As Christians across the globe celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the Foundation of christianity tomorrow, the Chairman of the Police Service Commission, DIG Hashimu Argungu rtd, mni has called on Nigerians to renew their faith in our country, insisting that our nation must be great again.DIG Argungu noted that Nigeria is blessed with enormous material and human resources which the present Administration is currently harnessing for optimal functionality. He said Nigerians should believe in the greatness of our nation and support the Government to achieve the required dividends.
He called on Christians to use the occasion of the birth of Jesus Christ to rededicate themselves to the advancement of the ideals of nation building. He also called for prayers against societal ills such as terrorism, banditry and kidnapping. DIG Argungu said Nigeria and its leaders need all the prayers and support at this time to positively change the fortunes of our fatherland.”May this Christmas present for you an opportunity to renew and grow your faith in God and our nation, Nigeria.
And may you and your family be blessed beyond measure”, he prayed.
Our ambassadors in the national parliament on Wednesday December 18, 2024, spontaneously broke into a chant, serenading Bola Tinubu Nigeria’s President when he presented the 2025 draft budget to the bicameral body. *On your mandate we shall stand* gained ascendancy ahead of the 2022 presidential primary of the All Progressives Congress, (APC). Today, it is probably at par with Nigeria’s national anthem in the circuit of the ruling political party. Recall the viral video of the Minister for the Federal Capital Territory, (FCT), when he performed to the rhythm on one occasion of his visit to the office of the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila a few months ago. The reflex resort of the congressmen to the “mandate” tune on that occasion was in reaction to Tinubu’s joke at the presentation of the budget for 2025. The President had erroneously announced that he was presenting a draft expenditure proposal to the “11th” assembly! He was promptly reminded that we are still in the 10th assembly, in 2024.
Tinubu quickly humoured that it could just as well mean that the entire parliament had been reelected for the 11th assembly which begins in 2027. Tinubu’s budgetary presentation had to be staggered by 24 hours for undisclosed reasons. Reports after the Wednesday December 18 eventual outing, however, suggested that the executive arm of government needed the 24 hours between Tuesday December 17 and the eventual presentation, for very robust, backstage engagements with the legislature. There were feelers to the effect that Tinubu’s budget would be expressly shut down because of his recent propositions on tax reforms which has not gone down well with sections of the country and their representatives. There are purported reports to the effect that while Members of the House of Representatives were advanced one billion naira each to augment the budgets for their “constituency projects,” Senators allegedly received a minimum of over 100 per cent more under the same nebulous heading. Such largesse should of necessity merit some singing.
While our parliamentarians decked in billowing robes and skyscraping headgears were clapping and caterwauling, giggling and guffawing that Wednesday December 18, 2024, deathly disaster struck in Ibadan, capital of Oyo State. The plan by a nongovernmental organisation led by Naomi Silekunola, a former wife of the Ooni of Ife, Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi which proposed to put smiles on the faces of a number of people this yuletide season, had gone awry. Silekunola and her team intended to gift 5000 children below 13 years of age with a cash gift of N5000 each and offer each of them a food pack. There was a stampede at venue of the programme at Islamic High School, Bashorun District, Ibadan. Poor planning which precluded adequate security cordon, the absence of a standby medical team, among others, precipitated the death of 40 children. Many injured people are still hospitalised. As though an angel of death was on a yuletide prowl, Okija in Anambra State was its next destination. A magnanimous well-to-do, Ernest Obiejesi, under the auspices of his *Obi Jackson Foundation,* availed the community of a rice consignment to be shared amongst the womenfolk in the morning of Saturday December 21, 2024, for the commemoration of Christmas. The raw ration came in 10 kilogramme bags of rice, out of which many people received just handfuls in bowls and cups. In the ensuing melee, 36 lives were lost, bodies littering the scene. Many limbs were bruised and broken, they are being patched up in various hospitals. Despite popular assumptions that the streets of Abuja are paved with gold, the Okija tragedy was replicated, real-time, right at the very heart of Maitama, abode of the *nouveau riche.* Still in the spirit of the season, the Holy Trinity Catholic Church arranged to distribute food items to the less privileged as Christmas knocks on doors.
The Abuja Command of the Nigeria Police confirms that 13 people including four children died from the surging and trampling at the scene. Over a thousand people have been evacuated from the church, many of the wounded receiving medical attention at the proximal Maitama Hospital, just metres away from the church. Hunger for sure is a deconstructor of geography. Within four days in Nigeria this harmattan season, over 89 lives have lost while foraging for what to eat. Instructively, a day before the Ibadan tragedy, loyalists and former aides of former President Muhammadu Buhari, flew to his hometown in Daura, to accord him an 82nd birthday surprise. Former Ogun State Governor, Ibikunle Amosun; Secretary to the Government of the Federation, (SGF), in Buhari’s regime, Mustapha Boss; Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, all visited a man largely credited with plunging Nigeria into its seemingly irrecoverable abyss. Femi Adesina, Buhari’s media minder also sang his boss’ praises on the occasion. He described him as *ore mekunu,* a friend of the poor, an ascription I found totally out of sync with the realities of his boss’s stewardship. Let’s hope Adesina is seeing on the streets, the hordes of Nigerians, instalmentally transmogrified into pitiable sub- *mekunus* by Buhari’s eight-year dysfunctional leadership. About 100 Nigerians perished in four day not because of a natural disaster, nor at the theatres of insurgency and military curtailment. They died looking for just that measure of rice to placate their growling stomachs.
They died just hours and days after Buhari’s beatification by beneficiaries of his prodigal rulership.Nigeria has been plunged into the worst economic situation in a whole generation, since the advent of the All Progressives Congress, (APC) at the centre. Poverty has never been as grim and piercing as we’ve witnessed beginning from Buhari’s coming in 2015. Poverty has been ruthlessly weaponised, the poor ready to dance to the drum of a currency note, even a scoop of peanuts. The indicators have determinedly and consistently pointed southwards these past decade. Inflation is spiralling towards the 35 per cent mark, the unaffordability of basic food items driving *mekunus* to assured Golgotha in cross-country scrounging, scrambles and stampedes. The same way Nigerians hustle to scoop petroleum products when a tanker falls to the ground, is the same way they throw decorum through perimeters when they are being insulted with sachets of pasta in the name of “palliatives” and “stomach infrastructure.”
The Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, (NBS), is allegedly being bullied by the state to recant on its former announcement that *N2.3 Trillion* was paid out as ransom to bandits, criminals and kidnappers in the first 10 months of this year. The NBS which has belatedly announced that its systems were hacked, is in good company with the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC). INEC’s servers and terrestrial equipment are perennially compromised when election figures tend towards victory for the opposition. The President recently hailed the peaceful and transparent conduct of the presidential election in Ghana, recommending it as a model for Nigeria. Sadly, it should be the other way round. Other countries should take inspiration from the way we conduct our affairs in Nigeria.Nigeria prides itself as the giant of Africa. Many African countries look up to Nigeria for guidance, for leadership. Our exploits in the liberation of countries like South Africa from apartheid, and the restoration of peace and democracy to neighbouring Gambia, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, are well documented. We recently offset our outstanding dues to the Economic Community of West African States, (ECOWAS), totalling over N150Billion. We do well at bragging and flexing our muscles, but fail where it matters the most. An essential characteristic of Ghanaian elections over the years, is the fact that the ruling party can be displaced by the opposition today.
This allows the party so ousted to go re-strategise for the future. What do we do in Nigeria where election results are predetermined, where the electoral process is wholly corrupted, where true winners are intentionally dispossessed of their mandates and encouraged to seek redress in the judiciary? Didn’t a senior government official say in relation to Ghana’s exemplary election that a sitting government cannot be unseated in Nigeria? The stories of the backstage electoral thieveries anchored by INEC over the years will be told someday.President Tinubu cancelled his official engagements for Saturday December 21, 2024, in honour of victims of the Ibadan, Okija and Abuja tragedies. Nigeria’s leadership must transcend the culinary indulgence and the merry-making occasioned by the yuletide to undertake very imperative introspection. There must be less dangerous, less dehumanising and less deathly avenues for lifting up the poor and indigent in our ranks. The President is celebrated as some economic whiz kid.
Enough of the demeaning, insulting and dubious handouts always purportedly passed on to the less-endowed by ways of very opaque “cash transfers” and the “lorry loads of palliatives.” Can someone please show me a register of transfers to my constituents back home in my community? That scheme is wholly and totally a scam. Nigeria is not Somalia or Chad and similar countries ravaged by war and hunger, where the United Nations, (UN) and the Red Cross, drop dry rations from hovering helicopters into the hands of starving populations. Nigerians deserve a much, much better deal away from the most despairing *status quo.* Nigeria is too endowed to wilfully preside over the sustained pauperisation of its people.
Tunde Olusunle, PhD, Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors, (FANA), teaches Creative Writing at the University of Abuja
Kemi Badenoch, current leader of the UK’s Conservative Party, recently disavowed her Nigerian identity because of her resentment at being associated with northern Nigeria. “Being Yoruba is my true identity,” she said, “and I refuse to be lumped with northern people of Nigeria, who ‘were our ethnic enemies,’ all in the name of being called Nigerian.”I can bet my bottom dollar that most northern Nigerians are uninterested in any claim to kinship with her, either.Well, since Ms. Badenoch hates northern Nigeria that much, she might also consider rejecting even the term Yoruba, as it originates from—of all places—northern Nigeria!.
Yoruba” is, after all, an exonym first bestowed upon the Oyo people by their northern neighbors, the Baatonu (Bariba) of Borgu, before it was shared with the Songhai (whose scholar by the name of Ahmad Baba has the distinction of being the first person to mention the name in print as “Yariba” in his 1613 essay titled “Al-kashf wa-l-bayān li-aṣnāfmajlūb al-Sūdān”).Usman Dan Fodio’s son, Muhammad Bello, wrote Infaq al-mansur in 1813, which responded to Ahmad Baba’s 1613 essay. In it, he had cause to also mention “Yariba.”The name’s embrace as a collective identifier owes debts to these historical facts. In other words, Yoruba is not a Yoruba word. It traces etymological descent from northern Nigerians, Badenoch’s “ethnic enemies.”Perhaps Badenoch would prefer to invent an ethnic moniker akin to Professor Wole Soyinka’s deftly coined Ijegba (a seamless blend of Ijebu and Egba identities). She might consider Ijendo, an elegant portmanteau uniting her maternal Ijebu roots with her paternal Ondo lineage.It would, at least, shield her from the burden of bearing an identity whose label comes from her “enemies.”Yet even with this rhetorical sleight of hand, Badenoch cannot outrun the stubborn truth that the historical, cultural, and sociolinguistic ties between northern Nigerians and Yoruba people are irrefutable. These connections run deep and are impervious to political grandstanding or identity cherry-picking.In a column I wrote on October 9, 2021, titled “Arewa and Oduduwa: More Alike Than Unlike,” I explored this shared legacy. I reproduce some of that original column below as a reminder.
Centuries before colonialism and the British-supervised formation of Nigeria, much of what we know today as northern and western Nigeria have had robust relational and cultural encounters, evidence of which still endures in the contemporary linguistic and cultural artifacts of the people.The centuries-long Trans-Saharan Trade between the Arab world and so-called Sub-Saharan Africa, which passed through much of what is now northern and western Nigeria between the eight and the seventeenth centuries, brought traces of Islam and cultural interchanges in both places.Thereafter, both regions witnessed massive migrations of the Mande people from the Mali empire who brought more concentrated expressions of Islam—and monarchies. That is why much of what used to be the Oyo empire was actually ethnically syncretic.Historians have shown that people that are today known as northern Nigerians played central roles in precolonial Yoruba history. For example, the Bashorun (whom many people equate to the Prime Minister and de facto power behind the throne) was often of Borgu descent, and the Alapinni, another high-ranking official, traced his origins to the Nupe people.Well-regarded bashoruns like Magaji, Worudua, Biri, Yamba, Jambu, and Gaa who helped extend Oyo’s frontiers were of Borgu origin.More than that, several towns and villages in Oyo were founded by Borgu people. For instance, Ogbomoso, a major Oyo town, was founded by a Baatonu (Bariba) prince. The title of the town’s monarch, “Soun,” is a corruption of “Suno,” the Baatonu word for king.Yoruba sometimes swallows middle consonants over time, which explains why “olorun” sometimes becomes “olo’un,” why even “Yoruba” (itself a foreign word derived from the Baatonu) becomes “Yo’oba” in everyday speech, etc. On this model, the “n” in “suno” was swallowed to produce “suon,” which later became “soun” after the transposition of the “o” and “u” vowels in the word.Kishi, another major town in Oyo State, was founded by a Borgu prince by the name of Kilishi Yeruma. Kilishi is the Hausa word for rug (which symbolizes the throne) and Yeruma is the corruption of the Kanuri “yerima,” which means prince. But “Kilishi Yeruma” is a fossilized, time-honored title in all of Borgu, which is a cultural melting pot, for the heir apparent to the throne.In fact, I was shocked to read recently that even Ibadan, the administrative capital of Western Nigeria, was founded by a northern Nigerian of Borgu origins.
