Inside Stuff With MARTINS OLOJA

It is logical to suspend the discussions on ‘#EndSARS and the power of truth’ as promised last week because there is a weightier matter of lessons from the power of strong institutions over strong men in a democracy – in the United States of America. There have been unexpected developments in ‘America, their America’ as the iconic J.P Clark once described the country.

I have been following and studying the current elections in America not as an event in November but as a process that we can learn from instead of lamenting about how the curious attitude of a strong man, Donald Trump has changed even the political map of a fiercely divided country. The lessons are not about the old man, Joe Biden and his precious medal. Just as Ferdinand Oyono’s character, in his satire, ‘The old man and the medal’, the old man from a small Mid-Atlantic state, Delaware has been standing in a blazing sun, for hours and days – just to receive his prize. It has been worth the while in the United States.

At press time, the old man of Delaware was declared the 46th president of the United States after defeating Trump in the keenly contested Pennsylvania. The deciding factor seems to be centred on a handful of battleground states where Donald Trump had an initial advantage. The chips had been tilting more towards Joe Biden. The issue for us is no longer about who won but what messages have the 2020 US elections given to the world and indeed the most populous black nation on earth?

Despite the curiosities that have marked the election so far, we should still be impressed by the successful electoral process that has allowed an unprecedented turnout of voters to make their voices known through the ballot. It is more impressive considering that this has happened in the middle of a raging Covid-19 pandemic that has taken over 240,000 lives in the US. The process has revealed that the election is more crucial for the American people on both sides of the fence than ever before.

Apart from the inspiring dedication of the men and women painstakingly tabulating each ballot making sure it had been cast correctly, for the world watching, this most contentious election in US history has exposed some unsavoury truths about America. The biggest shock for the world is the immense support for President Trump, who has gone out of his way to promote divisiveness, racial tension, white supremacy, discrimination, violence, denigration of the media, women and minorities, and denial of climate change, which is now being followed by an attempt to cast aspersions on the integrity of the electoral process wherever it went against his interests. The fact that around 69 million people have voted for him shows that a huge number of Americans either endorse or overlook the abhorrent sentiments that President Trump has been fomenting.

The outcome has shown that most Americans have found it acceptable that 240,000 of their fellow citizens have died under his watch because of his failure to listen to the scientists, doctors and even his own coronavirus taskforce regarding health guidelines that if implemented, could have saved thousands of lives.

The 2020 US elections have highlighted how divided American society is, how fragile it is against leadership that is based on creating chaos rather than harmony, increasing inequality and using misinformation and propaganda to control people. But even before the elections, the world had been awakened to the reality of racial inequality as well as its challenges to the basic democratic values that the US has always projected to the rest of the world. It has also shown how it is possible to challenge scientific evidence and delegitimise it through strange propaganda that even Joseph Goebbels, the World War German propaganda expert, would be wondering about. It has shown that even something as straightforward as following basic health guidelines like wearing a mask can be made political, after all.

The most frightening revelation of the US election and the months preceding it is how easy it is to dismantle all the progress a nation has made over decades. The President-elect, Joe Biden, will have the Herculean task of uniting a bitterly divided country while combatting an ongoing pandemic and dealing with the devastating economic fallout.

What is more, governments around the world have been closely monitoring the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, but the real question at the moment relates to the U.S. presidential elections and the curiosities. Specifically, America’s future global role is important for all parties. Former Vice President Joe Biden, who won the presidential race has a significant impact on the answer to that question – on future global role. Is there a sense in which it can be said that a Biden victory is likely to repair Washington’s strained relationship with the trans-Atlantic alliance and international organisations? After all, the Trump effect, which was a direct response to former President Barack Obama’s legacy, has already transformed U.S. foreign policy.

Moreover, great power competition is already underway in the geopolitical vacuum left behind by the United States. Now, Biden must face that reality – which goes beyond the specific policy decisions of the out-going administration.

Geo-political assessments aside, that the Democrats shaped their 2020 presidential campaign around the claim that American democracy had been at risk is quite informative. The lack of “quality” in the presidential debate was more than just a source of embarrassment. I believe that the extreme polarisation over the Trump presidency reflects a deeper crisis of American democracy, which can be healed by the old man with his medal.

