The Nation Newspaper

Category: Steve Osuji

  • Damnedest job in the world

    Being a spokesperson must be the toughest job in the world. And of course, the higher the sphere of influence of your principal, the bigger your headache; or put more succinctly, you are as good as the quality of boss you have.

    If you are blessed with a savvy leader who thinks on the go; whose every utterance is a resounding sound bite and who can strip complexities naked and dissect their tricky innards; well providence has landed you on the waterbed of life.

    But woe betide you if you have to mind a clueless head or a fuddy-duddy who needs three executive briefings to come to terms with basic fiscal initiatives; or who has his  mindset cast in bronze three decades back about how modern life is lived. Worst still, if your boss cannot rise at 5 am three or four times a week to jog six kilometers; if he cannot surf the net all by himself for critical information first thing in the morning; if he is not shooting you emails several times a day and if you and the rest of the members of his ‘kitchen cabinet’ are not communicating real-time on two or three exclusive social media groups, then you have got a most depressing job, to say it nicely.

    This piece is a fallout from a few crucial events of the past couple of weeks. My good friends and highly respected professional colleagues now operating from the pristine precincts of the presidency literally let out subdued yelps recently. It is the kind of sniffling only those who feel it would know.

    Mr. Femi Adesina is Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari and his side-kick, Malam Garba Shehu is Senior Special Assistant in the same office. Anyone who knows a little about the print media in Nigeria would know that the duo are among the very best of their age. As if to prove the point, they were both past presidents of the Nigerian Guild of Editors thus beyond professional excellence, they are leaders in their own rights and men of character and integrity.

    But their tasks at the moment are so tough that half a dozen of their ilk would find it daunting. And the harder they try at their job, the more flak are drawn by their principal, it seems. Femi and Shehu wound up recently and let out some of the best pieces I have seen under their names – but no dice; the articles didn’t cut any ice.

    Shehu intervened first with a long piece: “What is President Buhari doing with the economy?” while Femi appeared a few days later with, “After ye have suffered a while.” In ordinary times, these articles would win awards. While Shehu tried to throw light on the economy, Femi’s is a pot-pourri of sweet writing that could have been a most sumptuous serving of edikan-ikong if it were indeed soup.

    But many who read these articles only responded with even more sniggers and scoffing. Why? Let’s proffer three quick reasons cynicism covers the land like incubus and every official explanation only rankles the more. First, everybody in the land (apart from spokespersons and die-hard officials) seems to be agreed on one point: things have turned from bad to worse. But more agonizing, the PMB administration does not seem to answer the basic question from the populace which is: where are we headed? Instead we seem to get a lot more detailed explanations about all the things the last government did wrong. Of course we knew all the things that were wrong with the Goodluck Jonathan administration which is why we vote it out.

    For instance, oil prices began to crash way back in November 2014 and by May 29, 2015, nearly every Nigerian knew we had to act fast or sink into a pit of mess. Nigerians thus expected smart answers and timelines not excuses and sobs. One simple case will suffice here: by the time the APC government took over, Nigeria’s earning from crude oil had halved and the cost of importing petroleum products would gulp almost half of the current earnings leaving government with barely enough for wage bills.

    This was the harsh fact as at May 29, 2015. What was the urgent response of the new administration to this emergency situation upon resumption? Nothing. What is the response even today, 16 months after? Nothing, one dares say. But the most commonsensical response would have been to say, “hey, we can no longer afford to spend our meager forex importing petroleum products; we must refine here or die.”

    With a presidential resolve like this, the next step would be to set up a panel to advise the president and indeed lead the charge on how to refine 50 to 70 percent of our petroleum products needs in 6 to 24 months. Today, if Femi and Shehu were telling us that three co-locative refineries being built on PPP basis by a Chinese consortium is 70% completed, we would be applauding.

    If they regaled us with the details of the deal, the construction efforts and how we shall cut products imports by 60%, that would be sweet music to our ears. But all we are told is to believe and wait. But they do not give us reasons to believe.

    The second reason why everyone seems to be wailing (apologies to Femi) inconsolably now including the erstwhile choir of hailers is because there is truly reason to wail. If a man is hungry, he is hungry. If a man has lost a job that keeps his family, he has lost it and he had better wailed for help while he still had strength. No amount of sweet writing will assuage this manner of pain.

    Again, love them or hate them, men like Chukwuma Soludo, Lamido Sanusi, Olubunmi Okojie, Hassan Kukah, name them; must know a thing or two about Nigeria. We will dismiss their counsel at our peril.

    And lastly, for Femi and Shehu, they have their job to do irrespective of who the boss is. One had walked this slippery path and understands their pains. But without seeking to lecture, it is often mighty helpful in this job to win your constituency first. That is crucial because it is the media that purveys pains and wailings. While they may not entirely muffle people’s cries, they can at least moderate it to less deafening decibels.

    To make this tough job easier, you must constantly reach out to your colleagues; create opportunities to brief them, brainstorm with them, fete them … formally and informally. How come all the hailers have vanished? How come there is hardly any moderating voice among senior colleagues? The truth is that it’s a closed door and we don’t know what’s going on.

  • Why PMB must visit Abuja stadium

    On Tuesday September 6, 2016, New Telegraph carried a two-page feature on the $300 million Abuja National Stadium wasting away. On the 10th, The Nation also ran a two page report on Lagos National Stadium, as a monument of decay. The pictures accompanying the stories would make any patriot cry.

    The degeneracy at the Lagos monument has been on for about 15 years. If only the president would take an unscheduled visit to one of these stadia; he is sure to weep. And we ask: If the federal government cannot manage facilities as simple as stadia then we are truly in trouble.

    Why don’t we have any shame? Why can’t we get even the most elementary things done? This night, without waiting till tomorrow, the president can simply order that these facilities be sold off, concessioned or be managed by a task force that renders an annual account to the presidency. This presidential order will not cost money!!!

