Secretary Kerry: Well, good afternoon, everybody. I am really delighted be here in Nigeria. And I was just admiring the extraordinary view and this wonderful location. I’m particularly pleased to be here at this particular moment, just a few weeks before one of the most important elections that this country has held. And this will be the largest democratic election on the continent. Given the stakes, it’s absolutely critical that these elections be conducted peacefully, that they are credible, transparent, accountable, so that the people of Nigeria can have faith and the world can have faith in the government that flows from it.
So I came here today to deliver a very simple message, and I met with both major candidates in order to underscore that the international community is paying very close attention to this election and that the international community is deeply committed to working with Nigerians going forward with the hopes that they will have an election that is free of violence and capable of instilling confidence in the future.
I was at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this weekend where I delivered a speech about the need for a long-term, comprehensive global effort to combat violent extremism, and to address the underlying causes before that extremism takes root. The unfortunate truth is that Nigerians know as well as anyone how desperately that kind of effort is needed. Day after day, the group that calls itself Boko Haram continues to kill scores of innocent civilians and attack villages and military installations in places like Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa states. The United States condemns these attacks which have escalated in recent weeks. And we extend our deepest condolences to the thousands of families that have been impacted, and we deeply regret the toll that this violence has taken on the Nigerian people. We will absolutely continue to support the Nigerian military in its fight against Boko Haram. And as I said in Davos, all of us must work together to advance a strategy that will not only stop groups like Boko Haram, Daesh, and al-Qaida, but that will address the environment from which these groups emerge.
We were very happy to see the Government of Niger host a regional security ministerial meeting last week to discuss how to better coordinate counterterrorism efforts. This is exactly the kind of thing that I suggested is necessary in the comments that I made a couple of days ago. It is very important that the world cooperate more in helping countries where they want to and where they don’t the full capacity to be able to step up and take on lawless terrorist entities.
That is precisely why President Obama has announced that next month in Washington we will host an international summit on combatting violent extremism around the world. It will be held at the WH and at the State Department, it will be at the ministerial, and we hope to bring people together who have been engaged in these fights against the Boko Harams and other entities so we can share best practices, so that we could hear from people about what they need and what they think is necessary in order to be able to summon an even stronger global response.
The fact is that one of the best ways to fight back against Boko Haram and similar groups is by protecting the peaceful, credible, and transparent elections that are essential to any thriving democracy, and certainly, essential to the largest democracy in Africa. It’s imperative that these elections happen on time as scheduled, and that they are an improvement over past elections, and they need to set a new standard for this democracy. That means that Nigerians have to not only reject violence but they have to actually promote peace.
I met with President Jonathan earlier today and separately with General Buhari, and I was encouraged to hear once again from both men that this is exactly what they intend to do to try to press for an election that can be held with the credibility the people of Nigeria want and deserve. As President Jonathan said in his New Year’s message, none of our political ambitions is worth the blood of any of our countrymen, women, and children. And as General Buhari recently tweeted, electoral violence is unacceptable, and every Nigerian life is sacred. Both candidates have also signed on to the so-called Abuja Accord, which commits them to running exclusively issue-based campaigns, refraining from violence before and during and after election day, and speaking out against any violence that does emerge.
These are commitments that we need to see from everyone and they are commitments that need to be kept. Many people are stepping up. For example, Chairman Jega and the thousands of independent national election commission employees are taking concrete steps in order to guarantee that this election is successful. We also urge all of Nigeria’s governors to call for peaceful democratic engagement among their residents, and we ask all parties and all candidates to do the same.
And I would say to everybody that no matter what the outcome, if you have a question, if you have a doubt, if there is someplace where issues may have arisen, it is absolutely vital that whatever differences may exist be resolved through legitimate channels, through the legal channels, which are fundamental to the democratic process. And I urge all of Nigeria’s candidates to do what is best for their country no matter the outcome on election day.
