May 29, 2023 was a very gloomy day in Nigeria. People claimed to have ‘won’ elections but there were no celebrations, even in Lagos, the seat of the ‘lion of Bourdillon’. That was the day BATiocracy, a byproduct of snatch-and-run elections and COURTocracy, was enthroned. It was a day when a man of whom nothing is VERIFiable, the man who BUILT Lagos, the Balabluu exponent took over from another fellow, who was running the country from the presidential jets or from London hospitals,whose WASC was and is still, missing in action and who faced Niger Republic more than he faced Nigeria. One year later,(29/5/24), not much has changed; it was (and is still) gloomy but the difference is that it is gloomier than 12 months ago. It is even mournful. And the gloom had exteded to BATists who had earnestly asked for Renewed Hope. Of course, they forgot this maxim by Alexander Pope: Blessed are those who do not expect much, for they shall not be disappointed! For sure, some people are celebrating. The First Daughter of the Republic is not complaining. The First Son who has no official responsibilities but sits in the Federal Executive Council and is introduced before the Minister of Foreign Affairs in foreign lands is not complaining. Akpabio who captured 25% of the budget of just one Ministry, is not complaining. Immediate past and current Ministresses of Humanitarian affairs are not complaining. Stakeholders of and in Hitech, who won a mult-trillion road contract, without any open bid, without any EIA, probably without any bill of quantities and without being captured in the budget are not complaining. Players in the subsidy ecosystem and operators in the oil-theft racket are not complaining. But majority of Nigerians, the hopelessly poor, the marginalised, civil servants who are grudgingly paid and whose salaries have dipped in real terms by more than 80%, the sick who cannot buy basic medicaments because the manufacturers have closed shops and because of the exchange rate magic, are complaining bitterly. Incidentally, nobody is listening to them
Anyway, I have taken time in the
past twelve months, to diligently study BATiocracy,
the new political philosophy in town, identifying its principles, both written
and implied. And here is what I have
found. BATiocracy is Government of BAT by
BATists for BATists, and their Strategic
Allies. These Strategic Allies include Prof Tahir Mamman, former VC of Ahmed Datti’s
University who is now Minister of Education, Daniel Bwala of APDP party, Reno Omokri ( it is not from my mouth that
you will hear the meaning of Omokri!) Professor Wole Soyinka who is yet to
assess this government after one year as
he had promised, Dr Doyin Okupe, a former DG to PO’s Campaign, who suddenly saw
the light after a Damascus-Road experience, and Bode George
who promised to go on self-exile to Ghana if Tinubu was sworn
in, who now blames PMB for BATs woeful failure and requests that we should give
him more time!
COURtocracy in Enugu, snatched but can’t run it. Voodoocracy and bullion-van democracy
The core foundation of
BATiocracy is agberocracy( what somebody termed thuggerimetic),
with people like MC Oluomo as its
shining light and public face. It involves breaking heads, bones and
limbs, snatching, scattering and burning
ballot papers and boxes, threatening people publicly and getting away with it,
like the son sent on a thievery operations by the father. There are also
some ‘excellencies’ like Wike who would facilitate agberocracy
and make it an instrument of State Policy. The ‘agberocractic’ strategy is then affirmed and reaffirmed by
players in the INEC ecosystem who would declare the result
pleasing to the gods like a thief in the night, (1 Thessalonians,
5.2), and bluntly dare you to GTC( Go To COURT!) and from there,
COURTocracy takes over. But Agberocracy and COURTocracy are sustained by Bullion-Van-Democracy(
cashrimetic) in which what money cannot buy, MORE money will
surely buy, with the underlying sub-principle that everybody,
every institution and everything has a price. Non APCians benefit from these foundational principles as Mbah benefitted
from COURTocracy in Enugu, where the Court ORDERED the NYSC NEVER to say that the certificate, which in did not issue and being paraded by ‘his excellency’ is fake!. But as Obi asked,
how can you be an excellency when you ascend through an un-excellent
process?( no be me talk am!) These are
all founded on VOODOOCracy, or OCCULTocracy or
SPIRITuocracy, which is why Olaiya Igwe dressed down to his birthday
suite to pray for the enthronement of
BATiocracy at a beach. Much later, a sacrifice was placed in front of a pooling booth at the entrance
of Omole Junior Grammar School. And to
prove that OCCULTocracy and SPIRITuocracy have a national spread, an Edo herbalist invoked the gods against
INEC and Yakubu, forgetting that he was (and is still) backed by the master!
