The Nation Newspaper

Category: Friday

  • Goodbye, boondoggling president

    You couldn’t help but sympathise with Goodluck Ebele Jonathan; you also couldn’t help but be very angry with him some times. Especially if you have a little knowledge about human psychology; and more especially, in those moments when he was put on the spotlight on national television; or during one of such encounters with hawkish foreign interviewers. One would watch him with much trepidation, with heart stuck in one’s mouth and emotions flitting between empathy and anger.

    Such is the nature of Nigeria’s fourth elected president, Jonathan, who leaves office today. History may blandly record him as a weak president but that would be erroneous. He is simply a man providence raised far above his ken. He is a simplex (some would say simpleton). His simple mind just could not circumscribe the eminence of the presidency. He was for all the time in office, a boondoggling president, a smiling Simon quick to roll over with every punch.

    Meek and of a gentle heart, he seemed to lack any guiles or on the other hand, he lacked the wiles to beguile. On few occasions when he tried, the outcome was as child-like as children playing hide-and-seek in a bare sitting room. Recall the attempt to undermine INEC Chairman Prof. Attahiru Jega during the run-up to the last election. A president or any leader at that sitting in a position where the stakes are high must be everything rolled into one – both angel and Lucifer.

    The presidency stumped Jonathan real good and he had operated, it appeared, from under the scaffolding of the office for nearly six years. The big picture completely eluded him. There are dozens of examples to prove this.

    First, if we ignore all the hoopla and shenanigans of the Boko Haram insurgency, how do we explain the Chibok girls fiasco? Bet Jonathan cannot wait to be through with this handing over matter and to walk off into the sunshine saying in his heart, “Chibok girls be damned”. But how do we explain the fact that for over one year, there was no official pronouncement on the abduction of these girls?

    How come there was no special presidential inquisition on the matter of the girls? How come President Jonathan met with the parents only after about one year? For girls who were final year pupils in a government school, who had enrolled for WAEC, who were largely domiciled in a corner of the country, an intelligence panel would have revealed their exact number, their proper identity (including their parents’), their residences/domain among other vital information.

    But almost nothing was done. The Presidency’s response to the massacre of male pupils at the school in Buni Yadi was more pathetic. Jonathan neither visited nor caused anyone to visit a school that was razed and tens of its pupils killed. Government officials only visited a year after during electioneering period.

    This state of listlessness pervaded the Jonathan era. His motley crew of appointees did not help him either. In fact they exploited his glaring weaknesses. In the first place, plagued by the same ailment of heart and mind, he picked mainly people who are either incompetent, guileful or both. Let’s profile the key actors among them:

    Okonjo-Iweala: much too over-rated One of the biggest mistakes of Jonathan was to have brought back Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. He even elevated her to the position of something of a prime minister by naming her Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister of the Economy (CME). But she neither managed the finances of the country these past four years nor did she muster the gumption to organise the economy.

    She flunked woefully, the most basic duty of her office which was to manage the annual budget. In four years, not once was budget passed in time; not once did the budget perform by 50 per cent and not once was capital expenditure raised to as much as 40 per cent. But most troubling, she supervised an economy that was being pillaged like hell. Jonathan and his team could have been pirates sharing booty. It was either that Mrs Okonjo-Iweala coordinated the looting or that ravaging the treasury was a kind of economic policy she recommended. She will remain remarkable for setting the country back many years and leaving the economy in tatters.

    Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke: queen of pearls While Okonjo-Iweala pretended to be coordinating the economy, Diezani was really the soft power behind the throne. She also sat atop the nation’s most strategic asset – oil. Sadly she is as incompetent as a basket for fetching water. And the position  seized her little mind entirely leaving no fenestration whatsoever for light to filter in.

    Just one example: in January 2012, she singlehandedly increased the pump price of fuel without consulting the cabinet. But in the ensuing national opprobrium, it came out that her so-called subsidy had been a scam through which she and her ‘oil marketers’ had been stealing trillions of naira from the treasury. Why anyone would be so callous to increase fuel price in the face of so much brigandage is a mark of Diezani’s character. Two years down the line, our so-called president, Jonathan did not muster the nerves to fire her or jail the ‘marketers’. One can raise a dozen examples of her bad behaviour in office. Hers’ was an atrocious and better-forgotten time running our prized asset. She must be the worst oil minister ever.

    Mohammed Adoke: Minister of no justice Also chief among the fellows that damaged the Jonathan presidency was his Attorney General and Minister of Justice for four years, Adoke. Unfortunately, Ministry of Justice ought to be the next most important bastion of awe and integrity of any government after the presidency. Just as Jonathan told us he didn’t give a damn about the example of declaring his assets publicly, Adoke apparently gives no hoot about justice.

    For Adoke, justice must be a worthless whore to be obtained and ravaged and discarded at will. He stymied the activities of the EFCC, he made sure no big thief was caught; he sprung more suspected big criminals from facing trial than were successfully tried and he just loved plea bargain and that that thing called nolle prosequi was his walking stick. No president who truly understood the true meaning of that word would have kept Adoke for one week. He helped in no small way in ruining Jonathan.

    Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina: the popinjay minister He, like the rest of the team is actually a bit player who just hung in there and chased crumbs. But Adesina stood out just because he was so beguiling and managed to trick and bamboozle Jonathan with lies and silly slogans. And the president lapped up all those lies as if he was a boy in the kindergarten.

    If Adesina was not manning the crucial Agric Ministry, he would never have mattered much. A man who is more comfortable in five-star hotels and private jets, he got our rice levy, our cassava bread levy and goodness knows which other levies he got and pocketed since he never accounted for them. Well, he gave Nigeria cassava bread just that only he and Jonathan eats it in the Villa.

    It was indeed a boondoggle presidency – wasted time, wasted resources, no purpose, no result. Goodbye Jona.

  • A beautiful day!

    A beautiful day!

    As I type this piece on my laptop, it’s still Wednesday, May 27, 2015. By the time you get to read it, however, it will be Friday, May 29, 2015 when history is made and the aspiration for change becomes the reality of a new beginning.

