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By Tordue Simon Targema

At a time like this, Public-Private Partnership is undoubtedly the surest blueprint for economic prosperity in Nigeria. This explains why Prince Abubakar Audu, the visionary Executive Governor of Kogi State in 2002 invited the Dangote Industries Ltd. to the State to partner on cement production, a venture that has been so far productive and economically rewarding to both the State and Dangote Industries Ltd., and indeed, Nigerians at large.

It thus smacks of apparent permittivity for the State Government to wake up today, over 20years after the deal was struck with Dangote Industries Ltd. and shut down the Company on the grounds of alleged illegal acquisition.

Apart from the physical damage that this dastardly act will incur the Company, it is also important to consider the bad signal it sends to prospective investors preparing to go into public-private partnerships with governments at all levels.

At the moment, calls are rife for governments in Nigeria to privatize moribund ventures and hands-off their operations in the interest of productivity. NNPC has just been privatised with the registration of the NNPCL, so also are calls for privatization of other assets that gulp billions in annual budgets without tangible results.

Yet, it is at a time like this that Governor Yahaya Bello and the Kogi State House of Assembly consider it most appropriate to wield their sledge hammer on Obajana Cement Company and shut it down in the most primitive manner possible.

A statement by the company’s management indicates that the invasion by armed vigilante groups has caused enormous damage on the plant ranging from physical destruction of the Company’s assets to wounding about 26 staff among other scores of incurred damages.

The report of death of a staff that was shot during the invasion cannot be substantiated at the moment, and appears as an exaggeration to attract public sympathy to the Company. It must be noted at this point that Dangote Industries Ltd. cannot be absolved completely of sharp practices in the course of its operations.

Just recently, the Benue State Internal Revenue Service shut down Dangote Cement Plant in Gboko due to the unwillingness of the Company to remit due taxes to Benue State. Like the current saga at Obajana, a war of words trended between State officials and the Company’s management over claims and counter claims regarding remittance of taxes.

Prior to the incident and until recently, the road around the plant was a terrible nightmare to commuters plying the busy Katsina Ala – Makurdi federal highway which leaves many wondering how serious Dangote Industries Ltd. is with its corporate social responsibility.

The road around Savannah Sugar Company in Numan, Adamawa State is equally a nightmare, so much such that commuters would always ask whether it is customary to Dangote companies to live roads around their plants terribly devastated.

A visit to Obajana where the cement factory is situated leaves one wondering if at all it hosts a company of that magnitude, as no meaningful development project commensurate to the company’s prestige can be spotted around.

One would have expected critical interventions of the Company in basic infrastructures of the town such as educational institutions, healthcare facilities, road networks, water and other critical infrastructure as part of the company’s compensation to the host community for the concomitant environmental effects occasioned by its operations.

This is not the case at Obajana which is but a glorified village remitting billions into Dangote’s coffers, even as Dangote Industries Ltd. is among the most renowned donors doing what one would regard as “Father Christmas” to places that it has no investments!

Another critical question worthy to ask pertains to who owns the remaining 10% of the Company’s shares due to Kogi State as provided in the agreement transferring ownership of the Company to Dangote Industries Ltd.

This question is crucial as the Company in its reaction to the invasion claimed 100% ownership of the plant, even as existing laws stipulate that a State is entitled to 10% equity shares of such investments within its domain, 5% of which belong to the indigenes while the remaining 5% to the State Government.

One must also be curious to ask if all taxes rightfully due to the Kogi State Government are being remitted as at when du. Recall the incident at the Gboko cement factory! These are critical questions that must be carefully interrogated as one wraps his head around the current crisis at Obajana.

Notwithstanding all these, however, given the strategic position of the Obajana cement factory in Nigeria’s economic sphere especially with regards to cement production, distribution and consumption, the consequences of shutting it down at the moment can best be imagined.

Consequently, it behoves on the State Government and management of the Company to shelve their swords and immediately return to the discussion table to resolve the crisis within the shortest possible time in the interest of all and sundry. It is worthy to note that Public-Private Partnership benefits all parties wherever it exists.

Kogi State Government and the Dangote Industries Ltd. should have known this better. In this regard, efforts must be made to strengthen existing partnerships and encourage new ones to emerge exponentially.

Individuals and groups going into such agreements with governments must, as a matter of necessity, exhibit the highest sense of responsibility by constantly dialoguing with government agents towards addressing all grey areas that might arise on a regular basis to ensure peace and tranquillity in the course of their operations.

In doing this, impunity and arrogance must be avoided and business operations must thrive purely based on mutual understanding and corporate best practices in line with existing legal frameworks.

In a similar way, governments going into agreements with private investors must be prepared to respect their fundamental rights and privileges, and must desist from all primitive and draconian acts that are capable of causing untold damage to such investments.

