Podcasts about abba kyari

Introducing Okechukwu Nwanguma, a respected advocate for law enforcement accountability, transparent policing, and the rule of law in Nigeria. With a philosophy degree from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Mr. Nwanguma has been a champion of democracy since his undergraduate days. Join us for a thought-provoking conversation on police reform and its future in Nigeria in this eye-opening episode of "The Offside Musings Podcast"! __________________________________________________________ Timestamps: How did the End SARS movement shed light on the work you have devoted several decades to developing in this area? [00:00] Significance of End SARS: Any significant changes since End SARS, and a description of the colonial legislation used to govern the police force. [7:26] Innovative Provisions in the Colonial Act: Exploring the groundbreaking provisions in the colonial legislation. [12:40] Challenges of Insulating Police from the Colonial Path: Addressing the difficulties in moving away from the colonial legacy. [16:30] Impact of End SARS on Police Reforms: Did the End SARS movement bring significant changes to police reform efforts? [22:21] Police Representation and Legitimacy: Exploring allegations of organ harvesting and sales involving the police. [28:54] Photos of Execution Facilities in Anambra: Shedding light on shocking realities. [32:40] Argument for Police Reform: Debating whether the current portrayal of the Nigeria police calls for reform. [36:00] Okey Nwanguma's Background: Insights into his journey and University of Nigeria Nsukka background. [47:10] Choosing Police Reform as a Career: Understanding what motivated Okey to advocate for police reform. [48:05] Nigeria's Police and Leadership: Reflecting on Nigeria's past and present in terms of police and leadership. [52:35] Importance of Political Education for Direct Democracy: Exploring the need for political education to build stronger societies. [59:20] Shock Factor in Nigerian Society: Does Nigeria need a level of shock or awakening to drive change? [1:04:00] Spontaneity of End SARS: Discussing the spontaneous nature of the movement. [1:12:10] Notorious Police Officers: Investigating the cases of James Nwafor, Abba Kyari, and others. [1:13:10] Documenting Crime: Okey's approach to documenting crime and its dissemination. [1:20:45] Knowledge on Notable Individuals: Insights into the current NSA Nuhu Ribadu, Inspector General of Police, and EFCC in Nigeria. [1:23:47] Irregular Appointment of the New Inspector General: Discussing the irregularities surrounding the new appointment. [1:28:00] Nuhu Ribadu's Impact: Analyzing the 180-degree change since his best times. [1:33:00] Proposed Reforms and Nigeria Police as Guards for Hire: Okey's proposed reforms and thoughts on police guarding for pay. [1:35:00] Follow "The Offside Musings Podcast" on Substack for accompanying articles and catch all episodes on your favourite podcast platforms. ________________________________________________ Stay connected on social media: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLHM... Facebook: TheoffsideMusingsPodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_offside... Twitter: https://twitter.com/@MusingsOffside TikTok: Theoffsidemusingspodcast Thank you for tuning in and supporting our show! #TheOffsideMusingsPodcast #DroitMedia #NigeriaPodcasts #HumanRights #PodcastersOfNigeria --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-offside-musings/support

Marriage pressure is not just a myth. If you think you have it hard, try being a single woman in Northern Nigeria. On this week's episode our guest Aisha Abba Kyari aka Cracked Diamond breaks down her journey on what it's like being single in Northern Nigeria, accepting God's plan, and his timing. She also speaks on how much her experiences have shaped her, how she has evolved as women, her deen, career and amazing friendships. I love how she shares with us this amazing advice her mum gave her and how it shaped her perspective on life. (Trust me we all need to hear that) Listen to this episode even if you're not experiencing this so you can learn what it's like for those who struggle with it. Follow our page on instagrams: https://www.instagram.com/neverfullyunderstood_/

