The Nation Newspaper

Category: Steve Osuji

  • PMB, don’t run any ministry!

    One is much perturbed that President Muhammadu Buhari has elected to run the Ministry of Petroleum Resources. Why do we do the same things that take us no where? This only suggests that he does not have a full grasp of the import and magnitude of the office he holds. If PMB has the time, energy and brilliance to add another office to his High Office, it should be Agric and Rural Development. If he understands the new strategic direction of the economy, he must make agric the new crude oil.

    But there is absolutely nothing PMB would offer in any ministry that another Nigerian somewhere would not do better. His job is to find that man or woman and put him there. His job is to supervise and supervise and supervise.

    Unless like former President Olusegun Obasanjo, he needs to take care of himself, this is a huge distraction. He must help us by shedding his superman syndrome. He should help rebuild our systems across board so they can run well irrespective of personality.

  • APC: Still in the throes of victory

    This piece was to be titled: “APC: 100 days of bickering” until the very last minute when it was changed to the one above. One has indeed been deeply troubled by the inability of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to rise beyond the euphoria of snatching power from a ruling party; one is worried whether it is imbued with the mental strength to cut short the victory dance; whether it possesses the clarity of mind to determine that the electoral success was the easier part.

    One worries silly about how to convince the new ruling party that the tough task ahead is to build this loose agglomeration (APC) into a formidable national structure that would not only outlive its illustrious founders, but achieve a reputable African persona like Mandela’s African National Congress, ANC.

    Today, all attention is focused on President Muhammadu Buhari; everyone has done all manner of jiujitsu on the president’s activity and inactivity in the 100 days since his inauguration. We have busied ourselves deifying and vilifying one man in equal measure while neglecting the crux of the matter.

    We have allowed the APC drift away and recede into nothingness. After installing a man in the Presidential Villa, the ruling party has lapsed into an enclave of bickerers remorselessly hankering after political spoils. The same energy and aplomb deployed in vanquishing the erstwhile ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been turned inwards.

    This cannot be the change Nigerians voted for; APC as encapsulated today does not represent change and hope and a new beginning. Nothing indeed seems to have changed and no lessons seems to have been learnt from the pernicious past of the PDP. One would have expected the APC to have moved swiftly upon winning the general election, to commence the process of consolidation and building of a formidable party. One expected party structures to have been erected like fortresses to give support and fillip to the new government.

    APC has so far been unable to focus on the big picture and the long term. Instead the party has been riveted by positions and spoils are pursued with a short-term determinism. It is as if the party is on a one-term spell. But very soon another election cycle will be with us. A party worth its name would begin its campaign from the first day in office with every of its action and activity.

    Today, make no mistake about it, the state of the party is a reflection of its government. Since the party has remained unsettled, the governments both at the centre and states could hardly get off the ground 100 days after. Not only that the Federal Government could not form a government where one was needed urgently, the economy was forgotten entirely to the point that it began to slide into recession. Whither the party’s economic agenda or overriding political philosophy?

    Apart from Kaduna State, most other APC states seemed transfixed in a certain inertia. Neither could they form government nor did the one-man rule in the states produce superior leadership. It has been 100 days of void and vacuity where urgent actions were required. None of the state governments seem to recognise that Nigeria’s economy is in dire straits and that we need new approaches urgently.

    Not one governor has been challenged enough to pick up the gauntlet and work out a new, sustainable economic agenda for his state in the face of a shrinking federal allocation. While some of them cannot be bothered, many would simply not be able to think fresh alternatives. Now that they have clamoured for and got bailout funds, the next campaign would be to badger the Federal Government to relinquish more per centage of the national cake. With many states in crunch time and governors borrowing ravenously, one foresees a good number spending the next four years just bemoaning their fate and accomplishing nothing, while living out their old, wasteful habits.

    It is in a time like this that a party that is deep wades in and offers direction and institutional leverages. If APC had mastered its environment and was well tracked, it would have for instance, organised series of economic summits on economic diversification and best approaches for each of its states.

    But on the other hand, APC seems to have been completely consumed on a zero sum game of disbursing National Assembly and executive positions. The situation in the Senate, which has now zoomed off on a weird trajectory, is notable.

    One had warned of this disingenuous outcome here earlier, but apparently we are a ‘solid state’ of sort. On had asked previously what the Senate president was worth? Is it worth the party? One thought that once a party has the presidency and thinks long term, every other position can be managed and expended within the short run.

    Has anyone considered the long-term strategic outcome of the messy intra-party fight in the Senate? Now that a sitting Senate president has be docked and debased, what next? Either way, the party will bleed profusely; the bad blood may even linger till the next elections if we don’t achieve a more self-lacerating result before the next voting season. A party properly configured and in full flight would have worked around the chasm in the Senate.

