Dubbed Africa’s Che Guevara, Thomas Sankara wanted to “decolonise minds” in Burkina Faso and across the continent, but his revolutionary dreams were cut short when he was gunned down in a 1987 coup after just four years in power.
The trial of the alleged perpetrators of the assassination, including his former friend – Blaise Compaore – who succeeded him as President and went on to rule for 27 years, opens Monday in the capital, Ouagadougou.
Despite his short time in power, Sankara remains for many a revered figure.
During mass protests which toppled Compaore in 2014, young people carried portraits of Sankara aloft — though many had not even been born during the Marxist–Leninist leader’s rule.
“Sankara is a whole philosophy, a way of thinking and being, a way of life. Sankara is a pride of Africa,” high-school teacher, Serge Ouedraogo, said.
“Today, we can say that Sankara represents a compass for the people of Burkina Faso. He is a guide, it is he who blazed the trail of hope for the people.”
– Rise To Power –
Born on December 21, 1949 in Yako in the north of the poor, landlocked country, Sankara was raised in a Christian family, his father a military veteran. He was just 12 when the country gained independence from France.
After finishing high school in Ouagadougou, he underwent military training abroad. He was in Madagascar for the 1972 insurrection which overthrew President Philibert Tsiranana, considered by foes to be a lackey of former colonial power France.
Returning to his homeland in 1973, Sankara was assigned to train young recruits, and stood out while fighting in a border war with Mali in 1974-1975.
After a coup d’etat in 1980, the new leader, Colonel Saye Zerbo, appointed Sankara his secretary of state for information. But the soldier’s radical views made him quit the government a year and a half later.
Sankara was appointed prime minister in January 1983 after another military coup, which led to a quiet power struggle at the heart of the army.
He was arrested in May 1983 but was then made president in August after yet another coup — this one led by his close friend Compaore.
Aged just 33, Sankara symbolised for supporters African youth and integrity.
He changed the country’s name from the colonial-era Upper Volta to Burkina Faso — “the land of honest men”.
He moved into a rundown Presidential palace with his wife and two sons, along with his guitar — he was a decent player, according to his contemporaries.
He also brought a second-hand Renault 5, and imposed the small French model as the car for all government personnel, doing away with bigger vehicles.
– Denouncing ‘Imperialist’ Wars –
Slender and athletic, Sankara always dressed in army fatigues, and on his belt liked to show off a pistol with a mother-of-pearl handle given to him by North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung.
The priorities in his reform programme included reducing the size of the civil service, improving healthcare, nationwide literacy, food self-sufficiency, measures to help peasant farmers, vaccination campaigns and building pharmacies in villages.
He banned female genital mutilation and forced marriages, among other measures to promote women’s rights, which he oversaw with an iron fist.
The population was policed by the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution and sanctioned by the Popular Revolutionary Tribunal, which antagonised traditional tribal chiefs and others wielding wealth and power.
“We must decolonise minds,” he proclaimed.
However he began to repress unions and political opposition, breaking up a teachers’ strike by sacking them.
Sankara also urged Africa to refuse to pay its debt to Western countries and spoke out at the United Nations to denounce “imperialist” wars, apartheid and poverty. He also defended the right of Palestinians to self-determination.
Relations with France and several neighbouring countries, including Felix Houphouet Boigny’s Ivory Coast and Gnassingbe Eyadema’s Togo, grew strained.
He was meanwhile considered too close to Mu’ammar Gaddafi’s Libya and Jerry Rawlings’ Ghana.
Sankara even gave Francois Mitterrand a lesson in human rights in 1986 after the French president received Pieter Botha, the leader of the South African apartheid regime, in Paris.
“He goes further than necessary in my opinion,” the socialist Mitterrand commented.
On October 15, 1987, when called to an extraordinary cabinet session, Sankara was mown down by fellow soldiers during a putsch which left Compaore alone in power. He was only 37 years old.
Basketball legend, Michael Jordan, and Golden State Warriors star, Stephen Curry, were absent in the National Basketball Association’s 75th Anniversary video which has caused an uproar among fans of the game.
The NBA is in its 75th season and to mark the landmark achievements it had recorded over the years, a short film was released to celebrate the different eras of the league.
However, the three-minute video features all-stars from different eras except Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan and Steph Curry.
Jordan leads a quiet life away from the limelight, without a presence on any social media site. However, the 6x NBA champion has always managed to maintain an association with the league being the majority owner of the NBA franchise, the Charlotte Hornets.
Curry, on the other hand, is recognised as one of the best 3-point shooters to have ever played in the league with three NBA titles to his name.
Apart from Jordan and Curry being absent from the video, other noticeable names not included in the NBA 75th Anniversary Video are Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley.
Sunmi Smart-Cole is one of Nigeria’s most respected personalities in the photography, hair styling, musical, architectural and horticultural professions. The award-winning photographer, jazz percussionist and one-time trend setting barber turned 80 on Saturday, September 25, this year. In this interview with DANIEL ANAZIA, he reminisces on his life as a photographer, musician, architect and a Nigerian who witnessed the country’s independence on October 1, 1960.
Congratulations on your 80th birthday. What are your reflections about life, and how have you been taking care of yourself?
Do I look 80? Anyway, I’m grateful to God that I’m 80. What more do I say to God? Some of my mates died at 16, some at 20 and some others at 60. But here I am at 80.
To answer your question, I allow myself to be like you, the ordinary man. Someone looked at me on that day and said, ‘you don’t look 80; there is no wrinkle and all of that’. She asked me, what do you eat? For me, I think it has to do with self-discipline in terms of what I eat. I don’t drink; I only had an alcoholic drink when I was 12 years old. I don’t smoke anything, whether cigarette or hemp; I don’t take anything that has sugar. Also, I don’t eat red meat. I have not had red meat in the last 55 years. So, I tried to prevent many things like that.
You are known to be a very meticulous and principled person in terms of maintaining standards on how things should be or should be done. How have you been able to keep this principle?
