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President Tinubu, Call Your Inspector-General of Police to Order

President Tinubu, Call Your Inspector-General of Police to Order

By Mobolaji Sanusi

President Bola Tinubu, GCFR. Greetings sir.
Kindly be informed, through this medium, that Nigerians are distraught with your appointed Inspector General of Police. They have no problem with your choice of his person. It is a preference that you’re constitutionally empowered to exercise.

But in recent times, our people have been compelled by prevailing circumstances to ask questions about whether Kayode Egbetokun, Ph.D., has met their expectations regarding policing responsibilities. Even though most of the challenges being faced by the police as a law enforcement institution of state are not his creation, most Nigerians remain in doubt as to whether Egbetokun has done enough to ameliorate or solve some of these problems.

This must have informed why, expectedly, an unbridled outrage heralded his insensitively unnecessary tinted vehicle permit policy.

Mr. President sir, the policy, as newly exhumed and repackaged by the incumbent inspector general of police is thoughtless, insensitive, exploitative, ill-motivated, ill-advised, draconian and more importantly, lacks milk of human kindness with no empirical linkage to the prevailing insecurity in the country that the number one cop seems to have no clue on how to effectively handle.

The 1999 Constitution (as amended) in section 14(2b) provides that the primary purpose of government is the security and welfare of the people. Clearly, it is undeniable that Egbetokun, with his tinted vehicle permit policy, has not familiarised himself with this important provision on the welfare and wellbeing of the citizenry being the main thrust of government.

The first issue with his tinted vehicle permit policy is its being ill-conceived and erroneously linked to insecurity while surreptitiously placing high premium on revenue generation by the police he leads.

Quite unbelievable, Mr. President sir, Egbetokun is exploitatively saying Nigerians should be ready to renew their tinted vehicle permits every year, same with ECMR, that were until now, done once in the lifetime of any vehicle ownership in the country.

Mr. Egbetokun claimed that the process for obtaining the permit with an official fee of less than N14,200 per year is seamless. This is far from the truth, Mr. President, sir.

The police POSSAP portal designed for the policy is perpetually busy and the only way to get it done is to pay any identifiable insider an unofficial amount ranging from N45,000.00 to N60,000.00 for proxy access to the portal, and with same proxy method’s generation of personalised code with which an applicant is expected to proceed to Force Headquarters annex, Obalende, for capturing. This cumbersome process is needlessly punitive and extortionate.

Your sincerely, Mr President sir, believes that Nigerians don’t deserve this unnecessary infliction from the inspector-general. Even if the thoughtless redesign of the policy is so dear to him, why can’t he direct that vehicle owners should obtain the permit when fresh vehicle registration or renewal of expired vehicle license are to be done.

Egbetokun, above all, callously expects factory or non-factory fitted Nigerian tinted vehicle owners to go through this cumbersome process every year. He also exploitatively expects our people to pay yearly tinted vehicle renewal fees. His main motivation, being revenue and not the policing wellbeing of the people, was well captured by the legal body of lawyers in the country to wit: “The Police may generate at least N3billion within a month from monies that will be collected, thus, turning the Police into a revenue- generating agency of the Federal Government instead of focusing on the more serious issues of crime.”

Mr. President sir, tinted vehicle permit for factory or self tinted vehicle is nothing new to our people. What is shocking is the shenanigans associated with the permit under the number one cop who has merely monetised, problematised, and distorted its whole essence. This is quite an insensitively disturbing way of projecting Your Excellency’s esteemed government in bad light amongst the hoi poloi tinted vehicle owners and even in the estimation of right thinking elites in this country.

Mr. Egbetokun has shown no iota of regard for the all important Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and even the revered judiciary in this country and this is a dangerous development, emanating from the country’s number one cop.

Mr. President sir, Nigerians were disappointed when they woke up on Friday to the news of Egbetokun-led Police ignoring the pendency of the NBA instituted suit against the force by going ahead to enforce his newly redesigned tinted vehicle permit policy.

Mr President sir, kindly note that the umbrella body of lawyers in the country, the NBA, has empathetically intervened in the matter. The association has even approached the court to seek judicial solution with Egbetokun’s police looking the other way despite receiving a letter sent to his office reminding him of the pendency of the matter before the Federal High Court, Abuja. The height of police impunity on this issue, despite its pendency in court, is that barely forty-eight hours ago (Thursday), a judge of the National Industrial Court, NIC, in Delta State had his tinted vehicle impounded by the police.