My guest on this episode is Stefan Dercon - author of the recently published and most excellent book ‘Gambling on Development: Why Some Countries Win and Others Lose'. Development scholars have produced many explanations for why some countries did better than others after the Second World War. Factors like geography, quality or type of institutions, foreign aid, and protective trade policies, have been argued as what explains this divergence in national prosperity between countries. Dercon's contribution will no doubt be plugged into this long-running debate - and in my opinion, he comes closest to having a ‘‘first principles'' explanation than anyone I have read on the subject. Other theories leave you with nagging questions - Where do good institutions come from? Are countries condemned by their histories? Why do some countries use foreign aid better? Why are some countries with rich geographic endowments doing worse? Why does protective trade lead some countries toward becoming industrial exporting giants, and some others into a macroeconomic crisis?Dercon argues that countries that have done better do so by working out a ‘development bargain'. This comes about when the people with power and influence (elites) in a country find a cooperative agreement (bargain) to consciously pursue economic development and national enrichment. Development bargains are not simple, they are often messy. And elites are not a bunch of altruistic do-gooders. Rather, through many complicated networks of intra-elite competitions and cooperation, they decide to gamble on the future by betting that economic development will deliver the biggest win. Dercon does not claim to have found the holy grail of development - and there are still many questions to be answered. But his argument does lead to one inevitable conclusion. Countries and their people will have to figure out what works for them and how that delivers prosperity.Stefan Dercon is Professor of Economic Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University. He was the Chief Economist of the UK's Department of International Development (DFID).TranscriptTobi; Was your experience really what inspired you to write the book?Stefan; Well, you know, what inspired me definitely is just the contrast that I've had in terms of things I do. Because I've been an academic for a long time, I have more than 30 years writing and studying and, you know, I was one of these academics who like to, as one sometimes puts it, you know, like, likes to get mud on their feet, you know, mud on their boots. I used to work mostly on rural households and in most countries, these are amongst the poorest people, and you just get to know what's going on there. I have a policy interest, and I was just lucky 10 years ago, a bit more than that, I got a job as a Chief Economist in the UK aid agency, and it's just that contrast of having had the chance and the opportunity to get involved on the policy side, on meeting all the more senior people...and it's just that contrast between still enjoying being surrounded by people and what they do and understands livelihoods of poorer people, combined with being in the policy space, I felt like, you know, I have a unique perspective that I wanted to communicate. And it was just a quest to communicate, actually. If anything, I wanted just to tell more of these stories because I think, from all sides, we tend to misunderstand a lot of what's going on and how things work in practice. And that's definitely the case on the academic side. We're so far sometimes from reality that I wanted to tell that story a bit more.Tobi; And I mean, after you wrote the book, and after publication, I presume from some of the feedback that your book is actually quite successful. I gave so many copies away, right, I can't even count. I think at some point, I temporarily bought out Roving Heights' entire stock. So how has the reception been generally?Stefan; I mean, look, what you just told me makes it much more worthwhile than if white kids in Oxford are buying the book. So what I'm really pleased with is that it appealed to a much broader group of people. And actually, you know, if I'm really honest, I hadn't expected that people like you or I was in Bangladesh last week that young people there would actually appreciate the book, you know, that you would actually get people that think about these problems in these countries are actually interested in it. And I'm very pleased that people find it both worthwhile to read and quite interesting. Of course, I get some academics. One story last week in Bangladesh, I had a question, you know, how Lenin fitted in my book. Now, I had to struggle with the answer of how Vladimir Lenin would actually fit into the book and thinking, you know, that's an academic typically responding to, you know... I don't know, I'm not a deep theoretician but it was written out of a kind of pragmatic sense of what can I learn from economics and politics that actually is worthwhile communicating. So it's well received. And if I'm really honest, I don't mind that there are pdf copies circulating as well and things like that. Actually, as long as it's read, you know, you write a book, not because you want the highest sales, but you actually want it to be read, and that actually makes it really interesting that people seem to be able to relate to it. Another group that, actually, I found really interesting that can relate to it is people that are either civil servants working in governments like - in yours, as well as maybe aid officials and International World Bank officials, IMF officials, who actually find it helpful as well. You know, and there's usually a huge bridge between them, there's a huge gap between how in Washington when we think about these things, or in London or in Abuja, and so that's pleasing as well. You know, I don't give a solution to the things but I think I touched on something of where a big part of the problem of development lies is that actually, we are, unfortunately, in quite a few countries, still with governments that fundamentally are backed by elites that don't really want to make the progress and do the hard work. And that's an unfortunate message. But at the same time, you have other countries that are surprising countries that make the progress. And so clearly, there is a lesson there that it's not simply like the problem is simple. Actually, the problem is to some extent, simple. It's about, fundamentally, do you want to actually make it work, make this progress work? And I think that echoes with quite a lot of people - the frustration that many of us have, that some countries seem to be stuck and not making enough progress and we need to be willing to call it out for what it is that it's not entirely the fault of those people who are in control, but they could do far more for the better than they actually do.Tobi; For the purpose of making the conversation practical and accessible, in the spirit of the book itself, I'm going to be asking you some very simple... and what I consider to be fundamental questions for the benefit of the audience and people that probably have not read the book. So there have been so many other books on development that have also been quite as popular as yours, Why Nations Fail comes to mind, and so many others, The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs, some of which you actually reviewed in the opening chapters of the book. And at the heart of most of them is some kind of fundamental concept that then defines how the body of work itself or the central idea itself works, whether it's institutions, or culture, or industrial policy, or whatever. For your book, you talked a lot about the development bargain, what is the development bargain? And how does it work?Stefan; So the way I look at any country in the world, and I mean, any country, rich or poor country is that one way or another, there is a group of people, which I call for convenience, ''the elite.'' It's not like a pejorative title or a title to applaud them, but simply as a descriptive title. The group of people, in politics, civil service, in business definitely, maybe the military, maybe even civil society, key universities, public intellectuals, I talk about the group that I refer to as the elite, these are the people that have power, or they have influenced one way or another, that can be quite broad. Now in every society, I think it's that group that tends to determine what politics and the economy will look like, what the direction of a country will look like, in any society. And I call that underlying idea [as] they have essentially a form of an elite bargain, a bargain between the different people, they don't have to agree on everything, but to have some kind of an agreement that this is the principle by which, you know, my country will be run in politics and in the economy. Now we could have lots of these elite bargains. We could have an elite bargain that, for example, is based on: if I happen to have power, then everything that I'll do is to reward the people that brought me to power. I'll give them jobs in government. I'll give them maybe contracts, I'll do something, you know, technically, we call this Clientelist. You could have another one where he's saying, Look, no, we're going to run this country, totally, where everybody gets an equal right or equal opportunity, and in a particular way. And so you could have political systems that are around this. Now you could have all these things coming together. You could have also regimes that basically say, Well, the main purpose for us is to keep us as a small group in power, you know, he could have a particular way of doing it. Or indeed, to make sure we use it entirely to steal anything we can get and we'll actually put it in our own pockets, you could have a kleptocracy. You could have lots of these different things, you know, you could have different societies. Now, what I mean by development bargain, is actually fundamentally where that underlying elite bargain values, the underlying idea is that we want to grow our economy, and we want to do this in quite an inclusive way. We want to have developmental outcomes as well. And we make this a key part of the elite bargain. So basically, I define a development bargain as an elite bargain - the deals that we have in running our economy and our politics, that fundamentally, one big way we will judge it is that when we make progress in the growth of the economy, and also in development for the broader population, and I call that the development bargain. And I want to actually go a step further and say if you don't have this, you will never see growth and development in your country. You could have leaders talk about it. They could make big development plans, but if underlying all this there is not a fundamental commitment by all these key players that actually it's worthwhile doing, we're not going to achieve it. And maybe I'll make a quick difference here with say, how does that difference...(now, you mentioned Why Nations Fail.) Now, that underlying elite bargain, of course, the nature of your rule of law, your property rights, all these things, they clearly will matter to some extent, but Why Nations Fail puts this entirely into kind of some historical process. And a lot of people that talk about getting institutions right, they say, Well, you need to get institutions right before you can develop, and they seem to come from a long historical process. In my concept of elite bargain, I would actually emphasize [that] even if your country is not perfect in these institutions, even if there's still some corruption left, even if there are still some issues with the political system, even with the legal system, we actually have countries that can make progress if, fundamentally, that commitment is there amongst the elite. So you don't have to wait until perfection starts before you can start to develop. And that actually [means that] I want to put much more power into the hands... sorry, agency is the better word, I put much more agency in those who at the moment are in control of the state. History may not be favourable for you, there may be a history of colonialism, there may be other histories, factors that clearly will affect the nature of your country at a particular moment in time. But actually agency from the key actors today, they can overcome it. And in fact, in the book, I have plenty of examples of countries that start from imperfection, and actually start doing quite interesting things in terms of growth and development, while other countries are very much more stagnant and staying behind. Tobi; You sort of preempted my next question. I mean, since say, 1990, or thereabout, when the results of some of the ''Asia Tigers'' started coming in, maybe also through the works of people like Wade, Hamsden and co., countries like South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, have become like the standard for economic development, and subsequent analysis around issues of development always look at those countries and also their neighbours who have actually made some progress, maybe not as much as those specific countries. But what I want to ask you about in your book is, you talk about some of the works on development trying to reach for some kind of long history or some kind of historical...I don't want to say dependency or determinism, but you get my point. So my point is, if we go outside of these Asian Tigers, if we go back to say, Japan, or even the second industrial revolution, America, Germany, the Netherlands, can we observe the development bargain as you have described it? Is it also consistent through history?Stefan; I would say Absolutely. I mean, one of the things with when we look at these countries with longer-term success, you mentioned correctly, you know, the Koreas and also Japan, or going back in time to the Industrial Revolution, the second industrial revolution and so on, actually, we take for granted that actually they really wanted to succeed. And it's actually one of these things, and especially in recent history, [South] Korea came out of deep conflict, of course, it was also called War so they got certain support as well. But it was really important for both Japan and Korea after the Second World War, for Japan to re-emerge and for Korea to emerge. It was a form of also getting legitimacy towards their own population. So it was a real underlying deep commitment by that elite in these countries to try to make a success of it. We take it for granted, if we go back in history, take England in the 19th century...I mean, it was a very strong thing, it's like, you know, we wanted to show that actually, we are ruling the world on commerce and all the kinds of things, there was a deep motivation. And of course, also the pressures, you know, remember, the society was being very fractured, and we can't call growth in the 19th century in Britain very inclusive. [There was] a lot of change happening, and indeed, you know, very poor people I think actually initially didn't manage to take up. But especially if we come to the early 20th century became this kind of thing surely [where] development in the form of growth was also when it's a little bit broader shared, became quite part of it. And it's one of these things that when you look at politics, whether it's in the 1930s or 40s or 50s or now, whether it's in England or in America, actually growth and development, I won't take it for granted. People are voted out of office because they are not managing the economy well. There is a lot of political pressure in Europe now. And it's really political because ''oh you're not dealing with the cost of living crisis right or you're undermining the real income increases.'' You know, the US election, we ended up interpreting Trump as an election that actually [served] people [who] had stayed behind in the process of growth and development. Actually, in the politics of most richer countries, it's so much taken for granted that that's a big part of the narrative. So it's an interesting one (maybe, if I may) just to [use] China, I find it a really interesting one. Because, you know, the historical determinism is problematic there. And of course, some people would say, China should never have grown because it has the wrong institutions. But of course, it is growing fast. But if you think of a bit of what would be historical institutions that are relevant? China has had centralized taxation for 2000 years, a centralized bureaucracy for 2000 years, a meritocratic bureaucracy for 2000 years, you know, it actually had a history that actually acquired strong institutions. But funnily enough, when did it start? Just at the moment of deep weakness in the 1970s. When the Cultural Revolution had destabilised the legitimacy of the state, ideology was totally dominating, Mao died in the early 1970s and mid 1970s the Gang of Four came up, which was his widow, it was all turbulence. And actually lots of people thought China would disappear. It's at that moment, it picked up that kind of thing, you know, and actually, fundamentally, if you read all the statements of that periods, they became fundamentally committed, ''we need to make progress in our economy, that's our source of legitimacy.'' So even there there, that's where you see that actually really emerges and this became something that they needed to achieve - a fundamental commitment to growth and development as a form of getting legitimacy to the population. So in a very different way, as some of the other countries, but it's the same principle. Legitimacy of a lot of countries is equated with progress and growth and development, which is essentially a feature of a development bargain.Tobi; Obviously, all societies have some form of elite bargain. Not all elite bargains are development bargains. That's the gist of your book, basically. Now, what I'm trying to get at here is elite bargains that are not for development, that do not benefit the rapid progress of a society, how do they emerge? You talk about the agency of the people that are running the country at a particular point in time. To take Nigeria as an example, a lot of people will blame Nigeria's problems on colonialism. And I'm also quite intolerant of such arguments, at least up to a point. But what I'm trying to get at is that how do elite bargains that are not for development, how do they emerge? Is it via, also, the agency of the elites of those societies? Or are there features of a particular society that kind of determine the elite bargain that emerges? For example, sticking with Nigeria, a lot of people will argue that our elites and our institutions will think and look differently if we don't have oil.Stefan; Yes. Tobi; Right. The state will be less extractive in its thinking, the bureaucracy will be less predatory, right? A lot of people would argue that. So are there other underlying factors or features in a society that shape the kind of elite bargain that emerges, or this is just down to the agency of the people who find themselves with power and influence? They are just the wrong type of people.Stefan; So, Tobi, you make an excellent point here, and, so let's take this a little bit in turn. Leonard Wantchekon, the economic historian at Princeton, from Benin… he gave a nice lecture not so long ago, at Yale, it's on YouTube. And he made this very helpful statement, and he said, you know, if it's between history and agency, I would put 50% history 50% agency, okay. And I will actually add to it [which] is that depending on where you are, history is a little bit more or a little bit less. And so clearly, and he was talking about Africa in general, colonialism will matter. It has shaped your institutions and, you know, the way countries have emerged and the way they decolonized, all these things will have mattered, and they make it harder and easier and so on. But you alluded to it as well [that] at some level, it's already a long time ago now. Of course, it's still there, but it's a long time ago. So over time agency should become much more important. The point though, that you raise about oil makes a lot of sense. So the problem with a development bargain is that actually for a political elite, and for a business elite, dare I say for a military elite, the status quo is, of course, very convenient. Status quo is something that is very convenient because it involves very few risks. So the problem with growth typically is that, actually, new elites may emerge, a new type of business elites may emerge, they may question the economic elite that exists. As a result, it may change the politics. And in fact, if you go back to history, as we were saying, of course, that's the history of Britain where all the time, you know, there has been a shift of who is the elite, there's always a new elite, but it's shifting. So growth is actually a tricky thing. Because it actually, in that sense, changes relative positions in society. Now, that's obviously the case in every society. But it will even more so if the status quo is actually quite of relative affluence, if the status quo is actually quite a comfortable position to be. Now if you have natural resources, you don't need growth, to be able to steal. You can just basically control the resources that come out of the ground. And so your supply chain for stealing money can be very short, you don't have to do a very complicated game. If you need to get it from growth in the economy, it's much more complicated, and it's much more risky. Okay. And so it's not for nothing, that actually clearly, more countries that didn't have natural resources in recent times, over short periods of time, managed to actually get development bargains and basically leads gambling on it. Because actually, the status quo was not as lucrative as the status quo can be if you have a lot of oil or other minerals. And so you're right, and it makes it just really hard...and it actually means in fact [that] even well-meaning parts of the business elite in Nigeria will find it very hard to shift the model entirely. Because you know, you are a business elite, because you benefit from the system one way or another. I'm not saying that you steal, but it's just [how] the economy is based in Nigeria on a lot of non-tradables, is helped with the fact that you have so much to export from oil and so you end up importing a lot, but you can also keep your borders closed or anything you feel like keeping the borders closed for. And that helps for a lot of domestic industries, because protectionism, you know, you do all the things. So the system self sustains it. And with oil, there is not that much incentives to change it. So yes, it is actually harder if you have natural resources to actually reengineer the system to actually go for growth and development. So yes, it is the case. But it hasn't stopped certain countries from not going that route. You know, Malaysia has oil? Yes, it's not a perfect development bargain. But it has done remarkably well. Indonesia, in its early stages, also had oil in the 1970s as an important part, it managed this kind of relationship, and then maybe come the agency in it, you know, do we get enough actors that actually have the collective ability to shift these incentives enough to start promoting more outward orientation, try to export some new things from your country, all that kinds of stuff? And that is indeed what happened in Indonesia. There in the early 1970s, they had oil, but they also learned to export shoes and garments early on, they took advantage of good global situations. And Nigeria didn't, you know, and then agency comes into it, you know, the managers of both the politics and the relationship between politics and business, including from the military, they went in a particular route, and they had choices and they didn't take them. I'm pretty sure if you go back and, you know, there will be moments of choice and we went for another - as people call it - political settlement... another equilibrium that actually didn't involve development and growth as the key part. So yes, it makes it harder. But the agency still, still matters.Tobi; From that point, my next question then would be, what shifts an elite bargain more? That's kind of like do question, right? What shifts an elite bargain? These questions do sound simple. And I'm sorry, but I know they are incredibly difficult to answer. Otherwise, you wouldn't have written an entire book about it. Right. So what shifts an elite bargain more towards development? I mean, you talked about China, we've seen it also in so many other countries where the country was going in a particular direction that's not really pro growth, pro-development, and then there's this moment where things sort of shifts. So it may be through the actions of particular actors or events that inform those. So what... in your experience as a development practitioner and looking at all these places...What are the factors that have the most influence in shifting the elite bargain? Is it just luck? I mean, when I think about China, what if Deng Xiaoping and his colleagues had actually lost that particular power struggle after the death of Mao? So did they get lucky? Is it luck? What's going on?Stefan; You know, I wouldn't use title of gambling but there has to be a little bit of luck involved as well, you know, the circumstances have to play in your direction. But it's not just luck. Okay. So it's an interesting thing when you look at a couple of the countries, what were the moments that people within the elite managed to shift it in another direction? So. China is interesting because it was going through conflict, not deep conflict or violent conflict, but there was a lot of instability in China at the time, at the end of the Cultural Revolution in that period. Other countries like Bangladesh came out of conflict. And so conflict, definitely, or coming out of conflict creates a moment. But of course, there are lots of countries that come out of conflict that make a mess of it. It's a window of opportunity. And it probably is linked with something related to it, which is legitimacy. When you come out of conflict, most of the time, leaders need to reestablish legitimacy. This is clearly something that happened to Rwanda coming out of the genocide, Kagame clearly had to establish legitimacy, you know, he represented a very small group of people within the country and he needed to get legitimacy overall and he chose growth and development to doing that. I think Ethiopia is similar, that actually Meles Zenawi coming from Tigray, he needed, you know, post 2000, coming out of the Eritrean war at a time, and all kinds of other crisis that he was facing in his own party even, he needed to get legitimacy, and they thought he could get legitimacy for his regime through growth and development. So legitimacy-seeking behavior can be quite important. Now it has another side to it. If there's a crisis of legitimacy, that's the moment when the leader can actually take advantage of it. A crisis of legitimacy is actually saying, ''Well, look, we better go to something that begins to deliver to people.'' And why I'm actually suggesting it is that actually, there are in certain countries, a bit of pressure from below also seems to be quite useful. But there is a role there and I find it very hard to define exactly because I'm always scared of autocrats and so on. But the point of leadership is there. So I don't mean it as the strong leader, but more to do with the kind of group of people that manages to take other people along and convince them that is the kind of thing that they need to do. So if you go to Indonesia, I don't think it was Suharto personally, who was the great thinker there that did it. But he clearly surrounded himself with a group of people that included technocrats and also other people from politics, that actually managed to push this in a particular direction in doing it. So how do we get it? While it is actually people taking advantage of windows of opportunity to actually nudge towards it? Okay. But it's hard. We're talking Nigeria, other people have asked me questions about Brazil, about India, you know, large countries like yours with very complicated elite bargains that have national and state level things and so on... it's really complicated. Rwanda in that sense is well defined, you know, we have one well-defined problem and, you know, we could go for a particular model. It can be quite complicated to have some ideas on that on Nigeria, but maybe we can come to that a bit later.Tobi; So, I'm curious. I know you didn't cover this in your book. So let me let you speculate a bit on the psychology of elite bargains or development bargains specifically now. Given that I've also tried to look at some of the societies that you described, and even some others that you probably didn't mention, I don't think there's been a society yet where this is a gamble true, but where the elites have sort of lost out by gambling on development. So why don't we see a lot more gambles than we are seeing currently?Stefan; Actually, unfortunately, we see gambles that go wrong. I mean, for me, and I've worked a lot on Ethiopia, Ethiopia as a gamble that went wrong at the moment. And Ethiopia... you know, just think a little bit of what happened and maybe typify a little bit in a very simplistic way the nature of the gamble. You know, you had a leader under Meles Zenawi, under the TPLF - the Tigray and rebel group - where in the end the dominant force in the military force that actually took power in 1991. And they stayed dominant, even though they only represent, you know, five 6% of the population, they remain dominant in that political deal. Though other groups joined, but militarily, it was the TPLF that was the most powerful. So it also meant that the political deal was always fragile because in various periods of time, you know, my very first job was teaching in Addis Ababa University so I was teaching there 1992 93... you know, we have violence on the streets of students that were being actually repressed by the state, they were demonstrating against the government. You know, over time, we have various instances where this kind of legitimacy, the political legitimacy of that regime was also being questioned. Now, one of the gambles that Meles Zenawi took was to actually say, look, there's a very fragile political deal, but I'm actually going to get legitimacy through growth and development. So he used development as a way of getting legitimacy for something that politically and you know, just as Nigeria is complicated, Ethiopia is complicated with different nationalities, different balances between the regions, that he actually wasn't quite giving the space for these different nationalities to have a role, but he was gambling on doing it through growth and development. How did this go wrong? You know, I kept on spending a lot of time, but in the 2010s after Meles Zenawi died, very young from illness, the government still tried to pursue this. But actually, increasingly, they couldn't keep the politics together anymore. They were almost a different nationality, they were always on the streets, there was lots of violence and so on. And then in the end, you know, the Tigrayans lost power in the central government, and then, of course, we know how it escalated further after Abiy. But in some sense, the underlying political deal was fragile and the hope was that through economic progress, we could strengthen that political deal to legitimacy. That gamble is fine. Now it's a very fractured state and unfortunately, all the news we get from the country is that it's increasingly fractured. And I don't know how we'll put it together again. So that's a gamble that failed. Now, we know more about it. And it was very visible because it lasted quite a long time. Many of these gambles may actually misfire if they don't pick the right political moments. You know, if you don't do it at the right moment, and if you're a little bit unlucky with global circumstances, you fairly quickly could get into a bit of trouble politically, and whatever. For example, with the high inflation we have in virtually every country in the world now, it is clearly not the moment to gamble. It's extremely risky, [and] fragile, and your opponents will use it against you. So it's another thing like, you know, we don't see them gambling, you know, there are relatively few windows of opportunities at which you can gamble. And