I’m a firm believer in the old saying that states: “Whatever that is worth doing should be done well.” At a point in my life, two ministers approached me to serve as their conduit. One is from the South and the other from the North. The one from the North approached me three days before his official appointment. I followed him to the office when he was to take over. What that simply means is that they wanted me to help them hide whatever money they steal from office.
It’s an opportunity some people would have jumped at. Why didn’t you?
So, I should have pleased them? I’m not that kind of person. When we finished at the office, I looked at the man from the North, shook my head and told him that I felt sorry for Nigeria. You have not started work you are already looking for a way of stealing money, and you want somebody like me to help you hide it?
A lot of people don’t know where I live. Many people were surprised when they came here last Saturday, which was my birthday. I’m happy that I got this house. They were surprised I live in my own house in a nice neigbhourhood. I generated all the plants you see here. I’m a founding member of the Lagos Horticulture Society.
So, I feel sorry for Nigeria because when the country attained independence on October 1, 1960, things were not the way they are today. Look at Nigeria today, at 61, everything is not okay; the country is practically non-existent. Like Chinua Achebe rightly captioned it in one of his writings, There Was a Country. At independence, Nigerians were one and we were singing one Nigeria. Some days to the Independence Day, I had chicken pox and was admitted in the hospital. Three days before the celebration, I begged the doctor to let me go home because everywhere was frenzy, everybody was excited and I wanted to be part of the celebration.
Let me tell you, the 1966 coup did a lot of damage to this country. If Nigeria had remained the way it was before the coup, we would have been very much better and greater. The coup and the coup plotters, as I said, did a lot of damage, and it is the ripple effect that we are still witnessing today.
After independence, there were a few commissioned army officers and they were from the South. The coup plotters were from the southern part of the country. At that time, not many Hausa people were educated in the western sense, apart from the Sarduana, who was the grandson of Uthman Dan Fodio, their leader. Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu killed him. In retaliation, soldiers from the North came together and wiped out the Igbo in their region. This sparked the civil war. General Yakubu Gowon knew how to play the politics. And what did he do? He granted Chief Obafemi Awolowo who was then in prison freedom and made him finance minister. No one knew him (Gowon) at the time, as he was a very young officer. He was not popular like he is today. Invariably, it was Awolowo that was calling the shots at the federal cabinet.
One of the things the Gowon regime did was to give everybody 20 pounds. So, whether you are Igbo, Yoruba or Hausa, once you just get to the bank at that time, you are given 20 pounds. But do you know something? The Igbo, in no time, started paying back the money. I love them for their entrepreneurial spirit.
If anybody wants to read any history about Nigeria, if it was not written by either Prof. Kenneth Dike or Prof Ade Ajayi, forget it. Every other person doctored his writings to suit his/her people and make them look good, whether Igbo, Yoruba or Hausa.
It saddens me whenever I hear people say that Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe did not do anything for Igbo because he did not exhibit ethnic sentiments. Each time I hear such statement, I shake my head because such people may or do not understand what the principle of nationalism is all about. Zik was a nationalist; everything he stood for was one Nigeria. Don’t forget that he was born in the North (Zungeru, Zaria) and he spoke Hausa fluently. He learnt to speak Igbo at home, where he was referred to as a Hausa boy, and when he came to Lagos to school, he picked up Yoruba. His best friend in life was a Yoruba man, Chief Adeniran Ogunsanya. They attended the same school. The problem with Nigeria is ethnicity. Zik lived and preached one Nigeria till he passed on.
When Azikiwe was president, he obeyed the law. There was an election and people were making noise. Some people (politicians) who wanted what they would eat had advised him (Zik) not to hand over, but his lawyer, Dan Ibekwe, told him that it would amount to disobeying the law and he heeded his counsel. So, those saying Zik didn’t do anything are misinformed, he did a lot. Before the coup, there were so many Igbo in the army and they were high ranking officers, but after the coup, that was the end.
As I said earlier, there were not many educated Hausa/Fulani in the army in pre and post-independent era. As such, they were not among the ranks of commissioned army officers in the country at the time. Majority of the top officers in the army at that time were Igbo. The first Nigerian to be commissioned in the Army was Wellington Imoh Bassey from Akwa Ibom; I stand to be corrected. His daughter is still my friend. We still speak and she sent me a message recently. Months later, Aguiyi Ironsi and Shodeinde were commissioned. We were still under the British at that time. I remember we used to open Kingsway Court at night for wives of northerners who couldn’t come out during the day. The problem with Nigeria today is that there are too many sycophants in the corridors of power. They are not telling the truth for pecuniary gains.
Some Igbo hold the opinion that the South East has been marginalised since the end of the war. Do you agree?
Yes, they are, but the truth is that the people who were in charge of the military before the coup were taunted by the role they played and what they did when they had the power. This issue of marginalisation is not peculiar to Nigeria and Igbo. If you go to the United States, the south is still suffering from the effects of the war. When they (Igbo) had the opportunity, they misused it.
First of all, that was not an Igbo coup. Though the arrowheads were Nzeogwu and Ifeajuna, there was Banjo from Ijebu and another officer from Abeokuta. Ifeajuna was given the task of capturing Brigadier Mai Malari in Lagos and forcing him to announce on television that “we Hausa were part of it.” Do you know what spoilt the plan? Woman! He saw the man at the officers’ mess and recognised him as the man who used his rank to collect his girlfriend and shot him dead. Nzeogwu had already captured Hassan Kastina and taken him to the radio station where he was forced to announce that Hausa were part of the coup. If Ifeajuna had kept Malari alive, the coup would have been very successful. So, it was okay for people to assume that it was an Igbo coup.
When the war started, Banjo fought on the side of the Igbo. The man from Abeokuta was in the same unit with Obasanjo, who was away in India. Obasanjo, who was a close friend of Nzeogwu, had returned to the country only three days to the coup and he exclaimed that they were together in his house but Nzeogwu did not tell him. Obasanjo was arrested in Kano by Ike Nwachukwu, who was a lieutenant then. They took him to their commanding officer. After a closed-door discussion, he told them that Obasanjo was actually on his way to Lagos to beg Aguiyi-Ironsi to forgive Nzeogwu.
