Private ownership of businesses has been as old as the human civilisation. And there has never been any great economy without an army of private business owners. Why not so when private ownership of enterprises is always better than state ownership because unlike state ownership, they have optimal capital structure, high profitability, high efficiency, and above all, are set up with growth, investment and jobs in mind.

The US economy has remained the world’s best run and most efficient simply because it is always in the hands of the private sector firms. But that has happened also because the state has always provided the best level playing field ever; where all the competing businesses enjoy equal treatment, second-to-none enabling environment. For this reason, the US anti-trust law ensures that there is no place for monopoly to thrive.

Confirming this truth on page 824 of his famous book ‘The Wealth of Nation,’ Adam Smith the father of economics stated, “In every great monarchy in Europe the sale of the crown lands would produce a very large sum of money which, if applied to the payments of the public debts, would deliver from mortgage a much greater revenue than any which those lands have ever afforded to the crown…When the crown lands had become private property, they would, in the course of a few years, become well improved and well cultivated.”

This remained the case, until as a result of modern democracy made the state involvement inevitable in western economic activities, especially when it became obvious in the 19^th century that private owners of business were abusing their business ownership through their inhumane exploitation of workers to the level of slavery and efforts to dodge paying taxes to the state.

Also their refusal to take some corporate social responsibilities in the promotion of the commonwealth made it inevitable for the state to begin to go into business ownership. This became more pronounced immediately after the Word War II, when capital as the most important means of production was scarce all over western societies.

Also during the Cold War fought between capitalism and socialism, to prove that capitalism too had a human face, western government made sure the state participated in the critical sectors of the economy in an effort to provide jobs and used state owned utility companies for example to provide these services far below their true market costs.

But as these state owned companies became synonymous with corruption and cronyism, exaggerated cost transfers to the public, forcing huge deficit spending on the state, privatising these state-owned enterprises became rampant throughout the 1970s and 1980s. And where privatisation could not happen to avoid product price skyrocketing, to stop the increasingly difficult to fill huge deficit holes, commercialisation became the next option.

During this same time, most western government created powerful regulatory institutions, set to ensure that private owners of businesses no longer engage in the race to the bottom, where they enjoy free ride, without having to take commensurate responsibility in the commonwealth. With these regulatory authorities, it became obvious that there was no more room for state run monopoly.

And as private owners of businesses were forced to provide better working environment and better pay for workers, it became obvious that these same roles once the main reason state had to also own businesses had become less important, hence state owned enterprises handed to the private sector for better management and for more taxes to government.

Not being purely created for profit making along with being created for political patronage-seekers, was why to save these quasi-bankrupt state enterprises, and stop continuing as subsidy guzzlers, they had to be either privatised or commercialised. Also with the problem of high unemployment resolved in most western economies through income transfer social programs along with high level of tax evasion and lack of corporate social responsibility fully addressed, the continued need for state ownership of businesses became finally defeated.

Today, as we speak there are few state owned businesses around development economies, and where they inevitably exist, they are highly commercialised with government having little or no say in their daily operations. And to ensure that they are never populated by top politicians’ cronies, hiring is conducted in the open where only the most qualified and best performers get the job. While in such cases where they still enjoy special government patronage, they are treated by government like any other corporate competitors in the economy.

Africa’s — particularly Nigeria’s — case remains different. Coming out of colonialism with capital mostly in the hands of colonial businesses, in such absence private capital accumulation, state ownership of businesses was the only way for the newly independent states to participate in growing and developing their economies, and above all create jobs and generate tax revenues for the state for the onward investment in critical social infrastructure.

But with politicians soon discovering how to use the state owned businesses as a payback for political allegiance, rather than these post-colonial state owned enterprises being focused on growth and profit-making, they became the easiest way politicians could channel the scarce resources of the state for personal gains. Hence the appointment of cronies to manage these state owned enterprises.

Thus, unlike developed economies where the inevitable changes occurred, the inevitable transfer of these state owned businesses to private ownership has never truly occurred in most African countries, including Nigeria. And where the transfer occurred, it was almost always done in the dark with politicians in power using their fronts to acquire these state owned enterprises for a pittance. Understandably, it is this obvious truth that has forced Nigerians to oppose privatisation of public assets, believing that at the end of such exercise, publicly owned assets are cheaply and illegally transferred to the politicians through their corporate friends.

