all of us to let him be after office: “Nobody should ask me to come and give any evidence in any court; otherwise whoever it is, he will be in trouble because all important things are on record.” Buhari uttered those words in one of his very rare media interviews. That was in January 2023 – one year, one month ago. And truly, every horror so far traced to him as president has been deflected to some minion somewhere. Whatever was lost under his watch, whatever we seek after his exit, whatever we can’t find in the presidential drawer, we’ve carefully avoided going to the man we handsomely paid to look after them. The chief priest is never guilty of anything. There is always a scapegoat tethered in his honour. The orphaned animal carries the guilt.

Some of the key ‘secular’ supporters of the present president are my friends. I engaged one of them last week on the cost of living crisis ravaging the country. He told me what we’ve been reading on social media: Buhari is the culprit; he is the edá rat that peed into Nigeria’s soup pot. He left a badly managed country. My Èmilókàn friend blamed everything, including the worsening power supply situation, on the former president.

I reminded my friend that the past can’t be solely blamed for the rashes of today. Buhari didn’t float the naira and hack petrol subsidy at the same time. Today’s president did. We’ve run all our lives in this country blaming the next person. I keep reading strenuous efforts being made to do devolution of blames down to state governors. It is ridiculous. Were governors consulted before the naira was fed to the dogs of market forces? Leaders at the very top should accept the consequences of their actions. Buhari in power didn’t. He blamed his past throughout his eight years. His successor cannot be allowed to go that road. As America’s Harry Truman put it, “The president—whoever he is—has to decide. He can’t pass the buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding for him. That’s his job.” My friend agreed but insisted that Buhari left a very badly managed Nigeria, then added: “But, you know, we can’t come out against him.” I smiled, nodded and reminded him of Buhari’s 2023 promise of trouble if anyone asked him “to come and give any evidence in court.” My friend laughed. We moved our talk to other matters.

But, that is not to say Buhari should not explain what he did to Nigeria. I hope he is following his probe by the Senate. Buhari in power boasted repeatedly of his ‘integrity.’ His people call him Maigaskiya (truth teller). But what kind of integrity disdains accountability, rendering accounts? There is a 2006 book, ‘Responsible Leadership’ edited by Nicolas Pless and Thomas Maak. A chapter in that book is useful here. The chapter, written by George G. Brenkert, is on ‘Integrity, Responsible leaders and Accountability’. Integrity and accountability share an inner connection. They are, in the words of Nigerian playwright, Zulu Sofola, “lightning and thunder inseparable.” George Brenkert maintains that a leader “who is not willing to be subject to conditions involving giving an account of his or her behaviour to others” cannot claim to have integrity. I agree with him. You mouth and wear ‘integrity’ everywhere and still threaten us with trouble if we dare question you.

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Former President Buhari did not tell us why he had to threaten his successors against potentially calling him to account. He also did not define or explain what he meant by ‘trouble’. But, you remember Shakespeare’s witches and their chant of ‘trouble’ in Macbeth: “Double, double toil and trouble;/ Fire burn and cauldron bubble” Steaming hot cauldron is elevated boiler. Whatever Buhari had covered up in his boiling kettle is coming out. His warning was a cauldron of guilt.

The Senate told us last week that a total of N30 trillion was printed by the government of Muhammadu Buhari and the money appears to have disappeared. I whispered “Goodbye, Giant of Africa” when I listened to the heart-rending deliberation of our Senate on that disaster. Ahmed Lawan, Buhari’s Senate president, interjected deliberations and said what Buhari printed was N23 trillion, not N30 trillion. Godswill Akpabio, Bola Tinubu’s Senate president (who was also Buhari’s minister), interjected the interjection. He said the extra N7 trillion was interest on the original sum.

We – you and I – are the ones paying principal and interest on Buhari’s misrule. Different strokes. In the United States, convicted former President Donald Trump pays for his bad acts. Reports say he owes an additional $87,502 in post-judgment interest every day until he pays the $354 million fine slammed on him two weeks ago by Judge Arthur Engoron in his civil fraud case. So, a court can convict a big man who had been president?