    It is amazing how many people are blind to the puerility hounding the Senate president and pursuing him to the dock, using a corrupted instrument of the old regime. Let him go answer the charges, seems to be the chorus; let us start from somewhere, some said! Great, but when one corrupt structure is placed on another corrupt one, what you get is a superstructure of corruption. The Code of Conduct Bureau as currently constituted cannot pretend to fight corruption.

    Why are we harming ourselves? Why are we exhuming the old, sordid tricks perfected by PDP that we loathed for the past 16 years? We thought change meant to clear out the falling edifices and rebuild them with quality materials for constructing modern sustainable institutions? Why are we locking ourselves in this faustian charade? Why is APC engrossed in a bolekaja contest over a silly Senate seat when it has decades-wide canvass spread before it?

    Alas, APC is still in the throes of its unimaginable electoral victory. It suffers the pangs of success, most regrettably.

  • RE: Ooni: Away with savage traditions

    Some people took umbrage over the above boxed story on this page recently (August 14, 2015). One of such is the leader of the Oodua Liberation Movement (OLM). He has construed the piece to mean a disparaging of the tradition and race. But that is far from the truth.

    There is no intention nor is there a motive whatsoever for one to do that. It would also be out of character for me to descend to such a level. The simple point one pursued in that article is that anywhere there is nary a hint of any violation of the human essence, we must condemn. In other words, it doesn’t matter whether it is in Igbo-Ukwu, Ife, Benin or Kafanchan, we must protect and preserve our humanity. Imagine for a moment that twins are still cast into the evil forest as tradition demanded in those days in the Southeast and Southsouth Nigeria? Would we not condemn it and demand that it be done away with?

    Some friends and associates have also informed me that the abobaku tradition was  abolished since 1910 and nothing of such happens anymore.

  • Re: David Mark in the vortex of history

    Last week on this page, I had re-run a piece (Like Mark, Like Saraki ; first published Aug. 28, 2015), following a rejoinder from Kola Ologbodiyan, an aide to former Senate President, David Mark. I had also run Kola’s letter side by side my article.

    Since Kola also accused me of frustration, I am re-running today’s piece to show that I am indeed ‘frustrated’. But not in the manner of a politician denied of pork as Kola seems to suggest. My frustrations stem from the obduracy of leaders like his boss Mark who have managed to hold Nigeria and her people hostage over the years. This article was first published on February 17, 2012. It was rerun on March 30, 2012 when out-of-the-world allowances were awarded lawmakers. Again on July 26, 2013, it was reproduced once more as The Economist of London branded Nigerian lawmakers as the highest paid in the world in its edition of that week.

    Today’s is the fourth rerun. How frustrating indeed can life be for a columnist? How can the current Senate President continue on that same unsustainable template we have wept about? They are so ‘dead’ in their ways they do not care whether the economy is crumbling. They don’t care if workers are not paid for one year…

     Leaders without vision do not care about history:

    They are too dim and too enamored with the trappings of this fleeting moment to spare a thought for tomorrow. They bury themselves in the inane perquisites of today’s office and position; they deny the reality of tomorrow and ignore the power of history. But surely there will be tomorrow and history will be told as long as there is life on earth. If only leaders in positions would stop a while and pop the question at themselves: how will history judge me?

    How will history judge the current Senate President, David Bonaventure Mark? I have elected to ask this question on this page for many reasons. First it was triggered by the news recently that each Senator will get a N16 million state-of-the-art jeep as official car and second, at the end of this tenure, he would have been in the Senate for a total of 16 years, eight of which would have been at the helm of the National Assembly as Senate President. This position makes him the de facto number two man in the land. But most important, providence has hoisted him onto a position to tinker with history, to shape history, to direct history and in deed to make history. So we ask today, what has he done (will he do in the remaining period) with this gavel of history handed to him? But sorry to say that so far, he has bungled his moments in history and here are some reasons why:

    Poor personal leadership example: As has been mentioned above, the senate presidency is the second most powerful and influential position in the land and Mark would have done eight years by 2015. Under a more perspicacious and insightful personage, that position has the capacity to bring about far-reaching changes in Nigeria. By sheer effusion of personal examples from the man at the helm, the legislative arm (down to the State assemblies) would have been the unblinking moral compass of the various governments.

    We saw a glimmer of this leadership precept in the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. He said he would uphold the rule of law, he showed practical examples at the critical time and soon the judiciary caught on to it and this was reflected in the court rulings of that time. He declared his assets and made it public for the whole world to see; the first time any president would do that in our recent history. Without being prompted, his vice and other governors, followed suit. In less than three years, Yar’Adua made more salutary impact on the psyche of Nigerians and had more positive influence on our system than President Olusegun Obasanjo did in eight years. Today, the bonfire billowing in the upper chamber can be seen burning most assuredly in all the houses of assembly across the land. Just like the Senate, they have all become hollow chambers of mercantilism and debauchery.

