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Participatory Interfaith Dialogue and Development: The keys to addressing people’s needs in Morocco

By Yossef Ben-Meir

Morocco’s Multicultural Gateway to Community Development

Morocco’s policy for national multiculturalism and the diversity of its historic identity groups has emphasized the importance of intergroup dialogue and its role as a “bridge” to human development. In recent years, the Moroccan Ministry of Culture began collaborating with UNESCO to establish a framework for cultural preservation. The government has expressed the important role that culture plays in combating poverty through heritage preservation. They believe this will help empower individuals and increase their opportunities for social and economic mobility. Additionally, integrating a cultural dimension into education is considered a significant factor in encouraging development by promoting recognition and enhanced solidarity. Similarly, cultural preservation and awareness can specifically help women to enhance their livelihoods and economic prospects. In relation to sustainable urban development, preservation activities help to balance modernization, tradition, the environment, and public spaces.

Although pathways exist to foster intercultural partnerships to meet Moroccan communities’ needs, it continues to be a complex challenge. For example, interreligious partnerships may often find shared goals of preserving archives, sacred locations, and cultural knowledge. However, translating these goals into concrete initiatives that could lead to improved public health, enhanced livelihoods, and environmental protection requires more innovative and locally-led approaches.

Morocco represents a notable case where a unique Muslim-Jewish cooperation is leading sustainable fruit tree agriculture and human development, especially within clean drinking water, irrigation infrastructure, and financially independent women’s cooperatives, all achieved through building community-managed fruit tree nurseries. These nurseries, built on land lent by the Moroccan Jewish community, illustrate the ability of interfaith partnerships to address critical rural challenges. Morocco’s National Initiative for Human Development has provided a significant proportion of funding to construct four nurseries (two completed and two in the process) to provide trees to farming families who seek to transition from barley and corn to more income-generating organic fruit products. The integration of monitoring the trees planted by farming families for certified and commercialized carbon offset credits further enhances the community impact.

The pilot nursery, established in 2012 in the Tomsloht municipality, Al Haouz province, now produces 70,000 trees annually. This region was severely impacted by the September 2023 earthquake that occurred in the High Atlas Mountains, amplifying the significance of sustainable agriculture projects for post-disaster recovery. The second nursery, built in 2020 in the Ouarzazate province, has produced approximately 40,000 trees, with two additional nurseries in the process of being constructed in the Marrakech and Ouarzazate areas. All four nurseries are situated adjacent to Moroccan Jewish saints’ sacred burial sites, some dating back 1,000 years. With over 600 locations of religious significance in the country, interfaith and intersectoral partnerships effectively play a significant national role in assisting farming communities transition to fruit tree agriculture. They can together build a more resilient, economically enhancing, and healthier option than traditional reliance on growing barley and corn.

Morocco’s path of national solidarity for human development provides widespread benefits and exemplifies that there is a viable recourse from strife and division. The development process begins with local communities determining their development goals from an empowered disposition to help ensure that their decisions reflect their priority interests. From this empowerment workshop experience, leading to intercultural, public, and private partnerships based on dialogue and trust-building, communities assess and determine the most important projects they seek to implement.

Origins and Development of a Moroccan Cultural-Agricultural Program

In 1993, the author of this article volunteered with the Peace Corps living in a village of the High Atlas Mountains called Amsouzerte, where the journey from the village to the nearest city centers took almost 20 hours along unpaved roads and mountain passes. At the foot of a mountainside, fifty kilometers from Amsouzerte, there was an old, white mausoleum, uncharacteristic of the earth-brick homes typical of rural Moroccan landscapes.

Even at this time, it was immediately clear that eroding mountain areas offered large potential for terrace construction surrounding the mausoleum for the Muslim community to build tree nurseries and derive generational benefits. Tree nurseries are valuable for Moroccan farming communities because 70 percent of current agricultural land in the country generates just 10-15 percent of agricultural revenue. Fruit tree cultivation allows farming families to transition from less lucrative barley and corn crops to higher income-generating crops. Morocco has both organic and endemic varieties of almond, Argan, carob, cherry, date, fig, lemon, pomegranate, olive, and walnut trees among others, as well as dozens of species of wild medicinal plants.

Based on dialogue with farming families and communities, this local project was derived directly from their own determination and development perspective. The High Atlas Foundation (HAF)—a Moroccan national civil association founded in 2000 by former Peace Corps Volunteers who initially served in this mountain region–facilitated empowerment and participatory methods that assisted people in identifying their doubts and fears, project priorities, and actions forward to achieve their discovered goals of tree infrastructure and related water infrastructure.

In rural Morocco, where most household income is derived from agriculture, initiatives within this development sector, particularly surrounding water infrastructure, trees and herbs, cooperative-building, terracing, value-added processing, and marketing, are shared priorities across the countryside. The September 2023 earthquake exacerbated the need for these long-held priorities of farming families and brought them to the forefront for investment.

Small landholders often cannot commit the necessary land resources over the two years required for fruit tree seeds to mature, as they must harvest every season from all available land to maintain their livelihoods. The question that arose at the onset of the project and that remains prevalent for rural communities today is where land for nurseries will come from, if farmers cannot afford to convert their existing farmland.

The mausoleum near Amsouzerte is a sacred tomb of a Hebrew saint (tzaddik, or ‘righteous one’) named David-Ou-Moshe, one of over 600 tzaddikim (Muslim, Jewish, and Christian) buried throughout Morocco. The land immediately around these burials had potential for future tree nurseries that could generate tens of millions of saplings annually.

On behalf of the farming families, HAF approached the Moroccan Jewish community to request land leases for building tree nurseries on this land. While they agreed, sufficient funding was still needed for the project to commence. Although the original location remained undone as years passed, a successful pilot nursery launched in 2012 at Akrich in the Al Haouz province near Marrakech at the burial site of another tzaddik named Raphael Hacohen that has since collaborated with and provided benefits for 175 different farming families annually.

Community nurseries jumpstart a new development path toward economic and environmental sustainability. The Akrich tree nursery, for example, led to empowerment workshops and the establishment of the nearby Achbarou women’s carpet-making cooperative, the construction of a paved road between the nursery/cemetery and the cooperative that allows visitors to easily visit both sites, and a clean drinking water system in Achbarou village. It is necessary that agencies partner with communities like Achbarou as land contributors to catalyze human development projects that extend benefits beyond the agricultural sector.

Methods of Scaling Cultural Initiatives and Sustainable Development

Moroccan development policies and the public have recognized the environmental richness and symbol of social solidarity that the country bears. Environmentally, the natural diversity composed of distinct biozones (which exist in the Middle East and North Africa region at large) has created widespread opportunities for food production generated from endemic species.

Socially, the Moroccan national identity includes people of different ethnicities, languages, dialects, and faiths. In general, Morocco represents one case in which people of varying identities live unified under a single sovereignty in relative harmony. Morocco, as apparent in its culture, policies, and constitution, aims to embrace the different aspects that make up its identity. Even in the current regional context of conflict and war, Morocco maintains a commitment through policy and programs to the diversity of faiths for its communities as a pathway towards improving people’s lives. This approach is seen as the most practical way to achieve development and inspire broader peace and acceptance across the world.

However, in order to attain enduring success in this way, interfaith actions require their design to come from the community beneficiaries and directly address their self-described needs. Development implemented through local participatory methods generates the critical trust and goodwill that strengthen social unity, due to its responsiveness to the will of the people. Necessarily, Morocco’s commitment to community-identified and managed initiatives for growth is also embedded in Moroccan policy, strategic plans of ministries, charters, and the Constitution.     

After coordination with the Ouarzazate governor and with the Regional Directors of relevant public agencies, construction of the new nursery began in 2019. In the past four planting seasons, over 46,000 fruit saplings were produced at this nursery that were then planted in the private agricultural lands of 195 small landholder families, marking significant progress for the development trajectories of these communities. Lands for future nurseries are increasingly being set aside by the Moroccan Jewish community to contribute to this interfaith organic fruit tree initiative, titled House of Life by the governor of the Al Haouz Province Younès Al Bathaoui, denoting the traditional title for a Jewish cemetery.