  • Fuel subsidy: How to kill a columnist

    This article was first published in this column on January 6, 2012. With a new government in the saddle, we have continued to make the same poor choices, especially in our oil and gas sector. If over half of our foreign exchange earnings are spent importing petroleum products and we can’t earn such quantum of forex anymore, it is commonsensical to expedite action towards eliminating such economic carnage. How can a man haemorrhaging profusely and non-stop expect to stay alive?

    This government told us many months ago it would co-locate small, new refineries around the old tired ones. These are projects that require lightning-speed; what Nigerians want to hear most now is that these refineries would be ready in six to 10 months’ time. That petrol imports would be cut by half on so and so date.

    These are the kind of responses we want from this government. Not whether it feels our pain. In any case, we want government to ameliorate our pains not empathise with us. Doing the right things, pursuing the right visions will give us great comfort. We do not think that government is making the right moves not to talk of getting the required results…

    That is why today, we are writing the same things we wrote two governments ago; we are shedding the same tears we shed last year. Below is a sample:

    It is so very simple to kill a columnist without as much as lifting a finger: just bedevil him with dishonest and greedy leaders and watch him write himself to his merry end. Depending on your turn of mind, you can actually choose your manner and method of dispatching your miserable muse. If you want to put down the irritant quick and sure, blight him with a mob of tricksters, gamblers and knaves; let them parade the land dressed in the garb of leadership, let them occupy all the seats of authority in the land and watch the writer go down and out as if zapped with laser rays.

    On the other hand, if you are possessed of a sinister turn of mind you could choose to stalk him slowly, roil him; make him write the same things over and over again until he grows completely grey in the head (and anywhere else). In no time, he is sure to grow grey in the mind too and surely, turn the bend. The trick is to dissemble or play ‘craze’ if you like. Become anti-rational; repudiate and basics, head for Sokoto when your destination is Okrika; unleash whirlwinds when people are looking out for a breath of fresh air. To illustrate my point, I had used the exact title as above once before about eight years ago during the reign of king Olusegun Obasanjo. As an editor and columnist, I was caught in the bind of commenting upon the same things over and over. I was foolishly thwacking my head against the obdurate walls of an irreclaimable potentate. Looking back after his eight years of disastrous rule, I found that I had written more than 300 articles which I have recently collected into a manuscript titled, “A Drum for the Deaf.”

    Talking about fresh breath and whirlwind, which columnist can survive writing about the prospect of a gust of new breeze only last June only to be confronted with a maelstrom six months down the line? How could a columnist keep his head if he has been beating it against one huge wall of illogic for 27 years? Consider this trend: in 1985 when our refineries had started failing while our petroleum products consumption was rising, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, the maximum ruler at the time, went for the easy way out, he started the fuel importation binge. When our income could not sustain our import any longer, he introduced something he termed “appropriate pricing” for petrol, “deregulation” and all that. He did not think of a plan to expand our refining capacity or develop our rich petrochemical potentials. He just increased pump prices outrageously. Nigerians protested and a slight adjustment was made and that ended it all.

    It was the same with Ernest Shonekan after Babangida, the same with Sani Abacha, Abdulsalami Abubakar and Obasanjo and now President Goodluck Jonathan. Over a period of three decades, our leaders mastered the wicked art of ripping off the country through massive importation of petroleum products. We have always known that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is a horrific house of corruption that knows not how to do anything else, yet we just live with it. How could a class of people that has embarked on a fraudulent importing binge for three decades and that neglected to develop a sector that remains its milk cow turn around to insist that a dubious, self-imposed subsidy must be removed? And come to think of it, who asked for this so-called subsidy. This thing called subsidy is only the result of corruption, inefficiency and lack of vision coming home to roost. If we had local refineries running (no matter the ownership) would we not simply pay the price emanating from such refineries?

    How could a man who told us he had no shoes; who knows a thing or two about privation and penury now have the capacity of inflicting poverty on a populace without flinching. Now that he has shoes, the very best of shoes money can buy, has he learnt that shoes are not mere adornments of the feet but instrument of intimidation and oppression? How could a bedraggled citizenry, most of who live by the day, survive under a regime of wild and sudden increase in petrol price? The so-called subsidy (by default) happens to be the only benefit the citizenry could claim to enjoy. He doesn’t have roads, no water, no kerosene, no power, no food, lacks quality education or health care… nothing.

    This columnist has grown grey making this same point. This point has been made to President Jonathan by nearly all well-meaning Nigerians high and low. This point is very simple for even a kindergarten pupil to understand. But six successive heads of state of Nigeria failed to see this basic point. However, it is only Jonathan who has chosen to ride the tiger; to swim the swift currents of the people’s anger. What is the hurry, under which appropriation law is he acting when the one under which he proposed to cut fuel subsidy is still in the National Assembly to be effective in April? Why are already ‘subsidised’ products being sold at deregulated rates? Again, people ask, why this time that the country seems besieged and the citizenry are on tenterhooks, disappointed and forlorn.

    Meanwhile, yours truly is sick of making the same argument for 27 years. I sincerely hope that this is the last time.

  • Edo election: If I were the C-in-C

    All the things we loathed so much about the previous administration are happening to us now. The other day we were assailed by the apparition of a rented crowd protesting on behalf of President Muhammadu Buhari to counteract the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) crowd.

    Today we are being inveigled to postpone an election at the eleventh hour by a tendentious security apparatchik with a putrid history requiring critical surgery. In no proper democracy would any so-called security clan assume the dubious high ground to seek to stymie a long-planned national democratic process based on some nebulous security report.

    This worst kind of corruption that borders on criminality is a carryover from the madness of the Jonathan administration. It is an affront and indeed an assault on our collective psyche. This grand chicanery; this opportunistic and orchestrated subterfuge must be purged quickly before it assumes an endemic status.

    At a time like this, one expects the President as Commander-in-Chief, to unfurl in its majesty and order the appropriate security chiefs to perish the thought of an election postponement; do their job or resign. After the polls, this hoax must be investigated and heads must roll.