I want to emphasize that for the United States, Nigeria is an increasingly important strategic partner. Nigeria has a critical role to play in the security and prosperity of this continent and beyond. We are committed to helping the electoral process succeed, and last week we sent an electoral security advisor in order to support INEC’s efforts to advise on security concerns and to help develop a risk mapping tool to prepare for any violence that might emerge.
So let me be clear: Anyone who participates in, plans, or calls for widespread or systematic violence against the civilian population must be held accountable, including by ineligibility for an American visa. Violence has no place in democratic elections, and I can guarantee you that the perpetrators of such violence would not be welcome in the United States of America. Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation and one of the world’s largest democracies. It is blessed with some of the planet’s most valuable and abundant natural resources. Conducting accountable, credible, peaceful elections will help put the Nigerian people on a path to prosperity and regional leadership that is needed in order to address a wide range of challenges in this part of the world, including, obviously, violent extremism.
With this election, Nigeria has an opportunity to put an indelible stamp on the kind of future that Africa wants to see and most importantly that Nigeria wants and deserves. I want to reiterate what President Obama recently said, that he, I, and the American people stand with you as Nigeria’s great democratic exercise unfolds. And we stand ready to work with the Government of Nigeria, the Nigerian people, and whomever they elect next month continue – to continue building on the important partnership that we share.
And with that, I would be delighted to take a couple of questions.
MODERATOR: Our first question comes from (inaudible).
QUESTION: Could you give us a bit more of a response to these attacks by Boko Haram in northeastern Nigeria and how concerned you are about this (inaudible)?
QUESTION: And can you also give us a bit more of a sense of what concrete steps the U.S. is prepared to take with the Nigeria to fight Boko Haram? Because it has been a concern within the Pentagon about the capability or the commitment of the military to fight Boko Haram. And finally, could you give us sense from here that Boko Haram’s kind of spreading to other parts of Africa and aligning (inaudible) the Islamic State or other terrorist groups?
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, let me take the last part of your question first. There’s no specific declaration by Boko Haram of an affiliation with Daesh, but there is evidence that Daesh is making an effort to spread its tentacles throughout a number of countries in the northern part of Africa, and it is obviously a concern that they may try more aggressively to try to spread to countries in the center and southern and other parts of Africa.
The United States is deeply engaged with Nigeria. And I’ve seen the articles that refer to some of the problems with respect to that engagement. Everybody’s heard certain criticisms that have been made. Some of them are just flat-out inaccurate. For instance, we do continue to share intelligence with the Nigerian military and intelligence folks. We do cooperate in many ways. We don’t believe that the level of support provided by the United States or the international community is the limiting factor in the Nigerian Government’s ability to fight Boko Haram.
And with respect to the military assistance that we’re delivering, we are currently helping the Nigerian – helping Nigeria to increase the capability of its military; to improve its counter-incident explosive detection and civil-military operations capacity; and to carry out responsible counterterrorism operations. Now, does it always well as work – work as well as we would like or as well as the Nigerians would like? The answer is no. There are developmental issues in that relationship and in those efforts. But the United States maintains a very significant level of military cooperation with various elements of the Nigerian security forces.
And we’re also providing law enforcement assistance, including by training Nigerian law enforcement officials on counterterrorism investigations and post-blast investigations and crisis management. Right now, we have a team of Nigerian Government crisis management officials in the United States who are participating in a senior crisis management exercise. We have provided equipment and training for the Nigerian intelligence fusion center. And most recently, we’ve worked with Nigeria’s neighbors Cameroon, Chad, and Niger to develop institutional and tactical capabilities that will increase the joint efforts between our countries in order to be more effective.
So bottom line, we want to do more. And that was part of my message to both President Jonathan and General Buhari today. We are prepared to do more, but our ability to do more will depend to some degree on the full measure of credibility, accountability, transparency and peacefulness of this election. And one of the principle reasons that President Obama asked me to come here at this moment is to reinforce to all Nigerians the desire of the United States to be able to engage even more so in the effort to push back against Boko Haram or any other violent extremist group, but the quality of the democratic process is important to contributing to our ability to do so. And that’s exactly why I’m here today.
