The Trumpet Newspaper Issue 618 (March 6 - 19 2024)

TheTrumpet
Africans now have a voice... Founded in 1995
V O L 30 N O 618 M A R C H 6 - 19 2024
Digital Technology (Photo - CC0)
Man who
‘made expartner’s
life a
misery’
guilty of
attempted
murder
Harry Owusu-Manu
Africa needs
China for its
digital
development
– but at what
price?
By Stephanie Arnold, Università di Bologna
Continued on Page 2>
A39-year-old man who harassed his
ex-partner on social media before
setting fire to her flat, has been
found guilty after officers arrested him
within hours of the offence taking place.
Detectives with specialist safeguarding
training supported the victim throughout
their investigation which culminated in
Harry Owusu-Manu of Southwark, being
found guilty last week of two counts of
attempted murder following a five week trial
at the Old Bailey.
He was also found guilty of aggravated
arson with intent to endanger life, religiously
aggravated stalking and having a lock knife
in a public place. He will be sentenced at the
same court on 22 April.
Detective Constable Megan Gittins
investigated the fire. She said: “It is no
exaggeration to say Harry Owusu-Manu
made his ex-partner’s life a misery with his
behaviour. The victim’s home and new baby
items including clothes, cot and toys were all
destroyed.
“Owusu-Manu refused to accept that she
did not want to be in a relationship with him
anymore and set about causing her physical
and mental harm. He began posting
derogatory and Islamophobic stories on
Instagram but his behaviour soon escalated
when he attempted to murder not just his expartner
but her young daughter and unborn
child. He also showed extreme disregard for
the lives of other residents who could have
been seriously injured by his dangerously
misguided drive for revenge.
“Owusu-Manu is a terrifying example of
the threat women can face for simply
wanting to end a relationship. Throughout
this process, Owusu-Manu changed his
account numerous times - including claiming
he was at the location to stop someone else
starting the fire. These attempts to obscure
the truth have been discredited. His lies have
drawn out this process and delayed the
justice that the victim deserves.
“I want to send a clear message to
anyone who is concerned about the
behaviour of a current or former partner - the
Continued on Page 4

Page2 TheTrumpet MARCH 6 - 19 2024
News
Africa needs China for its digital
development – but at what price?
Continued from Page 1<
The China Africa summit 2018
Digital technologies have
many potential benefits for
people in African countries.
They can support the delivery of
healthcare services, promote access
to education and lifelong learning,
and enhance financial inclusion.
But there are obstacles to
realising these benefits. The
backbone infrastructure needed to
connect communities is missing in
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places. Technology and finance are
lacking too.
In 2023, only 83% of the
population of sub-Saharan Africa
was covered by at least a 3G mobile
network. In all other regions the
coverage was more than 95%. In the
same year, less than half of Africa’s
population had an active mobile
broadband subscription, lagging
behind Arab states (75%) and the
Asia-Pacific region (88%).
Therefore, Africans made up a
substantial share of the estimated
2.6 billion people globally who
remained offline in 2023.
A key partner in Africa in
unclogging this bottleneck is China.
Several African countries depend on
China as their main technology
provider and sponsor of large digital
infrastructural projects.
This relationship is the subject of
a study I published recently. The
study showed that at least 38
countries worked closely with
Chinese companies to advance their
domestic fibre-optic network and
data centre infrastructure or their
technological know-how.
China’s involvement was critical
as African countries made great
strides in digital development.
Despite the persisting digital divide
between Africa and other regions,
3G network coverage increased
from 22% to 83% between 2010 and
2023. Active mobile broadband
subscriptions increased from less
than 2% in 2010 to 48% in 2023.
For governments, however, there
is a risk that foreign-driven digital
development will keep existing
dependence structures in place.
Reasons for dependence on
foreign technology and finance
The global market for
Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) infrastructure is
controlled by a handful of
producers. For instance, the main
suppliers of fibre-optic cables, a
network component that enables
high-speed internet, are Chinabased
Huawei and ZTE and the
Swedish company Ericsson.
Many African countries, with
limited internal revenues, can’t
afford these network components.
Infrastructure investments depend
on foreign finance, including
concessional loans, commercial
credits, or public-private
partnerships. These may also
influence a State’s choice of
infrastructure provider.
The African continent’s terrain
adds to the technological and
financial difficulties. Vast lands and
challenging topographies make the
roll-out of infrastructure very
expensive. Private investors avoid
sparsely populated areas because it
doesn’t pay them to deliver a service
there.
Landlocked States depend on the
infrastructure and goodwill of
coastal countries to connect to
international fibre-optic landing
Continued on Page 3

News
MARCH 6 - 19 2024 TheTrumpet Page3
Africa needs China for its digital
development – but at what price?
Continued from Page 2<
stations.
A full-package solution
It is sometimes assumed that
African leaders choose Chinese
providers because they offer the
cheapest technology. Anecdotal
evidence suggests otherwise.
Chinese contractors are attractive
partners because they can offer fullpackage
solutions that include
finance.
Under the so-called “EPC+F”
(Engineer, Procure, Construct +
Fund/Finance) scheme, Chinese
companies like Huawei and ZTE
oversee the engineering,
procurement and construction while
Chinese banks provide State-backed
finance. Angola, Uganda and
Zambia are just some of the
countries which seem to have
benefited from this type of deal.
All-round solutions like this
appeal to African countries.
What is in it for China?
As part of its “go-global”
strategy, the Chinese government
encourages Chinese companies to
invest and operate overseas. The
government offers financial backing
and expects companies to raise the
global competitiveness of Chinese
products and the national economy.
In the long term, Beijing seeks to
establish and promote Chinese
digital standards and norms.
Research partnerships and training
opportunities expose a growing
number of students to Chinese
technology. The Chinese
government’s expectation is that
mobile applications and Start-Ups
in Africa will increasingly reflect
Beijing’s technological and
ideological principles. That includes
China’s interpretation of human
rights, data privacy and freedom of
speech.
This aligns with the vision of
China’s “Digital Silk Road”, which
complements its Belt and Road
Initiative, creating new trade routes.
In the digital realm, the goal is
technological primacy and greater
autonomy from western suppliers.
The government is striving for a
more Sino-centric global digital
order. Infrastructure investments
and training partnerships in African
countries offer a starting point.
Long-term implications
From a technological
perspective, over-reliance on a
single infrastructure supplier makes
the client State more vulnerable.
When a customer depends heavily
on a particular supplier, it’s difficult
and costly to switch to a different
provider. African countries could
become locked into the Chinese
digital ecosystem.
Researchers like Arthur Gwagwa
from the Ethics Institute at Utrecht
University (Netherlands) believe
that China’s export of critical
infrastructure components will
enable military and industrial
espionage. These claims assert that
Chinese-made equipment is
designed in a way that could
facilitate cyber attacks.