Oluyole, the founder of modern Ibadan, was the scion of Bashorun Yau Yamba, who was of Borgu ancestry.As a matter of fact, the town of Igboho whose son, Sunday Igboho, has become the symbol of “Yoruba nation” and who has thrown his weight behind Badenoch’s claim of being Yoruba who has no connection to northern Nigeria, is ethnically syncretic.Apart from the large number of Fulani people in and around the town who have lived there for centuries, some of whom have become culturally and linguistically Yoruba, there is a major neighborhood there called Boni. Boni is the generic Borgu birth-order name for the fourth son.Historical accounts also reveal that during the Trans-Saharan Trade, many Hausa people worked as intermediaries between Arab traders and the Alaafin of Oyo. Most didn’t return to their places of birth, and their descendants are now Yoruba people.Similarly, we read from the late Professor Abdullahi Smith’s account of the tiff between Afonja and the Alaafin of Oyo that a large chunk of Afonja’s army, called the Jama’a, was drawn from Hausa slaves who escaped from the Alaafin’s palace.And the Fulani presence in Yoruba land preceded the coming of Mu’alim “Alimi” Salihu to Ilorin by several decades, perhaps centuries. As I pointed out in a past column titled “Ilorin is an Ethnogenesis: Response to Kawu’s Anti-Saraki Ilorin Purism,” some of Afonja’s followers, with whom he fought the Alaafin, according to Abdullahi Smith who quoted the Ta’alif, a pamphlet written in Arabic by an Ilorin Yoruba Muslim cleric about the events of the time shortly after they occurred, were Fulani pastoralists who were never Muslims.The pastoralists had lost their cattle to tsetse fly bites and “had nothing to lose,” according to Smith, so they became Afonja’s mercenaries.One of the Fulani pastoralists whom Alimi couldn’t convert to Islam, was a man named Ibrahim Olufade who spoke perfect Yoruba and Fulfulde and acted as the interpreter for Afonja in his initial interactions with Alimi.In other words, Fulani people had been bearing Yoruba names in Yorubaland at least a century before Nigeria was formed. I won’t be surprised if descendants of Ibrahim Olufade are now Yoruba (nationalists)— if they are in western Nigeria.My hunch has some basis in real-life examples.
One of northern Nigeria’s most celebrated journalists, the late Hajia Bilikisu Yusuf, was descended from Yoruba people who migrated to Kano generations ago. She was one of the most passionate defenders of Arewa that I know.When the late Mohammed Sule, author of the famous The Undesirable Element in the Pacesetter Series, told me of Hajia Bilikisu’s Yoruba background in Kaduna in the late 1990s, I was incredulous. But he said they were neighbors in Kano and swore that Hajia Bilikisu’s grandfather still spoke Yoruba.The ancestors of the late Professor Ibrahim Ayagi of Kano were Yoruba. As he himself told the Daily Trust on September 2, 2018, “Unguwar Ayagi was initially inhabited by the Yoruba and Nupawa, who came from outside and settled here. That’s how the place became known as Ayagi. So most of the people in Ayagi are Yoruba, Nupe and, of course, Hausa.”Given this depth and breadth of relational interconnectedness, it is no surprise that northern and western Nigeria share an extensive repertoire of cultural vocabularies that are derived from Arabic, Songhai (because the Malians who brought Islam to Hausa land, Borgu, and Yorubaland abandoned their language and spoke a dialect of Songhai called Dendi), and mutual borrowings.I will give a few examples. In both Yoruba land and Borgu, the term from an unmarried girl is some version of the word “wondia.” That’s a Songhai word for an unmarried girl.“Bere,” a title of respect prefixed to the names of older people in Borgu and parts of Yoruba land, is a Songhai word.
The word “karambani,” which I was shocked to find out occurs in Yoruba, is a Songhai word that is now integral to the lexis of many languages in Borgu.Asiri, the word for secret in Hausa, Yoruba, Kanuri, Baatonu, and many other languages in Muslim northern Nigeria, is derived from the Arabic “as-sirr” where it also means “secret.”Wahala, which used to be limited to Yoruba and languages in Muslim northern Nigeria, but which is now widely used all over Nigeria, is derived from the Arabic “wahla,” which means “fright,” “terror.”Yoruba and most languages in Muslim northern Nigeria also use “talaka” (talika in Yoruba) to refer to the poor. The word also appears in Mandinka, Songhai languages, Teda, and in other West African polities where Islam is predominant.History is rarely as malleable as we would like, and identity, once examined, often reveals far more connection than division.If Badenoch truly fancies herself as Yoruba, she’d be wise not to rattle the ancestral tree; she might be startled by just how much Northern Nigeria comes tumbling out of its branches.
Farooq Kperogi is a renowned columnist and United States-based Professor of Journalism.
Call him a double-barrelled personality and you will not be wrong. He is both an accomplished technocrat and a distinguished bureaucrat to wit. How else would one describe a professional architect of four full decades, who has also spent his entire working life in the public service? He rose to the very top of the leadership of the national umbrella body of his primary profession, and his occupation, respectively. He was national President of the Nigerian Institute of Architects, (NIA). He equally coursed all the way in the civil service to become a Permanent Secretary and a long-serving one. These attainments were bagged strictly on merit. His enterprise has not gone unnoticed as he has been deservedly decorated by the highest honours of his professional calling where he is a Fellow. He has also received national garlands in recognition of his good work, notably that of the Officer of the Order of the Niger, (OON). He retired upon grossing 35 memorable years in service, back in 2021. He was barely catching his breath when duty beckoned for him to return to avail the nation his variegated experiences in yet another capacity. This has been the story of his life.