    Lack of probity and transparency: All of a sudden Nigerians can’t tell anymore, how much their legislators earn. All we know now is that being a legislator in Nigeria (at any level) is the best job in the world. It must be the highest paying and most risk-free job known any where. Never a headache from any graft agency as other government officials suffer; in spite of the cries and clamour by the populace the legislature insist on creating a fiscal haven of its own that defies appropriation acts and revenue guidelines.

    The hallowed chamber of the National Assembly (NASS) seems ensconced in the bosom of mammon and held spell bound by its self-awarded boundless perquisites of office. NASS is certainly the new honey pot of a rotten Republic. Legislators have become so licentious that they would corral banks into granting them billions of naira in loans to share. At what interest rates and costs to the taxpayer? It is on this framework that the current Senators would award themselves a N16 million official car in a time of severe austerity in the land. At a period the populace has been badgered into relinquishing the only ‘subsidy’ they enjoy’ at a time that the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has determined that 100 million Nigerians are dirt poor earning less than $1 a day. It is doubtful if any other senator anywhere in the world rides such an exotic machine at tax payers’ expense.

    Oversight function, oversight extortion: This is the most critical function of the legislature apart from passing bills. But this key instrument of check and balance has been bastardised and debased. It has become an instrument for self-aggrandisement and extortion. MDAs across the country are comatose and non-functioning because oversight function on them is weak or nonexistent. If the legislature is compromised by the MDAs where would it find the moral authority to exercise oversight? Any wonder things like turnaround maintenance (TAM) on our refineries are mired, a road project right under the nose of the Senate in Abuja is overpriced to the tune of N38 billion; corruption grows organic and cancerous in the land eating up the entire fabric of society  yet nobody seems to know what to do. What about the probe panels in various legislative assemblies? Mum is the word on this cash cow.

    People alienated and unrepresented: May we urge the Senate President to do an unscheduled tour of the constituency offices of his members and while at it, inspect the constituency projects for which huge funds are allotted to his members. It is a stark fact that most Nigerians do not know their legislators; there is hardly any functional constituency office anywhere, no projects for monies allotted and no town hall meetings. No country will grow one inch with legislators of this ilk.

    In conclusion:  the NASS has become very toxic to this country, unbeknown to the members. The onus is on David Mark to resolve to pick his spot in history. Let’s note that history is not about the wealthiest man or the most powerful of his time but about he who brings the most positive change to his people and society. Fortunately he still has a bit of time. Few quick things he can do quietly with his colleagues include fashioning out a simple, workable code of conduct; making sure that all members have standard and functional constituency offices, ensure town hall meetings are held regularly by members, ensure that the auditor-general of the federation does his work and releases his annual report promptly, and ensure probity, accountability and transparency in the finances of the Senate. The Senate can rescue the country from the current slide down the slope if it resolves to have a fresh start.

  • Like Mark, like Saraki

    I am re-running this piece originally published here Friday, August 28, 2015 because of the embedded rejoinder. This is to avail the writer a right of reply and afford readers the opportunity to read and judge by themselves. I overlook the actionable statements in the rejoinder.

    Cash is king, no, cash is god.

    May history be damned! Monetise our legacy! Hand us cash bequeathals! This must be the silent chant of members of our National Assembly (NASS) in the last 16 years. If only they knew any better; if only they realized that the unit of measure of life’s worth lies in legacies and not currencies.

    This is why history will have no golden chapter for Senator David Mark who was senate president and head of NASS for eight years. The refrain of his supporters has been that he was instrumental to stabilizing the Fourth Republic and Nigeria’s nascent democracy. But ‘stabilize’ to what end? Didn’t he merely hold down the cow for it to be milked to death?

    As this column has always canvassed, the position of the Senate President is only second in importance to that of the president of the federal republic. Therefore, under the control of a noble and enlightened mind, the NASS is a veritable instrument for ringing far-reaching socio-political and constitutional changes. But as we have witnessed, none of the structural dysfunction plaguing the polity was righted; no landmark legislation such that could untangle the system and unleash the potentialities of the state was pushed.

    For 16 years, the NASS remained a wayward, licentious lad and in eight years under David Mark’s leadership, it grew into a rapacious money mongering ogre; a loose King Kong trampling the polity and gobbling up our commonwealth. Mark will be remembered for the singular achievement of nurturing a NASS where members earned more than members of the US Congress and the British Parliament put together. We will remember him for bequeathing us with the inimitable legacy of a rogue assembly during his presidency.

    We remember Mark today and for always for that outstanding record of creating a NASS that earned the highest wages in the world. We will always remember him for breeding a corps of hard-hearted men and women who are lacking in compunction or empathy for the teeming horde of a poor and deprived populace.

    We will remember David Mark and his gang not only for mindlessly immiserising the people but for also over-sighting the historic pillage of Nigeria in the last five years. Never in our history had a parliament entered into such incestuous relationship with the executive branch to rape and ravage the country and her people.