To mitigate the hardship being faced by the people over this matter, it is imperative to let your esteemed self know that the NBA, through its Chairman on Special Public Interest Litigation Committee, NBA-SPIDEL, Mr Kunle Edun, SAN, has assured the public that the legal body shall “Invoke the powers of the Court to ensure that the Nigeria Police Force does not trample on the rights of Nigerians.”

The association has also directed its “Human Rights Committees of the 130 branches of the NBA in Nigeria” to offer pro bono services to anyone that is harrassed by the police over this issue. This underscores the seriousness attached to this issue by millions of Nigerians looking up to your esteemed intervention.

Mr. President sir, the implication of above involvement of NBA is that the recalcitrant posturing of the IGP on this issue may indirectly be galvanizing instruments of blackmail for the opposition against your government. Yours sincerely do not think your esteemed self should allow this to happen. Hence, the necessity of your quick action in this regard.

It is yours sincerely’s humble view that the Nigeria Police Force under your esteemed presidency, should be directed to forthwith on this matter, show respect for the rule of law, the judiciary, and to eschew anything that could further provoke members of the public on this subject.

The IGP needs to know the trite law that a party served with an Originating Process and especially a Motion on Notice for Interlocutory Injunction has a duty imposed on him by law to maintain the status quo ante bellum until the case is determined by the court for or against any of the parties involved.

The need for Egbetokun-led police to keep the state of things the way they were at the time he was served with the motion in order to not foist a situation of helplessness on the court is obligatory, not persuasive.

As the nation’s number one cop, the expectations of the people on this policy is that he should stop further contempt for judiciary processes. If he’s sure of the constitutionality of his policy on tinted vehicles permit fees policy, he should go ahead and argue his case in a courtroom, not on the several roads across the country where his rampaging men and officers are disturbing peaceful motoring.

Mr President sir, please, Nigerians need your urgent intervention in calling this man to order. IGP Egbetokun should not be further allowed to dent the constitutional reputation of your government before the judiciary and Nigerians more than his current unyielding posturing is doing.

May almighty God continue to bless your leadership. Thank you Mr President.

•Sanusi, former MD/CEO of Lagos State Signage & Advertisement Agency is currently the managing partner of AMS RELIABLE SOLICITORS.

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By Mobolaji Sanusi President Bola Tinubu, GCFR. Greetings sir.Kindly be informed, through this medium, that Nigerians are distraught with your appointed Inspector General of Police. They have no problem with

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Dangote Refinery And Trade Union Activism

Dangote Refinery And Trade Union Activism

By Mobolaji Sanusi

At this season of Nigeria’s 65th independence celebrations, yours sincerely considered it sad to note that the refining of the country’s most precious endowment is creating a recurring but disruptive albatross to the growth and general economic wellbeing of the nation.

Days past, the purportedly resolved tango between Dangote Refinery and Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers/ Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria – NUPENG/PENGASSAN by the federal government remains another sour spot in efforts to revive a corruption-induced near comatose petroleum industry.

Before forging ahead, yours sincerely considers making a necessary confession as a prelude to today’s piece: And this has to do with my not particularly being a big fan of Aliko Dangote because of the business tradition that capitalists like Aliko are ruthless money men that are always ready to decimate any seen or unseen obstacles on the paths to achieving their profiteering goals. Unimaginable wealth creation antics of investors like Alikos of this world could sometimes be system compromising. They, in pursuit of wealth, usually don’t accept ‘NO’ for an answer.

Notwithstanding, the foregoing would not detract from applauding the significance of investments of the Alikos of this country in creating gainful employment for millions of Nigerians – contributing to national development and growth in the process. Sadly, other immensely rich Nigerians keep their wealth in the banks, making fat interest earnings far from the prying eyes of the public.

Consequent upon this, there’s the need for a dispassionate scrutiny of the industrial tango between Aliko’s Dangote Refinery and NUPENG/PENGASSAN so that in a civil polity, a clear boundary, moving forward, can be set between a private growing concerns, labour union activism and national security cum interests.