MODERATOR: Our last question is from Victor Asije of the News Agency of Nigeria.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) and welcome to Nigeria.
SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you.
QUESTION: Are you confident that President Jonathan and General Buhari can be held to their promises – promises they made to you, (inaudible), credible elections, (inaudible) that the U.S. (inaudible)? The other question is this: Now, even after the (inaudible) that the U.S. (inaudible) to discriminate against people from West Africa (inaudible)?
SECRETARY KERRY: Can you repeat the last part? The U.S. is likely to discriminate?
QUESTION: That the U.S. is likely (inaudible) to discriminate against people from West Africa who are (inaudible)?
SECRETARY KERRY: No, I – let me answer that first. I’m personally very proud, and I think every American is very proud, of the extraordinary efforts the United States has made in order to combat the Ebola disease. President Obama made a remarkably courageous and critical decision right up front, when people didn’t know all – publicly, certainly – all of the potential dangers. But when he, by virtue of his briefings and his understanding through his medical advisors, had a strong sense of what was possible, the President committed 4,000 U.S. troops to go to Liberia immediately in order to begin to build the capacity to fight Ebola. We worked extremely closely with our friends and allies, the French and the British particularly, but with many other people – Japan, China. Many countries stepped up as we came together at the United Nations in September, summoned more response, sent people over here, many workers, as you know, who have come back to the United States, and a few of them who came back with Ebola and they were treated, one of whom who died and others who were cured.
We have confidence in the ability of people to be cured. We have confidence that this is – that we are gaining in our capacity to control this; we’ve made enormous strides, and I can guarantee you there will be no discrimination against people from anywhere because this is a disease from which people can be determined to be either cured or free in the first place from any infection. As long as protocols are followed, as long as the screenings are taken, I don’t think anybody has to fear any form or any nature of discrimination. I think the efforts of the United States, frankly, speak volumes against that possibility.
On the first part of your question about the promises of the two leaders, let me make this clear: I think the real question ought to be will the Nigerian people be able to count on the president, whoever it is? The promises to the people of Nigeria – and to the world really, but principally the people of Nigeria – and I think it’s up to the people of Nigeria to make the judgment about whether they’re confident that any particular person or candidate is going to live up to their word. It’s not up to us to make that judgment. The proof will be in what happens in the days ahead.
But I’m here today because President Obama and the American people and the world are looking at Nigeria in this extraordinary exercise of democracy, in this important country in Africa, with the largest democratic election on the continent – and it matters. And that’s why we’re here: to emphasize to everybody, nobody gains by violence. Nobody gains by turning a political disagreement into a killing spree or some other kind of violence. And our hope is that Nigeria will set a remarkable example for the world in this election, and that that will give whoever is President coming out of this election the momentum that he needs in order to be able to define the future that the people of this country so want. And the proof will be in the actions that are taken in the course of the election and afterwards.
So thank you all very, very much. Appreciate it.
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President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has directed the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to investigate the activities of a group operating under the name Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), which the Federal Government says is a fictitious organization.
The President ordered the anti-corruption agency to conclude its investigation and submit a comprehensive report within 30 days.
According to the Presidency, the PFIPC was never established by the Federal Government and has no legal basis, presidential approval, executive authorization, or any other lawful government backing.
The investigation follows allegations that one Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew falsely presented himself as the Director-General of the organization and claimed to be a presidential appointee.
President Tinubu directed the ICPC to examine allegations of forged appointment letters and other official government documents, as well as claims that the suspect used the purported presidential appointment to seek official recognition, diplomatic support, and visa facilitation.
The Commission is also expected to investigate the alleged opening of multiple bank accounts in the names of government agencies using forged documents and determine whether any funds were obtained or moved through the suspected scheme.
