The Chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC), Mr. Mike Okiro, recently disclosed in Abuja that more than 150,000 of the nation’s policemen are attached to certain highly placed officials and some unauthorised persons in the country. The PSC boss lamented that the commission could not afford to have a half of the policemen in the country in private hands. He assured that the commission had, in conjunction with the Nigeria Police, commenced the implementation of the withdrawal of policemen attached to these classes of Nigerians but regretted that the exercise was hampered by lack of funds. Okiro also frowned at the way persons who had served as ministers over 10 to 15 years ago still move about with police security. He stressed that the nation cannot be battling a shortage of manpower in the force while a majority of its officers are allocated for private guard duties to a few privileged individuals. He also hinted that the number of policemen in the country is inadequate for our population, while the force is   underfunded.

This is not the first time this matter is being broached. We recall that President Muhammadu Buhari had, in 2015, directed that police personnel attached to unauthorised persons be withdrawn and deployed to confront the country’s rising security challenges.

Available data show that the numerical strength of the Nigeria Police Force is 308,000. The Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, has also affirmed that the force loses about 9000 of its personnel to death, retirement and dismissal every year.  The United Nations’ recommended ratio for policing is 1:400. But the 308, 000 policemen guarding over 180 million Nigerians fall far short of that recommendation. Having about 150,000 of our policemen serving certain Very Important Personalities (VIPs) and some unauthorised persons is an unhealthy practice.

Police authorities should withdraw all policemen attached to unauthorised persons. The Federal Government should also quickly address the twin issues of underfunding and understaffing of the police. This is important because only adequate funding and staffing of the police can holistically address the nation’s worsening security situation. Government should also consider the introduction of state policing, irrespective of the fears of abuse expressed by some Nigerians.

Although those fears are genuine, they should not stop the adoption of this idea which has served other countries very well. Those arguing against abuse of state police should note that even the current Federal Police is also open to abuse. There is no perfect system in the world so we must keep changing the ones that are not serving us well until we get what we want. Besides, the police personnel posted to individuals are often abused. Some are made to carry handbags and umbrellas for the spouses of their principals. Some even assist those spouses in shopping and other demeaning duties, while we lack personnel for core policing duties. 

President Buhari has approved the annual recruitment of 10,000 personnel into the force. This should be done to boost the numerical strength of the force. It is glaring that we cannot get the kind of policing we require until the government adequately funds, staffs and equips the Nigeria Police Force. Delaying these  necessities will worsen the nation’s security  challenges.

Sun

Confirmed: nothing ever changes in Nigeria. The more things change, the more they stay the same. This immortal epigram of Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, the 19th century French critic, journalist and novelist, captures the fortune of the Federal Republic of Drama aka Nigeria. That is why when anything happens these days, I’m like: haven’t I seen this before? I’m seeing repetition all over again. As we say in Nigerian Latin, “Soja go, soja come, barracks remain the same.” I’m no longer as excited or as agitated as I used to be. An Igbo proverb says what a dog saw and is barking ferociously is the same thing a goat saw and barely bleated. It’s a depressing feeling of “I’ve seen it all”.

The kidnap of 105 female students of Government Girls Science Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe state, was Chibok all over again. As it was in April 2014 so it is in February 2018. The president has changed, the service chiefs have changed and the crime scene has changed — but the details are so alike. We were told they were kidnapped, they were not kidnapped; they were rescued by soldiers, they were not rescued by soldiers. Presidential fact-finding team finally confirms abductions. Déjà vu. The missing link is that President Buhari and his inner circle have not blamed political opponents for the kidnapping yet. And, yes, the first lady is yet to cry “Diariz God o”.

What a pity of a country. Every day, we spend billions of naira on security, but Nigerians are far from safe. The people who are safe are the leaders, our lords and masters. Nobody kidnaps their children. Nobody rustles their cattle. No herdsmen invade their farms. How many presidents, governors, senators, reps, ministers and commissioners have been kidnapped so far? As at last count, a whopping zero. They are all well protected — a convoy of armoured vehicles, soldiers and policemen guarding them front, sideways and back. The ultimate losers are the Nigerian people on whose behalf the leaders are having fun.

Incredibly, anytime we claim to have “technically defeated” Boko Haram, they unleash more horror. While I understand the role of propaganda in situations like this — at least to boost the confidence of citizens in the ability of government to protect them — it can only work when it is closer to the truth. There is no doubt that our courageous soldiers have recorded significant victory against Boko Haram — for which appreciation and commendation are not out of place. But of what value is painting the narrative that Shekau is about to wave the white flag when we know asymmetrical warfare is too complex to extinguish, especially with the horrendous north-east terrain?
There is something that really scares me about the security ecosystem in Nigeria. Recently, I attended a confidential briefing by the heads of the security agencies. As they took turns to tell lies, hailing themselves and even scoring themselves 80%, I was disheartened. It was more of a chest-thumping PR initiative than a security briefing. I left the meeting vowing never to attend another one again. If this is the kind of lies these people feed to the president, then Nigeria is almost finished. And if the president, with all his experience as a former military governor and former military head of state, believes these lies, then Nigeria is finished.

Our security agencies are so excellent at unleashing terror on ordinary Nigerians and failing spectacularly at fulfilling their job description of protecting life and property. They can arrest BBOG activists, provide security for the demolition of the houses of political opponents, declare IBB’s spokesman wanted, harass motorists and motorcyclists, and arrest harmless bloggers — but, with all the billions, they cannot protect schoolgirls from being kidnapped; they cannot protect cattle from being rustled; they cannot protect the lives of herdsmen, farmers and villagers. Something is awfully wrong with us in this country. We need our heads examined.

Sadly, I can sense a feeling of hubris among some supporters and sympathisers of the PDP and former President Goodluck Jonathan over the Dapchi kidnapping. “God don catch Buhari,” many of them are saying. Maybe gloating has its place, especially with all that Jonathan went through in the hands of APC over the Boko Haram crisis. But people are missing the point: returning PDP and Jonathan to power will not stop the insecurity. Our problem is worse than we think. There is something endemically wrong with Nigeria and we all — Christians, Muslims, northerners, southerners, Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba, etc — are victims. I kid you not.

I pray that one day the eyes of our understanding will open to realise that though tribe and tongue may differ, we are all in this mess together. We have voted government after government since 1999, but we are still importing and queuing for petrol, the refineries are still being repaired with billions of naira and they remain comatose, electricity remains unstable, the roads are still a landscape of potholes, the schools are still a shambles, the hospitals remain deathbeds, kidnappers and robbers are still kings, and corruption is still on the rise. Shouldn’t this tell us there is more to our problem than PDP and APC?

Nevertheless, APC deserves all the knocks. While I was certainly disgusted with the PDP, I have never been a fan of APC. In an article, May We Now Discuss the Issues, Please? (THISDAY, December 21, 2014), I wrote: “I am one of those Nigerians who cannot be easily moved by political slogans. I love the music of ‘change’ as rendered by the APC, but talk is cheap. What we need to know now is the content of this ‘change’… APC has done a very good job of highlighting the failure of the Jonathan/PDP administration in tackling the [Boko Haram] insurgency. What it has not told us, convincingly, is what it would do differently.” I still stand by my words.