But the fact that previous privatisation exercises were done in the dark does not remove the fact that to truly and genuinely grow the economy we too should transfer many of our public enterprises to the most financially and technically capable private hands, who by investing their hard earned money in them, by bringing in more competent hands and more technical know-how and innovations will drive these enterprises into the competitive edge as well as ensure with more profits mean more investment in plant and equipment and more jobs to Nigerians and more taxes to government. And above all, it would mean the permanent end of government providing subsidy to state owned enterprises.

One major reason this has remained unresolved is the very fact that state owned businesses, including the country’s refineries have since become sources of political, ethnic and religious patronage, where patron-client relationship is so strong to be easily done way with by the same politicians who have to appoint friends and well-wishers in both management and board positions.

And there is no place where this patron–client relationship is more pronounced than in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), especially in its four refineries populated by politicians’ inexperienced cronies, whose only qualification for getting the top jobs is because they are friends and family members of politicians. Synonymous with bloated cost of operations, over invoicing, sheer corruption through revenues diversion into private accounts, mostly accounts indirectly belonging to politicians in power.

It is ironic that the NNPC and its downstream oil subsector are kept alive thanks to government life support machines in the form of subsidies. But the question no government has ever boldly addressed is: for how long should what are arguably Nigeria’s flagship corporations, otherwise the economic engine-room, supposedly earning over 70% of government revenues and over 90% of its foreign exchange earnings continue to be run by incompetent cronies of every government in power, when handing them to private hands is the best way to make them more profitable, pay more taxes, innovate and compete locally and internationally so that petroleum products are made readily available to Nigerians at affordable prices?

Here we are talking about the country’s downstream oil subsector that rather than supposedly generating a lot of revenues for the country as it is the case in most countries, including our peer economies, we are talking about state owned refineries run in such absolute corruption that instead of refining petroleum products have their managers conniving with the big boys involved in fuel importation to always sabotage its refining operations. Quite understandably, the country’s refineries have always been the more you look the less you see.

It is not that we don’t know that this is true state of these refineries today. Of course, we all know that they have never worked and will never work. But the problem has always been who will have the gut to stop this by privatising these enterprises.

But speaking recently as part of his agenda to overhaul the whole economy and position it for growth if elected president in 2019, Atiku Abubakar announced his readiness to immediately privatise the country’s rundown refineries. Being a highly successful businessman, he understands that it is only by transferring these moribund and inefficiently run state-owned enterprises to private sector hands should we stop spending trillions of naira annually in fuel subsidy along with other trillions of naira lost in taxes. But for how long will government after government continue to bankroll the same refineries that should be the number one source of government tax revenue; he queried?

Reflecting over the reality of Nigeria’s economy, Atiku rightly argues that there is no way Nigeria should expect any serious economic growth with such moribund state owned enterprises. That is why to finally put Nigeria’s economy on the path of growth will require state-owned companies like the refineries be wholly in private hands.

Atiku was right to wonder how we intend to achieve the high economic growth we intended if we intend to continue keeping the moribund state owned corporations like the refineries on the same life support machines they have been for decades now. So, as far as he is concerned, privatising them remains the most plausible solution to maximise allocation efficiency. Of course, there is no way we should be desirous of big time foreign investors when in reality we continue ensuring that our state owned enterprises should still monopolise the critical sectors of the economy.

With the much needed culture of competition, operational transparency, and profitability replacing the present mind-boggling inefficiencies and imperiousness that have made it almost impossible for these state-owned companies to perform optimally, the refineries will begin to work since privatisation replaces cronyism with competent and professionally sophisticated managers.

That is bizarre to say the least. Or what is the reasoning behind wanting to grow the economy without wanting the private sector participants to lead it? Let us agree that increasing the private sector firms’ participation in the economy will generate millions of jobs along with trillions of naira in taxes, as well as lift millions of Nigerians out of poor. Without having our refineries privatised, big time investors’ money will unlikely come into the oil subsector.

Atiku’s refinery privatisation will come with two clauses. First clause will insist on a ten year review of the performance of the new owners of the refineries to ensure that they have been able to fully transform the refineries into high performing or else the refineries automatically return ownership to government. Second clause will insist on a spread-out local content within all the operation of the refineries, which means Nigerians will have contracts’ first offer of refusal.