Human Rights Watch, an
international NGO that conducts
research and advocacy on human
rights, has raised concerns that
Chinese infrastructure increases the
risk of technology-enabled
authoritarianism. In particular,
Huawei has been accused of
colluding with governments to spy
on political opponents in Uganda
and Zambia. Huawei has denied the
allegations.
The way forward
Chinese involvement provides a
rapid path to digital progress for
African nations. It also exposes
African States to the risk of longterm
dependence. The remedy is to
diversify infrastructure supply,
training opportunities and
partnerships.
There is also a need to call for
interoperability in international
forums such as the International
Telecommunications Union, a UN
agency responsible for issues related
to information and communication
technologies. Interoperability allows
a product or system to interact with
other products and systems. It
means clients can buy technological
components from different
providers and switch to other
technological solutions. It favours
market competition and higher
quality solutions by preventing
users from being locked in to one
vendor.
Finally, in the long term African
countries should produce their own
infrastructure and become less
dependent.
Stephanie Arnold is a PhD
Candidate at Università di Bologna.
This article is republished from
The Conversation under a Creative
Commons license. Read the original
article.

Page4
TheTrumpet
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TheTrumpetTeam
PUBLISHER / EDITOR-IN-CHIEF:
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CONTRIBUTORS:
MARCH 6 - 19 2024
Moji Idowu, Ayo Odumade,
Steve Mulindwa
News
Man who ‘made expartner’s
life a misery’
guilty of attempted murder
Continued from Page 1<
Met is here for you.
“Throughout this investigation we supported
the victim by ensuring our investigation focused
on her needs, for example sign language
interpreters were always available to her.
“The Commissioner has set out in our New
Met for London plan our commitment to targeting
those who pose the greatest threat to women and
girls. We encourage anyone who has been
subjected to similar behaviour to come forward
and speak to us – we are here to listen and will
take what you say seriously.”
Detectives began their investigation after a
fire was reported at a flat in Battersea in the early
hours of Tuesday, 25 April 2023. The victim, who
is deaf and was pregnant at the time, and her
young daughter had been in the flat at the time
and were subsequently treated for smoke
inhalation.
Investigators from London Fire Brigade
established that the fire had been started
deliberately after a doormat had been set alight
and forced under the victim’s door.
Owusu-Manu was arrested on the day of the
incident and refused to answer any questions put
to him by detectives.
While Owusu-Manu had attempted to cover
his tracks by spray painting one of the CCTV
cameras black, detectives soon found footage of
his distinctive orange van arriving minutes before
the fire.
Officers quickly identified the van used by
Owusu-Manu and were able to painstakingly
trace his movements from his home address to the
victim’s address. Enquiries revealed that this was
not the first time that Owusu-Manu made that
journey - he had carried out a recce in the days
leading up to the fire.
Dash cam footage recovered from the van
itself caught the moment Owusu-Manu made his
way to the flat to start the blaze. A further
recording captured by the dash cam also led
detectives to where Owusu-Manu had attempted
to get rid of the clothes he wore when starting the
fire.
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News
MARCH 6 - 19 2024
TheTrumpet
Minimally invasive weight loss
procedure now available on NHS
Page5
Updated guidance issued by the
National Institute for Health
and Care Excellence (NICE)
indicates that people living with obesity
in the UK can now be offered
Endoscopic Sleeve Gastroplasty (ESG)
- a minimally invasive treatment for
weight loss.
This is the first time the treatment
will be available on the National Health
Service (NHS) and is a significant step
forward in obesity care because they
provide patients with another option
for reaching a healthy weight outside of
prescription weight loss drugs or
bariatric surgery.
Under the NHS’s long term plan,
tackling obesity is a priority as it is
estimated that 26% of adults in England
are living with obesity and a further
38% are overweight. The NHS
recorded over 1 million hospital
admissions linked to obesity in England
in 2022/23 an increase of eight per cent
on the previous year.
Other health conditions are linked to
obesity, such as cardiovascular disease
and type 2 diabetes. Patients also report
that obesity affects their mental health
and emotional well-being. The NHS
spends an estimated £6.5 billion a year
on obesity which is the second biggest
preventable cause of cancer.
Currently ESG is available in seven
NHS hospitals including London,
Berkshire, the Midlands, and County
Durham.
ESG is Boston Scientific’s
technology that allows the minimally
invasive procedure to be done in 90
minutes and can be performed as a day
case in hospital.
NICE said that ESG is safe in the
short and long term when combined
with lifestyle changes and could help
with weight loss in people, who have
not lost weight with lifestyle
modifications alone, and who are not
suitable or do not wish to undergo
bariatric surgery.
NICE reviewed the evidence on the
safety and efficacy of ESG, which
included the Apollo OverStitch
Endoscopic Suturing System from
Boston Scientific. Patients selected by a
multidisciplinary team can be offered
this procedure in specialist centres by a
clinician, who has received specific
training.
The procedure, conducted under
general anaesthetic, takes around 90
minutes to complete and involves a
flexible endoscope with a suturing
device being passed through the
patient’s mouth into the stomach. Parts
of the stomach wall are stitched
together and folded in on themselves to
create a sleeve, reducing the volume of
the stomach by 70-80%. This reduces
the amount of food that can be eaten at
one time. The procedure may also delay
gastric emptying and increase the
feeling of satiety to facilitate weight
loss.
Joanna, a tattoo artist, has had an
ESG procedure which brought her
weight down from 98 kg to 74 kg - a
loss of 24 kg. Previously, she tried lots
of lifestyle changes which helped with
some weight loss but inevitably gained
the weight back - and this scenario was
affecting her confidence, health, and
Obesity in England by Population characteristics 20-21
emotional well-being.
“I started to struggle with my weight
when I became a tattoo artist because
my weight went from living a fairly
active life where I was up and down a
lot, to sitting down all day every day,”
said Joanna. “Since having the
procedure I don’t feel like I don’t really
have to try to keep the weight off
anymore. It’s just very natural and very
instinctive.”
“The NICE guidance is fantastic
news for patients by giving them
another treatment option,” said Dr
Jamie Kelly, Upper Gastro-Intestinal
Lead Surgeon at University Hospital
Southampton. “Increasing patient
access to treatment requires making
them aware of this option and training
more surgeons and physicians to
perform the procedure.”
“Endoscopic Sleeve Gastroplasty
appeals to people as, according to
NICE, it is a safe, non-invasive
procedure which allows them to return
to normal life sooner than bariatric
surgery,” said Ken Clare, Director of
Bariatric and Metabolic Surgery
Services at Obesity UK, a charity
which supports 20,000 members living
with this disease. “ESG may improve
access for people in areas where
treatment options are limited by the
postcode lottery of services for weight
management.”
