By Suyi Ayodele
The appointment of Hannatu Musawa as Minister of Art, Culture and Creative Economy by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the latest impunity and I-don-care-attitude any leader can display. Musawa has been in the eye of the storm in the last one week or so, when the news broke that the young minister is still a serving member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), observing the mandatory one-year service to Nigeria as prescribed by the constitution and the NYSC Act. Since the news flew to town that the ‘Honourable’ minister still has some four months to go for her to complete the mandatory one-year NYSC scheme, there has been a lot of arguments as to the appropriateness or otherwise of her appointment by President Tinubu. The beauty of the whole ugly situation is that Musawa has affirmed that she is indeed a serving corps member somewhere in Abuja. According to the information in the public place as released by the management of the scheme, the minister was mobilised in 2001 for the programme and was deployed to Akwa Ibom State. After the three-week orientation programme, Musawa sought redeployment to Kaduna State and on arriving in Kaduna, absconded. She only resurfaced in 2023 to complete the scheme she abandoned unofficially and was graciously posted to Abuja. And while still on the programme, our new husband, who promised to appoint technocrats to manage every aspect of our lives, could not find any other competent hand than the serving corps member to be appointed as a minister.
I am looking for my old secondary school Government teacher, Mr. Abayomi Olugbenga Oduntan. He taught me some government principles back then in form four that he needs to clarify now. My late father had absolute trust in two people – the Anglican Reverend in our All Saints’ Anglican Church, Oke Bola, Ikole Ekiti, and anyone who answered the name, teacher. I grew up to believe also in those twopersonages. This probably was why I could not doubt some of the things Mr. Oduntan taught me in those formative days. But now I am old enough to ask questions and I have one to ask my old teacher. While on the topic: “Sources of Constitution”, Mr. Oduntan said that apart from Acts of Parliament, conventions, customs, and traditions, military decrees, and opinions of statesmen; one major factor through which a constitution can be derived is “pronouncements by courts otherwise called judicial precedents”. He went ahead to say that pronouncements by courts, especially the Supreme Court, formed an integral part of the Nigerian constitution. The Ijebu man from Ikorodu, Lagos State, added that the Supreme Court, being the highest court of Nigeria after the abolition of the Privy Council of the colonial era, its judgements are as good as the law, final and cannot be discarded. In essence, my old teacher gave us the orientation at that tender age that whatever the Supreme Court says is final and cannot be changed. I would like him to answer, in the face of our current situation, if he still believes in what he taught us then and if indeed, the pronouncements of our Supreme Court are final and sacrosanct!
Before the coming of the current locusts in power and their predecessors in 2015, Nigeria was stratified into three distinct groups of the super-rich, the super-poor, and the not-too-fantastic-middle class. After the eight years of the ruinous regime of General Muhammadu Buhari, everything about the middle-class was removed, the super-rich class elevated to a higher height, and the super-poor taken deeper into the pit of deprivation, want and untold agony. No society is created equally. That is why social scientists devised the idea of social stratifications to differentiate among the various groups and standings using the parameters of wealth, income, family background, education, and power or influence. Notable among these social scientists are Karl Max and Max Weber. Even in the seemingly egalitarian society of this world, dichotomies still exist among the various segmen
