Honourable Uzoma Nkem Abonta is a member of the Federal House on Representatives, representing Ukwa East/West in Abia State. In this interview with our reporter, speaks on several issues, ranging from the ongoing constitution review and various government policies, to corruption. Excerpts:
Ongoing Constitution Review
The problems confronting the constitution review are the usual legislative problems. The constitution is made in such a way that it is very rigid and difficult to amend. With the way we are going, I will give the National Assembly credit for what has been done so far. But I also have my fears being a Nigerian, a constitutional lawyer; being a student of political history and given the way Nigeria is structured.
If you follow the history of Nigeria and all our efforts at constitution making, you will see that it is going to be a herculean task. We have 36 states and we have diverse interests. You know the composition of the National Assembly as well as I do and how some people view issues from sectional perspectives rather than from the standpoint of national interests.
Therefore, do not expect that the ongoing amendment will be easy. In the last dispensation, the National Assembly, in its wisdom, granted financial autonomy to the State Houses of Assembly but the same legislators in the states voted against it.
Now we are talking about granting a similar autonomy to the local government councils. In the course of the public sessions, most of the local governments voted for this autonomy but today the argument seems not to be in favour of that decision. The issue is that the powers that be seem to be working against that proposal.
The postponement of the public presentation of the report of our nationwide public sessions is not a problem because the position of the 360 constituencies were taken publicly and therefore already public documents. The major challenge will come when an issue such as the Land Use Act comes up. You know some people might not want it removed from the constitution. If it comes to a matter of voting, you know the composition of the House. Numerically, Kano, Kebbi and Jigawa are bigger than the five states of the South East geopolitical zone. So if some people do not want certain amendments and it is one man one vote, there is no way it can go. However, I do not want to be a prophet of doom. I have the hope that we will get there. If we do not succeed in amending all the sections we want to now, there will at least be substantial amendment. We should not lose hope. In amending the constitution, we must create awareness about the issues at stake.
We must also have the political will to go all out because it will hurt the powers that be in the system. It will not easy to retrieve from the mighty. It must be something that must be contested vehemently. The task of constitutional amendment is not just for the legislators; the media and the civil society groups must play their own roles of sensitising and mobilising the people.
Local Government Autonomy
I will give you the answer from two perspectives: as a Nigerian and as one who has been a councillor. In 1991, I was a councillor and leader of the Legislative Council in Ukwa-East Local Government Area of Abia State. If you don't grant autonomy to local government councils, they will still remain an appendage of the state governors.
Today, a local government chairman does not have a say in what goes on at the council. Although he is the head of the third tier of government, he cannot say no to the governor of the state.
In 1991-1993 when we were there, the situation was better than it is today. I cannot hold the chairman of my local government accountable now because he is only there at the mercy of the state governor. Until the two tiers are separated and each is given specific roles, the problem will remain.
Most importantly, there should be financial autonomy for the local government councils and that means the State/Local Government Joint Account should be abolished. Let this account be separated so that councils can get their funds directly and be free to pursue development according to the needs of their people and not according to the dictates of the state governors. Councillors should be able to vet the budget of the councils just like the National Assembly does to the federal budget.
Today, a lot of things happening at the local government level come from the Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, an appointee of the state governor. This is why the governors wouldn't want to let go until Nigerians put up a fight. As a lawyer, I also know that if you give the councils full autonomy without checks, we will also whittle down the essence of federalism. True federalism recognises two components: the centre and the component states. It does not recognise the local government as a tier. Therefore, in giving autonomy to the local government, we must be very careful and define the extent of the autonomy. It is desirable and proper to grant them autonomy because it will foster development and stabilise our democracy.
Revenue Allocation Formula
The revenue formula in use today is more political than economical. In my own view, we should and we must revisit that revenue allocation formula.
We are running a federal system that harbours a lot of unitary principles where too much power is left at the centre and so little is granted to the states and local government councils. A situation where the federal government keeps over 50 per cent of the revenue to itself speaks volumes that federalism is not working in Nigeria.