Leaving these preliminaries, I will go
straight to the core principles of BATiocracy. Surprisingly, the first core
principle of BATiocracy is the practice of Promise Based Management (Sull
D,N( 2007) Promise based management: The essence of Execution, Harvard
Business Review, 85(4)78-86).
Down to its basics, PBM implies that
effective managers should keep their promises. A major promise of Tinubu
, which he made during his campaigns and
which he reaffirmed thereafter was to continue from where PMB
stopped. He reaffirmed it on 14/1/24, during the presentation of books
on PMBs administration in Abuja. And like Rehoboam who assured his people that
‘my father laid on you a heavy yoke, I will even make it heavier; he
scourged you with whips but I will scourge you with scorpions( 1
Kings,12:11)’ and kept the promise, BAT has surely kept this particular and spectacular promise
by continuing from where PMB stopped, and even raised PMBs ‘performance’ in some areas, notches
higher. This he has done by imposing more taxes on impoverished populace,
pilling up more debts, printing more Naira, increasing the amount paid on the
opaque subsidy, while oil theft continues, travelling more with larger crowds,
increasing the size of Government . as inflation, unemployment and insecurity
worsens, with increasingly audacious bandits and their
stupendously richer agents. I never
imagined that Rebecca Myth would be true after PMB! Rebecca Myth? The past is
always better than the present!
Another principle, which is also a hangover from the Buharian era is blame-trading, and its twin-brother, scapegoatism. None of the problems was and is caused by this government, its appointees or its agents; they are all caused by others . In 2021, when ASUU had issues with the government, the PMB led administration blamed the Central Bank of Nigeria; not Ministries of Education or Labour, not the Accountant Generals office but CBN then run by Emefiele. You see why Emefiele is where he is today; he was a Johanis factotum! In the recent past, Wale Edun, the wonder-man from Lagos had blamed PMB and APC for the current comatose nature of the economy, saying they his master inherited a bad economy and rising food prices. Others supported him, including the Governor of Ogun State, who affirmed that his brother inherited an economy that was almost in a coma, the come-and-chop activist, Omokiri( I am not the one to tell you the meaning of that name!), who declared that Tinubu is trying to fix the economy destroyed by PMB, who ran a criminal enterprise and Ganduje, who ignored the Dollar probe in Kano to join the blame-trading circus. The NNPC blamed smugglers who move petrol to Mali and Ghana (probably ferried in their pockets) while the loquacious and combustive Nwike had blamed bad roads for insecurity in the FCT, just as the SGF blamed climate change for rising insecurity. The present government has blamed everybody and everything including, Biance, international students, banks, japa-syndrome, health tourists( of which PMB and his successor are record holders), Bureau de Change operators, the ubiquitous forex-dealing mallams( who had been around since the days of Jesus. If in doubt, ask-Matthew (12: 12-13), former ministers, political enemies, and foreign countries. Most of these are blamed for the health and fate of the decimated Naira. You can go and verify!
Old official Car, old Police Uniform and prize for reciting the old-new anthem, & the hailer!
The third principle is majoring in the minor
(MITM). This BATist Government ignored
the 25 strategic recommendations of the National Conference and zeroed in on
the old( and now new) National Anthem because according to the Oga at the
very top, Nigeria’s diversity should be
protected and respected. But one mischievous fellow has justified it by arguing that since the
people are so hungry and sickly to ‘arise’, it is easier for them to just hail!