Monitoring the Trees for Verified and Commercialized Carbon Offset Units

Monitoring tree nurseries for evaluating carbon offset credits has also become an integral part of the larger tree-planting initiative. New carbon offset programs and verification standards integrate multiple existing methodologies to launch community initiatives through participatory development and empowerment workshops, particularly with women. This strategy utilizes local, organic, and endemic seed varieties; incorporates renewable energy in the form of solar water pump systems at nurseries; reinvests offset revenue in new community projects within the regions that generated the credits, and concentrates tree planting with small landholder farming families, all while facilitating interfaith collaboration to alleviate rural poverty.

Observing tree growth using GPS, maintaining registries and GIS maps of planted trees, and monitoring voluntary and credited carbon offsets with certifiable systems are critical components of the nursery programs. Monitoring systems include important data such as the farmer’s name, association, or cooperative, the village and region, the tree species and number of trees, photos of the location, planting systems used, and other factors to ensure maximal efficient use of all land.

Using the current carbon credit monitoring system (that of PlanVivo based in Scotland), 80 percent of the value of the carbon offset credit (now valued at 40 euros) returns to the farmers and their development projects. Of the remaining 20 percent of the value of the credit, 10 percent goes to the certifier who helps verify and commercialize the credit, and 10 percent goes to HAF for the costs of ongoing monitoring, organizing community meetings for project identification, securing authorizations with relevant public agencies, overall implementation, and financial and programmatic compliance (including audits).

As stated in Morocco’s General Report of the New Development Model, significantly more investment is necessary in order to achieve the levels of economic growth and poverty alleviation needed, with an emphasis on agriculture, human capital, and digitalization. These components are all integral in the House of Life and carbon credit offset programs. Furthermore, the focus on family farmers helps to ensure that the benefits are directed at the communities and villages that need them most.

The sector that presents the greatest likelihood of return, and which addresses the core of the poverty affliction in the country, is agriculture. The agricultural practices that prevent people from taking full advantage of the sector’s opportunities are the same practices that, if positively transformed, will uplift millions from poverty and secure environmental sustainability and water availability for decades to come. Therefore, targeting investment in the agricultural sector and ensuring that it is delivered to the communities is what will accelerate and multiply the level of financial returns for overall human development.

Although significant barriers exist to securing new financing that reaches farming communities, they can be addressed to create new projects by the people. For example, compliant financial and programmatic management and reporting systems of local civil and cooperative groups are essential but too few in number. In this regard, capacity-building is vital, and having an enhanced self-reliant form of revenue generation is key, especially one derived from an ongoing production activity that already exists like fruit tree agriculture.

Added income from the verification and sale of carbon offset credits enabled by tree planting activities can capitalize on communities’ existing strength and further increase household income and reinvestment in local development. When interfaith partnerships—in this case, through the free provision of land for community nurseries—are a principal part of program implementation and expansion, they will become more prevalent and strengthen social solidarity as income and reinvestment from agricultural yields and carbon credits are generated.

Conclusions: Communities’ Discovery and Empowerment First

Morocco’s policies encourage intercultural dialogue and communication for human development. Different faith communities in Morocco are brought together to share their historical narratives, which can lead to improved livelihoods and health through a participatory development approach by leveraging underutilized capacities. However, these experiences that are necessary to empower and promote sustainable growth are too infrequent to impact social transformation. House of Life cements the continuity of interfaith collaboration, key for achieving scale and social change, by providing needed trees and support for new community projects.

While multicultural memory and consciousness in the country create opportunities, combining these factors has yet to reach the level of self-reliant development and a circular economy that the people urgently need. Through the USAID Dakira program (or “Memory” in English), civil society organizations and public administrations seek to redress the lack of such participatory community dialogues in which people discuss the past and the future together and create a shared vision forward.

Third-party facilitation of dialogue and communication at the community level is vital, especially in the initial phases, as cultural narratives and development opportunities are shared by the group participants, trust and cross-relationships are built, and future growth plans are created. In this way, Moroccan culture has become a (re)discovery gateway for human development, recalling the nation’s journey of diversity, unity, and solidarity, even through difficulty. Community storytelling helps people understand their connectivity and reliance on each other to achieve their individual and collective dreams.

The most significant challenge for participatory planning is the need for more training in community dialogue facilitation to empower all voices and express all priorities. While manifold methods and activities can be used to explore personal and collective identity and create plans for the future, most people have never experienced these approaches and are, therefore, unable to initiate and steward the process.

In recent years, the global community has seen that much of the world does not reflect the same model of faith and cultural solidarity. As can be seen, in the violent incidents at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2019, an African Methodist Episcopal church in South Carolina in 2015, and the Or L’Simcha Congregation synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018. In each of these cases, the killers were initially warmly greeted by their communities with “Salaam,” “Welcome,” and “Shalom” before they committed murder. Tree nursery projects, like the Akrich nursery, have the potential to juxtapose these atrocities against the more hopeful reality of interfaith solidarity as is experienced in Morocco.

Interfaith dialogue, as an opportunity to voice our histories, can deepen understanding and provide reconciliation between historically antagonistic groups. When this process is maintained and integrated with supporting projects and defined and managed by the people, it can become a basis for achieving sustainable and prosperous societies. In Morocco, interfaith connections are convivial when they occur but demand total energy and commitment to organize. This Moroccan approach to success across religious differences could inspire other nations of Africa, the Islamic World, and the Middle East to follow the same path.


Reference

Al Kaderi, M. (2014). Compendium Country Profile Cultural Policy in Morocco. Cultural Policy in the Arab Region. https://www.culturalpolicies.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/morocco_full_profile_2014.pdf

Anouar, S. (2022, November). Morocco Vows to Share Heritage Preservation Know-How Within Africa. Morocco World News. https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2022/11/352691/morocco-vows-to-share-heritage-preservation-know-how-within-africa

BBC. (2020, 24 August). Christchurch shooting: Gunman Tarrant wanted to kill ‘as many as possible’. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53861456

Ben-Meir, Y. (2006). Create an Historic Moroccan-American Partnership. International Journal on World Peace. 23(2), 71-77. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20752735

Ben-Meir, Y. (2019). Empowering Rural Participation and Partnerships in Morocco’s Sustainable Development. Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective. 14(2), 191-214. https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/jgi/vol14/iss2/13

CBS. (2023, 27 October). Commemorating the 11 lives taken five years ago in Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/commemorating-the-11-lives-taken-five-years-ago-in-pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting/

Circular Ecology. (n.d.) Wider Benefits of Carbon Offsetting. https://circularecology.com/wider-benefits-of-carbon-offsetting.html

El Khadiri, S. (2022, March). Participatory Approach with Women of Achbarou Cooperative. High Atlas Foundation. https://highatlasfoundation.org/en/insights/participatory-approach-with-women-of-achbarou-cooperative/

Empowerment Initiative. (2016). IMAGINE. Clinton Global Initiative 2014 Commitment to Actionhttps://imagineprogram.net/

Freeman, T. (n.d.). What is a Tzaddik? Being human all the way. Chabad.org. https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2367724/jewish/Tzaddik.htm

High Atlas Foundation. (n.d.). Balance Your Carbon Footprint: Plant fruit trees with the High Atlas Foundation. High Atlas Foundationhttps://assets.highatlasfoundation.org/uploads/PRINT-EN-HAF-Carbon-Offsets-Brochure-2023-A5-Document.pdf

High Atlas Foundation. (n.d.). Carbon Credits. High Atlas Foundationhttps://highatlasfoundation.org/en/our-work/carbon-credits

High Atlas Foundation. (2023, January).High Atlas Foundation Plants Thousands of Trees with Moroccan Communities for Annual Tree Planting. BusinessGhana. https://www.businessghana.com/site/news/general/278143/High-Atlas-Foundation-Plants-Thousands-of-Trees-with-Moroccan-Communities-for-Annual-Tree-Planting

