Tolu Ogunlesi

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Diezani Alison-Madueke: What’s The Noise All About? | By: Tolu Ogunlesi

“DAM,” as she’s known on social media, symbolises, more than anyone else, the impunity of the Jonathan era. Within her first year as the petroleum minister (2010 – 2011), the number of dealers licensed to import petrol rose dramatically (from fewer than 40 to 140), and Nigeria’s fuel subsidy import bill surged four-fold.
Diezani – she’s one of those famous people more memorably known by their first names than their surnames – did not face even the slightest censure from the man who had appointed her. Instead, after public protests greeted an attempt to completely remove petrol subsidies, and the government capitulated and restored some of the subsidy, she shamelessly pursued the moral high ground and proceeded to set up a number of committees to investigate the subsidy scheme, ending up sitting in judgement over a situation she was widely deemed primarily responsible for.
The missing $20 billion saga
Less than two years later, the Central Bank governor Lamido Sanusi raised an alarm about the $20 billion in oil receipts that he claimed the national oil company was unable to account for. Neither the oil company, nor the minister-in-charge Diezani, bothered to credibly allege the allegations. In her final interview as a minister, in April 2015, she insisted that “at no time in Nigerian history in the oil and gas [industry] has the [Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)] been as open and audited as it is today,” and described herself as the victim of “malicious, malevolent [and] vindictive” attacks from the vested interests whose “big toes” her “unprecedented reforms” had hurt.
Since she left the office, the new government has said that its investigations have revealed that, between 2012 and 2015, more than $19 billion – a figure nearly identical to Mr. Sanusi’s figure – in oil earnings could not be accounted for.
In 2014 she faced a probe from the Parliament over allegations she had spent millions of dollars in public funds on hiring private jets for personal use. She went to court to get an injunction halting the probe. In all of this, President Jonathan stood behind her. In arguably the most egregious instance, in a televised interview on May 4, 2014, he spent several minutes defending her, accusing the National Assembly of harassing her with endless summons, and dismissing the allegations of impropriety against her.
Privileges only “DAM” enjoyed
She was only one minister amidst more than forty, but by all estimation was a first among equals, reputed to have even more clout than Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the designated “coordinating minister of the economy” (a role that was early on half-jokingly likened to a prime ministerial position). (Considering that oil accounts for 70% of government revenues, and more than 80% of foreign exchange, it is easy to understand the power that the NNPC and oil minister wield relative to all other government bodies).
Like all powerful public servants, stories swirled around her: of her disregarding presidential directives, strolling in and out of cabinet meetings at will. In public, she maintained a perpetually unruffled, even haughty, mien, and projected the air of one who didn’t deem it necessary to give account of her actions to anyone. None of the many controversies her name was linked to appeared to shake her in any way – until the very end, when it became clear that Mr. Jonathan’s electoral loss would leave her exposed.
Even her July 2011 re-nomination as the oil minister was attended by controversy, regarding the date of her graduation from Howard University, where she studied for an undergraduate degree in architecture. In the resume she submitted to the Nigerian Senate for confirmation in July 2011, she reportedly claimed to have graduated in 1987, aged 27. Contacted for clarification by Nigerian journalists, the university refuted this, pointing out that according to its records she graduated in 1992. She survived that storm.
“All Nigerian ministers are equal, but some Nigerian ministers are more equal than others”
While she was untouchable, no one who worked for or reported to her enjoyed a similar privilege. In her first four years as the petroleum minister, she went through three directors of the Department for Petroleum Resources (the industry regulator), and four group managing directors of the NNPC.
Even among Jonathan’s staunchest defenders, it appeared there were those who struggled to understand why Diezani was, more than anyone else, untouchable. There were those who would have wanted the president to sacrifice her, but somehow, no one was able to convince him. It is likely that his re-election chances would have been much stronger had he made a show of sacrificing her, as proof of his commitment to an anti-corruption agenda.
It is this untouchability, this appearance of being above-the-law that explains the social media “schaDAMfreude” that has trailed the news of her arrest in London, on October 2. Having come to represent the face of Jonathan-era excess, there are many Nigerians who think it would be farcical to consider drawing a line on the recent past without getting Diezani to answer for her time tending to the goose that lays Nigeria’s golden eggs.
Five facts:
— Her name means, in her local dialect (Izon), “Look before you leap”. According to her, in a 2008 interview, it was “put together from scratch” by her father.
— She has an undergraduate degree in architecture from Howard University (USA, 1992), and a master’s in business administration (MBA) from Cambridge University (UK, 2003).
— She is Nigeria’s longest-serving minister, serving from July 2007 to May 29, 2011, and July 2011 to May 29, 2015 – a total of eight years.
— She was the first female executive director in Shell’s Nigeria office, the first female appointed to head Nigeria’s transportation, mines and steel development, and petroleum ministries, the first woman to represent any country at the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and the first woman elected to the OPEC presidency (2014)/
— Her husband, Allison Madueke, a retired rear admiral, and one-time chief of naval staff, whom she married in 1999, served as military governor of Anambra when General Buhari was head of state between January 1984 and August 1985.
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Opinion: The Morning After March 28 | By: Tolu Ogunlesi