You have devoted major part of your life to photography and records have it that you were self-taught. What would you say has kept you glued to the art?
Well, I was self-taught in some other endeavours but not photography. I taught myself so many things about life listening to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) where I picked up information.
Sunmi Smart-Cole
My love for photography has always been fueled by passion. I never went to secondary school; my schooling stopped at the age of 14 and I became a school teacher. My education stopped at Standard 6; I couldn’t go to any other school. The problem was that there was no money. I passed entrance exams in three schools but I couldn’t go. I became a teacher without the necessary qualification. For two years, I was teaching and was annoyed with everybody.
At 17, I apprenticed with an architect, who taught me the rudiments of architecture – line drawing. I taught myself the rest by using the USIS library. I ended up designing the country home of Sierra-Leone’s Prime Minister, Albert Margai. He was the second prime minister; the first was his elder brother, Milton Margai. You know most of them are usually involved with a company. In our context here, it could be Julius Berger and Julius Berger will end up building a home for them without taking a penny. But when they build such home, you give them contracts in return. In this case, Albert Margai had interest in a company I was working for and I was the only architect in the firm. So, I was mandated to do the architectural design of the home.
Another one was the home of a former BBC presenter, which he built in his mother’s country, Venezuela. He wanted a swimming pool at the top, which I did. I was working for Nixon & Boss as an architect, but two months later, I was sacked when they discovered I didn’t have a certificate. This happened when they wanted to update the database of every staff. I told them I didn’t go to any formal school. They were nice; they gave me two weeks to clear my desk. Before I eventually exited the company, I came out to go for lunch and ran into Mr. Steve Rhodes on Broad Street. He was working with the then WBS/WNTV and they had an office on Nnamdi Azikwe Street. He was then relieving the manager who had gone on leave. So, I told him about my plight, and he said I was lucky, that he was leaving WBS. He then told me that he had an office at Bristol Hotel, which was on Bioku Street by the corner of Martins Street, Lagos. Maiden Ibru’s father, Mr. Thomopulous, owned the building. He told me to go and see somebody there. I started work immediately.
While working there, we had a musical group called Soul Assembly. The group was made up of Segun Bucknor, Nelson Cole, Mike Cole, James, others and I. We were the first musical group in West Africa. Steve Rhodes was in the business of putting musical groups in nightclubs. We told him that we wanted him to be our manager but he refused.
Why did he reject the offer?
Because I was working for him at Rhodes Sound Vision and Nelson Cole was working for a company called SS Benson, which later gave birth to Ogilvy. His brother, Mike, worked in a tobacco company. Segun worked for Niger Dams Authority, which merged with ECN to become NEPA. He said he could find a job to do, may be in Benin, Ibadan or somewhere. So, he refused.
I went to Maharani, a club on Martins Street. I spoke to the Indian owner, Richard Jhetuwani; I think he is still in Nigeria. He said we should come for audition on Friday. At that time, Godwin Omabuwa had a resident band. Fela hadn’t become popular but he played there every Wednesday night. Before going for the audition, we went to the University of Lagos, Akoka and invited all the girls we knew. We invited all the young men in town too. By midnight, Omabuwa went on break and we took over to play. At the end of the play, the man (Jhetuwani) said every Friday was ours.
There was a trumpeter called Agu Norris who had his own band. He came to our office on Monday morning and was shouting: ‘Steve Rhodes, your boys were great, where were you?’ He had assumed that Steve, being my boss, was our boss. He had also assumed that since he was in the business of putting groups in nightclubs, he must have put us at Maharani Club. At that time, I was still eating meat, not red meat anyway. I had gone to Koriko Bar in Bristol Hotel to buy sausage roll. When I came up to the office, I saw a letter of termination of my appointment with the company for conflict of interest. I didn’t even know what it meant. That became my second sack. This was three months after I rented an apartment. I couldn’t afford a good bed sheet. My girlfriend, one Iyabo, though late now, went to Leventis to buy some fine bed sheets.
At some point, you became a celebrity barber in Lagos. What fueled your passion for the profession?
Let me say it was a side passion. I do not like staying idle. Before I went to work with Steve Rhodes’ company, I had been cutting hair for people. The first time Art Alade came to Nigeria from England, I was the one that cut his hair. I was doing it free of charge. I don’t like seeing people looking scurvy. When Steve Rhodes sacked me, I didn’t want to wait around doing nothing, so I came back to Yaba. I was very angry but I suddenly remembered that I used to cut my friends’ hair with scissors. So, I decided to open a barber’s shop.
Sam Amuka, the publisher of Vanguard Newspapers, used to drive a car called Voscar by Volkswagen. He was then the Editor of Sunday Times, and lived at Onike in Yaba. On his way home one day, he stopped by and saw me. I was reading TIME magazine and Newsweek. Those two were my favourite magazines. I used to buy them weekly. The next day, he sent a reporter and a photographer to my shop. While the reporter and photographer were there, one man came and said give me ‘Sunmi Special’. They asked me what is Sunmi Special and I told them it’s just the way I cut hair, apply cream and brush it. In the very next edition of Sunday Times, I saw a story about me in the centerspread with the headline: ‘Sunmi Smart-Cole Cuts His Name On The Hair.’ From the next day, I couldn’t sit down just because of one publicity. When Afro came out, women who didn’t want to cut their hair bought wig and brought it to my saloon. I cut it to fit their faces. Both senior and junior military officers came to my saloon then. Even former Vice President Atiku Abubakar also visited my saloon then. They used to ask me where party was happening in town. Atiku ended up marrying a Lagos girl, so also my friend, Air Vice-Marshal Abdul Bello, who married a daughter of Pius Okigbo.
When did you veer into journalism?
Then, I used to accompany Jibade Thomas, the first editor of Punch newspaper, to the stadium. At that time, he was a reporter with Daily Times. He would tell me to write down what I observed looking at my timepiece. Again, I was not taught. I joined The Guardian in 1983 as the first photo editor. There is a book about me called Sunmi’s Lens – Medium: Between Man and Nature. The authors are Prof. Jane Bryce of the University of West Indies and Jide Adeniyi-Jones. There is a new one coming out titled Sunmi Smart-Cole and Friends authored by Lindsay Barret.