It happened also in South Africa. Not here. Where I come from, a man is never allowed to be bigger than the village. A community that cowers before a bully is a town of kids. And Nigeria should not forever be J. M. Barrie’s (1911) Neverland, a land of eternal childhood, island of people who refuse to grow up. Or the puer, Carl Jung’s archetypal error-man, who is forever afraid of challenges; who is forever waiting for ‘divine intervention’ to solve all his problems. We cannot be weaned of the disease of bad leadership until the leader knows that his feet will be held to the fires of justice after his reign. Lord Denning, Master of the Rolls, while stating the position of the law on equality before the law, says: “to every subject in this land no matter how powerful, I would use Thomas Fuller’s words over 300 years ago; “be you never so high, the law is above you.”

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We’ve seen in the US judgement that President Trump is not bigger than his country. That is in the United States. Here, trouble awaits anyone who may want to query Buhari on why he wrecked our economy, printed N23 trillion plus N7 trillion interest, and what he used the printed money for. Or that he took a $3.4 billion loan without a trace of how the money was spent and on what. The former president said the consequence of asking him to account is trouble. That is the stuff master-wrestlers are made of. We call them àgbà ìjàkadì in Yoruba. They always tell their victims that they would be victims unless they know their level.

An elected president threatening trouble if asked to render an account is a guilty mind. We should, at this moment, outgrow our fear of strongmen and serve them queries. Can we be man enough for once and square up to Buhari, the heavyweight? The man’s successors in jittery whispers blame their troubles on him. They say his government wreaked today’s woes. They should ask him to come and account for his deeds – good and bad. And the masquerade should be man (or spirit) enough to step out of his guttural grove. He owes everyone who suffers hunger today an explanation that he is not the cause. His successors say he is.

The Buhari government printed money which disappeared as they came out of the mint. That is what our Senate says it is probing without mentioning the name that professed the heist. They will pan the camera away from the one who should be in the dock. There are other issues. Early this month, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project asked Tinubu to probe the whereabouts of the $3.4bn loan obtained in 2020 by Buhari from the International Monetary Fund. Buhari took that loan to fight COVID. But SERAP is asking Tinubu to promptly probe the allegations that the IMF loan is missing, diverted or unaccounted for.” It hinted that the 2020 annual audited report recently published by the Auditor-General of the Federation “documents damning revelations, including that there was ‘no information or document to justify the movement and spending of the fund’”. There may be many more of such disappearances.

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If I were Buhari, I would not wait for the Senate to call me before storming the chambers with details of the N30 trillion and other scandalous matters. I would come out and show the nation where the money is. But Buhari won’t. He is above the law and bigger than Nigeria, a serially abused country.

Is it not futile for leaders to insist they can’t be questioned? Idi Amin of Uganda recklessly printed money like Buhari and ruined his country. No one could caution or question Idi Amin, who boasted repeatedly that he was the conqueror of everybody, including the British Empire. Then he fell and maggots crept out to feast on his bloated belly. Films, books, fiction and non-fiction, have not stopped asking Idi Amin questions even after his death. Wole Soyinka’s A Play of Giants is one; Francis Imbuga’s Man of Kafira is another. Idi Amin is Boss in Imbuga’s play. He flaunts integrity and transparency. Just like today’s Nigeria in which hunger is the most uttered word north and south, Drunk and Sober, two characters in Man of Kafira, wallow in hunger while corrupt Boss lives in transparent ostentation. The two poor characters speak their frustration about a society that provides “three square meals for the transparent man and not a single trianglar one for us.”

We wait to see how the Senate handles the N30 trillion naira scandal and others. We also wait to see how Bola Tinubu will smell after his own tenure and if he will be willing to be questioned. Ultimately, leaders personally answer for their deeds and misdeeds. No fly follows the corpse of leaders into the grave. Not followers, not associates, not their dogs.

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I saw senators struggling to disown Buhari last week. Even dogs that fawned over him and graciously ate his phlegm are barking at him now. That is life. No one admits to using a missing knife to peel their yam. If I were the man of today, I would go watch or read ‘Everyman’, a 15th-century play of man appearing before God naked and all alone. Power and Strength abandon him; Beauty and Knowledge leave too. All he is left with are his Good Deeds. There are modern adaptations of that play. In Dutch, it is Elckerlijc; in Latin, it is Homulus. Duro Ladipo’s Eda is the Yoruba version.