    You don’t have a tree in the garden without having a good knowledge of its fruit. I have a good knowledge of Opalaba, my good friend. I know what he is capable of doing and what to expect from him. With his awareness of my location an ocean away and therefore an unavoidable absence from all the festivities of this day, I expect Opalaba to arrogantly show off his closeness to the heart of the show and rub it in on my face. By 5am Eastern Time and 10 am Lagos time on May 29, I know that Opalaba will wake me up and taunt me about what I am missing. I am sure that I will be treated to his baritone rendition of the famed Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood theme song:

    “It’s a beautiful day in Nigeria

    A beautiful day for my nation

    Would you join us?

    Could you join me?”

    “It’s democracy day in Nigeria

    True democracy for my nation

    Would you join us?

    Could you join me?”

     

    That is my friend, only being true to his sadistic pastime. And you better believe that my preempting him with this piece will not alter the course of events that has been predicted.

    It’s surely a beautiful day in Nigeria. Its beauty is not in the cool breeze of the wind or the brightness of the sun. It is not in the gentle drizzle or the showers of blessing. This day is beautiful on account of what it represents. Even the humidity of the air cannot take away that beauty.

    Like many patriotic Nigerians, Opalaba has looked to this day with great excitement. He has invested a great deal of hope and cannot be more ecstatic about the outcome. He welcomed the unambiguous mandate that citizens handed Buhari and Osinbajo. It was a mandate for change, the rallying cry of Nigerian electorates on March 28, 2015. But that mandate was not only for a change of actors. It was also for a change of outlook and direction. Therefore, for Nigerians to be satisfied that real change has truly occurred there must be change of outlook and direction.

    The change of actors is the purview of the people themselves. By voting out the outgoing administration on grounds of incompetence, impunity, corruption and moral decay, the people have performed their own side of the contract. They must now hold the incoming administration responsible for fulfilling its own side of the bargain: provide strong and effective leadership for a change of outlook and direction. Our people respect strong leaders. They appreciate focused attention on the challenges facing the nation. But they are rightly contemptuous of leadership from behind.

    With respect to a change of outlook, the Buhari/Osinbajo administration must proceed with the understanding that every citizen matters and deserves respect. They must know that the politicians’ sacrifice is no greater than citizens’ sacrifice. Therefore, there is no moral justification for jumbo compensation for political appointees and elected officials. And any legal impediment against corrective measures must be speedily removed so that morality is reconciled with legality.

    This administration must pay serious attention to the needs of the smallest among us and invest in the development of human talents. The beginning of political wisdom in the matter of a change of outlook is the avoidance of all the terrible isms: egocentrism, ethnocentrism, sectarianism, and nepotism, in word and deed. For heaven’s sake, real change must occur in these areas that have badly tainted our politics in the most recent past.

    There is always the political temptation to use and abuse the symbols of political power. It is not a coincidence that power is the battle cry of PDP and it abused it to the point that Nigerians became thoroughly disillusioned and demoralised. This administration must avoid such an outlook. It must make transparently conscious efforts towards the restoration of our people’s confidence in the police, DSS, and other security agencies.

    It is imperative that the likes of Ekitigate be consigned to the dustbin of history. And it is certainly a positive development that the governors have redeemed their image away from the infamous “16 is greater than 19” election verdict. Now they must join hands with the new administration as moral forces in a nation that is thirsty for a commonsense moral revolution. Today, we must start a new tradition of morally sanctioned politics, a politics of virtue that abhors greed and self-centeredness. The administration must strengthen our democratic structures and allow the free flow of ideas in the political marketplace.

    The country has headed in the wrong direction in the past 16 years. Education which ought to be given the utmost priority was sadly placed at the back burner of government’s attention as private institutions took precedence even in the attention of public officials saddled with the responsibility of advancing our public schools. The consequence is mass failure because teachers who secured employment on political grounds and party affiliation can hardly read or add. You cannot feed garbage in and expect a different output.

    It is worse. Children and young adults have become apprentices in the workshop of the devil, and cultism is a national embarrassment. Politicians use the young ones during elections and dump them thereafter. But the used and dumped don’t evaporate into thin air. They are absorbed into the world of crime and into the enclaves of militants and terrorists. Do we care for the future of the youth and of the nation?

    We need a change of direction in our approach to the education of the youth. We must offer them functional and quality education and prepare them for good life prospects. If we do, we will experience a great relief from the tragic dehumanisation and unfortunate loss of our youth population to drug addiction, cultism, and thuggery. And from the fruit of good education, our youths can start making useful contributions to the economy and inculcating the values of discipline and moral rectitude. I am sure that these ideas are consistent with the change agenda of the APC and the Buhari/Osinbajo manifesto.

    Investing in human assets is a no-brainer. It has the potentials for a multiplier effect not only on the economy but also on those intangibles that make a society great and livable. The rot that pervades the Nigerian landscape is odious and revolting.

    Someone told me that it is not possible to eradicate corruption because it has become so entrenched in the system and that the President must not waste his political capital on that impossible task. I disagree. If the APC government campaigned on its ability and will to fight corruption, it cannot afford to be discouraged or disenchanted. If it doesn’t look back, it can count on the support of ordinary Nigerians who see corruption as the major obstacle to their personal progress.

    Corruption is fingered as the culprit in most if not in all the challenges facing the nation, whether it has to do with the collapse of the power sector, fuel subsidy scam, security challenges, electoral fraud, or waste in public service. It is time that we confronted the tumor before it consumes the nation.

    As President Buhari takes over the mantle of leadership of this great nation today, he must lead by example and with the fear of Almighty God who has smiled on his fourth attempt. He must resolve to repay the kindness of God to him by putting the nation first in all that he does. It’s only by so doing that he can bring the much deserved change to a nation that is in desperate need of a new direction.

    It’s a beautiful day in the land that pleases God to locate us all. Let us make the best of it.

    Good morning!

  • Haba, General Danjuma

    The other day, our octogenarian elder, General Theophilus Danjuma, in hailing President Goodluck Jonathan for conceding defeat, threw a barb at Late Ikemba, Odumegwu Ojukwu. If Ojukwu had conceded the defeat of Biafra early as Jonathan did in 2015 election, fewer people would have died during the civil war, he said.