What’s at issue is NUPENG-PENGASSAN’s nosy intrusion, under the guise of protecting members’ interests, in the way Aliko chooses to manage his $20 billion refinery business. It is quite possible that the accusation of unfair treatment of Nigerian workers at the expense of expatriate employees, particularly Indians, who are reportedly being paid fat wages, might have added to the industrial animosity against the refinery. But at the moment, until when Rabiu’s BUA petroleum refinery is fully completed and functional, and even after, every necessary governmental support must be accorded Aliko so as not to send a wrong signal to the world that this country can forsake her critical investors at their moments of needs.

Kudos to the government’s team led by Mr. Wale Edun, the Honourable Minister for Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, for reaching a seeming denouement on the impasse before it spiralled out of control. It is good to know that the sacked 800 staff of the refinery will be reabsorbed and redeployed to other investment projects of the Dangote Group.

But the key issue of what happens is that a trade union body tries to hold a huge investment such as the Dangote Refinery by the jugular while hiding under freedom of association guaranteed by the grundnorm and even the ILO Convention. It’s Aliko Dangote’s company today, but who knows whose company’s turn will be affected tomorrow.

PENGASSAN leadership acted, while its encounter with the refinery lasted, as if another name for unionism is lawlessly putting a nation under siege. Its leadership acted as if they were motivated by other interests other than that of the affected workers of the refinery.

It is evident that a clear line exists, and must continue to exist, between labour rights and national interests. However, going forward, the Federal Ministry of Labour must step up its advocacy efforts in this area. Such action is crucial not only to raise public awareness but also to prevent the kind of unnecessary panic caused by oil workers’ unions, who recently threatened a nationwide shutdown of petroleum and gas supply during their dispute with Dangote Refinery, despite lacking the authority to carry out such a threat.

Undoubtedly, workers have the right to organize, protest and strike as stated in the combined reading of section 40 of the 1999 Constitution which guarantees the right to freedom of association, and the International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions 87 and 98 of which Nigeria is a signatory, allowing voluntary workers will to join trade unions. But like every other inalienable rights, this right to associate with a trade union to protect employees’ rights and possibly embark on a strike action where necessary as a legitimate tool of collective bargaining, is not absolute.

There are constitutional proviso, including restrictions to protect public safety, order, health, morality, and national security. It should also be noted that the Trade Disputes Act lays down strict condition precedent that must be met before a strike can be lawfully embarked upon by a labour union. These include conciliation, arbitration, and reference to the National Industrial Court. It is doubtful that NUPENG-PENGASSAN ever fully explored these areas before putting the refinery, albeit the nation on avoidable siege with their strike.

The trade unions mischievously pretended to forget that petroleum and gas supply under the law are classified as essential services which they lacked the powers to disrupt because doing such is not only criminal but also inimical to national survival and an act of economic sabotage that can cripple the nation’s vital activities.

Even the International Labour Organization, despite guaranteeing the right to strike, equally accepts restrictions where services are “essential to the life, personal safety, or health of the population.” This fully describes directly or incidentally what Dangote’s refinery does. The law governing essential services to protect national security is very handy for the government to deploy next time this happens.

PENGASSAN should be schooled on the reality that the country is no longer under military rule when the unions were effectively deployed to combat military dictatorship. At this point in time, the country is under a constitutional democracy premised on Professor A.V. Dicey’s well espoused doctrine of the rule of law. Thus, the rights and limitations of employers and employees exist and, in this particular instance, must be obeyed by the parties involved to halt any ugly tide of human and economic disruptions.

Can anyone deny the staring fact that we’re in this mess because in sixty-five years of being an independent entity, we as a nation have four government-owned refineries. But as of today, none of the refineries is working at anything near satisfactory? Yet, every budgetary season, we set aside money for turnaround maintenance, usually in hard currency, but nothing positive ever comes out of this waste of public funds.

Recently, the immediate past Managing Director/CEO of NNPCL, Mr. Mele Kyari, and some of his top executives were reportedly invited for questioning by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over misappropriation of money allocated for the Port Harcourt refinery. Nothing has come out of that invitation. Another sad thing is that some Nigerians employed to work in these refineries who are members of these trade unions collect salaries and allowances and were sent on training programs abroad for doing nothing.

Some of them have actually retired and paid gratuity and pensions for decades of unproductivity. This sorry state is being replicated in Ajaokuta Steel Rolling Mills and others where trillions of the nation’s hard earned money are daily wasted by unionised staff idling away. The oil cabal and allies masquerading as trade unions holding our petroleum industry hostage should look elsewhere, forthwith.