    Saraki, Chip of the old PDP block While we shall allow history to damn Mark and his baleful lot, we shall have to march on the current Assembly. In just a few days, it has become obvious that Senator Bukola Saraki, the new president of the Senate is as much a lost soul as Mark. For Saraki, ‘change’ must be a stupid new buzzword Nigerians have just discovered. None of all that ‘change nonsense’ for him; Nigeria’s billions of naira beckons, it seems. His eyes must be firmly glued to a future of imperial positions, and he needs money to purchase it. That is all that matters; again, legacy be damned!

    One had thought that Senator Saraki would be influenced by the advantage of better learning and better democratic credentials. We are mistaken it seems. A buccaneer is a pirate and a vampire will always relish blood. Having tasted blood (of the people) in his first term it is too late to let up now. It does not matter that the economy is flailing, it does not matter that revenues have dried up drastically and it does not matter that workers are not being paid their humble wages across the country. All that matters is to grab positions over which they had bludgeoned themselves since inauguration in May. Now that positions seem settled, the time has come to shovel funds generously into their pockets.

    This must be the best job in the world Is it possible that these NASS members have hurled home the sums we hear they have hurled in just three months of bickering and taking recesses? Is it true that about N13 billion has been shared by our lawmakers already? Is it true that each of the senators has been paid at least N36 million while each of the House of Representatives members has pocketed about N25 million so far?

    It is scary that all our law makers including supposed ‘noble’ men and women (like Ben Murray-Bruce and Dino Melaye) in these pristine chambers would not take a definitive and open stance against what is obviously an obscene, under-the-table payouts. How on earth did the NASS arrive at an annual budget of N120 billion (N150billion up till last year)? Why should NASS comprising of only 469 lawmakers have a bureaucracy of about 4660 civil servants?

    Even at that, why would a NASS with a total head count of 5129 persons have an annual budget of N120 billion while a state like Benue for instance, with a population of about 4.2 million people has an annual budget of N98.5 billion. To think that such states like Benue would have to also provide infrastructure and public utilities such as roads, water, health and educational facilities among others. What this suggests is that the NASS may not need more than N25 billion in total annual budget.

    We will therefore expect the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) in all its twiddling and twaddling about fixing legislators’ emoluments and pay cuts, tell us what N120 billion is used for.

    The Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation (OAGF) which ought to scrutinize all appropriated expenditures in the federation has been remiss in its duties. It is its duty to ensure that every kobo of this whopping sum is accounted for.

    Members of NASS have been sharing cash as if they were hooded bandits sharing booty this last decade because the federal audit system had become near moribund. Since it has become obvious that Saraki is anything but a change agent and that it seems his leadership would be worse than Mark’s, Nigerians must brace up to effect the change they need by themselves. Enough is enough! Who needs the senate anyway?

  • Re-Like Mark, like Saraki

    As a mark of respect, I hate to join issues with my senior colleagues on the pages of Newspapers (sic). This position of mine was further encouraged by the President of the Senate Emeritus (sic), Senator David Mark, who always told me that every man has a right to his opinion. In the eight years I spent with him officially as his media advisor, Senator Mark’s preference and insistence was to speak directly with those who held contrary opinions to his views not minding their reactions in the newspapers. He often advised that we leave all channels of communication open for “those who need to know.”

    As a journalist, I also subscribe to the dictum that the right to free expression is not open ended. In simpler terms, the freedom of expression has its limits. It is in the light of this that I believe that my first boss and senior colleague, Steve Osuji, went beyond his freedom of expression in his “ Like Mark, like Saraki” as espoused on the Backpage of The Nation newspaper of Friday, August 28, 2015. His opaque views must not be allowed to pass or else many will mistook (sic) his rubbish fiction as a fact.

    Osuji in his EXPRESSO column surmised that the eight years of Senator Mark as President of the Senate would only be remembered for what he ( Osuji) dubiously tagged as “a rapacious money mongering ogre ; a loose King Kong trampling the polity and gobbling up our common wealth” among many other fables. There is no conclusion that could have been farther from the truth about the Mark’s Years.

    Throughout his uproar, Osuji did not accuse Senator Mark of helping himself from the disbursement of funds or committing any malfeasance arising from pilfering in the general purse. Rather, his accusations were like venting self-inflicted frustrations on an imaginary enemy. Osuji was uncouth and sounded like a confused town crier.

    For the avoidance of doubts, it is imperative to state that the Senator David Mark Years of (sic) the Nigerian Senate created a stable polity and amended electoral laws that guaranteed credible, fair and free elections which every Nigerian including Osuji are (sic) proud of today.

    Also, that Senate was historic for her cohesion, indivisibility and unity of purpose as Senators spoke in unison irrespective of creed or political affiliations.

    It is also curious that Osuji will forget so soon that the Mark’s Senate remained the only government department in annals of our contemporary history to return a whopping sum of N 7billion Naira to the national coffers as unspent fund in the 2008 fiscal year.

