Much as one tries, it has been difficult to find something for which to commend Nigeria’s current Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami. He has been the chief law officer of the country since he was first appointed by President Muhammadu Buhari at the take-off of his administration in 2015, and re-appointed in 2019 as Buhari returned for a second term. Malami is one in the privileged club of distinguished lawyers who tag their names with that smug title of SAN (Senior Advocate of Nigeria), a legal title keenly coveted by the typical Nigerian lawyer. But he also comes across as one who is essentially unfaithful to the law.

As in a number of other appointments, Buhari’s choice of Malami for the pivotal office had, from the outset, been viewed by the more discerning segment of the populace as a dreadful miscue. Although the new administration rode into office on the wings of change, generally seen to mean a significant departure from the typical unproductive way of conducting affairs by past governments, its choice for the office of attorney general and minister of justice was the first telling sign that the much-touted change would be a sham.

It has nothing to do with Malami’s academic qualifications, but a lot to do with his fiercely guarded reactionary mindset, a feeble moral strength and a perverse sense of common good. Nothing about his past suggests he is the type of chief law officer Nigeria needs at this moment or at any time in the future. His office is supposed to be the fulcrum of the promised change, at the heart of which is supposed to be an all-out fight against corruption. But, almost daily, there is talk all over town that if the fight against corruption exists at all, it is a chaotic mess, floundering about in an embarrassingly unhealthy rivalry among the anti-corruption institutions. Or, at best, halfhearted, thanks to Malami.

So far, he has not disappointed those who say he is not suited for the office. At intervals, the public has been having good treats through reports of how he allegedly uses his office, ironically, to thwart the anti-corruption efforts of the government. It is hard to question this allegation when we recall that this chief law officer himself once told a senate panel of investigation that he had a meeting in Dubai with a fugitive wanted for financial crimes in Nigeria. The outcome of the meeting was the secret re-absorption of the said fugitive to higher office in the Nigerian public service.

Buhari promptly reversed the distasteful employment following public outrage. A scandal beyond description, it was that and many other acts of tendentious interventions in corruption cases that compelled a group of ten civil society organisations sometime in July 2019 to organise an anti-corruption roundtable discussion where they called on Buhari not to re-appoint Malami to the post of attorney general and minister of justice. They went on to describe him at that event as the “barrier-in-chief” in the anti-corruption war.

Indeed, the description would seem like a fitting cognomen in light of the fact that there is no record of his office successfully prosecuting a single high-profile corruption case since 2015. Instead, Malami is accused of parlaying his office to frustrate the prosecution of some big-time thieves, and also seizing cases from original prosecutors whenever he likes in the hope of steering them, as widely believed, toward a predetermined end.

The latest of such unworthy moves is the case of the kidnap kingpin Bala Hamisu, popularly known as Wadume. On August 6, 2019, Wadume was rescued by some soldiers from 93 battalion Takum, Taraba State, after his arrest at Ibi by a crack squad of the police from Abuja. As he was being transported to the state capital Jalingo, the soldiers manning a checkpoint gave a hot pursuit and opened fire on the police bus, killing three police officers and one civilian on the spot and freeing the notorious kidnap suspect. The incident led to a face-off between the army and the police. After an investigation, some police officers and ten soldiers, among them a Captain Tijani Balarabe who apparently is Wadume’s friend and collaborator, were found liable for that heinous crime.

The police were determined to secure justice for the slain officers and their families. Three months ago, they went to court to begin prosecution of the suspects, including the ten soldiers. The army blatantly refused to cooperate with the police by not handing over the soldiers for prosecution. At the commencement of hearing, the soldiers were not available for arraignment. The judge had to make an order that the chief of army staff, Tukur Buratai, a lieutenant-general, should produce them at the next adjourned date. But instead of that to happen, the chief law officer’s agent appeared in court, used the powers of the office to knock the police off as prosecutors, and then went on to strike off the names of the soldiers from the charge sheet.