Despite your contact with the crème-de-la-cream of the Nigerian society, you have maintained a low profile. Is this deliberate?
I said earlier that some ministers wanted me to serve as a conduit for them. If I had agreed, may be I will not be here because I could have concealed the money and ran away.
For some time now you have been somewhat off the radar. Have you retired?
No! I had a domestic accident. I fell down in my kitchen while trying to boil water to make tea and my body gave way. I have been managing that for some time now.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, on Friday, declared that his faith in a better Nigeria remains unshakable.
Obasanjo insisted that, the country would not be destroyed by the myriads of challenges confronting it.
Obasanjo disclosed this during the opening of Abeokuta Window on America held at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library Abeokuta, the Ogun state capital.
The Abeokuta Window on America is a type of American Space located in over 150 countries worldwide set up to engage Nigerian youths in learning about American culture and politics.
The Space is set up in the youth centre of the OOPL in partnership with US consulate in Nigeria.
Delivering his keynote address at the event, Obasanjo expressed optimism that no matter what the country is currently going through, evil would not triumph over good.
The former President who was represented by the Deputy Coordinator of OOPL, Mr. Ayodele Aderinwale said, “Whatever maybe the problem or challenges currently confronting Nigeria today, I assure you that they are not problems on the attack they are actually problems on the retreat.
“My faith in Nigeria remains unshakable. My optimism about the future is resounding. Some may wonder how in the future we will be rescued.
“I see hope in the determination, resilience and the indomitable spirit of Nigerians. I see hope, in their resistance when they are pushed to the wall.
“I see hope, in the zeal, commitment and courage in the face of adversity. I see hope, in the boundless and incurable optimism of young Nigerians.
“I see hope, in the willingness of Nigerian young and who are resistance with all their might the evil that are being perpetrated.
“I see hope, in the unwavering conduct and uncompromising drive of Nigerians in demanding a democratic process. I see hope, in the ingenuity and infinite creativity of the Nigerians. I see hope, in the youth and young, for our tomorrow lies in them.
“I see hope in the great potentials of the Nigerian, empowered, motivated and well led. I see hope, in the blending of experience, energy and dynamism of the old and the new.
“I see hope, in the dynamism, vibrancy and richness of our culture. And I see hope, in the commonality of humanity.”
Speaking on the importance of the Abeokuta Window on America, the U.S. Consulate Public Affairs Officer, Stephen Ibelli disclosed that, the space would offer a calendar of programmes on topics of interest designed to bring Americans and Nigerians closer together.
He noted that the space would further deepen the US – Nigerian relationship, saying no fewer than 100 youths would be engaged on weekly basis in learning about the culture, history and politics of America through books and over 300 online publications.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Friday arraigned Embelakpo Apere and his wife, Beauty Apere, before a Federal High Court Yenagoa over money laundering allegedly carried out in 2015.
Embelakpo is a former aide on Sustainable Development Goals to former Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State who is currently a Senator representing Bayelsa West in the National Assembly.
Following an opposition by defense counsel, Andrew Arthur, to the arraignment of Embelakpo, the court could not take his plea. His wife was also arraigned on seven counts but she pleaded not guilty.
Arthur had argued that Embelakpo had been discharged by the court and could not be tried twice for the same offences but the prosecuting counsel, M.T Iko, countered that the discharge was not based on merit of the case.
The trial judge Justice I.H Ndahen adjourned to October 19 for ruling on the arguments.
According to the charges filed against Beauty Apere, she, between April 1 and May 15, 2015, allegedly received N73million on May 12, 2015; also got N50million, on May 5, 2015, and $85,900 between April 2 and April 27; in 2016, she received £3,800.
The EFCC alleged that the funds were proceeds of unlawful acts punishable under the Money Laundering prohibition Act.
The EFCC also charged Beauty for forgery of her medical certificate and birth certificate purported to emanate from the Federal Medical Centre, Yenagoa.
The court granted her bail to the tune of N10million and two sureties in like sum who must have landed property in Yenagoa.
The defendant would be in the custody of the Yenagoa Correctional Service pending meeting her bail condition.
The EFCC urged the court to also adjourn to October 19 to enable the commission to produce witnesses to establish its case.
Iconic Nigerian singer, Tiwa Savage, says that she is currently being blackmailed over a sex video.
The sonorous singer noted that the sex video features her and her current lover.
The ace singer made this revelation during an interview with American OAP, Angie Martinez of Power 105.1. Speaking about the situation, Tiwa revealed that her lover is as upset with the development.
She said, “Yesterday, I was leaving a radio station and I was in my car when my road manager sent me a message.
“She said I should check my phone. I checked it and there was a video, and I was just like, ‘Wow!’
“I asked him where he got it from and he said he received it about 20 minutes earlier.
“The video was sent to him and it is a tape of me and the person I am dating right now.
“The first thing I did after I got off the phone was that I sent it to my manager and asked what we should do.
“The person is asking for money now. The person I am dating is going crazy too.
“My manager asked how much the person is asking for. “
The singer further added that she has decided not to pay those blackmailing her for ‘doing something natural.’
“I decided I was not going to pay the person because if I do, two months from now, three months down the line or even two years later, you are going to come back again.
“Who knows, if I send the money, the person will probably release it. I am not going to let anyone blackmail me for doing something natural.”
The singer further stressed that she will not give a dime to her blackmailers. Savage stated that she could release the video herself because she is ‘that crazy’.
“No part of me wants to pay the person. That is what is getting me angry. If you want to put it out, put it out. I am that crazy that I can put it out myself. You are not making any money from me. This was an intimate moment with someone I am dating. The person I am dating is not famous, he is a regular guy and his whole business is about to be out.
“He is more concerned about me because he knows that I am going to be more affected. My mother and my son having to see it. I am going to talk to my son about it.
“For me, it is when he is older at about 15 and someone is rude to him at the playground and they make reference to the tape. I have to brace him up.”
The Afrobeats queen noted that the video was not from her team; rather, she said, it was accidentally posted on Snapchat by her lover who deleted it immediately when he realised the error. However, it was too late.