If you look at Nigeria, the Federal Government should be concerned with administering Abuja from where it can be issuing authority to the larger part of the country, the component states. Between these two tiers of government, who should be getting more? Is it the small secluded centre or the states?
I think that the allocation to the states and local councils should be increased while the Federal Government should keep less revenue for its administrative purposes. The current formula has made many states dormant; they’re always only waiting for the federal allocation. They have ignored their internal revenue sources. The non-economic structure based solely on oil has not helped matters and I think the issue of derivation should be revisited.
We had a regional arrangement before Nigeria gained independence and each region was made to develop its own economy based on cash crops, such as cocoa, oil palm and groundnut. So I am of the view that the National Assembly should strive to review the revenue allocation formula so that the component states of the federation will emerge stronger.
NITEL Privatisation is fraud. The essence of privatisation is to make public corporations work better to the benefit of the people. But in our own case, almost all the public corporations that were privatised have become worse than they were before they were sold. The corruption that has bedevilled Nigeria is also trailing privatisation. The money set aside to pay the disengaged NITEL workers is not enough to pay them.
The problem is that the Federal Government wants to auction NITEL for peanuts. How much was the licence granted the GSM companies? It was about $280 million and yet government wants to sell the entire NITEL with MTEL and its other components for less the cost of the license given to the new companies.
NITEL has the largest optic fibre network across Nigeria. It is everywhere and no country abandons such an investment in preference for the GSM companies especially when you consider the national security implications of selling off such a strategic firm.
My position is that government should revive NITEL rather than sell it. If the Central Bank of Nigeria could stake more than N1 billion to support failing banks belonging to private individuals, why can't we do the same to revive NITEL as a national carrier?
Corruption
I make bold to say that corruption is the problem of Nigeria. Peter Tosh once said that everybody is talking about the criminal; who then is the criminal?
Nigeria is a very corrupt society and we are not fighting corruption. We are romancing with corruption; we are sleeping with corruption; we are celebrating our Valentine’s Day with corruption and doing everything with corruption. Corruption is fast becoming a norm in Nigeria. President Goodluck Jonathan must sit up and fight corruption; the war must start from the Villa. We need a very radical leader who will fight corruption.
The Asian countries of China, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia were more corrupt than Nigeria until one day when their leaders rose to the challenge and introduced capital punishment as penalty for corruption.
As soon as the law came into force, anyone caught stealing public funds or engaging in any form of corruption was either hanged of shot dead. Today we talk about the Asian Tigers because their leaders decided to have zero tolerance for corruption.
But here, our laws are loose and some of us would not mind going to jail and coming back to inherit N10bn. We know that you can even steal billions and just pay a paltry fine and go home to enjoy your loot. I make bold to say that civil servants are the worst problem of Nigeria. I call them “evil servants” because they are not civil in any way.
Once you are appointed a minister, they send you one big memo; they tell you how you can buy a house where you will live. Once you sign that memo you are finished. Look at our annual budgets; the amount of money spent in the month of December is greater that all the money spent in the remaining part of the year. Why is it that under personal and overhead costs, all the funds must be finished at the end of the year?
They told us they discovered 45,000 ghost workers in the Civil Service. How many are the civil servants if 45,000 are ghosts? In all these, no one has been punished and we have directors and permanent secretaries in those ministries. I think that something drastic has to be done.
Corruption has become endemic here and it is not found only among civil servants. Even other members of the society like market women are involved. Go to the market to buy garri and they will sell to you with falsified measurements. It is corruption at that level. It is not only among people in government that you find corruption. We have had several investigations but nobody has been jailed.
It is so bad that people now think that the best way to be rich and popular is to engage in corruption. When you are arrested and taken to court you enjoy free publicity and. After that, nothing happens; and you go home to enjoy your loot. The few that even went to jail came back and are now eminent persons deciding the fate of Nigerians instead of burying their heads in shame. In other countries, they would have been hanged for their crimes.