It is quite ironic that U.S. state officials, who used to tell Turkey that the ballot box was not enough and lectured the Turkish people about the virtues of “consolidated democracy,” now have to watch their president allege election fraud and large-scale irregularities. The American people are thinking long and hard to find a way to ensure that election results are recognised and respected by everyone – the precondition of democracy. That the vote count will be settled at the apex court dominated by conservative judges is the overwhelming expectation but most observers believe that American interest would prevail, after all.

There is even some talk about the U.S. military possibly removing Trump from the White House if he does not believe in a peaceful transfer of power. America’s top military officials have stressed that the court system, along with Congress, should assume responsibility in that case. This is certainly a shocking new experience for the U.S., which prides itself on being the leader of the “free world.”

Everything that has been debated in recent months, from fraudulent absentee ballots to potential Russian interference, demonstrates how fragile American democracy really is. The world needs to learn a valuable lesson from the U.S. – it ended up where it is without facing a serious national security threat, but merely due to the surge of white nationalism, racism, economic hardship, China’s challenge and the fatigue of military interventions around the world. It must be acknowledged that powerful nations and weaker states too, suffer from similar crises.

Some Americans are so unsettled by this “fight between two old men” that they may have given up on their country and apparently decided to relocate to Canada, New Zealand and even Argentina. Still, let’s not blow their state of mind out of proportion. Indeed, there were reports of some American citizens who said they’d leave the U.S. if Trump were to win the 2016 election. Needless to say, they ate their words and stayed where they were. Shortly after that election, they launched an effort to tell the American people how terrible Trump really was. Nowadays, most of those pessimists are expected to become a party to the epic court battle.

All told, despite all the imperfections and absurdities, there are several great lessons of urgent national importance the elections in America can teach us in Nigeria, our Nigeria. The elections should be still be seen as a process we can learn a lot from. It is still not a time to recall the legendary Fela’s ‘Teacher, don’t teach me nonsense’. We need to be sober to learn from the little things that matter in a democracy. We should not throw away the baby with the bathwater because Donald Trump is involved in fetching the water. As I was saying, there are indeed great lessons for us in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation. We need to learn how to use one election to achieve so many democratic goals including recruitment of leaders at all levels, referendum on issues, referendum on characters of leaders, etc in one day without declaring a public holiday.

In the main, we can all see how federalism works even in elections coverage and processes. There is no unitary system of governance that can protect one powerful man and leader who can halt a national process called election – at a time like this. There is no system in America that can give power to a chief executive of a federation who can remove a chief justice of that federation through an administrative tribunal two weeks to national elections. This was what happened in 1993, a group of powerful men conspired against the state they were running. They used institutions of governance, the office of the president and the judiciary to truncate outcome of the best elections ever that threatened to unify a broken country.

In the United States at the moment, the secretaries of state of the fifty states, the attorneys-general and the governors are in charge, not the Chairman of the U.S Election Commission whose name has never been prominent, in this regard. Let’s not get this twisted, the Buhari administration should swallow all pride and vanity: there should be attention to serious calls for a proper federation. Unitary system of government is evil. We can’t continue to run Nigeria from Abuja where they call all the tunes because they pay all the 36 and 774 pipers.

Let’s leave lamentation over Trumpism and study the democratic system of a proper federation that has produced strong institutions of governance that can always protect the system against strong and perverted men in power. Let’s develop a federation where the law is above all including the chief executive of that federation. I doff my hat for America, their America where the institutions are stronger than the men and women in power!

Inside Stuff With MARTINS OLOJA

Since the first part of this article, on November 1, 2020 a lot of water has gone under our already rickety bridge of #EndSARS protest and the curious election stalemate in the United States. Doubtless, there have been some manifestations of other curiosities on the consequences of #EndSARS significant campaign for a better Nigeria and the 2020 election that is still stressing the power of institutions in the United States, which has always been wieldying her power as the bastion and guardian angel of democracy. Although the so-called ‘leader of the free world’ is still in the eye of the storm as the 2020 election remains inconclusive more than two weeks after, the consequences of our #End SARS protest on the country and the protesters cannot be ignored at this time.