    I do not think that Osuji suffers dementia. But it shuddered (sic) me that he failed to remember that Senator Mark in the last session of 2014 led his colleagues to slash the budget of the National Assembly by over N30billion Naira.

    It is indeed sordid, sad and reprehensible that Osuji and his likes would prefer to make Senator Mark the scapegoat of their hate campaigns. Their wishful thinking notwithstanding, majority of Nigerians will continue to adore the legacies of stability; cohesion; executive/legislative collaboration; the invocation of the Doctrine of Necessity that saved our polity from the precipice; electoral reforms; anti-same sex marriage bill and many other bills.

    These and many others are the achievements of Senator Mark which Osuji and his hate promoters cannot dwarf in the court of public opinion no matter the pecuniary interests that ink their pens.

     

    Ologbondiyan is media aide to Senator David Mark

  • One hundred daze

    SO soon, 100 days have wheezed by since President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) was sworn into office to lead the Federal Republic of Nigeria over the next four years. One hundred days out of four years may be insignificant, but 100 days could also make all the difference in a four-year programme. Besides, 100 days is a whale of a time if you reckon it by seconds, minutes and hours. To make the point and cut this paragraph short, what I am saying is that the world can actually be changed in 100 days for anyone so minded.

    It has become difficult especially for columnists to make a candid assessment of PMB’s nascent era without Nigerians (even ardent readers) labelling you a spoilsport or a saboteur. The feeling is understandable. The generality of Nigerians have been starved of quality leadership for so long that they may have lost some of the capacity to assess leadership and governance adequately.

    This is why in a situation where nearly the entire populace is convinced they have never had it so good, it may be dangerous and inimical to one’s well-being to try to state otherwise or showcase some obvious misconceptions. How many Nigerians would accept if it is pointed to them that we have had 100 days of all motion with nary a movement forward yet? Many readers and of course the establishment would take offence and yell bad faith if they were pointed to the fact that PMB has started on a wrong footing and has in fact been in a daze of sort in the past 100 days. Even his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), was caught up so swiftly by ‘100 days’ it now denies time-bound promises it made. How time flies.

    There is no doubt that many will disagree and fiercely too, but that is one’s candid reading of the situation. Many will be quick to jump into the fray with the fact that hey; but power has become more stable, fuel has been selling at N87 per litre with those obnoxious marketers back in their damp holes like the worms they are. Refineries are also said to be working; anti-corruption agencies are acting up once again and cheery things are generally happening to us.

    I agree. All these and many more have happened in the last 100 days. In fact the most significant happening (notice that I refrain from calling it achievement) in the Buhari second coming is the instant death of impunity. Perhaps for the first time since Tafawa Balewa, we have a president or head of state who is not lasciviously eyeing our treasury every waking moment the manner a stud eyes a beautiful woman. I wager that most of our leaders who have had access to our treasury spend more time ‘plotting’ treasury plunder than national development.

    Parable of the train, the pilot, baboons and gorillas: To digress a little, to loot the treasury seems the easy part, the real work must be in managing the loot, hiding it, laundering it, keeping it out of the official circuit and most crucial, making sure your accomplices don’t covet your loot and stab you in the back or vice-versa. You will agree with me that it is no mean task. Why do you think the Americans, so far away, yet have dossier of Nigeria’s loot; a certain former governor lodged his loot in an overhead tank; a former IG of Police buried his in the precincts of his country home, but somehow, the hand of the ‘corpse’ was jutting out. My people say one man cannot bury corpse! It is the same way it’s difficult ‘managing’ money that cannot be kept in the bank. So you ask: why do individuals want to have more money than all the banks in their country can hold?

    And once a leader has boarded the loot train, he immediately loses concentration of the arduous task of managing the treasury and ensuring the equitable and wise deployment of the commonwealth.

    Once he has cranked the engine of the loot train, he becomes its captain and unknown to him, the show is no longer entirely in his hands; he is spending his tenure managing the loot train, instead of running a country or state. And you know what, it is a longish train whose coaches stretch far back (or down) out of his sight. And of course, all sorts of monkeys and baboons and gorillas would join in on the loot train while the pilot is hurtling on, merrily oblivious of the havoc being wreaked in the coaches behind him. And because the treasury is what any enclave is all about, our captain would soon find he is running a hollow republic of gangsters.

    What we have had through most of our history had been loot train captains who have spent time in office managing their loot and the fellow gangsters in their trains instead of running a country. They would pretend at running the country, they would hee and they would haw; they would spew all sorts of rubbish platitudes until their terms were up. This has been largely our lot through history. Sorry we digressed.

    Back to PMB, it must be said that he is not bugged down piloting a loot train. He does not have ‘loot challenges’ to contend with and importantly too, the monkeys and baboons who always hover around the treasury are kept at bay. PMB’s challenge on the other hand, is to apply the treasury efficiently, effectively, judiciously and speedily too.