Several decades in the ovens and furnaces of the public service have invested him with the archetypal reticence of a prototype bureaucrat. They are not given to much talk, the essential credo of his lifelong profession requiring public officers like him being “to be seen and not to be heard.” He is exceptionally, comprehensively grounded as a public servant who traversed nearly a dozen ministries, departments and agencies, (MDAs), in a most eventful and insightful career. What can be more all-encompassing and enriching with regards to cognate working experience than when an individual straddles the ministries of: Works and Housing; Defence; Water Resources; Agriculture; Power; Communications and Education, at the highest levels?
With the bifurcation of the erstwhile Ministry of Works and Housing, and the excavation of a “Ministry of Livestock” out of the extant Ministry of Agriculture, he can fittingly be credited with many more service addresses. And all of these preclude the lengthy list of national and international ad hoc responsibilities which garnish his cumulative experiential scope. He was in the earliest generation of civil servants who, with the return of democracy in 1999, was groomed in “Budget Monitoring and Price Intelligence.” This derived from the determination of the new regime to introduce more transparency in public procurement processes. He “evangelised” this credo in all his official bus stops.
It is Sonny Togo Echono’s birthday Monday December 16, 2024. When he’s addressed by the combination of the initials from his first two names, ST, he knows you come from years and decades back with him. It is supposedly a special day in the eyes of his family, colleagues, subordinates and friends. Customised greeting cards arrogate a section of his office at the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, (TETFUND) headquarters in Abuja, to themselves. For the Executive Secretary of the organisation, however, the day is a regular working day like every other. And there was plenty of work to be done. He prefers to operate from the conference table in a corner of his office which enables him ease of access to files and documents placed before him. He’s also able, with despatch, to attend to staff who desire his official guidance, as he looks up from papers placed before him from time to time. There’s no time for a meal as yet but he tosses a few nuts in his mouth from time to time.
TETFUND was established in 1993, and was initially christened the Education Trust Fund, (ETF). It is funded majorly from a two per cent tax on the assessable profits of companies registered in Nigeria. It was at inception, targeted to arrest the rot and degeneration in educational infrastructure, arising from long periods of neglect and miserly resource allocation. It was rechristened to its present nomenclature during the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan in 2011. TETFUND administers, appropriates and oversees resources so aggregated for the rehabilitation, restoration and consolidation of tertiary education in the country. It avails capital for educational facilities and infrastructure, including essential physical infrastructure for instruction and learning. TETFUND also supports research and development as well as the training and advancement of academics, among other segments of its responsibilities.
In a little over two years at the helm, Echono has striven to institute a new work ethic in TETFUND to ensure that it achieves its foundation mandate, especially against the backdrop of challenging economic headwinds. He has introduced sweeping reforms which has upset the preexisting apple cart in several ways. Echono has been very fastidious on issues of due process and effective service delivery. The system he inherited was fraught with entrenched power blocs which determined the running of the organisation to the detriment of its core vision. Echono has been uncompromising in his insistence that the institution must be run strictly according to the books. This is one resolve which was bound to unsettle the “indigenes and landlords” within, and their external allies, who hitherto, construed the organisation as a potential “automated teller machine,” (ATM).
Echono clarifies: “There were cartels in charge of TETFUND projects. They collaborated with all manner of political leaders to come to the organisation to collect ”special intervention projects,” as it is referred to. “There were no defined modalities in place which enhanced operational opacity.” Speaking further, Echono notes: “When I was asked to come here, I was given a very clear mandate to clean up this place and I’m doing just that. The system is the better for it because we have substantially minimised waste and our stakeholders acknowledge this much.” A confident Echono said he had indeed invited the Independent Corrupt Practices and Related Offences Commission, (ICPC), to check through the operations of the organisation: “I invited the ICPC to come and inspect our systems. They’ve visited us twice and are satisfied with how we are straightening up the system.”
Echono is aware that he has stepped on toes while trying to do the right thing. He insists there is no backing down on his mission. His words: “I’ve made enemies on this job. But we have a duty as people privileged to serve, to help in salvaging our country.” Discreet findings indeed reveal that there are internal mumblers and external discontents on his case. There are those who supposedly feel entitled to a perpetuation of their term in office. There are also as those who fancy being gifted the leadership of the organisation as political gratification. Some of them reportedly, had begun to make reassuring commitments to friends and associates, thereby preempting their consideration for the job and the express approval of the President. There are also suggestions about internal saboteurs who are in the habit of trading in classified information concerning the organisation. Some of them are indeed said to be politically exposed persons, fantasising about deploying the organisation for the advancement of their vaunting political aspirations.
While Echono is contending with this hydra, a certain Emeka Marcel Nweke has created a Facebook page with Echono’s name to defraud members of the public. Benneth Igwe, the Assistant Inspector General of Police, (AIG) in-charge of Zone 7 Police Command Headquarters on Tuesday December 17, 2024, disclosed this to newsmen. Echono it was who wrote a petition to the police about “criminal conspiracy, impersonation, fraud, false representation, cyberstalking, obtaining money by false pretence and threat to life,” upon which the police acted. Nweke was reportedly tracked to Awada, Anambra State and was found to have fleeced unsuspecting members of the public of over N10 million in the month of August 2024, alone. Such are the issues he’s multitasking to address.
Echono’s enterprise thus far, has accorded renewed respect and visibility to TETFUND. More and more high profile institutions and individuals, home-based and from the diaspora, regularly engage with the organisation in recent times to discuss partnerships. These include even the military establishment which is in the business of revolving tune-ups for its human capacity, consistent with global dynamics. The multidimensional Echono is equally very busy on lecture circuits these days, regularly called upon to chair, speak or to deliver papers at various events. His trophy-chest brims with glittering medals, gleaming plaques, glossy trophies and beaming mementos, awarded to him by several groups and associations, through the years. These acknowledgements are for inimitable altruism, selfless leadership and exemplary corporate governance, despite the odds.