She said, “It is not from someone working closely with me.
“What happened is that the person did it on Snap and he posted it by accident, but he quickly deleted it.
“However, someone got it before he could delete it. It is a very short video, but it is me. It is going to be out there and I can just imagine the memes. I just found out yesterday. I could not sleep last night.
“We tried to stall them, but I later decided that I am going to own the narrative. I am not ashamed of it; this is someone I am dating; I am not cheating, neither is he. We are grownups.
“I cannot believe this is happening to me. I feel for my fan because they will have to keep defending me.
“I can switch off my phone or have someone run my account so I do not see that; but my fans will feel the need to protect me.
The apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo worldwide, has said that nobody can declare a state of emergency in Anambra because of the recent insecurity in the state.
Ohanaeze spokesman, Alex Ogbonnia, who stated this while reacting to the Attorney General and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami’s insinuation that the Federal Government will declare a state of emergency in Anambra State because of recent killings, said that what is happening in northern states was much more and the Federal Government had not declared a state of emergency there.
Ohanaeze said though there was crisis of insecurity in the South East, instead of the Justice Minister to proffer how the security operatives could counter it and stop the situation, he was contemplating state of emergency, describing it as “funny and embarrassing to Ndigbo.”
“Looking at it from genuine point of view, you will see that we have had more killings in Borno, Yobe, Plateau, Benue, Katsina, Niger and even in Kaduna State. He will be there they count their killings in scores and in hundreds, this one in Anambra is just a few persons and somebody is contemplating state of emergency. When they were being killed in hundreds yet elections were held in all those states and now we have a few killings you are contemplating state of emergency.
“Dr. Akunyili was killed about five days ago and as first step you are talking of an emergency. This one, instead of thinking of how to contain and counter such gruesome killings, the first suggestion that come from an Attorney General is State of emergency. Above all Ohanaeze had already known even before now that we are in doubt if some of the crimes being committed here, is our boys really have the strategic capacity to commit them.
“Like going to police station discharge all the people in the station and burn it, going to prison yard discharge over 1,000 inmates and no persons caught. Some of these things we begin to wonder whether our people have the strategic capacity to commit these crimes and go undetected.
“So this development is very strange and is coming at a point where every person is thinking that is time for Igbo to produce president of Nigeria. We are looking at that people are trying to disarticulate the South East, create a false impression that they are not in unity, they are ungovernable, they are in crisis and to that extent they cannot produce a president for Nigeria. All these things we are thinking about but we will disappoint them,” Ogbonnia said.
Ohanaeze spokesman disclosed that the South East leaders had devised means to counter the impression, adding, “We have appealed to our Archbishops and Bishops and traditional rulers, and Town Union President Generals to start engaging the youth so that we will disappoint them by making sure that Anambra and other states become calm. And being calm, we will disappoint them by holding election peacefully in Anambra.”
So those who say that they want to make South East ungovernable will soon be disappointed, “because we are wiser.”
He revealed that some arrests that have been made on the killings in the region, revealed that “some of them are not from Igbo land, some came from Igala, some came from Edo, they were hired people. So we cannot allow state of emergency in Anambra because Onitsha is the economic hub of Igbo land, in fact whoever is thinking of state of emergency in Anambra should go and have a rethink because it is not possible and we can’t allow it.”
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has adopted the zoning of its national chairmanship position to the North, upholding recommendations of the Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi-led zoning committee.
However, it didn’t foreclose that the much-coveted 2023 presidency would be zoned to the South as the party announced that a separate National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting will be convened at a later date to discuss the report of the Governor Bala Mohammed-led committee that had earlier recommended that the Presidency be thrown open to all the six geopolitical zones of the country.
This was the high point of the highly anticipated 94th NEC meeting that was held in Abuja, yesterday. The NEC is the second-highest decision-making body of the party.
Briefing newsmen after the meeting, the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan, said though there were discussions around the Bala Mohammed-led committee, which looked into reasons why the party lost the 2019 elections and the question of zoning of the 2023 presidential ticket, it was agreed that further discussions and decision on the subject should be left till another date.
Report of the Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi-led committee on zoning, which was adopted yesterday, stated, that “the current offices being held by officers in the Southern zones of the country, namely Southwest, Southeast and South-South should swap places with the offices currently held by occupants from Northwest, Northeast and North-Central zones.”
Some party members have expressed reservations about the recommendation and its implications for the presidential ambition of some northerners.
At a pre-event briefing, the chairman of the PDP Board of Trustees (BoT), Senator Walid Jibrin, had appealed to party leaders to put national interest and the party’s survival ahead of personal interests.
Ologbondiyan disclosed that though the issue of the presidency was not on the agenda, NEC members agreed that another meeting should be convened to consider an existing reports on it. “The peaceful resolution of issues arising from the zoning of PDP chairmanship is a product of series of consultations among stakeholders,” he noted.
As early as 9:00 a.m. yesterday, PDP governors met at the Rivers State governors’ lodge in Abuja where comprehensive explanations and clarifications were made on how the zoning of chairmanship would not affect the presidency. The consultations allayed fears of many from the North that the party was set to pick its presidential ticket from the Southern part of the country.
Hours before the actual commencement of the meeting, some people had converged on the party secretariat protesting against what they called discrimination against the North.
Some of the placards displayed by the protesters had inscriptions like: “What did the North do to PDP?”, “Stop cheating the North”, “Wike brought Sheriff, Wike brought Secondus, now he wants to truncate the turn of the North”, “PDP, give North their rights”, and “Two years of North vs 13 years of South.”
In a strong campaign to boost his chance of running again under the banner of the major opposition party, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, yesterday tasked the PDP to pay less attention to where a President emerges from.
According to him, “where the President comes from has never been the problem of Nigeria, neither will it be the solution.”
Atiku, who was the presidential candidate of the main opposition party in the 2019 elections, believes the PDP has the right to determine who represents it or not, just as citizens reserve the right to decide who to vote for.
“There is no such thing as a President from Southern Nigeria or a president from Northern Nigeria. There is only one fact, a president from Nigeria, for Nigeria and by Nigerians.”