Clinical studies show that 77% of
patients lost a quarter or more of their
original weight a year after having the
ESG procedure.
“Women in the UK experience
higher obesity rates than men. Data also
shows this is the case in some ethnic
minority groups, both of which lead to
health inequalities as obesity is a
serious chronic disease,” said Astrid
Monteau, Vice President EMEA of
Endoscopy at Boston Scientific.
“The publication of NICE’s
guidance offers a pathway to reduce
pressure on the healthcare system as
patients have shorter recovery times
and because this procedure can be
performed as a day case.”
Black people have the highest levels
of obesity in England. Black African or
African-Caribbean people with a BMI
threshold of 27.5kg/m2 will be eligible
for treatment, according to NICE.

Page6 TheTrumpet MARCH 6 - 19 2024
PRODUCED IN ASSOCIATION WITH UK GOVERNMENT
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MARCH 6 - 19 2024
TheTrumpet
Page7
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Page8 TheTrumpet MARCH 6 - 19 2024
Opinion
Tinubu and the creation
of a new society
Nigeria is at a critical
juncture; and in such a
context, it is “cometh the
moment, cometh the man”. For
President Bola Tinubu, this adversity
should be turned into a historic
advantage which should propel him
to be the creator of a new society and
his place in history will be assured,
not for all time but forever. Men who
took advantage of their opportunity
include Park Chung Hee of South
Korea, Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore,
Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia and
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil.
Take it or leave it, Nigeria is in it
already but this is a historic task for
Tinubu to right the wrongs; and it
must not be long.
In life, every day counts! Tinubu
has already spent more than 20% of
his four-year tenure. By May 28,
2024, he will have used 25% of his
tenure as President and Commanderin-Chief
of the Armed Forces. So,
the clock is ticking and time waits
for no one! Reinventing the wheel
shouldn’t be an option!
It is a historic turning point for
Nigeria and Tinubu has a historic
opportunity to position himself as
the creator of a new political
economy and the builder of a new
Nigeria. If he gets it right, especially
by reconstructing an economy that
was hitherto based on parasitic
activities, the country will never
look back. If he is able to midwife a
production, export-led economy, the
changes brought will be irreversible
and Tinubu will become the
equivalent of Hee, Yew, and da
Silva. Then he should forget about
the next election as his place in
history as the creator of a new
Nigeria will have been assured and
cemented. It will have been signed,
sealed and delivered!
According to Karl Marx, “men
make their own history, but they do
not make it as they please; they do
not make it under self-selected
circumstances but under
circumstances existing already,
given and transmitted from the past
…” In a word, Tinubu is asked to
make history but not in ways that he
would have chosen or wanted but he
still has to make that history in a
positive manner. In order to attract
more support from the masses
therefore, what is expected from our
President is to understand that
sermons will not quench thirst and
hunger even as change is not
expected to be in a day but a daily
process. He must understand that
dispensational factors are expected
to play notable roles in the
BY ABIODUN
KOMOLAFE
fulfillment of his agenda for the
Nigeria of his vision and that the
opposition and those benefiting from
the afflictions confronting Nigerians
are not relenting. Since they are
condemned to the monstrous
conventions of politics, they aren’t
going to sleep either. But if the
President asked not to be pitied,
Nigerians are seriously asking for his
pity.
Tinubu is expected to represent
the progressive currents that have
passed through the Nigerian space,
going back to the foundation of
Continued on Page 9

Opinion
MARCH 6 - 19 2024
TheTrumpet
Tinubu and the creation of a new
society
Page9
Continued from Page 8<
‘Egbe Omo Oduduwa’, Northern
Elements Progressive Union
(NEPU) and others. So, the
President must return to the basic
tenets of social democracy - the
German-type social market
economy and shared prosperity.
But why are his Ministers not
functioning and why are they not
talking to Nigerians about what their
respective Ministries are bringing to
the table to help Nigeria out of this
socio-economic morass? For reasons
best known to most of them, there’s
no functional, mobile and serious inhouse
media to help coordinate their
media outlets other than the usual
‘kick-and-start’ creation of
bureaucracy. There is no meeting of
minds and it’s as if our Ministers are
scared of taking bullets for the
President, which, of course, is one of
their central functions as Presidential
aides.
The two performing Ministries in
times of Balance of Payment crises
ought to be Solid Minerals and Blue
Economy. In the 1960s, the Nigerian
Ports Authority (NPA) alone
provided not less than 42% of the
Federal Government Budget, up to
the end of the First Republic.
Impliedly, the Marine and Blue
Economy under Gboyega Oyetola
should be prepared to give about
18% of Nigeria’s Budget with ease.
Whether we like it or not, Nigeria
has to export her way up out of the
wahala in which she’s currently
immersed. To respond to the Balance
of Trade and currency crises, the
economic strategy is to export in
order to import with a view to
balancing its payments.
One of the reasons the world
continues to remember former Prime
Minister Tony Blair and former
President Bill Clinton is that,
immediately after they assumed
office, they set up what could be
referred to as public sector targets
with fixed timelines for every
Minister. Because they did that, the
Ministers were very effective, not
just because they were brilliant. It’s
because they had targets that were
eventually met; and that’s why the
two leaders ended well. In Nigeria,
how do we appraise performance
without targets and timelines?
Therefore, Tinubu should give every
Minister public-sector targets with
fixed timelines as it’s done in sane
climes. This is very important
because every hour counts! The
performance evaluation team put in
place by the President also has to
give a dispassionate report on the
Ministers because Nigerians expect
more from them.
If truth be told, those who have
been assuring Nigerians that all
would be well are not telling us
Bola Ahmed Tinubu
something new. As we speak, the
hypocrisy of the dollar remains
unsurpassed even as the inflation
rate is 29.9%. Yes, that terrible
record is the highest in 28 years. The
more reason Tinubu needs our
prayers! Here’s a man who said that
nobody should pity him because he
asked for the job, that the current
pains were products of his tough
policies geared towards revamping
the economy and that the situation
would soon begin to
smile. However, laudable as these
promises may be, it is perhaps
because most Nigerians see the
President as being above their level
that his messages seem not to be
resonating with them. They don’t see
him as speaking the same language
with them, coming down to dance
their dance or taking their brand of
tea. Should the President continue
this way, his reforms may become
wounded and, his legacy, troubled.
As a Yoruba leader of the
Afenifere bent, Tinubu’s cardinal
focus should be the creation of State
Police, Restructuring and better life
for all. God forbid, should he miss
this rare opportunity, then there may
be no hope again for the
progressives and Yoruba race will be
worse for it. Yes, he might have
come at the wrong time but the
satisfying truth is that he remains the
right man for the job. He is a prodemocracy
fighter and an advocate
for human dignity. He has promoted
self-rule with all his might and
fought oligarchy and shallowness of
thought in governance. He has led
many situations perceived to be for
the good of all and spearheaded
measures aimed at restoring values
and a new beginning.
