COLUMN
Bobrisky And Jesus, The Tax Collector
Published
7 months agoon
In the 19th century and even before, Bobriskys were lynched like common criminals. Their sin was their considered unusual sexuality. Until then, homosexual activities were classified as “unnatural crime against nature” while sodomy got punished with, sometimes death. In comparison, Okuneye Idris Olanrewaju, famously known as Bobrisky, has suffered one of the mildest fates. Between 1877 and 1950, over 4000 of such lynching occurred. As recent as April 2017, Kenne McFadden, a black transgender woman who didn’t have experience of swimming, got drowned when she was pushed into the San Antonio River in Texas on account of her “nauseating” sexuality. That much was said in 2020 by Emily Lenning, Sara Brightman and Carrie Buist in their “The Trifecta of Violence: A Socio‑Historical Comparison of Lynching and Violence Against Transgender Women.” Writing for Critical Criminology, they said five months after the McFadden case, specifically in September, 2017, Ally Lee Steinfeld, a white 17-year-old transgender teen, also got brutally murdered. Her cruel fate was brought about by three teenagers. She was stabbed in the genitals, her eyes gouged out, her body set alight and her remains dumped “in a chicken coop near a mobile home park in Missouri.”
Two months later, in the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, Sherrell Faulkner, a forty-five-year-old Black transgender woman, got cruelly beaten and then dumped behind a dumpster. Days after, the injuries she suffered led to her death in the hospital. Till today, Faulkner’s murderers have not been identified. The three cases, according to Human Rights Campaign Foundation (HRCF) 2018, represented a tiny strand of at least 29 murders of transgenders that the United States recorded in 2017, ranked as the deadliest year for the Bobriskys in recent history. HRCF also reported that between 2013 and 2019, it tracked 157 cases of fatal anti-transgender incidents.
Perhaps this was what weird but hugely talented Nigerian singer, rapper and songwriter, Habeeb Okikiola, a.k.a. Portable, was referencing in Brotherhood, a short musical he did attacking Bobrisky recently? In the song, Portable condemned Bobrisky for morphing from “brotherhood to sisterhood.” While body-shaming the embattled cross-dresser as “a disgrace to brotherhood” and having ameoeba-shaped buttocks that looked like a clay pot worth only a pound – e wo idi e bi koko ponun kan – Portable asked that Bobrisky be stoned to death – “e le l’oko pa!”
Like Portable, from ancient times, the world has never hidden its hostility against people who profess sexual orientation different from its. Like, it says, can only be compared to likes – ohun t’o ba jo’hun l’a fi nwe’hun. The world even gave its anger towards homosexuality religious validation. Following this route, Italian priest, philosopher and theologian, Thomas Aquinas, condemned homosexuality as “unnatural.” The biblical book of Leviticus 18: 22; 20:13 is often cited: “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination,” as well as Romans 1: 26 where biblical Paul hoisted up lesbianism for condemnation: “For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature.”
The Bobriskys come in various names and appellations. They are either bisexual, in which case, they are attracted to persons of both sexes; Butch, male and female who dress in stereotyped male ways; “In the closet,” because they do not disclose their gender identity; Femme, due to their acting and dressing in feminine ways; gays, for their attraction to persons of same sex and as LGBTQ, a sweeping categorization of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transgenders and Questionings. Bobrisky is Nigeria’s own daughter of the historical Greek woman, Sappho, an Archaic Greek poet, who hailed from Eresos on the Island of Lesbos. Sappho was the first known woman “accused by some of being irregular in her ways and a woman-lover.” She is venerated by lesbians as the foremother, the near mythical prototype of people with queer sexual cravings. Lesbianism, the community of same sex women, was forged from Lesbos, the name of the island Sappho lived. Bobrisky patterns her life towards Sappho and has become a controversial self-confessed transgender, LGBTQ personality and campaigner.
According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (2015, 47), the umbrella term used to describe the Bobriskys of this world, called transgender, refers to “… people whose gender identity and expression does not conform to the norms and expectations traditionally associated with their sex at birth. Transgender people include individuals who have received gender reassignment surgery, individuals who have received gender-related medical interventions other than surgery (e.g. hormone therapy) and individuals who identify as having no gender, multiple genders or alternative genders. Transgender individuals may self-identify as transgender, female, male, transwoman or transman, transsexual, hijra, kathoey, waria or one of many other transgender identities, and they may express their genders in a variety of masculine, feminine and/or androgynous ways.”
Homosexuality, cross-dressing or lesbianism is as old as humanity. The holy writs seem to abet the cruelty and violence that humanity has inflicted on these creations of God. While some antiquities tolerated their sexual fates, others visited their wraths on the offspring of Sappho. Well-known lesbian Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at San Diego State University, Christine Downing, in her Lesbian Mythology, suggests that lesbianism is a grueling life of isolation, confusion and terror. This was her conclusion while re-casting Roman poet, Publius Ovidius Naso’s myth. Naso, simply known as Ovid, had told a story which has almost become a global lesbian epistemology. Heroine of the story, Iphis, born female, desired to be male. Her mother had hidden her gender from her father, a poor Cretan peasant who badly wanted a male child. Iphis’ mother was in despair in her pregnancy until the goddess, Isis advised her to deceive her husband about the child’s gender. At age 13, Iphis fell in love with the most beautiful girl on the island called lanthe. Raised as a male, there was confusion, making her mother to cry to the god, Isis. As Iphis and Ianthe walk home one day, Iphis’ features suddenly change to a man’s and “the boy Iphis gained his own Ianthe.” Downing apparently retold this story to reduce the tension of horrific encounters of the children of Sappho.