Beyond the actions of the principal suspect, the President instructed the ICPC to investigate any collaborators and determine how the fictitious organization was able to create an appearance of official legitimacy. The probe will also examine whether any public officials, private individuals, financial institutions, intermediaries, or other entities played a role in facilitating the alleged activities.
In addition, the ICPC has been tasked with identifying weaknesses in government procedures that may have been exploited and recommending measures to prevent similar incidents in the future.
All federal ministries, departments, and agencies have been directed to cooperate fully with the Commission by providing all relevant records and information required for the investigation.
President Tinubu emphasized the need to safeguard the integrity of the Presidency and federal institutions against impersonation, document forgery, misuse of official identity, and other fraudulent practices. He further directed that anyone found culpable should face the full weight of the law.
News
Africa's richest businessman, Aliko Dangote, has selected Kenya's coastal town of Lamu as the location for a proposed 700,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) oil refinery, ending months of speculation over where the landmark investment would be built.
Edwin Devakumar, Vice President for Oil and Gas at Dangote Industries Limited, confirmed on Tuesday that the refinery will be constructed on Lamu Island and is expected to be completed within about 30 months.
The project, which is designed to mirror the scale and impact of the Dangote Refinery in Nigeria, is expected to become the largest refining facility in East Africa once operational.
Tanzania had also been under consideration for the investment. During a visit to the country last month, Dangote met with President Samia Suluhu Hassan and explained the commercial and technical reasons behind the company's decision to establish the refinery in Kenya. He also invited Tanzania to participate in the Lamu project.
Before settling on Lamu, Dangote had previously indicated that Mombasa was his preferred location for the refinery.
The planned facility builds on the success of Dangote's 650,000-bpd refinery in Nigeria, which began operations in 2024 and has transformed the country's downstream petroleum industry. The privately owned refinery has significantly reduced Nigeria's dependence on imported refined fuels despite the country's status as one of Africa's leading crude oil producers.
Dangote Industries also plans to expand the Nigerian refinery's capacity to 1.4 million bpd by 2028, a move that would make it the world's largest refinery.
Beyond meeting domestic demand, the Nigerian refinery has become a major exporter of refined petroleum products. It supplies aviation fuel to markets including the United States, Europe and Brazil, while also exporting petrol and other refined products to several African countries such as Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Tanzania, Ghana and Togo.
The company has also announced plans to list the Dangote Refinery on the Nigerian Stock Exchange next year as it continues to expand its footprint across the African energy sector.
Business
In The Spotlight
It is an established maxim of English constitutional history that the British Empire was acquired in a fit of absence of mind. The Nigerian state, it appears, is currently being governed under a similar psychic condition. How else is one to comprehend the wondrous tale of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC); an agency that manages the exquisite feat of being simultaneously a complete fiction and the recipient of a Cool N1.3 billion in the 2026 Appropriation Act? The Presidency, through its various perorating organs, has hastened to declare that the PFIPC does not exist, never did exist, and is merely the elaborate daydream of one Prince Matthew Adeniyi, whom it denounces as an "irredeemable con artist." The irony is almost too perfect.
We are asked by presidential publicists, Messrs. Onanuga and Ajayi, to believe that this modern-day Alibaba managed to conjure up a federal agency entirely out of thin air, complete with an elegant suite in the Federal Secretariat, 34 bank accounts, a police escort, and a payroll of 300 staff, all by the simple expedient of a forged letterhead. This is a comforting, if intellectually lazy, diagnosis. It allows the executive to treat a profound systemic rot as a mere problem of criminal masquerade. But the explanation explains nothing. It is a bucket of perfume tipped over an open sewer. The most troubling question is therefore not whether PFIPC existed. It is whether the Nigerian state has become so administratively porous that it can no longer reliably distinguish between an authorized institution and an elaborate imitation.