    We appreciate the fact that our treasury is intact; we appreciate the fact that this is happening by sheer fact of his personal character and integrity. I cannot remember any other president or leader at the national or even state level one can vouch for who had no loot challenges. We appreciate the fact that as a result of his personal example and good behaviour in office, the baboons and monkeys are behaving themselves so far: the baboons and monkeys of the power sector; of the fuel subsidy saga; of NNPC, etc who were riding merrily in former President Goodluck Jonathan’s loot train are now behaving themselves. We appreciate PMB for this singular – shall we call it achievement, as most of us are mistakenly calling it?

    Would I be crucified if I said I think PMB has been dazed by the office so far and that there has been much motion without movement? I have a dozen examples, but for fear of being accused of bad faith or malice, I will proffer just a few. First, they say we cannot form government in 100 days because the rot is deep and needs to be cleansed; he needs to fight corruption; even President Obama did not form government so fast. Fallacy; America’s systems and institutions are so strong government can run pretty well without the presidency.

    If the rot is deep, what we need is a proper government to set up systems and institutions quickly. How much can one man do even if he worked alone for four years? There is also this fallacy of getting permanent secretaries to brief the president on their ministry. The ‘cult of Perm Secs’ is probably the bane of the civil service today. I wager that half of the reports they present to the president is worthless report that will not serve us any purpose. He will probably need 40 years to go through all the junk reports they will generate and seek to ‘bury’ him with. Would any perm sec tell us how many ghost workers he has bred and ‘owns’ in each ministry or how many unauthorised appointments he has made since May 29 this year? So much for cleansing rot.

    We are saying that fighting corruption is not the President’s primary duty. If PMB had done the right things, for instance, by ‘cleansing the EFCC, ICPC, Auditor-General of the Federation’s office and appointing the right Attorney-General of the Federation, some of Jonathan’s ministers would be in jail by now. Or at least they would not have regained their voices to be making public statements.

    We are tired of having to repeat this daily. The President should please quickly set up systems to work for us. We don’t have time; the economy is failing; the country is retrogressing further. And remember he is allowed to make mistakes, so long as they are honestones.

     

     

  • PMB’s Igbo challenge

    One cannot help but say a word on PMB’s appointments so far. It has been confirmed now that he has Igbo challenge. When he excluded the Southeast from the security council posts and one had mentioned it here that it was a calculated act of inequity, I had been assailed all round and branded a tribalist.

    It has become plain now and even some of my traducers are yelping. I also said that ‘provocative discrimination’ (a la Tunde Thompson) against Ndigbo would harm PMB’s persona and presidency more than the victims of his calculated action. No matter how many more appointments to be made, the mindset is clear and obvious now. What has happened is neither a mistake nor an accident.

    Now you hear people say, oh it’s true what they say about this man being parochial and hegemonic in nature. PMB is in danger of being recorded by history as a sectional and parochial leader. That would be sad indeed for a leader who would easily have become Africa’s greatest statesman out of Nigeria.

  • Like Mark, like Saraki

    Like Mark, like Saraki

    Cash is king, no, cash is god May history be damned! Monetise our legacy! Hand us cash bequeathals! This must be the silent chant of members of our National Assembly (NASS) in the last 16 years. If only they knew any better; if only they realised that the unit of measure of life’s worth lies in legacies and not currencies.

    This is why history will have no golden chapter for Senator David Mark who was Senate president and head of NASS for eight years. The refrain of his supporters has been that he was instrumental to stabilising the Fourth Republic and Nigeria’s nascent democracy. But ‘stabilise’ to what end? Didn’t he merely hold down the cow for it to be milked to death?

    As this column has always canvassed, the position of the Senate President is only second in importance to that of the President of the federal republic. Therefore, under the control of a noble and enlightened mind, the NASS is a veritable instrument for ringing far-reaching socio-political and constitutional changes. But as we have witnessed, none of the structural dysfunction plaguing the polity was righted; no landmark legislation such that could untangle the system and unleash the potentialities of the state was pushed.

    For 16 years, the NASS remained a wayward, licentious lad and in eight years under David Mark’s leadership, it grew into a rapacious money mongering ogre; a loose King Kong trampling the polity and gobbling up our commonwealth. Mark will be remembered for the singular achievement of nurturing a NASS where members earned more than members of the US Congress and the British Parliament put together. We will remember him for bequeathing us with the inimitable legacy of a rogue assembly during his presidency.

     We remember Mark today and for always for that outstanding record of creating a NASS that earned the highest wages in the world. We will always remember him for breeding a corps of hard-hearted men and women who are lacking in compunction or empathy for the teeming horde of a poor and deprived populace.

