The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Stella Oduah’s romance with scandals

    For quite some time now, Stella Oduah, the masculine and wrestler-built Nigeria’s minister of aviation, seems to be permanently hooked to scandals of various dimensions and magnitude. Her 27-month tenure as minister has been dogged by several controversies and scandals. Not only this, the aviation industry under her watch has witnessed two major air disasters leading to the loss of no fewer than 200 precious lives.

    The latest scandal involving the minister has to do with the purchase of two BMW 760 Li luxury cars which were recently purchased for her by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA. The way and manner the cars were procured as well as the exorbitant price tag placed on them seems to have compounded the integrity issues confronting her. The minister has come under severe criticisms from notable members of the public following the revelation that the NCAA bought the two bullet-proof vehicles for a whopping $1.6 million or N255 million. The armoured vehicles were reportedly delivered to her in August this year.

    The BMW is a fast-moving car with all the accompanied luxuries. For those who prefer a quick dash all around, any make of the BMW series could satisfy their sartorial taste. Findings on the BMW website indicate that the 760 Li HSS model purchased for the exclusive use of the minister has a shelf price of $186,000 or N29, 760,000 (at N160 per dollar). However, the price varies, depending on options, that is, the aesthetics – both the interior and exterior finishing of the luxury car. It is purposely built to meet the highest and most demanding security requirements. The 760Li High Security model has been tested by a German bullet and firing inspection authority. With its 6.0 cm bullet-proof glass, the car can withstand attacks with explosives or bullets of the armour-breaking 7.62x54R API calibre often used by terrorist organizations such as the rampaging Boko Haram insurgents currently ravaging the north-eastern part of the country. It has a reinforced body and explosion-resistant undercarriage that meets the higher VR9 standard. Even if it is hit by a high velocity impact such that could lead to a sudden loss of tyre pressure, the vehicle can run on flat tyres for an upward of 50 kilometres at an average speed of 80 kilometres per hour. The car’s emergency exit is conveniently situated around the front wide screen.

    There are other security features and relaxation ambience that come with the car. Its long-distance infrared technology can pick out people on the carriageway in poor visibility or at night at a distance of up to 300 metres. The optional rear-seat entertainment system allows two passengers to watch the same or different DVDs at the same time. It also allows the occupants of the back to follow the car’s progress on the navigation system, or even go on the internet as they cruise along. This is possible because two distinct and independent 9.2-inch colour screens are built into the front headrests. To complete this out-of-this-world luxury, in case the owner or occupant desires a good massage to emerge from exhaustion, tiredness or boredom, the car provides optional massage function in the rear-seat backrests.

    The latest revelation has come at a time when certain events in the aviation industry, which Oduah supervises, have become a cause for concern and embarrassment, not just for Nigerian air travellers, but also for the world at large. The first was the Dana Air crash in Lagos on June 3, 2012 barely one year after she took over as Aviation Minister, in which 159 people died. Another one was the Associated Airlines crash of October 3, also in Lagos, which claimed 15 lives.

    Apart from the two fatalities, many air passengers had escaped death by the whiskers on some other occasions. One of such happened a day after the Associated Airline’s crash, when a Kabo Airline’s Boeing 747-400 plane, which was taking an estimated 512 pilgrims for this year’s Hajj to Saudi Arabia, made an emergency landing at the Sokoto airport after suffering deflated tyres. The emergency landing caused some damages to the airport’s Instrument Landing System.

    A few days after this near-tragedy, an IRS Airlines Fokker-100 plane carrying 99 passengers also made an emergency landing at the Kaduna airport after developing hydraulic problem mid-air. The nation’s embarrassment is not limited to the Nigerian airspace though, as a Nigerian registered cargo airplane had also crashed in Accra, Ghana, on June 2, 2012, a day before the Dana crash.

    In the wake of the Associated Airline’s crash, the unrepentant aviation minister had stirred the hornet’s nest in an ill-informed press conference she addressed after the incident.  Oduah had incurred severe public criticism for describing the two major air crashes as “inevitable acts of God.” She said that, as minister, her job was to provide leadership and ensure that the right policies were in place for the aviation sector to run efficiently. She passed the buck on safety and industry regulation to the heads of the agencies in the sector, such as the NCAA, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria and the Nigerian Airspace Management Authority.

