Answering The Clarion Calls Lead By H.E. Chief Dr Obasanjo Towards Citizens Activism To Promote Unity Of Purpose, Patriotism & Collaboration Towards Saving Nigeria From Its Failing Leadership & Pervasive Insecurity




Point one

Let me start this phase of discourse towards exploring viable ways we can collective act to save Nigeria in the name of God Almighty and with a befitting counsel and warning from Albert Einstein who said:

“The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.”
Insecurity is no doubt a monstrous and pervasive evil that must be prevented or stopped at all times. Its destructive tentacles permeate, extend and destroy people’s precious lives and livelihood, denying us adequate food and energy production and effective supply and distribution, and leave the poor people amongst us - hungry and often angry - with likely resultant health crisis of a malnourished body, troubled and unhappy soul or spirit, and then comes the ultimate push for survival, often devising ungodly ways to stay afloat, thereby helping to increase and expand the vicious circle or membership of criminal gangs that are pervading the Nigerian society today – more than ever our history as a people. We are daily undaunted by unpleasant reports, gory images and videos of ungodly ventures of atrocities committed almost daily via armed robbery, banditry, kidnapping for ransom, renegades’ insurgency and the agitated militancy. God Almighty will continue to be our guide and protector, as we rise to take planned actions to save Nigeria from lawlessness and destruction.

It is in this context that H.E. President Obasanjo spoke during his paper presentation titled: “Covid-19 Pandemic and Nigeria Security Issues: The Way Forward” at the 2020 Annual Sobo Sowemimo Lecture at the Abeokuta Club and took a leading role and call on activist to join hand in setting up an effective patriot’s movement he named: “Security Matters To All - No security, No Nigeria.” A movement of patriotic Nigerians from all walk of life and from all regions, tribes and religious affiliation to come to the rescue of the failing Nigerian Nation. The movement by God grace will see to Nigeria and its people being free from failures of its current leadership crisis and insecurity that is threatening to stagnate development at best, and or destroy the nation - at worse.

Interestingly, we have been on this path for a long time, together with the former President. We were on the same dissatisfied train that kick-out the failed president Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ/PDP) administration based on insecurity, religious bigotry and incompetence to lead Nigeria in the times of insecurity and crisis. President Jonathan was rightly voted out by majority dissatisfied Nigerians led by Chief Obasanjo on the basis of incompetence to lead and tame the insecurity and bigotry that was threatening to destroy Nigeria. Shepherd leaders and patriots do not shift ground on their integrity and principle drove activism for good governance and it is in the same spirit that we have again met on the same train today with Baba Obasanjo and millions of other Nigerians to call for action to stop the incessant killings and wanton destruction of people’s lives and properties of voiceless Nigerian citizens living in Katsina, Zamfara, Sokoto, Kaduna, Borno, Adamawa and many others states.
Point #2: Mele Kyari’s Leadership Model Of Integrity, Trust, Transparency, Accountability & Performance Worthy Of Emulation By Other Public Leaders

It is unfortunate that the President Buhari administration that initially enjoys unprecedented support from us and from the majority of Nigerians based on trust, had in over 5 years turned a deaf ear and blind eyes on most of its new political party’s (APC) ideals, campaign promises and neglected the aspirations and yearnings of Nigerians, particularly the provision of adequate security, even to those who massively voted him into power. As responsible citizens, we did not and we would not abandon our civil and religious responsibilities of being sincere, truthful and becoming active security guards against evil and injustices which had continued to this day, proffering sincere counsels and viable and practical solutions - freely, to ensure that the leadership is able to overcome our numerous security challenges. We can’t afford to let Nigeria fail again.

And we do not only criticise but also give credit, where credit is due. In all the gamut of trust and security expected to be provided or catered for – adequately, ranging from security of live (including health and safety) which is first and foremost, then followed by food security, energy security or rather fuel security, job security, border security etc. Out of this security needs, the Buhari administration was only able to successfully ensure an ad hoc energy or rather a fuel supply security and that was achieved in its first year in office in 2016. The inherited fuel scarcity and ques have disappeared. And credit must be given for that and the people behind its success, principally Malam Mele Kolo Kyari and his team that assisted, which I was a key member. But why is the Nigerian security agents (unlike NNPC): the army and the police failed to tame the menace of insecurity and loss of lives of citizens despite adequate budget spending and procurement of equipment needed to do their job of securing the Nation. Well, maybe they can learn from the current leadership of NNPC which is anchored on the principle of self-policing (transparency) and accountability to the public.

Kindly, permit me the dear reader to digress a little bit, to press home the importance and or need for the sincerity of purpose, trust, transparency and accountability in public leadership. Let me share an important personal story from my over 27-year experience serving in the oil and gas industry, just a little part of the experience that links up to what we are all talking about today – insecurity via failure and inadequacy or incapacity of our security institutions – I mean the armed forces – police, army, navy, air force etc., which when we dig deeper, these failures would all be linked to lack of shepherd leadership, the sincerity of purpose and absence of stupid-proved automated performance dashboard systems that can transparently measure performance in our public institutions. Else how could one explain reasonably why an organized Nation State’s Armed forces would woefully fail to curtail criminal activities of some pockets of ragtag criminals for years and with all the resources being spent and even soldiers losing their lives in an alarming rate? Well, read on as we explore possible answers and solutions.