It is getting ‘curiouser and curiouser’ what the President Muhammadu Buhari meant on October 22, 2020 when he told the nation in a broadcast that he had heard the #EndSARS protesters’ message ‘loud and clear’. Now, there are court orders to freeze the bank accounts of some of the suspected leaders and organisers of the epic protest. Most of the protesters are being detained by the same police force whose alleged brutality triggered the protest. Most of the protesters have been listed on the watch-list of national security agencies’ dossier: they can’t travel.

It is also understood that police protection has been withdrawn from agencies, institutions, business enterprises and notable individuals who supported the historic protest too. What is worse, the protesters are being treated as terrorists before our very eyes despite the fact that the same president said he heard the youth and leaders of tomorrow ‘loud and clear’.

President Buhari had told Nigerian youths on October 22 that their voices had been heard loud and clear as the #End SARS protest continued to spread across the country then. Buhari who also urged the youth to discontinue the street protests and engage the government in finding a solution to the challenges arising from state of the nation specifically said: “I called on our youths to discontinue the street protests and to engage the government to find a solution. Your voices have been heard loud and clear…”

So, as so many surprised Nigerians have been asking, what is the basis for the crackdown on the young Nigerians, our children whose teeth have been set on edge and have been feeling the deadly effects of the sour grapes that we, their fathers have eaten? Why the demonisation, persecution and even prosecution of our children because they spoke truth to our power? Why are some private lawyers assisting state actors, notably the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice to drag our Central Bank into this peculiar mess? Is that the legacy project of our leader, Muhammadu Buhari?

Lest we forget, what is the significance of all the Panels of Enquiries the President directed the Governors to set up to get to the roots of the case against the police? What is the message even the Inspector General of Police has been passing to the nation with his incendiary statements all over the place saying the already battered police can shoot anyhow? Why the crackdown on the media and the civil society? Are all these brutalities to the media, and indeed the civil society the response to the voices our president claimed he heard loud and clear? Let’s not get this twisted again, this crackdown on the #EndSARS protesters while the presidential panels are still sitting all over the country is a blight upon our hope of a better tomorrow. It is a signal that this administration will do nothing about the demands of the people through the (#EndSARS) protesters.

So, I would like to continue here on my sermon on the power of truth, yes the only weapon that can set us free from this present darkness.

In the first part of this article, I drew a lot of inspiration from the wisdom of a worthy elder, William George Jordan, an American editor, lecturer and essayist who has researched extensively on the “The Power of Truth”.

Let’s continue to learn, unlearn and relearn at this time that most people perish in the palace and government house – for lack of knowledge. As I had noted then, ‘Truth is the rock foundation of every great character. It is loyalty to the right as we see it. It is courageous living of our lives in harmony with our ideals. It is always—power. Truth ever defies full definition. Like electricity it can only be explained by noting its manifestation. It is the compass of the soul, the guardian of conscience, the final touchstone of right.

Truth is the revelation of the ideal; but it is also an inspiration to realise that ideal, a constant impulse to live it. Lying is one of the oldest vices in the world—it made its debut in the first recorded conversation in history, in a famous interview in the garden of Eden. Lying is the sacrifice of honor to create a wrong impression. It is masquerading in misfit virtues. Truth can stand alone, for it needs no chaperone or escort…’

Let’s continue learning from the power that Truth can give us. That politician who is vacillating, temporising, shifting, constantly trimming his sails to catch every puff of wind of popularity, is a trickster who succeeds only until he is found out. A lie may live for a time, truth for all time. A lie never lives by its own vitality, it merely continues to exist because it simulates truth. When it is unmasked, it dies. Where there is untruth there is always conflict, discrepancy and impossibility. If all the truths of life and experience from the first second of time, or for any section of eternity, were brought together, there would be perfect harmony, perfect accord, union and unity, but if two lies come together, they quarrel and seek to destroy each other.

It is in the trifles of daily life that truth should be our constant guide and inspiration. Truth is not a dress-suit, consecrated to special occasions, it is the strong, well-woven, durable homespun for daily living.