This is necessary if industrial harmony must be attained in jointly owned ventures for greater economic prosperity of Nigeria and her component states.

Tordue Simon Targema writes from the department of Journalism and Media Studies, Taraba State University, Jalingo. Email: torduesimon@gmail.com

Dear sir, dear all,

That security of this country is in a coma is no news. That Ogbomoso, the land of the valiant in Oyo State, is under the siege of abductors is also an incontestable fact.

 In the dead of night on Monday, September 19, 2022, along the express, in Gbede, Surulere local government area, a man identified as Alhaji Yisa Agric was reportedly abducted from his house brazenly. This is shocking. 

Several heinous abductions of innocent inhabitants of Ogbomoso were recorded weeks earlier. One of the attacks, which led to the death of a student of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso, Oyo state and some people, exacerbated the ire of the people the most. 

Consequently, a rally which was graced with an avalanche of people was launched to engage in the public debate on the issue. After the demonstration, no reported kidnapping case was heard, at least in August. This was jubilated, not knowing their ram moved backwards in anger to garner more power.

The attention of the Oyo State government under the leadership of a good governor, Engr. Seyi Makinde is herein called to this menace of insecurity in Ogbomoso, which is bedevilling his good administration, for hasty panacea be preferred before it goes haywire. 

Also, the philanthropists are beseeched to financially sponsor the unconventional security personnel to launch a manhunt to arrest the unscrupulous perpetrators of the dastardly acts. The earlier, the better.

Olayode Inaolaji wrote from Ogbomoso, Oyo State, via inaolajiolayode@yahoo.com.

By Ahmad Deedat Zakari

Former Chief Security Officer to late General Sani Abacha and the Presidential Candidate of Action Alliance, Hamza Mustapha said that he has never stolen any money in his life.

Al- mustapha made the revelation while speaking on Channels Television on Tuesday. He said he has been thoroughly investigated by the police and international investigative agencies and was not culpable of stealing government funds.

“I don’t have money, I have never stolen N10. I challenged two governments; I challenged Abdulsalam Abubakar’s government, and I challenged (Olusegun) Obasanjo’s government. They searched.

I was ransacked by bigger international investigative agencies (and the) police. My eyes and thumbprint were taken all around the whole world and they saw nothing. But rather than tell the whole world my clean record, they kept it aside,” he disclosed

He also said he has forgiven the persons that did a disservice to the country by falsely accusing him of crimes he did not commit.

Al-mustapha was in prison for fifteen years and was acquitted of the murder of Kudirat Abiola by the Court of Appeal in 2013.

By M.A Iliasu

Education in Nigeria is not yet indoctrinated because it’s neglected. After all, why dictate what you can deny in the first place? The discord between the intellectual class & the ruling class is a piece of good news that suggests freedom of thought, but not when you realize the latter is intentionally suffocating the former. It’s like the mother who grants an infant freedom despite knowing he’s naturally obligated to her milk; is that called freedom? Yes, but freedom to die a horrible death or to survive and become anything that could have gone wrong in a human being.

Basic Education has never been worse than it is. The universities are on an eight-month-old indefinite strike after coming out of the previous one which lasted for almost a year but isn’t acknowledged because it was overwhelmed by Covid-19. Every tangible and intangible force that’s holding education together is shaking. And such caused me to take a nostalgic look at the good old days with a tearful eye. Back in 2002 when we were first enrolled in Primary School when every pupil gets two sets of school uniforms annually with reading and writing materials every term. When they’ll bring food to our table during the two breakfast hours; firstly at 9 AM and secondly at 11 AM.

We all thought it was a norm that’ll persist forever until two years later everything changed when we were merely in primary three. We enquired why we no longer get school uniforms, reading, and writing materials, and food during breakfast, and the school administration said Rabi’u Kwankwaso is no longer the governor of Kano State. That was the first time I learned about government change at the end of its tenure; and what sad learning that was!

Looking at the reality of political establishment in Nigeria especially as the elections approach will expose any person that’s capable of thinking to one index, which is the length and depth at which education is bastardized. Do they even care? Yes, they do, but in a very bad way! The intellectual output of the emerging bracket of youth in Nigeria is a pity. And the only effort being put in is to further exacerbate it.

When we graduated from secondary school we all failed SSCE. And where we come from usually marks the end of one’s education. But with the little we gained, we were counseled by a group of scholars who got scholarships in Nigerian universities, thus feeling the urge to pay back to their society through mentoring. They told us that we should all apply for CAS Kano, because not only would they allow us to rewrite SSCE before we finish, but we’ll also enjoy the scholarship. Thanks to no one other than the famous Dr. Kwankwaso who won the elections once again. Whose government paid for their scholarships that brought us into contact in the first place? We quickly applied and the rest is history!