Let us agree that commercialisation is no better option. It is no better option here because, unlike most modern economies, including our peer economies such as South Africa’s, Mexico’s and Brazil’s, where commercialisation meant that the day-to-day operations of state owned enterprises have simply made these enterprises profitable to the extent that rather than government subsidy, these commercialised enterprises have become major source of government tax revenue, Nigeria’s commercialisation will hardly end the deep rooted patron-client system that promotes corruption, incompetence, waste and high operations costs.

What this means is that with the same incompetent people in charge, corruption and mismanagement will continue to persist in the refineries. Besides, as a result of the commercialisation arrangement, state monopoly that brings no form of innovation in the subsector will continue at the detriment of the end product cost reduction.

Not even commercialisation will bring to end the inherent sabotage of the refineries by the big boys involved in fuel importation who connive with the managers of the refineries to ensure that the refineries are not producing petroleum products so that they are always imported with huge subsidies given to these importers.

We should not forget that commercialisation would equally amount to these refineries easily transferring their artificially created high costs of operations to the consumers who have no option or else they will threaten to go back to demanding government subsidising their day-to-day operations.

The whole gist here is that there is no way we will continue to subsidise the running of state-owned enterprises like the refineries that are supposed to be the leading sources of tax revenue generation for the state. And there is no way we should allow them to transfer their high cost of operation to Nigerian consumers of their products as a result of state enterprise monopoly.

We also know that the only way to avert the impending transfer of state monopoly to Dangote monopoly of the country’s downstream subsector is to fully privatise these dilapidated refineries so that their new private owners will have no option but to fight it out with Dangote for their corporate survival. That explains why the only possible solution is this: saying enough is enough of these state owned enterprises lacking transparency, accountability, and operational and performance checks and balance.

We should thus praise this pre-eminent business man turn politician for being bold enough and clear enough by insisting that if elected president he will waste no time in handing the refineries to the best private hands. His decision to do the inevitable could not be unconnected with his vast business insight. Moreover, Atiku remains the only Nigerian politician who has the clear understanding of how best to resolve these problems inherent in state owned enterprise, which unless resolved will continue to undermine Nigeria’s long overdue industrialization.

But rather than be bold enough to agree that the privatisation of our refineries will attract world’s best companies to participate in oil subsector of the economy, the ill-informed Buhari Media Organisation, decided to attack Atiku, wrongly insisting that his proposed privatisation of the refineries “would directly translate to increased price of petroleum products…with dire consequences on high transport cost aggregating in high inflation rates with massive decline in the standard of living of the people…”

While one can understand the grammar, there is nothing else to decipher from their grammar. Or are they ignorant not to understand that the privatisation of the refineries will boost the oil downstream economy of Nigeria not only by making petroleum products readily available but also having the current high pump prices drastically reduced, as competition drives down costs and as a result the price of the products?

It is quite unscientific for the BMO to believe the commercial pricing of petroleum products in Nigeria would amount to a great harm to citizens of Nigeria since keeping these petroleum products subsidised remains the only way to keep them “socially priced.” But for how long we continue to wrongly believe that the only way we could truly make petroleum products socially priced is for government after government to spend trillions of naira, including Buhari administration’s whopping N1.4tn spent within a year from the Excess Crude Account with due process?

The irony here is that while the Buhari media people continue to defend fuel subsidy, many powerful APC politicians are boldly speaking not just against fuel subsidy but, in fact, insisting that the Buhari administration’s fuel subsidy is synonymous with corruption, including opposition from such powerful APC members like Gov Abdulazeez Yari, who notwithstanding being both the Chairman of Nigeria’s Governors’ Forum and a leading APC Governor says this fierce opposition:

“When there was no cost recovery, the NNPC clearly gave us the number of 33 and 35 million litres per day as the consumption of Nigeria. But now that with the new regime of cost recovery, NNPC is claiming daily consumption of 60 and 65 million litres per day? So many of our international partners [have said] that even if we are feeding Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana and Niger, we cannot consume more than 35 million litres per day. So we are wondering where the 60 million litres is coming from!”

But why shouldn’t the beneficiaries of this mind-boggling debt incurring and deficit guzzling refineries be alarmed that their means of stealing from our commonwealth would soon be in private hands? This goes to explain that after all, it is all about protecting their narrow interests than the interests of other Nigerians, particularly poor Nigerian.

