The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • Buhari, help this man

    Buhari, help this man

    Not many Nigerians know Professor Theo Vincent. If I did not thrill to the bounty of the written word, I probably would not know him or care. When I first met him, I actually did not care. I admired him, but for a different reason.

    I did not meet him in flesh and blood. As I write, I have not. I met him in the form of a book on poetry when I was a teenager in high school and preparing for my school certificate exam.

    Poetry was beautiful tyranny in my eyes. Words came together in an opaque assault. I was expected to hollow out every poem, but I was hollow at the end of every exercise. Vincent’s book, A Selection of African Poetry, defogged the material. He compiled African poems with K.E. Senanu. At Government College, Ughelli, we called the book Senanu and Vincent.

    I forgot about the man, as many do their teachers when they have moved ahead in life. But a year after, I was glued to the NTA on a Sunday afternoon, and I saw a man clutching a book, and he spoke with an accent of rare sonority. I knew he was Nigerian, if his accent betrayed his foreign exposure and education. His voice had a low, rhythmic tenor. His lips moved with a slight tremor as though praying for the listener to lend an ear. But it was not a beggary tone. It buried a vitality of intelligence and confidence in the humility of its rendition. Now celebratory, now melancholic, it tore the book apart. I lent an ear, then my mind, then my heart. It became a regular for me every Sunday afternoon after church.

    When my father, Moses, observed my surrender to our pint-sized television set with this fellow, he asked everyone at home to grant me my 10 or 15 minutes with Theo Vincent. I remembered his chin hid inside a voluminous goatee. His eyes were sober behind a pair of glasses, and he held whatever book he reviewed with a sort of subdued flourish.

    Even though I passed my school certificate and GCE in literature at an elite grade – I had an A1 in GCE – Professor Vincent’s Sunday classes tore than my vanity. I knew from him that literature was an open-ended survey of words, and it was not about words but society. It was no mystery but a power of enquiry. It provided a platform to interrogate society’s failings and potential and to celebrate our humanity. It was the nexus of words and myth, the playground villains and heroes.

    He gave me the first true introduction to literature. I gained admission to Ife a year after and had great teachers in my literature classes I took as electives. The teachers helped my flame to a ruddy colour, but Vincent lit the spark.

    He has been a subliminal figure in my consciousness. When my friend, Professor Hope Eghagha of the English Department at the University of Lagos, spoke fondly of him, my heart quietly zipped back to his feast on television.

    I followed his career with aloof gratitude and was happy he became vice chancellor of the University of Port Harcourt.

    Somehow news about him fizzed away, and in my subconscious I thought he was in retirement until I saw a report in The Punch about him. The writer Chux Ohai titled it with an alliterative flair: Battered, Blind and Broke.

    I have read the piece a few times, but I could not understand why such a man, who has given so much to the society, should be allowed to pass his hoary years not only in penury but in neglect. According to the report, he is blind, and lives in one of the dingy neighbourhoods in Lagos where area boys, pimps, loafers and other never-do-wells thrive in dirt and darkness.

    There are speculations why the man cannot afford to live in a comfortable environment, or even get proper care with his eyes now locked in perpetual night. The Universities of Lagos and Port Harcourt issued statements that they have done well by him according to the law. They have paid all his entitlements. What that means is that he is left to his sightless devices.

    The universities are saying it is not about compassion. It is about the law. It reminds me of Shylock in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, who asked with aghast illumination when he was cornered, “Is that the law?” In his case, he wanted to use the law to take a pound  of flesh. He lost many pounds of honour to the bargain. The universities are losing pounds of goodwill to this bargain. Whatever led to the man’s state, even if it is due to personal indiscretions, he should not be left in that state of increasing immiseration.  We should not allow him regret his many years like Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of the Salesman who died with neither substance nor love after sacrificing his vital years to the service of his employer.

    He was a stellar professor, and also a vice chancellor. The fact that he is so poor shows that he did not take advantage of his lofty position for unlawful self-enrichment. He was an activist of the word, and played a great role in installing Nigeria’s top literary accolade, The NLNG Prize for Literature. As some people say, a man like him ordinarily should be bedecked with the Nigerian Merit Award.

    Men like Vincent indict our society. They have given service. They have served with their minds and might. We look back coldly.

    He did not leave the university environment in a scandal. He is not like the character in Philip Roth’s novel, The Human Stain, where a professor quits a United States university over a racial slur or disregard for other ethnicities. Or J.M. Coetzee’s novel, Disgrace, where a professor quits for taking advantage of a female student in his bedroom.

    The least this man deserves is a decent home and a regular living allowance. I appeal to the President to step into his case, or any Nigerian with the means to do so, especially men in high positions in government. I recall that Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and former Governor Babatunde Fashola came to the rescue of Nigeria’s best soccer hero Haruna Ilerika. Tinubu also built a home for Fatai Rolling Dollar.

    Icons stand for the best in us. We should do well to serve them when they are no longer in a position to serve us.

  • Lagos-Ibadan Expressway: The road ahead

    As a metaphor for the journey of life, the road is both interesting and intriguing. Two notable writers were fascinated enough to focus on the road: Nigerian Nobelist Wole Soyinka created a 1965 drama titled “The Road”, while American novelist Jack Kerouac produced a 1957 novel titled “On The Road”.

    Between August 19 and 22, the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway occupied my thoughts. I found myself thinking about the long road on my way from Lagos to Osogbo, Osun State, to eyewitness the celebration of Susanne Wenger’s centenary, the Osun-Osogbo Grove’s 10th anniversary as a World Heritage Site and the finale of the Osun-Osogbo Festival. On my way back to my base, after a stopover at Gbongan to take part in a celebration of the departed parents of a literary mentor, I used the same long road.