I read an interview co-edited by the Nobel Laureate in Economics Sciences Professor Paul Samuelson, and Professor Bannet, elsewhere, that the famous Nobel Laureate in Economics Sciences Professor Franco Modigliani wrote his Magnum Opus at the age of 25. And when Professor Robert Solow, the interviewer and Nobel Laureate himself, asked him how it happened, he said: I hadn’t studied very much in Italy of any use. There was no useful teaching of economics. What was taught there was something about the corporate state. (Thanks to the fascist alliance between Hitler and Mussolini). So all I picked up was at the New School of Social Research in New York with the guidance of Jacob Marschak (with which he wrote the paper).

Prof. Modigliani was pitying himself about how much he would have achieved if there was a functioning education in Italy, which compared to how efficiently he used the little he learned in America, he would have done something far greater at 25. As I’m writing this piece I wonder, would I have had the proficiency to have done so if Dr. Kwankwaso hadn’t served two tenures as the governor of Kano State? What would have happened had all the governments that succeeded his own followed in his footsteps?

Let this be a campaign or promotion or whatever, but as an educated person, someone who can think, who knows the value of education, who loves and knows the use of knowledge; you have got a moral obligation to vote for someone who stands as an outlier in the politics of education in Nigeria. The politician that upgraded the most populous human establishment in Nigeria from informal traders who are content with basic education and undergraduate degrees to an elite intellectual society with numerous postgraduate degree holders and Doctors of Philosophy, with which development occurred the swiftest climbing in the socioeconomic ladder in the history of Kano society. The only politician that satisfied the demands of both the gold-diggers who wish to climb and the patriotic who champions the society; in no way other than giving both the weapon of education.

Dr Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso is the personification of the only
instance in which individual interest equals collective interest, and perhaps the only time when self-interest is enlightened enough to equal collective interest. He is loved by the working-class comrades because he gives them the weapon to climb and sit at the discussion table through education. He is loved by the liberals because he gives them the intellectual satisfaction through education. He is loved by the conservatives because the class he represents is their class, and he brings new members to it without threatening the establishment or whatever informs their bias.

When voted, he’ll be the president for all and sundry!

Iliasu is an economist, essayist, blogger, public and socioeconomic affairs analyst. He can be reached via Muhada102@gmail.com

By Uzair Adam Imam

A former governor of Plateau State, Joshua Dariye, gives suggestions on ways to end the menacing issue of corruption in Nigeria.

Dariya disclosed this on Monday while he was featured on Channels Television NewsNight programme.

The Daily Reality recalls that the former governor, alonside former Taraba State governor, Jolly Nyame, were convicted of corruption charges sometime ago.

Dariye was convicted of stealing N1.16 billion while serving as Plateau governor from 1999 to 2007 and was granted a pardon by the Council of State led by President Muhammadu Buhari on April 14, 2022.

While, Nyame, the other convict, arrainged for stealing N1.6 billion and the two were released from Kuje Custodial Centre on August 8, 2022.

However, Dariye said the legal action against curruption by jailing would not in any way ended the graft which is everywhere in the country.

He said, “Dariye and Nyame were jailed. Has it ended corruption? Like I told My Lordship, you can jail me for 200 years, if that will end corruption, I will say glory be to God.”

He added that his imprisonment was politically motivated, arguing that some persons did worse but were spared.

He stated, “If we want to end corruption, it will not be a one-day issue; you will take corruption to cure corruption. And if you start delivering policies, let me just tell you for example: If the railway is working, without these people sabotaging, it will reduce a lot of hardship on our people, it will reduce the prices of commodities and farm produce.

“Things are not working, some people are benefitting from it, they are frustrating government measures,” he noted.

By Ahmad Deedat Zakari

The Presidential Candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, said he will grant scholarships to outstanding students if elected president.

Mr Kwankwaso made the promise while addressing mammoth crowd at the inauguration of the Kano State NNPP office on Sunday.

“Those of you supposed to be in primary school will have access to free education, the university students will be back to school, while outstanding secondary students stand the opportunity for scholarship in both Nigeria and foreign universities,” he said.

Commenting on his chances of winning the presidential election, he told the crowd that he will defeat candidates of the the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

“This crowd signifies the need and urge for new leadership, not only in the state but the country at large. The biggest surprise will come when our party, the NNPP wins the 2023 presidential election, God willing,” he concluded.

By Uzair Adam Imam

The Federal government intervened in the struggle for ownership of the Dangote cement factory in Obajana, Kogi State, on Monday.