Bobrisky leapt into the news again recently. He/she had been named winner in the ‘Best Dressed’ Female Category of popular Yoruba actress, during the premiere of Eniola Ajao’s Beast of Two Worlds, Ajakaju movie premiere. Scalding criticisms erupted on the social media. Bobrisky’s choice sparked uncomplimentary reactions. Not even Eniola’s immediate apologies on her social media handles and reversal of what she declared was a stunt gone sour were enough appeasements. A few days after, the EFCC arrested Bobrisky, charging her to court for mutilation of Nigeria’s currency totaling N490,000. He/she was immediately convicted, ranking it as one of the Concorde supersonic airliner -speed convictions ever given by the Nigerian judiciary. We hope the Nigerian judiciary and the EFCC will give the Kano State government-filed criminal charges against the immediate past governor and APC chairman, Abdullahi Ganduje, same expeditious trial. Kano had resorted to try Ganduje over alleged $413,000, N1.38bn bribery during his governorship and has assembled 15 witnesses to testify against Ganduje.
In a country where mutilation of the national currency is an off-the-cuff weekend pastime of the elite and the political class in Nigeria, it was obvious that a deeply religious, conservative, African-centric animosity against unusual sexuality was fighting back. When stunned about how odd events fit into one another to form a mesmerizing wonder, Yoruba will say Ó jọ gáté, kò jọ gàté, ó fi ẹsẹ̀ méjèèjì tiro. It is similar to the case of a limping masquerade (atiro) who enters the “Igbale”, where masquerades remove their mask regalia –ago. If an agbada-clad, limping person now walks out of the Igbale immediately, it shouldn’t be difficult to situate who the atiro was. No one needed to be told that the masquerader, like the nightingale – the beautiful Awoko bird – had shed its quills. Such is the wonderment and clinical precision of Bobrisky’s lynching. A highly religious Nigeria was obviously taking vengeance for Bobrisky’s sexuality audacity.
Some scholars have said that, until about half a century ago, lesbianism or gay relationship was a nonexistent phenomenon in Africa. According to them, per adventure it even ever did exist, it was an aberration imported from the West. Anthropological researches have however proved that the existence of same-sex sexual practices predates the now in Africa into before, during, and after colonialism. The practice was however disparaged. Dobrota Pucherova said this much in her “What Is African Woman? Transgressive Sexuality in 21st-Century African Anglophone Lesbian Fiction as a Redefinition of African Feminism.” Africans saw lesbianism as an example of a woman’s corruption, moral depravity and even madness. Pucherova uses the Kenyan Rebeka Njau’s novel, Ripples in the Pool (1975) and Ghanaian Ama Ata Aidoo’s Our Sister Killjoy (1977) as affirmation of this thesis. In Njau’s novel, the protagonist, Selina, gets infatuated with her husband’s younger sister. She was cast as exhibiting “predatory sexual desire” toward the two siblings. The book consigns Selina’s behavior into the trash basket of egomania and a damaged personality. It also suggests that Selina makes use of witchcraft to control her victims. No wonder she ends up murdering the young girl and her male lover. Aidoo’s Our Sister Killjoy sees same-sex as less predatory. In it, a German housewife becomes obsessed with Sissie, the Ghanaian protagonist. Marija’s obsession is painted as a measure of moral degeneration reminiscent of post-Holocaust German society. All these and other African literature openly thematized lesbian desire, showing however that black women are victimized through patriarchal control of their sexuality. An example is Monica Arac de Nyeko’s short story, Jambula Tree, which is the first East African text to so do.
Last week was Easter, a sacred day in the annals of world Christianity. Nigeria’s Federal Inland Revenue Service’s (FIRS) communication agency would not allow the day go by without marketing its tax portfolio. So it put out the brilliant, catchy and arresting phrase “Jesus paid your debts, not your taxes.” This brilliance and mental ingenuity should earn any student of PR a Distinction. Not Nigeria’s churchpreneurs. They saw it as a reckless audacity operating on same dangerous Fahrenheit as Bobrisky’s. I haven’t heard the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) lament the danger in the current obnoxious hike in electricity tariff. That won’t make Bola Tinubu know that CAN is a combine of Christian principalities. On FIRS, CAN reached for its ancient pouch immediately. It brought out those archaic, boring refrains of “offensive” “derogatory” and “religious harmony.” I have been struggling to find a difference between CAN’s obvious intolerance and a similar one that happened in Kaduna in November, 2002. Twenty one year old Isioma Daniel, who worked for the Thisday, had written on a Miss World contest Nigeria was to host. She off-handedly and harmlessly suggested that Prophet Mohammed might have approved of the contest and probably wished to marry one of the beauty queens. Hell was let loose. The newspaper’s Kaduna office was burned down. Hundreds of people were reportedly killed. The ensuing riots lasted for several days, prompting the organizers of the Miss World contest to relocate it to London to protect further lives from being lost.
One thread links our Bobrisky demonization, CAN’s hypocritical anger and Islam’s pesky religiosity. It is called intolerance. I referred to the witch-hunting of same sex people as “our” because, if today, Bobrisky offers his/her hand to me for a handshake, I will shudder. I am almost too sure I will refuse it. My refusal will not be strictly me in action. Rather, it will be centuries of culture, religion and our collective aversion to change which have bored deep roots in me. These three hate change. Their mantra is, as it was in the beginning, so shall it be. Static as statue.