    The ongoing reconstruction of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway complicated my journey to and fro, which set me thinking about this important road and its complications. It is two years since the administration of former president Goodluck Jonathan in July 2013 rearranged the reconstruction, following a N167 billion contract, awarded to Julius Berger Nigeria Plc and Reynolds Construction Company Limited. Under the new arrangement, two sections of the expressway will be reconstructed: Section I (Lagos to Sagamu Interchange) and Section II (Sagamu Interchange to Ibadan).

    The Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, which dates back to 1978, is 127.6-km-long, connecting Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State, and Lagos State, Nigeria’s economic capital. Importantly, the road is not only a main link to the northern, southern and eastern regions of the country; it is the busiest inter-state road.

    Understandably, its connective capacity has implications for road improvement and development, which explains public concern about its state. The news that Julius Berger Nigeria Plc will resume major repair work on the expressway by the end of September, after a worrying break that lasted some months, raised more questions than answers. The pause was caused by financial difficulties allegedly connected with the Federal Government’s funding performance.  It is unclear whether the problematic funding issues have been resolved and how, considering that a new central administration under President Muhammadu Buhari is in charge.

    It is noteworthy that the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway has been a road of controversy, especially following the Jonathan administration’s 2012 termination of a concession agreement with Bi-Courtney Highways Services Limited (BCHSL), which was supposed to reconstruct and manage the toll road. The past government alleged that the company failed to make progress on actualising the objective of the concession four years after the agreement signed with a preceding administration.

    According to Bi-Courtney, “We are in court because the alleged cancellation of the concession did not follow due process. Apart from that, the so-called contract involving the two new companies handling the project was awarded arbitrarily without a bidding process.”  The company said:  “BCHSL won the concession to reconstruct and manage the toll road for 25 years. It’s a Design, Build, Operate and Transfer (DBOT) arrangement. According to the concession agreement, the road will be expanded to 10 lanes from Lagos to Sagamu and six lanes from Sagamu to Ibadan. Because of this expansion, structures that fall within 60.35 metres from the median on both sides of the road will be demolished, and government will compensate owners of the affected properties.”  The company proudly argued that it rebuilt the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA2) in Lagos “against all odds”. “It is the first airport in Africa to be owned by a private company on a Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) basis, the first of its kind in Nigeria, and it was delivered far ahead of schedule,” Bi-Courtney said.

    The company’s response to the allegation of non-performance blamed work delay on the Jonathan administration. In the period of three years and six months that the company had the concession, it was slowed down for two years and 10 months. According to the company, the design process which was expected to be completed within four months took 18 months as a result of bureaucratic bottlenecks at the Ministry of Works. The Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) corroborated Bi-Courtney’s position.

    To cut a long story short, it would appear that the announced cancellation of the concession by the Ministry of Works on November 19, 2012, was the culmination of a chain of untidy and unprogressive manoeuvres that suggested behind-the-scenes influence.  While the delay lasted, Bi-Courtney said, “We were advised by the ministry not to do any serious works on the road other than palliatives”.  Before the concession was terminated, the company claimed it “had completed the patching and overlaying of bad portions of the highway, preparatory to full-scale reconstruction”.

    It is interesting to note that the ongoing contract involving Julius Berger Nigeria Plc and Reynolds Construction Company Limited is fundamentally different in nature and not a concession as was the case with Bi-Courtney. The implication is that the federal government is expected to fund the road rehabilitation and operate the toll road.

    Of course, it is open to debate whether adopting the concession model for the rehabilitation of the expressway promises greater socio-economic benefits than the old way of doing things. However, the attraction of the Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) approach, which the concession concept represents, cannot be reasonably discounted in a modern economy, considering reported examples in Western Europe and the U.S. where private investors are involved in infrastructure development based on concession agreements.

    The PPP appeal is interestingly reinforced by a recent report: “Contractors handling over 184 federal road projects have abandoned the various sites due to lack of funding from the Federal Government and the huge debt owed them by the Federal Ministry of Works.”  The Lagos-Ibadan dual carriageway was listed among the roads affected by the funding problem. According to the report, “The contractors said they were owed over N600bn, adding that although part of the sum was owed by state and local governments, over 80 per cent of the amount was owed by the Federal Government.”

    This kind of abandonment seems less likely under a concession arrangement that requires the concessionaire to raise funds for the concerned project, rather than wait for government funding that may make a mess of the project, particularly in the context of dwindling government revenue.  Certainly, there is a price to be paid. But if PPP works for infrastructure development, the socio-economic benefits may well be worth the price.

  • 100 days assessments

    The euphoria that marked 100 days in office of previous administrations especially with the change of leadership at the centre was certainly lacking in the one that has just passed by. This is without prejudice to the various assessments in the media of the first 100 days of the Buhari regime and other highlights by some state governments. It is not clear, the chain of events that brought about the low morale in the celebration of that event.

    But, there is a widely held belief that it was not unconnected with the imprecise stance of the Buhari administration on what that days held for the nation. Before then, controversy had arisen regarding the promises the president was purported to have made in his first 100 days. To this, his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu was quick to add that the president never made such promises when the question was put to him at Chatham House.

    For him, “we prefer to talk about milestones instead of achievements; whether the milestones represent achievements or not is left for the people to judge”. Though a few state governments still went ahead to showcase what they considered their achievements, it was palpable that a new thinking had been given to that event especially given the flurry of activities that marked it in the past.

    It is now obvious that a new perspective has been given to an event which before now, easily passed as a veritable yardstick for measuring the success of new leaders. It was then thought that the tone and direction of a new government can be successfully set within the first 100 days and those who showed high promises within that timeframe are more likely to perform well during the rest of their tenure.

    That had been the reason for the mad rush to execute and commission projects within the first 100 days by our governments especially at the state levels. The same reason accounts for the high level of public interest in such occasions. Whether the assumptions that underline these conclusions are borne out of empirical evidence or mere conjecture is a different ball game altogether. But one thing that stands out clearly, is that it will no longer be business as usual in the way such events were in the past, seen in this clime. There is beginning to evolve a new thinking on the heuristic value of the first 100 days; and whether the copycatting and stereo-typing we had been used to were adding real value. These are the issues now before the public domain.  We shall return to them shortly.

