On the surface, it’s unlikely that I would be penning this particular article. But I am; and happy doing it. Clearly, I am not one known for flattery; that genre just doesn’t fit my frame! Nor am I a prophet of doom. I only seek to experience a good nation; a nation that works for all of us: the weak, the strong, the poor, the deep pockets; all of us. In taking up this task of contributing to the discourse of our nation, I hope that we will negotiate this sharp and dangerous bend fast because as the eye can see, there is no proverbial light at the end of the tunnel as it does not even appear as if the tunnel has an end.
In a land that is famished by poor, insensitive, corrupt and inept leadership, you literally will need to crack your brain to find silver lining in today’s governance at any level. In an era of carpeting poverty, government officials live large on tax payers’ money and show off unashamedly. One is muffled by the brazenness of Nigeria’s thieving politicians and their collaborators. The corrupt in Nigeria have so perfected their trade beyond human comprehension. They do it even to the envy of officials of financial and economic crime fighting agencies! Which, to a great extent, explains why far fewer of the corrupt stand trial, and much less get convicted.
And services provided by government agencies to the people who struggle to pay the taxes that politicians loot are either not rendered or poorly done. So, when you see someone in government trying to do something close to what he or she is paid to do, you literally jump in celebration. It is that bad.
In the midst of this dark cloud, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, the minister of interior, seems to be redefining governance. From the day he was sworn in precisely on 27th August 2023, he promised Nigerians that things would not be business as usual in the ministry under him. Addressing heads of agencies under his ministry alongside their senior officials, he charged them to live up to a mantra of positive change, to work hard and produce results.
It is not that Nigerians had not heard such talk before with disastrous results accompanying. But this 41 year-old guy seems to be serious and different at the same time. He appears to be cut from a different cloth. For starters, he said he was setting a tall order of having the Nigerian Immigration Service to issue international passports within two weeks or so. First was to have the backlog of unissued passports cleared.
He made the immigration officials, who typically approach their work with lethargy, to sit on hot seats working day and night to get the passports cleared. He then proceeded to promise that the automation of passport applications would be accomplished this year. Just this week (three months into the job) he has reported that the work has already attained 99 per cent completion. This means that before the end of this year, applicants would be able to sit in the comfort of their homes and apply for international passports without having to go to immigration offices to do so. They will only have to go there for fingerprint biometrics capture. “We gave a date – December 2023. We are 99 percent done. In fact, we have done the testing and we should be going live in the next one week or thereabouts”, he said. Additionally, the immigration service is increasing the number of service points abroad to cater for the increasing number of Nigerians running away from the hardship at home.
He then has proceeded to announce that by next year, Nigerians applying for passports would have this important identification document delivered to their homes by mail. In Nigeria, that’s unheard of, practically impossible. But the mere thought of it is sweet to the ears; only if you know what Nigerians go through to get international passports! Early this year, a female colleague, who wanted to be spared the hassle of having to go to immigration services herself to apply for the document, was alarmed that a trusted source had fleeced her beyond measure to get her passport.
Tunji-Ojo’s reformist mind is not limited to trying to get the green passport delivered to our doorsteps in record time. He is moving to the devil-be-damned correctional centres, better known as prisons, to clean the place. Our prisons are anything but correctional centres. The change in name from prison to correctional centre has been only cosmetic. Successive governments have continued to neglect our prisons for decades. And this is unsurprising because they know that they would hardly go there since they own the executive and the judiciary and can procure justice for a penny, that is if they ever get tried in the first place.
Personally, I had hoped that the government of Olusegun Obasanjo was going to carry out remarkable reformation of our prison services, if not the entire justice system in that this was a man who suffered injustice and was imprisoned for years and would have been history if not for Providence. Had General Sani Abacha, his ‘jailer’, not expired, Obasanjo would almost certainly have died in prison (if in doubt, ask Shehu Musa Yar’Adua)! That picture of a visibly emaciated, even gaunt Obasanjo coming out of prison and meeting Chief Emeka Anyaoku, then Secretary General of the Commonwealth, made world news and is still etched in our memories. So my expectations for fundamental prisons reforms during Obasanjo’s eight year reign were not unfounded. I should have known better!