People are now asking for the old police uniform, old official cars, old state
house, old fuel, gas and rice price, while Barr Idam has described it as a
desperate attempt to distract attention. In any case, one thing is verifiably certain: the
old anthem makes a painful mockery of our
current realities. Meanwhile, I have heard rumours that the FG
is planning a contest for a NEW National Anthem(???) They
subsidised the Hajj with N90bn, which is more than what is available for 60,000
students who have already applied for the Educational loan and while TEETFUND
is celebrating because a mere
N3.8bn invested on 1500
academics. Actually, the amount with which the Lagos State Government
subsidised each pilgrim(N150,000) is still more than what each loan beneficiary
would receive.
It is
because of MITM that he removed the petroleum subsidy as directed by the
spirit but ignored the other subsidies like the indescribable opulence and unpanelled squandering of riches;
and he has not bothered much about the minimum wage of those who had borne the
consequences of the subsidy quagmire for
one whole year; why the
Calabar-Lagos highway of N15trn came out of the blues and received ‘take a bow’
treatment while ignoring ALL abandoned projects, including those started by
OBJ, and dilly-dallying on the N250000 minimum wage request that could take the people home,
enhance disposable income and boost the economy saying that the N9.5trn wage
bill would crash the economy; an economy that has already crashed! Meanwhile,
our Senators are earning millions monthly while Gabon and Equatorial Guinea are
paying the equivalents of N357000 and N324000
as minimum wages respectively. It
is noteworthy that while the minimum wage increased from N3000 in
1999 to N30000 in 2024(900% in 25 years)
the National Assembly budget
increased from N2.2bn in 1999 to 334.9 in 2024(15,122% within the same period),
which is why our gini coefficient is the worst in the world. The
slary for juducial officers has just been increased by 300%. The
president had directed the Fiscal & Revenue Mobilisation Commission to
raise the salaries of judicial officers, directed Nwike to alocate land to
judges and to build a new Appeal Court Complex while a large chunk of the first round of BATist palliathieves
went to the NJC/CJN. I am not saying it
is a payback time and watering the ground for 2027! Funny enough, the bill that
NASS members and political
appointees should be placed on the
minimum wage did not make it to the order paper, not to think of passing through the first reading. Indeed, the
sponsor of the bill was suspended indefinitely!
Minimum wage for politicians, personal staff and a captured judiciary
Another principle is the enthronement and consolidation of a ‘kinship corporation’ alias nepotism and clannishness or turning Nigeria into a family business. By a twist of fate, as we were celebrating the onset of BATiocracy on 29/5/24, Fr Ambang Njume reminded us that nepotism is unworthy favouritism and favouritism is unrelated nepotism and that is why both of them are ( examples of)corruption. Beyond having a position for every member of his family, the Lagos crowd, the Oduduwa brothers and members of the BATist Convention have taken over everywhere, starting from the commanding heights of the economy: Central Bank, Customs, Ministry of Finance AMCON, (where 2 out of the 4 EDs are egbons) and every other position that catches the fancy of Oga at the top, including Natural Resources and Blue Economy( which one be this).
The Digital axis have also been BATified as in the cases of DigitalBridge Institute (Opayemi Dele-Ajayi ), Nigerian Communications Satellite( Abiodun Attah) and Galaxy Backbone( Ibrahim Adeyanju). The list of the personal staff of a federal and diversified country paints a clearer picture. In the judiciary where Justice Ariwola is the CJN, his brother is the chief Auditor, his nephew is a justice of the court of Appeal and his son is a judge of the Federal High Court. The Deputy Director of Finance and Deputy Director of Admin are his relations while two Deputy Chief Registrars are from his village. After looking at what is happening with our judicial system under the headship of Ariwola, Dr Onwuzuroha concluded that’ The enthronement of the kingship corporation in every facet of the Nigeria Ecosystem is COMPLETE! Of course, it is a part of continuing where PMB stopped!