I am not saying that we must apply capital punishment but we must try to do something that will show that we have zero tolerance to corruption. We need ethical revolution, starting from the market women, school children, civil servants and even to the politicians. The greatest number of empty houses in Abuja is in Asokoro and Maitama districts. Nobody is occupying them because they are not affordable and their owners are not bothered about it. Who owns them? Civil servants. If they pay you your salary 20 years up front you cannot afford those houses. So, how were these civil servants able to acquire them? This is why mass housing or low-cost housing schemes have not worked.
When government designs low cost housing projects, the high-cost people will acquire them all and then rent them to the low-cost people. Why won't there be corruption when on the average a two bedroom apartment in Abuja goes for N1.5m? With your salary, can you live there? You must go to the suburbs of Nyanya and Mararaba where you also pay as much as N700,000 for a two-bedroom apartment. This is also expensive and if you want to live in such a place, you must also find a way to make ends meet.
If we must curb this kind of corruption, then the EFCC must do its work by ascertaining who owns which house, how was it acquired and what revenue it is yielding to the government.
In other countries such as South Africa when you drive a very flashy car you could be flagged down by tax officers who would want to know your identity, what you do for a living and whether you have been paying your tax to the government. In Nigeria, I can just buy my jet and start flying it. Nobody will ask: how did you get it? The Federal Government must take a holistic approach in tackling corruption.
President Jonathan must take a deeper look at the issue and ensure he tackles corruption with all sincerity not minding whose ox is gored. He should get some radical young men who are sincere and understand the magnitude of the problem to sanitise the system.
Capital Market
The issue of the capital market has remained very topical. During the controversy, the leadership of the House, in its wisdom, asked the Capital Market Committee to step aside for an interim committee to investigate the collapse of the capital market. This was to allow fair hearing on the issues. The Ad-hoc Committee concluded the investigation and also laid the report before the House.
The capital market and its institutions are still functioning, but because of the prolonged problem between the House, Arunma Oteh and the Presidency, we declared the DG persona non grata. We still do our oversight over the capital market institutions but the House said we will have nothing to do with SEC as long as Oteh remains there. The House has forwarded its resolution to Mr. President for implementation.
Though he is yet to take action, I assure you that the House will not toy with the capital market because it is also one of the indices of monitoring our economy. It is one way to attract investors and grow our economy. It is not in our interest as a country to allow the capital market crash. Right now we are talking with the Abuja Commodity Exchange Market which is one of the institutions in the sector. They have some challenges and we are trying to see how we can fix the problems.
Legislative matters
Most of my bills have been passed by the House and sent to the Senate for concurrence. You know how slow lawmaking is: first, second reading, committee stage and then to the whole House before passage. It takes an average of two years to have a bill turned into an Act but we will not relent in our efforts to make laws for good governance of the country.
My interest has been on alternative source of revenue outside oil. So my bills revolve around agriculture and the capital market. Quite a number of my bills have been concluded in the House and sent to the Senate for concurrence but I am aware that none has been sent to the president for assent.
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Former Anambra State governor and presidential candidate Peter Obi has disagreed with Atiku Abubakar’s proposal to restore Nigeria’s fuel subsidy if elected president in 2027.
Speaking on Monday at the Nigerian Bar Association conference in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Obi argued that removing the subsidy was necessary but faulted the Federal Government for failing to properly manage the resources generated from its removal.
Atiku, who supported the removal of fuel subsidy during the 2023 presidential election, has since indicated that he would reconsider the policy and restore the subsidy if he wins the 2027 election.
Obi, however, maintained that reversing the policy would not address the underlying problems. According to him, the major failure has been the poor management of the funds saved after the subsidy was removed.
He said the government should have accompanied the policy with measures designed to reduce the hardship faced by Nigerians and should have channelled the resulting savings into productive areas of the economy.