High Atlas Foundation. (n.d.). House of Life: Intercultural Organic Fruit Tree Nursery Initiative. High Atlas Foundationhttps://assets.highatlasfoundation.org/uploads/EN-House-of-Life-Brochure-2023.pdf 43

Kuwait News Agency. (2008, August). Moroccan King Inaugurates 30th Asilah Cultural Festival. https://www.kuna.net.kw/ArticlePrintPage.aspx?id=1929008&language=en#

New York Times. (2015, 17 June). Nine Killed in Shooting at Black Church in Charleston. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/18/us/church-attacked-in-charleston-south-carolina.html

Plan Vivo. (n.d.). Acorn. Plan Vivo: For nature, climate, and communitieshttps://www.planvivo.org/acorn

Royaume du Maroc. (2021, April). The New Development Model: Releasing energies and regaining trust to accelerate the march of progress and prosperity for all. Royaume du Maroc General Reporthttps://www.csmd.ma/documents/CSMD_Report_EN.pdf

United Nations Alliance of Civilizations. (2022). Fez Declaration on the Ninth Global Forum of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations: Towards an Alliance of Peace: Living Together as One Humanity. 9th Global Forum United Nations Alliance of Civilizations. https://diplomatie.ma/sites/default/files/inline-files/Fez%20Declaration-%20Adopted%20%2822Nov-%20End%20of%20Ministerial%20Meeting%29.pdf

United Nations Development Programme. (2023, April). What is circular economy and why does it matter? UNDP Climate Promisehttps://climatepromise.undp.org/news-and-stories/what-is-circular-economy-and-how-it-helps-fight-climate-change

U.S. Agency for International Development. (n.d.). Dakira. USAID From the American People. https://www.usaid.gov/morocco/fact-sheets/dakira

Walaw. (2024, November). Morocco Strengthens Legal Framework for Cultural Heritage Protection. https://sport.walaw.press/en/articles/morocco_strengthens_legal_framework_for_cultural_heritage_protection/GMXMRFSQLSWQ

Dr. Yossef Ben-Meir is president and co-founder of the High Atlas Foundation, a Moroccan-U.S. non-profit organization founded in 2000 and dedicated to sustainable development. Dr. Ben-Meir is a visiting professor at the University of Virginia’s International Studies. He holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of New Mexico (2009), an MA in international development from Clark University (1997), and a BA in economics from New York University (1991).

𝗙ree-𝗡𝗕𝗔-𝗦eal “incentive” for payment of annual bar practising fee promotes palliative mentality

NBA Presidents Should Jettison Policies That Do Not Promote Welfare and Economic Empowerment of Lawyers!

By Sylvester Udemezue

  1. In return for the various monies the leaderships of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and their affiliates continually collect from Nigerian lawyers, Nigerian lawyers should DEMAND and INSIST on quality, accountable responsible, responsive, transparent and effective governance from the NBA leaderships Instead of waiting for and being content with FREE-NBA-SEALS as a major incentive to continue to pay the Annual Bar Practising Fee (BPF).
  2. FREE-NBA-SEAL is not a sign of responsible and effective governance but a sort of perpetuation and promotion of palliative mentality which is a major sign of ineffective governance on the part of the NBA and gullible, docile, beggarly, disoriented and fruitless followership on the part of NBA members.
  3. A CORE AIM of the NBA is ”Establishment of schemes for the promotion of the welfare, security, and economic advancement of members of the legal profession”_ (See Section 3(13) of the NBA Constitution, 2015). NBA leaderships should focus on this, instead of promoting the palliative culture that encourages poverty and laziness among lawyers .
  4. NBA leaders usually take collection of the Bar Practicing Fee (BPF) and other dues so seriously that they adopt, in each year, all manner of strategies to get lawyers to pay. By going about to appeal to lawyers to pay the BPF and Branch Dues, and by introducing the FREE-NBA-SEALS scheme as an incentive to encourage payment, NBA leaderships are subtly exposing their vested selfish interest in the monies ultimately collected from the BPF. Ordinarily, NBA leaders should have no business and no reasons “appealing” to anyone to pay BPF and dues. Members ought to pay the BPF WILLINGLY and HAPPILY if members are sure that they stand to benefit and especially considering the consequences of failure or neglect to pay.
  5. Additionally, (a) section 4 of the NBA Constitution provides that if you don’t pay BPF, you’re disqualified from practicing law in all its facets and from doing anything whatsoever that only a lawyer may do, for the rest of that year, until you pay. The same section says non payment of BPF is a form of unprofessional conduct. Why then does anyone need any FREE-NBA-SEALS as an incentive to pay? See also the Rules of Professional Conduct (RPC), 2023, which makes payment of the BPF a condition precedent to engagement in law practice especially advocacy, in each year.
  6. If things were going on well within the NBA, if NBA members were happy with the NBA leaderships, if they were getting VALUE FOR THEIR MONEY by way of good, quality governance, they would happily and promptly pay BPF and any other dues.
  7. Unfortunately, there appears to be a situation of TOTAL FAILURE OF CONSIDERATION, as I have come to realize, meaning that Nigerian lawyers hardly get value for the monies they pay to the NBA. Thus about 90 percent of lawyers who pay BPF do so only because they want to be able to collect Stamp and Seal in that year which itself is required to be affixed to any document prepared by a lawyer for the purpose of authentication. In other words, most NBA members pay the BPF because NBA practically, indirectly COMPELS them to pay. Else, they might not and NBA leaderships know this, because there’s hardly anything lawyers get in return, BY WAY OF VALUE, GOOD GOVERNANCE
  8. I repeat that payment of the BPF should be done by lawyers freely and without any inducement such as the palliative FREE-NBA-SEALS that only gives unsuspecting lawyers a false impression that NBA is doing something (giving FREE-NBA-SEAL) when the FREE-NBA-SEALS scheme in itself is neither a sign of progress for the NBA nor evidence of good governance on the part of NBA leaderships.
  9. The best sign of progress is when every lawyer in Nigeria is able on his own, to apply and pay for the number of NBA seals he needs in each year; such is a sign of economic improvement as well as an improvement in the professional lives of NBA members.
  10. Four major factors should constitute the major reason why Nigerian lawyers should feel obliged to pay the Annual Bar Practising Fee: (1) The payment is statutory and mandatory; (2) Default has serious consequences, as already pointed out above. (3). The payment is the annual law practising licence renewal fee for lawyers and (4).That Nigerian lawyers are getting value for the monies collected from them by the NBA. Unfortunately, number (4) above, as I have explained, is almost absent leading to widespread indifference by lawyers towards prompt payment of the BPF.
  11. However, as a way out and instead of delivering good, effective governance (which should be the major motivation and the real incentive for payment of the BPF), some NBA leaderships recently devised the strategy of promising lawyers who pay their BPF before 31 March in each year, a card or two of NBA seals. The scheme was begun under the Akpata leadership (2020-2022), but it appears the current NBA leadership is not interested in continuing it, in response to which there are pockets of protests by lawyers who argue that the FREE-NBA-SEALS bonus serves as “a major incentive” for payment of the BPF. Unfortunate!
  12. Some others have suggested that the FREE-NBA-SEALS bonus, which was started by the Olumide Akpata leadership, was later stopped under the Yakubu Maikyau leadership, while some others say it was continued by the Maikyau leadership. Anyway, when the strategy started or stopped and whether it has stopped or has not stopped are not the focus of this commentary. The main focus of this commentary is that the FREE-NBA-SEALS in return for payment of the BPF is an ugly strategy that illustrates dilapidation, deterioration and retrogression.
  13. Such a palliative mentality strategy/policy ought to be discontinued forthwith while NBA leaderships should focus their attention on upholding the core essentials of good governance as identified by UNESCAP (United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific): (1) Participation; (2)
    Strict adherence to the Rule of law, enthronement of fair legal frameworks that are enforced impartially, and full protection of human rights, particularly those of minorities; (3). Transparency and adherence to due process ; (4). Timely and responsible responsiveness to the challenges of the NBA and its members, so as to engender trust and Consensus oriented: Mature, reasonable, fair balancing and reconciling of the many conflicting interests and needs within the NBA; (6). Equity and inclusiveness to ensure a sense of belonging to the various interests within the the NBA; (7) Effectiveness and efficiency, ensuring a result-oriented leadership where the results are such that meet reasonable expectation.
  14. Efficiency involves sustainable use of available resources while effectiveness entails producing results that meet the needs of members and stakeholders in the NBA; (8). Accountability: NBA leaderships must be accountable to NBA members and to all stakeholders. Observance of the requirements of transparency and rule of law ensures accountability, equity, and inclusiveness.
  15. Delivery of good governance to NBA members (which is the fundamental reason the NBA leadership is installed) should be the best and the most credible motivation, incentive for NBA members’ commitment to prompt and regular payment of the BPF.
    Respectfully,
    Sylvester Udemezue (Udems), Proctor of The Reality Ministry of Truth, Law and Justice (TRM)
    08109024556.
    TheRealityMinister@Gmail.Com.
    (31 January 2025)