Tunde Olusunle, PhD, Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors, (FANA), is an Adjunct Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Abuja
The Police Service Commission has approved the promotion of 27 senior Police Officers comprising of 11 Commissioners of Police to the next rank of Assistant Inspectors General of Police and 16 Deputy Commissioners of Police to the substantive rank of Commissioners of Police.
The newly promoted Officers were in the Corporate Headquarters of the Commission today, December 16th, where they went through both written and oral examinations.
Commission Chairman, DIG Hashimu Argungu rtd, mni said both written and oral examinations would henceforth be a pre-requisite for promotion in all the cadres of the Nigeria Police Force. He noted that Officers of the Nigeria Police Force should deliberately continue to improve and expose themselves to global best practices, which should include proficiency in ICT.
The eleven Commissioners of Police promoted to Assistant Inspectors General of Police were; Umar Shehu Nadada, Commissioner of Police Nasarawa state; Mustapha Mohammed Bala, Commissioner of Police, Rivers state; Abayomi Peter Oladipo, Commissioner of Police, Ondo state; Taiwo Olatunde Adeleke, Commissioner of Police, SWAT, FCID, Abuja; Ibrahim Abdullahi, mni, Commissioner of Police, Kaduna State and Nwonyi Polycarp Emeka, Commissioner of Police PPP, DLS, Force Headquarters Abuja.
Others are; Akinwale Kunle Adeniran, mni, Commissioner of Police, Ekiti State; Zubairu Abubakar, Commissioner of Police Courses, Police Staff College, Jos; Fom Pam Joseph psc(+) Commissioner of Police, Homicide, FCID Abuja; Emuobo Fred Ekokotu, fdc, Commissioner of Police Admin, Airwing Abuja and Garba Musa Yusuf, Deputy Commandant Police Staff College, Jos.
The 16 Deputy Commissioners of Police elevated to the substantive rank of Commissioners were; Kayode Ojapinwa, DC, SCID, FCT, Emmanual Ighodalo, DC, ZCID, Zone 8, Lokoja; Bose Funmi Akinyemi, DC SEB, FCID Annex, Lagos; Barayimil Ahmadu Samaila, DC, DFA, Kogi state; Martin Nwogoh, fdc, DC, DFA, Zone 2, Lagos; Shetima Jauro Mohammed, DC SCID, Nasarawa state; Ibrahim Gotan, DC, DFA Zone 2 Bauchi; Rabiu Mohammed, DC Ops, Zone 3, Yola; Olugbenga Ayodeji Abimbola, DC, SCID, Ekiti State and Adepoju Olugbenga Adewale, DC Ops Rivers State.
Others were; Bello Yahaya, DC, Anti Money Laundering FCID Abuja; Ibrahim Adamu Bakori, PhD, mnim, DC Ops, DOO AKPO, Bayelsa State; Hauwa Ibrahim Jibrin, mnips, DC, DFA, FCT; Abayomi Shogunle, fsi, DC, Ops Osun State; Mohammed Azare Baba fsi, DC, OPs, Akwa Ibom state and Ezekiel Philip Husseini, DC ZCID, Zone 3 Yola.
DIG Taiwo Lakanu, fdc, Honourable Commissioner in the Commission and Chairman Standing Committee on Police Promotions took the Officers through a rigorous oral interview and advised them to pay more attention to the dictates of their new office.
DIG Lakanu said they must give their best in the service adding that the Commission will continue to ensure that their promotions are timely and based on merit.
The Plenary Meeting continues tomorrow, Tuesday, December 17th 2024.
Perceptive political followers must have been enthralled by the rainbow coloration of representation for the people of Kogi West on one hand, and Okunland, in the *ninth session* of the national assembly. Between 2019 and 2023, the Senator representing Kogi West at the time was Smart Adeyemi of the All Progressives Congress, (APC). The Lokoja/Kotonkarfe federal constituency had Shaba Ibrahim of the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP); the Kabba-Bunu/Ijumu constituency represented by Tajudeen Yusuf also of the PDP, while the Yagba federal constituency had Leke Joseph Abejide of the Africa Democratic Congress, (ADC). Kogi State politics hitherto was practically “mono-political,” the PDP being the party to beat. The emergence of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, (APGA), which contested the governorship of Anambra State in 2023, accentuated popular belief that political parties beyond the big ones could contest and win popular votes.
Indeed, the multi-party coalition which berthed the APC in 2015 and enabled the party clinch the presidency, reinforced the possibility that aspirants for political office could indeed realise their ambitions outside the bigger, “mainstream” parties. The 2023 general elections threw up new dynamics in the politics of Kogi West and Okunland. Sunday Karimi who earlier had two stints as representative of the Yagba federal constituency from 2011 to 2015, and from 2015 to 2019, won the senatorial election on the platform of the APC. Abejide got rewarded by his kinsmen for representing them well in his first term and was reelected in 2023. That he remained in the ADC and triumphed even many assumed he would defect to the ruling APC reaffirmed the depth of affection his people have for him. Salman Idris, Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Architects, (FNIA), the incumbent representative of Kabba-Bunu/Ijumu in the House of Representatives. He adopted the same ADC platform like Abejide for the actualization of his ambition. He has but since followed the APC gravy train.Legislators, traditionally, have been known to restrict their services, to their specific constitutional catchments.
A federal parliamentarian representing Lokoja/Kotonkarfe for instance, concentrates his efforts and advocacy on his specific geopolitical boundaries. TJ Yusuf in his three terms as legislator representing Kabba-Bunu/Ijumu federal constituency from 2011 to 2023, experimented with a pan-Okun approach which aimed at engaging with the five core Okun local government areas, as one bloc. He introduced a regular interactive forum where federal bureaucrats of directorial cadre, Assistant Directors, Deputy Directors and substantive Directors from Okunland converged from time to time to rub minds in the collective interest of the Okun country. Yusuf also cultivated and sustained his affiliations with the entire span of Okunland, regularly identifying with causes beyond his specific area of service. Okunland has serially received the short end of the stick, regularly overlooked by federal and state authorities in the developmental scheme.