It is simply amazing that having promised us so much, the APC guys have turned themselves into a nuisance and laughing stock in record time. Everything they criticised in Jonathan they are replicating in bad measure. And they are so shameless about it. Even their response to the latest ranking on the corruption perception index by Transparency International is much like what Jonathan would say: “It is political.” I agree, wholeheartedly, that change does not happen overnight. But if the morning foretells the day, Nigerians are in for a peculiar kind of change that is an inferior replica of what they voted out in 2015.

Buhari came to power on the back of two promises: fighting corruption and tackling insecurity. The anti-graft war has particularly been about exposing how PDP financed its presidential campaign in 2015. I am yet to see those who financed APC being called to answer questions. I may be wrong, but that is the impression I get all the time. As for security, while we have dealt with Boko Haram more seriously, we are not tackling other challenges satisfactorily. Buhari allowed the herders/farmers crisis fester for too long. Nigerians are being killed every day in avoidable circumstances. Critically, Buhari needs to urgently go back to the drawing board on Boko Haram.

The saddest side to the Dapchi abductions is the big blow to girl-child education. It is already a very difficult job persuading parents in the north-east to allow their daughters go to school, especially after the Chibok nightmare. Now that the Nigerian state has demonstrated yet again that it cannot protect these kids despite billions of dollars spent on security, how do you persuade the parents to let go of their precious jewels again? Potential doctors, nurses, accountants and beauticians will be too scared to go to school. They will end up as hawkers and child brides. I am on my knees praying that these girls will be reunited with their families as quickly as possible. Depressing.

AND FOUR OTHER THINGS

MISTIMED TABLE

There has been plenty argument over the reordering of elections — whether or not the national assembly has the right to take over that function from INEC. Ironically, I am not looking at it from a legal perspective — the lawyers are doing a good job on that. I am just thinking: if national assembly elections hold before presidential, how does that confer an advantage on the lawmakers? If President Buhari “jilts” them and they don’t get re-elected, how would they stop Buhari’s re-election thereafter? If they are strong enough, they will be re-elected, with or without Buhari. If not, the same “thing” Buhari used to stop them will ensure his own re-election. Understood?

BELLO’S BILE

Alhaji Yahaya Bello, the not-too-young-to-misrule governor of Kogi state, recently ran his mouth against Catholic bishops in the most disrespectful manner imaginable. We know he owes his curious ascendancy to governorship to President Buhari but he has become a pest with the way he licks the president’s boots. He felt so good linking the bishops to looting and tithing for expressing their legitimate concerns about the state of the nation. What Bello does not know about Kogi politics is that the winner will not be picked from Abuja. He needs to impress the voters if he hopes to get a second term. Sycophancy will not save his neck. Nauseating.

GANDUJE AGAIN

Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano state has done it again — shoot first, think later. He has promised President Buhari five million votes in the state in the 2019 presidential election. No candidate, no matter how popular, has received five million votes from a single state in the history of Nigeria. So when a PhD holder for UI begins to talk this way, you are tempted to give up on Nigeria. People like him mislead Buhari into believing an election has been rigged against him when he does not get the figure they promised in their overzealousness. Flatterers look like friends. May we be blessed with leaders who think before they talk. Someday.

WHICH SHEKAU?

The Nigerian army has placed a bounty of N3 million on the head of Abubakar Shekau, the leader of Boko Haram. “He is running for his dear life. He is desperately trying to escape the Theatre, disguises as a woman and dresses in hijab,” the army had said in a previous press statement release. The same army has declared that Shekau has been killed at least three other times — without seeing his dead body. They even said he is a fictional character, that Shekau is a nomme de guerre. They need to sit down and take a position — either to admit Shekau is still alive or conclude that he is dead. But how can you place a bounty on a fictional character? Wonders.

“Power is like fire; it can keep you warm and it can burn you. It can cook you a meal or raze your house. It can purify gold or calcify a human being. Ensconced deep within its core are elements of good and evil. It all depends on the choices you make when you handle it.” – NEWTON C. JIBUNOH

Fellow Nigerians, I have some serious posers to raise today and I promise to answer them myself. One, how come every Nigerian is a saint, who pontificates about leadership, until he gets power and misbehaves worse than those he used to criticise? Two, why is corruption so endemic in Nigeria? Three, are we one of the most corrupt people on earth, and if so, why? Four, why is it impossible or difficult to fight and defeat or reduce corruption in Nigeria? Five and finally, what is the way forward?

Every Nigerian I know attacks and abuses every one of our leaders as corrupt, greedy, reckless and irresponsible. But is it not strange that our leaders did not just drop from the skies? They were born as normal human beings, went to similar schools like the rest of us, were raised by their parents, went into politics purportedly to serve and help their people, many of them as paupers who had no jobs and could barely feed themselves and their families. But as soon as they get elected or selected, levels change immediately. Instead of being servants of the people, what we see is a complete transformation and transfiguration. They become, and behave like, overlords and, in some cases, even warlords! The people serve them and not vice versa. The same man who, once upon a time, criticised leaders and even heaped curses on them is now a parasite feeding fat on his people. And acting in a worse manner, with no qualms or shame whatsoever.

Why is corruption so endemic in Nigeria? We all miss the answer by jumping to the conclusion that it is because we are selfish and greedy. Every human being has some measure or dosage of selfishness and greed in his blood, the quantity is what differs. I’m yet to see any of the critics who got to power and did not partake in the sharing of public resources or rejected his own share of the incredible remunerations and perks that our leaders attract and enjoy. It is usually a revalidation of the thesis of the Brazilian author, Paulo Freire in his seminal book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, that the oppressed man loves and respects only one man, his oppressor, and he has only one dream in life, which is to join the class of oppressors, in order to fulfil his own fantasies.

The reason corruption has become endemic is simple and straight-forward. It begins from severe need and chronic want. Most of us were born poor, abysmally poor, struggled to go to school, graduated into unemployment, and joined the rat race. Even when we eventually get the jobs, it is not usually what we craved and desired. Although, I must immediately stress that, this was not the case many years ago particularly up to about 1984. At that time, it was a shame to be labelled as corrupt, a stigma that nobody wanted to attract to himself. People even took their lives if they were found wanting in this regard. It was more honourable to starve than to be a thief or worse still to be caught stealing from the public purse.

However, things changed from the mid-1980’s. A new mindset began to prevail. It suddenly did not matter too much if you were caught dipping your hands in the Treasury. Government and other public officials began to openly flaunt their ill-gotten wealth, the perennial season of anomy (apologies to Professor Wole Soyinka) from which we have never recovered had begun. What happened? It is not that people became poorer at the outset of this era, although eventually this also happened, but in reality it was our leadership at the time that brazenly took corruption to another level and the mass of the people who were already impoverished and looking for a way out suddenly followed suit.