Take for instance our cultural and religious perception of child-bearing and polygamy. For centuries now, Africa venerated procreation almost to a point of deity. Whoever brings forth a child owns this world – “Olomo l’o l’aye” – our mothers proudly sang. In Africa, barren women were stigmatized because women were seen as procreation vehicles called motherhood. In the bible, Peninnah scorned Hannah’s barrenness. Our mothers, who, due to no fault of theirs, couldn’t bring forth children, were witches. In earlier centuries, some cultures abetted barren women being stoned to death by scorners. Today, the world has re-interrogated the whole corpus of child-bearing. Couples willingly decide they don’t want to be encumbered by it. Is it really true that Olomo l’o l’aye? Great men and women have traversed this world without bearing children. Their corpses were not fed to the swine. Nor are we told that child-bearing is a passport to the hereafter. We have had parents who gave birth to children but died miserably, due to their abandonment by their children.
Today, there is a huge traffic back to where we were before the advent of colonialism. Soon after Britain and its Middle East allies came with their Bible, Quran and guns, we abandoned our centuries-old medicine, dressing and culture. Now, Africans are going back to those same abandoned roots, apologies to Lucky Dube. One of such is polygamy. Last week, Bassirou Diomaye Faye was inaugurated as the fifth Senegalese President, flaunting his two wives – Marie Khone and Absa. I could see the west squeeze its face like excreta beaten by rain. The hypocritical west flushes monogamy and homosexuality down the throat of the world while abhorring our ancient practice of polygamy. Reproached in high places as Faye just did, monogamy and its icing of hypocrisy are getting perforated. The truth is that, the stringent rules of monogamy have destroyed more homes than they built.
We must interrogate every teaching and dogma of religion, culture and society and hold on to those that will assist us live quality lives. That is what existentialist philosophy teaches. Today, churchgoers are asking questions about the stupendous wealth of the Daddy G.Os and the poverty of the congregants. We must not be slaves to them, nor be their mannequins. While upholding values that will strengthen humanity, we must also show respect for otherness and recognize individual human rights. What is Jesus’ business with FIRS’ quest to bring more people into its tax net? Parodying Isioma, if Jesus were here today, He would recommend a national honour for the fellow whose brilliant idea birthed that FIRS line. Why drag Jesus and Mohammed into this needless pettiness? What should infuriate a sensible human being about Mohammed enjoying Miss World? Why should we be captives of dogmas? Why should we allow the bigotry of CAN and zealotry of Islamic fundamentalists drive our thinking? Religious charlatans and their naïve accomplices merely make their enemies the enemies of God. If CAN has been slumbering and needed to talk by all means, couldn’t it dig a hole like that old Yoruba fable of Alade’s friend, who couldn’t stomach the confided secret of Alade growing a horn on his head, who then dug a hole, inside which he shouted, “Alade has horn on his head!” – Alade hu’wo? From that same hole grew a tree and whenever anyone brought a flute beside it, the rhythm sprouting off the flute was, “Alade hu’wo.”
Earlier, it was society’s view that people like Bobrisky were suffering from psychological disorder. Or that homosexuality was an abnormal condition. Science has since discovered that many atimes, the Bobriskys may be prisoners of their biology and psychology. Researches have shown that you do not choose to be gay, bisexual, or straight. And that homosexuality is a natural and normal sexual orientation, expressions of human sexuality. The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its radius in 1973, and with it the stigma of mental illness that had long been associated with the children of Sappho. Why do we demonize those who, like accidents of birth, have no say in the kind of sexuality they are imposed upon by nature?
Do I agree with Bobrisky’s open flaunt of his/her sexuality? No. I think one’s sexual orientation should be a private affair. I also advocate that children of Sappho deserve pity from society and should be clinically lured out of their natural affliction. I also think that, if dug deeper, Bobrisky’s untapped major infraction against the law may just be that she has turned her cross-dressing into commodity. EFCC should openly admit that it is acting the script of a vindictive, homosexual-hostile Nigerian society in lynching Bobrisky. Singling him/her to face the wrath of the law is akin to the lynching treatment given homosexuals in the early centuries. Currency mutilation is a fad which very few Nigerians are not guilty of as charged, from Bola Tinubu, to the lowest Nigerian. An orgy of celebration on the social media has since followed Bobrisky’s lynching by the law. It reminds me of a hunter who proudly hoists the decapitated head of a buffalo as symbol of his masculinity.
Ondo’s pigeon and dove certificate war
When it was time to play denigrating politics, Chief SLA Akintola, Premier of the Western Region, was not one to shy away from it. The Ondo Province of the Region once came under his lacerating tongue. When it was time to take a swipe at the likes of renowned economist, Professor Sam Aluko, who hailed from Ekiti part of the Province, Akintola had the right innuendo to singe his flesh. The Province was busy producing all manner of birds, in the name of academics, said the Premier; the likes of Aluko, Atiala and Atioro. The three were names of birds in Yorubaland and the economist’s name was similar to one of them. While Aluko bird was the carinal, the Atiala and Atioro were allied hornbill birds. Akintola was deliberately spinning innuendoes.
It goes without saying that the Province, which had Ondo as a major component, was home to intellectuals. Though arguments abound as to which, between current Ekiti and Ondo states, produces the highest harvest of professors and academics, the fact remains that certificates are ten a dime on the streets of both states. So when the possession or non-possession of certificates became the issue in the current race to Alagbaka, seat of the government of Ondo State, it becomes both off-putting and a dispiriting game.
Jimoh Ibrahim, Senator representing Ondo South and one of those vying for the governorship election in the state in November, has been flaunting his nine certificates wherever he goes. Those who should know, know that, like Akintola, Ibrahim is embroiled in a game of innuendoes. What he is doing is reminiscent of an unspoken tango between two birds, the pigeon (Eyele) and the Dove (Adaba). While Adaba chants his incantations, the Eyele pretends that he couldn’t access them. Those who know the brilliance of the Pigeon however know it is mere pretence. Yoruba express this tango as “Àdàbà ńpa ògèdè bí ẹni pé ẹyẹlé ò gbọ́, ẹyẹlé gbọ́, tí tiri ló ńtiri.”