The resultant outrage has yet to subside. There is no justifiable reason for this action. At that stage, what was expected of Malami was to force – yes, force, because they are not above the law – the army to obey the order of the court by producing the soldiers for trial. Any other thing is a perversion of justice.

Thankfully, Femi Falana, a renowned justice-minded senior advocate, is engaging Malami’s office on this serious matter. It is hoped that he gets his learned colleague to see reason and toe the path of honour.

But if one does not know Nigeria at all, the little one knows of her, at least in the context of this case, tells one that the prognosis is bleak. The police, the families of those murdered by the soldiers, and the society may never get justice.

 •Onyeacholem is a journalist. He can be reach via [email protected]

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Will the world and its economy return to normal after the coronavirus pandemic? The answer to the above question will probably be in the negative. Already, the term, “the new normal”, which has gained global currency suggests that the world, as we knew it before COVID-19, would never be the same again. Apart from thousands of deaths as a result of the pandemic and spiking rates of infections that have challenged countries with efficient healthcare systems, not to talk of developing countries’ wonky health facilities, the pandemic has brought world economies to their knees.

Aviation conglomerates all over the world are posting devastating losses and have followed that up with job cuts in a magnitude that is unprecedented. Oil prices in the international market have plunged to a historic low to the point that countries are now literally paying buyers to take the goods off their hands. That’s how really bad the situation has become.

For countries like Nigeria, whose economies depend largely on delivering crude oil for revenue, the rains are already pouring. It is even more like a double whammy for Nigeria with a history of profligate management of resources. Yes, past regimes in the country – both military and civilian – had left citizens wondering what possibly could have happened with the billions of dollars that had accrued to their nation since independence, well over five decades now.

For sure, there is no commensurate infrastructure development on ground that can easily be pointed to as the dividends of the oil windfalls. Agreed, corruption is a factor in the ugly scenario, which nobody can deny; but, beyond graft is the greater issue of planlessness. Most past regimes had carried on as if long-term planning and prudent management of resources were sinful acts to be wary of.

For the most part, past leaders who were fortunate to be in government when oil prices soared and “too much money” was rolling in, behaved like a sailor without compass and any sense of trajectory. That was the era of the insinuation that Nigeria’s problem was indeed not about availability of money (as there was a surfeit of it) but how to spend it; it was the era of Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) shindig; it was the eon of tenure elongation christened “third term agenda”; it was the era of “transformation agenda”, which in actuality did not achieve “eye-marks” but only, somewhat, satisfy “earmarks”. Those were the eras of overt display of deep-seated business-as-usual culture.

Well, the bubble has now burst and the chicken has come home to roost. First, while the oil prices hit the roof, the governments of the day at their respective intersections did not think of a rainy day. They did not see the vision of truly diversifying the economy away from monoculturalism of oil and neither did they save for the future. To worsen the situation, the philosophy of graft was more like coast-to-coast attitude for public officers and government workers.  

Now that future is here with us as sources of financial inflows have continued to vanish, the government of the day is under tension and grappling to ensure that the country is not hopelessly enmeshed in the economic ravages occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic. The truth that must be told today is that some countries and their economies will be utterly submerged by and swept off by the ferocious gale of the pandemic if their governments refuse to act promptly and adequately.

The good news, however, is that the Muhammadu Buhari government understands clearly the magnitude of the problem and has decided to put forward the right foot. The administration is forward-looking and making conscionable and responsive effort to be on top of situations confronting it. Apart from the government’s responses to current economic pressure to ensure that economic recession is averted and even if it happens at all, it is V-shaped and not U-shaped, only a few days ago the Federal Government inaugurated Technical Working Groups (TWGs) for the development of the thematic areas of the two new Medium-Term National Development Plans (MTNDP 2020 – 2025 and MTNDP 2026-2030) and the long-term national development plan, christened “Nigeria Agenda 2050“.

Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Ikanade Agba, who performed the virtual inauguration in sync with government’s protocols on managing COVID-19 pandemic, said the initiatives were designed to produce successor plans to the current Nigeria Vision 20:2020 and the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP 2017-2020), which would both come to an end in December, this year.

According to Agba, “The Plans are to address development challenges in all aspects of the country’s national life within the agreed time frame.” He said that the new long-term perspective plan (Agenda 2050) would be a “true National Development Plan’’ different from previous ones, since the Federal Government would only act as an enabler while the development of the plan would be driven by the organized private sector.

It is very instructive that the minister advised members of the various TWGs and committees to undertake a comprehensive review and analyses of previous plans in coming up with a suitable and implementable document. He also pointed to the need to harvest the nation’s diversity as a major strength rather than weakness and in so doing, it is envisaged that the plan will be truly representative of the variegated peoples and cultures of Nigeria from the local and state levels up to the national level.

What is more? The TWGs and committees are organised to cover significant thematic areas that define our national goals and aspirations, for example, education and manpower development; health and nutrition; population and identity management; youth and sport development; power and alternative energy; oil and gas; solid minerals; mining and steel development. Even more gladdening is Prince Agba’s insistence that organised private sector would drive the planning process. The consensus is that the state-centric nature of previous plans only helped in quickening their failures.
And, with patriotic  and very knowledgeable citizens like entrepreneur, investment banker and economist, Atedo Peterside, in the driver’s seat of the Steering Committee with Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, as co-chair; former acting governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and current special adviser on finance and economy to the president, Mrs Sarah Alade, providing overall coordination to the TWGs; and, of course, the workaholic Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Agba and members drawn from various sectors of the economy, including six governors representing the geo-political zones, giving this planning process their best effort, the dawn of a new era of national development planning with its attendant fiscal discipline and countrywide prosperity beckons.

•Ojeifo contributed this piece from Abuja via [email protected]

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Monday, June 22, 2020 was an unusually tragic day in Lagos reinforcing the pre-existing atmosphere of multiple rape cases all over the country. On that day alone, two couples were found dead in their respective apartments in different parts of Lagos. In each of the two cases, the man had killed the woman as punishment before taking turns for suicide.

While the cause of the first case was not immediately known, the second that happened in Lekki, was allegedly in respect of the controversial paternity of one of the two children the wife had for the man. Domestic violence is so much in the air.
Many have argued that we are manifestations of what our media dispense. Incidentally, it’s the era of ultimate public sphere such that re-transmission of media contents often continues without any predictable end.

To stem possible replication and escalation of violence, the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, got an unsolicited offer to support the reworking of its Code in 2017. The support was to ensure conflict sensitivity as well as sensitivity to gender inclined issues.

The resultant suggestions were directly shared with the NBC management for possible further scrutiny. Furthermore, on account of the multi-stakeholderist leaning of broadcasting, entailing what has come to be known as surrender value, the consultants, led by their anchor, took the campaign to the 2017 Kano Broadcasting Summit. The presentation, done by the anchor, was well received by the general house. But that was the end with that intervention.

The NBC management, obviously running like a closet, had a different plan. Recommendations on conflict-sensitivity and gender sensitivity could not be immediately accommodated in the forthcoming Code. All that happened before the first off-campus community radio was set up in Niger State.

Today, there’s a plethora of not only campus radio stations but also those run by grassroots folks, in addition to online broadcasting, done by dudes with little or no professional media training. We can therefore imagine the quantum of anomie occupying our airwaves today even as the reach is limitless. Part of the impact perhaps is the multiplication of gender-based violence (GBV) and others.