    The Nigerian civil war remains a wound in the hearts of millions of our compatriots; Ojukwu is long dead and cannot answer. Why would Gen. Danjuma poke so casually at our wounds?

    Now Gen. Danjuma is urging Buhari to probe the Jonathan administration. Again to what end? As President Jonathan has spoken up, are you going to single out his period for probe? We know what Obasanjo did, we remember the Yar’Adua cabal, Abdulsalami’s escapade is fresh; not to mention Abacha and Babangida, etc.

    Why don’t we just draw a line, consign Jonathan too to that sordid archive of our history and encourage President Buhari to proceed on a path of national rebirth. By the way is casting the first stone? Can any Nigerian big man stand a probe?

  • Memo to legislators

    Dear legislator,

    “Let there become of you a nation that shall call for righteousness, enjoin justice and forbid evil. Such men shall surely triumph”. Q. 3: 104.

     Let me start this letter with a congratulatory message and a prayer. I congratulate you for becoming our ‘Honourable’ lawmakers an organ that is most crucial in a democracy. With your legislative role the destiny of Nigeria will be determined or reshaped. But more importantly, I pray the Almighty God to grant you listening ears and tamed minds against greed and avarice that became the undoing of your predecessors. Amen.

    Just as it happened to the session before yours, this letter is coming to you both as a counsel and an admonition. What qualifies this column (The Message) for writing it is that like you, ‘The Message’ is a stake holder in the great project called Nigeria. This country is like a ship in which we are all voyaging together. And we must all be vigilant enough to ensure that the ship conveying us does not hit the rock.

    A similar letter was twice written in this column to the legislators of the sixth and seventh National Assembly. The first was in 2008 barely nine months after some of them resumed in their respective legislative houses. The second was a reminder in 2012. But like a dog destined to end up in perdition would not hear the hunter’s cautioning whistle, they refused to heed the admonition contained in those letters. You all know the consequence of their refusal today.

     

    Role of conscience

    “Conscience”, according to Sheikh Uthman Dan Fodio, “is an open wound which only the truth can heal”. But one can talk of healing a wounded conscience only where it has not become cancerous. Prophet Muhammad (SAW) told us in one Hadith that hypocrites are known by three signs: “When they talk they lie; when they promise they renege and when they are trusted they betray”. Most of your predecessors so much typify that Hadith as if the Prophet had Nigerian legislators in mind when he expressed that axiom. I hope you learn a lesson from their case.

    You will recall that when you started nursing the ambition to become legislators, whether at the federal or state level, or even as chairmen or councillors in local governments, your first announcement was that you wanted ‘to serve your people’. Based on that announcement, people rallied round you and embraced you as their representatives.

    That announcement was your first political covenant. It was not between you and the people in your constituency alone. Since it entailed your promise and the trust of the people, Allah’s hand was in it and He will surely hold you accountable for it because you made such promise voluntarily. It does not matter whether you were genuinely elected or rigged into office thereafter usual.

     

    Deception

    Your original intension for making the announcement will be weighed against your action on getting to office. And you will be judged accordingly when you leave the office. That is quite different from a possible rigging that fetched you the status of a legislator as well as the title of ‘Honourable’.

    In the process, some of you deprived your fellow politicians of those positions which rightfully belong to them. Just as you will call on God for justice if you were in their shoes so they will take your case to God’s court. And the prayer of a cheated person, according to Prophet Muhammad (SAW), never suffers divine denial.

    You must remember that it is only God’s judgment that can neither be manipulated nor appealed. And no matter how long it may take, Allah’s judgment will be executed perhaps when you least expect. On that, you are left to your conscience if you have one.

    In Islam, two issues are exceptionally fundamental which Allah does not treat lightly. These are sacredness of life and justice. It is a great iniquity for any human being to engage in murder and injustice under any guise. Thus, anybody who kills fellow human beings extra-judicially in the name of religion is nothing but a pagan. In Islam, killing of a fellow human being deliberately is such a grievous sacrilege that cannot and should not occur without commensurate punishment.

    Besides paganism, nothing draws the wrath of Allah as fast as these two crimes which Satan may continue to ask you to ignore at your own peril.

    Murder is physical termination of the life of a fellow human being. Injustice is to kill a person mentally, psychologically and spiritually by denying him his right.

    In Islam, rule of law is the foundation of justice but legislation is the material with which that foundation is built. Those who voluntarily chose to legislate for others must see themselves as the foundation layers of justice who should not, advertently or inadvertently, betray the course of justice. Can this be said of you?

     

    Where is your Honour?

    Honourable legislators, you are addressed as honourable today neither because you are more qualified intellectually than those for whom you are legislating nor because you are wiser and more experienced than them. What makes most of you legislators is sheer expediency arising from queer inadequacies sadly fostered by our so-called political system which has not been perfected against gerrymandering.

    If such opportunity comes your way illegally, let it not be mistaken for good luck. It may rather be a calamity waiting to strike in future. And when it strikes, no one except Allah can tell the extent of its effect.

    At least you can see how the consequences of the heartless annulment of June 12, 1993 Presidential election have become a draconian spectre chasing the ghost of Nigeria even after two decades of licking the wound.

    That covenant is to serve them (the people). And those who serve are nothing but servants. But no sooner had your predecessors been sworn into office than they started calling themselves leaders. That is why most of them found it difficult to bend a little backwards and report back to their constituencies. Today, where are they? And their constituencies remain intact albeit backward.

     

    Surrogate spouses

    Since most of your predecessors resumed in Abuja or their state capitals without their spouses, the first thing they did after settling down was to search for alternative but illegitimate sexual partners who acted as their surrogate spouses. And the cost was borne by the same betrayed electorate. Not only that, they also began their primary duty of legislating by first fixing their own salaries and allowances against all norms of morality and at the expense of those who made it possible for them to become legislators.

    You turned the privilege of legislating into a right and used it to intimidate the poor masses and ride roughshod over them. When they occasionally pretend to interact with those masses it was for the purpose of preparing their minds for the next election in which they hoped to be returned to Parliament where sharing money was the priority.