    While ‘natural’ disasters may not necessarily be anyone’s doing, the fact remains that with the controversy thrown up by the recent air disasters in the country, it is quite obvious that many things are wrong with the nation’s aviation industry. And from the look of things, coupled with the minister’s vague admission that air accidents are acts of God, it seems that the minister may be ill-equipped to deal with the situation decisively. Based on the fatal accidents and near-mishaps that we have witnessed in recent times, one wonders if the Nigerian aviation sector has excellent standards and maintenance regulations for domestic airlines. If there are, they don’t seem to be enforced.

    Again, the minister had said the aviation sector needed injection of funds if air travel must be safe and secure. if this is true (and we all know this), isn’t it then a contradiction that the same minister that desperately shops for operating funds is now engaged in a spending spree, compelling parastatals under her supervision to be buying amoured cars and other gifts for her? This is a dent on the integrity of the aviation minister.

    Except in Nigeria where anything goes, it is absolutely unethical for the minister to have accepted ‘gifts’ from the NCAA, an agency she supervises. If there were threats to her life as she claims, there are constitutional provisions for that, as a bona fide Nigerian, even if she is not occupying public office. She should have exploited that means instead of accepting gifts from an agency whose shoddy handling of the aviation sector, many believe, has contributed enormously to the death of innocent people.

    Certainly, Oduah may not be the only minister who breathes down too heavily on the parastatals they supervise. It is common knowledge that many of her mates compel such agencies to foot the bills of their transport, accommodation, feeding and more, each time they have to attend one function or the other. Even bills of family members, distant relations and other acquaintances are forced to be picked up by such agencies without a whimper from any of them. This is a corrupt practice that only a country like Nigeria, where ethical issues are taken with levity, condones.

    As usual, rather than cover their faces in shame and or make atonement for the unbridled corruption involved in the purchase of the cars, including the highly inflated figures presented to the public, the management of the NCAA is busy chasing shadows. Now, they are busy hunting for the whistleblower, while the minister is sitting tight in office. Is this how we will continue to run the affairs of this country? The answer is no. Something must definitely give way. It is either the government shows a firm commitment to fighting corruption in all ramification or the citizens resort to self-help, which may take the form of pelting thieving officials with stones and other available objects on the streets. If the chaos this will precipitate will force our leaders to redress the endemic anomalies in the system, so be it!

  • Nigeria in search of healing

    Myriads of news abound today about the different natural disasters that incessantly threaten the life of people across Europe. While many have been rendered homeless and displaced, some have had their earthly existence abruptly terminated. As a result, many are languishing in pain and lament as the cry for help roars increasingly. Earthquake, tornado, hurricane, tsunami and the like, more often than not, invade the people as unwanted visitors. When they come, they wrought fear and unleash terror on their victims.

    However we as Nigerians have been so favoured by nature. We are immune to natural disaster. We are not victims of earthquake, hurricane, and tsunami as the case may be, but our detestable lot and portion is rather a moral disaster. We have become so engrossed in a colossal moral disaster known as corruption. While other natural disasters occur once in a while, our own brand of disaster has become so immanent. Devoid of any form of exaggeration, corruption as it were has become part and parcel of our nature. It has assumed an ontological status and considerably synonymous with our identity as a people. So bad it is that we not only practice corruption, but it is the case that it has become the air we breathe and the ocean we swim in. In fact to say the very least, corruption which is a social vice, is now shamelessly celebrated. We have gotten to the zenith where corruption becomes our food and drink, a milky way of life, and the fastest and easiest means of self-enrichment.

    Without any iota of deception, it is definitely accurate to assert that what we witness in Nigeria as a people is an institutionalized brand of corruption wherein the very corrupt have the say in the society. In this case, corruption is used as a political arsenal cum sponsor. We have domesticated and adopted a wild poisonous animal in our society. It is pathetic to discover that this monster has become a stakeholder in the corridors of power; a vampire has become the counsellor of our political leaders as it takes over their consciences. I gasp and pant in dismay when I see that this deadly ghost of corruption is the source of anointing of many of our leaders. The future appears very bleak when I realize that many of our leaders have turned professors not in leadership skills, not in human sensitivity, not in economic development, not in profound philosophy of administration, but in the different gimmicks and tricks of corruption.