there are some that will go wrong. And even some that I described as successes, you know, we don't know whether they will last, whether they will become the new Koreas. I'm cautious about that. So, we need to just see it a little bit. Although I don't see Nigeria taking that gamble. So that's another matter.Tobi; No, no. I mean, that's where I was going next. Let me talk to you a bit about the role of outsiders here. We're going to get the aid discussion later. So currently in Nigeria, obviously, the economy has been through a lot in the last several years, a lot of people will put that firmly into the hands of the current administration. Rightly so. There were some very terrible policy choices that were made. But one point that I've quite often made to friends is that, to borrow your terminology, I don't think Nigeria was under the influence of a development bargain that suddenly went astray seven years ago. We've always been heading in this direction, some periods were just pretty good. And one of those periods was in the mid to late 2000s, when the economy seemed to be doing quite well, with high oil prices and also, the government actually really took a stab at macro-economic reforms. But if also you look carefully at the micro-history of that period, you'll see the influence of, should I say, outside legitimacy, you know, trying to get the debt forgiveness deal over the line and, you know, so many other moves that the government was making to increase its credibility internationally was highly influential in some of those decisions and the people that were brought into the government and some of the reform too. And my proof for that when I talk to people is to look at the other things that we should have done, which, we didn't do. We had the opportunity to actually reform either through privatization, a more sustainable model of our energy policy - the energy industry, generally. Electricity? People like to talk about telecommunications and the GSM revolution, but we didn't do anything about electricity, we didn't do anything about transportation. Infrastructure was still highly deficient and investment was not really serious, you know. So it was not... for me, personally, it was not a development bargain. Now, my question then would be, could it have been different if some of the outside influences that are sometimes exerted on countries can be a bit more focused on long-term development, as opposed to short-term macro-economic reforms on stability? You know, institutions like the IMF, the World Bank, I know they have their defined mandates, but is it time for a change? I think they actually have a lot more influence than they are using currently.Stefan; You make extremely valid points. And I think I will broadly agree with you with what you just implied. And I'll take a stance on it now. So the first thing, of course, and you correctly saw that something very misleading in Nigeria's growth figures is that periods of high growth are not at all linked to much action by economic policymakers. But it's still largely linked to oil prices. And we have this unfortunate cyclical behaviour in policymaking. Where the behaviour when prices are really good, is just always missing taking advantage of the opportunity. While when things are bad, we're talking about all kinds of things one ought to be doing but then saying, ''we can't do it because the prices are low.'' And so there is this kind of strange, asymmetric thing about policymaking that we always have the best ideas when we can't do them, and then we don't have the ideas we should have when the going is good. And this is in a way what you're alluding to. Of course, the role of outsiders that gets very interesting is what these outsiders were focusing on, actually, I think it was in the interest of the, call them, semi-outsider inside government...some of these technocrats that were brought in. And I can understand it entirely, you know, there were some really sensible finance ministers at various moments and so on. They were focused on actually things that were relatively easy in that period. So they were actually relatively easy, because the going was quite good. And so actually you created that strange impression, and it's a little bit like together with the outsiders, with World Bank, IMF, but actually, we're dealing with something really dramatic but, actually, we were not at all setting a precedent because it was actually, relatively... relatively politically low cost to do these things at that moment. Okay. So it was progress of sorts, you know, getting the debt relief, and so on. But arguably, you know, it's not a bad thing. But this actually was quite a low-hanging fruit and many of these organizations like these ideas of low-hanging fruits, because actually, politically, it played well, it increased the stature internationally of Nigeria...but, actually, it didn't really cost the elite much. It wasn't really hard for the elite to do these things. [If they did] the difficult things, they would really have started to change Nigeria. And so there is something there that I'm struck by the last sentence you said that some of these outsiders may be focusing on the wrong things. I think it has to be the insiders wanting to focus on these things, on these more difficult things. And then I do agree with you, the outsider should be smarter, and better able to respond to this. There's a problem with the outsiders here as well, take something that clearly you still struggle with and struggled forever with - electricity reform, the electricity sector. It's so complicated, and it's set up so complicated in all kinds of ways and whatever. So much inefficiency, so much waste that then it doesn't function and everybody, you know, complains about it. But it becomes politically very sensitive because there are definitely vested interests linked to it now and it becomes very hard to unravel it. Now the problem is if you ask typically a World Bank or an IMF for advice, they will make it very simple and say, Oh, just privatize the whole thing and do the whole thing. Now. You know that in a politically sensitive environment, you just can't privatize everything, so you privatize a little bit, but anything that's really with vested interests you won't touch. But these are the inefficient bits. So the easy prey, you privatize, and that's someone else making even more money off it because it's actually the efficient part of those systems that gets privatized, and then the inefficient part is still there and costs even more money. And so what I think these outsiders could do better is to have a better understanding of Nigeria's political economy, which is complicated at the best of times, but really understand, where can we start actually touching on something that we are beginning to touch on something vested interests that we begin to unravel a little bit some of the kind of underlying problem of, you know, politically connected business, you know, all the way to party financing or whatever...that you need to start unraveling somehow, where actually the underlying causes of inefficiency lie. Because the underlying causes of inefficiency are not just technical, they're actually not just economic. The underlying causes are these kinds of things. So I think why the outsiders did what they did at that time, it actually suited the government at the time, the technocratic ministers, that's the best they could do because that was the only mandate they had. Together with the outsider, they'd say, Well, that's certainly something we could do. But actually, fundamentally, you didn't really change that much. You don't still have then wherever it goes a bit bad, I'll get six or whatever exchange rates, and I'll get all kinds of other macroeconomic poor management, and, of course, nothing can happen when there's a crisis. There's no way we can do these more micro sector-specific reforms than doing it. So yeah, you're absolutely right. But let's not underestimate how hard it is. But starting to do the things that you refer to is where we need to get to to doing some of these difficult things.Tobi; The way I also read your book is that the two classic problems of political economy are still present, which is, the incentive and the knowledge problem. So I want to talk about the role of knowledge and ideas here. Let's even suppose that a particular group of elites at a particular time are properly incentivized to pursue a development bargain. Right? Sometimes the kind of ideas you still find floating around in the corridors of power can be quite counterproductive. A very revealing part of your book for me was when you were talking about the role of China. Also, I have no problem with China. The anecdote about Justin meme stood out to me quite well, because I could relate to it personally because I've also been opportuned to be at conferences where Justin Lin spoke, and I was slightly uneasy at how much simplification happens. I mean, just to digress a little bit, there was a particular presidential candidate in the just concluded primaries of the ruling party, I'm not going to mention the name, who is quite under the heavy influence of the China model. Right? Always consults with China, always meeting with Chinese economists and technocrats. And my reaction when he lost the primaries was ''thank god,'' right? Because what I see mostly in development thinking locally, I don't mean in academic circles, a lot of debates are going on in academics... is that the success of China and Asia more broadly has brought the State primarily into the front and centre. If you look at this current government, they will tell you seven years ago that they meant well. You know, judging by the Abba Kyari anecdotes where government should own the means of production. He may not believe that, like you said, truthfully, but you can see the influence of what has been called ''state-led development.'' In a state where there is no capable bureaucracy. The government itself is not even optimized to know the problem to solve or even how to solve that particular problem. Right. So broadly, my question is, if an elite chooses to pursue a development bargain, how does it then ensure that the right ideas, which lead to the right kind of policies, and maybe there might not even be the right policies - one of the things you mentioned is changing your mind quickly, it's an experimental process - but, you know, this process needs people who are open to ideas, who change their minds, who can also bring other people in with different ideas, you know, so this idea generation process in a development bargain, how can it be stable even if you have an elite consensus is that chooses to pursue development?Stefan; Look, it's an excellent question. And last week, or 10 days ago, when it was in Bangladesh, I was very struck that, you know, as a country I think that has the development bargain, there was a lot of openness. And you know, I was in the Ministry of Finance, and people had a variety of ideas, but they were all openly debated, there was not a kind of fixed mindset. And it is something that I've always found a bit unfortunate dealing with both politicians and senior technocrats in Nigeria. Nigeria is quickly seen as the centre of the world, there's nothing to learn from the rest of the world, we'll just pick an idea, and then we'll run with it and there's nothing that needs to be checked. And, you know, I love the self-confidence, but for thinking and for pursuit of ideas, you know, looking around and questioning what you hear whether you hear it from Justin Lin, who by the way, I don't think he's malign and he means well, he just has a particular way of communicating but it is, of course, a simplified story that you can simply get, and then you'll pick it up. And of course, if you ask the UK Government, the official line from London, they will also tell you there is only one model when they're purely official, but privately they will be a bit more open-minded, and maybe Chinese officials don't feel they have that freedom to privately encourage you to think a bit broader and so you have maybe a stricter line. So how do we do that? I think we can learn something here from India in the 1970s and 1980s. So when India after independence, it had a very strict set of ideas. In that sense, India was as a child of its time as a state, you know, state control, state-led development, there were strong views around it and India ended up doing a lot of regulation. They used to refer to India as the License Raj. Like a whole system based around licensing and everything was regulated by the state. So the state had far too much say in terms of the activity, despite the fact that the underlying economy was meant to be very entrepreneurship and commerce-led, but you had a lot of licensing rules, and so on. And of course, its growth stayed very low in the 1970s and 80s, it was actually very stagnant. It changed in the 1990s. Partly came with a crisis - in fact, a balance of payments crisis - it needs to reform and Manmohan Singh was the finance minister, then, later on, he became maybe a less successful Prime Minister. But as a finance minister in the early 90s, he did quite amazing things. And then during the 90s, gradually, every party started adopting a much more growth-oriented, more outward-oriented type of mindset. Now, why do I say this? Because actually, during the 1970s, and 80s, you had think-tanks, all the time pushing for these broader ideas. It took them 20 years. But there were really well-known think-tanks that kept on trying to convince people in the planning commission, economists in the universities and so on. And to critically think, look, there must be other ways. So actually, funnily enough, in India, it has a lot to do with the thinking and the public debates, that initially the politicians didn't take up, but actually found the right people to influence... you know, you actually have still in the civil service some decent technocrats there, they don't get a chance. But there are decent people, I know some of them and so on. But there needs to be a feeding of these ideas. And actually, this is where I would almost say there's a bit of a failing here, in the way the public discourse is done [in Nigeria] and maybe voices like you, but also more systematically from universities from think tanks and so on to actually feed and keep on feeding these ideas. There is a suggestion [by] Lant Pritchett - you know he's a former Harvard economist, he is now in the UK - [who] wrote this very interesting paper and he said, some of these think tanks who are actually getting a little bit of aid money here and there and he said, that's probably the best spent aid money in India ever. Because the rate of return and he calculates this number is like 1,000,000%, or something. Because he basically says the power of ideas is there. And I do think there is something there that I'm always surprised by that there are some very smart Nigerians outside the country, they don't really get much of a hearing inside the country, then there are some that are actually inside the country, the quality of debate is maybe not stimulated to be thinking beyond. It has to do probably with how complicated your country is, and of course, the Federal status plays a role. I just wonder whether maybe this is something that needs to start in particular states. You know, there are some governors that are a little bit more progressive than others. Maybe it is actually increasing and focusing attention over this on a few states to get the debate up to a high level and to actually see what they can do and maybe it's where the entry point is, but you need ideas I agree with you and I do worry at times about the kind of critical quality... there are some great thinkers in Nigeria, don't get me wrong, but the critical quality of ideas around alternative ways of doing the economy and so on, and that they get so easily captured by simple narrative, simple national narratives that are really just too simple to actually pursue. I mean...yeah.Tobi; That's quite deep. That's quite deep. I mean, just captures my life's mission right there. It's interesting you talked about Lant Pritchett and the question of aid, which is like my next line of question to you. There was this brief exchange on Twitter that I caught about the review of your book in the guardian, and the question of aid came up. I saw responses from Martin Ravallion, from Rachel Glennerster, I'm not sure I'm pronouncing her name right. So it's sort of then brings me to the whole question of development assistance, aid, and the way intervention has now been captured by what works. One fantastic example I got from your book is on Bangladesh, and how both systems work. You know, there's a broad development bargain, it's not perfect, nothing is, no society is. And there's the pursuit of economic growth. And also, it's a country where aid money and all forms of development assistance is quite active, and is quite huge, and it's actually quite effective. Now, my question is that basic insight from your book, which is for aid spending to be a little bit more biased, not your word... a little bit more bias to countries that have development bargains broadly? Why is that insight so difficult for, I should say, the international NGO industry to grasp? Why is it elusive? Because the status quo, which I would say, I don't mean to offend anybody, but which I will say is also aided by development economists and academics who have sort of put methodology and evidence above prosperity, in my view... because what you see is that, regardless of how dysfunctional the country is, broadly, the aid industry just carves out a nice niche where they do all sorts of interventions, cash transfers, chickens and, of course, you can always do randomized control trials and you say you have evidence for what works. But meanwhile you don't see the broad influence of some of these so-called assistants in the country as a whole. And these are institutions who proclaim that they are committed to fighting extreme poverty and we know what has vastly reduced poverty through history has always been economic growth and prosperity. So why is this elusive? Have those agencies and international development thinking itself been captured?Stefan; Look, I think I should make you do my interviews in the future. Yeah. So I've got to hire you to give...Because, look, I've been inside the aid industry and, in fact, the two people that you mentioned, you know, I would call them my friends, although one of them clearly is very cross at me at the moment. But you know, these are people I've worked with, and so on. And I am worried that there is such an obsession within the aid industry to prove their effectiveness. And I know I've been under pressure, you know, I've worked in it and sitting in London and getting your newspapers to say you're wasting all this money. It's really affecting a lot of people. And it was really hardwork for these 10 years that I sat inside it. But it's about just the humility that you just described, you know, and I want to make this distinction between...I'm about to make two distinctions. So the first one is - you made it well, even Bangladesh, something is going on. And you know, with all the imperfections, the government is trying to do something, and largely by staying to some extent out of the way. And there's some good stuff happening. So there's growth picking up and so on. So you can do all kinds of things. And I think aid in Bangladesh has been great at trying to make sure that the growth that was taking place in that country was a bit more inclusive than it probably would have been. I think it's great. And I think the aid industry should be proud of it. There is a great book that I quote as well also by Naomi Hossein and she calls it The Aid Lab and this is a bit like in praise of it. You know, if we do it carefully with some community and complement what's going on in a country that is deeply poor, you know, you can actually do really good things. Because in the book, I also mentioned Ghana that, actually, aid has been pretty effective because something had begun to change in the 90s, and so on. And we can question that to some extent and, of course, it's none of this perfection. But if you then come to a country where, you know... probably the two of us agree [that] there is some form of stagnation in that kind of [country], there's no development bargain, the elite bargain doesn't really push everything forward. Just be humble to say, look, I have a little niche, and there will be some chicken farmers that are happier, we'll do some good things in health... in health, actually, it's quite straightforward to do good things. But they are to call these good things, don't classify this as if you are leading the fight against extreme poverty, leading the fight against the change in these countries. Because, actually, if the local elite is not leading their change, and those people who have the power and influence not leading their change, the best you can do is doing good things. So I'm happy for us to be able to say we do good things. And it led me in the context of an interview to say like in India, as doing a lot of good things means that aid was actually in itself quite irrelevant, because the real change came, as I described in the 90s, actually, there was a real shift in gear, and suddenly their own development spending became gradually more effective. And of course, you can help them then to make it more effective. But, you know, I was a bit sad, and Martin Ravallion now took issue with it and wanted to emphasize... you know, and I don't want us to ever say, look, we did it. I mean, it's such a lack of humility I'll say this. At some point, we may have been supportive of doing it, but it's always the countries that did it. And the people there that did it. And other times just be humble and say, well, we may be doing something reasonably good, we may improve health outcomes, education outcomes, but not necessarily the whole country may do it in the schools that we work in, or whatever. And it's, that's good, you know, that's just as there are Nigerians that do good things via their own organizations and so on, they do good things. And it's probably teachers in the country, within the state schools that do some of these good things in the best practice stuff. And so yeah, they improve things, but overall, have the humility to say you're not changing Nigeria, because unfortunately, Nigeria is not being changed at the moment.Tobi; So my question then would be, is it reflective of the current intellectual climate in development economics where randomized control trials, they pursue...I know Lant Pritchett has really come down quite heavily on this particular movement, though, sometimes he seems to be the only one standing, maybe not quite literally true and I'll give you two examples from Nigeria, right? In 2012, when the anti subsidy-removal protests broke out, when the government on the first day of January removed fuel subsidy and prices suddenly went up. And the labour movement, the student movement, opposition politicians mobilized the population against that particular move. Some form of resolution that the current president at that time reached was to do what they call a partial removal of subsidy, you know, prices will go up a little bit and the government then did a scheme - an entrepreneurship scheme - where you submit a business plan and you're paid to get $50,000 to do a business.And I read a particular study by David Evans of the World Bank of how fantastically successful this particular scheme was, and of course, no doubt, it was successful. I mean, if you get $50,000 to do business in Nigeria, that's a lot of money. I don't need econometric analysis to know that, but maybe some people do. But the truth is, if you look today, I can bet you that a lot of those businesses are probably dead now due to how the economy as sort of evolved after that. Secondly, at the time we were having these debates and protests in 2012, the subsidy figure there was $8 billion annually, today it is $15 billion. So if you say you have evidence that something works, what exactly is your time horizon for measuring what works? And if you say something works, works in whose benefit, really? The most recent example was in 2018, 2019, where the government was given a small amount of money to small retailers, they call it Trader Moni. I'm sure there were World Bank officials and economists (I have a lot of respect for them) who are measuring the effectiveness of this thing. But you could see clearly that what was politically going on was the government doing vote buying. Right? So if you say something work, works for whom? Right? That was my response to Rachel on Twitter, but she didn't reply me. My question then to you... Sorry, I'm talking too much... Is this reflective of the current intellectual climate in development economics? Stefan; So yes and no? Okay. So, well, i'm going to have to be very careful. Of course, Rachel...I know her very well. And, actually, I have not that many gripes with her. She comes out of, indeed, the whole school of RCTs. By the way, I also actually do RCTs. I like it as a tool to actually study things. And I'll explain in a moment a bit more. So I do these randomized control trials as well. But I am very, very sympathetic. And I actually totally agree with your frustration around this idea to creating that impression about what works. You know, I have it in the book, I even mentioned it, there was a particular minister that at some point announced we're only going to spend our money on what works, you know, like a great slogan, as if you have all the answers, you know what to do. And of course, there is a technical meaning to it. Technical meaning would mean, if I do something and if you haven't done it, what would have been the outcome? And the paper that you refer on the entrepreneurship, this entrepreneurship for the $50,000... I know actually the research very well, the original was from David McKenzie and then other people commenting on it. Yes, relative to a counterfactual, yes, it was actually much bigger than an alternative scheme, you know, then that's something. So you could say, well, you know, as a research question, as a researcher, I find it interesting. From a policy point of view, I'm so much more cautious. And I'm totally with you. You know, first of all, in the bigger scheme of things, how tiny maybe it be... now there are some people who would say, well, we don't know anything, really, what to do in this whole messy environment so at least [to] have something that does a bit better than other things is maybe a useful thing to know. I think it comes back to that humility. As a research tool, it's great at getting exact answers. As a policy tool, I think we need to have much more humility. Because are these ideas tha totally transforms everything, that is actually makes a huge difference? Not really. It probably means that we can identify a little bit and I think even Pritchard wouldn't disagree with [that] sometimes a few things are a little bit better than other things. And if we want to do good, maybe it's helpful in medicine whether we know whether we should spend a bit more money on X or on Y, that it actually does a little bit better in the functioning of a health facility or not, if we spent a bit more money on that practice or on that practice, same in teaching in the school, if we do a little bit more of that in a very constrained environment than something else, that's useful, it doesn't change dramatically. And I categorize it with doing good. With humility, if we do good, it's helpful to know which things are a bit better than other things...when we try to do good. It's an interesting thing, even in Rachel's thread, she actually used it, we can still do quite a lot of good with aid. Actually, funnily enough, I don't disagree that deeply with her and say, Yeah, we may be able to do it good, but don't present it as if we, in the bigger scheme of things, which is where you're getting that, make any difference. And this is where I'm also sympathetic with Lant in saying, Look, sometimes we seem to be focusing on the small trivial things and yeah, it's useful to know but meanwhile the big picture is what you were describing, there's so much going on and, actually, nothing changes there. And so I categorize it in a bit of the same thing. Because I'll now give you an account, which is then go to Bangladesh again. Look, I think it was extremely useful in Bangladesh at some point to really have ... an RCT - a randomized control trial. So really careful evidence to show that a particular program that BRAC, the biggest NGO in the world, the local NGO, was actually what it was actually doing to the ultra-poor. In fact, two weeks ago, I was visiting the program again. And I find it really interesting because it's really helpful for BRAC to know that that program, when I do it in a careful evaluation relative to other things, that actually this program is really effective. And that, actually, we know for BRAC that they can have so much choices to spend their money on poverty alleviation, the things that we can dream up, to actually know this is actually a really good thing. And why of course does it work? Well, it works relative to doing nothing, but of course, it helps in Bangladesh {that] growth is taking place and it actually can get people to become [a big] part of it. In fact, I was visiting people that, whether we use a Nigerian or Bangladeshi definition of extreme poverty, they wouldn't have been in that state 10 years ago and so this is their being six, seven years in that program, and it was really interesting that I was sitting into some interviews they were doing, and I looked over my shoulder, and they now had a TV and a fridge. And I say, okay, an extremely poor person in Bangladesh would not have had this. So there's clearly something happening. Now, that's not simply because of the program. It's also because the whole country is improving. But I'm pretty sure and what the data showed is that those who actually had a program would have found it a bit easier to take part in that progress. And I'm pretty sure that the TV, and the fridge, probably was helped, to some extent, by the programme. In fact, we have very good evidence in the kind of evidence that Rachel Glennerster talks about. So again, I think it's all about a bit of humility, and understanding better what we mean by it. And to be honest, I think there are lots of people who work in that field that are careful with it. And that actually will do it, use it well. It gets just really worrying that people, often more junior people than Rachel, they've never really been in the field properly and then they make massive statements. So they work in big organizations, and they use that evidence, overuse it and overstate it. I think Rachel is actually careful, even her thread was very careful, although your question is a very good one. But it's very careful. But it still allows other people to overinterpret this whole thing. And then I get really worried. I'm actually going to put out a thread on Twitter in the coming days where I'm going to talk about tribalism in development economics... where I'm good to deal with your question as well because I think the way the profession has evolved is that you need to be in one tribe or another, otherwise, you're not allowed to function. I think, you know, you need to be eclectic, you know, no one has this single answer. And there's too much tribalism going on, much more than I've ever known before. You know, you need to be Oh, a fan of that, or you need to be the historical approach, or the Political Economy approach, and the whole... we should learn from all these bits. That's the idea of knowledge that you learn from... as much as possible from the progress in different parts of a discipline, or in thinking.Tobi; I'm glad to have caught you on a free day because having a lot more time to have this conversation has made it quite rich for me personally, and I'm sure for the audience as well. So I just have a couple more questions before I let you get back to your day. The first of those would be...um, when I first became aware of your book on Twitter, it was via a Chris Blattman thread. And he mentioned something that I have also struggled with, both personally in my thought and, in my conversation with people. And somethin