Some governors recently warned that we were on the road to Venezuela. I have written twice on that country; the first was when Buhari’s plantain was decaying and we were told it was ripening. And we were asked to see it so, and we agreed. Venezuela is a burst country where local traders set the price of anything in US dollars and sell everything in US dollars. No one takes the country’s currency, the bolivar, seriously; it is worth less than the wrapper on sweets. But, Venezuela’s head did not go bad overnight. The destruction was gradual, step by step, leader by leader. Long before the bubble burst for that country, Venezuelan playwright and theatre director, José Ignacio Cabrujas, was asked to speak on the curse that rules his country. He said “the state is a magnanimous sorcerer”; it creates illusions and fantasies. He described the reign of one president as “the debut of the myth of progress” and the next as the myth’s “hallucinatory… flamboyant revival.” Powerful imagery that describes our case. I think of the mythical strides of yesterday and the mist in today’s promises.

Shading the truth and exaggerating optimism led us to this day of pies in the sky. Our dog is back to the same behaviour that denied it dinner yesterday. It looks like a foundational curse.

Bola Tinubu cannot renew any hope without showing us how (and why) previous hopes expired. Throughout Buhari’s eight years, the former president feasted on designer shoes and wrapped himself in expensive gowns. He ate big and belched loudly. He tooth-picked his time away while the plane drifted. We demanded to know where the pilot was, we were abused. We asked why he was imperiling a country of 200 million people, we were asked to shut up. Today, some of those who insulted us are in the cockpit; they are whispering alarms at the perilous state of the flight. ‘Where and how is the pilot?’ is the question distraught passengers would ask in life-threatening turbulence. We asked yesterday, we are asking now. All who ask the question today genuinely seek an answer. They ask it just as troubled trees of the forest whine and crackle in terrible storms.

With Buhari, there was no leadership. “In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still,” Harry S. Truman, 33rd president of the United States, uttered that statement long ago and he had reasons to say so. So that today does not end up as yesterday did, we should keep asking questions, even if they are rhetorical. We can make them
epiplectic, forked questions of outrage and rebuke. Whatever flavour we choose, what is important is that we do not stop querying power and demanding answers. Buhari was absent, or pretended to be so. His reign ruined Nigeria; he should be made to account for his deeds.

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Minimum Wage: Why We May Not Accept N100,000 – Organised Labour

Published

10 hours ago

May 20, 2024

Editor

The organised labour has told the government to perish any idea of offering N100,000 as the new minimum wage.

The labour has also told the government to be serious with the negotiations on the issue of workers wages, insisting that it used the lowest minimum in arriving at the N615,000 as new minimum wage.

Recall that the organised labour comprising the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, pulled out of the negotiation meeting last week Wednesday when the government offered N48,000 as the new minimum wage.

However, Chairman of the Tripartite Committee on the National Minimum wage, Alhaji Bukar Goni in a letter to the organized labour for a meeting tomorrow indicated interest that the government will shift ground and asked the organised labour to also shift ground.

Speaking to Vanguard in Abuja, the NLC Head of Information and Public Affairs, Benson Upah, said that the organised labour would honour the invitation tomorrow but he advised the government to be serious.

He said, “Our expectations are that the government should be serious this time around. We expect them to take more seriously the issue of wages of workers.”

On whether labour would accept N100,000 as being insinuated, he said, “Well, it will not be fair and these are the reasons. The first reason is that when we demanded for N615,000, we broke that down. In fact, we used the barest minimum.

“For instance we put accommodation for N40,000, we also use for feeding N500, tell me where you are going to get food for N500 with a family of six. As I said, we used barest estimate but beyond that, government hiked electricity tariff by two hundred and fifty percent after we made our demand and that has introduced new cost and expenses. So if government is serious, it should not be thinking about a hundred thousand naira.

“You know that when you create poor citizens, you create a poorer county.” On his part, a member of the NLC delegation on the Tripartite Committee, Prof Theophilus Ndubuaku, said it would not be kind of the government to offer N100,000.

He said, “I don’t think one hundred thousand naira is a kind of thing we want because it’s far below expectation, we will accept something that can at least keep somebody alive. I don’t think a hundred thousand naira will keep a worker alive in this country a man with a family of six because our computation is based on the size of family.

“So, if they come up with that kind of amount, I don’t think we will appreciate it. In the private sector even artisans are not taking one hundred thousand a month. Whatever we accept we will look what is the income, what are they collecting, what is available to government because if government is collecting one trillion naira, we cannot ask them to pay two trillion.

“We are responsible people but the same government should know that people are suffering they will have to agree with us that there is crisis, that something needs to be done to create wealth, that something needs to be done for Nigeria to be a producing country and not a consuming nation.