    The history of some world leaders accounting for their stewardship after 100 days in office is traceable to President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States of America (US). He was reputed to have introduced the concept in 1933 at the height of the great depression to instil hope in the American people. Conceived this way, the concept would aptly be seen as a child of circumstance. It evolved during a crisis situation and was meant to address the exigencies of the period.

    Americans needed to be given hope; they needed quick-fixes. And Roosevelt had to evolve that concept to keep hope alive. He needed to come out with sundry legislations and policies to reaffirm confidence in the capacity of that country’s survival. It was a child of serious emergency that drew justification from the exigencies of the emergency situation.

    But the concept has since undergone some metamorphosis and is generally used for direction setting, highlighting accomplishments and setting the tone for moving forward. It is now applied as a parameter for a clearer picture of an administration’s policies and programmes. The extent to which this direction setting and showcasing of hurried accomplishments within 100 days can go in determining the eventual success of governments remains largely a moot issue.

    In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, historian David Greenberg summed his argument on the first 100 days thus: “the first 100 days is really important but in a better world, it wouldn’t be”. For him, it is better world leaders are not judged so much on their early accomplishments. They should be given time to make mistakes and learn, they could focus on long term vision and do not have to worry about tactical manoeuvring.

    Unfortunately Greenberg lamented, new leaders have to live in the world they inherit. And it is in this context that what new leaders do in their early days has a disproportionate impact on all that follows.

    The above brings to the fore the inherent dissonance in the value of the first 100 days in office by leaders. Greenberg did not say explicitly what constitutes a better world. But when that construct is paired with his other idea that new leaders living in the world they inherit must be conscious of what they do in their early days, he can be better understood. He may have had in mind a more developed and more structured country; where there exist more organized ways of statecraft as against one still is in a state of flux.

    This is more so given the coincidence in the evolution of the concept with the great depression in the US. It would therefore seem justifiable why such agenda setting and benchmarking is relevant in a country like Nigeria. Because there are yet to be well established and ordered ways of conducting government affairs leading to monumental corruption, it may not be out of place for leaders to drive a solution in their first 100 days in office. But that is definitely not all there is to it. There is no guarantee that a government that seemingly started well within the first 100 days, may not totally derail thereafter.

    Beyond this however, is the larger danger in the way the event has been applied on these shores. The theory of incremental change derives its strength from the principle that there is really no new policy; as every policy is an addition to an existing one.

    What we have seen overtime in the application of the first 100 days concept has been the jettisoning of some well thought out policies and programmes by new leaders for make-shift and impressionistic ones. The issue of continuity is thrown overboard as all that appear to count is the imperative of the 100 days’ show. Not surprisingly, questionable and ill-conceived projects have been randomly embarked upon to satisfy the spur of the moment. But as soon as the event is over, nobody cares to ask the overall impact and value of such hurried projects in the final performance rating of governments (federal or state). That is the real issue we have to contend with in our peculiar situation. Buhari appeared to have set the right tone (irrespective of extant controversy) on the way we should look at the first 100 days celebrations. The direction of his government on corruption and insurgency in the north-east are not in doubt; though issues of the economy are still largely hazy.

    But it will be inherently foolhardy to nurse the feeling that all it takes to know a good government is what it does within the first 100 days. A government should be allowed time to stumble and possibly recover from it even as success in its early days is equally relevant in enhancing the outcome of its final rating. So, we need to take a new perspective of the type of value we ascribe to the performance of leaders within the first 100 days.

  • No Greek gift from J.P. Morgan

    Recently, the international mogul JP Morgan decided to delist Nigeria from its government bonds. The reason is that the new Central Bank regime on foreign exchange transactions does not favour its own light of good capitalism. It has created a set of chain reactions and the stock market has turned a little giddy.

    But I am happy the CBN is not yielding to the shark of a bank.

    J.P. Morgan and its types come from a culture of due process and transparency. But it is a bank that knows how to trick governments and naïve citizens. Was it not the same bank that was fined close to $20 billion for a series of unethical and unprofessional conduct? It paid a major role in swindling Americans in the mortgage scandal a few years ago, and paid $13 billion in fines. It also paid $1 billion over the “London Whale scandal” and $6 billion over the manipulation of a felon called Bruno Iksil. It paid $2 billion for allowing Berne Madoff swindle innocent American investors. It was in cahoots with companies, such as Goldman Sachs to tease Greece into its crisis by crafting a system to hide its debt while profiting by it. Now, Greece is suffering alone. If JP Morgan cannot live with transparency in Nigeria, we can live without their geeks. We abhor another Greek gift

  • Lean is here

    Lean is here

    These are no easy times. But life sometimes needs times like these to turn us on to our greater gifts. But are we ready?

    The price of oil has plummeted. States have to borrow to pay their bills. No one is asking for some things we took for granted.

    We are not speaking about the emergency on power, the construction of infrastructure, the rebirth of education, or the shrewd touch on health care. The first question is, where is the money?

    So, the lean times are here. The irony, though, is that a counter-narrative to the lean times still tells us that while reason agrees about the lean times, the emotions say something else. The head is cool, but the heart boils.

    Reason tells us that this is no time for extravagance, or the showy moment to boast about a revolution in health care, or a swagger over infrastructure achievements.

    When the footloose era of Jonathan dawned on us, it took a while before we knew we had fallen into a prodigal boom. The Biblical fat years came in all their phony glories. It was not a time of investment, but of consumption.

    The Bible itself says: “In times of prosperity, rejoice. In times of adversity, consider.” Well, it’s time to consider. Time to see how we can fly out of these woes of little money, plenty of poverty. It’s time to forge new strategies, new ethos, new ethic.

    But the story from states about unpaid salaries only warns us that we heard the sermon on the mount, but we have not felt it yet. The head has not met the heart, and the chasm between reason and emotion is the reason workers are at odds with their chief executives.