Goveernor of Ondo State, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, is the ẹyẹlé to whom Ibrahim, the Àdàbà, is directing his incantations. This ẹyẹlé knows. Allegations are rife that Aiyedatiwa, who is also in the race, does not possess genuine certificates. Ibrahim’s advertisement of his suffusion of certificates is a direct innuendo on the certificate tango. Between Aiyedatiwa and Ibrahim’s certificates, or lack thereof, none should be qualification for Ondo governorship. While Ondo, which is reputed, a la SLA Akintola, as pinnacle of academic certificates, should not have a governor who forges his certificate, the state, hitherto administered by Michael Ajasin, the renowned Principal of famous Imade College; school principal, Adebayo Adefarati; Geologist, Dr. Olusegun Agagu and medical doctor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, shouldn’t relapse to such base level of being administered by a certificate forger. So, Aiyedatiwa’s certificates should be top on his qualification index. In the same vein, Ondo electors shouldn’t base their consideration of Ibrahim’s candidacy on merely his plethora of certificates. We have to look at his person and pedigree. Why have virtually all the businesses Senator Ibrahim laid his hands on been dead, comatose or gasping for breath? Why is his name a serial occurrence on AMCON’s notorious list? Does this point at his spirit?
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COLUMN
President Tinubu steering Nigeria away from Venezuela-like tragedy-IMPI
Published
1 week agoon
November 3, 2024The Independent Media and Policy Initiative (IMPI) has said that contrary to suggestions in a section of the media, the economic reforms of the President Bola Tinubu administration are based on a clear plan to steer the country away from the tragic path of another oil-rich country, Venezuela.
This according to the policy think- tank in a statement by its Chairman Dr Niyi Akinsiju is because years of populist macro-economic policies have sunk the country to a level that the country had to change course or be doomed.
“We have observed with interest the criticisms that continue to trail the reforms implemented by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration. Of particular interest are two opinions that gained some traction.
“One of the critics finds the reforms to be a: “wreckage of the past 15 months, from which the country is reeling.” The other viewpoint, an editorial, brands the “government as insensitive and strategy-deficient. It also sees the government as “incompetent to perform its primary duty of delivering welfare and security to the people.”
“These attacks on the ongoing reforms are natural if viewed from the relatively narrow and subjective context of the steep change in the country’s cost of living. Yet, the reality of the nation’s macroeconomic situation is that where we are on the economic curve is a consequence of where we came from. When the premise and predicates of the nation’s economic trajectory are reviewed and aggregated, the apparent conclusion will be that we are where we are because this affliction of economic malaise at this point is predetermined.
“Though the mainstream media and thought leaders unconsciously felt that the country’s economic management has always had a problematic stigma, they refused to give critical attention to the possible consequences of the national economic peregrination since we first struck oil in commercial quantity in the 1960s. Where we have found ourselves is a function of where we came from.
“Since 1972, the Nigerian economy has been characterised by an unpredictable circle of bust and boom. In layperson’s terms, it means that one moment, we are deemed rich and able to buy whatever catches our fancy, and everybody, including the media, is happy. The next, we are flat broke. We lament the difficulties encountered in sating our basic needs, whining and criticising the government in power as the source of our decimated existence.
“But truth be told, the situation report is that we have arrived at the junction of our economic comeuppance where we must pay for decades of abuse and wrongdoing. It’s that simple.
“Typically coming from an underdevelopment mindset, Nigeria heavily borrowed from the preferred economic practices of the then-emerging economies of South America. Among countries in this region, Nigeria shares many similarities with Venezuela, particularly in the nature and character of their adopted economic model, which economists describe as “macroeconomic populism,”it explained.
IMPI also cited similarities between the two oil-producing countries to drive home its position.
It said: “Like Venezuela, oil has taken Nigeria on an exhilarating but dangerous boom-and-bust ride. Again, like Nigeria, decades of poor governance have driven what was once one of Latin America’s most prosperous countries to economic and political ruin. In 2008, crude oil production in Venezuela was the tenth-highest in the world at 2,394,020 barrels per day, and the country was also the eighth-largest net oil exporter in the world.
“We also find a similarity in the leadership style prevailing in Nigeria between 1999 and 2015, as well as in Presidents Hugo Chavez (1999-2013) and Nicolas Maduro (2013- present) of Venezuela. The Venezuelan leaders implemented the wrong macroeconomic policy during the 2000s and early 2010s when Venezuela’s economy, like that of Nigeria, was booming due to the global commodity ‘supercycle’ – a prolonged period of high and rising grain, metal, oil and gas prices.
“Between 2000 and 2015, government spending in Nigeria, like Venezuela, was deeply pro-cyclical. Instead of saving at least some money for bad times during the good times—as Norway, Saudi Arabia, and virtually all other oil exporters have done—Nigeria established the Excess Crude Account (ECA) by fiat in 2004 without legislative backing.
“In May 2007, the ECA had up to $20 billion. Still, like the Venezuelan government, which ran double-digit fiscal deficits as the economy boomed, spending far outpaced income from taxes and other revenues. Both countries were on record for raising their external debts sixfold to finance these unnecessary shortfalls.
“While Venezuela saddled the state-owned oil company with over $100 billion in obligations, the Nigerian government depleted the ECA by more than 80 per cent, from $20 billion to $2.4 billion. It had ratcheted foreign debt by over 200 per cent to $10 billion in 2015. By 2015, the Nigerian economy was effectively underwater.