“Something needs to be done to reduce the cost of governance. We are supposed to be partners in governance, after all we are the labourers.”

Asked to give reason why labour may not accept one hundred thousand, he said, “If we see that that hundred thousand is affordable, if we see that they can afford more, we will reject it. They have to tell us why they cannot pay N615,000, the onus is on them to tell us why, then we will sit down and say okay you don’t have the money but we will also know why you don’t have the money because Nigeria is a country that is naturally endowed but something is wrong, how do you make sure you get the money so that when we come again in two years time, you won’t tell us the same story?

“What are you doing to create wealth, how are you going to partner with us to create wealth instead of being wasteful, how are you going to partner with us to reduce cost of governance. If a father comes home and says the only money he has is one thousand naira and you know that the father is not wasting the money, you will manage but if it is when the father comes and he is eating food bought from the fast food joint and it cost N10,000 and he gives one thousand to the entire family to go and look for food and cook for themselves, he may be beaten up, the family may refuse it.

“The letter they wrote to us they said that both parties should shift ground, that means they will shift ground and they are expecting us to shift ground but the question is, what ground are they shifting, are they going to shift ground by two naira or two thousand naira to make it N50,000 or are they going to shift ground by N62,000 to make it N100,000 or by N150,000 or N200,000 to make it N300,000 plus.

“The point here is, this thing we are doing is not rocket science, the government should sit down and calculate how much it will cost, what is a befitting wage for an average Nigeria? They should breakdown what they are giving us because even in salaries, you break everything down. So when you break it down, they will tell us whether they are going to put one thousand naira per month for transport and two thousand naira per month for food.

“That N48,000 they are offering, they should have broken it down so if there are certain things they don’t want to make provision for, for instance health, if they say if any worker is sick they person should go and die or they don’t want to make provision for food, let them just put standard things.

“The problem here is that, you asked someone to tighten his belt, you said there is no money but you removed subsidy. Since they removed subsidy, FAAC has been collecting almost three times of what they were collecting before subsidy. That money you are collecting, what are you doing with it?

“You now said you want to build coastal highway when the existing roads to the same location are not passable, you are budgeting trillions of naira, you want to build Lagos-Sokoto brand new Highway, you want to put billions for hajj subsidy, you bought 200 vehicles for Customs and this is somebody that is complaining that naira is having issues but you now want to spend hundreds billions to import Toyota cars for Customs, why can’t you buy made-in Nigeria vehicles?

“This whole thing doesn’t make any meaning, we don’t even understand it. They are behaving as if they have money but they don’t know what to do with it like General Yakubu Gowon said in the 70s. You bought 200 Toyota Jeeps for Customs, it means you really do have the money but you don’t know what to do with it. But one thing you don’t want to do with the money is to feed Nigerians, feed your workers, make your workers comfortable.

“And as you can see, they are not even giving anybody hope. There is no programme for agriculture, government is not declaring emergency on power, food security, transportation.

“So what we are expecting is that, if they tell us they cannot pay N625,000, they should tell us why they cannot pay, this is negotiation. If we have told them to pay N615,000, what we expect government to calculate how many workers that are expected to receive this minimum wage.

“We did our research, you now say each state has this workforce, this is what they are now getting as revenue forget the fact that some of them are not doing anything to increase their IGR. Whatever they are getting now from the money coming from the federal revenue account, the federal government should say, this is the number of workers that we have, this is how much that you are asking, at the end of the day, this is how much we are expected to spend as salary and this is how much we have.

“So, NLC please look at it, we don’t want to spend this percent on salary, we will then sit down and ask, if you don’t want to spend it on salary, you want to spend it by importing vehicles for Customs when you have locally manufactured vehicles that won’t cost capital flight.”

He, however said that if the government comes out with something”relevant “, the organised labour will shift ground as asked.

“We must discuss with them that the figure presented is realistic and based on facts and statistics as the organised labour has done,” he said.

He said, “For provision of food for one person, we put N500 but there is a survey carried out by the National Bureau for Statistics covering all parts of the country, NBS is the custodian of statistics and it came out with that in today Nigeria, the average you can spend for a meal is N900.

“But we went low, we took the minimum. Their average is N900 but we took the minimum of N500, that is you cannot go below the N500. So you can see how realistic we are. So we will insist that government breakdown every item. Food, hospital, accommodation, transportation etc.