From then on, the available jobs became jobs that can hardly keep our bodies and souls together. Month in, month out, most of us are already in deficit before the middle of the month. In Nigeria of today, many are easily and readily turned into beggars who have to seek extras from anywhere and wherever to make ends meet. Thus, when opportunities surface in form of political appointments, it is difficult to resist the temptations of stealing some, if not all of the divine favour, as many see such bazaar. Essentially, every adult operates his own government in the jungle that our city life has become. The amount of pressure this puts on an average individual is best left to the imagination.

Mass unemployment has made lives even tougher. Those who went to school with the hope of finding jobs to do afterwards would soon wake up to reality. There is nothing for them. Those with brilliant ideas cannot activate and actualise their dreams. There is no credit system to assist in fertilising their brains. Most civilised societies thrive on credits and overdraft. Ours is totally dependent on cash and carry system that takes no prisoners. I doubt if 80 percent of those who live abroad would ever be able to buy their homes without mortgages or buy cars without loans. Meanwhile, their Nigerian counterparts see how their old schoolmates and friends who went into politics suddenly acquired amazing wealth without much ado or stress. These are some of the reasons corruption is very attractive and extremely endemic in our clime. It has also become a crime not to have money in Nigeria.

Are we the most corrupt people on earth? The answer is a big NO. Nigerians are among the most hardworking people on earth. Most of us work 24/7 but without commensurate results or rewards. Some combine several jobs and juggle this and that to survive in the forest of a thousand demons. Those who let others give us the tag of the most corrupt people on earth are, in reality few and far between. They are people who stole in arrears and in advance. They stole more than they or their families, and even generations unborn, would ever ordinarily need. Speak to any politician about what it takes to attain power, you would be shocked to hear how much he spent and what he sold, including family properties to gamble on politics. It does not end there. Even if he is lucky to win his election, he is permanently under pressure to service his constituency. It is impossible today for the ruling government to probe and prosecute most of its members without hitting a brick-wall or running into big trouble. Apart from the fact that there is the conundrum that these crooks funded the elections that brought the Government into power, there is the irony that it was done on the basis that there would be a quid pro quo, some payback! Indeed, the fight against corruption was therefore compromised from the outset. Once those in opposition realised that this sword of Damocles was actually hanging over the government’s head, it became a way out for those who feared for their proprietary interests. Now, all known criminals, including all those under EFCC trial, have hastily absconded from their former political Parties to join APC, in order for their sins to be glossed over or even buried permanently. I can imagine the frustrations experienced by the EFCC and ICPC bosses who are usually handicapped and constrained from bringing many cases to their logical climax because of the mixed signals being sent by government. All told, corruption is such a complex web, at least in Nigeria.

It is noteworthy, that the corrupt always started as petty thieves in need of succour. Perhaps, if their needs had been nipped in the bud, those needs would not have graduated into pure unadulterated, unrelenting and all-pervading greed. There are several simple and legitimate ways of doing this without giving in to the cankerworm of corruption or creating a beggarly nation.

I love the American system of offering tips for services. It helps to cushion the shortfalls in inadequate incomes. It also ensures excellent service delivery because the nicer you are, the higher your tips. No American leader would ever condemn Americans as a nation of killers just because more homicidal lunatics have killed more human beings than in any other countries in the world. Let Nigeria kill corruption from the bottom and see if it would not reduce at the top. It is natural for people to seek and fight desperately for what they lack but want passionately. Every Nigerian loves the good life which he can hardly afford. It is obvious that waiting for peanuts at the end of every month would never guarantee that good life. Even those who have jobs don’t get paid regularly. He would have to slug it out anyway necessary or possible. As one erudite Judge says, a government cannot demand loyalty, trust and integrity from its work force if that government itself displays no loyalty, trust or integrity towards them by paying them, even the meagre salaries owed to them, when such salaries are due. Integrity, loyalty and trust are, in essence, an issue of mutuality and reciprocity for both the government or employer and its workers. Failing this, corruption becomes one of the easier options, willy-nilly.

Similarly, there is the proven and tested method of giving bonuses and performance related pay. It is frustrating when one knows how much you have contributed to the growth of your organisation, be it the public or private sector, but only the bosses get to receive the benefits of your hard work. The likelihood that you will want to take your own bonus, regardless, is very real and does happen

Unfortunately, we all focus our total attention on 36 Governors, 60 Ministers, less than 50,000 political appointees, while studiously ignoring the millions in the private sectors who wreak havoc slowly but surely and steadily. We simply accept as normal the policeman who collects bribes. A journalist who blackmails, torments and terrorises people would still write articles on behalf of the masses who regard him as their friend and defender. A journalist who is notorious for collecting “brown envelopes” would still misbehave like a pot calling kettle black.”

Is it impossible to kill or reduce corruption in Nigeria? It is not an impossibility. As rampant and pervasive as it is, Nigerians are still largely and mostly honest people. We need to work on those things enumerated above that have made corruption very attractive. There must be a multi-prong approach to killing it. We do not have to reinvent the wheel as different countries are known to have worked assiduously and truly succeeded in curbing the menace. We need to borrow some useful ideas from them. We should never feel too cocky to learn from others.

The way forward is to combine forces and efforts. The executive must be willing and ready. The economy must improve drastically. We can preach from now till kingdom come, but an empty stomach would always rumble and grumble. Mass poverty is the greatest tester and tempter of faith. The Executive and the Legislature must work harder together to create an enabling environment and justice for all. In this regard, the notion that these politicians are legitimately stealing the country blind, by voting humongous salaries for themselves, must be erased and eradicated. The Judiciary must be encouraged, at all times, to do justice without fear or favour. We have witnessed too much intimidation of the Judiciary in recent time and this does not augur well for the fight against corruption. The trial and conviction of alleged offenders on the pages of newspapers and on social media is also very wrong and terrible. No Nigerian should be pronounced guilty summarily without being tried and found guilty in a proper court of Justice.

Above all else, what is greatly needed is for the creation of strong institutions rather than strong personalities. The idea that corruption can only be fought buy one corruption Czar or one person as President must stop. Indeed, that in itself could breed corruption for nothing corrupts more than power. As the saying goes, absolute power corrupts absolutely. With strong institutions, all the safeguards and checks already put in place by our Constitution and other enabling laws can thrive. Things will work, seamlessly, regardless of whoever it is we have at the helm of affairs.

We can rid our country of this cancer. It is benign and not malignant! The way forward is by dedication to those principles of honesty, integrity and, in particular, shame, which served our forefathers well in the past.

As a student of and believer in federalism, I fully support the principle that federal polities should have police forces controlled by the federating units, and in the past I have strongly campaigned for State Police. Today, I am very frightened of the idea because the evidence that it would be abused is massive.

In the recent security summit organised by the Senate, the vice president proposed that the time has come for the establishment of State Police. The reasoning is that members of the police being local and therefore knowledgeable about the community would be more effective in fighting crime, militancy and insurgency. The key idea, therefore, is that they would know or be able to easily find out the bad boys and girls and deal with them. In my view, that is where the trouble begins; who will define the bad boys and girls.