    Some of them spent about eight years in those legislative houses without any sign in their immediate constituencies that anybody was representing the people of those constituencies. It is hoped that your session in this era of ‘CHANGE’ will show a remarkable difference.

    Self Aggrandisement

    When your predecessors travelled abroad officially, with people’s money, they were never alarmed by the way political and economic systems worked in those countries. Rather, their primary concern was the latest cars plying the roads of those countries and the most magnificent mansions that they could copy back home to match new status as legislators. That is why virtually every political office holder in Nigeria between 1999 and 2015 was either riding or eager to ride the newest vehicle from Europe, America or Asia even as they owned Nigeria’s choicest estates. In a nutshell, politics to them was a short term business that must bring profit by all means.

    Thus, at their instance, Nigeria was held to a standstill as they doctored the annual budget presented to them by the executive arm in order to share the national cake with the Executives in the spirit of ‘rub my back I rub yours’.

    Most of them were fathers and mothers who would want their children to grow up as responsible men and women, yet, refused to serve as good examples for those children. How could Nigeria be good?

     

    Reminder

    As new legislators, perhaps it is necessary to remind you that everything in this world is based on condition. The world itself did not come into existence without condition. Man was originally created and appointed as Allah’s vicegerent of Allah on earth on condition that he would serve Allah. And all other living or unloving things were divinely ordered to obey and serve man on condition that he (man) would also obey and serve Allah. That service was not an imposition. It was voluntary.

    Before putting man in charge of the world at all, Allah had consulted far and wide with all the stake holders concerned. Each of them declined responsibility except man who, out of greed and arrogance, volunteered to take charge and be responsible for it.

    Allah states this clearly in Q. 33 V. 72 thus: “We offered the ‘TRUST’ (of the world) to the heavens; to the earth and to the mountains; but they refused to bear it and were afraid of it. Man, who undertook to bear it, has proved to be unjust, foolish”.

    By consulting so far and wide, Allah had elicited and got covenant from every creature. Those among them, that declined responsibility cannot and will not be asked to account for the occurrences therein. Accountability of the world solely rests on man’s shoulder according to the covenant he reached voluntarily with Allah.

    Covenant with Allah is the most fundamental law of existence. It is not one sided. As man has responsibilities to bear so does Allah has obligations to fulfil. It is from the covenant with Allah that all other covenants in the life of man, including those of marriage, trust and confidentiality, are derived. That covenant is what others call oath.

     

    Oath of office

    In Islam, oath, whether private or public, does not necessarily require Muslims to carry the Qur’an in one’s hand as done in Nigeria particularly at this time when oath of office has become a meaningless symbol. No oath is ever made without Allah being a witness to it. Besides, He has assigned two Angels (Raqib and ‘Atid) to every human being as secret police officers. The duty of these Angels is to record all utterances and secret actions of each person to whom they are assigned. The one records good deeds, the other records evil deeds. Their recordings are both in video and audio forms.

    This fact is contained in Q.50: 16 where Allah states that: “We surely created man and ‘We’ know the promptings of his mind and are closer to him than his jugular vein. We assign two guardians to watch him, one on his right and the other on his left. No utterance (from him) or action shall escape the records of these vigilant guardians….”

    It is from the functions of these invisible police that researchers  came about the idea of video, audio and other technological devices used especially for espionage.

     

    Rare opportunity

    Legislating is a rare opportunity to serve one’s nation meritoriously. But most of your predecessors turned that opportunity into one of self-enrichment as well as that of securing the future of your own children at the expense of the lives of other children. All these are done at the expense of the wretched people around them whose role in democracy was relegated to voting once in four years. They forgot that wealth is Allah’s endowment which cannot be inherited except by Allah’s will.

    My dear honourable legislators; search your conscience and fear God. Remember that some people had legislated for this country in the past. Some usurped the roles of the executive, the legislature and the judiciary together, in the name of military rule, made possible by coup d’état. Where are they today?

    Legislation, like governance, has its tenure. Today, four years may look endless, but for the wise, it is not more than a flash of lightening  which only a fool may want to rely upon while walking his way through the darkness of the night.

     

    Peculiar factor

    You are in the legislative houses to make laws for today’s generation and that of tomorrow. Ordinarily, that duty should be on part time and not full time basis in a serious country where patriotism holds sway. But since everything in Nigeria has a peculiar factor, it has become a rule that those who are legislating for us must take the lion’s share of our national cake even through the budget. That is why your predecessors randomly roared to the total embarrassment of the country that the President or the Governor must be impeached.

    Such impeachment became a serious business only when their salaries, allowances or social welfare were not provided as at when due or at the expected volume. It did not matter to them whether or not the entire workforce in Nigeria remained unpaid for years or all the Universities in the country closed down completely and permanently. And in all these charades, religion had no role to play an indication that politics is indifferent to God’s ordinances in Nigeria.

    Conscience, though invisible, has a mirror which only a few people know of. That mirror is shame. A person without shame is a person without conscience. And that is the main distinction between a genuine Muslim and a nominal one. Prophet Muhammad (SAW) admonished thus in respect of shame: “once you are bereft of shame, you can go ahead to do whatever you like”. This means that without shame you are such a nonentity that can even choose to strip naked in the market place. That was some of your predecessors did while in office.

     

    Service to humanity

    Honourable legislators, let it be kept permanently in your hearts that the only thing which keeps people alive in history even long after their demise is service to humanity. Prophets Isa (Jesus), and Muhammad (SAW), had neither bank accounts nor estates to bequeath to anybody. Their heritage is more than any material wealth for the entire world today. That heritage is service to humanity. What is your own planned heritage if only for posterity? That is a big question which only people with conscience can answer. The rest is left to you. While wishing you a memorable era in in Nigeria’s democracy, I pray Allah to guide you aright that you may not end up like your predecessors. Amin.

  • Hard times are here!

    There is hunger in this land; yes, in our own dear country Nigeria, there is extreme hunger. But sadly, we are in a twilight zone, a transition time-warp in which no one is really in charge and the economy is in partial shutdown until May 29, 2015. To compound the situation, the out-going administration of President Goodluck Jonathan has virtually run the country aground, leaving it gasping for breath.