Atiku, who preached justice and fairness at the meeting, narrated how he took part in the drafting of the 1999 Constitution and later, along with others, resolved that the Presidency should go to the Southwest in 1999 to compensate the zone for the injustice it suffered.
He also shocked many at the NEC meeting when he remarked that the acclaimed winner of the June 12, 1993, presidential election, Chief MKO Abiola, was killed.
Citing some historical events, Atiku said: “Those of us who served in the constitutional conference, which drafted the current Constitution of Nigeria should remember that after we finished the draft, we all met as members of the conference and resolved to correct the injustice that was done to a particular part of this country. And we said, in whichever party you found yourself, your presidential candidate must come from the Southwest, because Abiola had won the election, but it was annulled. Not only was his election annulled, but he was also killed.
“So, we all agreed as members, and we went out of the constitutional conference and formed our parties. At the end of the day, two parties emerged. The PDP picked Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo and the Alliance for Democracy (AD) picked Chief Olu Falae. All of these show you that Nigerians have a sense of fairness,’’ he stressed.
To demonstrate his belief in fairness, Atiku explained how he rejected calls to frustrate Obasanjo’s second term bid in 2003.
He said: “Distinguished members of NEC, in 2003, all the PDP governors met at the villa and said they were not going to support President Obasanjo for a second term, that I should run. I now referred them to the resolution of NEC, where NEC decided that power should remain in the Southwest for eight years. How do you now want me to go against the resolution of NEC? I turned it down and we moved on.
“So, this country has a sense of fairness. This country has a sense of justice. Therefore, this thing that is inbuilt in our party, we should be able to use it, to imbibe it to make sure today’s deliberations are in the best interest of our party and in the best interest of Nigeria, which will ultimately give us the victory that we asked for, to go back to the villa.”
Acting Chairman, Elder Yemi Akinwonmi, reminded party leaders that “today is a day of making history in the life and survival of the party. Nigerians are eagerly waiting for PDP to take them out of the challenges of socio-political vices created by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).”
Despite the efforts of the Senator David Mark-led reconciliation committee to have all court cases withdrawn to pave way for the forthcoming convention of the party, suspended national chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, has said the need to challenge the “lies” told against him by an unnamed governor informed his decision to approach the Court of Appeal to challenge his suspension.
The embattled national chairman said ever since the orchestrated plans by a governor to hijack the soul of PDP, he had been the target of unrestrained blackmail.
In a statement, yesterday, by his Special Assistant on Media, Ike Abonyi, Secondus explained that it was because of baseless lies that he (Secondus) as National Chairman was not meeting up with his obligations at his ward level in Rivers State that he approached the court to get the purported interim order.
He added: “After the interim order based on such frivolous story, the said governor and his errand boys went ahead to get the court ruling against Prince Secondus.
“For being so treated and victimised without any justification whatsoever after almost four years of selfless service to the party, Prince Secondus is left with no option but to fight for his fundamental rights by approaching the court to seek redress and correct the blackmail and concoctions.”
The statement noted that notwithstanding the frivolous nature of the allegations, “Prince Secondus on his own, as a strong believer in the rule of law, decided to respect the court by staying away, while seeking the necessary right that should correct the judicial ambush against him and the party.
“While awaiting the outcome of the case presented at the Court of Appeal, the blackmail has continued unabated with fabrications and all kinds of laughable lies to the fact that Prince Secondus is romancing with the opposition.”
He asserted that his records in the party remain untainted from state chairman through national organising secretary, deputy national chairman to national chairman since December 2017.
A landmark ruling by an Israeli court in favour of Jews praying at the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex has stoked Palestinian fears of Jewish encroachment over Jerusalem’s holiest site.
Palestinians denounced on Thursday a decision by an Israeli Magistrate Court not to regard prayer by Jewish worshippers as a “criminal act” if it remained silent, which upends a longstanding agreement whereby Muslims worship at Al-Aqsa while Jews worship at the nearby Western Wall.
The judicial decision came after an Israeli settler, Rabbi Aryeh Lippo, went to court to get a temporary ban order from entering Al-Aqsa lifted. The order was imposed on him by Israeli police after he performed prayers at the compound.
Palestinian Prime Minister, Mohammad Ibrahim Shtayyeh, has called on the United States to fulfil its pledge to preserve the status quo of the compound, and for Arab nations to stand in solidarity with Palestinians.
“We warn against Israel’s attempts to impose a new reality at the Holy Al-Aqsa Mosque,” Shtayyeh said on Thursday.
Jordan, whose role as keeper of Al-Aqsa was recognised in a 1994 peace treaty between Amman and Tel Aviv, called the decision “a serious violation of the historical and legal status of Al-Aqsa Mosque”.
Khaled Zabarqa, a lawyer and expert on Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa, told Al Jazeera that “the Israeli judicial system does not have any legal jurisdiction to rule over the sanctity of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and to change the status quo.”
From a legal standpoint, the decision is null, he said.
While the verdict reached on Wednesday by Israel’s lowest judicial body amounts more to an endorsement than a legal ruling, it has stirred Palestinian fears of a Jewish takeover of the third-holiest site in Islam.
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Bloody confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli security forces have repeatedly occurred as more and more Jews have been entering the Al-Aqsa compound, which they refer to as Temple Mount, to pray.
Palestinians view visits by Jews to the site as a provocation and have accused Israel of systematically trying to undermine earlier agreements to expand its own control.
The area is in Jerusalem’s walled Old City and part of the territory Israel captured in a 1967 Middle East war. Israel annexed occupied East Jerusalem in 1980 in a step that was never recognised by the international community.
Jordan’s Council of Endowments (Awqaf), which manages the Islamic edifices in the Al-Aqsa compound, called the move a “flagrant violation of the Islamic and sanctity of the mosque and a clear provocation to the feelings of Muslims around the world”.
Hamas, the group that governs the besieged Gaza Strip, said the move is a “blatant aggression against the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and a clear declaration of a war that goes beyond political rights to an aggression against religion and sanctities”.