Nigeria was struggling with a kidnapping crisis, that is until Abba Kyari took over as the head of an elite police unit. Kyari earned the spotlight through his ability to capture the country's worst criminals: robbers, kidnappers, bombers, arms dealers, terrorists. His work was so dangerous—and he was so successful at it—that people started calling him “super cop.” He insisted he would go to any length to find criminals, but his rogue operations were actually covering up a much bigger crime. A Somethin' Else & Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email podcastadsales@sonymusic.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A Federal High Court in Abuja has thrown out a suit by the Federal Government to extradite the suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari, to the United States of America. Justice Inyang Ekwo struck out the suit filed by Abubakar Malami, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, on the ground that the application is incompetent, lacked merit and was instituted in bad faith. Justice Ekwo insisted that the current administration has no basis to file the extradition request having commenced trial in a case filed against the embattled Deputy Commissioner of Police by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency.

Known by his millions of followers as the Billionaire Gucci Master, Ramon Abbas started his rags to riches fraudster career in Nigeria, evolving from phishing emails to defrauding international banks and corporations of $350 M.There are influencers, there are scammers, there are scamfluencers and then there is the godfluencer: Hushpuppi. We're discussing the rise of Ramon from the internet cafes of Lagos, Nigeria to the penthouse suites of the Palazzo Versace in Dubai... and predictably eventually to a US prison. If you like our content, please become a patron to get our two premium episodes every month, as well as our public episodes ad-free. Hushpuppi and his co-conspirators in various email phishing scams: Samson Oyekunle, Vincent Chibuzo, and Abdul-Rahman Juma, Ghaleb Alaumary, and Nigeria's "super cop" Abba Kyari, perpetrated email frauds throughout the world, from middle-man banks in Mexico to compromised accounts in an investment bank in Malta, and even to the French equivalent of the US Securities Exchange Commission, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers, and English Premiere League football clubs. 1, 2, 3 Team Hush wasn't one of those small time Nigerian Prince email scam crews. They were talented social engineers capable of talking their "magas", Nigerian slang for "gullible marks" out of hundreds of thousands of dollars per transaction. Rather than rely on cold-emailing millions of people they would insert themselves into corporate and government email networks, and then observe their day to day transactions to custom-design scams that would fly under an accounting auditor's radar. WIth the ill-gotten money Hushpuppi lived large: a penthouse in Dubai, helicopter rides around the Greek Isles, private jet rides to his destinations, and multi-hundred thousand dollar watches and cars. He was even a guest of the Louis Vuitton PR department at Fashion Week in Paris, and "customer of the year" in the Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Versace store. 4 When he was finally arrested by Dubai police (who also documented their swat raid on Hushpuppi's penthouse for social media in a highly over-produced video), dozens of phones and laptos were seized along with 7 million dollars in cars and 40 million dollars in cash. 5 And old habits die hard, most recently a new charge has been added to Hushpuppi's rap sheet in the US. The FBI has charged him with obtaining $430,000 dollars in fraudulent COVID relief loans granted to victims of identity theft, after which Hushpuppi would sell the debit cards containing the loan funds that were sent out by the US Government. Episode #DubiMeter = 11 1. Evan Ratliff. The Fall of the Billionaire Gucci Master. Bloomberg. June 2021. ⇤2. Evan Ratliff and William Clowes. How Instagram's ‘Billionaire Gucci Master' Sank Nigeria's Super Cop. Bloomberg. February 2022. ⇤3. Ivan Martin. How BOV hackers got away with €13 million. Times of Malta. February 2019. ⇤4. Segun Adewole. How Hushpuppi bought Richard Mille wristwatch worn on Instagram. Punch. July 2021. ⇤5. Dubai Media Office Twitter account. Hushpuppi arrest video. Twitter. June 2020. ⇤

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://osazuwaakonedo.news/my-life-in-danger-at-kuje-prison-dcp-abba-kyari/20/07/2022/ My Life In Danger At Kuje Prison - DCP Abba Kyari ~ OsazuwaAkonedo ###NDLEA ##Cocaine ##Drug ##Hushpuppi ##job ##Nigeria ##Police #Abba #Kayri #Kuje #OsazuwaAkonedo #prison Suspended DCP Abba Kyari has said his life is in danger at the Kuje Prison of the Nigerian Correctional Service, NCoS. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/osazuwaakonedo/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/osazuwaakonedo/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://osazuwaakonedo.news/abba-kyari-in-a-secured-facility-like-ex-governors-no-attack-on-his-life-prison/27/05/2022/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/osazuwaakonedo/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/osazuwaakonedo/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://osazuwaakonedo.news/dcp-abba-kyari-we-have-evidences-to-pin-ukatu/04/05/2022/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/osazuwaakonedo/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/osazuwaakonedo/support

Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency have arrested a suspected billionaire drug baron. The Director, Media, and Advocacy of the NDLEA Femi Babafemi says he is behind the N3 billion Tramadol deal involving the embattled suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari-led Intelligence Response Team. Babafemi says that the suspect came under watch last year after five cartons of Tramadol 225mg were seized from his staff on 4th May 2021 when he sent them to sell to undercover police officers from the then Kyari-led IRT of the Nigeria Police, Ikeja Lagos.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://osazuwaakonedo.news/abba-kyari-led-irt-in-fresh-trouble-ndlea-arrests-gang-drug-baron-over-n3bn-tramadol/25/04/2022/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/osazuwaakonedo/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/osazuwaakonedo/support

A United States court has rescheduled the trial of Abba Kyari, and five others, for alleged $1.1 million fraud coordinated by Ramon Abbas, aka Hushpuppi. The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California rescheduled the trial from May 17 to October 11, 2022, based on a joint request by the prosecution and three of Mr Kyari's co-defendants. Judge Otis Wright, agreed that not granting the parties' request could deny defence counsel the reasonable time necessary for effective preparation, taking into account the exercise of due diligence. He says it would unreasonably deny defendant continuity of counsel and could make proceeding impossible or result in a miscarriage of justice if the court rejected the postponement request.

Still On the #InternationalWomensMonth, Michelle Agoh, Okechukwu McAnthony, popularly known as Okey Bakassi, and the Wisemen of comedy discussed various stories from the incident of Abba Kyari's wife, Ramatu Kyari's slump in court, to the Elon Musk challenging Russia's President, Vladamir Putin to a physcial fight, to Cristiano Ronaldo's hat-trick for Manchester United, and more . In this episode, the hosts give news flakes and African proverbs.

Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court in Abuja has refused bail to the suspended deputy commissioner of police Abba Kyari. The court held that the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency has placed sufficient evidence before the court enough for it to refuse bail. The NDLEA in its counter-affidavits to Mr Kyari's bail application held that it is inappropriate to grant bail to the applicant because of the facts and circumstances of the case. The court says the medical challenges of the applicant are not beyond the capacity of the NDLEA.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://osazuwaakonedo.news/court-sends-dcp-abba-kyari-others-to-kuje-prison-because-he-may-jump-bail-if-released/28/03/2022/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/osazuwaakonedo/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/osazuwaakonedo/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://osazuwaakonedo.news/gloria-okolie-out-abba-kyari-remains-in-detention/24/03/2022/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/osazuwaakonedo/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/osazuwaakonedo/support

Bisola and IB join the Discharge on The Slap, Escaping Politicians, Abba Kyari vs NDLEA, Policemen on Crack, Deluded Nigerians, Culture, Sharing Sexual Experiences, Cancelling Sexual Partners and Hypocrisy in Sex GET YOUR PVC!!! Thank You for Listening. If you enjoyed this, please SUBSCRIBE, LIKE and SHARE. Connect with Accidental Discharge Online: Follow Accidental Discharge on twitter: https://twitter.com/acdishow Follow Accidental Discharge on instagram: http://instagram.com/acdishow Follow Accidental Discharge on TikTok: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeuJHuA2/ Listen to the Podcast on: Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9jZGNmZDc4L3BvZGNhc3QvcnNz Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/accidental-discharge/id1476338404 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4kTJiOobi1A32fZaGdLHKu?si=A2t8Z6jvQfSZHmI5_bz2ow&nd=1 Anchor: https://anchor.fm/accidentaldischarge Jamit.fm: https://jamit.fm/podcast/accidental-discharge Watch/Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/AccidentalDischargePodcast --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/accidentaldischarge/message

Wasn't it just like yesterday that Nigeria's officialdom, media and others toasted Abba Kyari, a Deputy Commissioner of Police, as arguably the country's finest officer? When the man's name was mentioned, it was often bracketed with the descriptor “super cop.” He led the elite Intelligence Response Team (IRT) at police headquarters, overseeing high-profile investigations. Indeed, he was credited as the ferocious nemesis of Nigeria's biggest criminals. The Offside Musings Podcast has been featured in Feedspot Top 35 Nigeria Podcasts: https://blog.feedspot.com/nigeria_podcasts/ Follow us on Substack @ offisidemusings@substack.com. For the article accompanying this episode Listen to episodes of "The Offside Musings Podcast" here. Subscribe to The Offside Musings Podcast's Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLHMewgDizgRMm9aRscGugw/featured Follow The Offside Musings Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_offside_musings_podcast/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/theoffsidemusingspodcast The Offside Musings Podcast is a The Droit Media production. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-offside-musings/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://osazuwaakonedo.news/new-connection-between-abba-kyari-and-nnamdi-kanu/15/03/2022/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/osazuwaakonedo/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/osazuwaakonedo/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://osazuwaakonedo.news/court-refuses-dcp-abba-kyari-bail-wife-fell-slumps/14/03/2022/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/osazuwaakonedo/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/osazuwaakonedo/support

Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, has described as false the media reports that his office had conclusively exonerated Abba Kyari. He says there appears to be a misunderstanding regarding the issue. He says it was a case of a work in progress and the office of the Attorney General of the Federation requested for further probe in relation to some aspects of the investigation. The AGF affirmed that investigations carried out by the police had indicted the once-celebrated officer for money laundering.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://osazuwaakonedo.news/dont-send-me-to-nigeria-prison-abba-kyari-begs-court-you-will-take-care-of-yourself-in-our-cell-ndlea/07/03/2022/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/osazuwaakonedo/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/osazuwaakonedo/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://osazuwaakonedo.news/drug-trafficking-dcp-abba-kyari-in-court-watches-other-suspects-hide-face-from-cameras/07/03/2022/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/osazuwaakonedo/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/osazuwaakonedo/support

Nigeria has approved the request by the United States for the extradition of suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police Abba Kyari. Kyari is wanted to stand trial for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering and identity theft. He was accused of conspiring with a United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based Nigerian, Ramon Abbas, aka Hushpuppi to commit the crime. The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), had on Tuesday filed an application before the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court in Abuja for Kyari's extradition. The AGF says the application followed a request by the Diplomatic Representative of the U.S. Embassy in Abuja.