Texas orders ban of DeepSeek amid reviews of how it upended US AI market

[Video]

Just days after Fortune Magazine announced “Why DeepSeek is excellent news for the U.S. stock market”, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott issued a ban on Chinese artificial intelligence company DeepSeek for government-issued devices, becoming the first state to restrict the popular chatbot in such a manner. The upstart AI platform has sent shockwaves throughout the AI community after gaining popularity amongst American users in recent weeks.

Fortune reported that: “China’s DeepSeek surprised the technology world this week by releasing an AI model that almost matched the performance of American rivals while requiring far less computing power. The news sparked a sell-off in U.S. stocks as investors fretted that the need for powerful computers to train and operate AI models may be overblown.

“In fact, this is a shortsighted view that misses the significant benefits that DeepSeek represents for the U.S. economy and for businesses worldwide.”

Aside from banning DeepSeek AP reoprts, Texas Gov. Abbott, equally prohibited popular Chinese-owned social media apps Xiaohongshu, or what some are calling RedNote, and Lemon8 from all state-issued devices.

“Texas will not allow the Chinese Communist Party to infiltrate our state’s critical infrastructure through data-harvesting AI and social media apps,” Abbott said in a statement. “Texas will continue to protect and defend our state from hostile foreign actors.”

The governor’s office declined to comment further for this story.

AI startup DeepSeek has rocked markets upon demonstrating its capacity to compete with industry leader OpenAI.

U.S. also users flocked to Xiaohongshu in the days leading up to TikTok’s short-lived ban. It’s a popular app in China and surrounding countries — such as Malaysia and Taiwan — with roughly 300 million active users that many Americans were using as a replacement doe TikTok, and as a form of protest against the ban.

Lemon8 is also a Chinese company owned by ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. The social media app also gained traction in the days leading up to the original TikTok ban on Jan. 19.

Texas, along with many other states and the federal government, has banned TikTok on government devices. The app’s future remains in limbo after President Trump issued an executive order to give ByteDance more time to divest TikTok’s U.S. operations.

ByteDance did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

Watch the video of man who predicted ban of DeepSeek in the US.

The meaning and legal effect of next of kin (1)

By Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, SAN

A very dangerous message has been circulating online in respect of the law and practice of administration of estates. Let me repeat it for whatever it is worth.

IS THE CONCEPT OF PAYABLE ON DEATH (POD) LEGAL?

“So ‘Next of Kin’ is useless in the Bank. The real thing needed in the Bank is if you die today, your ”Next of Kin” will not have any access to the money in your account!!!

“So many Nigerians think that their next of kin is the automatic heir to their accounts. But the truth is that if your next of kin is not a signatory to your account, and if you don’t have a written Will to determine that person’s legitimacy, the person will not have access to that money at all. Your bank will have to go through a process called a legal probate. This probate period helps them determine who gets the money in your account. This is a very very lengthy and expensive process. Even after the whole process is done, your family will have to forfeit some very reasonable amount of the money for legal fees. But if you want to avoid this, simply request for your bank to give you something called a POD form. POD stands for “payable on death”. The name of the person you fill in that POD form will determine who will get your money. All the person needs to bring is a death certificate to get that money out. With a POD form, you will save your family the stress of going through all that lengthy legal process and even losing some money to the law.”

Nothing can be more worrisome than seeking to bypass the due process of law or seeking to cut corners to achieve a goal by any means possible. The above message must have resonated with many people who see lawyers and the legal process as cumbersome and unduly technical. Nonetheless, it is a dangerous proposition for any one to canvass for adoption by beneficiaries of the estate of a deceased person. By its designation, the concept of POD is outrightly illegal being in direct contravention of existing laws of the land. There are established ways of distributing the estate of a deceased person and POD is not one of them.

The idea of POD will throw up many legal issues if at all it is available for use by any bank or financial institution. By the express provisions of the Administration of Estates Law of many States, the mode of determining the assets of a deceased person is either through a Will or Letter of Administration. The internal procedure of a bank or an institution cannot override the express provisions of the law. There has to be some basis for adopting a financial formula beyond policy and practice. First is the issue of revenue for the government. The owner of the estate must have been paying tax to the government while he was alive, so those who seek to take benefit of the assets comprised in his estate should not employ any crude method that will enable them to evade paying tax to the government.

The second is equity and justice. The deceased owner of the estate cannot stand alone, if by his actions he has created others to depend on him, such as wives, children, parents or relatives. His choice of what to do with his assets has to comply with existing laws. For instance, a man cannot on his own decide to give all his assets to his son through the amorphous device of POD if at the time of his death he has a surviving wife or other children. There may be other beneficiaries who may have been excluded from the assets but who are genuinely entitled for one reason or the other. The rule of fairness dictates that all the beneficiaries should submit themselves to a transparent process that guarantees justice and equity. Without any doubt, any bank that releases money or assets to anyone without following the due process prescribed by law does so at its own risk and will be held liable by all beneficiaries of the assets who have been so excluded.

The third issue is sustenance of the legal profession. We should not encourage our institutions to short-circuit the law in such a way that may deprive legal practitioners of needed resources. Lawyers are already bearing the brunt of this economy so we should create jobs for young lawyers and not seek to deny legal practitioners of legitimate opportunities to earn their fees. So many of these estates are very large and rich in assets and should be able to afford to pay legal fees.

After all, the bank where the money is kept is charging interest and other fees. It is a different thing altogether if an estate is not sufficiently endowed to pay legal or other fees, which brings in the concept of waiver by the government or pro bono service by the lawyer. To my mind, a person who wants to inherit an asset should be ready to part with revenue to those who deserve it.

MEANING OF NEXT OF KIN

On February 2, 2024, the Supreme Court delivered a landmark judgment in the case of Ironbar v Federal Mortgage Finance Ltd, which is now reported in (2024) 12 NWLR (Pt.1952) 275; (2024) LPELR-62186 (SC).

Per Ogunwumiju JSC:

“It may be important at this point to consider the capacity as “next of kin” in which the Appellant principally sued. The term, next of kin has been described as the nearest blood relative of a person. See JOSEPH v FAJEMILEHIN O.O. & Anor (2012) LPELR-9849(CA). The term can also refer to a person who can be contacted or notified in cases of emergencies or eventualities. For instance, one of the forms that is usually filled while in transit or in hospitals, requires the information of next of kin. This is needed in case of any accident or death. In other words, where there is an accident or death involving that person, his next of kin shall be notified or informed. The BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY defines the phrase “next of kin” to mean a person or persons most closely related to a deceased person by blood, consanguinity or affinity. In other words one’s next of kin is one’s relative. It also defines the phrase “next of kin” to mean an intestate’s heirs – that is, the person or persons who may be entitled to inherit personal property from a deceased who has not left a will. In other words a “next of kin” is a family member or one’s relative. The phrase gained popularity during the colonial era because the foreign administrators needed to indicate their “next of kin” in the various forms they filled to ensure that if they died in the colonies, the British government could contact the family through their next of kin as indicated in the employee records.