“What we should have done is that when we removed it, we should have given the people alternative usage for the subsidy,” Obi said.
He further alleged that the funds recovered from subsidy removal had not been adequately accounted for, claiming that the resources were being “mismanaged and stolen.”
Obi said he had advocated a more structured approach to subsidy removal before the 2023 election, arguing that the savings should have been deliberately invested in areas capable of improving the lives of Nigerians and strengthening the economy.
“Go to my manifesto, I said it before, I said I will do it in an organised manner and whatever we recover would be invested appropriately,” he said.
President Bola Tinubu announced the removal of petrol subsidy during his inauguration on May 29, 2023. The decision led to a significant increase in petrol prices and intensified concerns over inflation and the rising cost of living.
While the Federal Government has defended the policy as necessary to reduce pressure on public finances and redirect government resources, the implementation of the reform and the management of the resulting savings remain contentious issues.
With the 2027 election approaching, the contrasting positions of Obi and Atiku have added fuel subsidy to the growing debate over how Nigeria should manage its economy, protect vulnerable citizens and use public resources more effectively.
News
The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has warned the 31 companies that emerged successful in the 2025 oil and gas licensing round to pay their required signature bonuses within the statutory timeframe or risk losing their provisional awards.
The warning comes one month after the commission conducted the commercial bid conference in Abuja, where the successful bidders were announced for 37 oil and gas blocks.
In a notice issued on Sunday, the NUPRC said the compliance process had commenced following the issuance of provisional award letters to the successful companies.
The commission stated that bidders who failed to meet the payment deadline in accordance with the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) would forfeit their bid guarantees and have their provisional awards transferred to the next-ranked reserve bidders.
“Exactly a month ago, the NUPRC hosted the 2025 commercial bid conference in Abuja where 31 companies emerged winners of 37 oil and gas blocks. Having issued the winners with the provisional awards, compliance with the payment of signature bonuses has already begun,” the commission said.
The 37 blocks awarded in the licensing round cover several areas, including the Niger Delta onshore and shallow-water fields, deep offshore assets and frontier basins.
The assets include PPL 2A29 to PPL 2A62 in the Niger Delta, PPL 2010 in the deep offshore, PPL 308 in the Benin Basin, PPL 900 to PPL 903 in the Anambra Basin, PPL 700 in the Chad Basin, and PPL 800 and PPL 801 in the Benue Trough.
The NUPRC also released the names of the 31 successful companies, together with the ranked reserve bidders for each of the 37 blocks.
A total of 143 companies participated in the licensing exercise, submitting about 200 bids for the assets on offer. However, 13 of the 50 blocks originally listed for the round received no bids.
Under the PIA and the applicable licensing guidelines, successful bidders are required to pay signature bonuses ranging from $3 million to $7 million for each awarded block.
In addition to the signature bonus, the companies must provide the required guarantees, pay first-year rents and fulfil other post-award obligations within the prescribed period.
Failure to satisfy these requirements will result in the forfeiture of the affected company's bid guarantee and the revocation of its provisional award. The block will then be offered to the designated reserve bidder.
The NUPRC Chief Executive Officer, Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, had previously urged the successful bidders to complete their payments promptly and move ahead with the development of their awarded assets.
The commission has advised bidders, industry stakeholders and members of the public to consult the 2025 Licensing Round portal for additional information on the awards and compliance requirements.
Under the applicable PIA framework, successful bidders have 90 days from the issuance of their provisional awards to complete the required payments and other conditions.
With the provisional awards issued following the July 21, 2026 commercial bid conference, the 90-day compliance period expires on October 19, 2026.
As of August 23, 2026, 33 days of the 90-day period have elapsed, leaving 57 days for the successful companies to complete their statutory obligations.
Companies that fail to pay their signature bonuses and first-year rents within the deadline risk losing both their bid guarantees and the provisional awards. The affected blocks would subsequently be reassigned to the respective reserve bidders in line with the licensing rules.
