“Eh… My Oga!”, he exclaimed, with surprise written on his face.

I quickly glanced backward to see who the call was meant for.

Surprisingly, other guests, mostly editors and online publishers, were smiling and laughing.

“Alhaji Yushau Shuaib… very long time!” The unmistakable voice of Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State rang out again.

Through my face mask, I returned a smile and exchanged a COVID-19 greeting of an elbow bump, rather than a handshake or an embrace.

A week prior to the face-to-face encounter with the governor, I had had an extensive conversation with the Auditor General for Local Governments in Kogi State, Mr. Usman Ododo Ahmed, who had highly extolled the success of Governor Yahaya Bello in securing and stabilising the State. Predictably, my guest had no prior inkling that I have known the governor since he was a National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) member with the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation And Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) in the early 2000s, where I was then the Head of Media and Public Relations.

The Chairman of RMAFC at the time, the now late Engineer Hamman Tukur had sought the posting of young, vibrant and knowledgeable graduates who could assist the Commission in its constitutional mandate, especially in terms of data analyses on economic issues.

A renowned North-Central politician and industrialist, Dr. Faruk Abdul-Aziz, who was a board member of the Commission, was the one who had recommended Yahaya Bello, among the corps members who were selected to serve in RMFAC.

For those conversant with the Nigerian economy during that period, RMAFC, through its PR Division that I directed, had created massive awareness campaigns that equally encouraged public participation on issues bordering on public finance, such as the monetisation policy of government, revenue generation, federal allocations, and the general fiscal efficiency of the country.

As an Accountancy graduate of the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, Yahaya Bello was among the Youth Corps members whose contributions in analysing financial data and other statistics, were invaluable in informing the public about fiscal issues properly. In fact, most times then, we worked till late into the night with the Chairman on sensitive assignments.

At that time, the Commission was central to the execution of the monetisation policy of government, pertaining to the remuneration of public officers; resolution of the crises over disputed oil wells among States in the Niger Delta; proposition of a fair and just revenue allocation formula across government; recommendation of economic diversification policies to the federal authorities; and reconciliation of the external debts of the federal and state governments, while equally suggesting better measures of managing those debts. It also served as a forerunner in the campaigns for financial independence of the tiers and arms of government, whilst creating awareness on the need for transparency in public finance.

Because of the open-door policy of the Tukur era, young staff members had opportunities to engage members of the board and management of RMFAC in vigorous and cordial debates on public issues, on one-on-one basis. Meetings at the Commission were the reflection of a market place of ideas, where the intellectual climate was such that it even encouraged National Youth Corp members to make contributions to issues, which they took up through factual analyses, employing historical perspectives, alongside appeals to legal and constitutional provisions, devoid of political undertones and counterfactual anecdotes. My office, then, was one of the vibrant hubs for the youth corp members, including Yahaya Bello.

It was therefore not surprising that outstanding corps members, who excelled in their contributions to the Commission’s mandate, were offered automatic employments at the end of their mandatory one-year service to the country. In this regard, some like Husseini Sani Kagara and Hawwah Dahiru, who served in my office, and Yahaya Bello, who served in the Allocation Department, were among those offered automatic employment.

While Kagara later transferred to the Central Bank of Nigeria and Hawwah (who won the NYSC Award) went into private business, Yahaya Bello stayed on and received rapid promotions for his efforts, which saw him serve in different capacities in the Commission, before also leaving the public service for other private endeavours.

I recall the media intervention that I had spearheaded in opposition to Dr. Dora Akunyili’s National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) over the closure of Biomedical Services, a pharmaceutical company owned Dr. Faruk Abdulazeez, due to its production of certain Travenous Fluids in 2002. At that time, some media specialists, including the former Chairman of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Smart Adeyemi, had pointedly advised Dr. Abdulazeez not to engage Dr. Akunyili and NAFDAC in a media war because of her tremendous goodwill with the press. Yet, Yahaya Bello and one Abdul Bello (the Personal Assistant to Dr. Faruk then), who is now the Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kogi State, were highly concerned about the plight of their benefactor and urged me to continue with and give greater momentum to the campaign. A press conference was eventually held to appeal to NAFDAC to reassess its clamp down on the products of Biomedical Services. The case was thereafter revisited, and in finding out that it had acted unfairly towards the company, NAFDAC subsequently reopened Biomedical Services.