State police would be established by State Houses of Assembly and that means the enabling laws defining their mandates, structure and control would be determined by State governors because as we all know, State Houses of Assembly are essentially puppets of their governors and they do as they are instructed. For State governors, the bad boys are clear and fall into two categories. The first category comprises politicians who want to contest state power with the governors or their chosen successors, for those in their second term. The second category consists of all persons who dare to criticise the governors or question their misdeeds. Currently, many critics, including journalists and civil society activists, are in arbitrary detention for daring to speak the truth about governors. The governors cajole law enforcement offices to “deal” with their perceived enemies, without having a police force totally under their control. I am convinced that most (not all) governors would jail all their “enemies” if they have police forces they can control totally.

Today, governors are salivating at the prospects of having their own police forces for two further reasons. Before addressing them, its important to note that immediately after the vice president’s comments, the chairman of the Governors Forum, Governor Yari of Zamfara State, who was not at the Summit, rushed in for the second day of the event to announce that governors support the vice president’s proposal and that the National Assembly should carry out the constitutional amendments that would make it possible. The following week, APC governors followed the president to his hometown, Daura, and begged him to support their quest for State Police. In addition, they have started talking to their senators and members of the House of Representatives to support the move.

…I agree with the analysis of Abubakar Tsav, retired police commissioner that the “establishment of state police at this time will signal the beginning of disintegration of the country”, as governors use the institution “against their perceived political opponents.” State and Federal police commands are also likely to work at cross-purposes…

My additional reasons of concern are that we have very serious ethnic and religious divides in the country at this time and many governors believe that if they have their own police, they can deal with the other. In addition, the pastoralists and farmers conflicts have been intensifying in many States and some governors have clear proclivities of seeking to expel pastoralists from their States, a move that would certainly deepen the crisis facing the Nigerian State today and lead to generalised insurgency.

It is for this reason that I agree with the analysis of Abubakar Tsav, retired police commissioner that the “establishment of state police at this time will signal the beginning of disintegration of the country”, as governors use the institution “against their perceived political opponents.” State and Federal police commands are also likely to work at cross-purposes when the two levels are in political disagreement, posing a real threat to national cohesion and security. I agree with Commissioner Tsav that: “Our politicians are not civilised enough and tolerant of opposing views and cannot preside over a competent and impartial police force.”

I have heard people argue that currently, the Nigerian Police Force are direct puppets of the president and they do exactly what they are told to do in dealing with the president’s enemies, so State Police could be a counter weight to presidential control of the Nigeria Police Force. I think it’s uncharitable to argue that the Nigeria Police are completely partisan in their actions. Federal institutions are, in general, much more capable of handling issues in an even-handed manner, relative to State-level institutions. The more effective separation of powers between the executive, legislature and judiciary at the federal level, in relation to the State level means that there are more effective control measures. The National Assembly, for example, can call the inspector general of Police to order in a way that no State House of Assembly can do with any institution obeying the State governor.

The structure of the police is also defective, as a significant slice of the police budget is consumed at the headquarters and very limited resources go to State Commands where police operations actually take place. State Police Commands then become dependent on State governors, who give them some money and in return get the Command to do their bidding.

The problem we have is that the police are not as effective as they should be and the way forward is to improve their efficacy. The chairman of the Police Service Commission, Mr. Mike Okiro, recently declared that 150,000 policemen and women, over half the total number, are attached to VIPs and unauthorised persons in the country. It would be recalled that in 2015, President Buhari had directed that police personnel attached to unauthorised persons and VIPs in the country be withdrawn and deployed to confront the security challenges in the nation. The instruction has not been complied with. The police are ineffective because over half of them are not available to do security based work and spend their time in the service of a few privileged Nigerians.

The structure of the police is also defective, as a significant slice of the police budget is consumed at the headquarters and very limited resources go to State Commands where police operations actually take place. State Police Commands then become dependent on State governors, who give them some money and in return get the Command to do their bidding. This problem must be addressed if the Police are to improve on their service delivery. Funding for the police should be improved but only on the basis of serious reforms carried out.

As a student of and believer in federalism, I fully support the principle that federal polities should have police forces controlled by the federating units, and in the past I have strongly campaigned for State Police. Today, I am very frightened of the idea because the evidence that it would be abused is massive. I am therefore going on record to say that I support State Police in the future but certainly not today.

Unsurprisingly, it is not unlikely that those aiming to unseat Mr. Buhari would have more than a keen interest in seeing that the one thing he is supposedly good at is the one thing he fails at. After all, it worked before. So, I will throw the question: do you think this recent violence would ebb if Mr. Buhari decides not to run for a second term?

Four years after those very dark days that we cannot forget soon, our country, Nigeria, is yet again drifting towards the abyss. Then, fellow citizens woke up almost each day to news of one bombing or the other. I was still residing in London when the now well-known “Chibok Girls” were kidnapped. The outrage over there was not immediate. I would probably not be easily forgotten at my former workplace because at some point I simply could not hide my angst at the initial indifference. Oh you bet; someone quickly issued a statement and so on. The rest is history. Considering how the government of the day at the time bungled the handling of the sad event and how years after, some of the Chibok girls remain in captivity, it is unfathomable how the current supposedly more competent government cannot even account for how many girls were kidnapped in another girls-only school in another state in North-Eastern Nigeria. To add insult to injury, the initial news that some of the now so-called “Dapchi Girls” had been rescued turned out to be false. The administration has asked for time. Well, so did the previous one.

Be Quick To Act, Mr. President

Lest we forget, there remains the vexing issue of the marauding Fulani herdsmen who continue to maim and kill with impunity. True, prominent Fulani leaders, like Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II of Kano, have condemned the attacks and called for the prosecution of the culprits. And indeed, the president, Muhammadu Buhari, has similarly tasked the security agencies to deal squarely with the matter; albeit not as early and quickly as he should have. Besides, even the security measures he has directed have not been without some controversy: Benue youth recently took exception to the characterisation of the so-called “Operation Rat Race” as a “training exercise” by the chief of army staff, Tukur Buratai. Is it that the incidents in Benue are not serious enough to warrant a proper military operation? Is it a strategy? To the second question, one might wonder why a similar strategy was not deployed to comparable troubles in the South-Eastern and Niger Delta regions of the country. We have to assume Mr. Buratai did not mean to cause offense.

But inevitably, as is usually the case with such miscommunication, all sorts of conspiracy theories have begun to emerge. Why would the president not visit Benue State? Considering Mr. Buhari has visited Nassarawa, Adamawa, and Katsina States since the most recent major killings in that self-acclaimed food basket of the nation, this is more than a tad troubling. (It is probably irrelevant now whether he visits Benue or not: the Yobe incident is now uppermost on everyone’s mind and would likely take all the attention). Of course, a Buharist might be quick to point out that his presence is not as necessary as the security measures he has already taken. Another potential rationalisation might be that the president should not and cannot visit every place where there happens to be a violent incident. Well, on the second point, one might argue that he could not now do so because there are now too many of them: wanton killings have been occuring elsewhere, in the North-Western State of Zamfara, for instance.