If Buhari is truly this lover of the masses he has always pretended to be, then, why has he not come up with such unheard-of economic plans to aggressively grow the economy in such a way that the masses of this country would have been exiting poverty since 2015? Or from where else are these Buhari people expecting the good paying jobs to come if not from the private sector driving the economy?

Today’s under Buhari Nigeria resembles the pre-Deng China, known for having spent between 1949 and 1980 major portion of its annual revenues subsidising non-profitable, non-transparent state owned enterprises, filled with incompetent cronies of those in government. But even though it was a taboo to ever think of stopping what became the best way to bribe Communist Party members Deng Xiaoping the political wizard did the unimaginable. He wasted no time in demanding that all state enterprises be commercialised and where commercialisation failed to make revenue generators, they should be immediately transferred to the private hands.

Atiku knows that rather than subsidising our non-profitable refineries along with paying trillions of naira annually in fuel subsidy, by privatising the oil subsector and freeing money from the subsector, that money would be better spent on building schools, hospitals, roads, waterways, railways, mass housing, etc. These are the kinds of investments government should pursue since they can directly enhance the lives of the poor masses, those whose predicaments this government seems to completely ignore.

Politics apart, we should all applaud Atiku for already insisting that as president he will make sure that government is lean, productive, efficient, dynamic, and above all business-like that promotes growth, real sector firm investments, and jobs in their millions for Nigerians, which are only possible if we hand most of our unproductive state enterprises to the private sector.

Are we not lucky to have someone with Atiku’s kind of business background who with our votes will from May 29, begin to preside over the affairs of this country? Being a private sector player like Donald Trump who within a year in office turned the US economy around and set it on such astonishing growth path, Atiku remains the right presidential material this time around.

Like how Franklin Roosevelt came to preside over the affairs of America from 1932 to 1945 at a time the US economy was completely messed up by his predecessor Herbert Hoover, and like Deng Xiaoping brought in from 1978 to 1989 to clean up the economic and social mess caused by his predecessor Chairman Mao Zedong, we too have no option to bring in Atiku in 2019 if we want to witness the cleanup of the present economic, social and security mess caused by Buhari.

Having learned our lessons in a hard way, I strongly believe that this time around we the electorate has become wise enough not to repeat the same mistake in 2019. We need the president with the gift of presiding over our economic affairs with an eye to fix it once and for all and get Nigeria working again.

Enwegbara, a development economist writes from Abuja  

Strategy: Long before now, the Buhari government had needed to review its strategy of engagement with the public, move from blame-passing, propaganda, in-fighting, enemy-seeking approach to a more legacy-driven, result-oriented mode.  It is like this: when a government is in decline, and it is losing popularity and goodwill, then it is time to change the narrative.  That is precisely what the Buhari government has done with the masterstroke of a special focus on June 12 and Chief MKO Abiola at a time when virtually everyone from the Catholic Church, the opposition, prominent political figures, the media to estranged members of the APC are carrying placards against the government.

When you change the narrative, what you do is to divert attention from the prevailing negative discourse; you find something else for the people to talk about in the hope that this will give the government a breather, and allow it to get back on traction and restore some goodwill.  Whoever suggested the June 12 and Abiola move to President Buhari is quite smart and I commend him and the government. But the “changing the narrative” strategy is not a deus ex machina. Its fall-out has to be managed, and government must be in a position to manage the gains or the challenges. This strategy can also prove to be a test of a government’s status.  An accident-prone government may even in the long run gain nothing from such a move.

For the Buhari government, however, the June 12 move should change the narrative for a few weeks, except there is another accident on the security or political scene. But whatever happens, President Muhammadu Buhari will be remembered as the Nigerian President who successfully placed the proper historical accent on June 12, and MKO Abiola’s contributions to the restoration of democracy in Nigeria. The Jonathan government, which I served, had tried to do this in 2012 by renaming the University of Lagos after Chief MKO Abiola, but the UNILAG community – resident and alumni – reacted like cry-babies, they considered the name of their university too sacred, and too big for Abiola, and in the face of the overwhelming sentiment, the significance of the gesture was over-politicized.