    We will remember David Mark and his gang not only for mindlessly immiserising the people but for also over-sighting the historic pillage of the country in the last five years. Never in our history had a parliament entered into such incestuous relationship with the executive branch to rape and ravage the country and her people. Saraki, Chip of the old PDP block While we shall allow history to damn Mark and his baleful lot, we shall have to march on the current Assembly. In just a few days, it has become obvious that Senator Bukola Saraki, the new president of the Senate, is as much a lost soul as Mark. For Saraki, ‘change’ must be a stupid new buzzword Nigerians have just discovered. None of all that ‘change nonsense’ for him; Nigeria’s billions of naira beckons, it seems. His eyes must be firmly glued to a future of imperial positions, and he needs money to purchase it. That is all that matters; again, legacy be damned!

    One had thought that Senator Saraki would be influenced by the advantage of better learning and better democratic credentials. We are mistaken it seems. A buccaneer is a pirate and a vampire will always relish blood. Having tasted blood (of the people) in his first term, it is too late to let up now. It does not matter that the economy is flailing, it does not matter that revenues have dried up drastically and it does not matter that workers are not being paid their humble wages across the country. All that matters is to grab positions over which they had bludgeoned themselves since inauguration in May. Now that positions seem settled, the time has come to shovel funds generously into their pockets.

    This must be the best job in the world Is it possible that these NASS members have hurled home the sums we hear they have hurled in just three months of bickering and taking recesses? Is it true that about N13 billion has been shared by our lawmakers already? Is it true that each of the senators has been paid at least N36 million, while each of the House of Representatives members has pocketed about N25 million so far?

    It is scary that all our lawmakers including supposed ‘noble’ men and women (like Ben Murray-Bruce and Dino Melaye) in these pristine chambers would not take a definitive and open stance against what is obviously an obscene, under-the-table payouts. How on earth did the NASS arrive at an annual budget of N120 billion (N150billion up till last year)? Why should NASS comprising of only 469 lawmakers have a bureaucracy of about 4660 civil servants?

    Even at that, why would a NASS with a total head count of 5129 persons have an annual budget of N120 billion, while a state like Benue for instance, with a population of about 4.2 million people has an annual budget of N98.5 billion? To think that such states like Benue would have to also provide infrastructure and public utilities, such as roads, water, health and educational facilities, among others. What this suggests is that the NASS may not need more than N25 billion in total annual budget.

    We will therefore expect the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) in all its twiddling and twaddling about fixing legislators’ emoluments and pay cuts, tell us what N120 billion is used for.

    The Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation (AGF), which ought to scrutinise all appropriated spendings in the federation, has been remiss in its duties. It is its duty to ensure that every kobo of this whopping sum is accounted for.

    Members of NASS have been sharing cash as if they were hooded bandits sharing booty this last decade because the federal audit system had become near moribund. Since it has become obvious that Saraki is anything but a change agent and that it seems his leadership would be worse than Mark’s, Nigerians must brace up to effect the change they need by themselves. Enough is enough! Who needs the Senate anyway?

    Extolling the Gov Wada spirit

    Governor Idris Wada of Kogi State is a man of gentle mien and soft words. These characteristics are often mistaken by onlookers as weakness. It is especially so in a political environment that has become the verisimilitude of a jungle. There is therefore, no room for gentlemen of culture and nurture as Wada has proven to be in nearly four years. Here, you either hunt, or get hunted; trample or get trampled upon. In fact, to lead around here you must first make sure that not one person around you is standing erect.

    But it is not so for the Kogi governor, Idris Wada. No matter what else may be said about him, he has played politics of love and upheld a doctrine of live and let live. He displayed it amply last week when he picked nomination form at his party’s headquarters in Abuja. While others in his shoes would unsettle their domain in order to get an automatic second term ticket, he on the other hand, decried do-or-die politics noting: “If I win I will thank God. But if I lose in free and fair primary, I will support whoever emerges. It is not a do-or-die affair.”

    In a state that is prone to political volatility, it is often salutary to hear the man at the helm speak peace and project humility from the seat of power. Here is commending the Wada spirit to other political leaders.

  • PMB: The dangers of one-man-show

    Perversive aura of power We must not grant President Muhammadu Buhari too much comfort. We cannot afford to blink or take our eyes off the ball. Not anymore; not after all the tormenting disappointments that have emanated from that Aso Rock Presidential Villa since 1999. Why should a President Olusegun Obasanjo have failed so woefully having rode into the scene with cognate experience none else in Nigeria’s history had? Yet he managed to set us back many years. Did we not think that President Goodluck Jonathan brandishing a PhD, and all that shoelessness, was indeed a breath of fresh air? But he fouled our air so much we are still choking.

    The mere fact that the sheer aura and majesty of power would circumscribe both the holder and beholder is enough reason we must be even more on our guards now and not assume that the long-awaited messiah has finally arrived. It is true that comparatively, PMB is imbued with finer character and personal integrity, but there are a dozen other virtues begirding transcendental leadership and transformational governance.