…while it is tempting to suggest that perhaps elements from rival political parties might be fuelling the current violence, it would be lazy thinking to do so. In trying to analyse the political dynamics around a situation, a clearer perspective is easily attained if you simply dimension the issues and events by who benefits and who loses.

Violence As Politics

It is highly unlikely that these violent incidents are random. The recent surge is definitely related to the already heightened political activities ahead of the 2019 elections. When similar violent incidents happened during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan, it was easy to allege that the North was perhaps trying to force the hand of the Southerner in power at the time. That simplistic characterisation cannot be made this time around. And while it is tempting to suggest that perhaps elements from rival political parties might be fuelling the current violence, it would be lazy thinking to do so. In trying to analyse the political dynamics around a situation, a clearer perspective is easily attained if you simply dimension the issues and events by who benefits and who loses. The beneficiary of the insecurity in the land during the Jonathan administration was Mr. Buhari, whose military credentials was a source of comfort for those who voted him to fix the problem.

Unsurprisingly, it is not unlikely that those aiming to unseat Mr. Buhari would have more than a keen interest in seeing that the one thing he is supposedly good at is the one thing he fails at. After all, it worked before. So, I will throw the question: do you think this recent violence would ebb if Mr. Buhari decides not to run for a second term? I will leave the answer to you. I guess the other curious reckoning you might have is who in the opposition is perhaps engineering or fuelling these negative incidents; if at all. We, Yorubas, have a saying for such conundrums: the insect eating away at spinach resides in it.

At a recently organized Prof. Pat Utomi’s Centre for Values in Leadership (CVL) annual seminar and international symposium on “Leadership and Performance in Africa’s Economic Competitiveness,” held on the 6th of February in Lagos, I had the great fortune not only of being one of the participants that sat under the distinguished keynotes of Dr Kandeh Yumkella, a presidential candidate in Sierra Leone and a former UN Undersecretary general, and the newly minted Dr Olusegun Obasanjo. But I got the most distinct honor of being selected as one of the panelists to interrogate Yumkella’s and Obasanjo’s keynote addresses.

The consensus the discourse threw up was that Nigeria has arrived at its lowest level of national performance imaginable. Prof. Utomi then put me in the spotlight by asking for my expert opinion on what could be done to salvage the public service which requires urgent institutional rejigging in order for it to overcome the policy execution trap which has contributed immensely to the undermining Nigeria’s capacity to harness her economic growth possibilities and developmental potentials.

I offer this piece as a complement to the brief expert ideas on the issue which time did not permit me to fully outline at the CVL event.

It will be a serious technicist illusion for anyone to think that the policy implementation crisis can only be tackled with a reformed public service alone. This technicist assumption reduces the execution of reform to the mere issues of tactics and operational strategies that fail essentially to take into consideration the dynamic nature and trajectory of reform management.

While all civil service reforms are essentially technicist or instrumentalist in the sense that they require addressing several and severe technical administrative issues and problems, reform success goes beyond merely ensuring an aggregation of technical details and dynamics. There is also a fundamental necessity to situate the reform of the civil service within the space of other complementary reform projects.

Reform, within the contemporary resurgence of democratic politics and the growing expectations of the citizens, has become more complicated and comprehensive beyond the purview of public service reform. Governance reform, all across the globe, now represents a broader understanding of reform that brings the government into a collaborative partnership with a broad coalition of non-state actors, especially the private sectors and civil society organizations which are stakeholders in the good governance dynamics that is meant to bring the dividends of democracy closer to the citizens.

The fundamental end of the governance reform is to achieve a more efficient and effective democratic service delivery that will empower the people and make their lives more meaningful. Such a reform framework not only initiates some fundamental transformation of the three functions of government (namely, policy management, regulation and service delivery), it essentially also demands some immediate strategic responsibility.

Thus, if the Nigerian government must achieve a sustainable national transformation that caters for democratic governance, then the government has the most immediate responsibility to commit totally to the reform project in the same measure that it commits to visioning and development planning.

This observation derives from the crucial fact that the success of any reform project depends on the political buy-in and commitment of the political leadership. Once this is achieved, the success of the reform is almost assured. At the seminar, I cited the example of the UK 1980 reform project under PM Margaret Thatcher and her successor, John Major. Indeed, Nigeria is at that stage that UK was with her civil service (in terms of its policy architecture, not functionality) in the shape that it was migrated to us and, in significant terms, in the shape Nigeria’s public service still is: described officially in the UK as “… inefficient, badly managed and unresponsive” in one breath. And on the other, lacking innovation, too large to be efficient with too many jobs duplication and many MDAs overlapping what others is doing.

Besides, given the way the Nigerian civil service is currently wired (heavily bureaucratic and undiluted with the technocratic cum entrepreneurial managerial culture that define 21st century public administration praxis), it is incapable of providing quality service both in the advice it gives and in the service it renders to the public. It was this same reality that caused the UK, in the 1980s, to commence the process which first saw the introduction of the Efficiency Unit (and later Delivery Unit), first under the Chairman/CEO of Marks & Spenser, Lord Derek Rayner (supported by the leading public administration experts), to provide leadership to a dynamic that turned out to be an institutional reengineering of the entire public sector and a paradigm shift.

There are now dozens of change management models as seminal as the UK’s, if not more, to pick ideas from. But the point to make with this reference is one of how critical political commitment and leadership sophistication is to institution rebuilding and transformation.

And this political commitment requires that the Nigerian federal government set up a presidential reform commission that will be charged with the oversight function of the public sector overall institution rebuilding and trajectory from design to implementation for at least five years.

This reform commission must necessarily be headed by a public sector management specialist with a 21st century core management credentials as the executive chairman. The Commission, which will draw technical support from consortium of firms and with a strengthened Bureau of Public Service Reform (BPSR) as its secretariat, should be saddled with a very clear mandate to articulate, based on multitudes of readily available national strategies, study reports, well-intentioned reform initiatives that are being badly managed, etc. from which it will not only design but oversee the implementation of a comprehensive institutional reform and changes at two levels.

The first aspect of the reform program the management experts in the reform commission must confront is Nigeria’s productivity profile and its very low scorecards as a transformation point for governance performance in Nigeria. Development is a function of an optimal productivity framework. In fact, productivity is intricately attached to good governance.

This is because if governance has to do with the capacity of the government to make good policy decisions, then such decisions affect the productivity level of the state, which in turn facilitates infrastructural development and eventually empowers service delivery to the citizens. Since the management experts understand this intrinsic relationship between productivity, development and good governance, the challenge remains going beyond rhetoric to substantive institutional reform of the productivity framework of the Nigerian state.

One good way to proceed is through historical insight into how other high-performing nations have dealt with their productivity challenge. And the best example for me remains post-World War II Japan.