The political: The politics of June 12 and Chief MKO Abiola has been a recurrent decimal in the debate about how best to remember the struggle that led to the exit of the military on May 29, 1999 and the role played by the pro-democracy coalition. Indeed, since 2000, the pro-democracy coalition and supporters of Chief MKO Abiola have lamented that the eventual beneficiaries of the struggle for democracy were the ones most determined to deny and erase Chief Abiola’s role in that significant moment in Nigerian history. They wanted Federal Government recognition for MKO Abiola. When this did not happen, the states controlled by the then Alliance for Democracy in the South West declared June 12, Democracy Day and a public holiday. In Lagos, Ogun, Osun, Oyo, Ekiti, and Ondo, monuments were named after Abiola, his statues were erected, other heroes of the struggle were honoured and every June 12, pro-democracy processions were held in these states.

The celebration of May 29 as Democracy Day has therefore been consistently opposed on the grounds that it is wrong to celebrate the exit of the military but better to commemorate June 12 – the day in 1993 when Nigeria held the freest and fairest election in its history – the Presidential election of that day united Nigerians across ethnic, religious and ideological lines. But as it happened, some military leaders considered Abiola unfit for the office, for their own personal reasons and therefore annulled the election. This brazen assault on the people’s sovereignty resulted in a prolonged protest for the restoration of the people’s mandate, and a nationwide rebellion against military rule.  For six years, Nigeria stood at the edge of a precipice

June 12 is indeed a watershed in Nigerian history. Its formal recognition is symbolic and instructive. This should assuage the pains of the pro-June 12 group, and help to restore the memory of that moment in history and the aftermath. I once wrote about how many young Nigerians born in 1993 or after do not even know who MKO Abiola is. I was asked on one occasion by a young Nigerian: “This MKO Abiola, what about him?” In a country where history is not taught, that is what you get: an emerging generation that does not know Nigeria. With June 12 now part of the country’s calendar, the story will be told, and that turning point in Nigerian history will be recorded permanently for posterity.

The decision to honour Chief MKO Abiola and Chief Gani Fawehinmi post-humously, and Alhaji Baba Gana Kingibe with GCFR and GCON is a good move, but the question of legality with regard to Abiola and Fawehinmi has been raised and here we confront the dilemma of a conflict between what is reasonable and what is legal.

The legal aspect:  Are the post-humous awards really illegal? I recall that in 2014, the Jonathan administration had tried to honour Chief MKO Abiola and Dr. Ameyo Adadevoh by having their names on the National Honours List. Justice Alfa Belgore, former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) who has now spoken up to declare the post-humous award to Abiola and Fawehinmi, “illegal” was the Chairman of the National Honours Committee at the time.  The advice given at the time was that the awards could not be given post-humously, and that the law should not be bent to accommodate political interests. The Jonathan government, with the uproar over the re-naming of the University of Lagos still fresh in the minds of its officials, chose to tread with caution.  It is noteworthy that this same issue of legality has again cropped up. By giving post-humous national awards, the Buhari government has now provided us an opportunity to interrogate the law.

The relevant law is the National Honours Act No 5 of 1964 – Section 3(2) thereof reads: “Subject to the next following paragraph of this article, a person shall be appointed to a particular rank of an Order when he receives from the President in person at an investiture held for the purpose –

(a) the insignia appropriate for that rank; and

(b) an instrument under the hand of the President and the public seal of the Federation declaring him to be appointed to that rank.”

The operative phrase here is “in person.” Can a dead person be honoured in person?  I think not. But it would appear that upon a careful and calm reading of Section 3(3), the President is actually given the power of discretion to vary Section 3(2).

Section 3(3) states: “If in the case of any person it appears to the President expedient to dispense with the requirements of paragraph (2) of this article, he may direct that that person shall be appointed to the rank in question in such a manner as may be specified in the direction.”

With due respect, at issue is this: assuming that post-humous awards do not meet the conditions set out in Section 3(2), can the problem be cured by Section 3(3)? And is there any manifest ambiguity in the provisions or are the words in their ordinary meaning clear enough? Or could the action taken result in any absurdity? Or are there issues of procedure that may have been breached? Do we even have a National Honours Committee in place and if so, what recommendations did that committee make to President Buhari in pursuit of its functions as a clearing house? Any public-spirited person can go to court to test the National Honours Act and raise these issues. It is the duty of the courts to interpret the law, and with our progressive judiciary, I believe they can and should guide us on the true intent of the Honours Act. Ordinarily, a national honour does not harm anyone nor is it likely to injure the country itself.