    Oyo State Governor, Abiola Ajimobi, struck a courageous note. He has shown that given the state of the finances, the state cannot afford what it took for granted. It has to cut its budget according to its inflows. That is the fact of life. When there was money, the state could afford a lot of bills, pay salaries, WAEC fees, et al. Now, in spite of the about N26 billion it received recently from the federal-backed loans, it still cannot meet up with its entire backlog.

    He says the government will step up means of boosting revenues. Workers, who now show the side of emotions, are not quite impressed with the sermon from the mount.

    Salaries have to be paid because the children must eat, the roof over the head must not cave in and when a child squeaks with typhoid fever, an unpaid salary will not jolt the patient to life. Homilies such as the call for belt-tightening do not turn into miracles.

    So, there. When PMB took over, we started gradually to peep into the real issues. The rot of Jonathan’s sewers came to an opprobrious light. The nation could have caved under if he won the election. Those who voted in PMB, voted for change. It was a clamour with high emotional decibel. But what did change mean. For some it was the ouster of the GEJ. To some others, it was a fulmination against the Niger Delta upstarts. To others it was to bring in a northerner. To a few conscious advocates, it was to usher in a revolution in ethics and economy.

    Few reflected that such a change carried with it many long hours of discomfort. But we had started to see the discomfort before the end of the GEJ era. Some states could not pay salary because they were blindsided by two factors. One, the idealism of worthy projects that they thought could go on with the dollar. Two, the squalor of corruption at the centre that made the idealist look like a spendthrift.

    Suddenly, it was not about building a school or a health clinic. It was about paying civil servants. Translation: governance has shut down.

    If we want change, and we are bogged down with the exigencies of paying salaries and doing nothing else, it means two things. One, the civil service is not productive enough to make the state rich or live above water. Two, that if we stay that way, we are headed to paralysis and we shall mope at the decay in all sectors.

    We cannot remain so. But there lies the challenge. How shall we allow the civil service to hold the majority of workers and citizens in the states to ransom?

    To keep the workers is to keep the states down. But to screen the workers and weed out the dead woods? That makes reason triumph. But what of emotions? In his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde wrote that man is not a rational creature. We are all emotional beings, he asserted.

    That is why workers are saying they cannot lose any of their staff.

    The irony is that in that decade, governments have been in a fury of hiring to boost their image as sensitive organs. That so-called generosity has now held them captive. We hired to feel good, but now we have to fire to feel good. It’s like constipation. We enjoyed the meal, but now we need the physician.

    President Buhari has been showing signs of plugging loopholes, and staving off corruption.

    Healing will take time, and unless we start a conversation about how to fight off the fat in the system, then it is like looking for change without accepting the consequences. During the age of revolutions, it is called revolutionary remorse.

    Change in a society like ours is tricky. What is inevitable though is that we cannot sustain a bloated bureaucracy that deprives most people the opportunity to pursue their dreams.

    Building good roads, good hospitals and sound educational institutions creates room for productive citizenry. Where all the money goes for salaries alone is a pain. Governor Ajimobi put in words what PMB is translating into action. I wonder how we can do this without civil eruption?

  • Burden of blessing

    When the filthy rich do not enrich the filthy poor, they make themselves filthy and impoverished. It cannot be enough to enrich the imagination of the poor by a display of the possibilities of prosperity without offering the enrichment that can make them prosper.

    The death of Chief Antonio Oladeinde Fernandez in Brussels, Belgium, on September 1, prompted reflections on not only the burden of blessing but also the burden of the blessed. Fernandez enjoyed the awesome distinction of a billionaire brand, and less generous descriptions painted him as a multi-millionaire. Whether he was a billionaire or a multi-millionaire, there was no question that he was one of the richest Africans before the great leveller struck. His daughter, Mrs. Teju Phillips, a former Lagos State commissioner for commerce, said he was 86, contrary to media reports that he died at 79.

    It is food for thought that Fernandez’s life exemplified an interesting definition highlighted by  “The Richest Man in Babylon”, a bestseller by George Samuel Clason: “Money is the medium by which earthly success is measured.” What is the medium by which earthly failure is measured? The poor can provide an answer. There is no doubt about Money’s success-projecting capacity, but it need not be restricted to personal and personalised success. Making a success of earthly life has broader social implications; it is also about making a success of earthly lives.

    In other words, personal earthly success is a blessing that comes with a social burden. Perhaps the most enlightening demonstration of this important implication is the thinking that produced the idea for The Giving Pledge launched in June 2010 by the world’s richest man Bill Gates and wife Melinda in association with superrich Warren Buffet. It is a remarkably ethical “effort to invite the wealthiest individuals and families in the world to commit to giving the majority of their wealth to philanthropy.”  The donation can be made either during the lifetime or after the death of the donor.

    The beauty of the pledge is that it represents no more than a moral commitment and it is volitional.  By April 2011, 69 billionaires had reportedly joined the campaign and pledged to give 50% or more of their wealth to support philanthropic causes. A year later, the campaign had attracted more of the elite rich and a report said “81 billionaires committed to giving at least half of their fortunes to charity”.  According to the latest news, “As of August 2015, 137 billionaire or former billionaire individuals or couples have signed the pledge; a significant majority are, like Buffett and Gates, American citizens.”

    Considering America’s rich status, it is noteworthy and speaks volumes for the enduring relevance of a giving philosophy driven by social responsibility that the original promoters of the pledge were prosperous Americans.

    It is popular to argue for speaking truth to power. What about speaking truth to the power of money? The Giving Pledge is built on the socially influenced and socially influential logic of giving back to society. It suggests that demanding measurable social responsibility from the superrich is not necessarily inspired by a sense of entitlement; but there is a sense in which it is a social entitlement.  It does not need to be imposed because it is properly self-imposing.