From critical infrastructures like roads, to power supply, and more recently insecurity, Okunland has been the butt of deceit and multifaceted afflictions through successive regimes. Beyond their primary responsibilities in law-making therefore, federal congressmen have been compelled to get very involved in providing very basic needs for their constituents. This has often tasked their creativity and private resources, in a milieu of shrinking fiscal wherewithal.Abejide endeared himself to his folks in the three Yagba local government areas, among other reasons by underwriting the bills for all students in public schools in Yagbaland desiring to write the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination, (SSSCE), back in 2018. While prioritising his alleged humongous thievery from the common patrimony of the people for which he is standing trial, former governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, wilfully asphyxiated civil servants and other workers of their remunerations and entitlements.
He deliberately weaponised poverty among the citizenry and the workforce, exposing the people to tangible gloom and despair. The opacity which characterised the primaries of the bigger political parties also culminated in the hemorrhaging which produced breakouts like Abejide.Abejide, cognisant of the place of education in the lives of his people read the situation rightly and intervened decisively. He has since expanded the scope of his magnanimity to cover all secondary schools, public and private, across the five primary Okun local government areas. Simply put, education is the major industry in Okunland, an area which has turned out world class intellectuals, professionals and technocrats, in their thousands and Abejide knows this. More contemporaneously, Abejide began a process of mass procurement of resource materials for public and private secondary and tertiary institutions in Okunland. Further to the recent public presentation of two major books by this writer, Abejide procured 150 pairs of the books for distribution to schools across Okunland. The accounting colossus, Otunba Funso Davies Owoyemi it was who pioneered such good naturedness, procuring and distributing Olusunles books across schools in Okunland.
With the decrepit road infrastructure in Okunland earlier alluded to, Abejide has regularly joined forces with like minds to ensure the motorability of roads within Okunland, especially every yuletide season. From the north of Nigeria and Abuja, Okunland is accessible through the Kabba- Ekinrin Adde- Omuo Ekiti, and the Kabba- Aiyetoro-Gbedde- Isanlu- Ejiba roads respectively. Sadly, both accesses are barely motorable at the best of times. Commuters have been known to pass some nights on these roads at the height of rainy seasons which heighten the brokenness of the roads. Abejide is also leading the charge for the development of a dedicated *Okun House* which will serve as one-stop secretariat for Okun people. As a first timer in the House of Representatives between 2019 and 2023, fate thrust the chairmanship of the House Committee on Customs and Excise, on Abejide. In the *10th Assembly* which is in session, Abejide has been retained in the same position, a placement which has enabled him to support his people in instances. Sunday Karimi came into office as Senator representing Kogi West District, armed with requisite experience as a “ranking parliamentarian.” While he previously covered just the three local government areas in Yagbaland, his present responsibility spans seven expansive local governments, traversing three federal constituencies. That Karimi was promptly assigned to chair the Senate Committee on Services by the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, is evidence that he can be trusted to deliver. He has been proactive since he was inaugurated alongside his colleagues in June 2023. Karimi commanded attention earlier this year when he initiated and singlehandedly undertook to build a military “Foreward Operating Base,” (FOB) in Egbe, Kogi State, at the intersection of Kogi and Kwara states. Karimi had been personally traumatised by the sudden desecration of the pristine calm and quiet of Okunland, by a motley of undesirable elements. Thoughtless Fulani herdsmen; brazen armed robbers and daring kidnappers, have suddenly upset the acclaimed serenity of Okunland. Karimi’s all encompassing “mini barracks” is complete with accommodation facilities; administrative offices; an observatory; recreation installations; water supply and so on. He equally provided trucks for the mobility of the occupants. The facility was taken over last October by the Nigerian Army which has since deployed personnel. Leke Abejide attended the event to support Karimi, as evidence of the rapprochement between both legislators. Karimi who inaugurated a N100m bursary scheme for students of tertiary institutions from Kogi West last July, has committed another N100million to the empowerment of women in Kogi West, through cooperative societies. He moved swiftly last October to personally fund the restoration of the dismembered *Pakuta* bridge connecting communities in Ijumu, Bunu district and Lokoja local government areas, at about N20m. *Setraco Construction Ltd* was originally awarded their contract to build the whole stretch of the road and related infrastructures. Inadequate funding has, however, impacted the realisation of the project. Karimi is also building a 1000 capacity multipurpose hall at the National Open University of Nigeria, (NOUN) Study Centre in Isanlu. Karimi is anchoring the holistic upgrading of the Government Secondary School, Kotonkarfe, into an ultramodern institution, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Education, which will cost over one billion naira. Karimi has also launched an ambitious N1.24 Billion project, to rehabilitate and build 140 solar-powered boreholes across Kogi West, across the 85 electoral wards in KogiWest. Back in September, Sokoto State Governor, Ahmad Aliyu-Sokoto, announced his administration had committed N1.2Billion on building 25 new boreholes! Karimi’s constituents must feel immensely proud about the frugal effectiveness of their representative. The first two boreholes under the “140 boreholes initiative,” have been drilled in Aherin community in Lokoja local government area. Karimi, in addition to these laudable strides, has been financially supportive of the *Anglican Church School of Nursing Project* being developed in Iyara. The initiative is being pursued in collaboration with Scotland-based organisation. Ever conscious of the thirst of his people for educational and professional literacy, Karimi maintains close oversight on this initiative. Smart Adeyemi and Dino Melaye, Karimi’s predecessors in the Senate, broached the advocacy for the upgrade of the Federal College of Agriculture in Kabba, which is affiliated to the Ahmadu Bello University, (ABU), Zaria, into a full-fledged university, while in office. The aim is to provide additional opportunities for university education for restless questers from Kogi West and beyond. Karimi has continued on the same path, ever drawing the attention of the Senate to the imperative of this popular desire by his people.Karimi and Abejide are amongst the most experienced parliamentarians from Kogi State in the federal congress, on current form. The hitherto discontinued meetings of the Kogi West Caucus in the national assembly, has been reactivated. This engenders interface between congressmen with the overall aim of providing better representation for the people. They have also opened up themselves to regular interactions with their constituents as may be requested for, and scheduled. Karimi and Abejide hosted representatives of the *Yagba Action Group* in their Abuja homes, within one week of each other, in August and September this year for instance. Both men are also on the same page on ensuring the rehabilitation of the Kabba-Aiyetoro-Gbedde-Mopamuro-Isanlu-Egbe road, a critical artery connecting almost all the local government areas in the zone. Confronting the reality that governmental budgetary provisions may never scratch the surface of the road, Karimi and Abejide continue to collectively engage the Federal Ministry of Works, and the leadership of *Mangal Cement Industries* which recently became operational in *Iluhagba Gbedde,* in Ijumu area. Sections of the Kabba to Egbe road are being patched up for motorability as we speak, arising from the persistence of both gentlemen.