As the UK trained Business/System analyst and software builder, and in all my roles and experiences, working in highly confidential and trusted engagement, committee, department and units, which were all assigned to me unsolicited, but based on our pedigree of trust, integrity and capacity to deliver on the mandates given to us we had not been found on the side failure, deceit and conspiracy to defraud or abuse the public trust entrusted in our hands. This quality can be seen in the recent revelations coming from Malam Mele Kyaris’ release to the public domain, for the first time ever, in the history of NNPC, it’s audit report being made public. However, for an insider or pundits who can analyse business health by its performance indices, would be able to know that there isn’t anything new about the loss and wastages being recorded in the refineries run and manage by NNPC. Corruption in the refineries is endemic going by personal experiences and encounter there was an instance where arrogance and insolence of some corrupt officers made us become whistleblowers when all diplomacy and counselling failed as a market research officer. The new internet-based market research system I had designed, build and emplaced and pioneered its operations to save costs, prevent fake and over-invoicing, institute transparency, efficiency and timely processing of RFQs - was destroyed – a task that was assigned to me by the KRPC Top Management Committee (TMC) who learned about my exposures and skills on database software and internets and decided to assign me to emplaced and pioneer the procurement unit’s price intelligence office in the Kaduna Refining & Petrochemical (KRPC). This vandalism happens after I left for study leave in the UK. The new system which I had emplaced was replaced by a worse appalling manual system, where people sit and unverifiable and unsolicited emails as proforma invoice or response for RFQs which when closely scrutinized failed to stand the basic litmus test of genuineness by asking simple questions such as: was the email response coming from free email accounts such yahoo? Does it have the OEMs contacts phones and persons, website and other contact details that we can be able to verify the contents of the email PFI received? Can we compare the pricing with online price catalogues? These are some of the rules of thumps that we emplaced. But after I left to the UK for my academic adventures, all that we did (building a database of material price list) and systems were thrown away and the status quo ensured. Upon my return from study leave, I met an endemic corruption and over-inflation of invoices in the procurement unit that was heartbreaking, so much so, that when President Obasanjo finally announced the Sales of the Refinery around 2007, it made me so happy, because I believe the Refineries are mainly conduit pipes for syphoning public funds by few individuals. And that is from experience. My petition to the MD KRPC then, became justly, patriotically and ethically necessary, after exhausting all diplomacy to revert the ungodly relapse to status quo, and returned to the internet-based system that allows us to search for items prices transparently, from OEMs websites, online price catalogues and other reliable equipment trade house’s online price lists from around the world, and getting email-based RFQs response from OEMs in minutes or hours -- instead of spending months or years via the old manual system that relied 99% on conventional courier mail services. Efforts to water down my petition for abusing procurement procedures and presenting fake and misleading PFIs to management, on which approvals were given and my insistence to press home reforms based on the facts presented for over-inflated invoices as a result of the relapse to the old manual system and recommendations to revert to the internet-based system, and insisting that if the committee failed to act I will take the case further to EFCC. This led to a direct threat from the MD via the committee panel Chairman Shehu Liman who threatens and said to me: “ look, Salihu you should know that this is a do or die matter … I advise you to leave this petition to rest.” And I didn’t give up the case based on that threats, what saves the lucky day for them, was my pending transfer to NNPC Towers, as an honour and value addition to the Corporation, a leadership fit initiated by the immediate outgone MD, Engr V. Mukoro who after seeing my First Class BSc. Hon. certificate, from the UK, he said to “no… Salihu we can’t leave you here (in KRPC)”.


Let’s make the message go round about the need for all public institutions and businesses to open up about their finances, not necessarily about confidential security data or information that are classified as top secrets.

Let’s see to it that during our campaign to save Nigeria, the Mele Kyari’s leadership model of transparency and accountability is also promoted so that all heads of MDAs can follow in the footstep of Malam Mele Kyari’s servant leadership style by throwing open all the challenges and problems in their domain and start looking for best solutions – that should be the spirit of public leadership.

We don’t hide public challenges to make us look good, while the Nigerian state is dying. Public leadership is all about rendering service to citizens in an open, transparent and accountable manner so let’s all head public institutions in Nigeria follow the Mele Kyari’s model of transparency and accountability to ensure performance excellence and grow.


Let me conclude with an excerpt from Chief Obasanjo recent lectures at the 2020 Sobo Sowemimo Annual Lecture Delivered at Abeokuta Club:
“What is permanent and constant in life is change, reform, and re-adjustment. To avoid change when it is necessary is to avoid progress. Inflexibility is a sign of a sick mind especially in the face of overwhelming evidence for change. People often refer to history and the past to justify their rigidity. My position has always been, remember history but don’t be shackled by it nor become its hostage.”
What else can we add to Chief Obasanjo apt clarion call and wise counsel of a typical elder statesman – than to follow suit with good intentions, thoughtful and viable plans and then effective actions, while fervently, praying to God Almighty, to continue to guide us, and make our tasks of saving and rebuilding our Nation and its people much easier and successful.

Salihu Garba
(sa.garba@gmail.com)
4th July 2020

I love this piece. it has giving me a lot of ideas!
kudos to him.