Also, the term is constantly put into use by hospitals. In this case, next of kin means a person who can make medical decisions for a person who is incapacitated or unable to do so, during emergencies. The term is also frequently used in financial documents by banks and other financial institutions. In this instance, next of kin means a person who can ensure that the proper steps are taken towards the recovery of the money held at the bank, at the demise of the owner. In other words, being a next of kin of a person, as regards his money in the bank, does not give a right to inherit such money, either partly or as a whole, it just gives the right to contact the bank and ensure that the money is safe to be properly distributed by the law governing the estate of the deceased.”

The take home from the decision in Ironbar’s case is that being described as a next of kin confers no legal right on the holder of that office beyond formal recognition for the purpose of identifying the assets and to preserve them. If he is otherwise not a beneficiary recognized by law, the title of ‘next of kin’ grants no legal right to him over the estate. And if he is a beneficiary, he still has to go through the procedure prescribed by law for him to step into the estate proper. Human affairs are never predictable, at least in relation to the payment of the compulsory debt that we owe our maker, to leave this world one day, through death. It is an inevitable appointment that everyone must keep, but the issue is always the time of that appointment, which is known to God Himself alone. Because death could come unexpectedly, the law has made provisions for the mode of distribution of the estate of a person who departs unexpectedly without making adequate provisions for the sharing of his or her assets amongst the survivors.

The rancours that normally attend this matter have made it imperative to consider it as a topic for discussion. Ideally, the rational thing is for everyone to make plans for the sharing of his assets in a Will, wherein the mode of distribution of the estate of the deceased is well stated, to avoid unnecessary disputes. Even at that, experience has shown that notwithstanding the best of intentions by a testator, people still find reasons to war within themselves, so long as money is involved. In this regard, the estate of a first republic minister is still in court, decades after his death. And two of the best lawyers that Nigeria has ever produced wrote their Wills in such a way that no one would ever have thought of any controversy thereafter, but there have been contentions between their families upon their demise. So, the question then is what can be done to prevent the kind of disputes that attend the distribution of the estate of a deceased person?

Amaechi, el-Rufai and Alákedun

When I read the common position the former governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi and his counterpart from Kaduna, Nasir el-Rufai, pushed in Abuja last week about the government of President Bola Tinubu, the first thing that came to mind was the curse of instability Obàtálá placed on Alákedun. Indeed, there is no stability for the betrayer because it was pronounced: Àti ‘gi dí’gi ni ti Ìjímèrè (From one tree to the other is the lot of Ijimere-monkey)!

Rìkísí is Yoruba word for conspiracy. When two hitherto enemies suddenly find a common ground, my people say of them: Rìkísí pa wón pò wón di òré (united in friendship by conspiracy). Rìkísí has a forerunner. Before two enemies come together to pursue a common goal, both, or either of them must have betrayed a cause. Betrayal comes before conspiracy (Ilè dídà ní sáájú òtè). Again, no betrayer goes unpunished according to Yoruba belief.

Thanks be to those who nurtured us from our cradle with moral teachings. The various moonlight tales that dominated our informal education in the days of yore are not in vain after all. One of such tales is the story of the small brown monkey, Alákedun, otherwise known as Ìjímèrè. Our elders told us the tale to show why monkeys remain ambulant to this day, jumping from one tree to the other.

Alákedun, the fable says, was a close friend to Obàtálá, the Yoruba god of creativity. One of the delicacies Obatala would not miss is palm wine. The deity was said to relish palm wine to the extent of being addicted to it. And being a generous god, Obatala always invited all other deities and his friends to share his palm wine with him.

Of all the friends, the closest to Obàtálá was Alákedun, whom the deity employed to work for him and paid him handsomely. The only secret Obatala probably kept away from Alakedun was the very minute the god of creativity would go into the inner recesses with his wife for due benevolence! They were that close.

One day, the other deities and friends, jealous of Obàtálá’s progress in life, decided to conspire against him. They went to a fake Babalawo, who made a false divination and pronounced that Ifa had banned the consumption of palm wine. Obàtálá knew that the plot was against him, and he devised a means to beat them at their game.

Obàtálá got a new pot and asked his wife to fill it with ògí (pap). When the formation got fermented, he poured the whitish water into another pot and began to drink it. Alákedun noticed that Obàtálá used to drink a whitish substance from the pot. He opened the pot and saw the whitish water inside. Without having a taste of the content, he dashed to his co-conspirators to inform them that Obàtálá had defied the instruction from Ifa as he continued to drink palm wine.

Obàtálá was summoned and the allegation laid before him. The deity did not utter a word. He simply brought out the pot and asked everyone to taste the content. They all did. Yes, the content was whitish, but it did not taste like palm wine, nor did it have the scent of palm wine. Alákedun was ashamed.

As a punishment, Obàtálá disengaged him from his employ and placed a curse on him to wit: Alákedun will not have a stable lifestyle but will hop from one tree to the other. Whenever you see a monkey, know the source of its perpetual ambulant lifestyle. There is no stability for a betrayer!

The duo of Amaechi and el-Rufai spoke at a national conference on strengthening democracy in Nigeria, organised by the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development in Abuja. At the conference, Amaechi for instance, asked the younger generation of Nigerians to be ready to fight very hard and wrest power from the incumbent President Tinubu.

The former Minister of Transportation under the lethargic government of General Muhammadu Buhari, warned that: “The politician is there in Nigeria to steal, maim, and kill to remain in power. If you think Tinubu will give it to you, you are wasting your time.” He added that for Tinubu to be shown the way out of power in the next round of general elections, “The people should be angry. There should be protests. Not even protests against anybody but against the politicians that ‘we won’t vote.” Unless the people demonstrated that they would do the unthinkable to defend their votes, they should perish the thought of chasing the present power wielders out of power.

To be honest, there is nothing the former Rivers State governor said at that event that is not true. Even his account of how the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) intimidated former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) out of power is also correct. The only snag in his submissions is why Rotimi Amaechi is bitter about the Tinubu administration. Why did he, for the terrible eight wasteful years of the Buhari administration, not come out forcefully to encourage Nigerians to ‘rescue’ their country?

The answer to the above posers is also in the tale of the Hyena and the mangoes. Hyena, by nature, is not gifted with the talent of jumping heights. So, the tale has it that one day, the Hyena was hungry. It appeared that all the lesser animals in the jungle that could have served as good lunch were holding a prayer session. The Hyena eventually got to a mango tree with ripe fruits. It decided to have some to keep its belly warm pending when any animal would stray to its path.

Hyena made several unsuccessful attempts to pluck the ripe mangoes. When it dawned on it that it was a mission impossible, it looked up at the mangoes, hissed and intoned: “Why am I even wasting my time over these unripe mangoes” That is exactly the frustration Amaechi is suffering over the Presidency he sought and did several rounds of sprinting at the Port Harcourt Stadium in 2023 to show that he is fit, but failed to accomplish!

Nobody can successfully defend the cluelessness in the Tinubu administration without sounding witless. Be that as it may, it is equally not in the place of Amaechi to criticise this government if he could tolerate the vapid administration of Buhari for eight years without a mewl from him!

The Buhari government under which Amaechi served as a minister and the current docile Tinubu administration are like leprosy and third-degree scabies. Both destroy the skin of the afflicted. It is an insult to our sensibilities if Amaechi is now projecting himself as our moral compass to judge anyone in power. From the time he left the university till he left government in 2023, Amaechi has remained an over-pampered child of government (Akebaje omo Ijoba). If there is any protest in the league of the one he advocated in Abuja, the former governor should be told that he will not escape the wrath of the people. It is better that he knows the fire he intends to kindle with his call to action!

The same applies to el-Rufai and his sanctimonious propensity when he said that: “You cannot afford to have illiterates, semi-literates, and cunning people as your leaders. This is why we end up with the poor leadership we have today.” The question to ask is: who assisted the “illiterates, semi-literates, and cunning people” to get to power in the first instance?