March 28. On this day in history, Flavius Valens became, in 364 AD, co-emperor of the Roman Empire, and the British Parliament passed; in 1979, a single-vote of no confidence on the government of James Callaghan, paving the way for the elections that ushered in the Age of Margaret Thatcher.
On this day in 2015, Nigerians went to the polls to elect a President. The morning of the next day, in the incumbent President’s home in Otueke, a sleepy community in the creeks of the Niger Delta, near where oil was first discovered in Nigeria in 1956, the alarm goes off, but the President is already awake.
He’s been up since the earliest-rising fishermen set off on the oil-slicked waters in search of the day’s catch. Next to him the First Lady is still fast asleep.
Today the President will know whether his return to the capital, Abuja, will be a triumphant entry, or something mournful and subdued, similar to the way his predecessor returned in the early hours of February 23, 2010.
Deep down in him he knows he won’t be too pained, at least not as much as his wife, and his kinsmen. He’s had an unbelievably fortunate run, going from a mid-level civil servant to President of the richest and most populous black nation on earth in a little over a decade.
Six hundred and fifty kilometres to the north, in Kaduna, the presidential challenger is keeping vigil. Behind his oval-frame glasses his eyes are devoid of sleep, as they were during the party’s presidential primary in Lagos last December.

He sits on a couch in his modestly-furnished living room, surrounded by friends and well-wishers who all address him as Mr. President. Even the littlest children, when they awaken, will run rings around him squealing ‘Sai-Bwawee’.

In that same Kaduna, the Vice-Presidential alarm goes off. The Architect-turned-politician reaches out to silence it. He’s reluctant to rise to meet the beckoning day. He’s never won an election in his ward, and today might not be different.
People say the former President, the farmer who has ruled Nigeria twice, also had a habit of not winning elections in his ward. Hardly comforting, if you asked the Vice President. 
There’s no basis for comparison, considering that one man’s mild embarrassment is another’s obituary. The Vice President has often thought of relocating his ward to a part of town where victory is likelier.
In the Kaduna State Government House, the incumbent Governor is up early. He summons his secretary to bring the iPad, and to open his challenger’s Twitter account. His challenger is a Social Media Overlord (SMO), with close to half a million followers on Twitter, a man who more than makes up for what he lacks in verticality and horizontality with a penchant for ruffling every feather in sight.
The Governor wants to see what the Ruffler has been saying on Twitter. Nothing, it turns out. The last time he tweeted was nine hours ago. The Governor doesn’t know whether to be worried or not. Is the Ruffler’s silence a good or bad sign? He doesn’t know.

This is the first real election both of them will be contesting – the Governor came to this office by way of succeeding his deceased boss; the Ruffler, until now, had shown little interest in elective office, and seemed destined to live
out his life as a technocrat and troublemaker.