It is the same unanimity of purpose which informs the concern of both public servants about the need for the operationalisation of *Omi Dam,* a facility in Yagba West, built decades ago, yet un-utilised. The dam can be developed for hydro- electricity and for irrigation purposes to ensure all-year farming in Kogi West. The journal towards tangibly impacting their constituencies and homelands may still be long. It seems evident, however, that Karimi and Abejide have their bootstraps firmly fastened, eyes trained on the tracks of the marathon.
Tunde Olusunle, PhD, Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors, (FANA), is an Adjunct Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Abuja
The Police Service Commission has approved the posting of CP Olanrewaju Ogunlowo from Kwara State as the new substantive Commissioner of Police Ogun State.
CP Ogunlowo takes over from CP Abiodun Alamutu who has retired from the service of the Nigeria Police Force .
The Commission’s approval has been communicated to the Inspector General of Police for implementation in a letter signed by the Secretary to the Commission, Chief Onyemuche Nnamani.
Commission Chairman, DIG Hashimu Argungu rtd mni, congratulated the new Ogun State Command Commissioner and advised that he should use his new office to ensure that Ogun State is properly policed where law and order are maintained and crime and criminality drastically reduced.
DIG Argungu said the Commission will continue to support the Police in any way possible to ensure a safe environment for Nigerians.
The Chairman of the Police Service Commission, DIG Hashimu Argungu rtd mni, has called for innovation and proper use of electronic evidence and other modern devices in our nation’s legal system.
DIG Argungu said violation of human rights has taken a new dimension in this 21st century, stressing that the key challenges and threats are mostly the current passive and obsolete criminal justice system, lack of rebalanced criminal justice system in the area of victimology.
The PSC Chairman spoke at the International Human Rights Day 2024 with theme “Our Rights, Our Future, Right now: All Humans are born free and equal in Dignity and Rights” that held today, Tuesday, December 10th 2024 at the Nigerian Bar Association National Secretariat Auditorium, Central Business District, Abuja.
He noted that there is a glaring lack of innovation and proper use of electronic evidence and other relevant devices.
According to Ikechukwuu Ani, PSC spokesman, DIG Argungu lamented that the old laws and regulations “appear to be uncertain and obsolete and also, it is becoming harder for the regulations to keep up with technology. “It is doubtful that new languages in law could anticipate the cleverness of technology”
The PSC Chairman said there was need at “this hour of 21st century and fourth Industrial Revolution, for “all Lawyers and Judicial Staff to have training in recognition of offences committed through computer and how electronic evidence can be obtained and preserved” stressing “we should also bear in mind that an old-fashioned way of long-hand writing in taking court proceedings is already obsolete and ineffective in today’s world”.
DIG Argungu also noted the conflicts of procedural laws in the area of disposal of exhibits in cases disposed off in law courts.
I don’t know the way it is with others, but I’m so eternally enamoured by my alma maters across my life’s trajectory, I just can’t stop celebrating them. For me, the Immaculate Conception College, (ICC), Benin City, is the best secondary school in this milieu. Headed by the unsung academic and administrative luminary, Dr Joseph Odidi Itotoh in my generation, ICC was catalytic in laying the building blocks of my life as destined by God. I feel similar nostalgia for the University of Ilorin where I obtained two hard-earned degrees in English. To imagine the institution didn’t initially feature in my priorities. I was almost incurably obsessed about schooling in the erstwhile University of Ife, (Unife), now Obafemi Awolowo University, (OAU). Africa’s first Nobel Laureate for Literature, Wole Soyinka was on the faculty of Unife. I really drooled and salivated about the prospects of physically encountering and being taught by this icon, whose imprimatur was all over our literature curriculum, over time. OAU was star-studded, boasting luminaries like Femi Osofisan, Biodun Jeyifo, Kole Omotoso, Chidi Amuta and Godini Gabriel Darah, among others. If I desired to study English, Unife was the place to be, so I thought.
True, the burgeoning University of Ilorin which operated in its early years substantially from the makeshift mini-campus in the city was bereft of the jaw-dropping aesthetics of Unife. Unilorin made up for this, however, with the sheer density and diversity of its faculty. Between the former “Department of Modern European Languages” which warehoused the English and French courses, and the adjoining Department of Performing Arts, Unilorin could not be cowed by faculties elsewhere. At the head was the English man David Cook, credited with mentoring the Ngugi wa Thiong’o generation of East African writers. There was also the multifaceted, self- effacing Indian scholar, Prayag Tripathi. A much younger Olu Obafemi, creative versatile, charismatic, steep in radical intellectualism; and Sam Adewoye, a novelist, were equally in the team.
There were also the trendy Nigerian-American intellectual, Tayo Olafioye who was given to infectious and flowery elocution; the bubbly American teacher, Russell Chambers; the engaging Ugandan lecturer Stephen Hesbon Lubega, and the untiring language specialist, Emmanuel Efurosibina Adebija, among others. Africa’s first published female playwright and first female professor of theatre arts, Zulu Sofola; pioneer faculty member in performing arts in Unilorin, Akanji Nasiru and the indefatigable Nigerian-American dance expert, Bunmi Babarinde-Hall, featured in the newly established performing arts department in our time. Not forgetting the eccentric Sierra Leonean actor and playwright, Yulisa Amadu-Maddy, and subsequently, Ayo Akinwale. Such was the kaleidoscope of personalities who privileged our thoughts and vistas. An aggregation of these resources and experiences bred the moniker, Better By Far with which we’ve beaded the university over aeons.