Elder Jordan says the man who forgets his promises is untrue. We rarely lose sight of those promises made to us for our individual benefit; these we regard as checks we always seek to cash at the earliest moment. The miser never forgets where he hides his treasure,’ says one of the old philosophers. Let us cultivate that sterling honour that holds our word so supreme, so sacred, that to forget it would seem a crime, to deny it would be impossible. The man who says pleasant things and makes promises, which to him are light as air, but to someone else seems the rock upon which a life’s hope is built is cruelly untrue. He who does not regard his appointments, carelessly breaking them or ignoring them, is the thoughtless thief of another’s time. It reveals selfishness, carelessness, and lax business morals. It is untrue to the simplest justice of life.

Similarly, men who split hairs with their conscience, who mislead others by deft, shrewd phrasing which may be true in letter yet lying in spirit and designedly uttered to produce a false impression, are untruthful in the most cowardly way. Such men would cheat even in solitaire. Like murderers they forgive themselves their crime in congratulating themselves on the cleverness of their alibi. The parent who preaches honour to his child and gives false statistics about the child’s age to the conductor, to save some money, is not true. In the same vein, that man who keeps his religion in camphor all week and who takes it out only on Sunday, is not true. He who seeks to get the highest wages for the least possible amount of service, is not true.

Jordan also adds that the power of Truth, in its highest, purest, and most exalted phases, stands squarely on four basic lines of relation,— the love of truth, the search for truth, faith in truth, and work for truth.

Our leaders and managers should note this. The love of Truth is the cultivated hunger for it in itself and for itself, without any thought of what it may cost, what sacrifices it may entail, what theories or beliefs of a lifetime may be laid desolate. In its supreme phase, this attitude of life is rare, but unless one can begin to put oneself into harmony with this view, the individual will only creep in truth, when he might walk bravely.

Let’s also consider this: The man who votes the same ticket in politics, year after year, without caring for issues, men, or problems, merely voting in a certain way because he always has voted so, is sacrificing loyalty to truth to a weak, mistaken, stubborn attachment to a worn-out precedent. Such a man should stay in his cradle all his life—because he spent his early years there.

Faith in Truth is essential to perfect companionship with truth. The individual must have perfect confidence and assurance of the final triumph of right, and order, and justice, and believe that all things are evolving toward that divine consummation, no matter how dark and dreary life may seem from day to day. No real success, no lasting happiness can exist except it be founded on the rock of truth. The prosperity that is based on lying, deception, and intrigue, is only temporary—it cannot last any more than a mushroom can outlive an oak. Like the blind Samson, struggling in the temple, the individual whose life is based on trickery always pulls down the supporting columns of his own edifice, and perishes in the ruins. No matter what price a man may pay for truth, he is getting it at a bargain. The lying of others can never hurt us long, it always carries with it our exoneration in the end.
And so the lesson is this: those who lie their way to power, fame and wealth can be rest assured that they are standing on a quick sand. They will soon fizzle out as truth hidden in a grave will not stay there as I have repeatedly written here. Let the powers that be in Abuja acknowledge the truth the #End SARS promoters have spoken to power and it shall be well with them and their governance process. Let them not get inspiration from the scoundrels and ever-lying liars in the capitals who continue to lie that we should be afraid of the truths our children are telling us. Any local or national or international security advisers who continue to tell the powers in Abuja that the #EndSARS campaigners are terrorists who seek a regime change are not telling the truth: they are liars and they are the real enemies of the people.

#

Any hopes that we are going to quickly move on from the tragic #EndSARS protests and enter into the phase of reconstruction and rehabilitation are disappearing by the day as the federal government closes in on the promoters and supporters of the mass action. A lawyer who actively supported the protests was barred from travelling abroad; bank accounts of many protest promoters have been frozen; a company the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) mistakenly thought was involved in the protest has been deregistered for “deviation” from its objectives, and a lawyer has filed a lawsuit against everybody and anybody who tweeted in support of the protests.

Some campaigners have also been picked up and their lawyers are working overtime to secure their release. Mr Femi Falana, the senior lawyer who has been at the centre of the fight for human rights, rule of law and democracy in Nigeria for decades — including under military dictatorships — has been “reported” to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which prosecutes mainly war crimes. He is accused of inciting the rioters and looters. The petitioner wants Falana to pay $2 billion (only) in damages. By and large, there is a flurry of co-ordinated actions targeted at those who endorsed, supported or promoted the mass protests that rocked Nigeria to its very foundations.