“Like Nigeria, whose petroleum price per litre was perhaps the cheapest in Sub-Saharan Africa, Venezuela’s petrol was not just the most affordable globally but often virtually free. This led to an estimated 100,000 barrels of petrol worth over $10 billion per year being smuggled across the border to Brazil and Colombia each day, where it could be resold at a profit, a close resemblance of what obtained on Nigeria’s borders with its West African neighbours.
“Like Nigeria, electricity subsidies were also vast, leading to losses and underinvestment. In total, subsidies are estimated to have cost over 10% of GDP in some years, accounting for over half of Venezuela’s fiscal deficits.
“Just as Nigeria had historically preferred capital control in addition to operating multiple foreign exchange windows in 2003, Venezuela also imposed capital controls and a byzantine system for foreign currency purchases.
“For the two countries, there were one or more official exchange rates where the governments subsidised dollar purchases and demand vastly outstripped supply, as well as a black market with its free-floating exchange rate determined by market forces.
“The system for the two countries needed to be more coherent. An entire industry of non-productive ghost companies cropped up to the lobby for subsidised dollars (to resell them on the black market for an immediate profit). At the same time, legitimate value-adding businesses needed more reliable access to the foreign currency required to operate. Many genuine businesses also specialised away from productive activities towards securing cheap dollars.
“According to the World Bank, like Venezuela, which lost $300 billion to corruption through its foreign currency system, Nigeria incurred a significant loss of N13.2 trillion in forgone revenue as a direct consequence of implementing its foreign exchange subsidy policy between 2021 and 2023 alone. This could have been saved for periods of lower oil prices.”
The policy group noted that it was against this backdrop that the Tinubu administration introduced reforms that were targeted at preventing the country from going the path of Venezuela.
“The Venezuelan economic crisis scenario remains a possible reality for Nigeria if the Tinubu administration had adopted the Maduro option in 2023. Our estimation of his decision to scrap the populism macroeconomic template is that the President has salvaged Nigeria’s national economy from a whirlwind of economic turbulence and total collapse.
“As expected, the trailing effects of the stoppage of fuel subsidy and harmonisation of the multiple foreign exchange windows, being the principal reforms orchestrated by the administration, are upending the ways of life and threatening the basis of the sustenance of Nigerians.
“However, as the World Bank notes, though fiscal reforms are painful, they are needed to save the country from imminent collapse. Given the comparative analysis we have conducted in this Policy Statement, we fully adopt the World Bank submission and subscribe to the fact that the Tinubu reforms have started yielding results.
“However, what we consider bewildering is the accusation against President Tinubu from critics, suggesting that he was not prepared for the regime of macroeconomic reforms he engendered right from the day he assumed office. With the plethora of referenceable evidence in the public space, this submission is curious and intentionally dismissive of the policy concepts and deployments as principal and auxiliary to reform undertakings of the Tinubu administration.
“Fact must be told, it does not serve good public conscience to accuse the president of being unprepared to reform the Nigerian economy. The concern should not be about the president’s preparedness but whether we are witnessing possible positive outlooks for the nation’s economic outturns as the reforms are underway. Again, we assert a yes to this. We are, indeed, seeing how the structure of the Nigerian economy is changing and conforming to targeted reforms, as the case may be.
“Even now, the federal government’s revenue from Value Added Tax (VAT) and Company Income Tax (CIT) is rising in leaps and bounds, notwithstanding the increased cost environment. Both CIT and VAT rose by 85 per cent year-on-year to N6.44 trillion in the first half of 2024 compared to N3.48 trillion in the same period of 2023. Coming on the back of this impressive performance, the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria in Abuja noted that tax revenue is currently the highest income source for the country; this signals a significant shift in the nation’s revenue generation template.
“Besides, there has also been a resurgence in foreign exchange inflows through International Money Transfer Operators (IMTOs). This grew by 47 per cent to $2.33 billion in the first six months of 2024 from $1.58 billion in 2023. We also observed that manufacturing companies are adapting to the high-interest environment by reducing their debt burden by N1.62 trillion between February and June 2024.
“This drop, representing a 14.85% decline in manufacturing loans, comes amid rising interest rates that have increased borrowing costs across the economy. It indicates resilience and the ability to adjust for growth operationally. This adjustment for growth is reflected in companies’ financial performances in the period under review.
“Transcorp Hotels, for instance, grew its profit before tax in the first nine months of 2024 by up to 191.1 per cent from N5.63 billion in the same period of 2023 to N16.43 billion in the current year. In addition, in a show of faith in the economy, Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc, the nation’s largest miller, has announced its plans to spend as much as $1 billion over the next four years to expand its facilities and restructure after its majority shareholder offered to take it private. This is an extention of the N427billion new investments manufacturing companies have committed to invest in the economy, a reflection of their confidence in the economy.
“Overall, the response of macroeconomic indices to the ongoing reforms indicates the propensity of an economy on an upward trajectory and the imminence of an expanding economy with the capacity to produce jobs and concomitant wealth creation”, IMPI added.
COLUMN
Downstream deregulation: Between Obasanjo’s half-measures and Tinubu’s bold leadership
Published
2 weeks agoon
October 28, 2024By Temitope Ajayi
A video of former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s interview with News Central Television has been trending on social media platforms for the past week. In the interview, the former President, in a veiled reference to the current administration, said Nigeria has a President who came into office without a plan. Yet, the same ‘planless’ president is implementing a bold economic reform programme that Obasanjo initiated and abandoned mid-way.
This intervention is essentially about a tale of two leaders and how they both handled fuel subsidy removal, a very touchy issue every president of Nigeria has avoided since 1973 because of its disruptive nature and potential to precipitate a pushback that may lead to civil unrest. This serious matter in itself can make a difference between a bold and courageous leader from one that is pretentious and hesitant.