    Further still, while this extreme condition persists for the citizenry, both the out-going government and the in-coming one seem either oblivious of this fact or are incapacitated to act. Numerous factors have precipitated the very lean times the generality of Nigerians are passing through today.

    Where’s all the money gone? There is a serious cash crunch in the land as so many people have become broke and beggarly. From the months preceding the general election up until now, there has been a palpable austerity among the populace. It is not unusual to have two to three persons daily pestering you for financial help. The immediate causes must be attributed to the blistering election campaigns in which no amount was spared by the two major parties, PDP and APC.

    Funds amounting to billions of naira had been stacked and disbursed for the purposes of the election. The postponement of the elections by six weeks further imposed a severe toll on the finances of both the federal and state governments that had to dip into public treasuries to carry through the extended period.

    This may also explain why almost all the states of the federation, including the Federal Government (until recently) were carrying back log of unpaid workers’ salaries and allowances. Not in recent memory do we remember workers in Nigeria being owed salaries for between two to six months in many states of the federation. Not even in the period of the civil war did this happen.

    Economy, what economy? The current economic debacle came to a head late last year when the prices of crude oil plunged sharply by nearly half. This had immediately impacted negatively on Nigeria and her pedestrian economy that stands precariously on crude oil export as her primary source of revenue. This meant that the fund available for distribution was almost halved. This also meant that states of the federation which are mainly dependent on the revenue allocation from the centre became immediately distressed.

    A further implication of the crude prices crash is the steep reduction in foreign exchange earnings and the attendant fall in naira’s exchange rate. For an import-dependent economy, this means that inflation has suddenly descended upon us. Very few things are wholly produced without the need for imported components, therefore, prices of goods and services including foodstuff have been inching up gradually. For those who still manage to get paid, the value has depreciated a notch or two.

    However, the energy crises of the past month may have dealt the harshest blow on the people.

    The fall in earnings has meant that government can hardly raise the funds to pay for her huge petroleum products imports. Nigeria is the only major oil producing country that still imports most of her petroleum products need. She ships out crude oil as one product and imports nearly a dozen products derived from refining that single crude oil.

    Nigeria imports at premium prices such refined products as petrol, kerosene, diesel, engine oil, to name just a few. Today, the quantity of crude exported and its selling price have fallen signaling deep crisis in the land. For over twenty years, Nigeria has been running on imported petroleum products, sometimes plowing back nearly one quarter of our earnings to importing products we can produce here.

    In the guise of a dubious subsidy, so much revenue was lost to a long sustained racket that grew into a cancer which killed Nigeria’s old refineries and stifled the development of new ones over two decades. Our chicken has come home to roost now. We can hardly pay for refined products today. There is scarcity of products causing prices to shoot up by about 50 per cent where it is available. This singular factor is almost bringing the country to a lock-down.

    Electricity power supply has also declined rapidly and long outages have become the order of the day. Official power generation is reported to have dropped abysmally below 2000 mega watts for a population of about 170 million people. This is perhaps the lowest in the last two decades. The usual dry season ferment at the hydro facilities and  pipeline vandalism have been blamed. No matter what the cause may be, the spiral effect of this is sure to reverberate in the pockets of the people – especially the medium to low income earners.

    Many companies are retrenching quietly having been hit hard by the naira slump and the energy crises. This, of course, compounds the already dire unemployment situation in the land. The revelation that the Federal Government has borrowed about half a billion already this quarter ostensibly to service recurrent expenditure is a pointer to the severity of Nigeria’s situation. State governments are also overly exposed. But we know it is the election; the damned election that has crunched most of our cash.

    No one is admitting it but Nigeria seems to have a long night ahead of her.

  • Oshiomhole: grand wedlock in a time of hunger

    They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder but that is certainly not true for Iara Fortes-Oshiomhole, the brand new bride of our comrade governor, Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State. The exquisite beauty of 32-year-old Iara must be in the eye of every man that beholds her unless such a man is especially challenged. Tongues wagged so much last Friday when her pictures started streaming in the media one may have noticed some guys’ tongues hanging out as they stared at the picture.

    Last weekend, the governor roused his home town of Auchi when he took his Cape Verdean queen for wife in a grand and elaborate ceremony. Almost everyone who mattered in Nigeria today was there beginning from the President-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari.

    At some point in a man’s life, he must award himself a gift of a grand ceremony, a festival of colours and conviviality if only to reaffirm life and the essences of living. This conviction is more apt for Oshiomhole who lost his first wife to cancer five years ago. But the timing of this bash seems not quite right; it seems a bit insensitive to be throwing a party at a time most of Nigeria’s workforce are not sure of their monthly pay. We must be careful how we revel in a season of hunger.

  • So long, Dr. Jonathan

    So long, Dr. Jonathan

    THE came. He saw. Too bad, he failed to conquer. Certainly, he had some useful initiatives and managed to perform some symbolic acts. However, in his most important self-imposed task of transformation, the verdict of objective observers is that Dr. Jonathan failed woefully.

    President Jonathan’s failure may be due to certain contradictions within the system which he wasn’t able to resolve. It may also be due to his limited understanding of the task that he assigned himself. The lesson here is that leaders must have a thorough understanding not only of the society they lead but also of the goal they labour to achieve. In the case of Dr. Jonathan, this means an understanding of Nigeria and of the meaning and requirements of transformation.

    The dictionary meaning of transformation is “alteration, conversion, change, revolution, renovation, makeover, etc.” To transform is to alter or to change completely. To preserve, on the other hand, is its polar opposite. The object of transformation or preservation is a pre-existing condition—human, place, or thing. Transformation and its opposite are equal opportunity descriptors.

    From the foregoing, we may infer that continuity or preservation politics is the opposite of transformational politics. While the former preserves the status quo, presumably on the belief that it has worked well and no need to rock the boat, the latter opts for fundamental changes away from the status quo, and by definition, towards a better society. To transform is to achieve a better quality of the entity in question. This is what Dr. Jonathan claimed he wanted to achieve for Nigeria.