    Like a rampaging cancer, we are all witnesses to the effects of corruption. It is so crude that its effects are felt quite immediately. First and foremost, every corrupt society is a fertile ground for the thriving of selfishness, greed, shady practices, lack of accountability, hatred, and a harbour for unpatriotic leaders cum citizens. It is only in this kind of society that the innocents can be killed by way of ritual, accidents resulting from abandoned roads for which several contracts have been awarded and paid for, curable diseases which drugs have been confiscated, pensioners whose monthly pensions have been embezzled and so on.

    To this end, we are confronted with a leadership that is insensitive to the plight of the populace; our leaders are crippled in the war against the monstrous giant of corruption as a good number of them are very unpatriotic and mere saboteurs. As such, they are often blindfolded and rendered visionless in the face of the dark cloud covering all aspects of administration. On the other hand, the masses have been instigated to anger, resulting into terrorism. The motherland is therefore polluted and desecrated with injustice, corruption, bribery, sexual perversion, religious bigotry, anxiety, maiming, cultism and their ilk.

    To state further, it is in a corrupt society like Nigeria that we can have her citizenry crying of hunger in the midst of abundance because of the endless crave to satisfy greed which is insatiable. I weep relentlessly when I see the ill wind of homosexuality blowing across young men and boys of today, not solely because they lack the proper sense of nature but because they have been compelled by hardship to fall victim to the corrupt gongs who also make recourse to same sex as a ritual to fuel and sustain their shady and corrupt practices. Or is there an end to the pain evoked by knowing that many young girls and ladies have turned prostitutes just because that is the only means by which they can tap from the treasury of the corrupt?

    From the foregoing, it is quite obvious that we are in need of healing. Where shall we go for help as we stand condemned before our heroes past, as the blood of the dead victims of corruption cum terrorism irrigate our land in utmost cry for vengeance and thirst for justice, as the cry and lament of the poor pierces the heavenly realms, as the faces of the masses are veiled with misery, as many of our leaders have taken diabolical oaths in demonic shrines and satanic cults and thousands of souls are being offered as sacrifices to satisfy the unquenchable thirst for blood?

    Given the enormity of the havoc wrecked by the evil of corruption, it then means that there is a dire need for a national conversion. We have to atone for our sins as a nation. A presidential pardon cannot achieve this for us; rather it may be a subtle way of legalizing corruption. And if it must be of any help, it must have been preceded by a public remorse, atonement and reparation on the part of the offender. In essence, there is a clarion call for a national conversion.

    As a nation, we have to make reparation for the evil we have done. We have to repay hatred with love, we have to embrace transparency in our dealings, we need to imbibe the spirit of the common good and jettison selfishness and greed, we just have to make a return to land of mutual concern as entrenched in communal living and bid farewell to our failed individualism, yes, we must have concern for the other and not just the self alone. It is by so doing that we can be delivered from the hands of this demon called corruption.

     

    • Rev. Ariko writes from Lokoja, Kogi State

  • No clap for FERMA’s cruel joke;  Ipadeola; Sovereign citizen, Politician is paid servant

    Are we a nation lacking good parents? After unimaginable suffering with delays and death on the Lagos-Ibadan road, misnamed expressway, the FERMA dares to congratulate itself for ‘intervening to save road users’. An arrogant and cruel FERMA joke? Rubbish. Where was FERMA when potholes were begging to be filled? FERMA last did petty work on that road when the President visited Abeokuta 3+ years ago. We are all presidents and the S-NC will prove it! FERMA should be ashamed as it is responsible for the negligence turning roads into dirt tracks. Is this the road the Aviation Minister will drive her bomb-proof cars valued at N250m? It is too late for Nigerians to say ‘thank you’. What type of Nigerian government has FERMA and equipment but stands aside, witnessing more death, damage and suffering for years? Is that political, administrative, engineering or corruption failure? Shame on FERMA! Shamefully for Africa in 2013 and Nigeria and its 4th UN Security Council Non-Permanent Seat, government acts as if only foreigner contractors can fill potholes. Is FERMA a salary-for-nothing joke just ‘discovering’ the road like David Livingstone? If so, it is a deadly joke and Nigerian road users are maxi-angry! Once again government treats Nigerians like idiot children with negligent irresponsible parents. We will not clap for FERMA! Why are citizens allowed to feel bastards in a country which tars roads for presidents and visitors but makes potholes for its citizens? Mad priorities, abi?