It is a fact of history that one of the things former President Obasanjo set out to do, among other reforms his administration embarked upon, was complete deregulation of the downstream oil industry. But hard as he tried, he failed to actualise it. Obasanjo faced so much opposition from organised labour and civil society groups that he abandoned a good policy that would have led to massive economic gains for the country. All he could muster the courage to do was to raise the pump price four times during his two-term tenure.
Twenty years after Obasanjo failed to implement complete downstream deregulation, President Bola Tinubu had the courage of his conviction to implement the policy, redirect the economy, and ensure efficiency in the management of public finance.
Despite his foibles and messianic complex, former President Obasanjo is no doubt a remarkable leader. His administration opened the economy and implemented essential reforms that his immediate successor should have continued with. What most critics find offensive about the former president is how he sees himself as the only saviour God created for Nigeria. As far as he is concerned, no other leader before and after him has been good enough. For context and clarity, it is essential to recall the former president’s position on deregulating the downstream oil sector when he was in charge.
In a national broadcast on October 8, 2003, President Obasanjo expressed his frustration and anger at the Nigeria Labour Congress for its opposition to the deregulation of the downstream sector to the point of accusing labour leaders of sedition thus:
“As you are aware, my government has embarked on fundamental reforms designed to depart from the waste and unproductive exercises of the past and leave lasting legacies for the prosperity and improved welfare and well-being of all Nigerians. Since 1999, we have gradually but steadily embarked on the programme of liberalisation and deregulation of the Nigerian economy to promote efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery. Most Nigerians and certainly all organised key stakeholders in the Nigerian economy, including the Nigeria Labour Congress, have endorsed the deregulation programme of government.
“It is a fitting symbol of our administration’s commitment to the welfare of workers and in an effort to cushion the effects of deregulation that the government provided 80 buses to the NLC in 2002. The transliner buses were delivered to the Congress for management without government interference. It is noteworthy that every step taken to deregulate the downstream oil sector has been dogged by, sometimes, irresponsible opposition by the Labour Congress. The result has been that we took too little steps to achieve no meaningful and satisfactory progress. We have tolerated all of these in the interest of promoting popular dialogue and informed dissent.
“Let me inform Nigerians that when government first came up with the deregulation programme, it was endorsed by the NLC and other stakeholders. In fact, the NLC had requested that we call it a “liberalisation” programme. It was thus more a matter of label than of substance. If we had been successful in implementing the deregulation or liberalisation of the downstream oil sector as earlier agreed by all stakeholders, including labour, we would not have been worrying about the periodic and unsatisfactory price-fixing which has led no where except to frustration. The failure to fully deregulate or liberalise has also cost Nigerians billions of naira which are currently wasted on millions of man-hours in queues at the petrol stations.
“The tens of billions of naira currently being lost in money that could have been used to increase capital spending in the universities, fund agriculture, repair and rehabilitate our roads, invest in education and health, improve security with extra police for security of lives and property.
“Realising that the investment of well over $400 million (excluding pipelines and depots) in the last six years mostly on Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) and repairs had not improved the performance of the refineries significantly, government had decided that it was unwise to put additional money into the repair of the Kaduna and Port Harcourt refineries before privatising them.
“What most Nigerians must know is that the contracts for the Turn Around Maintenance for the Kaduna and Port Harcourt refineries were awarded with 50% of the cost paid upfront before the advent of this administration in 1999. Allow me to add that two of the three refinery locations in the country today, were built by my administration as military head of state. This means that if for no other reason, I should be interested in keeping them working. Already, 18 private firms have been licensed to build refineries but they have been reluctant to go into the industry because of Government’s price control in the sector.
“If only 30% of these firms had been able to establish and operate private refineries, thousands of jobs would have been created and Nigeria would have been in a position to even export refined oil products. All these benefits and more have been denied to Nigerians by the stop-go approach to the deregulation or liberalisation programme, and only a few Nigerians are benefiting from the prevailing government-controlled system. In fact, the NLC’s approach has been counter-productive, and inflicted more pains on Nigerian workers. Each time there is a small increase of three naira or more, transporters have used the opportunity to jerk up transportation cost thereby making the ordinary worker poorer.
“A once-and-for-all total deregulation would have meant a once-and-for-all increase in transport cost and the pump price for petroleum products. Without a doubt, a once-and-for-all total deregulation would have resolved the problem of availability and thus bring down prices for those outside Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt and their environs who have always paid much more than the official posted price. Pump prices arising from the present total deregulation would, in reality, amount to a reduction in prices of majority of Nigerians.”
Interestingly, excerpts from the 2003 national broadcast by President Obasanjo present a contrast between the former leader and President Tinubu. They also showcase two leadership visions. One leader saw the need to fight for the country’s long-term sustainability but chickened out because he lacked the courage to upset the status quo. Two decades later, another leader saw the damage the failure to make the right economic decision had caused the country. He decided to correct it to avert a looming calamity. While former President Obasanjo left the most challenging task of his presidency undone, President Tinubu tackled head-on what has become an existential threat to our collective well-being from his first day in office. He has remained focused on the bigger picture.
President Tinubu recognises the burden of leadership and responsibility he bears on behalf of Nigerians. In discharging this burden, he knew from day one that he would have to make the right but unpopular decisions that would ultimately serve the best interest of the country and her people.
It is certainly not correct to say this president came to the office without a plan. President Tinubu came into the office with a clear plan titled “Renewed Hope 2023: Action Plan for a Better Nigeria.” It was a well-thought-out programme, with which he canvassed for votes across the country and was elected by our people.