    This is the way we must deal with this impertinence lest one day they would require the President to quit the Villa for one year for security reason.

  • WAI: War Against Inertia

    ast week on this space, I had interrogated the new Agriculture Promotion Policy in an article titled: “Ogbeh’s ‘low energy’ agric policy”. Not a few readers have since taken me on, expressing their disappointment that I did not do enough to review the content of the document.

    But the point of the article is not to review the policy just for its sake, but to help call attention to the critical condition the country has sunken and proffer solutions. The policy in itself is not the end but the need to make our agriculture productive and profitable in the shortest possible time. In any case, a review of the policy in the traditional sense would take about half a dozen instalments. I wager that you don’t have that luxury of time just as we do not have such space.

    But to reiterate, the document simply lacks the urgency of now, which is why one described it as ‘low energy’. And one had proffered one’s simple panacea on what is to be done: we need to stop the importation of staple food items almost immediately. With well-structured task forces we can produce all the rice, chicken, fish and tomatoes consumed here by Christmas 2017 with excess to ship across the borders. This should be the target of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD). But one is afraid to say that implementing that document as presented would take at least five years – and result is not guaranteed.

    Without boring you with a rehash of last week’s piece, it is the same virus one found in the Agric policy that plagues the entire administration of President Muhammadu Buhari – a visible lack of urgency that sometimes borders on inertia. At a period that demands speedy response to key, targeted issues, it is utterly frustrating to notice little motion in the expected direction. And one must note that it is not about funding or a lack of capacity in the human administration, but a dire absence of adrenalin, that urgency to run.

    While the PMB administration plans to reintroduce the ‘War Against Indiscipline’ (WAI), which was the president’s brainchild during his first coming in 1983, we will rather suggest a War Against Inertia. There is no doubt that PMB means well for the country and will love to see immense progress in his time, but he may end up achieving little if the presidency cannot diagnose the root of its problems.

    Why is it that the more this administration tries to change things for the better, the more the economy and indeed the polity seem to sink deeper into mire. About one and a half years on, nothing seems to be happening and now we have drifted from a ‘technical’ recession to a full blown one.

    Examples abound of a few quick things that could have been done and missed opportunities. One that came to mind first was PMB’s promise before his inauguration to float a national carrier. But a few months after he ascended to power, he told us that it was no longer his priority.

    Yes it may not be the country’s immediate need, but it is sure a necessity. To the extent that government does not need to commit huge funds to it; it will curb foreign currency flight and indeed earn us forex; it will create jobs and catalyse the growth of our aviation industry. Not least important is that it would boost Nigeria’s image by emblazoning her name into the sky and across the world. It ought to have been done. In the last one year, Ivory Coast set up her national carrier; she cannot be better than Nigeria in any sphere; it may well be just the ability to get things done.

    That ought to have been ticked off as one major accomplishment of this administration. It may also have helped resolve the miasma arising from keeping a large presidential air fleet, which has sure become an embarrassment in a time of economic depression.

    If half of our foreign currency earnings are spent on importing petroleum products, one would have thought that the major mantra of the PMB administration would have been to refine by any means possible. An administration with eyes squarely on the ball would have set a target with timelines for ending the importation of petroleum products.

    As it stands, Nigerians do not know what exactly is going on in that regard. We the people and the government too seem to be waiting for Dangote’s refinery to come on stream. But the trouble is that regardless of what Aliko has told us, his refinery will be ready when it will as he is not under any obligation to respond to the nation’s matters of strategic importance.

    Imagine how reassured Nigerians would feel now seeing that work is going on day and night on projects to end fuel importation; knowing that there is relief in sight at a stipulated time. We expect that this administration would have listed the main guzzlers of foreign exchange and worked out radical measures to drastically curtail if not end their importation. If we no longer earn forex, then we must stop spending it recklessly. That we do not see drastic actions in this regard is nothing but inertia.

    Let us close with the Chibok girls and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) matters. It is bad enough that PMB promised he would free the girls by December 2015, but not to be seen to have done anything is what riles the parents and agitators. A panel was to have been set up to reconstruct the entire Chibok affair – zilch. If any concrete attempts are being made to rescue the girls, we do not know and no one bothers to show us.

    It is scandalous that Nigeria cannot manage her internal refugees. It signals an acute state of inertia that hundreds of thousands of our children are dying for lack of food under the watch of the federal government. Who really is in charge of the IDP matter? There must be an arrowhead and if he is not effective, he must be fired, pronto!

    One wants to wager that the PMB administration suffers more from inertia (an unwillingness to take action) than a lack of revenues.

     

    What Zuckerberg and Ezekwesili have in common

    The straight one word answer is ‘genius’. To break it down further, they both share traits like passion, brilliance, empathy and the common touch. Mark Zuckerberg needs no introduction; he is the American founder of Facebook, while Obiageli Ezekwesili is a Nigerian chartered accountant, former minister, former World Bank vice president and co-founder of Transparency International. Today she is the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOGs) arrowhead. This week, the two iconic figures were in the news. No, they were on the streets. Mark was walking freely on the streets of Lagos in spite of the scare-mongering of the US government about how unsafe Nigeria is for her citizens. But all Mark cared about was to touch Nigerian youths in a special way to make them rise to the kilimanjaro of their aspirations.

    At the other end of town, Oby rekindled the BBOG campaign by sealing her lips and sitting defiantly on the road leading to the Presidential Villa. All she wanted was to rid the government of its lethargy and make it act decisively to free the school girls held by terrorists.

    It takes one man… or woman to change the world.

  • Ogbeh’s ‘low energy’ agric policy

    For want of a kinder description, one has elected to find solace in Trump-speak here. Of course we all know Donald Trump don’t we? The brash, swashbuckling presidential candidate of the Republican Party, his reputation and the sheer prospect that he might just end up in the White House continues to confound the world.

    But because even the devil has his day, let us borrow something from Trump to illustrate our point today. In the early days of his party’s primary election campaign, Trump had literally ‘slayed’ one of the prospective candidates, Jeb Bush, damaging his campaign mortally.