“We don’t want anyone to come and say that the NLC and the TUC presented arbitrary figure.”
VANGUARD

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BREAKING: CBN Withdraws Circular On Cyber Security Levy

Published

11 hours ago

May 19, 2024

Editor

The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN has withdrawn the circular directing banks and other financial institutions to implement the 0.5 per cent cyber security levy.

The withdrawal of the circular was announced via a statement signed by Haruna Mustafa, Director, Financial Policy and Regulation, Department and Chibuzo Efobi, Director, Payment System Management Department.

The circular stated: “The Central Bank of Nigeria circular dated May 6, 2024 (Ref. PSMD/DIR/PUB/LAB/017/004) on the above subject refers. ‘

“Further to this, please be advised that the above referenced circular is hereby withdrawn.”

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JUST IN: Tinubu Appoints Spokesperson, Ngelale, As Special Envoy On Climate Action

Published

13 hours ago

May 19, 2024

Editor

President Bola Tinubu has appointed his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Ajuri Ngelale, as Nigeria’s Special Presidential Envoy on Climate Action.

This was as he established a 25-person committee to oversee the country’s green economic initiatives.

“Ngelale will serve in this role as part of a larger Presidential Committee, to be chaired by the President,” the office of the secretary to the government of the federation revealed in a statement signed Sunday by its Director of Information and Public Relations, Segun Imohiosen.

“Ngelale will retain his role as the Official Spokesperson of the President and Special Adviser to the President on Media & Publicity while serving on the committee,” it added.

The statement is titled, ‘President Tinubu establishes a committee to oversee green economic initiatives, appoints Chief Ajuri Ngelale as special envoy on climate action.’

Imohsien said the Presidential Committee on Climate Action and Green Economic Solutions will “coordinate and oversee all policies and programmes on climate action and green economic development.”

“This is to remove the constraints to coordination, foster a whole-of-government approach to climate-action programmes, provide an efficient governance architecture, and ensure that all relevant institutions in the sector are plugged into the President’s vision and are collectively implementing the Renewed Hope Agenda on climate action,” it further explained.

The new committee which has the President as its Chairman also includes the Minister of Environment, Mr. Balarabe Lawal as its Vice-Chairman, and Mr. Ajuri Ngelale as its Secretary/Special Presidential Envoy.

Members are the CEOs of, InfraCorp, Mr. Lazarus Angbazo; National Council on Climate Change, Mr. Salisu Dahiru; Infrastructure Council Regulatory Commission, Mr. Michael Ohiani, Nigeria Investment Promotion Council, Mrs. Aisha Rimi and National Social Investment Fund, Mr. Aminu Umar-Sadiq.

The committee also consists of the CEOs of the National Agency for the Great Green Wall, Mr Yusuf Maina-Bukar, Energy Commission of Nigeria, Mr Abdullahi Mustapha; Rural Electrification Agency, Abba Aliyu; CreditCorp, Uzoma Nwagba, the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure, Khalil Halilu Member, Solid Minerals Development Fund, Fatima Shinkafi; CBN Deputy Governor (Deputy Governor, Corporate Services Directorate) Mr Bala Bello; UN SE4ALL, Lolade Abiola; Member and an Adviser to the NCCC Adviser, Teni Majekodunmi.

Others are representatives of the Federal Ministries of FCT, Finance, Industry, Trade & Investment, Water Resources, and Agriculture & Food Security.

The committee also consists of representatives from the Federal Inland Revenue Service and the Nigeria Customs Service.

The OSGF outlined eight objectives of the Presidential Committee. They are to:

“Identify, develop, and implement innovative non-oil & non-gas climate action initiatives.

“Coordinate all activities of relevant federal institutions towards the attainment of all agreed climate action and green economic objectives and non-oil/non-gas ambitions of the federal government.

“Collaborate with all relevant government, subnational governments, non-government, and civil society entities towards the attainment of the climate action objectives and ambitions of the federal government.

“Collaborate with national governments and multilateral institutions towards the attainment of the climate action objectives and carbon market ambitions of the federal government.

“Monitor, evaluate, and guide the progress of all climate action and renewable energy projects and activities of the federal government.

“Track and guide the implementation of initiatives and developments conducted by the Energy Transition Working Group.

“Supervise the work of the Presidential Steering Committee on Project Evergreen and

“Prepare a half-yearly green ambitions update, covering all associated climate action achievements of the federal government.”