Every political scandal eventually acquires a defining question. Watergate had Senator Howard Baker’s immortal query: “What did the President know, and when did he know it?” Nigeria’s PFIPC affair has produced its own variation: What did the President’s Chief of Staff know about the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, and when did he know it? That question matters not because it presumes wrongdoing, but because the Presidency has described the PFIPC as a fictitious organization. If that description is accurate, the puzzle becomes extraordinary: how did a fake agency obtain office space in the federal secretariat, interact with public institutions, appear in official correspondence, seek staff recruitment and, most remarkably, surface in the 2026 Appropriation Act with an allocation of ₦1.3 billion? One can imagine many things materializing in Nigeria through improvisation and optimism. A federal agency is not usually supposed to be one of them.
Public attention has naturally gravitated toward the office of the Chief of Staff because presidential appointments, inter-agency coordination and access to the machinery of government often pass through or near that office. The Presidency has denied that the PFIPC was legitimately created and has characterized key documents associated with it as forged. Yet the institutional trail raises questions that denials alone do not answer. If an appointment letter was forged, who verified it? If office space was allocated, who approved it? If meetings were held, who authorized them? If the body was fictitious, at what point did senior officials become aware that it was operating as though it were real? These are not accusations; they are administrative questions. But they are unusually consequential administrative questions because they concern the integrity of the state’s own authentication mechanisms.
The more revealing story may lie not in the Presidency but in the National Assembly. Appropriation is parliament’s core constitutional power. Budgets do not drift into law like leaves blown across a courtyard. They are scrutinized by committees, amended by legislators, harmonized between chambers and ultimately enacted through a formal legislative process. If the PFIPC allocation was included in the 2026 budget, then one of two things happened. Either lawmakers believed the agency was legit and funded it accordingly, or they approved an allocation without establishing whether the entity legally existed. Neither possibility is flattering. For years, legislators have defended the high cost of Nigeria’s parliament by arguing that effective oversight is expensive but indispensable. The PFIPC affair invites an awkward follow-up question: what exactly was being overseen?
The scandal exposes a broader weakness in Nigerian governance. Oversight increasingly risks becoming performative rather than preventative. Committees summon officials after controversies erupt, issue stern statements and promise investigations. What is less visible is the quieter, more important work of detecting anomalies before they become law. A functioning legislature should be able to answer basic questions about every budget line: Who proposed it? Under what legal authority? Which committee reviewed it? What documentation supported it? In many advanced democracies, those answers can be traced digitally. In Nigeria, citizens often learn about questionable allocations only after journalists, whistle-blowers or political rivals discover them. That is not oversight.
The Presidency faces a dilemma of its own making. By declaring the PFIPC fictitious while simultaneously ordering security agencies to investigate those who allegedly operated it, it has framed the affair primarily as a fraud perpetrated against the state. That may ultimately prove correct. But the public’s interest extends beyond identifying an alleged impostor. Citizens also want to know how the state’s verification systems performed. A government can be deceived; what matters is whether the deception was quickly detected or allowed to acquire the appearance of official legitimacy. On that point, the available facts raise uncomfortable questions.
The comedy turns to tragedy when the stakes are no longer merely financial; they are existential. When the police orderlies were assigned to the Prince by an Inspector General who had supposedly been ordered to strip VIPs of their escorts, the machinery of state security was effectively rented out to a masquerade. When the dynamic trio of investigators finally muster the courage to walk past the Guards Brigade into the inner sanctuary of the State House, they will find themselves before the Chief of Staff. He is the gatekeeper, the processor of files, the man whose signature turns whim into policy and phantoms into statutory realities. To believe that an enterprise of this magnitude; straddling the SGF, the Civil Service, the Accountant General, the Central Bank, and the National Assembly, could be executed by a lone rogue with a bottle of correction fluid and a fake stamp is delusional.