Japan pulled off an economic miracle in a period of one decade after it was pummeled to the ground by the American bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Any other state faced with this kind of national challenge would have buckled under. Add the fact that Japan is a conglomeration of islands without any substantive mineral resources that could translate into comparative economic advantage.

Yet, from a vanquished state, Japan rose to become the second largest capitalist economy in the world. Japan’s economic recovery process had external and internal factors. The external factor had to do with the intervention of the United States in the economic equation. However, the most outstanding influence is the capacity and the resilience of the Japanese government to envision what is needed and then to put a unique and bold strategy of capacitation in place.

The strategy is to first understand that the government by itself cannot facilitate economic recovery.
Japan’s strategy was three-pronged: strict regulation bordering on protectionism, trade expansion and the stimulation of private sector growth. Two further internal strategic dynamics are cogent to understanding the productivity revolution of post-war Japan. First, the Japanese government deployed a Keiretsu principle that unites the country’s manufacturers, suppliers, bankers, industries and so on to form a unique dynamic of economic cooperation.

This was further capacitated by the introduction of experts with deep understanding of the relationship between economic growth, development, productivity and performance. Three of such experts are important in Japan’s case—Edward Deming, Joseph Duran and Armand Feingenbaum. These quality management gurus encoded the idea of quality management into a dynamic framework for improving productivity through workforce reform.

Through Deming especially, Japan was able to achieve the following: (a) Better design of products to improve service; (b) Higher level of uniform product quality; (c) Improvement of product testing in the workplace and in research centers; and (d) Greater sales through global markets.
The second strategy of the Japanese post-war success story also gives us the second aspect of the proposed reform program. Japan added to the keiretsu principle a deep understanding of the symbiotic relationship between enforcing workplace quality control on the public service while expecting the public service in turn to respond by becoming capacity ready to deliver efficiently to the populace.

Despite the initial reform anxiety we highlighted about the technicist illusion in making public service reform the sole reform prerequisite, there is no escaping the core significance of a deep-seated and appropriately sequenced public service change programme as the best means of backstopping the productivity revolution in Nigeria. Without much rhetorical ado, such an institutional reform must be foregrounded on six core pillars.

The first and most strategic is to implement new policy architecture to support a competency-based human resource management system that is administered by HR professionals and underpinned by meritocracy. The first challenge here is the demand in squaring this new HRM policy with the application of the Federal Character policy.

But I do not see any conflict here as the federal character policy does not exclude the application of merit in placing ethnic constituents in administrative positions. The essence of the competency-based HRM is to facilitate the evolution of a performance management system that demands that performance is measured in terms of outputs rather than inputs or resource allocated alone. The second pillar of the reform is to now implement this in the Federal Public Service by insisting that all top functionaries of government SGF, HCSF, Ministers, Permanent Secretaries and CEOs of agencies sign performance agreements on behalf of themselves and their organisation.

The first eighteen months can serve as test run to clear out all the glitches before a performance contract is then issued and sanctions are applied. Retention on job will then be based on satisfactory performance assessment based on set targets and performance scorecard administered by independent but competent assessors.

The first eighteen months would also be critical in the completion of the third pillar of reform, which is the reassessment of the role of the state vis-à-vis the economy, other non-state actors, and the model of doing government business, etc.

This, for instance, will become crucial in the reconfiguration of the MDAs as the essential engine room for effective service delivery. Within this reform program, the MDAs will have to be reengineered and sufficiently capacitated to refocus on their core functions while determining amongst alternative service delivery business models the best approaches to delivering the non-core functions. The fourth element of reform involves conducting efficiency scrutiny of MDAs.

This will demand the use of productivity improvement tools to eliminate wastes and to institute sustainable cost structure including budgeting and medium-term expenditure framework for the MDAs. The fifth reform element requires undertaking a workforce study and job evaluation that is crucial in outlining the skill gaps in the MDAs. This will enable the documentation of the skills and competences available to government.

The real reform will demand that the government implement efficient measures for skills upgrading and reskilling of the civil service. At the sixth level, the job evaluation dynamics only becomes a mere means towards the installation of a new technical-rational model of pay and remuneration based on labour market relativities and relevant countries comparators that take advantage of the most useful global benchmarks.

The last reform framework is the reordering of labour laws and the chaotic partnership of the tripartite (employer, government and labour), to put in place a framework of developmental industrial relations that facilitate the productivity revolution. Without such a reform of the union-management dynamics, productivity essentially breaks down within the existing adversarial trade unionism that undermines performance.

This must begin with a concession to labour that it is not only the payroll and personnel cost that is burdening the cost of governance. The entire expenditure streams of governments at all levels need unbundling through deep-seated efficiency scrutiny.
Reform is a complicated institutional business especially within the administrative and political context of Nigeria. But, it is something that can be done.

The problem is not the absence of the ideas or the knowledge of the technical wherewithal. On the contrary, what we lack is the will to facilitate the reform. It is the will that makes a way, even in public management reform.

Dr. Olaopa is Executive Vice Chairman, Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy (ISGPP).

Nigeria presently has about 400,000 police officers and men to take care of the security needs of 180 million people. Yet   150,000 of them are attached to VIPs and unauthorised persons in the country, according to the Police Service Commission, PSC. The commission’s chairman, retired Police Inspector General Mike Okiro recently said, “We cannot have more than half of the police population I private hands.” He said that the commission in conjunction with the Nigeria Police Force had commenced withdrawal of police officers attached to unauthorised persons but that the exercise stalled due to lack of funds.

Okiro also lamented at the practice where persons who served as ministers ten or fifteen years ago still go about with police escorts. While decrying the inadequacy of the ratio of police men to the population, Okiro requested for the recruitment of more policemen. He said the issue of paucity of funds had been one of the problems hampering the recruitment of more policemen. The chairman said that the Police Trust Fund bill before the National Assembly, if passed into law, would go a long way to address the issue of funding for the police.

Since the presidential order was given two years ago, police officers and men attached to VIPs and former officials should be recalled as soon as possible. The only exceptions should be sensitive places and persons such as banks, embassies and judges. This is imperative with the security challenges facing the country. Kidnapping, farmers/herders clash, cultism and rural banditry among others need the attention of police officers, instead of them to protect the privileged few.  And they are public officers, paid by the government, yet they are cornered to private use by those that don’t merit it. The general public is pathetically left to device a means of policing themselves through cobbling of youth groups as vigilante to protect them.

This practice also has a ruinous impact on the profession since those policemen don’t want to be re-posted because of the money they get from the people they are attached to, or indirectly through them. Some go to the extent of declining promotion and conniving with principals to continue to stay with VIPs. This is detrimental and demeaning to the work of police officers to prefer to work as ‘errand boys’ and even virtually as domestic servants by escorting ‘madam’ to the market. Those cops attached to politicians can be used to harass political opponents or to unduly bully motorists on the road.

