Category: Monday

By Emeka Omeihe

Why do our leaders float ideas that regularly portray us as an unserious lot? Why do we elevate to the front burner, issues that should ordinarily come last in our list of priorities? And is it not increasingly getting obvious that those elected to superintend over the affairs of this country are incapable of coming to terms with the existential realities of our people?

These are some of the posers thrown up by the recent bill at the senate seeking to ban the importation of generators into this country. This is especially so, given the curious manner the bill scaled its first reading at the floor of the senate. The way things stand; it appears the senate is bent on passing the bill unless its attention is drawn to the many limitations and inherent contradictions in that piece of proposed legislation.

Introduced by the Senator representing Niger south district, Bima Enagi, the bill seeks to “prohibit/ban the importation of generating sets to curb the menace of environmental (air) pollution and to facilitate the development of the power sector.” In the main, it seeks to stop the use in this country of all categories of electricity generating sets which run on diesel/petrol or kerosene with immediate effect. Those in essential services such as medical institutions, airports, railway stations, elevators and research institutions are to be excluded from the ban even as it prescribed imprisonment of 10 years for any person who knowingly sells generating sets.

Ostensibly, the intention of the bill is to reduce the menace of environmental air pollution and accelerate the pace of development of the power sector. In that wise, the sponsor of the bill recognizes the dangers to our environment of pollution caused by our excessive reliance on generating sets and the inhibiting effects they have had on the development of the power sector. His is seemingly a therapeutic response that will achieve two objectives- check environmental pollution and accelerate the pace of development of the power sector.

Conceived this way, there is the temptation to view the new bill as stemming from patriotic fervor. But a critical appraisal easily exposes the hollowness and unrealistic nature of that piece of proposed legislation. Not only is it an impracticable proposition, it is an obvious invitation to crisis of unimaginable dimension. Enagi seemed to have envisaged this crisis when he sought to exclude essential services from the proposed ban. Ironically, the same reasons that lent the ban unworkable for people in essential services form the basis for its anticipated failure. For now, the necessary and sufficient conditions for the anticipated law to achieve the touted objectives do not exist.

The subsisting reality is that but for the alternative source of energy provided by these generators,  the country would have come to a sudden halt in the face of epileptic and very unreliable supplies from the public power sector. Generators came into prominence because of our inability or failure to generate enough energy despite the huge investments in that sector. This is so even in the face of our huge natural endowments in oil, gas, hydro and solar resources with an estimated potential to generate 12.522megawtts of electricity power from existing plants.

On the average, it is estimated that we are only able to generate about 4,000 megawatts which are grossly insufficient to serve the nation. That is why supplies from official sources have remained very appalling contributing to the collapse of many of our industries as they run on generators for most of the time.

Many of these industries were forced to relocate to neighboring countries where they found the investment climate favorable. Those still in business are trudging on courtesy of the generating sets. Curiously also, the bill did not factor these industries among the list of services to be excluded from the proposed ban. The bill neither envisaged the deadly effect of such a ban on marginally operating industries nor the loss of jobs it was bound to engender. By glossing over these critical realities, the ban will only end up destroying whatever productive engagements that managed to survive the harsh business climate in the country.

Yes, we have the challenge of environmental pollution from the fumes of the generating sets. There is also a school of thought that believes that our power sector has not been able to develop because of a cartel that benefit from the sale of generators. But that is not sufficient justification for the ban. Even then, the generators are by no means the only source of air pollution. There are thousand and one vehicles out there that pollute our environment daily. We can as well ban them.

More seriously, banning the use and importation of generating sets is akin to tackling a problem from the effect rather than the source. Generators came on handy because of our serial failure to squarely address the problems of the power sector. Being a consequence of that failure, it remains to be conjectured how it can be a solution. Unfortunately, there is little to show for the huge investments past leaders ploughed into the power sector including the $16 billion contracts and payment made by the Obasanjo regime to revive the power sector. It was estimated that through these investments, the country would be able to generate 40, 000 megawatts of power by the year 2020. We are at that magic year with our power output still hovering around 4,000 mw.

The issue is to muster the necessary political will to address all the challenges that have over the years stood against efficiency in the power sector. And among these are the cankerworm of official corruption, insecurity and inadequate investments in increasing generating and transmission capacities.

These are the realities we must come to terms with. Once we find solutions to the challenges of inadequate generation and supplies, once there are regular power supplies for industrial, official and domestic consumption, the demand for generators will fizzle out unilaterally. There will neither be the need to ban their importation nor any ground to send our suffering people to prison for the serial failure of our leaders to provide efficiently, public goods and services that constitute the basis of their legitimacy.