    Nigeria’s superrich men and women ought to learn a thing or two from the foreign initiative.  Two striking members of the country’s money club are Aliko Dangote and Folorunsho Alakija. Aliko Dangote is ranked by Forbes as Africa’s richest man and he is 67th on the magazine’s list of The 500 Richest People in the World 2015; in 2014 he was 23rd on the list. Folorunsho Alakija is ranked as the second richest African woman and also the third richest woman of African descent in the world.

    Fernandez dazzled the world with his fabulous wealth which could be imagined from the flashes provided by, for instance, his reported six private jets, “ocean-going yacht” and island home in New York, United States. Described as “a business magnate and diplomat”, Fernandez was born in Lagos into a family with a South American background. His diplomatic decorations include: “Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Permanent Representative of Central African Republic (CAR) at the United Nations, special adviser to the President of Mozambique on international economic matters, Ambassador-at-Large for the Republics of Togo and Angola, in 1966 consul for the then Republic of Dahomey (now Benin Republic), economic adviser to the Angolan government, aside from long-time adviser to President Jose Eduardo dos Santos (who has ruled Angola since 1975); and deputy minister of finance, Swaziland.”

    For a Nigerian, it was a remarkable path. No less remarkable were his business interests : “Aside from Petro Inett, which did oil exploration in Angola, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, his business interests spanned bauxite exports, gold mines and diamond pits, in these countries, mainly in central and southern Africa.”

    Probably more remarkable was his immense inactivity in response to the needs of the social space, which was to the detriment of social development in his land of origin. It is no excuse that he was based in foreign lands. Regrettably, it may be said that Fernandez demonstrably operated far below his capacity as far as social giving was concerned, which is putting it diplomatically.

    By an instructive coincidence, Fernandez died four days before the world marked the UN-endorsed International Day of Charity on September 5. It is relevant to quote Hungarian Csaba Korosi in a speech he gave at the UN on benevolent giving in the social context: “Charity can alleviate the worst effects of humanitarian crises, supplement public services in health care delivery, education, housing, and child protection. It assists the advancement of culture, science, sports, and natural heritage.”

    To engage in fantasy, what would Nigeria look like if its superrich citizens appreciated the burden of blessing and the implications for social giving and social development? Fernandez may well be poorly remembered in the narrow context of his riches and opulent lifestyle, which is the tragedy of socially purposeless wealth.  His life and death are open lessons for the country’s living legends of luxury. It is a blessing to be blessed and to be a blessing is blessed.

  • Pastor, hunter, politician

    Pastor, hunter, politician

    The profile of the new Secretary to the Government  of the Federation (SGF) has brought into bold relief why many wanted the Buhari administration to appoint one from the onset of his reign.

    Given the sort of man Buhari is, he needed a quintessential bureaucrat. But an SGF is not just a bureaucrat. He is the mediator and by-way between the ministries and MDGs on the one hand, and the political elite on the other.

    So, while the SGF is a politician, he also bears a bureaucrat in his breast. He is therefore a binary man of government. He should laugh and dabble in the vainglory and thespian affinity of the agbada or babaringa in one moment. In the next moment, his brow should knot with figures and competencies and visions and roadmaps of projects, etc. In his full profile, he should swivel with almost animal reflex from one to another, as though he were born to speak with the politician and the permanent secretary in equal flourish of data and register.

    We know the personage called Muhammadu Buhari. He is tall, gaunt, with a boyish smile that contrasts at times with an intimidating scowl. That scowl reminds me of that moment in his first world press conference as military head of state. “The press,” he roared, if we call it roar with the thin, firm, almost babyish muscularity of his voice. “We will tamper with that.” He probably will say “temper” today.

    But that scowl comes rarely now. Maybe because he wears only civilian clothes, has been subjected to the mellowing of democratic ethos, has been subdued by the battering of age and the dew of time. In fact, because of the deliberateness of his actions, many believe he has lost a vital part of his principled fire. They say he is conscious of his peremptory past, and he is more wary of being cast in the mould of a despot.

    Whatever the case is, Buhari still bears the carriage of the austere leader with deep pious reserve and disdain for material extravagance. His assets now in public glare reveal a man more in touch with the bounties of nature than of the bank.

    So, his secretary to the government must compensate for his “lapses.” He must belong to what Max Weber, the authority on authority, calls “the legal rational” order. Buhari falls into the Weberian charismatic order. People of his class do not rely on position for power. He has what Harvard Professor Joseph Nye calls soft power. But it dwarfs the hard power of position. Weber sees it as the “authority of the extraordinary and personal gift of grace.” But of all the authorities, it is the most mysterious. Even Nye notes, in his The Powers to Lead, that nothing in itself guarantees a person charisma. Not voice, money, height, carriage, royalty, etc. Napoleon was smallish, Churchill burly, Lincoln tall and ugly, De Gaulle tall and handsome, Mandela tallish and handsome, Roosevelt tall on wheel chair.

    Enter Babachir David Lawal. The new SGF is a politician but he has had his experience in industry. Big-boned with an effervescent spirit, his first stark contrast with Buhari is that he is a pastor in the North from a minority tribe known as Tilba. But he worked in the Niger Delta for a few years where he can spin yarns about the men in that region and their habits of fashion and work. He worked with the Delta Steel Company in Aladja in today’s Delta State, after graduating in engineering from the Ahmadu Bello University.

    He also worked with Data Science Limited and NITEL. He has traversed the private and public trusts, and he broke out to be an entrepreneur with his own firm, and has been a member of the engineering and computer elites in the country. That is the bureaucrat.

    As a politician, he worked in the Northeast and rose to be the All Progressives Congress vice chairman in  the region. But the intriguing thing was his role during the Boko Haram high noon of infamy. He was a pioneer in rallying the hunters to fight the bands of militants. The story of how these hunters mounted counteroffensives against the militants will one day be told. He rallied them with dane guns, bows and arrows. We recall some of their efforts. In one of those battles, the hunters beat the BH boys where our armies failed.