Gov Yahaya Bello with editors and online publishers

I had never met Yahaya Bello since I left RMAFC in 2005, even though I also read about him, like most people do since he set out on his political path and finally became a governor. However, the opportunity of engaging with his political trajectory, and particularly at this juncture when there is a movement towards his run for the Nigerian presidency, came when I received an invitation to join some editors for a media chat.

I had intended to bombard him with a lot of questions, but he disarmed me by referring to me as ‘Oga’ and jokingly reminded me of ‘imported biscuits’ I had shared with them in my office. I was not his ‘Oga’ but only his colleague at RMAFC, where I was just another senior civil servant.

However, during the ensuing question-and-answer session, he was able to address some of the issues I had intended to engage him on. The session was moderated by the Secretary to the State Government, Mrs. Dr. Ayoade Folashade Arike, who was recommended for the position by Governor Bello’s now political arc-rival, Senator Dino Melayo, in 2015

On the COVID-19 vaccine, the governor pointed out that he did not need to take the vaccine because he is fully healthy and not in the danger of any health concern. He added that Kogi State, which he governs, is faced with several other health challenges that are more serious than COVID-19, which are being successfully tackled and resolved, including outbreaks of Lassa Fever and Yellow Fever, without any noise being made about these, unlike the hysteria surrounding COVID-19, which is considered as largely contrived.

Pertaining to his relationship with former Minister of Aviation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, who is a controversial politician, Yahaya Bello explained that he and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain are brothers who are mainly interested in the peace and progress of Nigeria, despite what might be their political divides.

He noted that Fani-Kayode had joined him in brokering peace between the Amalgamated Union of Traders and our other aggrieved persons, which led to the aversion of a North/South ‘war’ during the recent food blockade that threatened peaceful and progressive co-existence in the country.

In terms of the 2023 presidential primaries, Governor Yahaya Bello dispelled rumours about the existence of a zoning clause in the constitution of the All Progressives Congress (APC), while pleading with leaders of the party to allow for unrestricted contest during the primaries, which should be open to all eligible party members nationwide.

He nevertheless, expressed confidence that he would defeat any APC presidential aspirant if there is a level playing field at the primaries.

While calling on politicians to think of the survival of Nigeria first in all they do, he pointed out that if it is the will of God, he would surely become the president of Nigeria in 2023.

Could there be the possibility of a repeat of the Kogi gubernatorial victory of 2015 in the forthcoming presidential election in 2023? As much as it is emergent upon time to reveal what it has in stock for all, yet the future lies in wait only for the brave and undeterred.

Yushau A. Shuaib
www.YAShuaib.com

The post Gov Yahaya Bello for President of Nigeria? appeared first on YAShuaib.

With quite a reputation behind her, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala appears to mean different things to different people across the spaces she has straddled. This is why I paused for a moment of contemplation when a professional colleague working in a multilateral institution abroad sought my opinion on the candidacy of Nigeria’s first female Finance minister and also Foreign Affairs minister, for the post of Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

This prodding brought to mind in recall the phone call I had received on the evening of Wednesday, March 20, 2013 from her when she was Finance minister, complaining about an article I had written about her and a number of appointments that had then been made in the Nigerian economic sector in a major national newspaper. While I had thanked her for the call, I refrained from tendering an apology for what I still consider as the objective commentary, I made in that article.

Along the line, so many things happened. I was eventually retired from public service. Feeling unfairly treated, I went to court. It was to my utter shock to later discover that prominent civil servants, including directors in the service, were behind the dishonest recommendation for my disengagement from the civil service. Some of the intrigues, episodes and persons behind that ordeal are documented in my book ‘An Encounter With the Spymaster.’

Although reinstated by the court five years later, I have since voluntarily retired from the federal civil service. Meanwhile, three years after the court order for the payment of my entitlements, some civil servants are still dilly-dallying over this directive. In life, one must always be grateful to the Almighty God for sparing one’s life and giving the direction that leads in making one better off than how one was in the past.

However, back to my friend’s request, I understand that the WTO is an intergovernmental organisation, established to promote and regulate international trade, and its Director-General performs both managerial and advisory roles, with member-states being ultimately left to make their own decisions. Surprisingly, no African has served in the top position in the WTO since 1948 in its precursor organisation, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The current Director-General of WTO, Mr Roberto Azevêdo has announced his decision to step down on August 31, which makes the position potentially vacant, and in need for the recruitment of a new head.