Shouldn’t we tame our technological advancement to attract more and more benefits to us by the day? We missed that opportunity in 2017, when the opportunity to tame our broadcasting Code came.
What looks like another review opportunity of NBC Code is here in 2020 in form of major amendments, but the ‘closet culture’ of NBC seems to have persisted. And now the price is doubling in line with the prophesy of Historian Santayana that when history repeats itself, the price doubles. With utter disregard for multi-stakeholderism, NBC has concluded another review.
Sadly enough, rather than signal advancement for the country, it’s steeping us into a reverse gear with multiple unpleasant manifestations at a time everyone is seeking healing balm for the sudden, but protracted affliction of Covid-19 and even Nigeria’s peculiar socio-economic challenges.

Most conspicuous in the new (?) Code, perhaps, is the manifest lack of understanding of the workings of digital media, even with the orchestrated intent of President Buhari’s government to emphasise digital technology in conducting its operations.

The first and perhaps the most enduring impact registered so far by Minister Pantami is the renaming of his Ministry to that of Communication Technology and Digital Economy. But how all-pervading is this emphasis on digital technology on the workings of an agency like NBC with its strong leaning on technology?

The Commission has publicly announced that it would, as with other broadcasting gernres, regulate online broadcasting. Questions now arise: Do web/online services now fall within the jurisdictional domain of NBC not NCC? How will NBC rationalise that an online entity is “broadcasting, or streaming? Especially if such contents received by devices are connected/known to the service providers, which is clearly distinguishable to the notion of traditional broadcasting?

What no one requires any expertise to know however is that AIT or NTA has no known competence to ascertain or establish specific devices (TV-sets) tuned in and watching. It therefore cannot disconnect individual devices from receiving any of its output.

NBC should have appreciated the impracticability of its proposal if it had, rightly, sought to interact with stakeholders on this. But what else can a timid agency, shying away from the reality of the global best practices do?

Most alarming, perhaps, is the Commission’s deliberate move with the amendments in its 6thCode against the tide of reality in the creative world, threatening to dampen Nigeria’s huge promise, indeed playing out “the happiest moment as saddest encounter”. How? NBC now wants to protect exclusivity of content broadcasting.

In its recent amendment contained in the new Code, the Commission insists rights holders, after daring investment risks, must sub-license to other broadcasters, the contents they should have exclusive rights to. NBC argues that the amendment was imperative to boost local content production and make broadcast sector a better level playing field. How illogical! NBC hardly seeks the perception of the players before coming to this conclusion.

If ever unclear, the reality of, “The World is Flat” and the “Global Village” claims by Thomas Friedman and Marshall McLuhan are here, courtesy of digital technology. Netflix, IrokoTV and the rest of them are springing up to sprint early and happily with some otherwise hopeless local producers here. These ‘locals’ are handsomely paid for their hitherto untapped efforts indeed to the envy of professionals traditionally perceived to be ‘high up’.

Physician Olaokun Soyinka, son of Nobel Laureate Soyinka, recently bared his mind on this on Twitter: “Its like the whole family’s getting Netflix deals & I’m in the wrong job! So, I vexed and wrote a book…I know COVID19 Tips won’t get me a film deal but I’ve a cunning plan. Wait until audition day”

The investors are only hopeful in the not so certain future, but they keep stirring up hope in the creative folks who, in turn, could help generate additional employment.
If fighting ‘monopoly’ in the mould NBC conceives were to be deemed foolproof, the experience of the defunct Toyin Subair-led HiTV is enough a warner. At a time in the recent past, HiTV held the exclusive rights to the indomitable English Premier League.

It never shared it with other broadcasters but it’s all history today. The lesson: holding exclusive rights to premium content constitutes only a component of broadcasting.

Having clearly betrayed a clear understanding of the workings of digital technology and the relevant legal implications, NBC will do well to, in future, study the overarching policy of the federal government on digital technology, which is now central to all human activities, before churning out any policy, which the Code symbolises. For an agency operating in a trendy environment, it is inevitable for NBC to be demonstrably open and receptive to ideas from stakeholders of varying orientations and leanings.

This will ensure that it comes up with policies that readily align with democracy and good governance, protective of the interests of the majority of the people and supportive of economic and related developments.

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