    It is for these reasons that we, the watchers of all the Estates of the Realm, must wear our skeptic’s cap always and set it askew at an irreverent and annoying angle. Now more than ever before, we must not be afraid not provoke and run against the grain of popular leaning. And like my brother Azu Isiekwene once said, we must not stop at ruffling feathers, we must make sure to pluck some feathers. Especially so when we are sure we are doing so in the interest of both the man in the pristine prison of the Villa and the hapless fella on the street.

    The breeding a benign dictatorship This is why we must not fail to sound the alarm about what is clearly an incipient one-man government and the making of a leviathan; a benign dictatorship. It is not acceptable and neither is it justifiable that PMB would take almost half of a year to form a government. We simply do not have that luxury of time. He tells us he will not appoint members of his cabinet till September. We hear the Senate may not complete ratification of nominees till end of October and we know that it would take these men and women upmost of another six months to master their not so simple environment and begin to deliver any reasonable result.

    Why should we hand over one full year of our lives to a man we elected to office to play around with as he wishes? There is absolutely nothing PMB is doing now that he could not have done with the full complement of his cabinet in tow. It is a dangerous fallacy for one man to imagine he could reform a deeply rotten system all alone in a few months.

    In fact, the dangers and shortcomings of the President discharging executive functions in the manner he has been doing are numerous and indeed, scary. First, most of the activities so far – wholesome and positive as they may be – are at best ad-hoc and direly limited. He does not have the option of robust debate and a weighing up of numerous alternatives to arrive at the best options.

    One example was the setting up of the Adams Oshiomhole-led panel to probe the management of the Excess Crude Account during the Jonathan era. It had one month to report back to the National Economic Council (NEC). But it took all of one month to find out that the panel was inadequate and indeed awkward for that assignment. It took one month to know that audit firms are better suited for the job. That was one month wasted and several opportunities lost.

    Another shortcoming is that the country has remained at a standstill and will be so till a cabinet is formed. A visit to federal secretariats will prove this. It was not that diligent activity was the hallmark of the Nigerian civil servant, but ask anyone of them now and he will tell you there is nothing doing since the new dispensation. Again, it is not for fun that the weekly cabinet meeting is held: it is for setting broad policy guidelines, tracking implementation and reviewing performance and progress taking place simultaneously in all sectors. No one person can do this alone.

    What really is the purpose of the current exercise of having permanent secretaries review their ministries before the President one at a time? This exercise, which is taking months to carry out, would have been better accomplished in a one week summit under a full cabinet. This way, even the ministers would benefit immensely and at the end of the day, the President would set the tone for his presidency and government in the purview of all – the appointees and civil servants. So we would have done in one week (and with better result) what we have been grappling with for months.

    And there is the more foreboding danger of the President getting used to the current situation of ‘working’ alone and all the minnows around him falling all over themselves when he sneezes. He is in danger of creating a debilitating environment that does not allow for debate, questions and a weighing of options. If he gets used to dishing out instructions and people jumping, his cabinet would be ineffectual and he, as much as Nigeria, would be the worse for it.

    Now and for as long as the President’s slow motion lasts, the budget is in abeyance, most projects are abandoned, work cycle is lost and funds are disbursed whimsically from the presidency.

    APC’s slumbering new era? If PMB is taking things slow to dredge the rot in the system, are governors too, who have followed his example, also dislodging sludge? It is worrisome that most of the ruling APC governors have conveniently neglected to initiate governance; even second term governors.

    If Governor Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna State (a first timer) could get started immediately, what is holding up Governors Akin Ambode (Lagos), Ibikunle Amosun (Ogun), Abiola Ajimobi (Oyo), Rochas Okorocha (Imo), among others? Why is it taking Governor Rauf Aregbesola (Osun) almost one year to form government? This precedent is dangerous and unacceptable. Apart from the fact that they are running government from their breast pockets, some fellow will come tomorrow and take all of two or three years to form an executive council (exco), standing on Aregbesola’s example.

    One sees absolutely no benefit in a president or governor hedging to form government upon inauguration. None.

    PRESSID: Let’s not throw Jonathan away with bathwater

    One of the most ingenious initiatives of former President Goodluck Jonathan was setting up of the Presidential Special Scholarship Scheme for Innovation and Development (PRESSID).

    The scheme, which is in its third year, selects about 100 best of Nigeria’s first class graduates for scholarship in the best universities abroad. The idea is simply to harness a critical mass of thinkers and leaders in all spheres of life for Nigeria’s future. The US has perfected this strategic initiative, reaching beyond their borders to poach the best from around the world.

    The successful candidates for the third batch for the 2014/2015 academic session, who have been offered admission in universities across the world, have been left hanging since President Buhari came to power. If these young Nigerians are being denied their well-merited national scholarship, which they have already won, by the new government, they at least deserve to be informed formally so that they may move on with their lives.

    America, Israel, China, etc., lead the world because they make serious effort to select and groom their very best minds. It is hoped that PMB would sustain PRESSID.