The NUPRC's latest notice therefore signals that the successful bidders have entered the final stages of the award process, with compliance now required before the provisional awards can progress toward full development of the assets.
Business
In The Spotlight
Vanguard recently published pathetic pictures of the Benin-Sapele-Warri Expressway; and Punch revealed to us what happens to the Lagos-Calabar Expressway, not even 15 per cent completed, each time there is a heavy downpour in the Lekki peninsula.
The road becomes so flooded, it becomes barely usable. Morning shows the day. If Tinubu-Umahi’s legacy road already shows evidence of long-term stress, pity the Nigerians who will ply that road ten years from now.
The Minister was in Lagos State recently, half-begging, half attempting to blackmail Governor Sanwo-Olu to cough up funds to repair the mistakes made by Engineer Umahi and the contractors who hastily embarked on the road without Environmental Impact Assessment. He is building in Lagos and coastal states the sort of rickety roads he left in Ebonyi State. He has the right President for that sort of shoddy business. Right now, parts of the road have been vandalized – even before completion. Fellow Nigerians are not paying attention as they should. Pity.
Vanguard, Punch and Daily Trust have been doing Nigerians a favour by pointing to one of the greatest failures of the Tinubu administration – the maintenance of federal highways under Minister David Umahi – whose major achievement in three years had been attracting attention to himself through a scandal involving homicide. On the whole, Nigerian roads, federal and state, have not been receiving the attention they deserve in the last eleven years; the neglect just got worse.
Experience on Nigerian roads from 1974-2019
“Hit the road, Jack”. Advice from my Sales Manager, in Boston, USA, 1968.
My first full time job was in selling. It was as a salesman for a leading pharmaceutical company, Lederle Laboratories, in 1968, that Mr. Al, for Albert, Abby, came into my life. As my Sales Manager, he monitored my activities and also as my mentor. He drilled into my head the idea that a salesman’s work consists of being on the road as much as possible; in order to meet customers. By the time I arrived in Nigeria, in 1974, to start work as the Marketing Manager of Abbott Laboratories, marketers of SIMILAC baby food, being on the road 70 per cent of the time had become routine. It was new to my sales staff, but proved rewarding for all concerned – company, staff and especially me.
Until August 1974, Ughelli, Delta State, was the farthest distance I ever traveled in Nigeria. I hit the road. By August 1975, I had covered all the 12 State capitals created by General Gowon, at least three times; and the trips had just begun. By 1998, after Abacha had increased the number of states to 36, I was in charge of Circulation in Vanguard; and my annual itinerary called for visiting all the offices at least once a quarter. In fact, I opened new Vanguard Offices in Ado-Ekiti, Yenagoa, Abakaliki, Gombe, Damaturu, Birnin Kebbi and Dutse. From 2001 to 2007, I traveled to all the stations at least three times a year. Over 80 per cent of the trips were by road – even though flight options were available to me. I got to know Nigerian roads as nobody I have ever met knew them. Divorce was threatened by the occupants of the home front. There was no major road constructed, expanded or diverted which I was not familiar with. By 2017, the trips were reduced to about 20 states every year.
Thus, each time a new Minister of Works is appointed, at least until 2019, I know the problems he faces. Shortly after President Jonathan assumed office, I published an article titled Nigeria’s 70 Most Important roads. These are the roads over which 70 to 80 per cent of goods are transported every day. Lagos-Ibadan Expressway remains the first one in all respects. I went further. The biggest map available at the CMS Bookshop was obtained and all the 70 roads were identified for the Minister in charge of roads with the advice: “take care of these roads and Nigerians will never forget you”. I wasted my time and effort; and Nigerians have been paying dearly for it. Since then, two Ministers of Works were appointed; each left Nigerian roads infinitely worse than when he started.