In the past 17 months, he has remained faithful to the document as he implements the distilled eight-point agenda.
At the heart of President Tinubu’s economic revitalisation is gas development and expansion of gas pipeline infrastructure to enable Nigeria to compete with Russia in the European markets. In fairness to him, former President Obasanjo himself recently lamented he did not pay adequate attention to gas during his term of office.
Expanding the pool of available talents and human capital through granting of loans to young Nigerians who are the future of the country to enable them acquire tertiary or vocational education is part of the plans that propelled Tinubu into office. Consumer credit initiative that will promote local production and further stimulate the economy is also high on Tinubu’s action plan. To the President’s credit, these two important policy initiatives among several others are being implemented through NELFUND and Nigerian Consumer Credit Corporation (CrediCorp).
If there is one President of Nigeria that came prepared and well armed with a clear cut plan to reposition the country across sectors for better outcomes, that President, undoubtedly, is President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
-Ajayi is Senior Special Assistant to President Tinubu on Media and Publicity
COLUMN
Oyebanji: Politics And Governance Redefined Two Years After
Published
4 weeks agoon
October 16, 2024By Wole Olujobi
His image looms larger than the man because he likes to tread both the charted and uncharted political terrains. A broad-based entity that thrives in communal ethos and amity in a complex social environment, like the archer, he takes his aim, training his ideal at the primacy of people’s place in the dynamics of power relations to achieve his development goals.
Not for him the grotesque essence of archetypal seasonal dice-throwers that fiddle with the intelligence of their people at the market squares at every election cycle. For him, vision, mission, brilliance, integrity, bluntness, courage, generosity of the heart, boldness of enterprise, unassuming social pedigree, fairness and genuineness of the spirit (as his religion teaches him), are potent weapons to fight political battles in the aid of the people.
His method is passing message to transcend the frontiers of social class and connect with the people at the intuitive, sincere level; to reinforce his energy of the spirit that is always on a quest for knowledge and conquests, and an abiding faith in his capacity, creativity, resilience, technical skills and emotional intelligence to rally others; all of which are necessary for a visionary leader to turn challenges to thrilling opportunities to achieve the objectives of his mission.
During campaigns, harsh critics dismissed former Secretary to the State Government, (now Governor Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji) as a horrible shadow of a politician and rank mockery of a performer. But by the time he hit the loop, that shadow had receded to reveal a real, new sherrif that nobody ever thought would create a vista for a novel governance system that rallies varying interests in a common pool for the development needs of Ekiti people.
But then, the local political indulgences of the past validate critics’ biases against any hope for redemption. This is because, typically, power relations dynamics that rankle critical stakeholders will abort prospects for hope at conception. Alienation, a cruel instrument of repression by cloudy cohorts that thrive in lone benefit and comfort, is a wage to menace party members and the general public after their suffocating toils sweating it out on campaign trails.
This is also because typical electoral campaign promises are mere political rituals that eclipse with the festivals that accompany campaign razzmatazz, while development agenda blueprint is just one of the soiled literature texts that end up with groundnut sellers at the obscure corners where street trading thrives.
But not anymore! Those nightmarish conditions have since given way to a refreshing dawn in Ekiti State, as Governor Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji has now woken a compelling, new consciousness in Ekiti people that, indeed, in the comity of leaders, and in the most despondent of a political environment, a very beautiful soul can emerge to take people’s challenges as personal tasks with the best of intentions and principled discipline to offer solutions.
For him, governance is an art that thrives in collective responsibility and politics is the vehicle in the act of delivering on mission.
His vision is building a society that takes care of the present and the future. The method is the mobilisation of all stakeholders in the onerous task of providing succour for the people.
For Oyebanji, politics and governance are an organic whole in a systemic marriage of form and content. Moral principle is the content, politics is the form with which to transcribe the very purport of leadership’s vision in the service of the people; a rare application of moral and personality contents in public service to create development paths for the wellbeing of the people.
Call it governance unusual, it is just striking the right chord.
For the “People’s Governor” as Oyebanji is called, public good must be the centrepiece of holding power in trust for the people for a prosperous future.
Besides, Oyebanji has a thrilling spirit that craves for universal communion because he loves peace and cherishes amity in human relationships. And when he does that, his motive and motivation are borne out of a desire to expand his coast to strengthen his sense of tribe and community. For him, there is nothing greater than community spirit where one feels secure that he has delivered on a divine call to serve the people.
To achieve that informed Oyebanji’s engagements with all Ekiti people irrespective of partisan views and creed, for on assumption of office on October 16, 2022, Oyebanji leveraged his personal quality to profit from the need to eschew the animosity of the past by opponents and critics. He raced across the length and breadth of the state visiting his opponents in the governorship election and other stakeholders not keen on his election victory. And today, Oyebanji is a regular guest at every Ekiti home on a short notice or none at all, making him to be a leader to run a community government where every citizen has a voice.
Oyebanji enunciated his agenda for development at his inauguration on October 16, 2022, at the Ekitiparapo Pavilion in Ado-Ekiti, at a ceremony attended by the national and state leaderships of the All Progressives Congress (APC), including all the strata of the society, where he reeled out his six-point agenda, pledging to mobilise all social sectors of the state to build a prosperous Ekiti State for the general good of Ekiti people.
He also planned to create conducive environment for private investments to spur job opportunities for Ekiti youths, even as he pledged to continue to build on the progress made by his predecessors, notably Governor Kayode Fayemi, to create an economy that takes care of the needs of all.
So far, Oyebanji has posted sterling results in his six-point agenda encompassing governance, youth development and job creation through micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) financing and support, digital skills; vocational skills, Ekiti Knowledge Zone and sports development while education, healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and social investment sectors also take the front seat.