On Top Wetin Dey Happen today, we dey ask why BiG man wey dem arrest after they commit offence dey always fall sick. Plenty example dey of BIG men wey commit offence and after dem arrest dem, dem go court tell court say dem sick make court free dem to go hospital. The one wey dey fresh among the BIG men na Abba Kyari, wey be policeman wey suppose to dey catch people wey put their hands for bad bad things wey dem accused say him self do bad thing. He don come out tell court say hin dey sick make dem release am after dem arrest am keep am for detention. My people, how una see this matter? Another tori wey we get for ground dis hot afternoon na on top one man wey kill his friend over argument on N30. The man wey hin name na Portable get small argument with his friend Ajayi. After dem settle dem and the argument finish, na hin Portable go carry broken bottle chuk Ajayi to death ooo, my people how una see this one too? Our Everyday Tori crew go sit down Gidigba today to chuck mouth for de 30min tori. Make una follow us for our social media handles: Search @LeadershipNGA for YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

On Top Wetin Dey Happen today, we dey ask why BiG man wey dem arrest after they commit offence dey always fall sick. Plenty example dey of BIG men wey commit offence and after dem arrest dem, dem go court tell court say dem sick make court free dem to go hospital. The one wey dey fresh among the BIG men na Abba Kyari, wey be policeman wey suppose to dey catch people wey put their hands for bad bad things wey dem accused say him self do bad thing. He don come out tell court say hin dey sick make dem release am after dem arrest am keep am for detention. My people, how una see this matter? Another tori wey we get for ground dis hot afternoon na on top one house wife wey dey jealous so tey, she kill her rival on top kerewa matter with the husband ooo. The two women dey live inside one room and parlour with their husbands for Ondo State. Our Everyday Tori crew go sit down Gidigba today to chuck mouth for de 30min tori. Make una follow us for our social media handles: Search @LeadershipNGA for YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

On this episode, the crew discuss Buju's name change to Benson, Abba Kyari's arrest, Davido's Martell trip to France and new albums from AG baby and Basketmouth.To stay in tune with all episode releases and additional information about the hosts, follow wttjpod on Twitter and Instagram. You can also send fan mail to: fanmail@wttjpod.com to let Moni, Fresh L and OD know your burning thoughts and questions.

Justice Inyang Eden Ekwo of the Federal High Court in Abuja has refused to order the Federal Government to release the detained Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari, from the custody of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency. The judge rather ordered that Kyari put the Federal Government on notice of the existence of the suit he instituted against it. Kyari sought an order of the court to immediately release him and in the alternative, the suspended DCP, who is being held by the NDLEA over his alleged involvement in hard drug trafficking, asked the court to admit him to bail in liberal conditions.

@nigeriasbest and @phoenix_agenda were joined by @AfroVII and @AnthonyEhilebo They discussed: 1. The arrest of "Super Cop" Abba Kyari 2. The feud between Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Rauf Aregbesola.

The Police Service Commission has suspended an Assistant Commissioner of Police, Sunday Ubua, and Assistant Superintendent of Police, James Bawa, who both worked under the embattled Abba Kyari in the Intelligence Response Team of the Nigeria Police Force. The PSC noted that the move is in line with the Public Service Rules 030406 and that the suspension, which took effect from Monday, 14th, February 2022, will stand until the outcome of the investigation into the allegations levelled against them. The commission maintained that Kyari, who is in custody, remains suspended until investigations into the matter are completed.

Today we'll be discussing the arrest of Deputy Police Commissioner (DCP) Abba Kyari, former commander of Intelligence Response Team (IRT) and others over their involvement in the 25kg cocaine deal and the implication on the war against hard drugs in Nigeria. While the Police yesterday arrested and handed Kyari and four members of his team over to the anti-narcotics agency, there is growing concern over the bid by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) to rid the country of hard drugs.

Analysis of trending national issues

The trial of Paul Gicheru, a Kenyan lawyer accused of bribing prosecution witnesses of the International Criminal Court has started in The Hague. The arrest of Nigerian "super cop" Abba Kyari on drug-trafficking charges has laid bare the "public bickering" between two of Nigeria's law enforcement bodies, an analyst told the BBC. Commander Abba Kyari is accused of trying to recruit fellow officers into a drug plot. Plus we talk to Syriacus Buguzi, a Tanzanian medical doctor turned journalist, he tells us why he started the first science and technology newspaper in Swahili language.

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency has declared suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari, wanted over alleged links with drug trafficking. NDLEA spokesperson Femi Babafemi says he is wanted over his involvement in a 25 kilograms Cocaine deal. The Agency says it declared Mr Kyari wanted after all efforts to get him to honour formal invitations for his interrogation failed. It bemoaned a situation where those who are supposed to support current efforts to stem the tide of illicit drug trafficking and abuse are themselves neck-deep in the menace.

The Nigerian Police have arrested suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari, over his involvement in drug trafficking.Shortly before his arrest, the 'super cop' had a chat with Daily Trust's General Editor.In this episode of Nigeria Daily, Hamza Idris reveals to us what DCP Kyari told him exclusively.

n reply, please quote, Ref No. CZ.5300/FPRD/FHQ/ABJ/VOL.4/79 Date: 14th February, 2022The Director of News …………………………….PRESS RELEASEPOLICE ARREST DCP ABBA KYARI, 4 OTHER POLICE OFFICERS FOR ALLEGATIONS OF TAMPERING WITH NARCOTIC EXHIBITS, OFFICIAL CORRUPTION AND SUNDRY UNPROFESSIONAL INFRACTIONSAs IGP Orders Immediate Transfer of Case to NDLEA, Charges NDLEA to Investigate indicted officers of the AgencyThe Nigeria Police Force has arrested DCP Abba Kyari and four other police officers for their involvement in an alleged case of criminal conspiracy, discreditable, unethical, and unprofessional conduct, official corruption and tampering with exhibits in a case of illicit drug trafficking involving a perpetual transnational drug cartel. The arrest of the officers was sequel to pieces of information received from the leadership of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) on 10th February, 2022. In line with standard administrative procedure of the Force, the Inspector General of Police ordered a high-level, discreet, and in-house investigation into the allegations. The interim investigations report revealed that two (2) international drug couriers identified as Chibunna Patrick Umeibe and Emeka Alphonsus, both males, were arrested at Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu on the 19th of January, 2022 upon their arrival from Addis Ababa aboard an Ethiopian Airlines flight ET917. The arrest led to the recovery of substantial quantity of powdery substance suspected to be cocaine from the two narcotic couriers. The operation which was intelligence-driven, was undertaken by a Unit of the Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT). Although the case and the two suspects were subsequently transferred to the NDLEA on the 25th January, 2022, the findings of the in-house investigation ordered by the Inspector General of Police established reasonable grounds for strong suspicion that the IRT officers involved in the operation could have been involved in some underhand and unprofessional dealings as well as official corruption which compromised ethical standards in their dealings with the suspects and exhibits recovered. Beyond this, the Police investigation also established that the international narcotics cartel involved in this case have strong ties with some officers of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) at the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu who are on their pay roll. The two arrested drug couriers confirmed that the modus is for the transnational drug barons to conspire with the NDLEA officers on duty and send them their pre-boarding photographs for identification, seamless clearance, and unhindered passage out of the airport with the narcotics being trafficked. The two arrested drug couriers also confirmed that they have been enjoying this relationship with the NDLEA officers at the Akanu Ibiam International Airport since 2021 and had in this instant case of 19th January, 2022, been identified and cleared by the NDLEA officers as customary, having received their pre-departure photographs and other details prior to their arrival in Enugu, and were on their way out with the narcotics when they were apprehended by the Police.The Police investigations report also indicted DCP Abba Kyari, who had been on suspension for his alleged involvement in a different fraud case being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), for complicity in the allegation of official corruption, tampering with narcotics exhibit and sundry unprofessional conducts that negate the standard administrative and investigative protocols of the Force as well as extant criminal laws. It is to be emphasised that DCP Abba Kyari's involvement in these allegation occurred while his suspension from service was subsisting.On the strength of the findings of the in-house Police Investigation Panel, the Inspector-General of Police has ordered the immediate arrest and transfer of all the indicted police officers to the NDLEA authorities for conclusive investigation, while appropriate disciplinary actions are also being initiated against them by the Force leadership. The concerned officers include DCP Abba Kyari, ACP Sunday Ubuah, ASP Bawa James, ASP John Umoru (at large), Inspr. Simon Agrigba and John Nuhu. They have all been, accordingly, handed over today 14th February, 2022 to the NDLEA authorities. In so doing, the Inspector General of Police has also formally requested that the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency should ensure the identification, arrest and investigation of the Agency's officers who have also been found to be colluding with the international drug cartel involved in this case towards advancing the anti-narcotics agenda of the federal Government.The Inspector General of Police assures the public of his administration's commitment to upholding the tenets and values of policing in line with the agenda of ethical regeneration, restoration of professional standard, enhancement of the anti-corruption drive, respect for the rule of law and inter-agency collaboration in the drive to stabilise the internal security order of the country.E-SIGNEDCSP OLUMUYIWA ADEJOBI, mnipr, mipraDEPUTY FORCE PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICERFORCE HEADQUARTERSABUJA14th February, 2022

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency has declared suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari, wanted over alleged connections with drug trafficking.NDLEA spokesperson Femi Babafemi made the announcement during a press conference in Abuja on Monday.Before his suspension over links with convicted fraudster Ramon Abbas, commonly known as Hushpuppi, Kyari was the Commander of Intelligence Response Team (IRT) at the Force Intelligence Bureau of the Nigerian Police Force.According to the NDLEA, he is wanted over his involvement in a 25 kilograms Cocaine deal.The Agency said it declared Mr Kyari wanted after all efforts to get him respond to formal invitations failed.

The Nigerian government revealed some of the actions it is taking under the radar regarding the allegations against a police officer, Abba Kyari, and suspected fraudster, Ramon Abbas, popularly known as Hushpuppi. The Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Mr Abubakar Malami says the top of these actions is the collaboration with the United States government to ensure justice is served. He says it is an issue that has both national and international dimensions and in respect of the two, actions are being taken; it is a work in progress locally and internationally and we are doing whatever it takes to ensure justice is done within the context of the law, regardless of the personalities involved.

The Police Service Commission is expected to this week deliberate on a probe panel report on the suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mr Abba Kyari, submitted to it by the Inspector-General of Police, Mr Alkali Usman. The IGP had submitted the probe panel report on the suspended Head of the Intelligence Response Team, to the PSC. A member of the PSC, Mr Braimoh Adogame Austin, says the commission would deliberate on the issue this week. Kyari was alleged to have benefitted from the proceeds of a $1.1 million internet fraud.

The Police Service Commission is expected to this week deliberate on a probe panel report on the suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mr Abba Kyari, submitted to it by the Inspector-General of Police, Mr Alkali Usman. The IGP had submitted the probe panel report on the suspended Head of the Intelligence Response Team, to the PSC. A member of the PSC, Mr Braimoh Adogame Austin, says the commission would deliberate on the issue this week. Kyari was alleged to have benefitted from the proceeds of a $1.1 million internet fraud.

The Police Service Commission is expected to this week deliberate on a probe panel report on the suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mr Abba Kyari, submitted to it by the Inspector-General of Police, Mr Alkali Usman. The IGP had submitted the probe panel report on the suspended Head of the Intelligence Response Team, to the PSC. A member of the PSC, Mr Braimoh Adogame Austin, says the commission would deliberate on the issue this week. Kyari was alleged to have benefitted from the proceeds of a $1.1 million internet fraud.

The Inspector-General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba, received the report of the panel set up to probe the bribery allegations against the Head of the Police Intelligence Response Team, Abba Kyari. DIG Egbunike, while presenting the report, appreciated the IGP for the confidence reposed on him and the members of the Panel to conduct the probe. He noted that the Panel commenced investigations immediately after it was inaugurated on 2nd August 2021 and the report submitted is an outcome of a painstaking, transparent and exhaustive investigative process.

Here's today's Big Hard Fact: A US District Court has indicted DCP Abba Kyari and 5 others for Conspiracy To Commit Fraud And Launder Money. What Next For Abba Kyari? #NigeriainfoHF | Sandra Ezekwesili

In October 2019, the FBI made an arrest in an airport somewhere in the US. That arrest led to the downfall of a popular Nigerian instagram influencer and now a highly decorated Nigerian police officer is fighting to save his reputation and career. In today's episode of The Backstory, we dig into the FBI's court filings and uncover so much more to this story. YouTube video for this episode: https://youtu.be/z5UTXWq2nEk ——————————————— This episode was produced by Nabilah Usman, Anthonieta Kalunta, John Iwodi, Dominic Tabakaji and Sam Tabakaji. Executive producer Rahmat Muhammad. Special thanks to Rabia Hadejia and Mala Iwa Gbado Ikaleku. Copyright (c) 2021 Triple-E Media Productions. All rights reserved. ——————————————— We used several sources for this episode including: ▶︎Dubai Media Office: https://twitter.com/DXBMediaOffice/status/1276109374667264001?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1276109374667264001%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fslate.com%2Ftechnology%2F2020%2F06%2Fdubai-police-fox-hunt-2-hushpuppi-arrest.html ▶︎US Justice Department https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/nigerian-national-brought-us-face-charges-conspiring-launder-hundreds-millions-dollars https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/press-release/file/1292066/download https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/six-indicted-international-scheme-defraud-qatari-school-founder-and-then-launder-over-1 ▶︎Premium Times https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/476935-breaking-hushpuppi-police-suspend-abba-kyari.html ▶︎HotNaija https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI_7D72XFpE&t=5s Video by Miguel Á. Padriñán from Pexels Video by Mikhail Nilov from Pexels Video by Carlos Arribas from Pexels Video by Kampus Production from Pexels Video by Amina Filkins from Pexels Video by Pressmaster from Pexels Video by Tima Miroshnichenko from Pexels Video by Tima Miroshnichenko from Pexels Video by German Korb from Pexels Video by cottonbro from Pexels ——————————————— ▶︎Follow us @234.audio on Instagram, @234audio on Facebook, and @234audio on Twitter ▶︎Subscribe to our 234Audio YouTube channel ——————————————— If you are interested in sponsoring or licensing this program, reach out to us via WhatsApp at +234 818 230 1234 or send us e-mail at info@234audio.com ——————————————— If you're interested in joining the Triple-E team, click this link: https://forms.gle/xGGHbhqSdUTQhfqXA --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thebackstoryng/support

On this episode, Melody, Excel and Motolani discuss the taste of sperm, sexual health, Abba Kyari, DaBaby, the bias of cancel culture and more.

@nigeriasbest and @phoenix_agenda were joined by @lloydatiku and @_SirWilliam_ . News stories discussed were: 1. The FBI's indictment of Nigerian police officer; Abba Kyari. 2. The Nigerian governments decision to acquire a 20% stake in Dangote's refinery. 3. Nigeria's poor performance at the Tokyo Olympics.

The Coalition of Northern Groups has kicked against the suspension of the embattled Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mr Abba Kyari following his indictment by a US Court.Spokesman of the Coalition, Abdulazeez Sulaiman, noted that the Nigerian police authorities and the FBI breached Kyari ‘s fundamental rights by not allowing him to be heard before taking hasty actions against him.They have, therefore, demanded an immediate review of the suspension and have also asked that the ongoing investigation with the FBI be transferred to the Nigerian Intelligence Agency.