So, what practical things does
Tinubu want to do in practical ways
that will bring practical succor to the
people? If it is a four-lane road that
he’s going to construct from Ijebu-
Jesa, my native Nazareth in Osun
State, through Fenwa Community in
Oyo State, to Daura in Katsina State,
the President should let us know! If
it is power, he should give
instructions to Adebayo
‘Penkelemesi’ Adelabu on how to
move beyond cruising in the
unmatched comfort of wattages of
darkness to truly deliver on his
mandate. Nigerians are no longer
interested in excuses that do not
edify prosperity. What Nigerians
want going forward is result.
May the Lamb of God, who takes
away the sin of the world, grant us
peace in Nigeria!
Komolafe wrote in from Ijebu-
Jesa, Osun State, Nigeria
(ijebujesa@yahoo.co.uk)

Page10 TheTrumpet MARCH 6 - 19 2024
Opinion
“Emi Lokan, Awa Lokan”
and the discontents
how body? Have you
seen what I have seen?”
“Bros,
“No. How do you expect me to see
what you have you seen, when my eyes
are different from yours? I use my own
eyes. The evidence of my own ocular
facility, not what other people see in a
country where most people are either
depressed, half-blind, hungry or sick.
Every man for himself or herself.”
“Ok. Ok, if you would just allow me
to talk. You always think you know it all.
But there are certain things other people
see, and hear that you may not be aware
of.”
“Okay. What? I am all ears”
“Can you believe that in Pakistan,
one man who was declared winner of an
election in Karachi, Pakistan, in the
recent elections in that country on
February 8, turned down the victory, and
said he was not the rightful winner of the
election because it was rigged? Hafiz
Naeem of the Jamaat-e-Islami Party
insisted that the votes of his opponent
were reduced and his increased to give
him an illegitimate victory. He says he
disagrees.”
“Don’t believe everything you read
on the internet, particularly when it
comes to elections. Democracy is under
threat universally. This year alone, there
are more than 64 elections worldwide,
including the ones that have taken place
already and the ones to come, and the big
threat is technology. People will use
technology to manipulate anything -
especially Artificial Intelligence (AI) to
misinform, disinform, mislead and do all
kinds of things. When you get any piece
of information, you have to really
double-check. Technology has become a
threat to democracy. And the Pakistan
that you mentioned. Pakistan is a country
of very corrupt leaders, both civilian and
military and that is why they are finding
it difficult to form a government after the
recent general elections.”
“But when we see what looks like a
good example from another part of the
world, we should throw it up as a good
example.”
“I don’t get your point.”
“I am saying that is it ever possible in
Nigeria that a politician will reject his
own declared victory on the grounds that
the election was rigged in his favour?”
“I don’t want you to think that
anybody in Pakistan is better than any
other person in Nigeria. I ask you to
check the story behind the story before
you begin to put down your own country
and your own people.”
“Whatever the story behind the story
is, I can bet that no Nigerian will ever
give up an election victory on the
grounds that an election was rigged in his
or her favour. In this country, politicians
would rather win by hook or crook. Win
first and let others be the ones to
complain. Rig. Steal. Grab the INEC
Certificate and let the aggrieved go to
court. There is zero integrity in Nigerian
politics. The politicians are no different
from bandits, terrorists and insurgents,
and kidnappers. Every electoral event is
a kidnapping event. They kidnap the
process, the voters, the officials, and the
results.”
“Calm down. Stop condemning what
you don’t know. Are you a politician?
You will just read one or two sensational
stories on social media, and Google and
you will start sounding like an expert.
Armchair expertise is the biggest
problem we have with public affairs
analysis in this country, and I see that it is
becoming a very attractive and profitable
enterprise. Can people learn to be
humble?”
“You always like to water things
down. Somebody will be going North;
you will just take the conversation to the
South. Okay, forget about Pakistan.
Think of what happened in Edo State last
weekend when after the All-
Progressives’ Congress (APC)
conducted its party primaries for the
September 2024 race for Osadebey
House, four different persons were
declared winners. Nigeria’s ruling party
could not organize its own primaries.
Ballot boxes were snatched. Journalists
were attacked. There was vote rigging,
open violence. As of this moment, all the
gladiators and their supporters are
claiming victory, trading blames and
threatening that there would be more
recriminations.”
“The matter will still be resolved. The
gladiators will cancel themselves out.
Those who can be bought will collect
cash and agree to shut up. Whoever
proves stubborn will be reminded that
whatever the Party decides at the end of
the day is supreme and binding. You are
referencing one politician in Pakistan,
don’t be surprised if at the end of the day
a member of the Edo APC Gubernatorial
race comes forward and says he, as a
loyal party man has agreed to respect the
decision of the Party and that he would
rather support a former opponent.
Politicians are the same everywhere.
You should know the story before you
draw conclusions.”
“But my point still stands. No
Nigerian politician who has been
declared winner, would on his own, on
moral grounds, reject the victory. He will
cling to it.”
“So, what is the moral of this your
Pakistan story?”
“That politicians must have integrity.
And I don’t know what is wrong with
them in Edo APC. They have disgraced
their Party. They are disgracing the ruling
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Party at the centre.”
“Calm down. They are not alone. The
PDP is also disgracing itself in Edo
State.”
“I hear Governor Godwin Obaseki is
the problem in Edo PDP. They say he is
the one who wants to determine singlehandedly
who succeeds him.”
“They say, they say… but the man
himself has not said anything.”
“They say he wants to turn himself
into the next Godfather of Edo State. He
wants to choose and impose his own
successor. I am afraid that when the EDO
PDP organize their own primaries, this
week, the chaos may be more than what
we have seen in the APC.”
‘Dem say. Dem say. The only thing I
know is that he has made it clear that his
Deputy, Philip Shaibu who has been
disrespecting and insulting him will not
be Governor after him. It looks like that
is his singular project, and the way he
looks and even grunts when Shaibu tries
to greet him in public, it looks like
stopping Shaibu is a do or die affair for
him.”
“But is that politics? Should people
play the politics of hate and conflict?”
“You will have to mount the pulpit in
a church to raise such questions, and you
may do so to your heart’s content until
you realize that the politics in churches
and mosques is even far worse than what
you see on the open field. The do-or-die
politics in Nigerian places of religious
worship is enough to make God wonder
why he created Nigerians”.
“I understand that even the Labour
Party in Edo State is divided. What is
wrong with these Edo people?”
“Be careful. Nothing is wrong with
Edo people. Watch what you say before
the Oba of Benin declares you are an
enemy of the Palace.”