In a sense, one can argue that the ruin we saw in October 2020 was unprecedented. The Civil War of 1967-70 was, after all, a war — so it belongs in a different category. The scale of the destruction in the wake of the #EndSARS protests in Lagos state alone is heartbreaking. Ambulances and health centres were set on fire — and you just have to question the motive. The DNA and Forensic Laboratory, said to be the only one in Nigeria, was burnt down. Buses that ferry millions of passengers monthly were set ablaze. Private businesses, shops and banks were not spared. The anarchy within such a short time was unrivalled. You don’t want to see anything like that again.

The protests started on a benign note: to curtail the excesses of the special anti-armed robbery squad (SARS), a police unit that was created in 1984 when — now this is an irony — President Muhammadu Buhari was the military head of state. Over time, SARS had lacked any respect for human life or dignity. Mr Fulani Kwajafa, a retired police commissioner, recently told the BBC: “SARS of today is not the same SARS I established in 1984… I always tell my wife that I was sad [that] what I created with good purpose and direction has been turned into banditry.” That Buhari would be confronted with casting out the demon 36 years later is something you cannot easily make up.

The #EndSARS campaign did not start this year, but the government never took it seriously. Each time there was public outcry, the police would announce a “reform”. The harassments, tortures and extrajudicial killings continued unreformed. All you needed to become a suspect was to wear a tattoo, grow dreadlocks or keep an ATM card in your wallet. You could be dead before you knew it. How an anti-robbery unit went full-time into physically fighting cyber crimes is a good topic for researchers. The long and short of it all is that the failure to rein in SARS eventually landed the country in a horrible place. The cost of recovery is not just heavy, some losses are irreversible.

After the protest was hijacked, I was not expecting the government to give the organisers a pat on the back. I doubt any government would do that. But I was not expecting a crackdown either. It would only escalate the situation. However, when the northern governors alleged that this was an attempt at regime change — in simpler words, a plot to remove Buhari as president — I knew this would not go away quickly. But my questions are: do the security agencies have concrete proof that some politicians planned and funded the mayhem in order to forcefully change government outside of constitutional means? Or this is just a knee-jerk reaction? That, to me, is the crux of the matter.

If indeed there was a plot to bring down Buhari by extra-constitutional means, how much of it were the #EndSARS organisers privy to? When you embark on a campaign of this nature and get financial support from the public, all kinds of people will come on board. There will definitely be fifth-columnists and agent provocateurs. It is a fact of life. But the pattern of the crackdown so far shows that among those targeted are many well-meaning Nigerians who only lent their voices to a legitimate campaign against police brutality. The security agencies must separate the wheat from the chaff. This must not become an exercise in trying to stifle voices of dissent in the country.

As I have said probably a million times, when you start mass action, you know the beginning but you may not know the end — or the dimensions it would take. All sorts of people with different motives would jump on board and be saying “End SARS” even when their own agenda is different. In this instance, armed robbers evidently joined in. Yahoo guys were there. Nigerians already burning with anger over economic hardship let rip as well. Some politicians were apparently very involved. #EndSARS started morphing into #BuhariMustGo and #EndNigeria. Some developed END SARS into an acronym for “restructuring”. It was so very easy to read politics into the mayhem.

I previously wrote that I won’t be surprised if state agents also used the opportunity to go after perceived political enemies. We saw videos of men who looked like security operatives arranging thugs to attack protesters in Abuja. A former DSS director said the operatives were the security detail of a senator. Nobody has denied it. The targeting of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s assets does not appear to be random to me, based on the reports in the media. There were so many dimensions to the mayhem that will need a comprehensive investigation to unravel. It was more than an #EndSARS campaign or an explosion of public anger. We deserve to know the whole truth.

Going after the activists can only come across as a witch-hunt which I believe would further escalate socio-political tension. Before I am misunderstood, though, I am not saying if the government has criminal evidence against some people, they should be left alone just because they are waving the activist flag. I am not saying the government should fold its arms and watch Nigeria burn. I am not, by any means, challenging the powers of the state to enforce the law. But I would rather the focus is on the looters, hoodlums and rapists — not the peaceful campaigners and promoters who, for all you care, were only exercising their constitutional rights. A blanket crackdown is a no-no.