    Congratulations and gbosas to the unassuming Tade Ipadeola LLB on winning the 2013 LNG Prize for Literature for The Sahara Testaments published by Hornbill African Poets after winning the Delphic Laurel in Poetry from South Korea recently which he showed me then. I also submitted my work The Laterite Road -an African Travel Odyssey published by Evans for the NLG Prize but did not even make the long list. I am therefore definitely jealous and envious in the nicest possible way. Tade’s book, which I am now reading, is an intellectual masterpiece, demonstrating rhyme and reason in and out of season. In some parts it requires a large dictionary or internet access to wikipedia and more while reading, for full comprehension. It is a living breathing look at our Africa….an excerpt…

    Listen, the desert is singing, singing, just singing.

    It is a duet, a duet with the breeze

    and

    Is taboo. They stay attached like Nigerian inflation

    Of which Fela sang with his tenor saxophone.

    An excerpt from my work The Laterite Road anticipates the recent over 500 deaths at Lampedusa

    Survivors of the desert sea storm

    Destined for Mediterranean thirst and drowning,

    In leaking boats bent on sinking.

    Forcing entry into Fortress Europe,

    Burning in the Sahara,

    Or drowning in the Mediterranean

    Destined for Melilla, Lampedusa,

    Sicily, Italy.

    Young bodies beaten black and blue,

    Crushed on Europe’s wet rocks.

    More lost young African building blocks

    Taken from the African Renaissance Building

    On the laterite road.

    You can celebrate this success. Buy Tade’s book and mine as a present for someone today, to improve the reading culture and make a new generation of Nigerians authors into household names.

    All those who have strangled Nigeria through ‘Nigeria’s 40 Years of the Locust’ and installed a ‘Paradise Lost’ have nothing to offer the new S-National Conference. There will be a S-NC but is S ‘Stupid or Sovereign’, ‘Silly or Serious’? Let the over-50s leave the stage with their ‘wisdom’ that left Nigeria waterless, powerless, education-less, health-less, train-less, road-less, naira-worthless and nearly futureless. The over-50s should ignore ‘overpowering desires to “serve”, yet again’.

    The people are sovereign, delegating authority to the political class. But the S-NC is much more than ‘politics’ and politicians do not have a moral track record of putting the nation above greed. The citizens suffer ‘A VIOLENT DEMOCRACY’ and ’DEMOCRATIC RAPE’. The politicians are the expensive employees of the people. So how dare politicians claim sovereignty? The statements from NASS on ‘final sovereignty’ are military and darkly dangerous. Parliaments which disregard people’s power ALWAYS fall. Politicians must ‘take a bow’ or face oblivion. Can they not see the great power of this ‘2013 MOVEMENT’? Get on board or be side-lined. Allowing the NASS final say is a denial of the Nigerian citizen’s sovereignty. How can a servant, paid to occupy a house by his master, claim that he owns the house and the master? WE DEMAND A REFERENDUM.

    Can Nigerian politicians be trusted to work for Nigeria? Can they abolish one house of the National Assembly, NASS and go British parliamentary in their ‘Eternal Retirement Home’. Can they implement needed salaries and perks cuts which SAP Nigeria dry and catalyse the impending economic destruction of Nigeria in the next five years? As merely another interest group in Nigeria numerically less than 0.01% but 100% noisy in the media, politicians and political parties should step aside and watch 99.99% of Nigerians take the stage. It is time to tame the politician made into a monster by himself, people and the press! The Guild of Editors, Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ and the media should meet to re-strategise for the S-NC and institute policy and interview strategies to give space to Nigerians and ignore politicians. It is the politicians past actions and their future employment terms and conditions that are for assessment and decisions by the ‘exam body’ comprising all Nigerians at the S-NC. Politicians should await the Nation’s Examination Result.

