In a viral video said to have been recorded on the eighth-day Fidau prayers for the repose of his mother who died recently, Fuji musician, King Wasiu Ayinde Marshall (KWAM 1) could be heard lamenting to an unidentified man in the street slang common in Lagos,

“Ilé bàbá mí ni Fìdíp??t??, àw?n àlfà, w?n l? b?; ibí ni gbogbo w?n wa se kínni? Ni w?n wa ga’nu sí.” A rough translation: ‘Rather than go to my father’s house in Fidipote, the clerics have shamelessly congregated in my house with their mouths wide open to scavenge.’ Stripped of all pretensions, the musician believed the clerics were more interested in the freebies they would get from him than performing their real function (in this case, offering prayers.)

It may have been unintended but there is a way in which the video—trending heavily among Yoruba people who consider ‘atenuje’ a serious malady—is a social commentary on the situation in Nigeria. Because, in so many ways, what officialdom now encourages in our country is ‘ganu si’ with the impediments they erect against entrepreneurship in favour of bubble jobs, at all levels of government.

Just a few days after announcing the appointment of 130 special assistants on his X (formerly Twitter) handle, the Chairman of Obio-Akpor local government area of Rivers State, Chijioke Ihunwo, added another list of 100 special assistants, bringing the total to 230. They are to “help me achieve my plans for my people. Their appointment takes immediate effect,” he said in a post that attracted critical comments on how our economy has been reduced to wasting scarce resources. But Ihunwo is not alone in what has become a fad. Before him, a councillor, Yahaya Yusuf, representing Bajoga East local government of Gombe State, had appointed a principal private secretary (PPS), 12 special assistants and five personal assistants. The situation is worse in the states.

When in April 2020, then Governor Benjamin Ayade of Cross River State approved the appointment of 427 additional aides to join more than a thousand special assistants who were already on his payroll. He provided justification for the decision. “The governor has said repeatedly that he only needs about five per cent of his appointees” explained his spokesman, Christian Ita at the time. “So, he deliberately creates these jobs to put food on the table to reduce social tension.” Ayade, we must remember also explained how he was generating revenue through “the use of intellect to make up for naira and kobo” because, according to him, “Intellectual currency is stronger than paper currency and so where there is a deficiency of funds, the intellect takes over.”

Ordinarily, the primary role of government is to create an enabling environment and provide incentives for the private sector so that small, medium and large businesses can thrive. And in the process, generate employment opportunities for the people. But what we have in Nigeria today are agencies of government manned by officials who believe their brief is to kill entrepreneurship, perhaps because job creation has been reduced to the appointment of idle special assistants for whom life begins and ends with merely “putting food on the table.” That is what happens when ‘Ganu si’ ethos defines government as is the case in Nigeria today.

For posting about her restaurant on Instagram “without the vetting and approval certificate of the Advertising Standards Panel”, a friend received a letter from the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON) asking her to “pay within 7 (seven) days of the receipt of this notice, the violation fee of N1,000,000 (one million Naira only) per violation/infraction in accordance with Article 148 (b)” of their law. She was then warned that any such ‘promotion’ must be submitted to some oga-at-the-top in ARCON before publishing. Why should ‘call this place to order food’ on social media require the vetting and approval of a government agency? And then wait for this: Same week, a third party she doesn’t have any relationship with posted about the eatery on Tik Tok and she received another one million Naira fine from ARCON! That can only happen in a ‘Ganu si’ economy where officials behave like scavengers.

I understand that ARCON has a 2022 Act which allows it to classify any published item as promotional, requiring prior approval. The law even grants ARCON the power to establish a kangaroo tribunal for the purpose of sending culprits to jail in a manner that is no different from what the fictional Chief Eleyinmi of Oja in the popular ‘Village Headmaster’ sitcom of old used to do with his famous refrain, “Just bring him to my court.” This law makes ARCON the complainant, prosecutor and judge in this so-called tribunal. Besides, since “deemed promotion” is for ARCON to decide, anything can be classified as promotional. So, if I write a column in THISDAY on ‘Amala Place’ in Abuja where I enjoy the delicacies, I must first take it to some fat cats at ARCON for editing before publication otherwise the food sellers would be deemed to have committed an offence! This is a ridiculous and dangerous law that limits enterprise. Some of the sweeping provisions are even in conflict with the 1999 constitution. To compound the problem, the law also says you cannot even sue ARCON unless you send them a letter first on pre-action suit!