If the Chief of Staff did not know that a multi-billion-naira fraudulent empire was being constructed within his own administrative shadow, he is guilty of a spectacular, monumental incompetence that disqualifies him from managing a village dispensary, let alone the engine room of the federal republic. If he did know, then the farce is over, and the curtain rises on something far darker. The public may safely conclude that the true culprit is not the "irredeemable con artist" being fitted for the scapegoat’s skin, but an entire system of governance that has become so thoroughly hollowed out that it can no longer tell the difference between its own reflection and a ghost.
The PFIPC controversy may eventually reveal forgery, bureaucratic negligence, political patronage or some combination of all three. Whatever the final findings, one conclusion is already difficult to avoid: the affair has exposed significant gaps in Nigeria’s institutional gatekeeping. The most important question is therefore not whether one individual misrepresented authority. It is whether multiple institutions - the Presidency, the civil service, the budget process and the National Assembly - possess reliable mechanisms for verifying authority before public resources, official access and governmental legitimacy are extended. That is the question that should worry Aso Rock most. Because if a body later described as fictitious could travel so far through the machinery of government before anyone pulled the alarm, the deeper scandal may not be the existence of PFIPC. It may be the startling uncertainty about how the Nigerian state decides what is real.
Opinions
In The Spotlight
Peter F. Drucker, the Austrian-American management guru (1909 -2005), it was who opined that change is an inevitable constant in human situations and that innovation is important in the 21st Century where skills become obsolete at the speed of light and what was deemed essential yesterday sooner or later becomes irrelevant, requiring new thinking, new styles, new modes to remain relevant and to gain new knowledge. But the proposed plan by the Federal Government of Nigeria to reform the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme does not fit into this pattern. It is a classic case of majoring in the minors, a misplaced priority, a wasteful adventure whose long-term subliminal objective may be mere self-enrichment that would not change much but rather cause unwanted confusion. The Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration has advertised itself as a reform-minded administration. But certain reforms do not come across as a priority and this NYSC reform is one of such thoughtless propositions like, if we may cite an earlier example, the decision to revert to the old Nigerian National Anthem. I watch people at public events, they sing along most reluctantly because there was no consensus nor has there been any buy-in, that Nigeria needed to change its National Anthem. It is important that policies are not enacted or revised simply to satisfy the personal fancy or the whims of anyone no matter how highly placed. In the case of the NYSC, nobody was consulted. We woke up one morning only to be told by the Minister of State for Youth Development, Ayodele Olawande that a decision had been taken to reform the NYSC programme. Nobody needs NYSC reform.
The NYSC is 53 years old. Established in May 1973, by the Yakubu Gowon military administration, it was a post-civil war measure in pursuit of the objectives of the three Rs: Reconciliation, Rehabilitation, and Reconstruction, to reintegrate Nigerians and reunite them and heal the wounds of the civil war. The fratricidal war divided Nigeria and watered the seeds of ethnicity and difference. Over 50 years later, the wounds are yet to heal. The NYSC was an attempt at reconciliation. It started with the posting of graduates of tertiary institutions to cities and states far away from their homes, and places of graduation, to allow them live among other people, get to understand Nigeria and learn to serve Nigeria selflessly. The emphasis was on service. When the late sage, Chinua Achebe wrote that “there was once a country”, the NYSC was part of that effort at the making and remaking of Nigeria. It is the case that when the country began to fail on all fronts in terms of security, institutional integrity, increased ethnic and religious division, a group of Nigerians began to agitate that the NYSC was no longer serving its purpose and it should be scrapped. Except that the problem is not with the scheme but the Nigerian factor: the inbred tendency by those in charge to minimize every good thing and ruin it. It is instructive that the Tinubu administration is not contemplating an abandonment of the scheme. Apart from the fact that this would be a disservice to the father of the NYSC, General Yakubu Gowon, who is still alive, it would amount to an unconscionable erosion of a significant aspect of collective public memory. Those who participated in the scheme in the earlier days have fond memories.