    He of the Bush dynasty that had produced two American presidents already, Trump had described Jeb as “a ‘low energy’ candidate who does not have the will to win the presidency.” Poor Jeb, a much younger man, lived under the rubbles of that verbal shelling until it became futile for him to continue in the race.

    Now, for want of a more polite description, one would take some liberty here to describe Agriculture Minister Audu Ogbeh’s recently released Agriculture Promotion Policy (2016 – 2020) as a ‘low energy’ document. The strategy document is nearly at variance with the realities of today.

    Though Chief Audu Ogbeh, a renowned farmer heads the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), the job of producing this document was obviously farmed out to consultants who simply made a ‘job’ of it as they are wont.

    And it’s difficult to love consultants. You know what they say about them: about borrowing your watch, telling you the time with much flourish handing you a fat bill? It must be the same scenario at the Presidency where ‘professional economic consultants’ have just concluded that the best way forward for the ailing economy is to grant the president emergency powers.

    By omission or commission, they seek to return Nigeria to dictatorship through the back door. How presidential emergency powers would translate to Nigeria earning more foreign exchange or drastically reduce her staple food imports has not been explained. But this is story for another day.

    APP 2016 – 2020 is frustratingly long on wooly prognosis and tragically short on solutions. For a PhD dissertation on Nigeria’s agriculture, it would probably earn an ‘A’ but for strategy a document take Nigeria from her current morass of food crisis and acute foreign currency shortage to sustainability, it is an ‘F’.

    What is wrong with APP 2016 – 2020?

    First, there is no urgency about it at all and Nigeria is in an emergency of sort: we need to stop food importation immediately; we need to earn foreign exchange. Last month before the Senate, Central Bank of Nigeria’s Governor, Godwin Emefiele, had lamented that forex demands for the importation of rice alone stood at $14 billion.

    Today in Nigeria, our basic salary cannot buy a bag of rice and finally, if rice import is banned outright today, an implosion may ensue in the polity almost immediately. All of this suggests a situation that is urgent and critical. It is the same situation for chicken and poultry products, milk and dairy products among others.

    In the light of this, one would expect an agric policy that is in line with these realities and that can galvanise the expedited production of these commodities.

    What must be done now While this document may be beneficial in the medium to long terms, there are a few things that must be done immediately:

    One: need for task forces on rice production value chain, poultry production value chain, dairy production value chain and fish production value chain, for a start.

    Task force on rice production value chain (call it a presidential task force if you like, I don’t think we need any emergency powers to do this). This team will monitor, support and coordinate all rice production, processing and marketing activities all around the country regardless of the ownership. It will ensure that critical presidential and institutional support and intervention reach the fields and the mills and even the silos and warehouses real time.

    They will work on the entire ramification of the rice value chain. Quarterly report is presented to a presidential committee headed by the president or his deputy. The task force itself is reviewed each year for a maximum period of three years. This way, we can achieve self sufficiency in rice production in two years flat.

    The task forces on poultry production, dairy production and fish production will work in nearly the same fashion. In two to three years, Nigeria can achieve self-sufficiency in rice, poultry, dairy and even fish production. The ultimate objective is to conserve ample foreign exchange by ending importation of these products.

    Other task forces on areas, such as agro-cooperatives and on reduction of harvest wastages may be looked into. Again because of the versatility and wide acceptance of such crops as cassava, maize, yam and millet, there may be a need to pay a special attention to their planting, harvest, processing and preservation.

    FMARD would continue to implement the APP in the medium and long term and to develop a system that would eventually meet and take over from the task forces at a juncture. Of course export cash crops would be among its major prerogative. Is it not criminal that some factories in Nigeria still import palm oil and raw rubber sap is taken out of Nigeria to Ghana to produce vehicle tyres that are shipped back here at exorbitant rates?

    What are the urgent actions required for post-harvest wastages in such fruits and crops like water melon, mangoes, oranges, tomatoes, yam and potatoes? The situation is urgent!

    In other words, APP 2016 – 2020 lacks the requisite adrenalin to attend to our immediate problems; it’s a ‘low energy’ policy.

     

    Zamfara 8: Low presidential umbrage

    Again and again, it happens and all we hear is tepid presidential assurances and nothing is ever done. When 74-year-old Madam Bridget Abahime was butchered in Kano on June 3, the president told us the action was “utterly condemnable” and that justice would be done if we maintained the peace.

    When Deaconess Eunice Olawale was slaughtered on July 9, it was the same refrain. Not one person have we seen detained or in the box.

    This time eight innocent Nigerians murdered with seven of them roasted right in their home and our president tells us again that ”it is barbaric and the law will take its course.”

    Not good enough at all. Where is presidential umbrage which requires that the IGP is summoned and given express orders to pick up all the suspects, put them in handcuffs and parade them the following day? Presidential umbrage would cause the police to expedite prosecution of cases like this to make one or two example of these murderers.

    But increasingly, government has shown that it has no interest in deterring some people from cold-blooded killings in the name of Islam. The polity will become a jungle when  government pushes the citizenry into having to defend themselves… that is where we are now. Zamfara is one case too many.

     

  • Journalism ethics and the ‘Salkida code’

    “In fact, Boko Haram (the Islamic State of West Africa Province as they like to be known) is as deadly today as it can ever be. This time around, thousands of them are not in their caliphate that is known to all, they are dispersed to the most unlikely places developing cells and creating new platforms to launch surprise attacks, whether on soft targets or not.”

     Ahmad Salkida

    The above excerpt is taken from a February 16, 2016 article of Ahmad Salkida titled, “Boko Haram: it’s about human lives not territories.” As we know, Salkida, the Nigerian freelance journalist known to have access to the terror group, Boko Haram, was declared wanted Monday by the Nigerian Army. Two other persons: Aisha Wakil and Ahmad Bolori, were also on the Army’s list of infamy.