Over the years, I’ve found myself a compulsive and delighted documenter and diarist of fellow alumni from Unilorin, in their courses and attainments in life. The institution has blessed Nigeria and the world at large with some of the finest of manpower, some of the most skilled human resources in virtually every department and sector. Early this year, Kemi Nana Nandap, who was hitherto an unobtrusive Deputy Comptroller-General, (DCG), in the Nigerian Immigrations Service, (NIS), was appointed substantive Comptroller-General of the Service by President Bola Tinubu. She graduated with an honours degree in biochemistry from Unilorin in 1987, same year with Tinuke Watti, another distinguished Unilorin alumna, who was appointed federal Permanent Secretary late 2023, by the President.
Nandap became the fourth woman to be appointed to the position of Comptroller-General, (CGI), of the NIS. This is tangible evidence that she has consistently and sustainably proved her mettle all through her career, in a male-dominated paramilitary profession. Notable women who previously led the NIS as chief executives include: Uzoamaka Nwizu, (2000 – 2004, of blessed memory); Rose Chinyere Uzoma, (2010 – 2013) and Caroline Wuraola Adepoju, who handed over to Nandap early this year. Her appointment took effect from March 1, 2024.
Between Olusegun Adekunle, OON, Emeritus Federal Permanent Secretary and Chairman of the Abuja chapter of the Unilorin alumni association; Wale Fasakin, National President, and Bolanle Olatunde, National Public Relations Officer, I was literally “abducted” and thrust into an impromptu visit to CGI Nandap, Friday December 6, 2024! Fridays are usually tricky days. One tries to wrap up his schedule for the week with very strict deadlines. The trio, however, are people one holds in high esteem. Fasakin indeed came from out-of-state, to Abuja specifically for the purpose of the courtesy call. His selflessness could only be assuaged if the programme proceeded successfully. My only option in the circumstances was to juggle my schedule so as to be on the delegation. Other members of the delegation were: Moji Oshikoya, (of the Federal Capital Territory Administration, (FCTA)); Nuhu Adam, (an aviation industry stakeholder), and John Ondoma Freeman, (who is on the executive of the alumni Abuja chapter).
The air was festive within the perimeters of the headquarters of the NIS on the airport road as we drove in. The grass lawn adjacent the administrative building of the organisation was being readied for some event, most probably a night of carols, maybe an end-of-year get-together. Our delegation was very courteously received and ushered into a visitor’s room by aides of the CGI. I remarked about the tidiness and sense of order which I noticed within minutes of our arrival. We engaged ourselves with reminiscences of our times in Unilorin, enjoyed our laughters and glanced at the television screen from time to time. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo the Interior Minister, we were informed, was visiting. He was being received by the leadership of the NIS in the boardroom of the outfit.
Nandap’s entry into the visitor’s room where we were seated was without fanfare. I’ve visited quite a few regimented services through the decades and I’ve never been impressed by the contrived stampede, the conjured drama and needless gra gra associated with the movements of their “big men.” Let’s be very clear: I was a very close aide of President Olusegun Obasanjo, GCFR, all through his eight years in office. I operated from the most proximal physical space to him and saw him everyday. To this extent, I’m very accustomed to “VIP movements.” To be sure, I logged nearly 30 countries across the world on Baba’s entourage. (Baba is the globally adopted alias for Obasanjo). This was until I began to dodge the drudgery and tedium of moving around and about with him. Before Obasanjo, I had worked back- to- back as publicist with one civilian Governor and two Military Administrators in my state: Prince Abubakar Audu; Colonel Paul Omeruo and Colonel Bzigu Afakirya.
CGI Nandap was already standing before us, before we even noticed when she eventually joined us. We rose in unison to our feet to return her civility once we saw her. Despite the ring of uniform-wearing and plain-clothed aides around her, her naturalness, her unassumingness, her humility shone bright. She apologised for keeping us waiting. She explained she was indeed going to request fo a rescheduling of our meeting with her, once impromptu engagements began to clog her itinerary for the day, so that our meeting with her will be worth the while. Having seen off her supervising Minister, Nandap still had a few other programmes to attend on a day like Friday, typically a “half day.”
Dr. Wale Fasakin spoke on behalf of the team. He presented as souvenir, a roll-up banner bearing the image of the CGI congratulating her on her merited appointment. Nandap was draped with a customised sash bearing the Better By Far inscription, emblazoned across the colour code of the University of Ilorin. Bolanle Olatunde stepped forward to decorate her with the Unilorin lapel pin. I did invite her to the public presentation of two of my newest books which took place early October. The event was chaired by three-time National Security Adviser, General Aliyu Mohammed Gusau, GCON, with the media luminary, Chief Onyema Ugochukwu, FNGE, CON, as “Professional Elder Statesman.” CGI Nandap’s colleagues in the Nigerian Police Force, (NPF); the Federal Road Safety Corps, (FRSC), and so on, attended. I had with me, autographed copies for presentation to her.
Kemi Nana Nandap who hails from Ogun State was born June 3, 1966, in Zaria. Like me, who was born in Kaduna, she epitomises the merits of our archetypal sociocultural interconnectedness, with her added spousal affiliations to Plateau State, to wit. This is not discounting her horizontal and vertical movements across the country on several postings and assignments on national service. These have helped to consummate her pan-Nigerian worldview. Last October, there were murmurings within Immigrations circles that Nandap had attained 35 years in service and was due for retirement, consistent with service conditions. Nandap was a member of Course 22 of the NIS Training School, Kano, which was commissioned on October 9, 1989. While it is true that she has completed 35 years in the public service, her Letter of Appointment specifies that she will hold office for a period of 18 months, all the way to October 2025. Her continued stay in office is therefore consistent with the terms of her appointment by the President, Commander-in-Chief.
A heavily decorated professional, CGI Kemi Nana Nandap continues, to lead with every passion a service which aims to approximate the attainments of pace-setting parallel agencies in other parts of the world, as the Nigerian Immigrations Service continues to reinvent itself.
Tunde Olusunle, PhD, Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors, (FANA), is an Adjunct Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Abuja
wicked disgrace of the nobility of the legal profession.
Here is what Jibrin Samuel Okutepa wrote on his page;
“It is a shame that Dele Farotimi was handcuffed and brought before the court today in Ekiti State for an alleged cyberstalking or criminal defamation. This action can not be celebrated and or tolerated by any right thinking member of the legal profession”.