“Oba gha to kpere. Ise!, Ise o, Ise o”
“The Nigerian politician is the
problem, that is what you can say. Our
politicians have not learnt any lessons,
despite all the electoral reforms resulting
in the Electoral Act 2022. They don’t
care. They are still snatching ballot
papers and deploying violence. What we
are seeing in the off-cycle elections is
actually a dress rehearsal for the 2027
elections.”
“Are you now a prophet?”
“No. But I can tell you that I am
Continued on Page 11

Opinion
MARCH 6 - 19 2024 TheTrumpet Page11
“Emi Lokan, Awa Lokan” and the
discontents
Continued from Page 10<
better than all those Nigerian prophets
who predicted that Nigeria was going to
win the top prize at the African Cup of
Nations in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. The
prophets lied. No one could even predict
the outcome of the final game. But
tomorrow, the same prophets will claim
to know tomorrow, and Nigerians will
believe them. Yahoo prophets! Some of
them told us the Labour Party would be
the alternative Party in 2023. Look at
what is happening to the Labour Party,
not just in Edo State, but even at the
national level.”
“I agree with you on this one. A big
scandal. A terrible disappointment. This
is a Party that Mr. Peter Obi practically
built up, revived and turned into a
platform of desire, with his energy,
goodwill and resources. He galvanized
and mobilized Nigerian youths to believe
that a new, different Nigeria is possible
and many bought into the vision: “Obi ke
ke renke Obi, Obi Nwan nem… Elu uuu
Pee”. Remember the Obidient
Movement. They told us to be Obidient
and Yusful. But look at the Labour Party
today. It has been reduced to Julius
Abure vs. Lamidi Apapa, Julius Abure vs
Oluchi Oparah. I even hear they are
looking for money. They are fighting
over money. Please tell me, how are they
different from APC and PDP?”
“The Parties are all the same. But you
left out Maria Labeke vs. Julius Abure.
The former Acting Chairman of the
Party, Maria Labeke says Abure forged
her signature. Poor Peter Obi. He has had
to call for a proper audit of the Party’s
accounts.”
“It probably looks like the APC is a
better party after all. At least they are in
power at the centre.”
“How is the APC better? In less than
one year of the Tinubu Presidency,
Nigerians are groaning and weeping and
gnashing their teeth as a result of the high
cost of living. Average price levels have
risen. Families can no longer feed.
Inflation is 30%, food inflation is over
34%, the Discos are threatening to
increase electricity tariffs and the cost of
meters. National Road Transport owners
are threatening to stop lifting petroleum
products because they can’t agree on
affordable freight rates with major oil
marketers. Landlords are hiking rent.
Foreign exchange is a source of daily
nightmare with the Naira devalued by
more than 60% since January. If I must
tell you something, housewives, side
chicks and prostitutes have all conspired
to punish Nigerian men. They all now
quote black market rates. These people
have destroyed the culture of leisure”.
“I don’t know what you call leisure.
Leisure is different from sin. When you
are made to pay for your sins, don’t drag
the government into that.”
“So, is it a sin to be a Nigerian?
Because that is how many Nigerians feel
right now. Even the price of beer has
gone up.”
“You don’t have to drink beer. Drink
water.”
“The last time I checked, this is
supposed to be a free country. But there
are food protests all over the country. The
cost of staple foods has gone up. People
cannot afford to buy bread. The other day
in Lagos, people were struggling to buy
subsidized loaves of bread for N100.
Another day, a good Samaritan provided
free tubers of yam, people were ready to
die to get their hands on just one tuber.
In Niger State, the State Governor has
had to warn other Nigerians not to come
to Niger State to buy food.”
“The Federal government says it will
release 102,000 metric tons of grains to
Godwin Obaseki
Hafiz Naeem
Nigerians.”
“Grains to be fed to goats and hungry
chickens right? Nigerians have become
animals?”
“But the government will not import
food. They wanted to, but they have
changed their minds.”
“Confusion. Policy incoherence.”
“And there will be no Commodity
Boards. No fixing of prices.”
“They have no clue”
“They say the problems they
inherited are too many, too much and the
people should learn to be patient,
especially Organized Labour, NLC,
TUC, threatening to go on strike by
month-end.”
“I have my doubts about those ones,
please. Nigerians must be used to the
perpetual scare-mongering by Labour
now. They will hold one or two meetings
with the government, and they will call
off their strike and our suffering will
continue. Please.”
“The Government says you people
must have hope. Every person associated
with the government, including Tinubu’s
son, Seyi says Nigerians must have
faith”
“Who is that?”
“Tinubu’s son. He says Nigerians
must endure.”
“Seyi Tinubu has the audacity to put
his mouth into this matter? Does he
think this is a family affair? What does
he know about endurance? Can he just
focus on his omo Baba Olowo, akebaje,
lifestyle?”
“Even his brother-in-law has been
appointed Managing Director of the
Federal Housing Authority. And the
sister, the Iyaloja-General of the
Federation, says we should all be
patient. The President is trying his best
to carry everybody along.”
“God! God! God!”
“Indeed, it is only God who can help
us. In Borno State, Governor Babagana
Zulum has asked the entire State to
embark on fasting and praying and to call
on God to help resolve the crisis of rising
food inflation and insecurity. Yesterday,
in Borno State, the people fasted and
prayed. O ye men of little faith.”
“We have a government in place and
we are looking for Manna from Heaven?
In 2024? Can someone please pinch
me?”
“The Governor of the Central Bank
of Nigeria, Yemi Cardoso, and the
Secretary to the Government of the
Federation, George Akume have just told
doubting Thomases like you at the
Catholic Bishops Conference a few days
ago that there is hope. Serious hope.
Wake up, my friend.”
“Audio, my brother audio oh. Where
is the hope? The Naira is practically
becoming worthless. Who is still
preaching hope to the Gentiles?”
“The CBN Governor said that the
economic reforms introduced by the
Tinubu administration are working, and
that if Nigerians do not see this, the IMF
has seen it. Rating agencies like Fitch
have seen it.”
“Very good. Good to know that our
CBN Governor is suggesting that
Nigerians are blind people. Nice
compliment. But can someone tell him
and other merchants of hope that, we, the
Nigerian people do not see what IMF is
seeing? We live here. We feel it. We are
the ones involved in it. And we know that
things are tough in this country. Life is
hard. That is why there are food protests
on the streets of Abuja, Ota, Kano,
Kaduna and Ibadan.”
“They say the problems were caused
by the Buhari administration.”
“Not Jonathan again? I thought they
said it was Jonathan.”
“President Jonathan is now a hero.
When he left the government in 2015, the
foreign exchange rate was N150 to the
dollar. Today, it is about N1,650 to the
dollar. By Easter, it may get to N2,000 to
the dollar. Even State Governors are now
saying they cannot function, they cannot
deliver services because of inflation and
the exchange rate fiasco.”
“You are quoting PDP Governors
who are looking for visas to Venezuela.
They are part of the problem too.”