With such omnibus powers, it is no surprise that ARCON has shifted its attention to influencers, bloggers, comedians, skit makers, agencies and brand owners who publish or broadcast anything promotional not submitted for the agency’s approval. “What we are saying is that there is a line and space called advertising. If you cross that line and move your skit or comedy into the advertising space as defined by law, then you are moving into a regulated space, and your activities in that space will be regulated,” ARCON Director General, Olalekan Fadolapo warned recently. But there is also a pushback. “If you look at this new law that we are trying to fight, it covers everything, including logos, trademarks and all. What the court said in the NBC (National Broadcasting Commission) case is that you cannot be jury and executioner, that you cannot be regulator and executioner at once,” the Advertisers Association of Nigeria (ADVAN) president, Osamede Uwubanmwen, said in response to ARCON activities. “But you won’t expect ARCON to learn from the NBC. They will not do that. The NBC now will be very cautious about fining anybody, because they have lost the first case and have lost the appeal. I don’t know if they will go to the Supreme Court.”

I am aware that we have numerous useless laws passed by the National Assembly but my main concern about ARCON is the danger their officials pose to our economy. Though the agency is not alone in that respect. At a period when we need to address the unemployment crisis, the main obsession of government is revenue generation. Nobody cares that by putting in place measures that discourage job creation we are invariably promoting ‘ganu si’ citizenry and no nation develops with such disposition. Meanwhile, it is not only small-scale businesses that suffer from this myopic thinking—even big businesses that employ thousands of workers no longer enjoy any protection as we can see from the example of Dangote Refinery.

Between October 2024 and end of January 2025, according to reports at the weekend, the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and a number of oil marketers spent over N5.5 trillion to import petrol and diesel. Whatever may be the excuses (and so many are being invented) it is only in a ‘ganu si’ economy that the government would be expending humongous amounts of money to import commodities that are available locally. Continued reliance on imports of petroleum products at a period in-country refining capacity can meet domestic need, especially in the age of Donald Trump, is what the Yoruba people would call ‘Akotileta’. It depicts someone who, lacking the wisdom to sustain inherited family treasures, decides to sell them off for a pittance that would then be frittered away. Meanwhile, the bottom-line in the hoopla of recent weeks, following President Trump’s tariff measures, is that every country is trying to protect their workers. Unfortunately, our economic managers fail to appreciate what is going on.

After attending the THISDAY/ARISE anniversary ceremony in Lagos last week Monday, I decided to visit Dangote Refinery for the first time the next day. Having called Alhaji Aliko Dangote about my plan, he detailed Jeremiah Danladi Jiya, Group Head, Credit Risk who also heads his refinery site office, to give me a tour of their facilities. It’s like a city within a city as we spent several hours moving from one section to another. Statistical details about the refinery are mind-boggling. Altogether, the refinery has 177 tanks with a total capacity of 4.742 billion litres. For instance, it has storage capacity for nine million barrels of crude, over 600 million liters of Gasoline, 340 million litres of Diesel and Kerosine and 400 million litres of JET A1. The refinery pipeline infrastructure is also the largest anywhere in the world, with 1,100 kilometers to handle three billion standard cubic foot of gas per day. The refinery’s 435-megawatt power plant exceeds the total power requirement of Ibadan Distribution Company (Disco). There are already research papers as to how the petrochemical processing steps have been able to exploit the adjacent Lekki Lagoon with “a sequential batch reactor and diverse filtration technologies” for treatment of a volume of water that can conveniently supply the whole of Victoria Island.

Before the tour I had the opportunity to interact with Dangote regarding the refinery and the attitude of critical stakeholders in the sector. He shared several insights with me, including on the issue of pricing. “I have read some of the propaganda they are doing. Crude is internationally priced so it’s easy to understand the pricing template for petroleum products. But they also have a choice. It’s either they want Nigeria to be a productive economy that puts people to work, or they want to us to be a dumping ground” said Dangote who added that the forces against the refinery have the same mindset with those who killed the textile industry in Nigeria. “Our tanks are filled because the cartel of marketers and those who manage the sector have refused to patronize us. I am aware of their plan to cripple the refinery. But they should be prepared for a big fight.”