For now, I would keep appealing to the activists not to be discouraged. With #EndSARS, they have proved that they can mobilise, organise and solidarise. Part of the benefits, in my view, is that they have learnt the hard way: that protests can be end up being hijacked and polarised. Those with “aluta” experience in Nigeria know this very well. There are always people lurking in the corner waiting to pounce whenever there is public disorder. I would advise those whose accounts have been frozen and those arrested to seek every legal support available to clear their names and get justice. This is another opportunity to test our laws and strengthen this democracy.

For the genuine activists, there is always a price to pay. The trick is not to give in or give up. The great Gani Fawehinmi was regularly arrested and detained, usually driven by road at night from Lagos to Gashua prison — a journey of about 1,300km. Gashua, built by the colonial masters, was Nigeria’s most horrible prison. Gani used to sleep on the hot floor inside a mud cell. Mr Abdul Oroh, then executive director of the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), was arrested in July 1995 and detained for one year. The wife had just given birth! Nigerian activists saw hell. Now that we have the democracy that they fought for, we have to jealously guard our precious freedoms.

Let me repeat myself: if the government has solid evidence that some people planned and funded the mayhem, then it should go after those people. But there should be no blanket arrest of activists, neither should people’s accounts be randomly frozen just because they were involved in organising the protests. The laws of the land give everyone the freedom of expression. Agitating for a better Nigeria should never be treated as a crime. Government should never give the impression it is desperately out to get people because they spoke out. My final word to the government is that we need healing. We need all the peace we can buy to stabilise this country. A crackdown will not cut it.

AND FOUR OTHER THINGS…

AMAC AMOK

I hereby call on the federal government to send a bill to the national assembly designating the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) as a terrorist organisation. The requisite evidence is not going to be difficult to gather — just talk to a few business owners in Abuja and listen to their tales of horror and terror. It appears AMAC officials have been briefed to kill any business that is trying to succeed in FCT. There was the recent case of a woman whose eatery was sealed off by AMAC with customers still inside! Do you have to lock customers inside, no matter the infractions of the eatery? What happened to civilisation? Are we waiting for #EndAMAC riots before we act? Senseless.

‘I’M A LOOTER’

Mr Titus Okunrinboye, a witness in the trial of Alhaji Tanimu Turaki, former minister of special duties and inter-governmental affairs, admitted before a federal high court on Wednesday that he looted contract funds while serving as the head of central pay office in the ministry. In addition to helping divert N200 million to personal accounts, he said he has forfeited N535 million and a house in Abuja to the EFCC. And you know what? He is currently an accountant at the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation. And you know what again? We are still asking why Nigeria is like this. One day, we will all come to agree that our problems are worse than we make them look. Depressing.

ADIEU, BALARABE MUSA

The death of Alhaji Balarabe Musa, former governor of Kaduna state, has depleted the ranks of the very few principled Nigerian politicians who genuinely deserve to be regarded as statesmen. Ironically, it is people like Musa who hardly get celebrated in Nigeria — he had no Phantom, bought no house in UK or Dubai, had no private jet and wore no diamond wristwatch. Rather, he was modest, like the northerners of yore who disdained materialism. Musa was a voice of reason: he spoke forcefully about the state of the nation. He sought nothing but quality lives for the poor and lowly of the Nigerian society. He was 84 when he died on Wednesday. Adieu.

GOODBYE, RAWLINGS

I’m not a fan of military rule — having tasted both military and democratic dispensations in Nigeria — but two African soldiers caught my fancy. One was Capt Thomas Sankara, the former leader of Burkina Faso who was betrayed and overthrown by his best friend, Capt Blaise Compaoré, in 1987. The other was Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings, who led Ghana from military rule to a stable democracy in 1992. Rawlings was not perfect — I still have my reservations about his execution of three former heads of state — but he gave his country a new direction. Ghana is far from being a finished product, but whatever it is today, Rawlings played the key role. He died at 73 on Thursday. Goodbye.

THE ALTERNATIVE With Reno Omokri

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Nigeria is broke. This use to be said in whispers. But no more. It is now a case of ‘go tell it on the mountains’! Whereas, in the last few months it was opposition politicians telling it, now, no less an institution but the Central Bank of Nigeria is telling it.