    Lawal was also, as a politician, a victim of his support for Buhari, when robbers attacked him and claimed it was because of his support for Buhari in 2011. The irony was that he was alone in his choice as a Buhari supporter when others looked Jonathan’s way. Some hoodlums attacked his church, The ECWA Gospel Church, and burned down the building. They left a bold picture of Buhari as emblem of their rage. Lawal’s fellow church members accused him of collaborating with the arsonists.

    There we go. We have seen how he can be both politician and administrator. The job of SGF is not equals part bureaucratic and political. I daresay it is more political. But it’s bureaucratic component looms. It determines whether the government can succeed or not. For a charismatic character like Buhari, he leads because he is a leader. But for Lawal, it is the rules, not ruler, who is important. That’s why his job is tricky. Part of his job is to forestall the sort of nightmare that novelist Franz Kafka painted about bureaucracy in his book, The Castle, where a visitor cannot find the chief bureaucrat even after entering the castle.

    Some modern theorists of administration, who speak of transactional and transformational leadership latch a good leader to all virtues and categories. He must have a dose of each. Weber identified a third leadership type: the traditional. In Nigeria, it refers to patriarchs and feudalist leaders like kings and emirs. Some have said the evolution of the Catholic Church exemplifies the three types: Jesus (Charismatic), Priests (traditional) the church itself (legal rational).

    The same sort of chemistry is required to work in states. A blend is important between governor and SSG. We are seeing that in Lagos, for instance. The secretary is the lingua franca between politics and the bureaucracy. When the connection fails between president and SGF, a great adjustment is necessary.

    Powerful bureaucrats change the course of history. We know of Simeon Adebo and Jerome Udoji. Sometimes politicians do it well.  A great example was Obafemi Awolowo, who blended the bureaucrat and the politician, although one got in the way of the other at times. In Kenya, journalist-turned-bureaucrat John Githongo was a great anti-corruption warrior. India has a long list of them but Krishnan Menon is unforgettable for his many work. In the United States, a soldier George Marshall helped rebuild post-war Europe with the Marshall Plan. French man Jean Monet helped turn a steel industry as the germ for building the European Union.

    It all depends on how well Buhari will put Lawal to work, and how much visionary and strategic vitality Lawal will bring to the table. We now have the SGF. Hopefully, in a few weeks, we shall have the ministers and the Buhari engine should start to whir.

  • Bad PR for Oduduwa

    Some of the things said and done on Oduduwa’s platform injure the reputation of the Yoruba ancestral father figure.  Also abbreviated as Odudua or Oòdua, his name continues to suffer as a result of exploitation by opportunists and self-projected cultural ambassadors.

    A striking instance of this reduction by association was the August 21 ego-serving entrance by the National Coordinator of the Oo’dua Peoples Congress (OPC), Otunba Gani Adams, at the finale of the Osun-Osogbo Festival in the Osun-Osogbo Grove, Osun State. When Adams arrived with his circle of exuberant followers, they caused quite a stir. Whip-wielding noisemakers disruptively created a path for Adams as he approached the sacred River Osun to announce his presence. He witnessed the unruliness of his men and encouraged it by his silence. The unflattering drama was performed on Oduduwa’s platform. His group was listed among “Partners” on the cover of the festival programme; the others were MTN, Goldberg, Seaman’s Royale, IOD, Kasapreko Alomo Bitters. The group’s emblem bore his name, suggesting that Gani Adams is OPC and OPC is Gani Adams.

    Two days later, a newspaper report quoted him in an interview where he commented on the wall between him and the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu: “We had some people who left our group because he was financing them to break it; they couldn’t break it, so they left. We continued to address the issue; even in the media, people were asking what I had with Tinubu, but they couldn’t find any reason. I decided that if I didn’t tell the whole world, my life and integrity would be at stake.”  He continued: “That was one of the reasons that I decided that if Tinubu goes to A, I will go to B. Somebody who has been working to block my progress for the past seven years; if I support him to be in power, he will do worse. Even though he is supporting the right candidate, I will go for the wrong candidate.”

    This expressed irrational hostility helps to situate Adams’ politics as bereft of any progressive content. Considering the recently achieved political dominance of the APC at the federal level with its popular change mantra, his unapologetic opposition defines him as an anti-change supporter and promoter.

    Interestingly, Adams also said about Tinubu: “When I asked around, people told me what he was hammering on was he (Adams) attacked us during the election. Did I use thugs to attack him? Is there any report in any police station that the OPC attacked the APC because of the Peoples Democratic Party?”

    It is unclear whether Adams had a memory challenge or whether he decided to challenge his memory. The incident of March 16 is still fresh enough. On that day, OPC stood for Operation Public Chaos as the self-identified defender and promoter of Yoruba interests demonstrated that it had not only sold its soul for filthy lucre but also lost its collective mind. Members of Adams’ OPC faction took their militancy to heights that mirrored a disturbing depth of degeneration.

    In an unprecedented demonstration of desperation ahead of the general elections, the group terrorised Lagos in the name of a political protest. A report at the time said: “The two pamphlets distributed by the protesters had 7 reasons why President Goodluck Jonathan must continue in office and 7 reasons why Prof Attahiru Jega, the INEC boss, must go on terminal leave and be replaced with a credible administrator before the elections.”

    It was a message of force by forceful messengers. According to a report: “The protesters got traffic stuck for hours, smashed cars, harassed motorists and disrupted business in many parts of the city. They destroyed banners and campaign billboards of All Progressive Congress (APC) candidates.”

    Who was behind the bedlam? A subsequent eye-opening disclaimer said: “We, the members of the National Coordinating Council of the Oodua Peoples Congress, OPC, the highest ruling body of the organisation, wish to disassociate ourselves from the shameful, destructive, violent and reactionary activities of the Gani Adams-led team which occurred in Lagos today.” The statement added: “What was witnessed in Lagos was the highest level of political violence sponsored and funded by certain elements in the Jonathan government.”