    The 2011 presidential election was a clear mandate for Dr. Goodluck Jonathan. With support from the north to the south, there wasn’t a shortage of tremendous goodwill and lots of advice from supporters, opponents, and neutral voices. As one of the neutral voices, I wrote a three part column on transformational times, transformational leadership, and transformational followership urging him to seize the moment and establish a lasting legacy.

    I suggested that we were in transformational times when fundamental changes were desirable and required. I defined fundamental changes as those that go down to the foundation and fix its rottenness and argued that cosmetic changes will not be a fitting substitute.

    I made reference to the United States which in 1787 went through a fundamental transformation after the revolutionary war. Adopting a constitution which agreed on a federal structure was a huge deal. The confederalists lost out, and that solid foundation has taken the greatest democracy on earth places ever since. With respect to that change, subsequent changes would appear less fundamental.

    Yet with regard to what they replaced, these other changes could also be fundamental and transformational. The American Civil War was fought and won by the union government to end slavery and keep the country together. It was a fundamental change to this extent. But it was to restore a value and a nation to its prior status. The Civil Rights Act in the last half of the last century belonged to the same category. It was a change to restore the national value enshrined in the constitution, a value that had been destroyed by racism. It was fundamental to the extent that it reconciled political principles and political practice.

    Get the fundamental right, and whatever desirable transformations occur should be a good fit. It is the fundamental that Nigeria has not got right, and what is needed therefore is a fundamental change to get it right. Cosmetic changes cannot do the job.

    I made reference to some items on the list of Jonathan’s priorities. Power was one of them. I observed that the reason the nation has failed after 50 years in the matter of power has to do with the wobbly limbs on which it stands. We hear of gas line saboteurs, generator importer saboteurs, etc. There are reasons why these thrive. We have not got the fundamental right. Why, for instance, do we have to insist on a central approach to powering a nation with more than 360 square miles of landmass in the first place?

    I wagered that the black gold was the mainstreamer-in-chief.  In spite of the various close-calls we’ve had recently; in spite of the warnings that we’ve received; in spite of the apocalyptic predictions; we have not moved an inch towards a genuine diversification of the economy. Nor have we used the proceeds of oil revenue for the development of our human resources or our infrastructure. Now, with dwindling oil revenue, Jonathan is leaving the treasury empty for his successor.

    I thought that we were in transformational times and that the stars were well aligned for fundamental changes in our body politic. I prayed that the political will be summoned so we can still nurse the hope for the country becoming a great nation, which is much more than being one of the advanced 20 economies in 2020. The greatness of a nation is a combination of several factors, including its system of justice, its democratic credentials, its welfare system, and its promise and practice of human rights.

    I concluded that piece by noting that it was the right time for the transformation of Nigeria with a deliberate effort at rebuilding her from the foundation up.

    The president came up with a so-called transformation agenda, one that focused not on the foundational problem of structure and its attendant alienation and moral degeneration. Rather, by transformation, Jonathan embarked on the cosmetics of economic growth, including the mechanics of procurement to prevent corruption. As Ben Nwabueze, the respected constitutional lawyer, puts it:  “National or social transformation implies the creation of a new society. The creation of such a new society would entail change of two types – a radical transformation of the material conditions of society and what has been called an “inner mutation”, i.e. a spiritual or mental transformation in the attitudes and behavoural patterns of the individual members of society. The “inner mutation” called for goes beyond transformation in mental attitudes, and must extend to radical change away from the present prevailing moral degeneracy or moral bankruptcy, as manifested in crimes involving fraud or dishonesty, like examination malpractices and certificate racketeering; corrupt practices in all its forms, including bribery and money laundering; sexual immorality; juvenile delinquency; etc, all of which, in the main, originated or become accentuated in the unbridled quest for money and the money culture it gave rise to.”

    Unfortunately, for four years Jonathan did nothing of the sort and corruption became a badge of honour with the president declaring that “stealing is not corruption.” The government itself promoted ethnic and religious bigotry with the president appealing directly to southerners and Christians for support. Impunity was at its highest and while the security of the nation was severely compromised (more than 200 school girls are still in captivity) security chiefs were in collaboration with the presidency over the shift in the date of the just concluded elections.

    Double standard prevailed and was glorified by Team Jonathan who relished the power to do evil. While they used the police to prevent democratic institutions to operate in Ekiti State, in Ondo the impeachment of the deputy governor was carried out without the police raising a finger. Now, a candidate who scored big in the 2011 elections has suffered woeful defeat in the 2015 elections. And he’s heading back to Otuoke.

    Did he learn any lessons? Unfortunately, I think not. Hiding behind the legal façade of still being in charge, Jonathan chose his last days to launch what amounts to unethical conduct, the type that caused him the presidency, firing old hands and hiring new ones to work with the new administration. Can anyone go lower than this? It just confirms the marketplace belief that what we had thought of as a heroic concession of defeat was anything but, having being forced by powers outside the nation’s boundaries.

    The Buhari/Osinbajo team must learn from this tragic outcome. Don’t gamble with Nigerians’ goodwill! Don’t take our people for granted!

    So long, Dr. Jonathan!

  • Five other points for Gen. Buhari

    A recap of five quick points On May 1, I had listed what I termed “Five quick points for General Buhari”; some initial actions he could take upon stepping into Aso Rock, to set the tone of his administration. I had called them low hanging fruits he could reach for quickly and achieve some immediate salutary changes.

    By way of a recap, I had noted that, one, he must let the system work; the old rule books must be reactivated. For instance, there are rules for tackling corruption through the Office of the Auditor General. Two, he should get the federal budget back on track immediately. This means it MUST be read on January 1 without fail; capex MUST be at least 60 per cent of total expenditure and we MUST achieve at least 70 per cent performance.

    Three, he must block leakages of government revenues, especially in revenue-earning MDAs. He MUST put round pegs in like holes. They MUST have targets and they MUST render annual accounts publicly the way private companies do.

    Four, he MUST ensure that the 774 LGAs across the land come back to life. This will be a long-drawn battle but it is important that he makes the statement from day one that anyone pocketing the allocations meant for any LGA anywhere in the land would be incurring his wrath. All sorts of evil have infested the land because LGAs are virtually shut down across the land; a few people pocket their allocation and the entire economy of these units of government is vitiated.