The state of our prisons speaks volumes about how we regard human beings. It is a damning index of our human rights record. But it now appears that the youthful minister of interior has the magic wand. Without the usual pump and noise, the minister silently raised ~N500M from government, private institutions and individuals to ensure convicted inmates with options of fines below N1M each are set free. That creative move has fetched freedom for 4,068 inmates out of the decrepit system. That’s a huge relief for the entire system because for over four decades of overcrowded prisons, neglect is its second nature. Correctional cells built for less than 50,000 inmates have more than doubled that number; and some of the prisons were built in the colonial era! For instance, the March 2019 edition of the Lagos State Criminal Information System revealed that though the five prisons in Lagos State have a combined holding capacity of 4,087, they were holding 9,044! Ditto for other prisons. Which can help us properly dimension and appreciate the creative ways the minister is trying to solve the problem. “I do not believe that a Nigerian should spend an hour in custody due to poverty. There are people, whose fine is as low as N4,000”, the minister quipped.
Nigerian prisons are among the worst and most dangerous in the world. It is so badly affected that many inmates stay there and commit crimes; some even prefer living there to leaving the four walls of the prison. Jail breaks happen easily; the most famous and shameful one being that of Kuje prison in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, where suspected insurgents in their hundreds escaped to continue in their rain of terror on the country. The neatly coordinated operation of 5th July 2022 by Islamic militants led to the freeing of 879 prisoners, even though nearly half of them were recaptured in the days following. But that it even happened in the first place was a national embarrassment. And like many other happenings under his watch, the then President was surprised. The minister needs to do more for the prisons and the prisoners.
Tunji-Ojo does not need to be garlanded just yet; which is not to say he should not be encouraged to do more. He needs to fix the easy infiltration of our country by illegal foreigners. To say that our borders are porous is an understatement. Millions from neighboring countries literally stroll into the country illegally and pitch their tents in Nigeria. Many of them are those causing the country sleepless nights through insurgencies and religious extremism. If the minister can fix the problem of illegal migration into the country, he will be a folk hero in Nigeria.
Even what he did not promise, Tunji-Ojo is beginning to deliver! Here is one: “by February (2024), all our international airports will have e-gates. Once you are a Nigerian coming to Nigeria, you have no business seeing an immigration officer except if you are a person of interest”. It means this man has his thinking cap on all of the time. And I can imagine some immigration officials cursing him under their breath! The man is gradually taking aware age long opportunities for palm-greasing. Though unintended, he is teaching us one thing that the easiest way to fight corruption in Nigeria is to automate many services. Once human interface is reduced, so goes the opportunity to be corrupt or corrupted.
Tunji-Ojo comes with zest and energy to his office. His record appears to have set him up for leadership. At secondary school, he was elected senior prefect in 1998. In 1999 when this so-called democracy started he gained admission to study electrical and electronics engineering at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. In 2002, while in his third year, he proceeded to the London Metropolitan University to read electronics and communication engineering and graduated in 2005. He obtained his master’s degree in digital communication and networking from same university the following year. Which explains why he is in love with automation of many services in his ministry.
In 2018, he delved into politics and got elected in 2019 to represent the people of Akoko East/Akoko North West federal constituency of Ondo State from 2019-2022. Upon his election, he quickly mobilized 246 other members of the House of Representatives to support Femi Gbajabiamila, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s chief of staff, as speaker of the House. Which explains why, as a legislative tiro, he became the Chairman of the “lucrative” House Committee on NDDC. He was re-elected February 26 this year to the House of Representatives, and became the Director General of the campaign team for the incumbent speaker of the House. Few weeks into his second term, he was appointed minister and was sworn in August 21, 2022. He seems to know where is bread is being well buttered.
Regardless, the minister is raking in huge successes in just three months on the saddle even when most of his colleagues are still struggling to find their feet in their ministries.
We may need to pay closer attention to this young man, and help him succeed. Nigeria needs many Tunji-Ojos everywhere so we can fix a badly broken system.
Esiere is a former journalist