    From all appearances, the protesters were fuelled by reported multi-billion naira oil pipelines protection contracts controversially awarded by the Jonathan administration to a selection of militant and pro-militancy groups, most likely to influence their support for Jonathan’s reelection ambition. There were certainly enough pocket-related reasons to be overexcited.  The movement from pipelines protection to public chaos was a sign of a chaotic group headed by perhaps a chronically convoluted character.

    It is a point to ponder that today Adams is crying about the same contract that made him laugh and possibly fuelled his group’s destructive manifestation on that day.  He is paying the price for the politicisation of contracts. In July, Adams was among three controversial contractors who held a meeting to consider how to get the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to pay the money it allegedly owed them in respect of a three-month oil pipeline security deal that took effect from March 16 in the Southwest and some parts of the Niger Delta.  Dr Frederick Fasehun and General Shoot-at-Sight also attended the meeting.  According to Adams: “About 4,000 workers were engaged by our companies – New Age Security Company owned by Dr. Fasehun; Galaxy Security Outfit Nigeria Limited owned by General Shoot-at-Sight and Donyx Global Concept Nigeria Limited owned by me.”

    Politics remains in the picture, considering that the political figure who influenced the award of the contracts while he was in power, former President Jonathan, failed to get a second term in office. With President Muhammadu Buhari in the saddle, there was no way his promise of change would not have changed things for the contractors. The non-renewal of the contracts after they expired was logical and reflected the public mood. It is interesting to note that although rivalry between Adams and Fasehun split the OPC, the two factional leaders are joined or conjoined by what may be described as “the whiff of money”. Again, the drama is connected with Oduduwa’s platform.

    When a contractor’s cheese has been moved, particularly if it’s a large chunk of cheese, expect contractor confusion. Adams reflected such confusion by what he said in another interview: “All I’m saying is that government can merge the community residents and law enforcement agents to police the neighbourhood.” What Adams meant was that militiamen, euphemistically described as “community residents”, should be allowed to operate side by side with the official security agents. Despite the obvious absurdity of the imagined combination of forces, Adams couldn’t see the nonsense of downgrading the normal security agencies in favour of militiamen. He couldn’t recognise the irrationality of enriching militia leaders to the detriment of the empowerment of the country’s security personnel.

    Adams is also the Chief Promoter of the Olokun Festival which the organisers describe as being “at the forefront of the promotion and cultural revival of Yoruba Tradition and Culture.” His involvement in this project looks like a ploy to reinforce his performance on Oduduwa’s platform. The reality is: The PR isn’t working.

  • Pay cut for public officers

    All things being equal, a new salary and allowances structure for public officers in the country will come into effect in a matter of weeks now. The new regime which will see to the downward review of the current takings of national assembly members and sundry public officers is dictated by the desire to align them to the nation’s subsisting economic and political realities.

    The Chairman of the Revenue, Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission RMAFC, Mr. Elias Mbam said last week after meeting President Buhari that the new slashed pay structure would be released in September. According to him, “we are presently reviewing the subsisting remuneration package and it is going to reflect the socio-economic realities of today. We expect that before the end of next month it will be ready”

    The disclosure by the RMFAC boss should not come as a surprise. Before now, especially since the coming on stream of the current administration, agitations have been rife for the slashing of the salaries and allowances earned by our law makers. The widely held belief has been that their pay packages were out of tune with subsisting economic realities. And with the slide in the price of oil in the face of the increasing inability of state governments to pay workers’ salaries and allowances, it became obvious that something had to give way.

    There was also this rush to cut salaries by some governors both for themselves and their political appointees. The pressure became such that the commission had little option than to set up a committee for the same purpose which outcome is the reduced salary structure that is expected to be unfolded soon.

    Against this background, there is everything to expect that the new pay structure is a foregone reality. What is still left to conjecture is the percentage of the previous pay that will be affected by the cut. For now, there seems little anybody can do since the commission is constitutionally charged with the fixing of such remunerations. So it is not an issue the national assembly or other public officers have a choice over.

    But beyond the powers of the RMFAC to fix wages, its rationale in arriving at the previous wage structure cannot pass without some scathing remarks. This is because, the very reasons it is offering for the cut have always been there. What had been lacking was a proper understanding of the situation when the previous bloated regime was being approved. Fluctuations in oil price are nothing new as our governments have had to contend with them overtime. Also the changes in patterns of oil production and serious efforts of some advanced countries to find alternatives have never ceased.  So at the time the previous structure was being worked out, such realities should not have escaped a serious regulatory body. After all, in each of our yearly budgets, such changes are usually anticipated and provided for in terms of lower benchmarks. In other words, it is not enough for the commission to raise its hands up with the impression that the fluctuations in oil prices were beyond it when it was fixing the previous regime. If it failed to anticipate such changes, it has itself to blame.

    That such remunerations are being reviewed now is an admission that something was not got right by the commission in its previous undertaking. The current downturn of the economy consequent upon the fall of oil in the international market could be a factor. Persistent outcry from the larger public on what is generally regarded as the outlandish pay of law makers when considered against the living conditions of our people is cited as another reason.

    There is also the body language of the current administration that appears not to admit of financial wastages as another possible reason why the commission had to hasten action in this regard so as not to incur the wrath of the powers that be. All these may have combined in facilitating the new pay regime. The rationale is that the monies that would be saved from the cut would be meaningfully deployed to other sectors of the economy to catalyze development. You cannot fault such an argument, it would seem.

    It is one thing to come out with a reduced pay package for public officers but a different kettle of fish for whatever savings that will accrue from it to make substantial difference in the total funds available to the government. You may well find out that such cuts will have the net effect of further impoverishing the lawmakers and thereby laying them susceptible to dipping their hands into public funds. It is better you are not exposed to good living than after being exposed to good life, the source of sustaining it is suddenly cut off. That may turn out as the unintended outcome of the coming reduction. That is the main issue to watch.