On Saturday, during a radio programme, Professor Seun Omotayo, a Professor of Sports Psychology, currently based in Ghana, recalled that when he completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Ibadan, he was posted for National Service in Ogun State. He was not happy that he was being sent to his home state. He personally went to the NYSC office in Lagos, and asked to be posted to the Northern part of Nigeria. I doubt if anyone would request for such a change of posting these days. On Sunday, I had a conversation on the NYSC with Emeritus Professor Duro Oni of the University of Lagos in the course of which he held the view that the NYSC remains relevant to Nigeria’s growth and development. The NYSC gave him his wife. He met her when she came to participate in the scheme in Lagos. Today, the woman from Ogoja in Cross River state has given him four sons and six grandchildren. “I probably would never have met her if there was no NYSC.” There are many Nigerians who have a similar experience: inter-ethnic marriages being one of the gains of the NYSC. Those who would probably never have left their home towns discovered Nigeria through the eyes and experience of other Nigerians and communities. Life-long friendships have been formed over the years. I know Chief Shedrack Akolokwu from Omoku-Ogba in Rivers State, for example. I was a young secondary student when he came to serve Nigeria in Abeokuta, Ogun State. He was so much part of the community. He and I have remained in touch over the years. The last time I saw him in Port Harcourt, he was asking after everybody in the neighbourhood, mentioning each person’s name as if he left Abeokuta yesterday and it has been over 45 years since he participated in the NYSC. My service year was spent in Benin City, old Bendel state. A few years ago, I found myself in Benin, I quickly asked the driver to take me to the compound where I lived. I also went to the Department where I was a graduate assistant at the University of Benin, reliving old memories. I find it shocking therefore that one of the reforms being proposed by the Tinubu administration is that corps members may not be posted to conflict areas where insecurity may be a challenge, to ensure safety and reduce the anxiety of parents. Only indigenes of those areas or graduates of schools in such locations would be sent there. This defeats the fundamental objective of the NYSC: to promote unity and open up Nigeria unto its young persons. And who the hell came up with the twisted logic that graduates and indigenes from conflict zones are better off in those zones? Every life is important. No Nigerian, whether a graduate or not, should be exposed to danger. It is the duty of government to address the challenge of insecurity and make every part of Nigeria safe for all.
Minister Olawande also said the NYSC uniform will be changed although a final decision on this has not yet been taken. But the government is considering Ankara or the adire batik fabric. The idea is to promote locally made fabrics and support the Nigerian textile industry. I dare say that there is nothing wrong with the current NYSC uniform. The khaki fabric and the vest are more durable than either Ankara or adire that would start fading, or get torn within a short while. The proposal is also likely to evoke ethnic comparison and sentiments. Adire batik is largely produced in the South Western part oof the country, made for the most part in Ogun, Osun and Kwara states. It may be dismissed as an opportunity to create business for only one part of the country. Igbos are likely to demand that the ishiagu should also become part of the NYSC uniform. Northerners are likely to ask for babanriga in the spirit of Federal Character. Other ethnic nationalities may also make a case for their own local attires. Nobody needs such confusion. What can be done is to improve the quality of the present uniform. In our time, the khaki had better quality, the vest and the boots too, but these days, the uniform is so poorly made, its cheapness is unmistakable.
The orientation camp for the NYSC, we are told, will be extended from four to six weeks, and the deployment will be restructured based on choices and processes during the camp, as the new NYSC will offer 11 specialized streams ranging from agriculture, education, technology and digital, healthcare, infrastructure, public service, legal, paramilitary and the security, the economy to enterprise. Corps members will be required to choose any of these streams where within six weeks they can be trained in entrepreneurial skills and prepared for the job market. We are missing the point. The NYSC orientation camp is not a training school. It is meant to be an experience. If the plan is to teach entrepreneurship, that should have been done at the university level. It is the college curriculum that needs to be reviewed, and entrepreneurship built into the various disciplines in order to ensure a proper alignment between scholarship and the labour market, for a purposeful school to work transition. In its original design, the NYSC was meant to provide para-military training, and inculcate the values of discipline and service. Indeed, there is nothing new about the six-week proposal. During the 1990/91 batch, corps members spent six weeks in camp, and were even taught how to handle small arms and light weapons. But the military government soon abandoned the idea out of fear that the state may have unwittingly been training potential coup plotters. The so-called streams actually exist. In our time, corps members were assigned to specific responsibilities: persons who manned the kitchen prepared the meals and served others, some corps members served as Platoon commanders while everyone marched, we had press club, drama club and it all worked out smoothly. Part of the reform is to place the NYSC under civilian leadership. Under the present arrangement, the Director General may be from the Education Corps of the Nigerian military but at the state level, the NYSC secretariats are manned by civilians, and so changing the headship of the scheme will not make much difference as long as standards are maintained.