In Lagos, the Vice Presidential candidate of the opposition is at his desk, the silence of dawn broken by diesel generators that ought to belong to hellfire, considering the amount of heat they generate. 
His head is bowed in prayer, his arms resting on an open Devotional Bible. In a few hours it will be time for church, and he will be preaching of the goodness of God. For as long as he can he will try to keep his mind away from the ballots. It’s not by power nor by might, saith the Lord.
Back in Abuja – deserted by politicians, who have all gone to their towns and villages to fight do-or-die political battles – the Chairman of the Electoral Commission is going into his second or third sleep-free night.
Yesterday’s elections, and the ones holding on April 11, will be the last set of elections he’ll be conducting before his term of office expires in June. They will permanently define his legacy. He knew, when taking this job, in 2010, that it would mostly be a thankless task. 
But he had no idea just how difficult it would be; how intimidating the temptation to throw in the towel would be. In one sense you’re just like the president, at the mercy of your advisers and subordinates, and expected to make all-wise and all-knowing decisions based on limited information you have no way of verifying.
Far away in Abeokuta, there’s a young man who’s still in bed. All he can think of is this: that were it not for the elections, this would be his first full day as a married man.
 Sometime at the end of December, his family met with his fiancée’s family, and settled for the 28th of March as ‘the day the Lord has made.’ They would have chosen February 14, Valentine’s Day, but it was not an option because presidential elections had already been fixed for that day.
 Someone had suggested that they leave out the whole of February, because of the elections. And so they had chosen March 28. And printed invitation cards. The cards had caused a fight between him and his fiancée, because he felt they had spent more money on it than they could afford.
And then the postponement happened, somewhat out of the blues. He still remembers that night, February 7, when the Electoral Commission chairman confirmed the postponement, and announced the new dates: March 28, April 11. 
He remembers wondering if he heard the new dates correctly. He will never forget the way something inside him seemed to drop to the bottom of his stomach.
He remembers the incoming call from his fiancée, and failing to answer it. The days that followed were a blur, family meetings to reschedule the date, frequent and random outbursts of crying from his wife-to-be. 
Now they’ve postponed the wedding till June, because no one is sure what even May might look like. So he has another three months to live as a Bachelor – all because of an unserious country and its politics.
Across the country much of the predicted violence has yet failed to materialise. But it’s still too early to rejoice, considering what happened when the results of the last presidential elections emerged. 
Unlike that election — with its 10 million vote gap between the winner and the runner-up — this one promises an alarmingly narrow margin; perhaps the first presidential election in Nigeria’s history that an incumbent will be going into without a solid assurance of victory.
In the last one week everyone and their grandmother has published projections, throwing up the idea of ‘Buhari’s States’, ‘Jonathan’s States’, and ‘Battleground States’. There are the ones that bear the indelible mark of consensus – everyone knows the 12 northernmost states will be taken by Buhari, and that all the southeastern states and all the Niger delta states will be taken by Jonathan.
 No one is sure of Adamawa and Gombe and Niger; where they will swing, and by what margins. Or whether Ekiti will go the way of Osun, or Ondo?
By evening today we will have a clear view of where Nigeria is headed, for the next four years. All eyes will be on Kaduna. And not just for the battle between the Governor and the Ruffler.
 In the violence that followed the 2011 presidential elections, close to a thousand persons were killed. More than eight hundred of those people died in Kaduna State; eighty percent of that number in southern Kaduna.
It will be a tense Sunday; the most tense of the fifty-two this year, no doubt. Where will the victory parties break out? And where will the machetes and Kalashnikovs show their unforgiving faces; their unstoppable resolve to sow sorrow, tears and blood?

Credit: Premiumtimesng.com
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Entertainment

Ayeni Adekunle, Tolu Ogunlesi, Linda Ikeji, Toolz, 6 others make Y!Naija's Most Powerful People in Media list

From the sweet, talented and beautiful OAPs to the hardworking and widely-acclaimed journalists and writers, here’s YNaija list of 10 Most Powerful People in Media under the age of 40. These are people who have not only made their own space in their fields but have and are still inspiring others to succeed.
Alex Okosi
Okosi is the Senior Vice President and Managing Director, Viacom International Media Networks Africa. As an executive, he made his mark by bringing by bringing the urban-music themed MTV Base music channel to Africa back in 2005. It was perfect timing; African music was at the cusp of a renaissance and the presence of MTV Base on the TV screens led to an explosion of quality visuals and great video content from artists. Okosi was selected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and his influence in entertainment circles is undeniable. Only recently, Nigerian radio OAPs were nominated for honours at the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards and they probably have Mr Okosi to thank for it.
 