“So, from whence will our help
cometh, O Lord??”
“In a democracy, what you wish for
is what you get. Have you forgotten? Emi
lokan. Awa lo kan. Eyin lo kan. Come on,
e lo fokan bale.”

Page12 TheTrumpet MARCH 6 - 19 2024
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MARCH 6 - 19 2024 TheTrumpet
Page13

Page14 TheTrumpet MARCH 6 - 19 2024
Opinion
The gut, salutations and the hunger
protests
By Reuben Abati
“Hunger is the cry of a god and two gods do the humans worship – the head and the stomach ...We know the
body will survive without head Sustenance, but the Stomach, the god that rumbles and thunders when sacrifice
is late, this God cannot be slighted”
– Wole Soyinka
Salutations to the Gut is the title of an
84-page essay published over 40 years
ago by Nigeria’s Nobel Laureate in
Literature, Wole Soyinka celebrating the
splendour of Yoruba cuisine and
gastronomic hedonism, how “the true
hedonist has felt in every morsel the soul of
the open kitchen”, a witty, whimsical essay
about the importance and the culture of
food, indeed life itself. Soyinka wrote that
“It is sad - daily the business of the world
becomes more hurried, and the few who still
possess leisure lack true poetry of food.”
How so true, not just for the Yoruba race, but
for the whole of humanity. It is not for
nothing therefore that the Yoruba also have
a popular saying that “the path to the
stomach is the path to Heaven.” Where there
is no true poetry of food and hunger persists,
not only is paradise lost, hope is trampled
upon, anger reigns, poverty stalks the
landscape. This is summarized in a local
saying that “ebi ki n wo inu, ki oro mi wo
be”, which means literally that a hungry
man is not ready for any kind of
communication, because he is angry.
This explains perhaps why some of the
major crises in human history have been
woven around the search for food, and the
expression of frustration around the lack of
same, explained with different phrases:
hunger, famine, poverty, scarcity or
derivation. Historically, the scarcity of food,
or the non-availability or non-affordability,
has often resulted in riots or revolutions. In
1648, there were riots on the streets of
Moscow because government imposed a
salt tax, which drove up the cost of salt. One
of the reasons for the French Revolution was
in part because the ordinary people could not
afford to buy bread. In 1789, the market
women of France marched on the Versailles,
and the protest was quickly taken over by
revolutionaries who no longer wanted the
Monarchy. In 1846, in Ireland, there was the
famous Great Famine which led to food
riots. During the American Civil war, in
1863, Southern women looking for food
organized protests in places like Boston and
Richmond, taking over the streets and
plundering warehouses where they could
find them. The problem was hyper-inflation.
During World War I, there were potato riots
in Europe, and rice riots in Japan, as the
people looked for food to eat. Hunger was
also one of the causes of the February 1917
Revolution in Russia. In more recent times,
we have had the Egyptian Bread riots of
1977 – food became so expensive,
Egyptians rioted; in 1981 – there was the
Bread riots in Casablanca, Morocco, and in
1984, the Moroccan Hunger Uprising. There
have also been food riots in Venezuela,
South Africa, Sri Lanka, the UK, Zambia,
France, Haiti, Bangladesh and anywhere
else in the world where the god of the
stomach rumbles, after being slighted by
scarcity, and ignited to rebellion by hunger.
When the god of the stomach rumbles, there
are casualties.
What is common in all the narratives is
that people become desperate when they
cannot feed themselves. Food prices trigger
political instability as seen in the Russian
and French Revolutions, the Great
Depression and during the Arab Spring. The
politics of hunger is oftentimes triggered by
poor leadership, including corruption, or in
other cases by failures in agricultural
production such as crop failure or postharvest
losses, and a crisis in one place can
translate into further crisis in other States,
given the existence of an established global
food supply chain. When food prices rise
beyond the people’s purchasing power,
social unrest is never too far away. This is
the tough lesson Nigeria is confronting at the
moment. It is sad that this is happening in a
country that once advertised agriculture as
the mainstay of its economy, and whose
leaders still believe that deepening
agricultural production could rescue the
country from the mono-cultural, oil
National protest against economic hardship organised by Nigeria Labour Congress (Picture - NLC)
dependent ditch in which it has found itself.
Today, the country faces a “food intifada”,
the same country with an arable land area of
about 36.9 million hectares, where there
were once cocoa plantations in the West,
rubber plantations in the Mid-West, rice
pyramids in the North, as well as aquatic
splendour and a fluorescent blue economy
along its coastlines. In living memory,
Nigerians talked about “Operation Feed The
Nation” (1979) and the “Green Revolution
(1980)”, and indeed it was in this same
country that a certain Umaru Dikko,
Minister of Transport, and Chair of the
Committee on Rice Importation, under the
Shehu Shagari administration once
scandalized the public when he quipped that
there was no hunger in Nigeria because no
one was yet eating from the dustbin, and that
Nigerians should be grateful because
government was paying salaries without
borrowing – a big favour! Dikko would later
become famous for the botched attempt by
the succeeding military regime to kidnap
him from the UK in July 1984. He died in
July 2014. If he were alive today, he would
have lived to see that Nigerians now eat
from dustbins, and that hungry and angry
Nigerians are telling their government that
they are “hungry”. And that the government
goes a-borrowing and a-sorrowing.
There have been protests in Minna,
Niger State, Ota, Sagamu and Abeokuta in
Ogun State, Oyo and Ibadan in Oyo State,
Kano in Kano State, Port Harcourt in Rivers
State, Sokoto in Sokoto State, Lokoja in
Kogi State, and in Lagos, the country’s
commercial capital. The reports of the
various protests clearly underline the
people’s desperation in the face of hunger.
In Lagos, we saw reports of people
practically falling over themselves, and
being beaten as they struggled to buy loaves
of bread at a discounted price. Also in
Lagos, a Good Samaritan had provided a
truck load of tubers of yam to be given out
for free. The people didn’t wait for the
tubers to be distributed. Chaos ensued as
they seized the initiative and grabbed the
tubers of yam in a classical, Darwinian,
“survival of the fittest” scramble. The
Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) also tried
to intervene by offering to sell seized,
contraband bags of rice at a discounted price
to the public. It made good on its promise.
But at its Yaba depot in Lagos, over 10,000
people showed up, scrambling, struggling.
To cut a long story short, seven persons
Continued on Page 15>

Opinion
MARCH 6 - 19 2024
TheTrumpet
The gut, salutations and the hunger
protests
Page15
Continued from Page 14<
reportedly died. The initiative has been
suspended. In Katsina, villagers and
hoodlums besieged an accidented truck
bearing grains, and looted the commodities.
In Rivers State, aggrieved women added
another twist to the matter when they asked
the government to address their suffering
because they had become sex-starved as
their husbands no longer attended to their
conjugal duties due to excessive heat in the
other room on account of epileptic power
supply and confirmed loss of libido because
of the psychological pressure induced by the
high cost of living!