    But then, the salaries and allowances of the lawmakers and other public officers are not the real sources of the wealth some of them are known to be parading about. Much of the illegal monies they make come from unseen sources. And from those unseen sources, a lot of monies do change hands. A lot of smart stealing has been going on in the exercise of oversight functions and may continue unless adequate measures are taken to police such areas. That is in part why you hear of the scramble for juicy committee positions and other strategic assignments. There is nothing juicy about any position except the high prospects they offer for stealing. So we may be arming the legislators to resort to self- help if we come out with a regime of remunerations that they can barely survive on.

    With the wage reduction and plugging of all loopholes for stealing public funds, we may have gone to great lengths to chart a new course for probity and accountability in public offices. But that is not all. We are yet to find answers to the huge security votes at the beckon and call of presidents and governors. Much of the drain in our public coffers is recorded in this area. It is not surprising the high number of former governors that are facing serious charges of financial impropriety. Armed with immunity, they line their insatiable pockets until they are full to the brim. The kind of funds associated with former governors in and out of office has become a serious scandal. Something urgent must be done about the way governors use security votes.

    These are the real issues to worry about. So what difference does any cut in the salaries and allowances of a governor make when he can from under his table spend billions of Naira without a hoot. There may have been some cogent reasons for providing for such votes. But in our own circumstance, such reasons are often exploited for very self-serving ends.

    More importantly, something must be done about the prohibitive cost of running elections in this country. The financial demands on politicians during elections have to be checked. So if we succeed in making the lawmakers live within their means, something must be done to exorcise the idea of demanding money from them by the electorate before exercising their civic obligations. There has to be an overall attitudinal change for the new pay regime to serve its desired purpose.

  • Not yet Eleyinmi

    Not yet Eleyinmi

    Sometimes when Bukola Saraki sports his agbada, he bears resemblance to Chief Eleyinmi in the familiar but now defunct Village Headmaster television series. Saraki, like Eleyinmi, wraps a certain mystique around his hands. So he hides them inside the voluminous sleeves.

    But he lacks two vital qualities associated with Chief Eleyinmi. The Village Headmaster thespian does not wear suits. Two, he projects a Rabelaisian sense of humour and effusive candour that titillate his audience in spite of the actor’s patrician peccadillos.

    Eleyinmi drinks his tea or water or wine by grabbing the spoon or glass under the protection of the fabric. Saraki does not. Saraki also wears the western suit that exposes and takes away the sanctity of the hand.

    It is quirks like these that made me write a cover over a decade ago in Sunday Concord on political fashion. If Saraki was a factor in those years, he might have played a prominent part in the cast. Unlike Eleyinmi, however, Saraki does not make you laugh.

    He did not make anyone laugh when he hid, in the name of ambition, in a nondescript car in the National Assembly in the wee hours in order to be Senate president. He did not amuse when he made an impolitic quote defending men of his class about not taxing the Nigerian jet set. So, by his reckoning, we should not have special taxes for jet owners. He did not amuse when he abandoned his party and supped with the enemy, again in the name of ambition. Absence of principles can be amusing, but the former kwara State chief does not know how to suck us out of our sulks.

    He did not amuse when he rebuffed his party leadership by not conceding any of its demands in the spoils of Senate office.

    He might have amused us, though, when he slid his way onto the prayer ground with President Muhammadu Buhari during the recent Muslim festivities, and allowed the impression to pass that he had somehow won over the chief. But it was not a laugh he wanted credit for because it was against him. It recalls what playwright and Nobel laureate Samuel Beckett designated as “a laugh laughing at itself.” It was not an Eleyinmi moment though. It was more of a Baba Sala episode, a rip-roaring farce.

    He did not get much of an attention from the President in that holy hour. He probably lost it.

    Even Eleyinmi, for all his sweet obnoxiousness, never played the obsequious role. He was a chief who knew his limits and was funny any time he bowed to the calm and chastening rhetoric of the king. He betrayed the innocence of a boy caught in a prank.

    But our own pretended Eleyinmi does not know how to play that innocence. Rather than admit a wrong, and eat his humble pie in public, he has engaged in a contradictory drama. He is begging and fighting simultaneously. He waited for House Speaker Dogarra to bow to party pressure before he realised that the legislature had its limits. He has sent emissaries to beg the President and also to beg the Lion of Bourdillon. I am not aware how sincere and how effective these odysseys of humility will be. But it is significant that the man who thought he had subverted decency in the name of power still remembers how to bow.

    At the same time, he is taking a battle to the head of the EFFC. His perception management of this matter leaves much to be desired. Not long ago, the EFCC held his wife for questioning over corruption charges. It clearly rankled his skin deep enough for him to show his hands and deliver a fistful to Lamorde, the EFCC boss. So, wielding the power of the Senate, he is going after the man in charge of corruption by throwing charges of corruption at him. The merit or demerit of the case is beyond me at this point, in spite of what news reports have said about the petitioner’s pedigree.

    But the whole drama of his fighting and begging after acting as the Eleyinmi of Nigerian politics must sicken even him. He is now surrounded by the hyenas of his ambition. He wanted to be a giant. He thought he had attained the status, and then he looks like the characters in Wole Soyinka’s Nobel Prize-wining play, A Play of Giants. It is farce that leads downhill. In his play Macbeth, Shakespeare describes it as “vaulting ambition, which overleaps itself.”

    Edmund Burke, the master theorist of conservatism, who saw power and penned ruminations on it, including about the French like Robespierre, Danton and the little general Napoleon, wrote: “The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.”

    While he battles to stay afloat in what is a looming morass, Saraki has to consider another man of power, Federick Douglas of the abolition era of slavery in the United States. Power is about negotiation in a spirit of reciprocity. He must consider what to give, and he must not look like the giants of Soyinka’s play. Hence Douglas noted, “power concedes nothing without a demand.” The other side asked, but he did not give. If he is not careful, he will be given away. He should read Professor Niyi Osundare’s poem on him and his likes, especially the line, “wind vane politicians with multiple tongues…”