Many policemen have been seen in the ‘convoy’ of people of questionable character, giving citizens the impression that police ‘protection’ is for the highest bidder only. This terrible arrangement that ignores police protection for the whole and instead gives police protection to a few should come to an end as soon as possible. Policing is too important to be neglected by so-called lack of funds. 

The human and capital loss due to inadequate policemen to police places is more than the funds that would be used to recruit more. There is no alternative to making people live in peace, feeling secured and protected by the state. Any other thing such as self-help would lead to anarchy.

Daily Trust

If the All Progressives Congress (APC) had not won the 2015 Presidential elections, Nigerians would have believed that by now the nation would be a paradise on earth. While campaigning in opposition APC leaders condemned practically every aspect of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) administration, but now that they have been in office for over two years it’s obvious that they have no magical solution to the nation’s problems. 

They claimed that there was nothing like fuel subsidy and that it was merely an outlet for stealing public funds, but as the Minister for Finance Kemi Adeosun recently confessed in a shameless display of deception, they have been paying it secretly since they entered office. They promised never to devalue the Naira but is has fallen to an all-time low. They promised to end fuel scarcity and that fuel price would drop to N50 per litre, but now the nation is experiencing its longest ever scarcity and fuel price currently stands at approximately N180 minimum. They promised that Presidential Jets would be turned over to a new national carrier, but they are still flying around at enormous unnecessary expense to the nation.

Why do we need to send our children abroad if we cannot develop one university system to compete with the foreign one?”  They have not forgotten that Tony Momoh said “stone us (APC) if we do not perform. Unfortunately for the APC propaganda may help a political party to win elections, but it can’t help them to govern, and that is exactly what has happened in the last 32 months.  There have been so many disparities between their words and actions that it is increasingly difficult to believe anything emanating from their leadership.

Despite all these contradictions the Minister for Information and Culture Lai Mohammed recently said that the country is in good hands and there is no cause for alarm contrary to all the negative narratives being posted on the social media and internet. Naturally he said this overseas in Spain while addressing those who aren’t on ground to experience the pervasive fear of being killed by either the supposedly “defeated” Boko Haram, rampaging uncontrollable Herdsmen, marauding highway robbers, or even the police themselves whose indiscipline and lust for blood is legendary as they habitually kill innocent Nigerians in the process of extortion.

The problem is that it is increasingly difficult to believe anything that top APC top officials say because they have lost credibility. For over two years they have blamed the mess on massive corruption by the PDP, but what have they done about corruption? Virtually nothing. The recall of pensions boss, re-instatement of NHIS boss, and dragging of feet over the Secretary to Government all indicate a selective approach to the much touted the anti-corruption war.

Legal luminary Mike Ozekome (SAN) has severally challenged the government to prosecute not only political opponents but also just one of its members for corruption, but this hasn’t happened to date and not a single “big fish” has been jailed for corrupt acts. Indeed, commentators have pointed out that several former Governors have benefitted from joining the APC.  Joshua Dariye joined APC and his corruption trail has virtually stopped. Uzor Kalu joined APC and his prosecution has been hampered by delays. Sullivan Chime of Enugu and Isa Yuguda also joined APC and their corruption trials have also suddenly benefited from hearing problems. This is the state of the nation that Lai Mohammed says is in good hands. That statement contradicts everything that is happening right now, and the time is long overdue for the president to reshuffle his ineffective Federal Executive Council (FEC) who are doing him a great disservice. The present circumstances in the nation are deplorable to say the least and government increasingly appears to lack compassion.

In the US when 15 students were killed recently President Trump addressed the nation. In Zamfara where 41 people were killed there was no presidential address, instead APC Governors including Zamfara State Governor Yari arrived at Daura.  In Nigeria murder and destruction of property have become everyday occurrences, quite tragically the Governor of Benue State Samuel Ortom has publicly accused the Inspector General of Police (IGP) of taking sides in the handling of the crisis between herdsmen and farmers in his state. The IGP had previously implied that he had no fondness for, and indeed an aversion towards the anti-open grazing law.

The mishandled crisis has left the nation with an additional 160,000 refugees in nine camps. Coupled with the increasing number of internally displaced persons, is the well documented fraud in relief material distribution. The political future also does not look rosy. Old cargoes are coming together to form coalitions on how to take their turn to rule the nation. It’s quite clear that forming yet another political party isn’t the solution to Nigeria’s problems more especially when it will be populated by discredited former PDP and APC politicians. 

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has openly admitted that they have no legal control over under-aged voting that took place in Kano during the local government elections. This despite the fact that they provide the national voters register which is supposed to be used for local government elections to the State Independent Electoral Commission (SIEC).  Instead of mouthing platitudes APC leaders should talk less and start listening well enough to understand that Nigerians have every reason to are apprehensive and little reason to be hopeful.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino has described Nigeria as a country with unquantifiable passion and love for football, and where football is more than a religion.

“I was told that in Nigeria football is passion, but it is a lie because it is more than that. In Nigeria I was told that football is love, “In Nigeria, I was told that football is a religion, but it is a lie. It is more than that. In Nigeria, football is life,” he said in Lagos on Monday.

Infantino spoke at the maiden edition of the AITEO-NFF Awards, which was organised by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) and bankrolled by oil giants AITEO Group.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the event held at the Eko Hotels and Suites saw Chelsea FC winger Victor Moses winning the “Player of the Year” award.

Speaking also at the event, the Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, pledged his administration’s continued support to football and sports in general.

“We will continue to give our unrelenting support to football and sports in general, I want to assure the President of FIFA that whenever he is coming back, Lagos will be considered to host a FIFA tournament,’’ he said.

In his address, the Deputy Managing Director of AITEO Group, Francis Peters, said the oil conglomerate was happy to be part of football history in Nigeria in good times.

NFF president Amaju Pinnick, on his part, said the awards night was to celebrate Nigerian legends for their contributions to the development of football in the country.

He also said football administration was a journey and not a destination, adding “therefore, there must be a conscious effort to minimise errors for fear of losing the opportunity.

“In Nigeria, football is a way of life and everybody is a coach. So, we need to be very careful. Football teaches us ethics and how to live a normal life,” Pinnick said.

NAN reports that Moses got the award and recognition for his stellar performances for the national team, the Super Eagles, en route their qualification for Russia 2018.

He was an integral part of the side during the historic qualification matches where he played in four of the six matches scoring Moses also helped his Chelsea side reclaim the English Premier League title in the 2016/2017 season where he featured in 40 games.

The 27-year old also got CAF’s recognition by being among the nominees for CAF’s Player of the Year award eventually won by Egypt’s Mohamed Salah.

To win the AITEO-NFF award, he beat competition from Leicester City’s Wilfred Ndidi and Lobi Stars’ Anthony Okpotu.

NAN reports that other winners at the awards include Rasheedat Ajibade who claimed the “Player of the Year (Women)’’ award and Ikouwon Udoh who emerged “Young Player of the Year (Women)’’.

Ann Chiejine won the “Coach of the Year (Women)’’ award, while MFM FC’s midfielder Sikiru Olatunbosun took the “Goal of the Year’’ award.