In this episode, I discussed the recent indictment of the Nigerian Deputy commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari in relation to the case of Abbas AKA Hushpuppi which has raised eyebrows and began various conversations. We focused on the narratives and opinions that have risen from this. This includes: The matter of extradition and what the Nigerian government is doing; the comparison between this situation and that of Nnamdi Kanu and Sunday Igboho and what we can deduce from it and the apparent stance of the north and what it means for the Nigerian polity.

Cikin shirin Tambaya da Amsa na wannan makon tare da Michael Kuduson, za ji karin bayani kan ko wata hukumar tsaron wata kasa na da damar ta bukaci a mika mata wani mai laifi daga wata kasar da take zargi, kamar yadda FBI ta nemi a mika mata shahararren dan sandan nan na Najeriya Abba Kyari.

Nigerian Police Officer, DCP Abba Kyari became extremely famous recently for all the wrong reasons. His name has been linked to big time fraudster, Hushpuppi, who is currently undergoing trial in the US. According to FBI, Hushpuppi allegedly paid DCP Abba Kyari N8m to detain fellow fraudster, Chibuzo. Abba Kyari, has come out to say that the only conversation he has had with Hushpuppi is about his tailor.

In this episode, host Bidemi Ologunde presented new details about the ongoing case of a Nigerian Instagram celebrity who spent years defrauding individuals and companies on the Internet, while posing as a successful real estate developer. He recently pleaded guilty to money laundering in the U.S. and in doing so, implicated six other co-conspirators in three countries, including a high-ranking officer of the Nigeria Police Force.Please send questions, comments, and suggestions to bidemi@thebidpicture.com. You can also get in touch on LinkedIn, Twitter, the Clubhouse app (@bid), and the Wisdom app (@bidemi).

The Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba, has appointed a Deputy Commissioner of Police, Tunji Disu, as the new Head of the Police Intelligence Response Team.The Force Public Relations Officer, CP Frank Mba, announced Disu's appointment in a statement on Monday in Abuja, saying it was with immediate effect.Kyari is being investigated following his indictment by the Federal Bureau of Investigation over his alleged relationship with the fraudster Ramon Abbas, popularly known as Hushpuppi.Mba explained that Disu's appointment would fill the leadership gap within the IRT and refocus the Unit for better service delivery.

Do you support Abba Kyari's suspension? Do you support new charges against El-Zakzaky? Do you support LAWMA shutting down Ladipo Market? Should the APC Exco be holding Congresses, in light of the Supreme Court decision in the Ondo guber election? It was a Big Weekend, Lagos. Let's talk about it. #NigeriainfoHF | Sandra Ezekwesili

The Police Service Commission has suspended a Deputy Commissioner of Police and Head, Intelligence Response Team of the Nigeria Police Force, Abba Kyari.A statement by the commission's Head of Public Relations, Ikechukwu Ani says the decision was conveyed in a letter signed by Justice Clara Bata Ogunbiyi, a retired justice of the Supreme Court.Kyari's suspension took effect from July 31 and would subsist pending the outcome of the investigation in respect to his indictment by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States.The commission has also directed the Inspector General of Police to furnish it with information on further developments to further action.

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Muiz Banire has described the indictment of a Deputy Commissioner for Police, Abba Kyari, in the case of international fraud, as a dent in the image of the country.Mr Muiz in an interview on Channels Television's made the comments while reacting to the suspension of Mr Kyari by the Police Service Commission on Sunday.The commission has also directed the Inspector General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba, to furnish it with information on further developments on the matter for necessary further action.

Events of this week will certainly give a Hollywood blockbuster a run for its money. From Super Cop, Abba Kyari fingered in Hushpuppi's fraud case in the United States to Bandits releasing some of their abducted as gift of Sallah to a Katsina Community. Catch up on all of the exciting news updates from this week.

Abba Kyari, Hush Puppi, FBI IN NIGERIA --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/ayodele-ayetigbo/support

A warrant of arrest has been issued against a Deputy Commissioner of Nigerian Police Abba Kyari following his indictment in the ongoing trial of Nigerian fraudster Ramon Olorunwa Abbas, known as Hushpuppi, in the United States.The warrant was issued by Otis Wright, a judge in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, on July 26.The court instructed the Federal Bureau of Investigation to track down Kyari and produce him in the United States to face trial for his roles in the fraud.Kyari was said to have been bribed by Hushpuppi to have Chibuzo Vincent, one of his business partners, arrested in Nigeria following a dispute over a $1.1 million. The court ordered the Federal Bureau of Investigation to track down Kyari and produce him in the United States to face trial for his roles in the fraud.Meanwhile, Kyari had denied the allegation in a statement on his Facebook page, but he admitted to have collected the sum of N300,000 transferred by the suspect for clothes and caps through the cloth seller's bank account. He also said Chibuzo Vincent was arrested at no cost.“Abbas who we later came to know as Hushpuppi called our office about 2 years ago that somebody in Nigeria seriously threatened to kill his Family here in Nigeria and he sent the person's Phone number and pleaded we take action before the Person attacks his family,” he said.“We traced and arrested the Suspect and after investigations we discovered there wasn't an actual threat to anyone's life. And they are long time friends who have money issues between them hence we released the Suspect on bail to go and he was not taken to any jail.

The Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba, has ordered an internal review of the allegations against a Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari, by a United States Court.The United States District Court for the Central District of California says alleged international fraudster, Ramon Abbas aka Hushpuppi used Kyari to arrest and jail a co-conspirator, Chibuzo Vincent.A communique from the court says the arrest was made after Vincent threatened to expose a $1m fraud committed against a Qatari businessman.The IGP says further developments on the case will be communicated to members of the public accordingly.

- Are you satisfied with Abba Kyari's response to the US Justice Department's allegation? - Why did Nigeria fail to drug-test its Olympians? - Should the Zakzakys be compensated, and how? Those are your Big 3, Lagos. Let's Talk. #NigeriainfoHF | Sandra Ezekwesili

The Deputy Commissioner of Police and leader of the Inspector-General of Police Intelligence Response Team, Abba Kyari, have thrown out complains that some of the arrested bandits, Boko Haram terrorists and other criminals have been released. Abba in a post shared on his Facebook page on Thursday, June 10, said anyone with any evidence to back claims that the suspected criminals have been freed, should come forward with it.''My Friends, These are some of the Bandits, Boko Haram Terrorist and other criminals we arrested. None of them have been released. If those keyboard warriors and Sympathizers of Criminals spreading False News that Bandits are not being arrested have any Evidence that one of the hundreds of arrested Bandits Shown above is released or Given Amnesty they should show the world pls.We are arresting Criminals and killers from all parts of the Country, in-fact as you can see above the Overwhelming Majority of Killers and criminals we arrested in Nigeria today are the Bandits and Boko Haram.Our teams are all across the country fighting criminals and killers and we all know with Nigerian population today and Ratio of 1 policeman to 700 Nigerians we can't stop all crimes at once.But good Nigerians know with the Pictorial Evidence above and very limited Resources at our disposal, We are doing well with our small Unit IRT which is a Very small fraction of the Nigeria Police.I have received more than 100 threats from Boko Haram, Bandits, Kidnappers,Armed Robbers and other Criminals. We have Sworn to defend our Country against all evils. We will never relent.Boko Haram, Bandits, IPOB, Keyboard Warriors and their Sympathizers can continue wasting their time with threats and blackmails, it can't work. All the Securiy agencies will never relent and all the Criminals and killers across the country will be defeated Soonest by GOD's Grace.GOD Bless Nigeria.

Here's your #HardFacts Let's talk about the month of April. What was the biggest story of April 2020? In Lagos State, the lockdown was in full swing. Abba Kyari's funeral also made the news. #NigeriainfoHF | @SEzekwesili