In Ibadan, the protesting youths and
market women told President Tinubu: “This
is no longer Emilokan. This is Shege!.” In
Osogbo, the people chanted: “We can’t cope
again”. In Sokoto, they said: “We are being
pushed to the wall.” In Ogun, the people told
the government, “We are in pains”. In
Lagos, they said: “Baba Tinubu - Nigerians
are Hungry, Rescue Us”. On February 10, in
the midst of all this, the Nigeria Union of
Pensioners announced that its members will
go naked on the streets in protest. As of
January 2024, Nigeria’s headline inflation
had risen to 29.90%. Food inflation was
over 35.4%- much higher in some of the
States. In practical terms, a measure of rice
is now N2,000 and a bag of 50kg rice –
N70,000, a bag of maize is as high as
N60,000. People can no longer eat three
square meals per day, certainly not those
pensioners who receive as low as N450 per
month. The country’s minimum wage in the
face of hyper-inflation cannot feed one
person not to talk of a family.
It would have been strange if the
Nigerian government did not respond to
these developments, with the god of the
stomach and the gut wreaking havoc across
the land having been so badly bruised, and
the people so disconcerted. In July 2023,
Nigeria’s President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu
had in fact foreseen the food crisis that the
country was likely to face. He declared food
insecurity a national emergency, set up a
Committee on Food Emergency and moved
the assignment to his office and the office of
the National Security Adviser. This was
understandable. Food inflation was rising.
Farmers could not access their farms. The
country’s Food Belt had become a theatre of
terror and insurgency. But as the harvest
became real, and protests showed up in parts
of the country, with the people of Lagos
even directly confronting the President
screaming: “Ebi n pa wa” (“We are
Hungry”) as the President went for Friday
worship in Central Lagos, and other
Nigerians screaming for help, government
just had to be seen to be doing something.
The Emergency Committee on Food
Insecurity met, and the people were told at
the end of the deliberations, that the Federal
Government would provide 102,000 metric
tonnes of grains - 42,000 from the National
Grains Reserve and another 60,000 to be
provided by big farmers. In the event that
this would not be enough, the Federal
Government would import grains.
The big tragedy is that the government
appears completely overwhelmed, confused
even. Students of Policy Evaluation would
readily agree that a government does not
announce a State policy on an ad-hoc or
impulsive basis. It must be thought through
from beginning to the evaluation, in the
interest of the people. It looks like the
Tinubu team failed the test. About one
month later, nobody has seen the promised
102,000 metric tonnes. As recently as the
last National Economic Council meeting
National protest against economic hardship organised by Nigeria Labour Congress (Picture - NLC)
held a few days ago, they were still talking
about partnership with major fertilizer
companies, and promises to make grains
available. Nobody has seen any grains.
Nobody is even sure that there is anything
in the National Grains Reserve. At one point,
we were told by the Vice President, that the
government will introduce a Commodities
Exchange Board. The President showed up
later to say that there will be no
Commodities Board and that his
government will not control prices, nor will
it import food. In that breath, the President
openly contradicted his own Minister of
Information, his Vice President and
dismissed a court judgment by the Federal
High Court, sitting in Lagos, (re: Femi
Falana SAN vs AG Federation) which had
ordered the Federal Government to fix the
prices of goods and petroleum products in
seven days in line with the Price Control
Act, 2004 per Ambrose Lewis-Allagoa, J.
Confusion galore… and nothing could
be more confusing than the Presidency
summoning a selected team of 16
stakeholders over the weekend and setting
up what they called a “tripartite” Economic
Advisory Committee to solve Nigeria’s
tripartite problems: a national currency on a
free fall and foreign exchange crisis,
hyperinflation, and the high cost of living. I
suspect that someone in government has
suddenly discovered the word “tripartite”
and so everything has become “tripartite”
including the setting up of a “tripartite” 37-
member committee to review the national
minimum wage. The optics may look good
to the extent that government appears as if it
is trying to do something, whatever that is, at
least to show the people that “we are trying.”
The problem is that the same advisers that
Tinubu has invited, with the exception of
two or three, were the same people who
have been advising government since 1999,
as investors and stakeholders – what new
thing do they have to offer, apart from the
privilege of their access to the corridors of
power? What happens to the National
Economic Council (NEC), a constitutional
body chaired by the Vice President? And
why has the President not appointed a Chief
Economic Adviser whose task is to help the
President link all possible loose ends
between the monetary and fiscal sides of
things? Nigeria needs one, and preferably a
properly educated Economist.
The biggest response to the confusion
referred to parenthetically above, has been
the announcement of a two-day warning
strike by Organized Labour, led by the
Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), beginning
from today. NLC has been abandoned by the
Trade Union Congress (TUC), its partnerunion
with which it originally gave
government a 14-day ultimatum to honour
a 16-point Memorandum of Understanding
(MOU) signed in October 2023, or face a
strike. In a confusing twist to the tale, TUC
now says NLC is acting unilaterally. A total
of 64 other groups have reportedly pulled
out of the planned protest. Even the National
Association of Nigerian Students (NANS)
told the leadership of the NLC to seek
dialogue with the Nigerian Government and
shelve its strike. NLC says it would go
ahead. Femi Falana, NLC Counsel has
written the AG Federation to affirm the
constitutionality of the right to protest and
the ineffectuality of the two interlocutory
injunctions ordered against the NLC by the
National Industrial Court in the light of an
extant Court of Appeal decision on the right
to protest. Again, so much confusion. It is
nonetheless important to state that peaceful
protest is legal, valid and constitutional and
whether or not the NLC succeeds or fails
with its two-day warning strike, the key
point is that there is disquiet in the land
about inflation, the rising cost of living and
the hardship that the people face. The people
want tangible results not talks, promises,
preachments, or optics.
Many of the States, notably Lagos, Ogun
and Borno have introduced palliative
measures to help their people. These are
welcome interventions. The Federal
Government cannot do it alone. The people
must see that their home governments care
for them and have empathy for them as they
experience what for many is the nightmare
of a lifetime. The nightmare is so serious
that the Federal Government in an attempt
to show empathy, and to be seen “to be
trying” has now announced that it will
implement the Steve Oronsaye Report. I
hope someone has read that Report and tried
to understand it properly. The Report
recommends a lean, pruned down, more
efficient government, shorn of waste, fat and
duplication. President Tinubu does not need
months or “a tripartite” committee to
implement that. No further confusion,
please.