On Thursday, November 5, 2020, the CBN, in its half-year 2020 economic report, said “despite the subsisting revenue challenge, which was exacerbated by COVID-19, the larger proportion of FGN revenue was devoted to debt service.”

In fact, the CBN was just conservative as usual. The truth is more alarming than the picture the CBN painted.

According to the CBN, as at the end of June 2020, Nigeria had spent N1.5 trillion on debt servicing. Let that sink in.

That is more than we have spent on capital expenditure and education combined, in the same time frame.

And the worst is yet to come because General Buhari’s government is still borrowing at a record-breaking pace, meaning that debt will keep going up, which will translate in ever-increasing debt servicing (not repayment) figures.

When former President Jonathan handed over power to General Buhari on May 29, 2015, Nigeria’s total debt (both foreign and domestic) was $11 billion. It is now $34 billion and rising fast.

Where has that money gone? What tangible things does Nigeria have to show for that money? Out of school children have increased in Northern Nigeria since Buhari has not built new Almajiri schools after Jonathan left. New roads have not been constructed. New hospitals have not been built. So, where has the money gone?

Other than the N120 billion annual budget for the National Assembly under Buhari, and General Buhari’s own annual N3.2 billion yearly food and travel budget, where is this massive debt being spent?

And now, I get to the embarrassing part. The plan to borrow $1.2 billion from Brazil. This administration seems to get its kick from finding new and ingenious ways to make Nigeria look big for nothing in the international community.

Brazil is one of the most indebted nations on Earth ever, with a national debt of $1.45 trillion, representing over 80% of its GDP. How can you get good terms? Brazil has defaulted on their debts three times, and, according to The Economist Intelligence Unit, Brazil is at risk of a fourth default due to economic challenges stemming from COVID19.

And this is the country Nigeria wants to borrow $1.2 billion from? I never thought Nigeria would stoop so low in my lifetime. But then, I never reckoned with General Buhari. It shows desperation when a beggar begs from another beggar!

You see, the reason why they desperately need the money and have to go cap in hand to Brazil of all nations is that Nigeria under General Buhari cannot even pay salaries without borrowing.

The Director-General of Budget Office, Mr. Ben Akabueze, said as much to the Senate Committee on Public Accounts last week.

Yet, as bad as things are, there have been no cost-cutting actions on the part of the Buhari government. Their only solution is to take loans until you are alone!

Sadly, Nigeria gained her independence from Great Britain 60 years ago, and now, 60 years later, Nigeria is losing her independence to China (and very soon to Brazil), because we have an Almajiri President whose only language is beg, borrow, and give me. Beggarliness is in Buhari’s DNA!

I researched Brazil and discovered that the Brazilian Presidency has just two Presidential jets, with one for use mainly for domestic travel and another for international travel. This was done to save costs.

If I were the President of Brazil, I would be wondering why a country whose President has ten Presidential jets would want to borrow money from a country whose President has just two Presidential jets. Why not first consider other options of raising funds, like selling nine of the ten jets?

Or why not reduce the maintenance cost of Aso Rock Presidential villa? At N4.6 billion per annum ($12 million per annum), that is $1 million per month. I researched, and President Bolsonaro of Brazil does not even spend one-third of that on his residence. Yet, Nigeria wants to borrow $1.2 billion from them to waste!

Borrowing continues to be a measure of first resort by the Buhari government, and that is sad because you cannot be governing with luxuries and not expect your cheques to bounce.

Brazilian is the wrong nation to borrow from. This is a bad move. This smacks of desperation, and those in the All Progressive Congress and Northern Nigeria who have the ears of this government should start whispering to them that they are going down a rabbit hole that may well take down this contraption that they inaccurately term a government.

In my Reno’s nuggets, I have often taught that if you are broke, it is more important to expand your income than to do anything else. Perhaps this administration read that nugget and misunderstood it or misapplied it. Borrowing does not raise your revenue. Instead, it expands your liabilities. Hopefully, General Buhari has the intellectual capacity to fathom the difference!

First, we were borrowing from America. Then we were borrowing from England. Then we were borrowing from China. Then we were borrowing from India. Next, we were borrowing from the Islamic Development Bank. And we woke up one day, only to hear that General Buhari wants to borrow from Brazil. It is a good thing MMM collapsed. At least, we can be safely assured that General Buhari cannot borrow from them.