Emergency celebrities, the ‘detested’ Isiagu and absurd constituency project
Another principle of
BATiocracy is ABSURDistanism; turning the country into an ABSURDIstan;the theatre of the
ABSURD, where absurdities and oddities are
SOPs( standard operating procedures). Just look at the court orders
flying all over the place in Kano and PH, especially in Kano where sombody who
ascended the throne via someones
dethronment has refused to quit
through the same route( his own dethronement). It is a country where
those who did not attend party primaries
‘win’ elections and go on to occupy the commanding heiths of the polity; where
Isiagu is an offence when worn by AirPeace crew but acceptable and fashionable
when used for campaigns. It is a place
where traumatised and rescued student
kidnapees are turned into instant celebrities with uniforms, photoups with
governors in Governors office, where an
Honourable member, Paul Haruna can proudly donate a hand-dug well as
constituency project, where Sokoto State
can name a road after Seyi Tinubu, to
curry the favour of BATists.It is where those who went in through the roof to capture Rochas
waited for Yahaya Bello to stroll into their arms and watched while he was
driven away ( by the way, what happened to that case)!It is where Emefiele is
the only crook in town, who had power to do and undo and even the one they
agreed was authorised, they said he forged signatures. This is not surprising though; it is like
expecting the cockroach to be innocent in a court headed by voracious chickens.
Marching orders on Aba, Nigeria& South Africa online Portals
It is a country where the response to
the unfortunate and babaric killing of security opoeratives, which is now a
national passtime, depends on the ‘where’;as if the place of action determines
the worth of the fallen heroes. The other day, five soldiers, including a son
of the soil were murdered by bloodthirsty fellons at Aba. It has been
all over the news, with the soldiers promising a swift and decissive response,
the Governor placing a bounty, which was raised within a week, and offering
scholarships, and everybody in the SE condeming the babaric act. Good enough.
But six soldiers were killed and others
wounded in Shiroro while on patrol 22/4/24,
just a week befor the sad events at Aba. Bandits also murdered 7 police operatives in Zamfaraon on 6/6/24
and more have just been murdered in Kastina. ALL of them are condemnable but
there have been no condemnations, no bounties and no comments by the
authorities. We witnessed how Okuama was levelled and the people were turned into homeless destitutes. So, you have the same
situation but with widely varrying
responses. You know where Igboho, Miyetti Allah Boss and MNK are as I write
this!
It is in an ABSURDsitan that
those who spend N10bn on travels in a
matter of months, receive billions
for opaque security votes and ‘constituency projects’
and much more as oversight
allowancs can gaslight the ‘labourers’ and their minimun wage quest
with some insisting that they cant pay more than N35000. It is in such a
contraption that N21bn palace for
VP would be launched with fanfare as if
Osinbajo were living under the
bridge in his days; where we will be looking for money
desperately to the extent of even taxhing peoples blokos but
nobody bothers how the money is spent! INEC spent billions on technology but
gave us glitch-propeled victory and nobody asked any
question; the National Population
Commission spent N200bn to prepare for a census which was potsponed
unceremoniously and nobody bothered.Minister of women affairs donated 25% of
her budget to Akpabio while people are using 100-vehicle convoy when we have
joined the list of endangered countries. It is in an ABSURditan
that the auditorium of Rivers State
House of Assembly would be openly
destroyed by some known politiefians and is now to be reconstrutured with N20bn,(
just the auditorium!); no questions asked!!!.
In the most recent celebration of
absurdities and oddities, Abike Dabiri boaldly told us that drug trafickers are
t better than human trafickers. So drug trafickers should carry-go,
in a nation where Drug Trafficking has been in the market place ( PEPT, Supreme
cult)for the past 18 months. It is a country where a Senator should boldly
request that cows be given the same
rights as humans, where we are battling with high cost of governance but we are
planing for 2 VPs, and where somebody
given $200m for metering 20+ years ago just warehoused the money… and
there is no public uproar. It is because of ABSURDistanism that Permanent
Secretaries were ordered by one brusque
hydraheaded politician( belongs to PDP, working , and campaigning for
APC) to publicly bow for the oga at the
very top( part of babacracy)! The spirit of ABSURDistanism was at work when a
youthcorper, and a fellow banned by the Supreme Cult from holding any public office,
were nominated fro minestrial position
while another who gained admission into the university with 3 credits( abi na
two) was cleared by the Senate! That is why Sokoto State,one of the poorest in
Nigeria has just procured the lates version of Toyota Camry( XLE) for
commercial taxi operation and why the
only Sherif in town bought SUVs for ALL Deltan NASS members.