The “resistance is ready and prepared to repel aggression and defend rights,” the group said in a statement.
The mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, expressed concern for a possible escalation of hostilities.
“We appeal to the Arabs and Muslims to save Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque from the invasive decisions of the occupation on Al-Aqsa Mosque, and we warn everyone against the outbreak of a religious war,” the mufti said.
President Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday, before a joint session of the National Assembly, unveiled a record N16.39 trillion ‘‘Budget of Economic Growth and Sustainability’’ for 2022, with a projected 25 per cent year-on-year rise in government spending as the economy struggles with the impact of the pandemic.
The President, decked in a white agbada, said he expects the total fiscal operations of the Federal Government to result in a deficit of N6.26 trillion, representing 3.39 per cent of estimated GDP, slightly above the three per cent threshold set by the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007.
The President further put the total federally distributable revenue at N12.72 trillion, while total revenue available to fund the budget is estimated at N10.13 trillion, which includes grants and aid of N63.38 billion, as well as revenues of 63 Government-Owned Enterprises (GOE).
He also projected oil revenue at N3.16 trillion, non-oil taxes at N2.13 trillion and FGN independent revenues to be N1.82 trillion.
The President, who did not indicate the sectoral allocations of the budgetary estimates in a bid to abide by the COVID-19 protocols, acknowledged concerns from well-meaning Nigerians over the resort to borrowing to finance deficit gaps.
He expressed the plan to finance the N6.26 trillion deficit mainly by new borrowings totaling N5.01 trillion, N90.73 billion from Privatisation Proceeds and N1.16 trillion drawdowns on loans secured for specific development projects.
The budget for Africa’s top oil exporter was based on a conservative oil price benchmark of $57 per barrel; daily oil production estimate of 1.88 million barrels (inclusive of Condensates of 300,000 to 400,000 barrels per day).
It is also based on an exchange rate of N410.15 per dollar, and a projected GDP growth rate of 4.2 per cent and a 13 per cent inflation rate.
According to IMF data, Nigeria has among the lowest revenues globally, with government revenue between 2015 and 2019 at 7.9 per cent of GDP, compared with a Sub-Saharan African average of 12.7 per cent and a global average of 29.8 per cent.
Speaking before a joint sitting of the Senate and the House of Representatives, President Buhari said: “Some have expressed concern over our resort to borrowing to finance our fiscal gaps. They are right to be concerned. However, we believe that the debt level of the Federal Government is still within sustainable limits.”
From the budget presentation came the revelation that the Federal Government has concluded plans to generate the sum of N90 billion from sales of mostly government-owned power assets under its National Integrated Power Projects (NIPPs) to help part-finance the 2022 budget.
This is in continuation of the unbundling and privatisation of the power sector to establish a competitive and efficient market to attract investment, increase revenue and provide a reliable and cost-efficient power supply.
The NIPP, which was established under the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo, is the government vehicle that owns several power generation plants in the country. The government, however, did not reveal which of the power assets would be sold.
Recall that in a privatisation process that lasted over a decade, the Federal Government, in 2013, sold off controlling shares in the state-owned 11 power distribution companies and seven power generating companies to private companies.
Several years after the unbundling and the eventual sale of the power firms, citizens and businesses still do not have a reliable power supply. While the country has an installed capacity of 12,522MW, it is barely able to generate around 4,000MW, which is insufficient for the population of over 200 million.
Although there has been a lot of criticisms over Nigeria’s mounting debt, the President said the country is in so much debt due to borrowing to survive two recessions. He explained that part of what necessitated the borrowings was the economic recession that hit the country, adding that the nation does not have a debt sustainability problem, but a revenue challenge.
He said: “As you are aware, we have witnessed two economic recessions within the period of this administration. In both cases, we had to spend our way out of recession, which necessitated a resort to growing the public debt. It is unlikely that our recovery from each of the two recessions would have grown as fast without the sustained government expenditure funded by debt.”
He further explained that his government has endeavoured to use the loans to finance critical development projects and programmes aimed at improving Nigeria’s economic environment and ensuring effective delivery of public services to our people.
For President Buhari, the loans acquired have been and will continue to be focused on: Completion of major road and rail projects, effective implementation of power sector projects, provision of potable water, construction of irrigation infrastructure and dams across the country and critical health projects such as the strengthening of national emergency medical services and ambulance system, procurement of vaccines, polio eradication and upgrading Primary Health Care Centres across the six geopolitical zones.
BUT experts have expressed dismay over non-compliance with full implementation of national budgets in line with existing appropriation laws. They say the implementation of the proposed N16.39 trillion 2022 budget may not be different given the fact that several past budgets never realised up to 80 per cent implementation threshold.
Speaking on the issue, the Director, Institute of Fiscal Studies, Godwin Ighedosa, said: ‘’It is sad that subsequent governments have always refused to follow appropriation laws while implementing the budgets. Monies are not supposed to be diverted from one ministry to another but to be used for what purpose they are meant for in the various MDAs.”
He called on the government to diversify the economy into ICT areas, transportation and embark on a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model to fund developmental projects.
A former lecturer, Dr. Liman Umar, said the government should, as a matter of fact, rely more on PPP in funding its yearly budgets. He said: “Using the PPP model will help attract local and foreign investors into the economy and jobs would be created with taxes paid to boost government revenues that could be used to pay outstanding debts.”
An economist, Tope Fasua, faulted the lack of innovation in government and taking the easy way out of economic underdevelopment by relying heavily on crude oil sales and borrowing to fund annual budgets.
Fasua said Nigeria is still trapped under the yoke of heavy borrowings. “The budget has not gone out of the vicious circle of crude oil being the main source of revenue for this country. We are still talking about crude oil, how many barrels we can sell and how many barrels we can produce.
“Nigerians are waiting for the day there would be out-of-the-box thinking as far as our budget is concerned where we will be able to see new thinking about revenue expectations of our budgets. We have not got to that point.
“The way we are going now, the fear is that will we may never get out of the budget deficit circle. Nigeria is the second-lowest country in terms of per capita budget, meaning the federal budget is divided by the population, will amount to little. We are not better than Congo.”