In my column last July, (Dangote’s Big Bet on Gasoline – THISDAYLIVE), I highlighted most of the contentious issues. But there should really be no need for a fight if the primary responsibility of critical stakeholders in the sector is to advance the public good. Even if there are differences, no responsible government should work towards the failure of a $20 billion project that adds considerable value to the economy. As they do in other countries, we must always encourage those who invest in production, and in the process create direct and indirect jobs for hundreds of thousands of our people. That is even more imperative in a nation like ours with a young population that is not productively engaged.

The sheer magnitude of the Dangote Refinery and the expected trickle-down effect in terms of employment opportunities, the forex that would be saved and general contributions to the economy cannot be downplayed. The same can be said of the small business owners who are daily being harassed by ARCON at a period we need to support them. While these businesses represent 96 per cent of entrepreneurship in the country and contribute 75 per cent of national employment, according to the Small and Medium Enterprises Development of Nigeria (SMEDAN), they face several challenges. In fact, doing any kind of business in Nigeria today is not for the fainthearted. You must provide your own utilities (electricity and water), pay all manner of charges to different agencies and at the end, what you get is harassment from government officials.

Societies cannot grow meaningfully without translating individual energy, talent, and skills into assets that shape the future. That explains why countries that harness knowledge and skills to produce goods and services that attract top valuation continuously do better than those with scant regard for economic value creation. Nigerian government officials must therefore understand that putting people to productive use is the hallmark of creative and purposeful leadership and the fulcrum of social balance.

On 22nd October 1925, Mohandas Gandhi published in his weekly newspaper, ‘Young India’ what he described as ‘Seven Social Sins’. It is quite instructive that the first on the list of those ‘social sins’ he admonishes us to avoid is wealth without work, which in KWAM1Speak means a predisposition to ‘ganu si’. Sadly, that precisely is what government (at all levels) is encouraging in Nigeria by creating jobs that would “put food on the table” rather than help advance entrepreneurship that will take many citizens off the streets and add value to the economy. Yet even a fuji musician is smart enough to understand that a society cannot advance when you encourage ‘Ganu-Si’ ethos!

To Kayode Fayemi, Amandla!

One of the tragedies of public service in Nigeria is that many of the operatives do not have a second address or another daytime job beyond politics. That perhaps explains why elections are for most of them a do-or-die affair. But there are also professionals for whom being in government is a tour of duty, essentially to serve the public good. And once their assignment is done, they go back to their primary vocation. One such person is the former Governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi who will, today in Abuja, launch his ‘Amandla Policy and Leadership Initiative’ and latest book, ‘If This Giant Must Rise’—a collection of recent interventions on leadership and governance in Africa.

Spanning 216 pages and divided into nine chapters, the book is a collection of papers and lectures written and delivered since Fayemi left the governor’s office in October 2022. While the issues discussed are national and international, the book is arranged in thematic order rather than by the period of their first presentations. “Together, they tell a story that tries to see through and beyond what is immediately in front of us,” Fayemi wrote in the preface to the book he says, “offers both a reflection on my time in office as well as a glimpse of what to expect from me in the years ahead.”

The long foreword by Wale Adebanwi, Presidential Penn Compact Professor of African Studies, University of Pennsylvania, United States, sets the tone for the book. “For the publicly engaged scholar or public intellectual, engagement with power is not only a necessity; it is an ethical obligation,” Adebanwi wrote while arguing on why people like Fayemi are needed in government. “Even direct entry into partisan politics against the backdrop of this ethical obligation makes politics a vocation and not a vacation for the scholar.”

Borrowing from his varied experiences and exposure as a public intellectual who had opportunities to serve in both his state as governor and at the federal level as a minister, Fayemi’s fascinating collection reminds us of the challenges of building a society that works for the people and how each of us has a role to play in that regard. “As the continent grapples with the vicissitudes of the changing dynamics, it is imperative that we build the capacity and develop the policy tools that will turn Africa’s potential to prosperity,” Fayemi wrote while explaining the rationale for establishing the Amandla Policy Institute being launched today. “That is the task before us, and it is one that I’m determined to contribute to.”

•You can follow Segun Adeniyi on his X (formerly Twitter) handle, @Olusegunverdict and onwww.olusegunadeniyi.com