Another important
principle is godISM:
Government of Deceits,(god) lies, propaganda, and deliberate
misinformation. The PH refinery quintessiontially godist On
21/12/23, without any prodding, we were told that it had been mechanically
completed and the flare-startof began on 20/12/23; on 15/3/24, the NNPC told us
that it would start operations within two weeks; on 17/4/24, the Ministr of
State assured us that it would start operations before the end of Q2 while on
29/5/24, the same Minister of State told us that it would commence operations by September, 2024. You see what I mean?Months
after claiming that we had cleared off all indebtedness to airlines, Willie
Wash, the DG of IATA informed the world that $19m was still
trapped at CBN as at April, 2024, though a large % had been cleared. The other
day, Bayo Onanuga informed us that the President had secured a $600m investment
from A,P Moller-Maersk but the company responded that while it was natural to have an ongoing dialogue with the
administration, .. we are not able to comment on any investment talks.” We have just been told that the coastal road
would benefit 30m
Nigerian businesses. How many businesses are there in Nigeria? When was
this study conducted? How many businesses are usually situated on the coasts?
DisORGANISED Labour held the government by the blokos and
government offered to pay something above 60k, which was actually
nothing. Labour relaxed the strike but the government had no fresh offer beyond the N60 it offered last
week( 5/6/24!) and eventually offered N62k. Even though subsidy is gone
last year, we are now paying more for it than as at one year ago. I hope we have not forgotten the Dubai
Visa fiasco. And now that subsidy is gone, we are paying more for
subsidy than before!
Another principle is profaning the sacred or making a mockery of serious issues! How else do you describe the NASS singing on your mandate we shall stand, rather than the now banished national anthem? Or the Senate President making a mockery of let the poor breath?
Other principles include Managing by Impulse and fighting inflation with inflationary policies( which I discussed recently) laughable sense of priority like using more than what we need to resuscitate Ajaokuta Steel Mill to buy cars for NASS members ( and then turn around to borrow for the mill)or launching housing scheme for Nigerians in UK Canada and US while those at home sleep under the bridge. Hypocrisy, which is doing what they condemned like borrowing and printing money in which they are beating the government of PMB and those who protested against fuel price of N87 and Dollar at N 200 defending fuel price of N800 and exchange rate of N1500 and still counting, seeking foreign investors while frustrating the investors here ones and rowing in different directions like the recent spat between Njulare and Onanuga on presidential speech on May 29. BATiocracy is synonymous with babacracy, which involves grovelling obeisance.
It
also involves the formation of UNITY Government, in which the
executive, legislature and judiciary are singing, and dancing to, the same song
composed and produced by the ga at the very top. The last is the enthronement
of TINUBUlation. This is so special that it requires to be treated
on a stand-alone basis.
Unity Government in action
People have
been asking what the government achieved in
the last 12 months. They are numerous, including the enthronement of
COURTocracy, practicalisation of BATiocracy and the latest of which is taking us backwords by
61 years by reintroducing with supersonic speed, the
old-new national anthem. As for me, I have no opinion on the matter but all my readers are encouraged to join the
debate on the first year of BATiocracy by undertaking this simple exercise.
Compare the inflation, interest and
exchange rates, esternal reserve, public debt, diesel and fuel prices transport
fare, the food inflation and the number of people killed abducted between 29/5/23 and 28/5/24 and then make up
your mind.
However, since
some of you are busy, wailing or hailing and some do not want to take the pains
to undertake this research, I will share with you, what some others( not me)
have done.
As you can see, we have been deformed by the reforms, which are mostly driven by the spirits! We should not be asking for light in a broad daylight I have SPOKEN!
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Excellent Read. This article should form part of the bibliography of political science
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