President Muhammad Buhari must have considered Dr. Okonjo-Iweala’s pedigree and credentials before nominating her as Nigeria’s candidate for the WTO top job. Even though she has not served in any capacity in his administration, the president might have acknowledged her contributions as Nigeria’s first female Finance minister, during which time she spearheaded an ambitious debt relief negotiation with the Paris Club of Creditors during the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo between 1999 and 2003. The efforts of her team led to the outright cancellation of $18 billion of Nigeria’s total debt stock, and a series of other measures eventually leading to the reduction of the country’s external indebtedness from $35 billion to $5 billion.

Similarly, in her second coming as Finance minister during the tenure of President Goodluck Jonathan between 2011 and 2015, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala was responsible for leading aggressive but praiseworthy reforms that enhanced the transparency of the government’s accounting systems, which strengthened our public institutions against corruption. She introduced the Government Integrated Financial Management System (GIFMS), the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Management System (IPPMS), and the Treasury Single Accounts (TSA), which are now being fully implemented by the Buhari administration.

Dr. Okonjo-Iweala had an impressive over 25-year career at the World Bank, rising to the position of the Managing Director in charge of Operations of the foremost financial organisation. In 2010, she was made Chair of the World Bank’s successful drive to raise $49.3 billion in grants and low-interest credit for the poorest countries in the world.

Still, after her last official engagement in Nigeria, Okonjo-Iweala has been quite preoccupied as a global finance expert, helping many multilateral and multinational organisations with their developmental ventures in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America.

She is a World Health Organisation (WHO) Special Envoy for Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator and was recently appointed as an African Union (AU) Special Envoy to mobilise international financial support for the fight against COVID-19. She also currently chairs the boards of the African Union’s African Risk Capacity (ARC), the Nelson Mandela Institute, and the African University of Science and Technology, Abuja.

In the business world, outside the African continent, she is a Senior Adviser at Lazard and sits on the boards of Standard Chartered PLC and Twitter Inc. She further serves on the advisory boards of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Harvard University International Advisory, the Oxford University Martin School Advisory Council, Women’s World Banking Africa Advisory Board, and the International Commission on Financing Global Education. Also, she is on the advisory boards of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Tsinghua University, Beijing’s School of Public Policy, the CARICOM (Caribbean) Commission on the Economy, and the Tax Inspectors Without Borders (an initiative of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), among others.

More so, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is Chair of the Board of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which has immunised 760 million children globally and saved thirteen million lives since its inception in 2000. Through Ngozi’s leadership of GAVI, world leaders have pledged an additional US$ 8.8 billion for the vaccination of children, far exceeding the initial target of US$ 7.4 billion. The project will ensure the immunization of over 300 million children including the creation and distribution of the COVID vaccine globally and mostly in Africa.

With a growing concern that what Africa needs is trade rather than aid, to fight poverty, hunger and disease, a savvy bridge builder and go-getter in the person of an Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is the right figure who can broker numerous agreements that would promote fair trade. In fact, the core objective of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AFCTA) in creating a single continental market for goods and services, with the free movement of business persons and investments across the globe could be easily achieved through her watch.

In a recent media interview, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala said the WTO is a most important global multilateral body with challenges that require reforms. She said: “I believe it is relevant for the economic development, growth and sharing of prosperity in the world. I want the (WTO) job because I have the skills and the organisation needs some reforms to make it relevant for times we are in and I have a reputation as a strong reformer.”

With the foregoing, I strongly believe that if what the WTO is looking for is ‘a candidate with vast experience in international relations, encompassing trade and/or political experience, a firm commitment to the work and objectives of the organisation, proven leadership and managerial ability; and demonstrated communications skills,’ then Nigeria’s Okonjo-Iweala is not only the strongest African contender but she is a bold reformer, skilful negotiator and finest globally acclaimed developmental economists needed for the job.

Yushau A. Shuaib
Founder of the Economic Confidential and Author of ‘An Encounter with the Spymaster’
www.YAShuaib.com

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The controversy over the arrival of Chinese medical experts in Nigeria is needless, going by an official statement from China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (‘CCECC’), which sponsored the trip of this medical personnel and the supplies being brought into the country.