Page16 TheTrumpet MARCH 6 - 19 2024
Opinion
Ekiti: Time to silence the guns (2)
By Abiodun Komolafe
Well, much as causation has
been attributed to poverty,
religious and ethnic
extremism and others, it’s time the
Federal Government revisited its
security architecture and remodeled
counter-measure strategies to yield
fruitful results. The faithful choice of a
good businessman is to recoil his
strategies if output isn’t justified by
investments and governments across
board must get the message right. That
the price is rising and that the cost is
becoming incalculable is like trying to
find the words, especially in a
celebratory culture of violence.
Therefore, governments at the national
and subnational levels must interrogate
assumptions on how to build a fertile
environment necessary for a kind of
serious rethink to stem the incessant
increase in this violent crime typology.
Topmost on this is the dismantling of
the over-centralized police management
system in favour of State or regional
units. Predicated upon direct and
reliable intelligence apparatus to detect
and deter crimes before commission,
this will encourage improved policing in
the community. There’s also a need for
each State or regional government’s
collaboration to fashion a results-driven
Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) in
line with expectations, decide its
security needs and priorities and act
accordingly without relying on some
uncomfortable exchanges with an
excessively centralized system in Abuja.
State security votes from the Federal
Government must be augmented to
enhance operational efficiency and
budgetary allocations and expenditures
must be closely monitored to deter
misplacement of priorities, inefficiency
and corruption. Standards of recruitment
into the Force must also be determined
by the State or region, not some counterproductive
conditions or considerations
hiding behind the rubbles of a flawed
and obsolete Federal Character
Commission. Above all, continuous onthe-job
training must be made
mandatory to improve performance in
line with modern law enforcement
agencies’ practices obtainable elsewhere
in the world.
In the opinion of Femi Afolabi-
Peters, “practical and committed-toresults
steps can contrast political
considerations and gains but therein lies
the solution if only Tinubu possesses the
willpower to bell the cat for the national
good.” Afolabi-Peters, a United
Kingdom-trained international security
and intelligence consultant and
Governor Oyebanji, Senate Leader - Senator Opeyemi Bamidele,
with Chief of Army Staff General Taoreed Lagbaja
specialist in clandestine security
operations, suggested “the
establishment of a special court to fast
track - and conclude promptly - cases of
apprehended suspects without the
customary delays which embolden other
would-be kidnappers to engage in the
‘trade’, safe in the knowledge that,
while their trial is protracted, justice
can be unduly influenced by money and
other considerations.” I also share his
views. To this end, the National
Assembly owes it a duty to as a matter
of necessity introduce and fast-track a
bill to create and empower a special
court to handle and dispense with
kidnapping and banditry trials. The
Modus Operandi of the court, including
but not limited to financial autonomy,
sentencing and other statutory powers
must be unambiguously stated in the
proposed law.
Take it or leave it, without a strong
and purposeful political buy-in of the
government, the above suggestions
would only end up as a pipe dream; and
that’s the danger of the moment. In the
national interest therefore, Tinubu must
be ready to kick some ass and damn the
consequences for the collective good.
He must be ready to provide a safe and
secure Nigerian environment for the
citizens to cohabit without fear or
trepidation. Inevitably, a secure society
will attract foreign direct investments to
stimulate the country’s economy which,
presently, is in very dire straits! The
government must be sincere in this
approach to earn the trust of the
populace, which is already battered by
the shape and size of the economic
downturn on everyday living.
For Ekiti, Oyebanji needs to up his
game and beef up Amotekun in terms of
funding, training and equipment for
optimal performance. To achieve this,
funding for Amotekun has to be
structured and increased, even if it
involves putting together a
supplementary budget. It may also be
done like a Police Security Trust Fund
and crowd-funding among the civil and
political structures, Cooperative
Societies, Labour and Student Unions.
Even farmers should be encouraged to
partake of it because it is now in the
interest of everybody. Interestingly, the
compelling logic of ‘Amotekun’ is
clearer today than it was yesterday. Even
the North which once stood vehemently
against the idea, has now come to terms
with the fact that multi-level policing is
the only way out.
As things stand, even the blind can
see and applaud Oyebanji’s
transformation agenda in Ekiti.
Personally, I see him as a fresh and
credibly courageous voice who has
touched every facet of existence and
needs in the State. But then, more still
needs to be done! For instance, but for
former Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of
Ondo State, ‘Amotekun’ wouldn’t have
become a reality in the Southwest. The
question therefore is: will this dream die
with Aketi’s demise? So, the onus lies
on Oyebanji to push the parameters of
the regional necessity to save lives and
property, especially in the two
neighbouring States. His security
architecture must be based on resultoriented
policies and processes enabled
by the collaboration between the Statecreated
neighbourhood security outfit
and the primary law enforcement
responders.
Now that our fate is no longer in the
mouth of the oracle but in our hands, the
need to invest heavily in intelligence
gathering, Information Technology
solutions and other covert operations
cannot be overstressed. They are the
new, 21 st -century oracles, and they have
been adjudged to work wonders.
Undeniably, a country is as secure as the
intelligence at her disposal for no
national security can grow beyond the
intelligence that drives the process. As
long as intelligence is left on the shelf,
national security will never be achieved.
In this wise, let there be professional
threat mitigation strategies that can
promptly catch terrorists and bandits
cold, flat-footed and mostly unexpected,
for it is only when Ekiti is turned into a
whole territory of peace that Chibok can
be prevented from relocating to the
State.
I have argued elsewhere that
preparations for the next election would
always start the day the last election was
won and lost. Who knows? The
observed insecurity upsurge in Ekiti
could be one of the new games by some
stubborn pursuers, secret enemies and
mountain demons to take trophy photos.
After all, anything is possible in politics!
What’s more? In every system, like
every home, saboteurs abound. It only
depends on how the head of household
strives to rise above obstacles. For
BAO, he needs to act promptly; and,
decisively, too! That he is in control of
the State’s political formations is not in
doubt. So far, so commendable! He has
demystified the office of the Governor
by bringing it down to the people who
voted him into power. He also has good
intentions for Ekitis and all eyes can see
it. But, as 2026 draws nearer, the
Governor shouldn’t let the security
formations of the State slip off his grip
and he shouldn’t develop even the
slightest enthusiasm for complacency.
In governments and governance, the
dynamics of the street counts and the
spiritual symbolism of the reach of the
real guys also matters. Beyond the
sensationalism in the face, the interests
of the inner core, aka core of the core,
always go a long way in determining the
scope of the responsibilities inherent in
governance. So, if Oyebanji can
unwaveringly be in love with the street,
not just in the local but also in the
national and international contexts, the
roads will respect him, Ekiti State will
dance to his sound and Nigeria will obey
him!
By the way, who says that Ekiti
cannot happen to Nigeria again? Who
says that Nigeria can’t be a fertile
ground for some “senseless” and
“soulless murderers” to trouble the
destiny of our sacred institutions again?
In all, how critical are the ingredients of
peace in the Sahel to the broth of a
perfect and lasting peace in Nigeria?
To be concluded.
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