Remo Stars FC won the Fair Play award, while the “Coach of the Year (Men)’’ award went to Kennedy Boboye, coach of 2017/2018 NPFL champions Plateau United FC of Jos.

Channels Television won the “Developmental Award”.

The “All-Time Legendary Awards” went to Chiejine, Christian Chukwu, Uche Okechukwu, Austin Eguavoen, Felix Owolabi, Austin Okocha, Nwankwo Kanu, Segun Odegbami, Adokie Amaesimaka, Mercy Udoh and Thompson Usiyen.

The Platinum Award went to Infantino.

NAN

I do not want to get lost in a definitional quagmire between fame and celebrity. Some people may think that there is really no difference between them. Others think the line is very, very thin. Yet some others may think that it is a distinction without a difference. Whatever you think, keep it to yourself.

My business today is the species of homo sapiens called celebrity. I have chosen to adopt Daniel Boorstin’s definition of celebrity as “a person who is well known for his well-known-ness.” Those who belong to this club come mainly from the performing arts, sports, beauty pageantry and related fields. They are musicians, dancers, actors, actresses, beauty queens, bloggers, social media activists, OAPs (on-air personalities), masters of ceremony, comedians and many others whose vocation share the same territorial boundary with the above named. But as is customary in Nigeria, some hustlers who are probably denizens of yahoo-yahoo-ism are putting their feet in the door seeking to be recognized as celebrities. Celebrities all seem to have their social media platforms – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram – on which they strut their stuff. They post regularly the pictures of themselves in various degrees of undress, pushing out their buttocks or bosoms so that we all can see that they have them. Some of these things that they flaunt are enhanced by the gift of technology. Let us thank them all the same for the favour. Some of them regale us with the lurid tales of their wives’ or husbands’ infidelities and of their fights with or flights from their enemies in their lines of business.

Some of them have grown their craft and are recognized as ambassadors for products or services by well-heeled companies. That is recognition well merited. Some of them have established clothing or perfume lines and merchandising outlets thus expanding their survival possibilities. A few others with the milk of human kindness have done works of charity quietly or noisily. How they do it is unimportant because philanthropy has in its womb transformational possibilities for the lives of beneficiaries.

Many of these celebrities are very beautiful or handsome or have mastered the art of packaging themselves to achieve the illusion of true beauty. They now call themselves a brand. Everyone of them thinks he or she is a brand even if all she has to her name is one waka-pass role in a shitty movie produced in one shit-hole country in Africa (apologies to Donald Trump). They dress beautifully or obscenely or in some gaudy or avant garde manner precisely to draw attention to themselves. They boil or fry their hair, part it in the middle or left or right. Some pull the hair to one side such that it covers one eye, Rihanna style. You may call them one-eyed queens. Some use hair attachments from some factory or mortuary in India or Brazil, but what does it matter? Hair is hair.

Many of them talk about growing their brand. Don’t mistake that for working assiduously for solid achievements. To many of them it means the choreography of self-promotion, of self-advertisement, of flaunting their flesh or of talking raw. That is what they do on many platforms, mainstream and social media. Conversation has been transformed by technology and globalisation. This has come to be seen as the Age of Full Disclosure and with it has come the baggage of indecent exposure. Some of these girls talk about their virginity without wincing as if they are talking about ice cream or donuts or ofada rice. That thing never used to be talked about openly in those days by decent people. But today, even decent girls who still have it don’t mind opening it up for the public to mentally examine it. In other words, they have permitted the public to disvirgin them mentally. So, they are no longer as virginous as they think they are. A few months ago, a Korean girl was advertised as wanting to sell her virginity for $2 million. I haven’t followed the story to its orgasm, to the point of the painful breaking of the hymen in exchange for wads of hard-earned dollars, but, if the deal was sealed, she, too, has become an instant celebrity.

In Nigeria, the media have made an enormous contribution to the emergence of the new celebrity. Television stations now have entertainment, sports, celebrity platforms, where they showcase the clothes, shoes, hair and lipsticks of celebrities. Some of these celebs now have their own television programmes, where they become interviewers instead of interviewees. The hunted has now become the hunter. The Saturday and Sunday newspapers have upped their game. They are now giving big play to love and relationship issues, fashion trends and fads, both dignified and not-so-dignified on Saturday and Sunday. Some of them publish special magazines on Sundays dedicated to style, fashion, parties and other razzmatazz issues.

These newspapers also give acres of space to trivia about the celebrities: their perfume makers, clothes and shoes designers, what they eat at breakfast, lunch and dinner. The papers ask them who kissed them first, who disvirgined them and maybe who was the witness. They ask the actresses to name their first movies and whether they were on the casting couch before they were assigned roles. The girls are often asked who their celebrity crushes are and my census of their answers is that my brother, Richard Mofe Damijo, (RMD by popular acclaim) is their favourite. They may fantasize about him because he is a tall, handsome man whose clothes also sit well on him but RMD is a very successful professional who has worked very hard to reach the top. His success is based not on his looks but on his gravitas; it is the grind that gave birth to the glamour he exudes. Sweetheart, as you crush him please take that on board.

One of the girl-celebrities was interviewed in one of the weekend newspapers some weeks ago. The male reporter asked her, an actress or musician, what was the selling point in her body. She said it was her boobs. Apparently, she sensed that the reporter must have noticed that her chest was as flat as his own, so she quickly added that she doesn’t have big boobs but that her “nipples are a bomb, very long.” It must be a sense of editorial decency that prevented him from asking her to show him how long it was, whether it was as long as Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos. This fellow has broken the decency boundary. Where is her mother? Well, maybe this is the new normal.

Someone said the other day that if some of these celebrities were asked to fill a form with the space for SEX they would probably write: five times a week, because they do not know better than that. That may be bad belle but the way some of them carry on may leave you wondering whether the schools they went to did go through them at all.

Our celebrities have introduced into our relationship lexicon something called “Baby Mamas.” To the uninitiated these are women who have children out of wedlock for philandering celebrities. I wonder why the are not called Baby Papas. Having children outside wedlock is nothing new but the difference today is that the celebrities have brought a lot of drama into it. They are trying hard to make our society to accept it as the new normal. It is not. In an era of incurable diseases such as HIV aids unprotected sex by unmarried persons is a mark of irresponsible behaviour. And when it is exhibited openly by people that ought to be role models to youths it is an unacceptable form of iconoclasm. Celebrities by their status and stature do not live for themselves only. They live for society as well.

Some of them have given a shot in the arm to the Office of Citizen. Two worthy examples come to mind here. Charles Oputa, better known as Charly Boy or Area Fada, and Tuface Idibia are eminent musicians who have used their prestige for public good. They have been involved in organizing demonstrations against bad government policies or in activities to strengthen the electoral process for more efficiency. They have also spoken out in favour of building a better society. All citizens share with the government the responsibility for building a better society. That is the followership schedule of duty. But our celebrities, the genuine ones, have a higher responsibility because of their endowments to help redefine societal values using their well-known-ness credentials.