    According to the army, the trio were suspected to be collaborators with the Boko Haram insurgents after a preliminary investigation of the latest video of the missing Chibok girls released by the terrorists. While the other two had reported to the army authorities, Salkida who apparently resides in the United Arab Emirates (Dubai) had said he would only show up upon receipt of air tickets from the army.

    The Nigerian Army declaring Salkida, a journalist, wanted has raised a cloud of dust especially among his colleagues most of who plead he has some kind of ‘professional immunity’. Some have argued that he owes a duty to his readers to report news as it is, while others weighed in that his sources too must be protected no matter who they may be.

    Who is Ahmad Salkida? To put the matter into perspective, we must first attempt to fathom the true persona of Salkida. The best we know of him is that he is an indigene of Borno State. His biodata online is scanty, but it indicates that Salkida is self-educated, but certainly not in media studies or journalism.

    Though his background is hazy and unspecified, he is known to have been familiar with the early Boko Haram clergies including Mohammed Yusuf in his teenage days in Maiduguri. The sect had been quite influential in the 90s and the then Governor Ali Modu Sheriff had deployed it to his political advantage. He is blamed for corrupting their pristine ideals and indeed, radicalising them.

    According to a colleague of Salkida in one Abuja-based daily he worked with briefly, Salkida whom he described as a very brilliant and wild-eyed young man with the heart of a lion, had always been part of the Maiduguri radical sect’s implosion galvanised by Sheriff. When therefore Boko Haram became a cause célèbre, it was easy for him to cross the red line and waltz in and out of the danger zone.

    Given his connection with the Abuja media circle even before social media became popular, Salkida was able to serve his ‘friends’ in the sect, providing ‘media intelligence’ and direction. As the sect morphed into a full blown terror group with the killing of Yusuf in July 2009 and the bloody revenge attacks of 2010, Salkida also grew in influence especially with a few exclusive reports about the sect. He immediately became an authority of sort not only on the sect but on ‘conflict reporting’ as his biodata suggests.

    Of journalism ethos, ethics and news source: The Salkida episode requires more detailed interrogation and needs be held up as a case study in media faculties and journalism schools. It must be stated that Salkida is not a journalist in the classical sense of it – neither by training nor by practice. Providence simply thrust him into the biggest story of our time and how he has reacted to it is the reason for this piece.

    As the violent reprisals grew into armed insurgency and then a well-oiled terror machine, Salkida was caught in the exciting divide and he conveniently played the dual roles of journalist/conflict expert to the outside world and intellectual resource person, mediator and negotiator to the group.

    It is apparent that he loved both roles as he grew in stature internationally and probably in means too as he and his family relocated to Dubai where he currently lives. During the immediate past administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, he as well as Aisha Wakil were involved in a multi-million dollars negotiated settlement with purported Boko Haram sect that was later disclaimed as a ruse.

    All this back-grounding is to highlight the fact that Salkida is not a journalist in the strict sense of it. Secondly, circumstances may have thrust upon him events, far above his ken to heave. It is therefore troubling to hear it being said that he owes allegiance to his source as journalism tradition demands.

    One begs to differ and basic journalism teaches that fundamental ethics and ethos of the media is to edify humanity, uphold the sanctity of the very society he lives in. A true journalist is a crusader for this noble cause and all noble causes at that. We were taught in journalism school to always uphold justice, truth and the human essence. In other words, and to illustrate, a journalist is most likely to be found on the side of the tenant against a shylock landlord, an employee against a wicked employer, the people against a tyrant government and good against evil.

    To boil it down, why then would a journalist worthy of that noble vocation protect a terrorist ‘source’ in the face of a dire national security threat and massive loss of lives of innocent fellow compatriot? It is to suggest that journalism is about the sanctity of the news source or for that matter, that it is an end in itself. In this case, news gathering and reporting is not only for the sole purpose of broadcasting the activities of a deadly terrorist group but for the greater purpose of ending the scourge.

    Studying the activities of Salkida, carrying out the simplest content analysis of his articles, there is no doubt where his sympathy lies. He hardly has any word of condemnation for the wanton blood-fest unleashed on his country and countrymen; causing no fewer than 15000 deaths not to mention untold carnage to lives and livelihoods. We speak of a matter of grave national catastrophe here and not infantile journalistic escapades.

    If perchance Salkida had an inkling of the location of one IED that went off; if he ever knew the hiding place of the kidnapped Chibok girls and one of those deathly ambushes of the military; if he knew and withheld such information, then what he has done is grand treason not covered by any known journalistic code.

    Unschooled and inexperienced, Salkida may well be excused for taking such liberties he did under the guise of journalism practice. Let us blame it on the fact that he may have been caught up by forces beyond his control.

     

    Uche Ogah and Nigeria’s leadership selection process

    The recent report in national newspapers relating to a case of grand forgeries against Mr. Uche Ogah is a cause for concern. Going by the sheer magnitude of the case, one would have expected both the security agencies and his party to have pre-empted his very aspiration to contest for the governor of Abia State.

    According to court documents in circulation, the allegations are so weighty that in other climes, he would have been barred ab initio from seeking public office. We hope our security agencies would be more diligent in carrying out background checks on political aspirants. This would go a long way in sanitising the polity and our democracy would be better for it.

  • How to eat your elephant

    Today’s report is actually the size of an elephant and imagine for a moment that you are faced with the small task of confronting a whole barbequed elephas maximus…? Such is the setting for today’s piece which is partially an account of the Nigerian Guild of Editors’ conference held last week in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

    Obviously triggered by the dark images hanging over the nation’s horizon, the editors (apparently unbeknown to them) put up a crash programme on how to save Nigeria via agriculture revolution. It was  perhaps the most stirring agric summit one had attended and it turned out an eye-opener for the crowd of editors and senior journalists from across the country. The only downside was that the Federal Ministry of Agriculture was missing at a forum that was perfect for presenting its new plan – The Agriculture Promotion policy (2016 – 2020). More on this later.