    Five, though this is a tough call, he must endeavor to make the right appointments that suit his character and temperament. He has promised to declare his assets; he must make all appointees do same and depose them where they are accessible to the public.

    And now, five other things General Buhari might want to consider in the course of his administration.

    One, the amazing power of personal example and precepts Leaders like Obasanjo, Abacha, Babangida and Jonathan failed woefully because they never pretended to be good leaders nor did they show personal examples of good leadership. It may sound trite and stupid but this is the key. You must live by the rules you set for the rest of the populace. For instance, these aforementioned leaders were busy doing violence to our treasury day and night yet they insisted they were “fighting corruption”. How can corruption fight itself?

    In other words, you must be an exemplar of all the great virtues you expect from the people and for your country. In the next four years, the state of the country, her image, her successes and failures will represent the very archetype of who you are and what you are. In other words, leadership is the key; whatever you do will permeate all the way down.

    Two, rebuilding our institutions, physical and moral There would not be any need for such fancy 10-point or 100-point agendas; no need for any dubious reform programmes.

    The basics, the basics and the basics again are what he must focus upon. There is no doubt that most of the institutions of state are comatose, if not dead. We are also in dire need of moral re-armament and value re-orientation. We have over the years, become like the denizens of the jungle where anything goes and nothing is held sacred. All the rules, procedures and codes of conduct in our public lives have broken down or are completely eroded.

    There is need for a deliberate effort to rebuild our institutions along the line of rules and procedures. Starting with the civil service, the police, the military and the entire security system, the democratic apparatuses, and indeed every instrument of government; we simply need to get them working again according to laid down rules.

    On the moral end, the presidency, appointees and top government official must shun ostentation and hedonistic lifestyles. No more a dozen aircraft in the presidential fleet (just two should suffice); no more such endless stretch of presidential convoys and wanton feeding allowances. It must be made explicit that money and good life are not the purposes of holding public office.

    Three, protecting our strategic assets It is either that our past governments did not appreciate our strategic assets or they viewed them as honey pots to be plundered. Our crude oil and electricity are our key strategic assets and the Buhari administration must take an especial care of them. Why would a government worth its name tell us we lose 400,000 bpd (about 20% of total production) of crude oil to theft yet such a government remains in power? It is unheard of anywhere else. Why would untrained, rag-tag militia groups be paid billion of naira to guard our most important national asset? This must be the worst form of criminality perpetrated against the state by the Goodluck Jonathan administration.

    It is the same scenario with our electric power asset. This crucial aspect of our commonwealth have been parceled out to buccaneers and profiteers some of whom have not invested a dime and who have been creaming off the assets and holding the nation to ransom.

    General Buhari must take a critical look at these assets and make sure the right things are done in the best interest of the country. Let it be noted now that if Nigeria is still importing petroleum products four years hence; if Nigerians do not enjoy at least 12 hours of power supply in four years’ time, then it would be deemed that his government failed. I don’t think Nigerians are interested in how he gets these things done.

    Four, rescuing the legislature, judiciary from themselves The legislative arm of government both at the national and state levels has been as sick in the last 16 years. The legislature has been caught up in the morass of corruption-induced ineptitude and inertia. Most members the senate and the houses don’t seem to have any idea why they are elected or their significance in the polity. All they crave is a share of the treasury.

    The legislature headed by Senator David Mark in the last eight years has been a disgrace to Nigeria with their rapacity being the subject of scorn and the benchmark for graft the world over. Our legislators are remarkable for being the highest earning in the world. Recall that former central bank governor Sanusi Lamido accused them of gobbling up about 25 percent of our annual budget.

    This is not sustainable. The new president will have to work with the new leadership of the legislature to ensure that fiscal sanity returns  to that arm of government.

    The judiciary may not be as far gone as its legislative counterpart but it is also on the downward slide. The late jurist of note, Kayode Eso left us a telling marker about billionaire justices. The judiciary must be given the necessary fillip it needs to operate. It must enjoy its fiscal autonomy and must stop existing at the whims of the executive as we have currently. But strong fiscal probity must be instituted across all arms of government. The budget of all arms of government must be transparent and open to public scrutiny.

    Five and finally, what to do with our federation First, there are some quick wins an honest president could achieve if he is so minded. For instance he could send a bill to the assembly to cede more revenue to states and also cede some unnecessary baggage carried by the federal government to the state.

    The Buhari presidency must, without raising obtrusive dust, impanel bodies to look at the LGA structure; the national confab report, the botched constitution review and state police among other issues. But let it be noted that the structure of the federation is not the most critical ill we suffer.

    Sensible and honest leadership are the lubricants that will have the engine of state run at optimum.

  • Dangote’s Arsenal: vanity investing

    Who is to teach Aliko Dangote, Nigeria’s, nay Africa’s own Midas how to apply money? He must have been sleeping on money-beds (a la Floyd Mayweather) since his teenage days. Besides, we love our Arsenal F.C. anyway. There must be at least 20 million Arsenal fans in Nigeria.

    Notwithstanding, it still jars our poor and untutored (moneywise) sensibilities that our own Aliko would want to shell out billions of dollar to buy English football club, Arsenal. That seems like vanity investing. We all know that football club business do not make commensurate returns.

    Well, unless he seeks global mass recognition and brand value but then he needs to invest in Nigeria’s football first. Nigeria must be among the top three naturally talented footballing nations, bettered only by Brazil and Argentina. Lack of training facilities and poor talent management has circumscribed millions of our youths who would otherwise be employed gainfully plying football trade.

    With just one-tenth of the cost of buying Arsenal, Aliko could build six zonal standard football facilities across Nigeria, like Aspire in the UAE. He will marvel at the impact of this and Nigerian youths will be eternally grateful.

  • Statism, regionalism and nationalism

    Statism, regionalism and nationalism

    I take advantage of a concern addressed to me and a couple of other compatriots early Wednesday morning by a leader whom I trust and respect for his dedication and commitment to the progressive agenda. His concern was about regional development agenda and the effort we make in their pursuit. The concern is apt and timely, especially because we are just transitioning to a new administration which needs all the help it can get in terms of ideas and suggestions.