What the Federal Government needs to do is to make the NYSC experience richer and more exciting for those who participate in it. The monthly allowance for corps members should be increased, feeding at the orientation camps should be improved upon. Scrap the monthly Community Development exercises. Ensure that the orientation camps are properly secured to eliminate the risk of bandits and terrorists attacking those camps to kidnap corps members. Corps members should be deployed to places of primary assignment relevant to their fields of study. There is no point changing from passing out parade to graduation ceremony. Will corps members now wear graduation gowns? That is not necessary. Will the proposed reforms modernize the NYSC? No. Will they improve employability? I don’t think so.
There are far more important and urgent issues that the Federal Government should be concerned about at this moment. One, the terribly embarrassing disclosure that a certain Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew set up a fake Presidential Agency - the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) and Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC) – which the Presidency now disclaims as a scam operation, and yet the said Prince had been operating openly - meeting with key government officials, receiving ambassadors in audience, and running an office at the Federal Secretariat that was duly allocated to him by the Office of the Sectary to the Government of the Federation. He has over 300 staff including Directors who are all on government payroll. His fake agency even got N1.3 billion allocation in the 2026 Budget. He runs 39 bank accounts and even has accounts with the Central Bank of Nigeria. He has since been charged to court, and his matter comes up on July 27. The man is in no way apologetic. He says he has a letter of appointment and that he paid N600 million to the President’s Chief of Staff, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, to get appointed. Trouble started when his sponsor wanted a lion share of the budgetary allocation to his office. He says one Babatunde Tanimola facilitated his appointment but now the Tanimola died in a hotel room in Abuja just before he, Adeniyi was arrested in November 2025. Indeed, who knows tomorrow?
What we know today is the spectacle before us: a spectacle of institutional failure, incompetence, collusion, corruption and the failure of due process. If it is possible to manufacture a non-existent government agency, and operate openly and brazenly, then there are persons within the entire government machinery that must answer questions. A thorough investigation must be conducted to find out if there are other similar agencies in the Federal Capital Territory. Prince Adeniyi’s boldness is so shocking. He should have his day in court. .He should be allowed to say all that he knows, and no attempt whatsoever should be made to intimidate him. It is wrong, as the police reportedly did yesterday, to arrest Adeniyi’s father in lieu. Policemen allegedly stormed his parents’ home in Ogbomoso and arrested his father and a family friend. It is illegal to do so. Criminal liability is personal. It is not transferable in the light of Section 7 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA), 2015. The Nigerian Police not knowing this is scandalous.
The other urgent issue would be the observation by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that the Nigerian government has frittered away 2% of GDP (about N8.8 trillion) on off-budget spending. The prompt reaction from the Minister of Finance, Taiwo Oyedele is to deny and insist that Nigeria does not have any ghost budget. This does not call for bluffing. The same government that introduced Executive Order 9 to ensure transparency and accountability in government finances should take allegations of hidden deficit, opaqueness and failure of oversight more seriously. Finally, it is about time Nigeria took South Africa to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on its request for compensation over xenophobia losses, the genocide in South Africa and that country’s institutionalization of hatred. On the question of NYSC reform, it is in the best interest of the Nigerian government to listen to the people’s responses and retrace its steps forthwith.