The Managing Director of CCECC, Michael Jiang said the medical team is not coming to Nigeria to treat any COVID-19 patient but is only escorting the medical supplies to the country, and would be on hand to provide guidance for their usage and distribution. The supplies being donated to Nigeria include test kits, ventilators, disinfection machines, disposable medical masks, medicines, rubber gloves, protective gowns, goggles, face shields, infra-red thermometers and other critical care items. (https://cutt.ly/ccecc)

On the day the Chinese medical team arrived in the country late in the evening of Wednesday April 8, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) had announced then that the total number of coronavirus infection cases in the country was 276, with 44 of these having been treated and discharged, while quite unfortunately six of those who contracted the disease had died. (https://cutt.ly/ncdc)

The rate of recovery of coronavirus disease patients in Nigeria is quite encouraging. In fact, a number of high-profile personalities who had tested positive to the infection have since recovered and been given a clean slate of health within a short period of time. They include Governors Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State and Seyi Makinde of Oyo State.

While a conspiracy of silence subsisted on effective remedies for the coronavirus infection and disease, Governor Makinde of Oyo State revealed that he had fought the infection with carrots, vitamin C, black seed oil with honey and made vigorous efforts to boost his immunity, whilst regularly exercising when in isolation. (https://cutt.ly/makinde).

Meanwhile, Nigerian professor of Pharmacognosy and Chairman of the Imo State Taskforce on COVID-19, Professor Maurice Iwu has laid claims to the creation of a plant-based and already patented drug for the treatment of the dreaded coronavirus, which he said is presently going through clinical trials in the United States of America. This, he had disclosed to Nigeria’s Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu during a recent visit. (https://cutt.ly/iwu)

Still, there has been cheerful news around the world about breakthrough medicines and remedies that are tackling the menace of coronavirus to great degrees of efficacy. After President Donald Trump of the United States of America had nudged at the use of Chloroquine therapy in curing the virus, a new controlled clinical study conducted by doctors in France has shown that a combination of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin (Z-Pak) completely cures coronavirus patients within six days of treatment. In fact, the healing of 80 additional patients has confirmed the effectiveness of this new line of therapy, as advanced by the French researchers. (https://cutt.ly/chloro)

In a similar development, another wonder drug, Tocilizumab, is reputed to have cured 90 per cent of those it was administered on, in a groundbreaking trial on severe and critical COVID-19 patients in two separate hospitals in the eastern province of Anhui in China. Tocilizumab, otherwise known as Actemra and produced by the Swiss pharmaceutical firm, Roche, is typically used to combat arthritis. (https://cutt.ly/actemra)

Another report claims that Chinese doctors gave the medication to 20 patients during the peak of the epidemic in China. Of this number, nineteen of them were discharged within 14 days, despite having earlier been critically ill. The drug has now been approved for use in China and for trials in the U.S. (https://cutt.ly/trials)

While I strongly believe that this period of anxiety and fear over the coronavirus disease pandemic would soon be over, there are many people – young and elderly, educated and uneducated, rich and poor, powerful and less powerful – who are greatly disturbed psychologically in this period, and who have no one to give them words of encouragement and hope.

It is unfortunate that some traditional and religious leaders have been aggravating the anxiety of their followers by giving them misleading information and raising false hopes in them, at a time when fact-based approaches are essential to tackling the coronavirus scourge.

It is however reassuring to note that a number of major religious bodies in Nigeria have aligned their messages to the faithful with medical advice. The Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) and the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), for instance, have asked their followers to obey the directives of governments and take all precautionary measures issued by the authorities on coronavirus. They have cautioned Muslims and Christians against convening or attending religious activities, while observing social distancing when they experience symptoms of coronavirus such as respiratory distress, fever, cough, and shortness of breath, etc. (https://cutt.ly/religions)

At this period of global anxiety, confusion and a near state of hopelessness due to overwhelming and disturbing news about the coronavirus infection and disease, we should encourage our loved ones in coping with the attendant stress. According to experts, excessive thinking about the pandemic can worsen mental health conditions. It is therefore necessary to always take breaks from the preponderance of alarming information, disturbing news and activities on the traditional and social media. We need to cultivate a more positive mindset, fostered by healthy diets, regular exercise and taking enough rest in this difficult period. When disturbed, it is advisable that we talk to people we feel comfortable with and trust, in expressing our fears and concerns.

The manageable levels of the pandemic, within the limits of our health care system in Nigeria, needs to be sustained through rigorous campaigns on social distancing and the adoption of appropriate hygienic lifestyles.

Yushau A. Shuaib
Author of Award-Winning Crisis Communication Strategies
yashuaib@yahoo.com

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