If el-Rufai is so concerned about the quality of leadership Nigeria deserves, was Tinubu the best among the lots that contested the APC presidential primaries? Why, for instance, did he rally all northern elite in the APC, and blackmailed the Presidency then into supporting the Tinubu agenda? At what point did he realise the ‘illiteracy’ and ‘semi-illiteracy’ in this administration? After his failed attempt at becoming a minister?

And talking about the non-existent stance of opposition, or attempt to cripple the opposition by the APC, who will help us to tell el-Rufai that he is the chief architect of the death of opposition in the current dispensation? Why would he not realise that he joined forces with others to decapitate the PDP when he abandoned the party to join the current “illiterates and semi-illiterates” to form the APC all in a bid to wrest power at all costs!

If it is true that “The problems that led to the creation of the APC remain unresolved” and he “…no longer believe the APC is interested in addressing them”, as he claimed, why is it difficult for el-Rufai to understand that APC is a child of conspiracy and that the party only came to wrest power and nothing more?

Is el-Rufai not old enough to know that whatever is established on the quicksand of conspiracy would not last? That conspiracy does not birth any good child? This is why his romance with Amaechi, and other politicians in the PDP, to ally will also not stand. There is nothing altruistic about the whole gang-up!

It is most unfortunate that President Tinubu is not giving one the opportunity to defend him. How I wish that the man who was said to have “built Lagos” was living up to his billing as a ‘builder’! One would have used some unkind words to qualify the el-Rufais and Amaechis of this era!

The only takeaway from the rantings of these two folks is that there is nothing conspiracy cannot, sadly, breed! When Rotimi Amaechi indicated interest to become president in 2023, el-Rufai was at the forefront, leading the foot soldiers of President Tinubu. Today, Amaechi and el-Rufai have found a common ground in the lacklustre performance of Tinubu to sermonise on good governance; the same they could not offer the people of Rivers and Kaduna States, when they held sway as governors. Pity!

If one’s masquerade dances well at the arena, one cannot but be elated. But how does one chant the praise names of this Tinubu’s Egúngún that is missing every step of the choreography at the arena? Why won’t the frogs of Amaechi and el-Rufai urinate on the white costume of Tinubu’s masquerade when the only visible achievement of the 20-month-old administration is the pain it inflicted on the people at its inception?

Unfortunately for the hapless masses, with the way the PDP is standing today, and the back-and-forth locomotion from Peter Obi and his Labour Party, the tendency that Tinubu would refine his 2023 winning ‘strategies’ and foist another term on us all is very high! Sad, and at the same time terrifying, but the Rìkísí from Amaechi and el-Rufai is not strong enough to dislodge Tinubu from Aso Rock Villa. I wonder how many Nigerians would pay attention to the duo with their tendency to jump into any political bed as long as their insatiable personal interests are concerned! It appears that Òjé (lead) has been fixed on the chief priest’s finger. Who will remove it?

Nigerian-US based Woman, Abayomi Whint, sworn-in as judge in New York

A Nigerian woman based in the United States, Abayomi Whint, has been sworn in as a judge for the Kings County New York Civil Court.

The announcement was made through a video posted on her Instagram page on January 23, 2025, titled, “Welcome to the bench, Your Honour!”

Whint was one of eight candidates elected as judges in Brooklyn during the November 2024 elections having been nominated by Brooklyn district leaders.

The swearing-in ceremony took place at Brooklyn Law School, where she took the oath of office in the presence of her family and friends, who celebrated the moment dressed in white and green.

In her oath, she pledged, “…to discharge the duties of the office of judge for the Kings County New York Civil Court, according to the best of my ability. So, help me God.”

With over two decades of experience in the public sector, Whint has built a career as a litigator, certified mediator, and arbitrator specialising in conflict resolution.

Beyond her legal expertise, she has contributed to organisational leadership, promoting inclusivity, team building and restorative justice practices. As a Restorative Circle Keeper, she has been instrumental in fostering fair dispute resolution.

The Nigerian Consul General, Ambassador Abubakar Jidda, and his wife hosted a banquet at the Nigerian Embassy in New York in her honour.

She is an experienced litigator, certified mediator, and arbitrator who specialises in conflict resolution.

Ramaphosa fires back at Trump over land confiscation claims

South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday hit back at his United States counterpart, Donald Trump over the latter’s threat to cut funding to the African nation after accusing it of “confiscating” land and “treating certain classes of people very badly.”

Trump on Sunday announced he was cutting off all future funding to the country pending an investigation.

“South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people very badly. I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Later, in a briefing with journalists, Trump said that South Africa’s “leadership is doing some terrible things, horrible things” without giving examples.

“So, that’s under investigation right now. We’ll make a determination, and until such time as we find out what South Africa is doing–they’re taking away land and confiscating land, and actually, they’re doing things that are perhaps far worse than that,” he added.

In his response on Monday via his X handle, Ramaphosa noted that the democratic nation of South Africa respects the rule of law, justice and equity, noting that the government hasn’t “confiscated any land.”

With regards to the funding cut as disclosed by Trump, Ramaphosa, while acknowledging the US as a significant “political and trade partner,” corrected that South Africa only benefits from the US-funded “PEPFAR Aid, which constitutes 17% of South Africa’s HIVAids programme.”

His tweets read, “South Africa is a constitutional democracy that is deeply rooted in the rule of law, justice and equality. The South African Government has not confiscated any land.

“The recently adopted Expropriation Act is not a confiscation instrument, but a constitutionally mandated legal process that ensures public access to land in an equitable and just manner as guided by the constitution.

“South Africa, like the United States of America and other countries, has always had expropriation laws that balance the need for public usage of land and the protection of rights of property owners. We look forward to engaging with the Trump administration over our land reform policy and issues of bilateral interest. We are certain that out of those engagements, we will share a better and common understanding of these matters.

“The US remains a key strategic political and trade partner for South Africa. With the exception of PEPFAR Aid, which constitutes 17% of South Africa’s HIVAids programme, there is no other funding that is received by South Africa from the United States.”

According to AFP, the land issue in South Africa has long been divisive, with efforts to redress the inequality of white-rule drawing criticism from conservatives including the world’s wealthiest person, Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa and is a powerful Trump adviser.

It noted that last month, Ramaphosa signed a bill that stipulates the government may, in certain circumstances, offer “nil compensation” for property it decides to expropriate in the public interest.

Pretoria argues the bill does not allow the government to expropriate property arbitrarily and must first seek to reach an agreement with the owner.

However, some groups fear a situation similar to the Zimbabwe government’s seizure of white-owned commercial farms, often without compensation, after independence in 1980.

– South African billionaires –

Land ownership is a contentious issue in South Africa with most farmland still owned by white people three decades after the end of apartheid.

Since then land courts have adjudicated on a handful of land disputes and, after exhaustive processes, returned land to previously displaced owners.

According to the South African government, the 1913 Natives Land Act saw thousands of Black families forcibly removed from their land by the apartheid regime.

The delicate issue has been a particular rallying point for the right, with various conservative figures including Musk and right-wing journalist Katie Hopkins championing the cause of white land-owners.

Musk was born in Pretoria on June 28, 1971, to an engineer father and a Canadian-born model mother, leaving the country in his late teens. The formal policy of apartheid lasted until 1990, and multi-racial elections were held in 1994.

Trump has surrounded himself with powerful Silicon Valley figures who came of age in apartheid southern Africa, like David Sacks, his newly-appointed artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency czar, who co-founded PayPal along with Musk.

Another PayPal cofounder and Billionaire, Peter Thiel who introduced Trump to his vice president, J.D. Vance — also lived in southern Africa, including time in Namibia which was then controlled by Pretoria.

He has previously been accused of supporting the apartheid system, that violently subjugated the Black majority of South Africa to uphold white rule and economic control, something a spokesman denied on his behalf.

AFP

Another Epiphany: Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) unwittingly explains the reason for IGP’s tenure extension

By Tonye Clinton Jaja

In the past few weeks, the Nigerian public and others have received a lot of confessions from both current and former public officials.