Three years of Umahi, more of the same
“It aint the things you don’t know that cause the problem; it’s things that you think you know that aint so.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882
To the best of my knowledge, no Minister of Works has been appointed in Nigeria, with the exception of late General Mamman Kontagora, who can be said to have had a fairly good knowledge of Nigerian roads by the time he was appointed. Consequently, we have selected so many good men; but, for the wrong task. Many people, including me, would have protested if Fashola was not appointed Minister by Buhari after his sterling performance as Governor of Lagos State. But, he failed dismally as Minister of Works. So, in all fairness to Umahi, many of the roads in terrible condition were inherited from past administrations. That said; it is also a fact that every new appointee is not compelled to accept the offer; and “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen”. Umahi inherited several death traps; but, like all members of the All Progressives Congress, APC, he also helped to conceal the truth from Nigerians. Now, he is holding the bag; with all the incriminating evidence of poor performance. Umahi should also be excused for the failure to establish priorities. His boss, without consultations, despite all the lies told, had already conceived of a new road – the Lagos-Calabar Expressway – and the preferred contractor was determined, without bidding. The Minister spent his first year defending a decision made without his input. He added his own.
Umahi started out sounding like a “know-it-all”. He is an Engineer; so he knows all there is about road construction. He even dictated that all federal roads, irrespective of terrain, would be paved with cement – without consideration for the impact on the price of cement; which is essential for building construction.
Perhaps, not establishing objective priorities was his biggest blunder. Some Nigerian roads carry most of the heavy loads and require more attention. The Lapai-Bida, the Benin-Sapele and the Asaba-Onitsha roads each carry more loads than all the Federal roads in Taraba, Ebonyi and Kebbi states put together. I could not agree more with Senator Adams Oshiomole who recently carpeted Umahi for lack of priority in his selection of roads receiving his attention. The Okene-Auchi-Benin road carries the largest load of cement heading for Southern States, as well as fuel tankers moving North. Without prioritizing the most important federal roads, we are indirectly slowing down economic development, making products made in Nigeria less competitive and entrenching poverty. In the absence of rail nationwide, roads constitute the life-blood of our nation. They are soaked now with our blood.
By Dele Sobowale
In The Spotlight
How many fake agencies can the Tinubu Presidency go after at a time? When I posed this question in my column in early August, I intended it as rhetoric. The fake agencies and their operators apparently took it as a challenge.
On Friday evening, the ICPC Chairman, Dr Musa Aliyu, SAN, emerged from his second meeting with the President in 48 hours to announce the discovery of yet another fake agency, grandly named the National Brands Development and Made-in-Nigeria Special Project Office and promoted by one Prince George Buchi Nwabueze.
Side note: Because of the length of these agency names, I’ll refer to them by their promoters, who happen to be ‘Princes’. Say, Prince Adeyemi’s PFIFC or Prince George’s agency. Okay?
So, I sat there among my colleagues, listening to Aliyu reel out another episode of an ongoing soap opera whose production studio is in the Nigerian civil service. We were arguably the first set of ears to get the gist, a privilege that comes with the burden of sharing it with the rest of the world.
Twenty-four hours earlier, I spotted the ICPC chairman making his way through the corridors leading to the President’s office for the umpteenth time. Aliyu had since become a standard feature at the State House since revelations about Prince Adeyemi’s fake agency, the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council, first went public.
Draped in a white agbada, Aliyu sounded fulfilled as he announced another big catch, Prince George. Unlike his counterpart in the PFIFC, Prince George did not settle for a spot in the Federal Secretariat. No! He operated from inside the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation. He was also found to operate under at least five variations of his own name, which is fitting. A fake agency deserves a fake agency’s worth of aliases.
The President ordered his immediate arrest and suspended three permanent secretaries: M.S. Danjuma, Nadungu Gagare and Richard Pheelangwah.
If you are keeping count, you would have counted six fake agencies or actors in the past few months. Four! First came Prince Adeyemi’s now-dissolved PFIFC. Then the ICPC’s interim report of August 6 unearthed two more: the FCT Investment Promotion Agency and the Foreign Investment Promotion Agency and Public-Private Partnership.