Here is the second part of my episode with Chris Ogunmodede. We continued the discussion on Nigeria’s political economy. We touched on institutional memory in the legislature and why we need a stronger civil society. Chris is insightful as always.You can rate us here. If you want to support our efforts in bringing you the thoughts of brilliant thinkers through these conversations, you can be a patron here. TRANSCRIPTTL: This is Ideas Untrapped and my guest today is Chris Olaoluwa Ogunmodede. He's a foreign policy analyst, a writer, editor and political risk consultant. His work centres on political institutions and foreign policy of African countries, particularly in the West African region, and he has extensive experience working across Africa, Europe, and the United States. He's an editor at the Republic, a Pan-African global affairs publication. You're welcome, Chris. It's a pleasure to have you here. CO: It's a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me on your podcast. I'm glad to be here. TL: One detour, quickly, that I want to take listening to your answer, is the role of ideas in all of this and messaging from the top or the centre, so to speak. President Buhari has a bit of a perceptive reputation, I would say, as inflexible. Inflexible, he is set in his ways, he has his idea. I mean, we just talked about the cabinet, I remember I think it was his first and probably the only media chat that he had where he said permanent secretaries are the ones running the government. CO: Yes. I remember.TL: We don't need ministers. And exchange rate was so and so in 1983, how come it is so and so in 2016. So what is the role of ideas in how the transmission mechanism of governance really really works? So, if the man at the centre, if the leader, if the visionary, so to speak, have some of these funny, archaic ideas about things, is there really any hope for governance? So that's one. Secondly, which is one other thing you touched on in your answer, you talked about how PDP was found, the experience with succession and governance. And I'm leaning a lot on Carl LeVan here. Talking about how the post-colonial governance, especially after the civil war, has always worked in Nigeria by different veto power structures, exacting influences, pushing each other. But in that same process, I see someone like president Buhari, even right from his days in the military and even afterwards, as a bit of an outsider to that process.So he does not come with all the governing credentials, so to speak or should I say experience. So how much do these two things - ideas and experience in actual governance and the influence with the governing structure behind power, how much do these two things influence the way the APC evolved as a ruling party?CO: Yeah, I think a lot. As you pointed out, this is a president who you could charitably call incurious about a lot of things, and he relies on a very small circle of advisers, the cabal as it were. You know, that's the sort of colloquial description for his advisors. Many of them share his views on economics, on security, on practically everything that's important. This is also not a...president Buhari is not particularly gregarious, he is not particularly outgoing, he's something of a loner, he's a quite austere person. You contrast him with former president Obasanjo, for example, who couldn't be any more different even though they were both military heads of state. President Obasanjo is something of an intellectual. He's written so many books. I mean he ran for UN Secretary-General at one point. He's someone who you will find on panels all over the [place], even to this day. Like, this is a person who has a worldview, he sees himself as an African intellectual statesman and has behaved that way. Not even just today, as far back as when we left the armed forces when he handed over in '79. This is someone who has engaged himself in African affairs, in particular. He's been a peacekeeping envoy to this person, to that person. You know, whether it's Charles Taylor, whether it's in Togo, this is someone who is often dispatching himself to be at the centre of [things], especially things that have to do with Africa. He's someone who relies on a number of young [people]. One thing people don't know and just in the interest of disclosure, he's someone I know somewhat well, you know. President Obasanjo is someone who relies on a lot of scholars, academics, thinktanks. You know, he has a presidential library now. He's long had a Foundation, you know, these are things he uses to project not just his influence, but his willingness to learn so much about the world. When he was president, he was the kind of person who if you went to see him about something about a policy issue and you felt it's something that was worthy of his attention and he got the sense that you knew so much about [it], he was ready to offer you a job right there, that he would say to you things like OK, why don't you come and take this position and that.President Buhari is not like that and this is where intellectual curiosity as a leader is consequential. But like I said, President Obasanjo had all of his flaws and you know, there isn't enough time to go through all of them, but he had that ability to one: spot ideas or at least listen to ideas if he'd never heard of them before. He was even willing to be pushed on his idea. You know, when you read The Accidental Public Servant by elRufai where he talks about his time working for OBJ, you get the sense that that's the kind of [relationship]. It was a somewhat combative relationship, but it was one of begrudging respect because he felt elRufai was someone worth listening to, he understood so much about governance, about public policy, public administration and all of that. So that's the kind of person president of Obasanjo was. Whereas with President Buhari, it's only his inner circle and well, everyone, get lost. That lack of curiosity shows. That's why their policy responses in the administration on every issue is quite predictable. You can spot from a mile away what the administration would do on any issue. It's either to band this thing or to regulate that thing. Or, you know, they're a hammer that sees nails everywhere, the administration. And that's because that's the tone that's set from the top. The ministers and other members of the cabinet don't have a close relationship with him, they don't have any real influence. They certainly don't have any power, and that's by design. These were people who in some ways were foisted upon him and he just had to accept them. You know, like you pointed out, he said something about how ministers don't really the government and Perm Secs are. He only picked ministers, frankly, because he had to. He was more than happy to, you know, roll with the people he was rolling with. So the Ministers he selected are essentially part of the spoil system to him. Now broadly, that's Democratic politics as a rule, but you know, like you pointed out that there's a constellation of forces as far as governance is concerned, but with him, none of that is there. And because like I mentioned, APC as a party consist of several different moving parts with very little in common, the internal mechanisms of the party are not that strong, and it became very evident with all of the parallel congresses and fighting factions. At one point, the party chairman was fighting with the governors and they eventually got him removed (I'm referring to Oshiomole). They got him removed. There is so much reliance on the personality of President Buhari. So when he set the tone, everyone simply just falls in line with it. Now, of course, that generally tends to happen in many democratic systems. In many democratic systems, especially ones with weak political parties, that's what tends to happen. Where the President or Prime Minister, depending on the system, becomes like a sort of patrimonial figure where what he says is essentially an edict. You know, I would say APC is a weak party by virtue of the fact that they have no real means of resolving internal disputes without making them turn into something else, and it had to require the intervention of Buhari to resolve the issue with Oshiomole and the NEC and the governors and all of this stuff. So, apart from the fact that many of the governors and other elite in APC already agree with him on several policy issues, those who don't [agree] have no incentive but to fall in line. Now, you contrast with PDP where especially under Yar'adua who was basically an old-style Marxist, for all intents and purposes, you know. The fact that he was that type of person succeeding a president who I would regard as a neoliberal president, Obasanjo, tells you the kind of diversity of thoughts inside PDP. People always say oh, there's no ideology in Nigerian politics. There is nothing that differentiates [the parties], that's actually not true. There are ideological differences. Clear ones, actually. PDP has something of a sort of free markets, at least it used to anyway, a free-market orientation towards, certainly, economic matters. Had the privatisations, the deregulations of the Obasanjo years, and then the Jonathan years. Whereas with APC, they are much more of a Social Democratic/Democratic Socialist Party. You know, at least the people who formed the core of APC when they did. The Bisi Akande and all these other people. These are old-style union, you know, student's union, teacher's union types, farmer and labour groups. Those are the elements that became, at least in Southwest APC those are the elements that became the elites in the party. And you know, many of them came from the ACN and before that AC, and before that Alliance for Democracy, and then before that, whether it was SDP or Action Group cause some of these guys are that old. Somebody like Bisi Akande has been in politics since the days of Action Group under Awolowo. That's the genesis of their political worldview, so there are clear differences between the parties. What I think people are referring to is the fact that parties are weak. So like I said, internal democracy is nonexistent, party discipline is nonexistent. So it means that the party is as strong as a couple of dominant figures who can come in and exert their will. For example, in a party primary, you can come in and essentially buy the nomination under some circumstances ignoring what the rest of the party might want. Governors are known to exert so much influence on parties, especially in the states. Because there is very little that binds the parties together, in political science they refer to it as party system institutionalization. That means the parties aren't really regarded as legitimate across society. They are not wedded to the society. Yes, people vote for them, they exist and they're registered and all but, for one thing, the low turn out in the election tells you that the overwhelming majority of voters do not regard them as legitimate. So at the end of the day, because they are the only ones who participate and can exert their will because internal party dynamics are so weak, it now makes it easy to move from party to party. One minute you're in PDP. One minute you're in APC. One minute you're in Labour Party. One minute you're in APGA. So people conflict the fact that the parties are so weak that people can come and go with the fact that there is no governing ideology. There are clear differences when it comes to ideology. It's just because the parties are so weak, any dominant figure can just come and impose his will on the party, and everybody goes [along]. For example, Wike is basically the leader of [the] opposition in PDP and it's something I talked about a few weeks ago on Twitter after the Edo election. Wike has basically been PDP's leader since 2015. Because the national party is so weak and redolent, at this point, Wike is the most dominant of all the PDP governors. He governs a wealthy state, at least relative to the rest of the country. He's basically the leader of the opposition in real terms. Yes, you know, they have a PDP chairman and all these other stuff. But, Wike is the most dominant PDP figure in Nigeria and that is because he has been able to exert himself on the party.Normally [a] political party should be expressions of several different things. A uniting ideology that brings different factions because, you know, there'll always be people with different views and things like that, while you want a broader governing philosophy. For example in the US, the democratic party are regarded as the centre-left, the republicans are regarded as right. In Nigeria, those labels don't quite work as well because, well, first of all, what is left in Nigeria and what is right? And like I said, the parties are so weak that anyone can be one thing today and the next thing he's another tomorrow. It's not that there is no prevailing ideology, it's just that the parties are largely the aggregation of one dominant figure's interest or several dominant figures' interest, so it's very easy to come in and stamp your authority and get your way. So all of this is why governance, as it were, under the Buhari administration has mostly been predictable, and one-way traffic. Back when Abba Kyari was still alive, people always used to say he was secretly the president, I don't think that was necessarily what was true. What was true was that President Buhari had a set of ideas and Abba Kyari was the enforcer, and that is literally the role of the Chief of Staff. In the US, that is literally what the chief of staff does. Chief of staff is basically the President's number one protector. That's all he is concerned with. There have been lots of books written about White House chief of staff and one thing you will come to understand about that role is that the person thinks from one point of view only: the president. He doesn't think about the Vice President. He doesn't even think about the cabinet, he doesn't even think about himself or, at least, shouldn't. You think about what president wants and you defending it to a T. That's basically what Abba Kyari is. Of course, because Abba Kyari and President Buhari were ideologically soulmates, all of their prescriptions matched and President Buhari trusted him, respected him so much and he was a very hard working man, so it was very easy for people to say, oh, Abba Kyari is the one pulling the strings. Now, he was a very powerful person, no question about that. I'm not trying to dispute that at all. What I'm saying is that it wasn't nearly as sinister as people thought. Here was a situation where he had been given a lot of free reign to govern by his principal and that's what it is. So that is what governance under Buhari had been like, at least, as far as [the] federal government. President set the tone at the top and Abba Kyari then, and now ambassador Gambari effects what the president wants and that's it. There's no sense of internal meeting. There really isn't one because there's no balance of power of that kind. In certain governments, you get those kinds of situations where one person feels like oh, this is my view, that person has his view. Obasanjo used to encourage that kind of interaction, even Jonathan too to a certain extent used to, but with President Buhari, if disagreements emerge they're largely spontaneous, largely because people will always have their own agendas, their own interests, but a lot of it is largely going on with the president's total oblivion towards them.TL: I might actually have to update my priors on ideology in the Nigerian political system because my partner always tells me PDP is capitalist and I remember my consternation on the show when Akin Oyebode actually said APC is centre-left. I was like, Woah! But interesting point of view raised there. Briefly, let's talk about president Obasanjo.A lot of people still consider him the best president we've ever had...CO: I would generally agree with that. You know, all things considered.TL: One thing and the people who know him and different accounts about his time in government will tell you that he's very hands-on, he knows what's going on, there is never really [any] confusion about who's in charge, even though he's open to ideas and dissent and gives the people that he trusts a lot of latitude to be creative with policy. But there's something important that I want to raise and that is the issue of power vacuum. I mean, you just talked about Kyari. There's this perception that in the current administration there's some kind of power vacuum. And that perception is fed by how much time it usually takes the presidency to react to some issues of national crisis. I remember when the Covid-19 outbreak first reached Nigeria, people both on social media and the traditional media were, for weeks, calling for the president to come out and speak. And we can say the same for a lot of other things, including EndSARS. There are people who still think today that the signal about the reforms, because now, one of the government's defence is like oh, we were responsive. You guys said you wanted this...to dissolve SARS blah blah blah... But some people are of the view and which I agree that if the dissolution of SARS had been a presidential order or pronouncement, then, it could have calmed a lot of nerves, especially among the protesters. So let's talk about the issue of power vacuum - is it real? Is it not? And how much did president Obasanjo's legacy matter here particularly in the area of succession? Because a lot of people still see the handing over to Yar'Adua, some say maybe rather sinisterly, that it was his last act of revenge for not getting a third term. But we know that president Yar'Adua, for all his good intentions and his good heart, was not really a man of good health.CO: Yes.TL: And we had this period where transition, even handling over, constitutionally, to the vice-president became problematic because of the cabal, so to speak. There was some sort of vacuum. So how much does president Obasanjo's legacy matter here in the presidential tradition that have, sort of, been in play since the end of his administration?CO: That's actually a very useful question because I believe that it's quite under-discussed, and here's why I said that. President Obasanjo is the first civilian democratic president for the first republic, right? He comes in with this wealth of experience - he's been a military head of state. Obviously, he's a career military officer. He was a commander in the civil war and all of this stuff. He was on the Supreme Military Council as number two to Muritala Muhammad and all this stuff. So, here's a person who comes into government and civilian democratic politics practically with a very good sense of what he wants to do.And, of course, he brings his own personal traits and all of these stuff into governance and politics. He's a very towering, some might say, overbearing figure and he exerted a lot of hard power. You know, Obasanjo, frankly, with an authoritarian. If we are going to be frank. And because, like I said, he's the first one of the fourth public. So he has framed for Nigerians what a president should be like. Because don't forget before him, the last president we had was in 1983. So many Nigerians before Obasanjo don't have any recollection of what a civilian president is like. So in real terms, Obasanjo is the first civilian president for millions of Nigerians ever. Ever. TL: True.CO: Because many of them weren't born. And like you pointed out, many people regard him as the best leader, broadly, postindependence that Nigeria has had. The things he did on the economy and all of this other stuff. Along that came with, frankly, a lot of political baggage. You know, we don't talk enough about how many of the problems that befell PDP were things that he put in place, were problems he started to create. Whether it was handpicking candidates for PDP, whether it's muscling out PDP chairmen who disagree with him, whether it's instigating issues with governors that eventually lead to their impeachment. You know, a lot of this aggrandising behaviour started with Obasanjo. So a lot of what we've come to understand as far as the mythology of the Nigerian president is of him. That colours everything we’ve now come to understand about the way a president should be like. So the president must always be seen. He must always speak. He must always this. He must always that. So that is why if you remember during the Jonathan years and people always said oh, he was weak, he was indecisive and people were running roughshod over him and this and that, that's because he chose to be hands-off. There's no right or wrong way to administer government. The devil is always in the details of the decisions you make or don't make. So in that sense people always looked at Jonathan through the prisms of Obasanjo and to a large extent, people continue to look at Buhari through the prisms of Obasanjo. Forgetting, one: times are different, times have changed. Buhari and Jonathan are different people. There's never been this sense of allowing the institution to grow. You know it's not the Nigerian Presidency, it's the Nigerian President if that makes sense. In the US they talk about the modern American Presidency. It's this grandiose king-like office. In fact, there's a book by a guy called Arthur Schlesinger called the Imperial Presidency talking about how the American Presidency is essentially a king, and how the president, in real terms, is beyond the authority of Congress and the constitution and all of this stuff. You know, if you think the American President is an imperial one, I would argue the same is true about the Nigerian president. Even more so because in the Nigerian Constitution the structure of the distribution of power favours the Nigerian president even more so than the contextual equivalent in the US where what has happened is that the American President has assumed a lot of powers for himself... Oh, well, yes, "him" because there's only been male presidents. The American President has assumed a lot of powers for himself and when and they have gone to the courts, the courts have sided with the executive branch. You know, the American Presidency, at least as far as the Constitution goes, is quite a weak one. The enumerated powers of the American president are quite specific, and they're quite minimal, but political developments over the last century, in particular, have granted the American president so many powers where at this point, especially on matters of national security and foreign policy, the president can frankly do whatever the hell he wants and everything else will be after the fact. I would say in Nigeria, the enumerated powers of the President are even much more pronounced and the political powers that the President has assumed more so. So that colours how people view the Nigerian presidency and then when you look at the fact that the National Assembly has so much turnover, I think the eighth National Assembly had a turnover rate of I believe, I may not be exact here, about 66 percent. That means 66 percent of the members of the eighth National Assembly did not come back. That's a terrible development if you care about the separation of powers. The institutional memory of the National Assembly is lost, basically. Not when you have two-thirds of the class gone, and then the president stays. But two-thirds, including by the way the senate president. Let's not forget, the senate president was among those who departed. That is a loss of not just institutional memory of governance, but also the understanding of inter-government relations. And then the fact that you have to bring up all these new people up to speed on how governance works and how to be a good legislator. One of the most important lessons I learned as a young student was during an internship on Capitol Hill. I spent some time in the constituency office of a US Senator and one of the most valuable lessons I learned was how much time US Senators put into learning the procedural rules of the Senate. And how much powers they have institutionally, collectively and individually. That's how much power does one senator have, whether you're in the majority or minority? But especially when you're in the majority where you can actually get things done. How much power does his caucus or her caucus? And then, what are the powers of the Senate? Some senators spend a whole year learning this stuff because it's so important. It literally affects everything they do from the passing of the budget, the reconciliation process, parliamentary rules as far as presiding in the Senate. Back then when they still used to have what they call earmarks, which are basically senators reserving certain pet projects for their constituency. There's a million and one thing Senators have to learn, basically, when they take office. So there are a hundred US senators. Imagine 66 of them are gone and a new set... now granted all hundred seats aren't up at the same time but imagine such a scenario where 66 go and another 66 have to come back. That gives the advantage to the executive branch. That's exactly what we have in Nigeria where two-thirds of every senate, every National Assembly class is gone and the new ones have to come and start learning how government works. Meanwhile, the president has been there the whole time. If you care about authoritarianism, that's something you should want to fix. A lot of political science literature talks about the fact that legislatures need a period of 20 years post-transition - that's this period when they are coming out of authoritarian rule, whether it's a military dictatorship or something like that. But you know, legislatures need about 20 years to become really strong and capable enough to enforce the principle of separation. It gets harder to do that when two-thirds of your class is gone every time. And these are the things that I think much of the commentariat don't discuss enough. Like you know, we talk so much about restructuring, things like that, I've always made a point that personally, I think the National Assembly needs more former governors are not fewer. And this is a very controversial point because we all talk about how governors turned the senate to a retirement home, blah blah, blah. But there is actually a good sense of how former governors, having done a lot of the hard work of negotiating, understanding how especially public finance works, how to allocate certain benefits towards your constituency, how parliamentary rule work, Governors tend to know these things very well. Governors tend to also understand the informal side of legislative politics. You know, agenda-setting and all of that. How to build alliances in the Senate, how to work across party lines, Governors tend to know how to do that stuff very well because they've done it when they were Governors. Whereas with people who aren't Governors, they haven't been executives, they haven't had to deal with budgets and things like that, it's quite a learning curve. And these are some of the reasons why the Nigerian Presidency remains as outsized relative to the National Assembly, even though it's not supposed to be that way. You know, the National Assembly, one of its powers is oversight over the executive branch, over the presidency. But in real terms, especially in this current dispensation, that's why people talk about it as a rubber stamp, because in real terms the political power is an unequal one. All of the power has been situated in Aso Villa and the National Assembly simply just rubber stamps. They go with the flow of the Villa. It's not supposed to be that way. And all of these developments largely stem from the Obasanjo years where Obasanjo was meddling constantly in the National Assembly's business. If you remember, there were five different Senate Presidents when Obasanjo was president. Five.TL: Yeah. CO: I mean I remember...EnweremTL: 2 or 3 speakers.CO: Exactly, exactly. Okadigbo, Wabara...TL: Ken Nnamani.CO: Ken Nnamani, that's it. So, you know, those years were very tumultuous and those were very crucial years. Because like I said, that's the first democratic dispensation of Fourth Republic. So the groundwork that was laid back then is one that continues to still affect the Nigerian political dispensation, obviously, over time there was a bit more stability. David Mark was Senate president for eight years and all of that stuff. Some stability came over time, yes, but it didn't change the fact that...and this is how institutions work, going back to what we discussed, you know it's not a straight line. The signs of decline of institutional quality are often very apparent long time ago but you know, sometimes they move forward, they receded again, they move forward and they recede even further, you know, life doesn't move in a straight line. And that's essentially the point we have gotten to right now where, because of a number of and, these are mostly political development. They are not strictly constitutional ones. They're largely structural and political... Because of the things Obasanjo did, so much has come to be normalized. Now if you remember when the National Assembly had all those fights about who would be principal officers during that interregnum where APC won the election, but we're waiting to be sworn in? If you remember President Buhari said something about oh, he didn't want to get involved in their matter and he wanted them to sort this out themselves and many, at least, much of the commenting class found that to be strange, that's an example of what I'm referring to. Because we were so used to, in the Obasanjo years, him meddling in the National Assembly's business, the idea that a president would not want to get involved in the selection of the National Assembly's business, seems so strange. So these are some of the changes over time that if people, especially in civil society say they want to see as far as good governance, better governance, these are some of the issues we need to address. It can't always be about the presidency, the presidency, the presidency. To me, restructuring has got to be about all of these ideas. What kinds of powers, authority do you want the National Assembly to have? What kind of authority do you want state governors to have? What should the relationship between state governor's and the House of Assembly be? Do you want them to continue to be appendages of the governor? Or do you actually want them to be functional? These are the kind of iterative conversations that we don't have enough of and if you want a proper restructuring, whatever restructuring means to you as a Nigerian, these are some of the things you need to consider. TL: Those are very interesting thoughts, Chris. My final question, so to speak, on Nigeria, our beloved country, is that here we are. A lot of young people, they came out about an issue they are passionate about, they largely conducted themselves peacefully, they spoke their hearts, they expected their government to hear them and they are not asking for too much. But here we are. It has ended exactly the way Nigeria handles things. Lots of violence. Lots of denial. No one is really taking responsibility or leadership.CO: YesTL: What is the way forward? A lot of people are talking about elections. Yeah, we just have to vote these people out, is it really as simple as electing the right people? Is it restructuring? What exactly does that mean? You know a lot of the conversations we have about restructuring is about constitutional reforms, rewriting the constitution and big conferences and some of this processes that makes consensus very, very difficult to get to, you know? Are there quick gains right now that you think can be delivered to Nigerians? I mean, there's a lot to suggest that a lot of progress can be made even in the immediate. The judicial panel in Lagos is a good example. Today, I was reading the news that they made an unannounced visit to the military hospital to examine bodies, they had pathologists trying to test the system and hold it accountable within the powers that you have as a state government. Those are examples of quick gains, so why are we not doing these things? Why are we not testing the system and examine the fault lines, so to speak? Also, there's the issue of apathy. A lot of people say parties win elections in Nigeria by largely relying on their political base. You have state elections where you barely get 200 thousand total votes. So a lot of people don't vote, mostly young people. So is voter apathy part of the problem? And if they come out and vote for their preferred candidate, how are they sure that their preferred candidates are going to be on the ballot to begin with? You know, so many other issues. The issue of money in politics is also an example. So many research as pointed you need a billion naira to become a senator in Nigeria, 3 billion to become a governor and you have young people who want to go into politics and try to change the system, are they not disempowered by default with the way we have designed the system? So, so many questions, but what is the way forward in the long term, in the medium term and the short term?CO: Those are very important question because right now, at least as of this moment, the large scale demonstrations have practically ended, at least in Nigeria, you know, there's still lots of marches abroad and things like that, but in Nigeria, at least in the big cities anyway, the large scale marching to this place and that place is over. But there is a bit of uncertainty about what's next. Now, as you mentioned, there's been a lot of oh, 2023 and PVC, youth party...I did a bit of a thread last week talking exactly about this that, first of all, we have agreed that EndSARS, one of the subtexts of it is that the status quo is not working, how we're going to have to reconfigure the way we go about civic engagement, right? OK, so when we look at the last inflexion point in Nigerian politics, I would say it was the end of the military regime when Abacha died and the transition. What was the, at least in my view anyway, what was the mistake that was made? They were several but one of the key ones was that many of the activists, you know, whether they were NADECO, campaign for democracy or whatever else, everybody ran to politics. Not literally everybody, but much of the muscle behind all of those campaigns, whether it was Bola Tinubu, Bisi Akande, everybody ran to electoral politics, let me be specific. They ran into electoral politics. That's not a problem in and of itself, but in building institutions, you don't put all your eggs in one basket. Imagine a scenario where people like Gani Fawehinmi, for example, built up legal aid organizations, built up the judiciary, public defenders, their mandates and prestige was strengthened. Civil society organizations across a variety of policy issues were built up. Professional associations were built up. Religious organizations took on more of a civically responsible role as opposed to what they're doing right now, which in my view is not any of that. So the point I'm making is that imagine if there were a much larger constellation of forces, of social forces in the political space, as opposed to political parties and electoral politics alone? what would likely have happened is that the political class would have been forced to compete better.Simply because, for example, you come up with one policy idea or the National Assembly takes one bill up for consideration, there's civil society push especially if it's a really unpopular one. There is civil society pushback, you know, professional organizations like the NBA and all of that stuff. Writers groups, creative groups, trade unions and the likes, everybody came up in arms, expressing their opposition, their collective civic opposition to certain things. That would have spelled, for one thing, the ability of countervailing forces in the political system to make their own voices heard. But because all of the muscle from the democracy campaigns, everybody ran to politics. Some people didn't. People like Alao Aka, Bashorun and the likes, they didn't go into politics. But a large number of the activists from the 1990s they went to politics, including, of course, Gani himself.So that made electoral politics the, you know, crown jewel of civic participation. So when I start to see all this stuff about PVC and [2023], it just seems to me like a repetition of all of that. Like, I've seen so much oh, FemCo should be turned to a structure. FemCo should be turned to a party. Oh, FK should run for office and I'm thinking to myself, is that the only way that any of these people or these organisations have to make [a] change in Nigeria? If you are telling me that's the only way, then we're in bigger trouble than I thought. Because as far as I know, there are people who are still locked up in prisons across the country with no one to get them out. There are schools that are still crumbling. You know, there are a variety of policy issues across the board that we could address now. Those problems will not wait for 2023.TL: Sorry to interrupt you, Chris. This is such an important but underrated point you're making. I mean, it's such an important one I can't possibly amplify enough. During this whole protest and all, I pointed out to a couple of friends about the decline of civil society. I don't know how that came about, but you talking about everybody going to electoral politics now seems to be connecting the dots. Look at SARS, for example, and this menace. Someone Like Chief Gani, God rest his soul, by now would have buried SARS in an avalanche of lawsuits.CO: A long time ago. A long time ago. Are you telling me people like Gani, Alao Aka, Bashorun who took on the armed forces could not deal with a problem like SARS if given the institutional environment to work with? Please. TL: Exactly, I mean, one of the empowering precedences, even for state judicial panels today, and I've seen a couple of lawyers cite this to me on social media is Fawehinmi Vs Babangida in 2003. Someone did that. Someone took the initiative to do that. So like you, I'm also quite worried about this narrative of we all have to go into politics as if there are no other instrumentalities of the society...CO: It honestly confuses me when I hear it. Everyone has been saying, oh, Feminist Coalition should run for...and when I say this, it's an agnostic position I'm taking that, they may be good political leaders, they may not, I don't know but what I am pushing back against is the inherency of the fact that because they have demonstrated such brilliance in political organizing in one area of civil society, that it's necessarily going to translate to political office, I don't think that's necessarily true. And it's worth interrogating because when you say you want to vote for somebody, you should ask yourself why is it that you want that person as opposed to however number of other candidates. There ought to be something you're voting for. How do you know that because somebody was a good organizer in a social movement or a protest movement, they would necessarily make a good policymaker or a political leader? You ought to ask yourself those questions and when you don't, you are simply repeating the mistakes we made in 1998/99. Where, frankly, a lot of people who shouldn't have been in politics got into politics and, well, you know, here we are.TL: That's a brilliant point. Needs to be said over and over and over again. I mean, I even tell people that ordinary protest they are bringing thugs...CO: Exactly. [Laughs]TL: Imagine what they would do to win an election? You know? So, I know I sort of derailed your answer, but, I mean...CO: No, not at all. I think, no, it's very much part of the point in that we cannot simply think voting the "right people", I think it's very connected. First of all, what is the right people? You've got to ask that foundational question. Who are the right people? What ideas are you looking for? And even if you get the right people, the educated class in Nigeria likes to bang on about institution and I've explained, sort of, why I find that to be counterproductive. You know, you talk about institutions well, what kind of institutions are you going to build if you think all it takes is that you get in the right people? Well, people change. You know, I did a tweet two days ago talking about how Alpha Condé, the Guinean president. So here's this guy who spent four decades in opposition, right? He gets sentenced to death in absentia by Sékou Touré. He's actually jailed by Lansana Conté, the successor of Sékou Touré. So he's basically suffered a whole lot as an activist. Here's this guy now as president, slaughtering people just because he wants the third time. TL: We can say the same of Ouattara.CO: Exactly. Exactly. This is literally Africa story all over, across the board of people who spend years in opposition, fighting this person, that person, docking bullets, running abroad, you know, living in exile, only for them to get into power and do at the very least exact same thing. If not worse. So to me, all these ah, yes, get the right people...there is no way, if you want the right people, they've got to be backed up by the right set of institutions, the right norms and countervailing forces that ... you see, politics fundamentally is about creating rival power structures. That's why, for example, the principle of separation of powers exists, so that one arm of the government doesn't become too powerful.Even in the electoral realm, it ought to exist. That's why, for example, there are wings in a party, right? So in one party, there might be left-wing, there might be [a] moderate wing, there might be right-wing. You know, you need countervailing forces to keep each other honest. To constantly make you compete, not to get drunk on power. But when you say, oh, get in the right people, but you don't create that environment, they are not going to be the "right people". It's just not going to happen because power is a corrupting influence. If you put in the "right people", first of all, what do you know they're going to do in office? Who are they going to rely on as advisers? What do they intend to achieve in 100 days? Six months? A year, and then four years? What is it that they consider to be their priorities? What do they understand governance to be? You know these are the sets of questions that when you start to ask will give you a sense of the kind of environment you want to design for this so-called "right people" to go in there. Because when you start asking certain questions you recognize they cannot do it alone. They cannot read alone because governance is a collective effort.But when you simply leave it at oh, the right people, you know, because, ah, during EndSARS, he was an organiser or she was an organiser, yes, and that...that doesn't necessarily mean they know anything about governance. It doesn't. And I feel it's still early days, we're still mostly reeling from that horrible killings. You know, this stuff is iterative and old habits die hard, right? So I get that for the most part, people are going to fall back on what they know. But at the same time, we should be willing to challenge even the things we consider to be settled knowledge. And one of those things that I really think we have to challenge is this idea that electoral politics and running for office is the only way to make [a] change. When you get to a situation where even people, celebrities, now think the next game in town is to run for office, I'm not saying it's a good or a bad thing, but ultimately it's for you as the voter to determine if you want such people representing you. Because you liked an album they put out 10 years ago does not mean you want them representing you in the State House of Assembly or the National Assembly, or someplace like that. And I feel like too much...TL: Just look at Desmond Elliot.LaughsCO: Exactly. I mean, yesterday, Twitter Nigeria gave this guy hell. They give him hell, and deservedly so. I mean, look at how much of a fool of himself he made. And, unfortunately, he's already in there and he's going to be there until 2023. So not unless you can recall him or something, you are going to have to live with, at least his constituents anyway will have to live with the fact that this guy doesn't know what he's doing. And those are the kinds of lessons we ought to start learning now. Start to tackle people in office now. Start to think about who you want representing you now. Start to familiarise with your local representatives now. Start to sensitise your neighbours, your association members, your church or mosque members now. There are a million and one things you can do now that don't have to wait till 2023. The problems that exist today will not wait for 2023, so why should you? TL: Those are powerful, powerful insights, Chris. But finally, before I let you go, regarding Nigeria, and this is sort of a tradition on the show, what is the one idea that you would like to spread? That you'll like to see people adopt? An idea that you'll like to see rise in status, so to speak?CO: It's very simple. We've got to develop a culture of critique. I think what we need in Nigeria is foundational ideas and notions that are at the heart of everything we do, everything we believe, and everything we desire as Nigerians because they will inevitably seep into politics and that's a culture of critique. One of the good things I've taken away from this EndSARS protest is that the young people have zero respect for any appeals to authority. They don't care if you went to Harvard, you're a perm sec or you're a general, they don't even care if you are the president, as a matter of fact. You have to make sense. And for me, that's what I find so instructive about that phrase "sorosoke". It's not just a little phrase saying "speak up", they're also telling you to make sense. It's not just about speaking up, you have to make sense. What you are saying must tally with what the average person understands intuitively. So you know, I say this because for so much of our past, especially older generations like ours, and we have simply given to authority blindly. Whatever they say, shut up, shut up and you sit down. Especially for we Yoruba people, there's a saying in Yoruba "won ki n sope agblagba n paro" you don't say an elder is lying. We've got to change things like that, I'm sorry.Those kinds of beliefs are fundamentally incompatible with a knowledge-seeking society. This idea that someone's ideas are untouchable because of their status or their age, we've got to get rid of things like that, you know. And this extends across society. We've got to be able to critique, and I said this because so you've seen all these videos of these Lagos State House of Assembly members saying, oh, they're on drugs, blah blah blah. Well, one of the reasons every one of them is reacting this way is they're simply not used to being challenged. It's as simple as that. They are not used to so-called children on Twitter calling them out, saying things about them. And don't forget that what is on Twitter is no longer even within the domain of Nigeria alone. This is stuff all over the world. So it's being fed back to them, and they can't control it. That is why everyone is up in arms and saying oh, all these social media people are doing this and that. Because these people cannot deal with the fact that people they don't even regard as anything useful are pushing back at them, challenging them.They do not see people on Twitter as a constituency of voters. They see them as children. These kinds of ideas have got to go. It does not matter whether you are the president or whether you are a pauper, you should be able to have your ideas challenged. You know, I didn't go to University in Nigeria, in fact, I didn't go beyond JSS 3, so, one thing I've heard from so many people is how in Nigerian universities you can't challenge your lecturer, you can't say this and that. That's absolute nonsense. Why can't you challenge your lecturer? Why can't you critique the ideas of somebody who claims to be teaching? That's the entire essence of pedagogy, of classroom education. That you bring up ideas, of course with reason, not every single idea deserves to be debated in my view, but for the most part, most topics within a scholastic framework can be debated. So this idea that oh, if your lecturer says something, or that if you don't answer a test question the way your lecturer wants it to be answered they mark you down. These are things I've heard so many times and I have no reason to doubt. I'm sure they're true. These things sound absolutely insane to me, and it stems from this culture of suppressing the ingenuity of young people. You know, people are not allowed to challenge ideas. You say something, then, shut up! What do you know? Do you know who you're talking to? He's is the professor. He's a minister. Who cares? Who cares? Like, we have got to be able to critique ideas and a lot of our political cultures, a lot of our social interactions, a lot of our economic interactions stem from the fact that whenever there is perceived to be a power imbalance, the person on the lower totem of the power pole has got to remain there and shut up. That's not how societies progress. Ideas have got to be challenged. They've got to be critiqued and they've got to be revised sometimes. And it doesn't matter who is saying what. You know it's not always black and white to be sure. It's not always a case of right versus wrong, but that's all the more reason why ideas contested. We do not contest ideas in Nigeria collectively, we don't. Like, Daddy G.O said, the governor said, Prof. said. Who cares? You've got to be able to challenge ideas. Yeah, so if I had one thing to pick, it would be that. We need to develop a culture of critique of everybody around us, including ourselves. Even you, you should be open to critique and others should be open to critique from you. Yeah. TL: Thank you so much, Chris Ogunmodede, it's been fantastic talking to you. CO: Likewise, it's been absolutely a pleasure. Thank you so much for hosting me. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.ideasuntrapped.com/subscribe