Although not originally planned as public confessions, the public statements of these former and current public officials, UNWITTINGLY provided deep insights into the “inner workings”, the modus operandi and the priorities of the top public officials of Nigeria.

It started with the confessions of the current Governor of Bayelsa State, who admitted that he spent a whopping $15,000 as transportation fare for marabout (spiritual adviser) who had been imported from Senegal to “secure” his successful emergence as Governor of Bayelsa State!!!

Then the next person to take the microphone, was Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara, a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, National Assembly. In his own written testimony, he provided details of how Nyesom Ezenwo Wike (NEW) expended over ₦1bn of Rivers State government funds to finance the election of Governor Bala Mohammed in the year 2018/2019.

Then last week, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi (RCA) took the microphone and announced that PBAT and all other Nigerian politicians will NEVER RELINQUISH VOLUNTARILY. That they are prepared to kill, maim and steal (and amend the necessary laws to elong the IGP’S tenure) to retain their hold on political power!!!

And most recently, Mr. Muyiwa Adejobi, the Police Public Relations Officer-PRO has joined the list of confessors.

So that I would not be accused of misquoting him out of context, I will reproduce verbatim what he said as follows:

“Muyiwa Adejobi, the public relations officer of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), says it is ridiculous for Nigerians to believe that officers can not afford expensive phones.

Adejobi, while responding to a query on his X handle, on Saturday, said netizens need to be “straight and be objective” when questioning police officers’ source of income.

HOW IT STARTED

On Friday, Adejobi posted a picture of one David Victoria, a deputy superintendent of police (DSP) and secretary to the inspector general of Police (IGP), who appears to be holding a Samsung Galaxy Fold 2 and a diamond-branded watch around her wrist.

“We have beautiful and intelligent ones in the force. This is DSP David Victoria, secretary to the IGP. Happy weekend. Ire o,” Adejobi wrote.

Netizens, who reacted to the post, asked for a disclosure of the officer’s salary that could afford a cellphone worth ₦1 million.

An X user also requested that Victoria’s account statement be printed out to track her cash inflow claiming her salary cannot afford such an expensive gadget.”

When a public servant, owns any property that is beyond their current salary, there can be only two LEGITIMATE sources and explanations as follows:

  1. A legitimate gift or legacy bequeathed by a very wealthy spouse or relative or friend. Or earned from bonds or shares; and
  2. Income earned from agricultural activity which is the only approved extra-secular activity that Nigerian public servants are permitted to engage in.

Therefore, the Nigerian Police PRO owes us as the general public an objective explanation as to the other sources of income that accrue to public servants, in this instance police officers (other than their salaries and income from agricultural activity).

Mr. Muyiwa Adejobi’s proposed explanation can be a source of renewed interest and recruitment into the Nigerian Police by majority of unemployed Nigerian youths who would no realise that apart from the regular salary there are other sources of income for Police officers (which was previously unknown to majority of Nigerians)!!!

Unwittingly, Mr. Adejobi’s response has inadvertently provided additional explanation to the reason why the IGP lobbied for and was granted an extension of tenure.

Considering that an ordinary Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) and Secretary to the IGP is using a wristwatch and phone that costs over ₦1m, what would the IGP himself be using?

And unless, the IGP has an undisclosed mental health challenge, or is not a “typical” Nigerian public official, which “Nigerian” public official in his “right senses” would not seek to elongate his tenure when such an office gives him access to such humongous public funds!!!

Dr. Tonye Clinton Jaja,
Executive Director,
Nigerian Law Society (NLS).

Are Yoruba Muslims truly marginalised?

Each time we hear or read outsiders say they are fighting for Yoruba Muslims, some of us (Yoruba Muslims) laugh. Who told them that we cannot fight our war ourselves – if there is a war? A statement signed by an Imam Haroun Muhammad Eze on behalf of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) led by the Sultan of Sokoto alleged last week that Yoruba Muslims were suffering marginalization in Yorubaland. The statement headlined ‘Live and Let Live’ complained about what it called “calculated attempts to prevent Muslims in the (South-West) region from practising their faith.” I read it and asked myself if that truly was the case. I asked some of my Muslim friends also. We compared notes and laughed.

The statement from the NSCIA wanted Sharia law in Yoruba states. Eighteen years ago, Kano-based Islamic scholar, Sheikh Adam Koki, was quoted as telling the New York Times that “politicians (have) started seeing Sharia as a gateway to political power.” They saw right and used it very well in pocketing Kano and its two million votes. They still annex and harness that gateway to arrive at power and wealth. With the piety of Sharia, a partnership in governance has evolved with northern Nigeria’s highbinders. And, because some persons pestled a tiger to death yesterday, some club-wielding people without muscles are on the prowl in 2025 Yoruba forest, hunting tigers and leopards. They do not know that it is not every leopard that is fated to fall to clubs.

The present cries are very unnecessary. Sharia never left Yorubaland. Our fathers called it seria. It has evolved adopting adept procedures in deft accommodation of its environmental and social realities. Yoruba Muslim families, who desire it, still conduct their private affairs in accordance with Sharia without disturbing their neighbours.

A quiet Sharia panel has been sitting for decades at Oja’ba, Ibadan. There is another one in Osogbo. I suspect that other major Yoruba towns have them. They adjudicate on marriage and marital issues; they arbitrate on disputes among Muslims. They do their thing without noise and drama and excesses. Every willing Muslim who goes there loves what the panels do and how they do it. The respective state governments are aware of their existence but they do not disturb them. At the compound and family levels, check out what we do with Muslim weddings, burials, administration of estates and inheritance matters etc. Those who want more than this should be bold to say what exactly they want.

They want hisbah, moral police on the streets of Ibadan, Abeokuta and Akure? They want a Yoruba Bello Buba Jangebe who would be amputated for stealing a goat while big men who steal roads and bridges hold court? Anyone who wants the Kano, Zamfara kind of Sharia in 2025 Western Nigeria needs counseling. They can have that only in an Islamic Republic of Yorubaland. And, to have that, they will need more than mere words and farty threats. The Nigerian state is a multi-religious reality; it exists to enforce its laws – your creed and my credo notwithstanding.

The case for officially sanctioned Sharia in Yorubaland will be easy to argue and win if its solicitors can show how its introduction in the North has helped the North. They should just exhibit how 22 years of ‘Sharia’ has turned Kano to Dubai or Riyadh or Doha; how more religious, more pious, more equitable, more peaceful and more prosperous the Muslim North has become since ‘Sharia’ became their guiding moral and political philosophy. That is all they need to prove to the Yoruba that Western Nigeria is missing something cool and good for their physical and spiritual growth.

The claim that Yoruba Muslims suffer persecution at the hands of Yoruba leaders and principalities is absurd. The most powerful human being in Nigeria today is the president; he is a Yoruba Muslim. He possibly read that NSCIA’s press statement and laughed as I did. Am I, a Yoruba Muslim, marginalised in Yorubaland? Who is marginalising whom and who is complaining or should complain?

I come from a state (Osun State) that has had six elected governors since it was created in 1991. Five of those six governors are/were Muslims. And, I will identify them: Alhaji Isiaka Adeleke was the first elected governor of the state. He was in power from 1992 to November 1993 when General Abacha sacked everyone everywhere. With democracy in 1999 came Chief Abdulkarim Adebisi Akande, a Muslim. After Akande came Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, a Christian. Then came Alhaji Rauf Aregbesola, a Muslim who spent eight years in power and was succeeded by a Muslim, Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola. Alhaji Oyetola’s successor, Senator Nurudeen Ademola Adeleke, flaunts his Muslim heritage and pedigree for all to see. No one has ever complained about the religious identity of these leaders – and no one will. Indeed, there is a governorship election next year; virtually all contenders that have shown their faces so far in the two principal parties are Muslims.

No one’s religion has ever truly been an issue in Osun State. On May 29, 2003, a Muslim Chief Judge swore in a Christian governor (Oyinlola) and a Christian deputy governor (Erelu Olusola Obada). The Christian-Christian ticket of Oyinlola/Obada was elected by an electorate from three senatorial districts, two of which are predominantly Muslim. There was not a single word of complaint from anywhere. The Muslim incumbent who lost that election did not bother to contest his loss in court.