If a globally renowned capitalist, riding on our collective ineptitude and tomfoolery and having enjoyed scandalously discretionary forex rate approvals from the Federal Government, was able to successfully build one functional refinery with 650,000 bpd capacity, we should do everything to support him to make it work in our collective interests.

Yours sincerely believe our trade unions should, as a matter of necessity, be encouraged to discharge their duty of protecting worker’s interests; but this should preferably be done with dignifying poise devoid of ulterior motives. This is what can make Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow, the father of Trade Union Movement from Guyana, turn in his grave in admiration for what the movement is doing in this country.

Nigerians will be better off to see this privately-owned Dangote refinery succeed so as to insulate the nation from avoidable waste of scarce forex expended on sometimes phantom, but most times, avoidably needless fuel importation with catastrophic consequences on the wellbeing of the economy. My humble submission!

•Sanusi, former MD/CEO of Lagos State Signage & Advertisement Agency, is currently the managing partner at AMS RELIABLE SOLICITORS.

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By Mobolaji Sanusi At this season of Nigeria’s 65th independence celebrations, yours sincerely considered it sad to note that the refining of the country’s most precious endowment is creating a

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The Critical Message in Oluremi Tinubu’s National Library Project

The Critical Message in Oluremi Tinubu’s National Library Project

By Tunji Olaopa

As a very critical part of her 65th birthday celebration, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, the First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, restructured the usual pomp that attend the birthday celebration of the political class as we know it. Rather than submitting herself to the numerous treats, felicitations and pageantries that would be sure to have been deployed to mark the auspicious occasion, she demanded that anyone who needed to celebrate her should focus their largesse on the furtherance of the National Library project, and possibly its final completion. And that appeal has generated a beautiful sum of N20b. This is all so grand, and noble but unusual. It is an unusual gesture because a member of the political class, rather than the government itself, is the one championing the resuscitation of the National Library project. Maybe it is the government by association, but then the gesture is not the result of an intentional and deliberate policy commitment that enable the government to connect the library to the larger goal of national development. How do we read this strange but commendable gesture into the overall development status of the Nigerian state?
The current state of the Nigerian National Library speaks tremendously to the possibilities and failures of the national development project in Nigeria. In many nations of the world, from the Library of Congress in the United States to the Bibliotheque de France and also the National Library, Singapore, the national library signals the single repository of books, manuscripts, orature, archival materials that connects cultural heritages, knowledge production programmes, critical ideas and paradigms, historical documentation and national memories. Adolf Hitler perfectly understands this fundamental significance of the knowledge base of any nation. And this is why, in a most pernicious manner during the Second World War, he ordered the massive destruction of books and materials that were considered to be subversive of, or even contrary to, the ideals of the German Third Reich project. And quite fortunately and pragmatic enough, the allied forced, led by the United States thought it significant and strategic to fight back by making the book resurgent from their crematorium.
This speaks to the indomitable spirit of ideas, ideals and knowledge that books embody. It is in this critical sense that books and library connect a state to not only its historical and cultural knowledges and heritages, but also signal the state’s willingness to project itself into the emerging knowledge and information society that ultimately define the progress and wealth of nations. Libraries connect reading and learning culture, the dynamics of literacy, educational projects, human capital development and the generation of ideas, as well as paradigms fashioned purposely for creative innovation and policies especially in sociopolitical, socioeconomic, development and governance contexts. Libraries therefore connect a state’s willingness to become a legitimate participant in the evolving fourth industrial revolution while also keeping alive its own credentials as an entity that keeps generating culturally and historically relevant knowledge.
Knowledge, ideas and books—indeed the entire educational structures—reinvigorate the ways a state keep reengaging its problems, challenges and the solution and resolution frameworks for understanding and undermining them. Education is the fundamental bedrock that instigates individual, collective and national enlightenment and progress. And this therefore ultimately connects not only with the creative policy intelligence that is enabled by the availability of knowledge preserved in libraries (especially as it denotes the repositories of global knowledge, ideas and paradigms), but also how leaders connect with these ideas and knowledge through what they read. When I wrote my op-ed piece on the reading habit of HE Vice President Senator Kashim Shettima, I opened up the possibilities for a nation that an enlightened leadership embodies.