There is also the Presidential Implementation Committee on the Alienation of Federal Government Properties, a body created in 2000 under Obasanjo to manage the sale and lease of federal landed assets.
Though now dissolved, its erstwhile secretary, B.S. Dutsin-Ma, had continued operating. In early August, the Presidency directed him to cease acting on behalf of the committee and the Federal Government.
Last September, the Presidency distanced itself from Mr Fegho Umunubo, an erstwhile Special Assistant on Digital and Creative Economy in the Vice President’s office, whom it warned was still acting in his old capacity despite being let go.
Now Prince George’s outfit makes six similar instances in under a year. At this rate, the fake agencies and actors may soon require their own coordinating ministry. And who knows if the next ‘Prince’ may be found operating from the Presidential Villa itself?
Lest we think this plague is new, history says otherwise. You see, Nigeria has always had people who understood that in a country where government is everywhere, the most profitable business is to impersonate it. From the 1980s and 1990s, there are tales of fake recruitment syndicates selling appointment letters into the Army, Customs and NNPC from rented offices with convincing letterheads. Some past regimes responded with periodic raids, tribunals and occasional decrees. But the racket always reincarnates.
Over the years, the ICPC and EFCC have busted fake job-racketeering “ministries” in Abuja that interviewed hundreds of applicants and collected “processing fees” for years before anyone really noticed. The sobering reality is that we have always chased the “Princes” one at a time. And there will always be another ‘Prince’ to sit on that throne.
Also, it is not uniquely a Nigerian thing. In California in 2015, authorities uncovered a self-declared “Masonic Fraternal Police Department”, a policing outfit with its own badges, uniforms and a website claiming a 3,000-year history. It was run by three “Princes” until the state of California charged them with impersonating officers.
The difference is not that other countries breed fewer fraudsters than we do. It is that their systems make the fraud quite short-lived because the list of legitimate agencies is knowable by the public, leaving the fake ones to glow in the dark.
Moreover, if government ministries, departments and agencies were fewer than they are now, there would be fewer hiding places for the fakes.
Which brings me, once again, to one document still gathering dust on the President’s desk: the Oronsaye report. Commissioned in 2011 and submitted in 2012, Steve Oronsaye’s committee found 541 federal parastatals, commissions and agencies and recommended pruning them to about 263. It recommended mergers, scrapping, subsuming and anything else that could shrink that number.
To his credit, President Tinubu revived it in February 2024, ordering full implementation. Two and a half years later, however, the rathole of redundant agencies has only widened, and now fake ones are camouflaging among the real ones. Implementing Oronsaye would arguably leave fewer agencies with clearer supervision and a slimmer cost of governance. Again, it is not a silver bullet. Matter of fact, the report is 14 years old; some recommendations would need fresh legislation. But why chase rats one by one when we can fumigate the entire network of holes?
While the ICPC is hunting “Princes”, President Tinubu is assembling his Avengers. According to the APC Presidential Campaign Council list the Presidency released on Saturday morning, Tinubu will sit as chairman; Vice President Kashim Shettima and party chairman Nentawe Yilwatda will co-chair the council. Ex-Zamfara governor Abdulaziz Yari will serve as DG, and Hope Uzodimma, still fresh from surviving the storm that rocked the Progressives Governors’ Forum months ago, will serve as secretary.
Senate President Godswill Akpabio, Speaker Abbas and Governor Buni will serve as zonal heads; Oshiomhole will head mobilisation, while James Faleke will return to his 2022 role in election planning.
The media directorate already looks like a special-purpose media house of its own. Information Minister Mohammed Idris will coordinate alongside Dr Dele Alake, Bayo Onanuga, Issa-Onilu, Mr Tunde Rahman, Dr Sunday Dare, Daniel Bwala and Felix Morka.
By Stephen Angbulu