    Stars of the story: Of the numerous speakers on parade, three examples stand out because their stories are not only stellar, they exemplify the power and ingenuity of youth; signalling to us that our great nation would yet rise to her billowing glory regardless of the scourge of poor leadership.

    The first to wow the crowd was a feisty young man known as Lucas Adeniji. If his energy could be converted to megawatts, it would probably light up half of Lagos; he is the managing director of Niji Farms and Allied Services Limited. Established four years ago in Kajola, Oyo State, the farm, he said, has about 3,000 acres of cultivated land of mainly cassava, yam and maize.

    An internationally-acclaimed agric entrepreneur, Lucas has managed to work his business through the entire agric value chain. In other words, he fabricates production and processing tools, he cultivates, processes and has even developed both local and international markets for his products. He collaborates at various levels with such major organisations as College of Agriculture, Umuagwo; National Root Crop Research Institute; International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, Ibadan and the Honeywell Group to name a few.

    He has a number of processed and packaged foods to his name, such as Niji yam flour, Niji garri, Niji fufu, Niji vita, etc. which are available in markets and malls across the country.

    The ‘uncowed’ milkman: The Economist of London after an interview with Alhaji Muhammad D. Abubakar in his Kano farm, it typically, titled the story ‘uncowed’. Such is the impact Abubakar is making with his L&Z Farms Limited in Kano. According to him, he left his bank job a few years ago to establish his dairy farm. And till today, his is the only full process diary farm in Nigeria which produces fresh milk.

    Successful and self-assured, Abubakar dropped a few, shall we say, verbal bombshells which had the large hall in disarray. One, he said 70 per cent of the powdered milk we have been lapping up in this country is not consumed anywhere else on the globe because they are infused with fat and used only as additive in manufacturing.

    Two, but here is the banger, he told us that MOST OF THE SO-CALLED POWEDERED MILK CONSUMED BY NIGERIANS CAN CAUSE CANCER. He would not name any brands but challenged the foods, drug and consumer agencies to run their tests and disprove him.

    Three, he told us so many other things we did not know. The so-called Fulani herdsmen he said do not actually need to move about or stay in large ranches for that matter. They wander about out of survival instincts. If they were aggregated into small cooperatives and there was a sure market for their products, there won’t be any need for them to ‘suffer’ so much wandering about.

    He continues: “If there were large dairy farms and meat processing factories that are off-takers of their products they would organise themselves around their living quarters and neighbourhoods. It is about creating viable value chains.”

    To drive home his point, he made us to understand that milk is better taken fresh and in liquid form; that is what obtains in other parts of the world except Nigeria. His fresh milk can be found in supermarkets in major cities of the country. He is not shy to say he has become successful from producing and selling milk in Nigeria, a feat no other firm has achieved.

    His company is assessed by the international accounting firm, Price Waterhouse Coopers and at least three multinational companies have applied to partner him. Just like what our leaders are wont to do, foreign companies (investors) come down to Nigeria to seek him out.

    Lastly, L&Z Farms runs on generator for 24 hours because of the nature of its products (fresh milk, yoghurt, cheese and chickens) which need to be refrigerated all the time; he has never borrowed a dime from any bank nor enjoyed any government financing. He urged Nigerian professional to take the huge advantages in agribusiness, especially at the processing end.

    Pretty Miss Farmer: This is the moniker by which Ms Mosun Umoru is commonly known by today. And she is indeed beautiful – tall, delicate and finely slender, any man would want to follow her to the farm if that is what it takes! She is the managing director of Harvesters Farms Limited in Ile Ife, Osun State. A 3000-acre farm city, it is an integrated farm that embodies many agric chains – from production to the dining table. Numerous processed products from the farm which include garri, rice, etc, are already in supermarkets in the country.

    She is hands-on, being able not only to drive her own tractors but she can maintain them as well. A graduate of Lagos State University and Stanford in the USA, she has created the very important though intangible advantage of making agriculture look cool to Nigerian youths who think agric is dirty and not ‘lucrative’.

    PMB’s Agric Promotion Policy (APP): So many other speakers spoke at the NGE conference including the managing director of the Bank of Agriculture and many agric commissioners, but these three stood out and made huge impact. One had expected the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development would have stormed the venue to sell its new strategy document released in June, but that was not to be.

    It is a story that would be told here another day soon. Suffice to say that it is a better articulated work compared to the Agric Transformation Agenda of the last administration. But articulation can be very cheap when put beside implementation.

    Back to the top, Nigeria’s agribusiness today is like a whole barbequed elephant: so gargantuan, so sumptuous yet so dauntingly offensive. How would you approach your elephant?

     

    The Imo conundrums

    Last week on this portion of space, one had interrogated the rationale for the deprecatingly novel three-day work week being mooted in Imo State. It is bad enough that the state’s civil service had been in the doldrums in this dispensation; to now design a lackadaisical work regime is to finally bury the bureaucracy. Perhaps the government may wish to completely do away with the civil service; whereupon we shall have the 8th wonder of the modern world in Imo State.

    Passing through the streets of Owerri, Imo capital last weekend, it is apparent that a hurricane had wreaked havoc on some major streets. Orlu road, Okigwe road and Mbaise road were troubling spectacles with wailing and mourning on the trail of the whirlwind.

    Now these roads were freshly revamped and dualised, but the governor is said to want make them eight-lane roads. Well the motive maybe noble, but eight-lane roads through the city cannot be the priority of a state that cannot pay its workers. Especially if we remember that many inter-state roads in Nigeria are still two-lane. Thus, knocking down shops, offices and buildings without compensation and in a time of hunger borders on callousness. Worrisome signs indeed.

  • Lagos: re-imagining a mega city (2)

    In the first part of this piece last week, we had surmised mainly that Lagos, like Nigeria, will not achieve the status of a modern mega city if it does not tinker with the current template. We said that unless the component parts (LGAs and LCDAs) are geared to work at optimum, there is nothing even a great governor can do to fast-track modernity.