Unfortunately, Nigeria does not have a national library. Or more precisely, the national library project that was formulated in 1981 has refused to materialize into a symbolic and concrete structural manifestation of Nigeria’s willingness to join the global knowledge society. The idea of the national library was muted in 1981, but it took the next twenty-five years for the idea to get an enabling contract in 2006. And yet forty-three years later, the structure remains a pipedream that refused to take off. And so, while it was all too easy to build the National Ecumenical Centre and the National Mosque within which the dilapidated library structure located, this significant element of Nigeria’s progress has remained uncompleted. This is simply just emblematic of the general institutional and structural dysfunctional experience that characterize the Nigeria Project right from independence to date. Knowledge production and the entire educational structure in Nigeria have faced significant limitations that derive from the myopic inability to connect development with an enlightened human development capital. There is also the tightrope of anti-intellectualism that the Nigerian political class has always been walking in its relationship with the institutions and structures of knowledge production and idea generation in Nigeria. The ongoing adversarial industrial relations between consecutive Nigerian governments and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) over transforming universities into a significant force in nation building efforts in the state is a clear evidence of this a-developmental elite orientation.
All these dysfunctional issues are surprising given that the Nigerian state is very concerned about both her geopolitical status and credentials as a democratic and developmental state in the world—as the Giant of Africa—and also to achieve a stable and empowering economic growth that measurably improve the life prospect and economic lives of her citizens. However, efforts at making the lives of Nigerians better are usually concentrated on purely economic, econometric and macroeconomic indices of development. If reading and education come into reckoning, it is strictly to the extent that they are inescapable to the fruition of any particular human capital development policy. And yet, the quality of a nation’s human capital is measurable only to the extent of the place of an enlightened reading culture, symbolized by a functional and efficient library systems.
Thus, a state is instigated not only by the economic but also informational and educational resources at its disposal. In other words, the availability and the rate of access to the information resources and the extensive reading rate per capita are the development indices of a society. The number of published books, journals, libraries, readers, writers, translators and publishers of a country are all indices and fundamental criteria of its development. Extending the culture of studying and book reading, developing libraries, publications and distribution of books and utilizing these unrivaled cultural instruments are therefore the requirements and necessities of each society’s growth. This connects the functional and efficient library system to a reading culture that stimulate the young people into the consumption of ideas and paradigms that enable creative and critical thinking.
Building a Nigerian national library—that possibly will be replicated in all the states of the federation—signals a symbolic aspiration by the government to ground learning and reading as a key variable in the determination of the quality of the human capital that Nigeria needs for her development process. It also determines the quality of Nigeria’s democratic experiment founded on the enlightened status of the Nigerian citizenry. Thus, a lot is riding on Nigeria’s capacity to build a functional and efficient national library as a repository of local, national, regional and global experiences, histories, ideas, paradigms, ideals, perspectives and creative innovation. So, does it matter who lead the crucial initiative to jumpstart and crystallize the national library project as long as it is done? The First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, saw what should be considered a national embarrassment, and responded to it while also ensuring that the gesture is funneled through government institutions, like the Federal Ministry of Education. Having woken up the nation from its slumber on this unarguably defining project with deep essence, it is now an all-stakeholder national challenge to get the noble gesture by the First Lady concluded and put into use. That seems like a long stretch given the forty-three years of policy and implementation inactivity. And I think we should all support this very unique and very ardent attempt to push a significant dimension of Nigeria’s development effort to bring to life what ought to have been alive and kicking many years ago.
However, whether we like it or not, the fact that it is an individual and not the government that is pushing for the realization of this project is an indictment of national proportion. One way to read this is that the National Library project is happening on the sideline of whatever consecutive Nigerian governments considered to be significant policy initiatives that aligned with development visions and implementation frameworks. But then, the redemption comes from the fact that the Nigeria Project, unlike the national library project, is a work in progress. And this allows for the government to pick up where there is any glaring historical and political failure and provide redemptive policy reclamation and reconstruction. I think this is the most important lesson that Senator Oluremi Tinubu’s gesture towards the National Library project has provided us. The government and other stakeholders cannot afford to have this project to remain at the individual level. This gesture has therefore become an instigator in terms of what the citizenry can do to push the government to implementing the general will. And this is even all the more crucial because it is coming from a bona fide member of the government itself. This then implies that the government is now instigating itself to action on behalf of the Nigeria Project.

*Prof. Tunji Olaopa, a Professor of Public Administration, is the Chairman,
Federal Civil Service Commission

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By Tunji Olaopa As a very critical part of her 65th birthday celebration, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, the First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, restructured the usual pomp that