    Why “regional development agenda?” you may ask? “Is focus on such agenda not inimical to national integration and development?” These are pertinent questions. And as Opalaba would observe, he who asks a question deserves an answer that probes the foundation of the issue.

    The questions are answerable in few sentences. We are regional beings. We were born regional. We grew up regional. We matured regional. Regional development was the source of national development before the reverse gear  was engaged and national development, slow and unpredictable as it was, became the driver of (negative) regional development. But even as we prioritised national development and focus on regional development took a retreat, we were still thinking regional.

    From 1966 till 1979 at the height of national unity discourse and practice, regionalism as a habit of the mind never retreated. Military Governors as representatives of the Commander-in-Chief from Gowon to Obasanjo and from Buhari to Abacha were not immune to the sentiment behind regionalism. Even when they came from different regions or states, they lived among regionalists. They imbibed the ideas that animated the people. They had regionalists in their cabinets. And more importantly, they were under pressure to improve the conditions of life in their areas of jurisdiction.

    Between 1979 and 1983 when different political parties more or less controlled different regions, regional thinking held sway with the Southwest leading the pack and UPN Governors churning out ideas, including the four cardinal programmes of the party, which they aimed at the development of the region.

    Since 1999, regionalism has been championed not just by the Southwest but also by the Southsouth, Southeast and the entire North, which has always considered the North as one indivisible region. Instructively, Arewa Consultative Forum has been more united and more focused than Afenifere or Yoruba Council of Elders.

    In spite of all the available and incontrovertible evidence that we are regional beings, at various times, there has been an incomprehensible ambivalence attitude of affirmation and denial towards the regions. This comes in various forms and from multiple sources.

    On the one hand, every region or zone has lamented its perceived marginalisation one time or the other since 1999. Recently, there has been an unsubstantiated allegation of some zones ganging up against others. This confirms our fixation on regions or zones. Significantly, states have not been particularly vocal in this matter of marginalisation.

    On the other hand, however, some of the same regional advocates who complain about regional marginalisation have confusedly bashed regional (aka zonal) arrangements as extra-constitutional and therefore unacceptable, using regional platform to carry out their assault on region. This came up especially during the Constitutional conferences of 2005 and 2014.

    Now, it is possible to explain such volte-face in charitable terms. There is no constitutional provision for regional or zonal arrangements or institutions for regional development. “Regions or zones are not known to the 1999 Constitution”, they insist. Therefore any regional arrangements or institutions must be private and without governmental imprimatur.

    The reasoning is legalistic; but it fails in two respects. First, it is common knowledge that not every arrangement that we have made since 1999 is constitutionally mandated. We have created institutions and organisations with full budgetary allocations even when they have not been part of the constitutional provisions. We did so because there were urgent problems to be solved that were not anticipated in the groundnorm; and the legislative branch, in its wisdom, gave the proper legal backing.

    Second, we know that states, with their constitutional mandate, have not been up to the task with regards to the development and welfare of their various constituencies. Just last week, we heard about the sorry state of the financial condition of most states and their inability to pay workers’ salaries, and their appeal to President-elect Buhari for federal assistance. The constitution prioritises states as political and administrative units of the federation, but they are severely handicapped because they are practically unequal in their relationship with the Federal Government which controls a disproportionate amount of resources.

    Statism is the belief, sometimes advanced to the level of doctrine, that since states are constitutionally recognised as political and administrative units of the federation, they have a legal autonomy which cannot be compromised and no other arrangements can be allowed or recognised.

    In view of our experience since 1999, it is abundantly clear that statism is wrong and it is the major obstacle to the survival and development of states. It is time to think outside the box of static statism toward a dynamic agenda for national development.

    No one can deny that regions contributed to national development in the 50s and 60s. Groundnut pyramids and cotton sacks in the North, cocoa stores in the West, palm oil barrels in the East, and the various Marketing Boards were the foremost foreign exchange earners even well into the 70s. Development plans in each region benefitted from these sources of regional wealth as was the case in the West which saw a boom in infrastructural development and social welfare programs.

    No one denies the legal reality of states. But thinking out of the box of statism requires the acknowledgement of the present ugly reality which makes it impossible for states to extract a sustainable development from the meager resources accruable to them internally, without running cap in hand to the Federal Government.

    Regionalism doesn’t pose any danger to nationalism. On the contrary, it benefits the nationalist agenda by promoting equitable regional development throughout the nation. We know, for instance, that in the 50s, regions exchanged useful development strategies even when they were controlled by different political parties. But when states are left to their fate, and resources are meager and inequitably distributed, the resentment thus generated could be inimical to national harmony and national development.

    Here then is the choice facing the Buhari administration: encourage regional ideas for national development or dismiss them as unconstitutional. For a progressive administration that focuses on equitable development, the right choice is not difficult to identify in the light of the foregoing.

    How does the administration go about it? There are various strategic options. States still hold all the aces. Already some regions have prototype ideas with the setting up of institutions such as Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) in the Southwest and Strategic Agenda for Northern Development (STAND) in the North. While DAWN is a creation of Southwest leadership, including the Governors, it appears that STAND is a creation of the intellectual and political vanguards for Northern development. DAWN is set up as a Commission in which each Governor has a representative Commissioner. Now existing as extra-constitutional entities, each of these development institutions can be given legal backings by an Act of the National Assembly.

    I can then imagine the following scenario. The President invites the Governors to a round table session on regional development and its centrality to national development. Assume that infrastructure, education, and energy are in play. Surely, a good number of the challenges we have had in these areas can best be addressed with a regional strategy.

    Consider for instance the Lagos-Ibadan expressway which had been in a state of disrepair since 1999 until just last year when the Jonathan administration decided it had to do something. The Southwest could have addressed the matter a long time ago if it was ceded to the region with appropriate resource allocation for infrastructural development. To the objection that it is a federal road, I answer that this objection begs the question: Shouldn’t such roads be regional roads for which regions have responsibility that they can discharge more effectively than the Federal Government?