    We gave the example of the USA; zeroing it down to a random example of the state of Michigan, down to a county (Lake County) and to the village of Baldwin. The crucial point being made is that at every level there is a government that is responsible for every inch of space in its domain and every individual within that space.

    Lake County and its smaller unit, Baldwin are both structured to function accountably and to take charge of every aspect of its socio-economic life i.e. revenues, security, law and order, judiciary, health, education, etc. The biggest revenues earner for Baldwin for instance is its well developed water and eco-tourism. But here, our water ways have been abandoned for militants and forests are breeding grounds for terrorists.

    Our third and fourth tiers of government across the country are practically shutdown with no funds, no creativity and hardly any productive activity going on. Lagos must buck this trend and reactivate the LGAs and LCDAs lest all the troubles of insecurity, unemployment and filthy underdevelopment will get worse.

    After putting the lower tiers of government on proper track, Lagos will have to rework other critical sectors not only to make them mega-city ready but to have them withstand the exponential growth of the city in the next decades. Some of the development indices that must be reframed include security, health, education, transportation, tourism and youth and sports, among others.

    A vulnerable city: Happenings in recent times have proved beyond doubts that Lagos has increasingly become very vulnerable. Almost every night, pockets of the city are savaged by hoodlums. It happens so frequently that the news media don’t even bother to report them anymore. Perhaps government would like to take a sneak peek at police reports to have an idea.

    Armed gangs have understood that the police and security agents are laughably under strength, they have become more emboldened. They hold out an entire estate for several hours coolly ransacking and damaging it. Most times they are gone before the police manage to answer any distress call. Sometimes when they manage to catch them in the act, they square up to the police and return fire.

    The truth is that Lagos is being overwhelmed by crime and insecurity. It gets worse by the day. The state must redraw the security template with the federal government but being careful not to mention ‘restructure’. Lagos and Abuja must as a matter of urgency set up a joint committee on Lagos project.

    The rationale is that Lagos remains a microcosm of the country and if Lagos works well, one third of the country would probably work. The committee will look at critical areas of intervention and recommend to the federal government.

    Security is one such area. You cannot have the same security template in Lagos as obtains in other cities. Lagos must broaden her security architecture, building cyber networks and deploying more technology than the current ‘kick and pursue’ approach to policing. In an emerging mega city, emphasis must be on pre-empting, deterrence and punishment for criminals.

    A local government area working properly would have a proper policing system anyway.

    City on a slow lane: Transportation and attendant mass movement are yet again, a big city’s boldest signature or albatross. Consider that about 150 years ago, when rail lines became fully developed as the best mass transit man had, London central area was already fully built up. What to do? The authorities decided to tunnel under London city and passed the rail lines underground. That was how come we have the underground trains in London, US, Europe and other parts of the world.

    If Lagos is already too built up, can we have the underground skirting it? Lagos waterways are the most undeveloped and underutilised one knows. Lagos has not even begun to scratch the riches of the bodies of water surrounding it in terms of transportation, tourism and sports. And the good news is that a big city that is gaining in immense importance like Lagos easily attracts international finance for big ticket projects. Unlike security, most projects in the transport sector would fend for themselves through PPP. A mega city is hardly built on taxpayers’ money.

    A city without a soul: Lagos must be the only one of its kind without major tourism, culture and entertainment signatures. The type of places and monuments reckoned with all over the world. Accra and perhaps Dakar have managed to extract some vengeance from their slave history by making their sites into a panoply of educational, cultural and tourism enterprise. Lagos has a better potential in Badagry. Combine the sites with a stretch of beautiful beaches of the Atlantic – paradise.

    The mouldy National Arts Theatre is the only cultural spot in this city; any major state museum? Where are the mini stadia, civic and recreation centres? Why can’t the city muster annual sports festival, big football league and annual film festival and so on? Big modern cities are made of stuff like these.

    To cut the story short, every sector, every index of development deeds to be reinvented in a bigger and bolder way. Health, education, agriculture, industry, power, ethnic relations, etc.; the idea here is to begin today to envision Lagos of 10, 20 and 50 years ahead.

    If we do not think in this wise, we shall merely be rolling from one crisis to another. CONCLUDED

     

    No to Okorocha Formula

    News emanating from Imo State right now is most laughable if not outright comical. Is it for real that the state government under Governor Rochas Okorocha has devised a formula of three days on and two days off for Imo civil servants?

    If this were true, it should trouble any reasonable Imo man or woman. What this marks, in case some people do not see it, is the final destruction of the Imo civil service. What is a state without her bureaucracy; especially a well-primed one?

    From the outset of Okorocha’s administration it had been apparent that he is anti-system. But the world is built on systems, institutions, processes, procedures and structures. Yes, Okorocha may have indeed built some monuments, but they would be standing in a vacuum without the requisite systems.

    Finally, this column cannot accept that Imo cannot produce enough to maintain her workforce and indeed meet her needs. This ‘Okorocha Formula’ cannot stand; it lacks rigour and deep thought. In fact it is ridiculous and should be rescinded.     

  • Lagos: To re-imagine a mega-city (1)

    Re-invoking the ‘re’ words: A series of troubling occurrences in Lagos in the past few weeks prompted this discourse. But let us warn upfront that Lagos is only used here as a metaphor for Nigeria. Secondly, we have used the word ‘re-imagine’ with caution because the other word (‘restructure’) is now jaded, if not damaged and rendered a pariah in today’s Nigeria’s political lexicology.

    As most of you may know, ‘restructure’ has become a taboo word that slams the door in the faces of the citizenry and elicits a swift shutting of the mind among some of today’s leaders. Thus instead of ‘restructure’, we shall prefer in this piece, such words as re-imagine as above, re-appraise, re-engineer, revamp, re-direct, re-focus, re-think, re-boot, re-evaluate… and all the other wonderful ‘re’ words that providence has granted us to help us restore and re-awaken our minds and body when life begins to get too lethargic even for our good. We shall return to (re-visit!) this later.