The Federal Government intervened following the shutdown of the factory by the Kogi State government over the issue of ownership and allegation of tax evasion.

A reliable source in the Presidency confirmed the meeting at the Office of Chief of Staff to the President in the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

It was learned that the meeting had in attendance the President of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, Governors Yahaya Bello (Kogi) and Abdullahi Sule (Nasarawa).

It said that the management of Dangote Group has concluded a plan to drag the state government to the court over its legality.

It was alleged that the vigilante members in the state stormed the factory and many of the company’s staff were wounded in the process.

By Uzair Adam Imam

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) promised to end its strike after meeting the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbanjabiamila.

The union, which has been on strike since February 14, disclosed this yesterday after meeting with Gbanjabiamila and some ASUU members.

The lecturers down tools to press their demand home which include the Federal Government’s failure to meeting the agreements reached with the union.

The meeting was a last-minute move to persuade the striking union and came after the Court of Appeal, Abuja, on Friday intructed the union to call off its incessant strike.

Gbanjabiamila said, “This is a recap to seal the deal on what has been a long-fought battle; a long hard road for everybody – for ASUU, the students and the government.

“As you would recall, some weeks ago the House got involved in this crisis and we had long, tough, intense meetings with ASUU.

“We had meetings with those on the government side and we are happy to report that as the result of the consultation and intervention of the House, very significant progress has been made and we are more or less at the end of the road save for dotting some “I”s and crossing some “T”s.

“I believe we have covered ground, covered most of the thorny issues and it is basically, what we have agreed with ASUU is basically to put everything on paper and sign off. I believe if we had met yesterday and the papers had been drawn up, ASUU, I am sure, would have called off the strike today.

“But we only just met behind closed doors now and so we have to draw up the agreement as I have stated to you, and hopefully in the next couple of days, of course, ASUU has to get back to its bases as well. Once that is agreed, I am very hopeful and very excited about the possibility or probability the strike would be called off in a matter of days.”

“We did this for the sake of our students and children and I hope it would be a thing of the past. I thank you very much, ASUU. I also thank Nigerians for their patience, and the students, having endured these many months. But I believe that this has hopefully come to an end in a matter of days.”

The ASUU President, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, commended the House leadership for its intervention.

He said, “If the way the National Assembly has intervened; if you have done that long ago from the beginning, or those who are in charge of labour and education have done exactly this, we will not be where we are today.”

By Uzair Adam Imam

President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the conferment of the national honour on Ass. Prof. Sheikh Sani Umar Rijiyar Lemo in the rank of OON (Officer of the Order of the Niger).

However, the conferment of honour was disclosed in a letter to the sheikh dated October 7th, 2022, by Sen. George Akume, fnim.

Rigiyar Lemo is a Senior Lecturer at Bayero University, Kano (BUK), and also a prominent Islamic scholar in Nigeria with expertise in Hadith and Tafsir. His numerous authored books are being read in many mosques and circles of learning in Nigeria and beyond.

Popularly known As Dr Sani Umar R/Lemo, he was born in Saudi Arabia in 1970. He bagged 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree in Hadith in the reknowned Jami’atul Islam of Madina. He established name as the successor of Sheikh Ja’afar’s tafsir in Kano, Maiduguri and Bauchi State respectively. His popular weekly radio program “Fatawowin Rahama” endears him the love of millions of people who see him as peace ambassador.

The honor was in recognition of his tremendous contributions towards developing Nigeria through his teachings and enlightenment to ensure peace in the country.

The letter read in part: “I have the honour to formally inform you that the President of Republic of Nigeria, His Excellency Muhamadu Buhari, GCFR, has approved the conferment of the National Honour on you, in the rank of OON (Officer of the Order of the Niger).

The investiture ceremony is scheduled to take place at the International Conference Center (ICC), Abuna on Tuesday, 11th October, 2022, at 9:00 am.”

By Muhammadu Sabiu

Reports reaching The Daily Reality have indicated that residents and drivers were in a panic on Monday as fuel shortages hit many filling stations in Kaduna State and the surrounding area.

Many petrol stations had long lines of vehicles, and this forced buses drivers and commercial motorcycle riders to increase transportation costs by 50%.

Madam Ashatu Suleiman, a local, claimed that it cost her N150 to move from Sabon Tasha to Kaduna Central Market, where she sells food, adding that she paid N200 this evening as she was heading home.

According to a report, the cost of transportation from Kaduna to Zaria has jumped from N800 to N1,000.

Many people feared that the state’s fuel shortage was caused by floods in Kogi, which made it difficult for fuel trucks to pass.

The Kogi flood, according to Mr. Samuel Ebiko, station manager of Enyoojo filling station, has nothing to do with the Kaduna station’s gasoline shortage.