A senate that is alive to its responsibilities, one that has proper reading and appreciation of extant realities in the country, will be the last to pass that obnoxious bill into law. Rather, it should direct its energies to investigate how the humongous sums of money invested into the power sector over the years were incapable of even scratching the surface of the challenges of that sector. It would be a cheering development if the senate could burst the riddle in power sector that brought about this pass.

Even then, the sponsor of the bill admitted its inherent limitations by seeking to exempt those he categorized as essential services from the ban. Implicit in that is the reality that we can only dispense with generators at a huge consequence to the country. It is an idea whose time will take a very long time to come. That public power supply now comes after generators in the power supply matrix mirrors very vividly the inherent absurdity of the proposed ban.

There is also the incongruity in seeking to deprive private persons the liberty to make live comfortable for themselves through the use of generators. Many of such people may have died in the last few weeks when the heat wave became very unbearable but for the help of the generators.

We will be eager to see the use of generators quickly dispensed with. The huge foreign exchange depleted annually in the importation of that product will be saved and deployed to other productive engagements. This will no doubt speed up the pace of industrial development. But we must get our priorities right. The things that should come last must not be positioned first.

The proposed ban is anti-people and therefore a worthless piece of legislation that should not be allowed to see the light of the day. It will end up creating more problems than it is intended to solve.

By Emeka Omeihe

 

Those calling for the head of Smart Adeyemi, the senator representing Kogi West district for expressing preference for military rule as against the current form of democracy in Nigeria are just being hypocritical.

In their indecent haste to seemingly protect the institution of democracy (whatever that means) they completely glossed over the fundamental issues elevated to the fore by Adeyemi’s presentation.

The impression one got from the reactions of the senators to his contribution to the debate on the Bill for the Establishment of a National Electoral Offences Commission is that he prefers military rule to democracy in its pristine form. That is not the correct interpretation of what Adeyemi actually said.

And what did he really say that should warrant the indecent attempt to stop him from expressing his views on a crucial issue before the senate? He said he preferred military rule to the way democracy is being practiced in Nigeria, particularly the electoral process which is nothing but a charade.

Hear him, “there cannot be democracy in any nation where we do not have free and fair elections. There will be a misrepresentation, bad governance, misappropriation of funds and all the shortcomings we have witnessed over the years of our democratic rule. As a result people of questionable characters find their ways to elective positions”.

A critical appraisal clearly shows Adeyemi neither passed a vote of no confidence on democracy in its pure form nor endorsed military dictatorship.

His was a comparison of democracy in the way it currently operates in the country with military rule as we had in the past. It is a case study on democracy using Nigeria as an example.

And in his conclusion: if what goes on in the name of democracy in Nigeria represents all that that governance framework can offer, it has no substantial allure over military rule. He has said it all and he is entitled to his opinion.

But what can be gleaned from this is obvious frustration with our inability or refusal to imbibe and put into effect those attitudinal and supportive dispositions that mark out representative democracy as the most preferred form of governance framework. His is a disappointment with what goes on in the name of democracy in this country.

That is the context he spoke and it will be difficult to fault. That is what he meant by “I have said over the years that military government is the worst but the situation is even worse now when you have people that are forcing themselves on the people”.

These are statements of frustrations indicating our collective failure in upholding those attitudes and dispositions that provide the fertile ground for democracy to germinate and flourish. The key issue is how people force themselves on others.

Adeyemi provided the answer in his opening statement when he said democracy is impaired in a milieu where there is absence of free and fair elections.

He itemized the negative effects of manipulated elections to include subversion of the collective will of the electorate, bad governance, misappropriation of public funds and all the ills we have witnessed since our return to democracy.

It is these systemic dysfunctions antithetical to democratic ethos that led him to contend that democracy in the form it has been practiced here does not show much promise over and above military authoritarianism.

Who can fault the reality that many of those who occupy elective offices today did not get there through popular mandate?  Who wants to pretend that the will of the electorate as expressly expressed at the ballot box did not seriously count in the victories some of our elected officials are currently savouring? What of the militarization of the electoral process and its reduction to a verity of military warfare as were obviously evident from past elections including those of Rivers, Bayelsa and Kogi state where incidentally, Adeyemi comes from?

What is there to pretend about in the assertion that the faulty and militarized electoral process been responsible for the bad leadership the nation has been contending with? What of the concomitant corruption it accentuates as those who bought their ways through, devise devious strategies to recover monies they spent during elections? What of the primaries of the political parties that are supposed to throw up popular candidates for elective offices? To what extent can we say they conform to democratic principles and practices of allowing popular choice unfettered access?