In order to achieve the objectives of his mission, he reinforced his strategies for success through the introduction of Strategic Project Monitoring System to track MDA’s derivables, establishment of Export Trade Desk in the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry; approval of Export Strategy Guidelines and Policy to encourage export business in Ekiti State, including partnership with the China-Africa Discourse Studies to build technology training hub in the state for job opportunities while also strengthening procurement standards to ensure accountability. All these constituted the criteria that made Ekiti State to rank Number One in transparency and accountability across the nation.
Agriculture and rural development, infrastructure and industrialisation, arts, culture and tourism and governance sectors, all with multiplier effects for job opportunities, have also posted positive results.
Roads construction is one of the prime projects of the governor, as the long-abandoned roads now wear new looks across the state; the state capital, Ado-Ekiti, being a pointer to what is going on in other parts of the state.
Most prominent in several agriculture initiatives include the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding with Carista Holdings to boost cassava farming and creation of Agriculture Rangers to secure farms from threats of criminals, including construction of ultramodern dormitories in farm settlements across the local government areas in a determined effort to boost food security and create jobs, including transforming Ekiti State into the agricultural production hub of the Chief Obafemi Awolowo era in the Western Region.
In education sector, Oyebanji distributed computers with Disability Assistive Electronic Software in the three special schools in Ikere, Ido-Osi and Ijero local governments.
Students scholarship scheme has been restored, bursary benefits are paid, more schools, including model schools, are being built, thereby increasing school enrolment and taking school age pupils off the streets, and above all, Ekiti students are among young Nigerians that have taken the lead in the nation’s public examinations.
In his empowerment schemes, the governor constructed youths and women skills acquisition centres, in partnership with Coolplus Ltd, to train refrigeration and air-conditioning technicians, while constructing “Drop-in-Centre (skills acquisition) for out-of-school boys and girls. Today, Ekiti State Adire Hub competes with Ogun State in “dye and tie” clothing business, with many engaged productively to earn a living and strengthen local economy.
He has provided free mass transit scheme for workers and students while he has also constructed runway strip, control tower cabin and emergency operations centre, among other facilities, to ensure smooth operations at the Ekiti Cargo Airport with potential to create jobs, attract investments and exposure of Ekiti goods and services to the outside world.
Oyebanji also partnered the international development agencies in the World Bank-assisted Ekiti State Community and Social Development Agency (EKSCDA) and Rural Access and Agricultural Marketing Project (RAAMP) to give Ekiti State a face-lift in basic infrastructure, notably rural access roads and water supply schemes, environmental protection through erosion control and disiltation, including provision of social amenities, such as medical centres, rural markets, electricity and rehabilitation of schools. Of note in electricity supply is that several communities that were in darkness for more than 10 years have now been reconnected to the national grid.
Deliberately, Oyebanji created State Capital Development Agency to give Ado-Ekiti a befitting face-lift that a state capital deserves, while the Office of Community Communications was also created for mass participation of the communities in governance process.
Oyebanji also enjoys cult followership among workers, including retirees, across the state over prompt salary and retirement benefits payment, which the governor routinely describes as a right.
As a man that takes integrity and performance credibility as essential elements of governance, his methods for service delivery include embracing Mid-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), an innovative financial and fiscal responsibility system, which emphasises openness and breaking administrative bottlenecks, for quick service delivery; including expanding and sanitising revenue sources while also ensuring quick payments for services delivered.
In the age of science and technology with an eye on sustainable development and job opportunities, Oyebanji also holds the ace, and this is where the governor triumphs as a model of futuristic leadership.
Today, Ekiti State is investing heavily in life-lifting schemes that conform to the millennium development goals agenda with heavy investments in technology in smart schools and Ekiti State Knowledge Zone.
Two years down the line, Oyebanji has deployed his genius to marry politics and governance in such a symbiotic fashion with the people at the centre of his policy, to create an enthralling momentum that takes Ekiti State to embrace development models with potential to survive the complex development challenges and prospects of the next century.
For whatever any cynicism is worth, particularly among his critics, fact is that this is the first time in the history of Ekiti State that the opposition leaders and their supporters are branding cars and other mementos to openly campaign for a sitting governor to run for second term in a scheme that already has the backing of all former Ekiti State governors from multi-partisan platforms.
This is also the first time that a sitting governor will unite a bitterly divided political elites in the state, to find a rallying point in that incumbent governor to bear the leadership mantle to chart development path for Ekiti people. As I write, the governor is meeting Ekiti people in their constituencies on non-partisan platforms to aggregate their inputs and views on the 2025 budget preparation.
Thus, Oyebanji is the Ekiti ultimate political prodigy and conscience of a reflective people in the dialectic of history.
Exploiting power to create an historical momentum in the life of Ekiti people, his method is using the instrumentality of politics to transform Ekiti State to a model of a prosperous society founded on a mutual, community spirit, which has indeed ignited an historical flowering of the opposition’s place and importance in a liberal democracy.
It is in recognition of these attainments that a top marketing publication, Marketing Edge, recently honoured Oyebanji with the award of ‘Best Governor in Inclusive Governance’ at a ceremony held in Lagos.
Great are Oyebanji’s mid-term score-cards, greater milestones are the targets he sets before the end of his first term to write his name in gold. Ekiti people yearn for good governance and right leadership. Oyebanji is that legend that bears the torch of hope and grace.
More balm to the arm of a visionary and hard-working leader in the task of building a prosperous and virile Ekiti State.
* Olujobi, a journalist and Commissioner in Ekiti State Local Government Service Commission, writes from Ado-Ekiti
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