He, however, commended the Federal Government for presenting the budget early to the National Assembly.
Urging the government to drastically reduce the rate at which it is borrowing to fund its yearly budget, Dr. Bongo Adi, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Economics, Pan-Atlantic University, said the government is stretching itself too thin getting involved in services and projects that the market should have been allowed to provide.
He said that the government is spending too much-giving people what to eat rather than helping them to fend for themselves by providing enabling environment and the needed infrastructure for the people to use their personal initiatives.
Adi said the near socialist posture of the government, which is the reason for what he called, the handouts it is giving to the people in the form of social intervention, is a huge burden on public finance.
“Supposing government cuts off that handout and uses that money to build infrastructure that will stimulate economic activities, the people will pay tax, we can even export some of our products and services and earn foreign exchange. That’s more money for the country,” he said.
“Let government revive that drive they had in 2018 when they set up the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), which is about identifying and packaging bankable projects.
“If they can do that, I can assure you that more than 70 per cent of what we have as capital expenditure of the government, will go to the market to provide and the government will not need to borrow this heavy.”
For Dr. Muda Yusuf, the CEO of, Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE), the government should discontinue the accumulation of commercial debt because of sustainability concerns.
He said for the economy to move forward, the government must fix the security problems to create the environment for increased real sector activities, review the foreign exchange policy regime to reduce distortions, eliminate arbitrage opportunities, minimise uncertainties, reduce exchange rate volatility and mitigate investment risks and align CBN financing of deficit strictly to the provisions of the CBN Act.
Newly appointed Chairman, Financial Reporting Council (FRC), Dr. Sam Nzekwe, said while he is not against borrowing, the money must be channeled to infrastructure that will make the country more productive. He said with the dwindling revenue from crude oil, this is the time for the country to do away with petrol subsidy, which he said has been a big drain on the national purse.
“I don’t have issues with borrowing provided it is not for consumption,” Nzekwe said. “But from what we are seeing, the monies are almost for consumption, you can see that the contracts are overvalued and there is no value for money. This is contrary to what you get when the private sector handles the same kind of job.”
On his part, Prof. Muhammad Mainoma, immediate past President of Association of National Accountants of Nigeria (ANAN), said the only way for the government to reduce borrowing to fund the budget is for it to make the productive sector working.
According to him, “if the borrowing is meant to increase the production capacity, it makes a lot of sense because in the long run, the yield will be more than what we are paying as interest.”
Economic analysts said the budget signalled the government was not about to make any major policy shift as spending would remain elevated to deal with a deteriorating security situation in many parts of the country.
The security forces have been struggling to contain Islamist insurgencies in the Northeast, a spate of mass abductions and deadly bandit attacks in the Northwest, conflicts between farmers and herders in many areas and a general surge in crime.
MEANWHILE, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has enjoined the National Assembly to speedily pass the 2022 budget presented by President Buhari. APC in a statement by its caretaker secretary, John Akpanudoedehe, explained that the call was aimed at meeting the January-December budget cycle.
The APC called on Nigerians to keep track of the progress being made by this administration in delivering projects, services and countless dividends of democracy all over the country.
The party maintained that the proposed budget is designed to accelerate the government’s ongoing efforts to diversify the economy through more support for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), continued investment in vital infrastructure, strengthening security, enabling a vibrant, educated and healthy populace, reducing poverty through targeted social investments and ultimately ensuring good governance.
THE President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, has, however, cautioned the Federal Government to reduce its penchant for borrowing by exploring other funding sources. Lawan gave the advice in his speech at the budget presentation yesterday.
He said: “Mr President, we understand that due to paucity of revenue, the Federal Government has to resort to raising funds from foreign and domestic sources to provide infrastructure across the country. That is why the National Assembly approved the requests for borrowing. Government should also explore other sources of funding its projects in order to reduce borrowing.”
He congratulated the National Assembly and the Executive for the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) and assent to enact the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021.
“The ninth National Assembly broke the jinx of the non-passage of the PIB over the years and Your Excellency, you have achieved the feat of assenting to the Bill. Let me also commend you for starting to implement the PIA immediately, with nominations of qualified Nigerians to serve on the Petroleum Down and Midstream Regulatory Authority and Petroleum Upstream Regulatory Commission.
He gave the assurance that Assembly members will immediately start work on the 2022 Appropriation Bill. He recalled that the President laid the appropriation bill for 2021 on October 8, 2020.
Continuing he said the members of the ninth National Assembly have kept to their promise of passing the yearly Appropriation Bill before the end of the year to ensure that it is signed into law before the beginning of the new year.
According to Lawan, the Nigerian economy and indeed citizens are benefitting from the early passage and assent to the 2020 and 2021 Appropriation Bills.
THE Speaker, House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, assured that the National Assembly would “ensure exhaustive consideration” of the 2022 budget. The Speaker, who said the National Assembly was committed to the timely passage of the Appropriation Bill as it did in the last two years, noted that the next two to three months will be for the strictest scrutiny of the budget estimates and emphasised that lawmakers would hold government agencies accountable for the previously appropriated funds.
SOME of the critical ongoing infrastructural projects, according to the President are in the power, roads, rail, agriculture, health and education sectors.
“We have made progress on the railway projects connecting different parts of the country. I am glad to report that the Lagos-Ibadan Line is now completed and operational. The Abuja-Kaduna Line is running efficiently. The Itakpe-Ajaokuta rail Line was finally completed and commissioned over 30 years after its initiation.”
According to the president, arrangements are underway to complete the Ibadan-Kano Line, pointing out that work will soon commence on the Port Harcourt-Maiduguri Line and Calabar-Lagos Coastal Line, which will connect the Southern and Eastern States to themselves and to the North.
The president said progress is also being made on several power generation, transmission, and distribution projects, as well as off-grid solutions, all aimed towards achieving the national goal of optimising power supply by 2025.
“I am again happy to report that we continue to make visible progress in our strategic road construction projects like the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, Apapa-Oworonsoki expressway, Abuja-Kano expressway, East-West Road and the second Niger bridge. We hope to commission most of these projects before the end of our tenure in 2023.”