I work in a state (Oyo State) that has produced five governors from 1999 to date. Three of the five are/were Muslims. Again, I will identify them: Alhaji Lam Adesina (Muslim) was the first to take the baton in 1999. He was succeeded by Senator Rashidi Ladoja, a Muslim. Otunba Adebayo Alao Akala, a Christian, succeeded Ladoja. Alao-Akala spent a term and handed over to Alhaji Isiaka Abiola Ajimobi, a Muslim, who spent two terms. The incumbent is Mr Seyi Makinde, a Christian. He will be succeeded by a Muslim or a Christian in two years’ time – no one cares.

If Sharia as it exists in the North is truly a priority of the Yoruba, would those Muslim governors have ignored doing it? Or are those gentlemen not Muslim enough? Indeed, as recently as 2011 to 2015, the governors of Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, and Osun States were all Muslim. We are talking of four out of six states being ruled by Muslim governors at the same time. I am referring to the years when Raji Fashola (Lagos); Ibikunle Amosun (Ogun); Abiola Ajimobi (Oyo) and Rauf Aregbesola (Osun) were governors. The four states operated under Muslims – leaving Ekiti and Ondo states for Christians. And there was peace. There will always be peace because what throws in governors and what kicks them out in Western Nigeria is the sobriety that comes with good behavior and good governance –not praise and worship.

Where I come from, we were taught to learn how to state our case before learning how to fight. The statement from the NSCIA said sharia was a constitutional issue. If it was, shouldn’t it be properly handled in a constitutional way? If we, Yoruba Muslims, truly want codified Sharia law and Sharia Courts, there are Muslim legislators in virtually all the state Houses of Assembly. Sharia proponents should ask these Muslim legislators to sponsor bills on the matter and lobby their colleagues to pass them into law. Or, if they think it is already in the constitution, and it is their right, let them go to court for enforcement of that right. If I were they and I could not do this, I would keep quiet forever. Extra-legal, unilateral, self-help declarations cannot help them in a democracy.

I once wrote against some Yoruba Pentecostal Christians who said (and still say) my sallah meat is sin. We look at such here and say they’ve packed unwellness with their faith. Yoruba Muslims who jog to the North in search of pity and support are exactly like those ones. They are as misguided as the misguided Pentecostal Christians. They are both working hard to rip open the belly of amity in Yoruba land with their fundamentalism. And they cannot succeed.

Now, what do I think of Imam Eze signing a Live-and-Let-Live statement on Sharia in Yorubaland? An Eze, I assume and presume, is from the South-East. If that signatory is from the South-East, then it was a ghastly error on the part of those who procured him to sign that statement. It was also an insult to the Yoruba, a people with a robust history of engagement with Islam dating back to more than seven hundred years. Procuring outsiders to speak for the Yoruba Muslim is a misnomer. They have leaders; their leaders are the Imams; they listen to the Imams, the Imams listen to them. Channeling the Yoruba spring to flow desert-wards for rejuvenation is an effort that hurts.

The Imam Eze statement will make me draw an analogy: We all know that Ilorin has no physical and spiritual space for Sango, the Yoruba god of thunder. Now, imagine an Ilorin man donning the costume of the Mogba, priest of Sango, and marketing the god of thunder to Oyo Alaafin, Sango’s hometown. Or who does not know that Mùsùlùmí Ìgbò gégé bi OníSàngó Ilorin ni? I will neither interpret nor translate that question. The Eze man should have first launched Sharia for his own home region before looking the Yoruba way. My people say if you think velvet is good and you would clothe me with it, I must first see on you velvet or something superior to velvet. How can the unclad clothe the clothed?

A group of eminent Yoruba Muslim scholars, seven years ago, published a book entitled: ‘Islam in Yorubaland: History, Education and Culture’. The editors were kind enough to give me a copy. Those who are seeking to fetishize Sharia today will learn from those scholars that what they seek to import has actually been part of their heritage before the white man created Nigeria with all its contradictions. Persons who are begging for external help on Sharia should read what the scholars say in that book. They will read the story of a Timi of Ede, Oba Abibu Lagunju (1817-1900), his court and the existence of Ilé Bàbá Kóòtù (compound of baba who holds court) in Ede. They will read also of Oluwo of Iwo, Momodu Lamuye, who became Oluwo of Iwo in 1858 and died in 1906. They will read of why a compound is named Ile Alikali (Alkali’s compound) in Iwo. They will read more of Islam, Sharia and the Yoruba society before colonialism.

Provocation excites and tickles us in this country. In 2016, a bill for a Christian court was sponsored by Hon. Gyang Dung (PDP) from Plateau State and eight other members of the House of Representatives. It scaled the second reading and that was the last we heard of it. The bill was an act of provocation and it was so treated and trashed. The statement from Imam Eze and its associated noise fall in the same category.

The difference between the past and the present is change. We live in a world that shifts with time. The World Bank in 2020 ranked Saudi Arabia as the fastest-reforming country in the world. That country has gone far doing that, redefining the concepts of right and wrong and striking a balance between Islamic law on the one hand; local politics and global economic realities on the other. Today, even rude Donald Trump lowers his voice when the subject is Saudi. Those who have knowledge tell us that the reforms that burnish and refurbish Saudi Arabia do not make that country less Muslim.

It should be the same here. Reform and innovation are at the core of Yoruba’s cultural resilience. That is possibly what the Muslim North has not sat down to study and understand about Western Nigeria.

Let me say finally that making Sharia a hot-button topic in 2025 Nigeria is suspect and very unnecessary. Elections are coming, especially presidential and governorship elections. Flightless birds need the winds of religion to fly their political planes. They will use all magic and talismans to conjure those winds. The sudden interest in Sharia is one talisman that worked wonders in other climes at other desperate times of polls. It cannot work in today’s and tomorrow’s Yorubaland. So, I appeal to the Sultan and other well-meaning Muslim leaders to back off on agitations that seek to use their respected and respectable anvil to forge this idle tool. Adding their weight to weightless claims does no one any good.

The Egbetokun Tenure Extension Controversy: Legality vs. Legitimacy, By Okechukwu Nwanguma

In the ongoing controversy surrounding Mr. Egbetokun’s tenure extension, the key issues are not merely legal compliance but the legitimacy of both the legislative process that amended the Police Act and the extension itself.

While the Attorney General’s perspective suggests that Egbetokun may legally remain in office despite surpassing the 60-year age limit, the broader implications of legitimacy are significant. The public outcry concerning the process and the extension should be a primary concern for Egbetokun, especially given the discontent within the Nigeria Police Force (NPF). Many senior officers feel that their career trajectories have been compromised by this extension.

The amendment bill that facilitated this tenure extension originated from President Tinubu, for whom Egbetokun served as chief security officer during his time as governor of Lagos State. Egbetokun’s public expressions of loyalty to Tinubu raise questions about the neutrality of the amendment process, especially when the Nigerian Senate, led by Godswill Akpabio, exhibited a willingness to swiftly carry out the President’s directives. The unprecedented speed at which the bill passed through all legislative readings—complete with no public hearing—further erodes its legitimacy. How can such a critical amendment to the Police Act be enacted without public consultation?

The outcry regarding the amendment process and Egbetokun’s tenure extension is a vital concern for both him and the government, especially if they profess to value due process, transparency, and public trust. Even if the amendment withstands legal scrutiny, questions about its retroactive application remain. Should Egbetokun benefit from an amendment made while he was already in office? This challenges the principle of non-retroactivity in law and raises further legal and ethical considerations.

In conclusion, while legalities may outline the framework of governance, it is the legitimacy of actions taken that will ultimately determine public faith in institutions like the Nigeria Police Force. Egbetokun’s focus should shift from merely defending his legal standing to addressing the very real concerns surrounding the legitimacy of his position and the processes that brought him here.

Okechukwu Nwanguma  

February 1, 2025