A discussion with @phoenix_agenda about the recent death of Abba Kyari, the former Chief of Staff to President Buhari. We also briefly discussed the threat by Governor Elrufai's son to gang-rape a Twitter user's mother.

A review of the week's news. Focussing on the fawning media coverage of Abba Kyari as well as an analysis of the Covid-19 response and the recent IMF loan offer to Nigeria. The discussion was between @nigeriasbest and @phoenix_agenda

- Let's talk about Boss Mustapha apologising for Abba Kyari's funeral; so many Government officials violated social distancing -Then let's talk about some private hospitals in Lagos closing down because their staff were exposed to COVID-19. - And then, let's talk about people in parts of Lagos taking up arms to resist the one million boys gang. #HardFacts | Sandra Ezekwesili

This episode talks about a prominent man who died of Covid-19, the episode talks about his early life and education, his career, personal life and his real age before his death. Its a interesting Talkz that you will enjoy. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wahabtalkz/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/wahabtalkz/support

In this episode I talk about the lockdown so far. Bigotry, Abba Kyari, Slim Case's IG live, falling in love during quarantine and lots more... --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/galmaunscripted/message

-Let's about new confirmed cases here in Lagos state; Local Government by local government. - Then let's talk about the death and burial of Abba Kyari; lots of talk about that especially with government officials there and no social distancing. - And then, let's talk about the new found kitchen the Lagos State Government in setting up; is there one in your area yet? Join the BIG THREE stories for today on #HARDFACTS with Sandra Ezekwesili (@SEzekwesili)