    Bloody test-drive: Now to the scary occurrences in our mega-city: Mid July (16th), an armed gang, some dressed in military and police uniforms stormed Iba land in the vast Alimoso Local Government Area of Lagos State at about 10 pm. They overwhelmed the community, snatched the traditional ruler, Oba Goriola Oseni, Oniba of Iba land after injuring one of his wives and killing a couple of people. They practically strolled away and escaped through the waterway in the vicinity. As at yesterday, the monarch was still being held, while a huge amount is being demanded as ransom.

    Early this week, a gang of hoodlums numbering about 15 reportedly struck in the same axis of Alimoso; this time, Igando area. They also came through the waterway. During the ransacking of the settlement known as Pacific Estate, they were engaged by the police in a shoot-out, which lasted for hours until they escaped through the waterway. A couple of policemen were injured and residents fled the community in droves as they claim the attacks by armed gangs had become too incessant.

    In another incident, rival hoodlums in Ijora Badia area of Lagos clashed for about three days starting from last Monday. When the dust settled, two persons were reportedly killed and scores of residents had to flee the area. It took the combined efforts of policemen and men of the Customs Service to quell the uprising.

    Yet in another incident in Agege, another axis of the city, about a week ago, teenagers reportedly numbering about 100 stormed a school with machetes and various other weapons after the school’s valedictory party went awry. They attacked some officials of the private secondary school and damaged properties. It took the intervention of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) to disperse the rampaging youths.

    For nearly a decade, Lagos, a fledgling mega-city, has practically been held by the scruff by emergent neighbourhood cult groups. A phenomenon that may have derived its origin in the steamy, slum jungle of Mushin-olosa has spread to adjoining communities and far beyond. Places like Fadeyi, Somolu-Bariga and Onipanu grew to be hot zones of violent cult battles.

    The scourge has today spread further afield and almost pervading the entire state. Areas, such as Ikorodu, Ajah, Lagos Island, Ebute-Meta, Mile 2, Papa Ajao, etc; have witnessed incessant bloody cult rivalries, resulting in loss of lives and damage of properties.

    Cultism continues to manifest in different forms and permeate various communities of the city. We have seen the ‘One Million Boys’ and the ‘Awawa Boys’, which are attempts at organised robbery gangs run riot over some areas of the city. There are other not yet notorious groups in various stages of incubation. Traversing Oshodi daily, one encounters a large army of homeless, jobless youths loitering about this major hub of the city. Not to mention the ubiquitous and unmanageable commercial bikers and street traders.

    Recent brazen gang attacks through the waters around Lagos have been blamed on ‘militants’ from out of town, but one wagers that this recent manifestation is not unconnected to the oil pipe brigands who have made money from oil thefts. Having acquired more sophisticated weaponry, they have become emboldened. Several times they have gone on operation and so easily out-gunned the police and overrun any community they pick, while they return to base unscathed. And this may still be just test runs. By the time they are fully formed, they may seek bigger targets.

    Grim prognosis: In sum, we wager that it is a grim prognosis ahead of us, which is why we suggest a re-imagining of the entire affairs of our nation starting from our great, exfoliating mega-city.

    The new governor, it must be said, has done quite well operating on nearly two decades old template. Starting from 1999, Lagos State must be commended for having bucked the trend among states of the federation. It has been blessed with successive quality leadership, which has continued to lift it notch after notch.

    But what we call for here is a radical rethink. A few days ago, the state’s executive council led by the governor rose from a retreat in Badagry with a promise of immense goodies to be showered upon the people in the just about six months’ time. Great. Indeed, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode has made giant strides in just few months of his ascension and setting the Fourth Mainland Bridge in motion and rethinking Oshodi are particularly noteworthy.

    What to do? Let’s go to Lake County, Michigan: some ill-informed analysts would aver that Nigeria is too big and that explains why it is not running well. But big as the US is, nearly every inch of it is governed and policed. The US like most other properly run countries is structured along federal, state and local authorities system in different names and guises.

    The US for instance has 51 states and 3,144 counties. There are also county seats and villages. Almost every village has a local council that is functioning; that has a president, clerk, treasurer, attorney, sheriff, etc. Each county or village council generates its revenue, maintains security, law and order.

    Pick any village randomly: Baldwin, Lake County, state of Michigan. Apart from finding all the officials, representatives and weekly meeting schedules online, you will find its population (1,208) and racial make-up; number of families residing in the village and the number of housing units and so much more.

    What this suggests is a country that is in charge of every inch of its space and everyone of her citizens. To reiterate, Lagos must show the way in bringing the LGAs and LCDAs to full bloom or we face doom in the near future. No matter how energetic or perspicacious Governor Ambode might be, there is no way he could be in Alausa or Marina and be on top of happenings in Alimoso or Badagry or the waterways of Ikorodu. He must restructure (sorry, re-imagine) the governance of the state to have equally capable Lagosians driving at full throttle from every corner of the state (LGAs and LCDAs) at the same time.

    Who is tending to thousands of inner street roads and drainages and primary schools; where are the councillors and ‘sheriffs’ of myriads of small communities? All these things can never be done effectively from Alausa no matter how hard a governor tries or how efficient he may be.

    Let us re-imagine this structure or restructure our imagination; whichever comes easier.

     

    Anambra’s $5m vegetable export

    The news of what seems like the greatest feat of these times got one very elated until one afforded it a second thought. Wait a minute, one exclaimed as questions started streaming through the mind.

    Five million dollars worth of vegetable must be a huge, massive lot. What types of vegetables? Which plantations or greenhouses yielded this quantity? When, where exactly was it planted and harvested? What about processing, packaging, warehousing quality control and shipping logistics for such highly perishable commodity? So many questions begging for answers in this beautiful story put out by Anambra State government. This story requires ample illustration to say the least. It is the same with the report about N300 million order for rice. How many rice mills are operational in the state for instance? Illustration is required to make what is a wonderful story by itself, palatable – in a manner of speaking.