However, the National Honours Act is overdue for review, and the process of appointing persons to the National Orders needs to be reformed.  Should it become necessary to amend the Act, the National Assembly can do so in a week at most. In terms of process, the area of concern is the manner in which successive governments have tended to give out these honours as if they were mere chieftaincy titles or civil service allocations. Section 1(3) of the Act lists the number of awards that may be given every year, but the prescribed total minimum number is so large that every National Honours investiture ceremony ends up looking like a carnival where all kinds of undeserving persons are decorated.

Still on the legal aspect, some persons have drawn attention to Section 2(1) of the Public Holidays Act CAP 40 LFN  – while that section of the law gives the President power to appoint any day as public holiday, it does not grant him the powers to unilaterally substitute a day with another as he has done with May 29 and June 12. The Schedule to this Act as it is, recognizes May 29 as Democracy Day, not June 12. The Public Holidays Act would still have to be amended appropriately but since there is no plan to declare June 12, 2018 a public holiday, and the President’s statement in its last paragraph specifically uses the phrase “in future years”, the Federal Government has more than enough time to seek a proper amendment of the Public Holidays Act by the legislature. So, I don’t see a problem here.

All told, the plan to honour the Abiola-Kingibe 1993 Presidential joint ticket and Gani Fawehinmi, the legendary human rights crusader, is imbued with much meaning and significance even if this does not automatically settle the matter about the results of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election. The Federal Government should take some additional steps. First, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should be directed to release the results of that election officially and for Chief MKO Abiola and Alhaji Baba Gana Kingibe to be recognized strictly as a matter of record as President-elect and Vice-President-elect respectively. The results of that election need to be validly declared to put a closure to the injustice that was committed. This is the more important matter. The major legal issue here, however is that both men can not be accorded recognition as former Heads of State – they never took oath of office, and the Constitution under which they were elected – the 1989 Constitution is no longer in existence. It stands abolished. Since equity does not act in vain, what has been done is at best symbolic.

To further heal the pains of the affected, the Abiola family should be recognized and compensated for his arrest and detention that ultimately led to his demise. On Gani Fawehinmi: I had expressed fears about the likelihood that his family may reject the honour, Chief Fawehinmi having rejected a similar honour while alive. The Federal Government must be relieved that they have accepted the honour.

Chief Gani Fawehinmi is of course most deserving of the highest honours in the land. For more than 40 years, he was in the forefront of the struggle for a better Nigeria. He was committed to  the progress and well-being of the ordinary man, the rule of law and human rights as the main pillars of good governance. He pursued this objective through the instrumentality of the law.  Of him, President Buhari writes: “…the tireless fighter for human rights and the actualization of the June 12^th elections and indeed for Democracy in general, the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi SAN is to be awarded posthumously a GCON.”

I can only add that there are others who were also part of that struggle for the “actualization of June 12” whose contributions were no less important, and pain and suffering no less, who should also be considered for national honour. They even did more for the struggle than Chief Abiola’s running mate, Alhaji Baba Gana Kingibe who is now being honoured, not for his contributions, I assume, but merely for being part of the ticket! They include Chief Alfred Rewane, Chief Anthony Enahoro, Chief Abraham Adesanya, Professor Wole Soyinka, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, Frank Kokori, Col. Abubakar Umar, Beko Ransome-Kuti, Dr. Tunji Braithwaite, Alao Aka-Bashorun, Rear Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu, Ayo Opadokun, Kudirat Abiola, Chima Ubani, Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe, US Ambassador Walter Carrignton and all the journalists and media owners who were lied against, harassed, shot, assassinated, or jailed. This list is by no means exhaustive but it is representative enough for the benefit of those who insist on ethnicizing June 12. It was a pan-Nigerian struggle: between good and evil, between heroes and villains, and by the way, I agree that Professor Humphrey Nwosu – the man who presided over the election as National Electoral Commission Chairman – also deserves recognition.

The reading of motives – all that talk about timing, the South-West and 2019 – is beside the point. In the South-West, there were many Yoruba anti-June 12 elements who refused to acknowledge Abiola as the symbol and focal point of the restoration of democracy in Nigeria, and who may still be indifferent today. Timing – it is better late than never.  2019 – there is no strong indication that this would have any significant effect on the voting numbers in 2019. The Nigerian voter may not be as stupid as we often think he or she is.