These are the issues in contextualizing Adeyem’s statements. And if the truth must be told, there is nothing democratic in the processes that throw up candidates from the primaries of the political parties. What we see very often is selection rather than election.

This is evident from the rancorous primaries that threaten to and in most cases factionalize the parties after such engagements.

Many of such parties are still nursing the wounds inflicted on them as a result of highly disputed, rancorous and undemocratic party primaries. How these conform to democratic rules is at the heart of the frustrations of the likes of Adeyemi.

Read Also: Lawan stops Adeyemi’s comparison of civil rule with military’s

 

The situation is even worse when it comes to general elections. Killings and maiming, snatching of ballot boxes and electoral materials, rewriting of results and incapacitation of the card readers so as to rig elections and the unwholesome activities of some electoral officials all combine to cast serious slur on the manner of democracy we practice in this country.

Rather than promote popular participation and popular choice, we are left with manipulated results and the subsequent imposition of candidates in a manner reminiscent of the system of military administrators of the military era.

Adeyemi was only implying that the collective mandate of voters must be a determining factor for ascendancy to elective political offices.

And where that is not the case, then what we practice is democracy in its most aberrant form. Aberrant democracy is another name for dictatorship either of the military or civilian class.

He seemed to be contending that the establishment of a national electoral offences commission may not achieve much if there is no positive change of attitude from all tiers of government to allow democracy flourish in its perfect form.

I understand him to be canvassing for the executive, the legislature and the judiciary to take up key roles in ensuring that the form of democracy we currently practice is retrieved from the observed imperfections and unwholesome tendencies that impede the capacity of our ballot process to approximate the collective will of the electorate as expressed at the ballot box.

That is what makes the difference between democracy and other forms of governance framework. That is what should stand out democracy from our sordid experiences with the past when military administrators were appointed for states without any input from the people.

Yes, the days of that order are gone with democracy in place. But such memories are easily evoked each time our electoral process throws up people through manipulated and questionable circumstances with other arms of the government seemingly complicit.

What Adeyemi did was to interrogate our electoral process; its capacity to approximate the collective will of the electorate as expresses at the ballot box.

It is an interrogation of the democratic process in the aberrant form it functions on this clime. The aim is to seek improvement in that process.

Those who quarrel with his comparative views on the issue, are perhaps, being misled by the bountiful opportunities thrown open by the democratic engagement that put humongous sums of money into their pockets. They are afraid that something untoward may happen if this view gains traction.

But, they should be challenged by the increasing loss of confidence in the electoral process through acts of omission or commission by the executive and the judiciary.

A situation where those rejected at the polls were eventually imposed on the people in very questionable circumstances because the verdict of the Supreme Court is final will continue to accentuate the frustrations of the likes of Adeyemi. If that is what democracy entails, then it offers little hope.

By Emeka Omeihe

Protests in Sagamu, Ogun State over the death of Remo Stars footballer, Kazeem Tiyamiu are clear indications of the level of anger of the people with the circumstance of that incident. But the protests were also poorly managed resulting to further deaths that exposed the inadequacies of our security agencies to professionally manage civil unrest.

Even as claims on the number of those who died during the demonstrations vary, it remains a fact that many others were injured. It is a curious irony that in trying to control the emotions arising from the death of the footballer, we ended up losing more lives. That says something about us as a people. More so, those entrusted with the onerous responsibility of protecting lives and property. It is also a vivid measure of the overall value we place on human lives.

And what is the cause of all this? Kazeem and his friend had stopped over at Sagamu to buy engine oil for his car. But while he was away, some policemen of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad approached the car and on seeing the lone passenger asked for the owner of the car. They were told that he went to buy something. On his return, the SARS operatives began to interrogate Kazeem and his friend, took their phones and bundled the former into their waiting vehicle while another policeman drove his car carrying the latter.

But somewhere along the expressway, something strange happened. The police claimed Kazeem jumped out of their vehicle and in a bid to escape arrest was crushed by an oncoming vehicle. His friend coming behind had a different story to tell. According to him, the police pushed him out of their vehicle only for him to be crushed by an oncoming vehicle. Such is the story of how the poor lad ended his life very abruptly and in very agonizing circumstance. How Kazeem, arrested with his friend and his car, could attempt to escape in the manner claimed by the police remains a mystery.