Ayeni Adekunle
Ayeni The Great started his career as a journalist working for the likes of Enconium and Vanguard but has evolved to become one of the most important media men this side of the Atlantic. His Black House Media group has worked with a range of important clients from Nigerian Idol and Nigerian Breweries to superstars D’banj and Ice Prince and he publishes Nigeria’s biggest entertainment website The NETng as well its weekly newspaper equivalent. In 2013, he convened the Nigerian entertainment conference that attracted the movers and shakers of the entertainment industry and business world, sparking dialogue and creating networking links.
 
Gbemi Olateru-Olagbegi
No one has a presence on radio quite like Gbemi. Sweet, sassy and slighty tart, she has been working on the radio for over eight years and has quietly built a formidable fan base and listenership that has followed her from her days at Cool FM to her present gig at Beat FM where she hosts the Drive Time Show in the evening. A graduate of Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, Gbemi has also risen through the ranks to become head of programming at Beat FM’s sister station Naija FM. She is currently working on her upcoming television show.
 
Linda Ikeji
Everybody visits Linda Ikeji’s all powerful blog. It’s futile trying to deny, the Alexa rankings state otherwise. The blog has become the one stop shop for gossip, heart to heart dialogue, the occasional political commentary and yes, breaking news. Even the federal government is not unaware of the power of her platform, tipping her as one of the media partners for its centenary celebrations. She may do battle with a celebrity or two, but even they would agree that the publicity she offers is pretty much unparalleled. She generates millions in advertising but still manages to retain that girl next door persona.
 
Maupe Ogun
The television presenter and co-host of Channels television’s must-watch breakfast magazine Sunrise daily may be the only woman in the room most of the time, but she has managed to come across as one of the smartest. And articulate. And fearless. Always compulsively watchable, with her probing and unflinching questions, many an unprepared guest have been known to shrivel under her piercing gaze. Educated at the University of Lagos and the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK, Ogun participated in president Obama’s town hall meeting with young Africans.
 
Mfonobong Nsehe
Nsehe’s prolific work with Forbes magazine Africa and Ventures Africa has resulted in the eventual recognition of previously under the radar Folashade Alakija as one of the richest people on the planet. As a staff writer with Forbes Africa, Nsehe’s brief is to profile Africa’s success stories and chronicle the lives of its rich and famous. Shunning the hype and the gloss, the Akwa Ibom-born journalist and blogger goes in to uncover the real picture.
 
Tolu Ogunlesi
Tolu is a two-time winner of the CNN/Multichoice African journalist of the Year, most recently in 2013 when he won in the Economic and Business category for his reporting on Eko Atlantic City. Ogunlesi once worked as a features editor for the defunct NEXT newspapers and his writing has appeared in various international media like The Huffington Post, CNN, UK Guardian and The Economist. He runs a weekly column on The Punch, Nigeria’s most widely read newspaper.
 
 
Toolz
Tolu ‘Toolz’ Oniru may get plenty of notice for her stunning physique but she has proved there is more to her than meets the eye. Bodacious, beautiful and brainy, she has parlayed her OAP duties on Beat FM into a position of power, being able to fast track or stall careers with her choice of playlist. Her other gig on the Guaranty Trust Bank sponsored Ndani TV is about to commence its second season and the accolades pouring in for that stint thanks to the probing-yet-breezy comradarie she exudes while interviewing her guests. Those skills translate from the radio to the small screen and her performance on the debut season of the X-factor Nigeria is sure to net her next year’s deal. Is there anything that Toolz cannot fix?
 
Toyosi Ogunseye
Ogunseye became one of the youngest editors of a major newspaper when she was promoted to editor of the Sunday Punch. She may be tasked with preparing the weekly but she still finds time to churn out powerful features like her three-part piece on the impact of gases released by a steel company on an upscale estate in Lagos state which won her a second CNN/Multichoice African journalist of the Year trophy, this time in the Environment category.
 
Uche Pedro
The now married founder of BellaNaija, the most popular lifestyle/entertainment website in the country has overseen the growth of BellaNaija from a single girl’s blog to mentions by Oprah Winfrey, CNN and a permanent home on internet web traffic assessor Alexa’s top 40 listings. Quiet, unassuming and loath to step out in public glare, Uche Pedro wields a lot of power as her site has been known to dictate the latest fashion trends, attract advertising mega bucks and corner the market on wedding photography.
Credit: Ynaija.com
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