The account of how he was rushed to the hospital is somehow cloudy. But the impression one gets is that he was put into his car by the police and driven to the hospital as the police vehicle somewhere along the line vamoosed into the thin air. This dimension of the story is corroborated by the reported attempt by the policeman that drove his car to the hospital to flee on seeing that his colleagues were nowhere to be found. There was a video footage of some sympathizers including the hospital staff holding him as he attempted to flee the scene.

That was just the account of the incident; a chilling story of how such a prospective young man was sent to his early grave through acts of omission or commission by those paid to protect him. It is not clear what offence the SARS operatives arrested him for that warranted bundling him the way they did.

But from their conduct including seizure of their phones, it is probable they were screening them for cybercrime. In local parlance, they may have suspected them as ‘Yahoo boys’ especially given their ages, dressing and the brand of car they were driving. If that is the case, how does that fit into the mandate of the SARS operatives? From what we are made to understand especially given the designation of that outfit, they are specially trained to apprehend and smoke out armed robbers from their hiding places. As I write, the information filtering indicate that they are also to stamp out kidnapping.

If that is the case, we need to be educated on the correlation between armed robbery and cybercrimes. This differentiation is germane for us to determine the propriety or otherwise of the mission of the SARS operatives in Sagamu on that fateful day. If the mandate of SARS as seems very obvious, does not include cybercrimes, then the motivation of the police officers must be for personal gains. We are also faced with the danger of profiling upcoming young men as yahoo boys. This must stop. The police must invent more scientific ways of tracking cyber fraud rather than this fixation with young men.

Deputy Inspector General of Police, Peter Ogunyonwo who represented the IG at a condolence visit to the family of the deceased shocked the nation when he disclosed that the police officers were on an illegal duty and did not obtain clearance from the police formation in Sagamu before the operation.

It was for this reason that the IG ordered the disbandment of the zonal intervention squad in Ogun State and handed over their office to the state police command. The force also ordered the sacking of the inspector who led that ill-fated outing. As good as these measures are, they inevitably expose some of the dysfunctions of the current structure and organization of the police institution in the country.

What seems obvious from the disbanding of the zonal squad and its handover to the state police command is the exposure of the abuse such creations lend themselves to on account of lack of synergy with the states’ police commands. That is the message we get from the Sagamu episode.

But it remains an ad hoc measure accentuated by the exigencies of the abuse that led to the footballers’ death. There is everything to expect that the zonal intervention squad is not just a creation peculiar to Ogun State. The police authorities should speak up on the fate of other zonal intervention squads. Are they also going to be disbanded or allowed to stay on? This poser is germane given that the Sagamu incident may just be a tip of the iceberg on the monumental corruption, abuse and excesses of such outfits across the country.

That calls for reforms in the current structure and organization of the police force. Apart from reforms, training and re-training which the police force needs, it is imperative to urgently align their operations to global practices. But our police operatives need constant monitoring. It is obvious from the extant incident that many of our police officers embark on illegal duties to satisfy the lure of their stomach. When they are not mounting illegal checkpoints to collect tolls, they are seen conducting themselves in manners that diminish the very offices they occupy.

But for the way the Sagamu incident turned out, Kazeem could have been framed for a criminal offence if he failed to grease the pockets of his traducers or dispensed with. This is not something strange. Early this year, we had the unfortunate case of a Port Harcourt based mechanic, Chima Ikwunado whose curious death in police cell elicited wide demonstrations that the police had to fight hard to disband. The unfortunate story of Chima and four of his colleagues was that they drove against the traffic and apprehended by police operatives who allegedly asked for settlement which they could not afford. They were then taken to the police station and forced under torture to confess they robbed the cars they were driving from their owners.

The refusal by Chima to confess to what he knew nothing about and the pains of the torture to force him confess led to his death. The rest of what transpired at the police station, the efforts of those entrusted with our lives to cover up their sordid tracks, left a sour taste in our mouths. But that is the situation we are contending with. That is the source of the mistrust between the police and the general public. That is the dissonance evoked each time the police authorities mount publicity campaigns to portray the police as friends of the public. That is the contradictory message we get when we read posters around police stations that bail is free when actually the reverse is the case.

These call for serious training, re-training and re-orientation of police personnel. It is not enough to reel out the number of riffles, armored personnel carriers, drones and personnel needed by the force to perform as they did during their recent interface with the national assembly. As relevant as these are, disoriented personnel, one propelled by criminal intention to label innocent citizens as criminals, one that turns the rules of engagement upside down, is an unmitigated danger to the society. If the deaths of Kazeem and Chima lead to a better police force, then they would not have died in vain. But will they?