    To be continued.

  • Stella and her armoured limousines

    Have you been to any of Nigeria’s numerous airports lately, especially the federal airports? If you have you must have noticed some changes, let’s say improvements, on the terminal buildings.

    In some of them, like at Yola International Airport, the old terminal,buildings have been pulled down and new, modern structures springing up. From the rubble of the old terminal building, a new Sultan Abubakar International Airport is to be commissioned soon in Sokoto.

    The fratricidal politics of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, in Rivers State and President Goodluck Jonathan shadow boxing with Governor Rotimi Amaechi permitting, the Port Harcourt International Airport should join the league soon with a truly(?) international terminal building.

    And lest I forget, the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja has been expanded while we have been promised an additional terminal at Nigeria’s prime gateway, the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos. The Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, otherwise known as MAKIA has been upgraded, though underutilized, while renovations I am told are also going on elsewhere.

    While these constructions and reconstructions have not necessarily brought about improved services at the airports, kudos must go to Aviation Minister Stella Oduah for her aesthetic taste as some of the terminal buildings are indeed pleasing to the eyes, even where some of the (internal) facilities are less or non functional.

    The huge cost of these projects and where the money was coming from have been subjects of controversy since Madam Oduah, a member of President Jonathan’s kitchen cabinet began her dream of building a new aviation culture in Nigeria.

    And with the poor safety record of Nigeria’s aviation, her wisdom or lack of it in devoting more energy and resources to constructing or reconstructing terminal buildings have been called to question several times by industry experts and the general public who have been left shocked by incessant aircraft accidents and facility failures at our airports that have caused the nation unnecessary loss of human lives in their hundreds.

    While some have argued that some of these projects are not necessary or should not be priority, the loudest argument has been on the funding with the Minister accused of putting her hands illegally into the pool of funds generated by the Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) Nigeria entered into with other countries. BASA is basically a reciprocity agreement where designated national carriers of the agreeing countries fly into and out of each other’s territory. The frequency of flights, the aircraft type, the designated airport, where to drop and pick passengers and such matters are included in BASA and royalties are paid (by the benefiting airline to its counterpart) where one of the parties is unable to compete or utilize its allotted frequencies. I think overflight charges are also included.

    These royalties generated by BASA, experts say belong to the country but earned largely by the national carrier by virtue of being the lead implementing agency on behalf of Nigeria in the agreement. The demise of Nigeria Airways has not stopped these royalties from coming in and they naturally go to the purse of the federal government and any disbursement from the fund must be approved by the government.

    The minister has been accused of spending this money on her new/modern airport projects without approval. But those who know her closeness to the president and the influence she wields in the Jonathan government say it is not unlikely that she had gotten presidential approval by stealth, without the matter getting to the federal executive council meeting. This is a matter that should interest both the National Assembly and the anti’graft agencies.

    Be that as it may, the matter here really is following due process and doing the right thing. You can’t do the right(?) thing through the wrong way and expect a pat on the back. If the source of funding for her airport project is/was deemed illegal then Madam Stella Oduah the Minister of Aviation owe this nation an explanation and those who should ask the question had better start now.

    Though the controversy surrounding the airport projects seem to be going down, the minister seem to have a penchant for courting more controversies.

    The latest of her numerous controversies and the biggest scandal of her ministerial tenure to date is the purchase of two armoured limousines for her exclusive use by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, one of the parastatals under her ministry. The BMW 760 Li cars were purchased by NCAA from the local representatives of BMW in Nigeria, Coscharis Motors Limited for a combined fee of $1.6 million or approximately N225 million in August and delivered to the minister.

    Kudos to the whistleblower that leaked the purchase to online newspaper Sahara Reporters, and the local media that had feasted on the scandal since it broke last week. Thanks to the unknown whistleblower who is now been hunted by the federal government for punishment according to NCAA Director General Captain Fola Akinkuotu, we now know how Madam Stella Oduah and her cronies run our aviation.

    Though Akinkuotu would want us to believe that the limousines were not meant for the exclusive use of the minister, but also some VIP visitors that his agencies regularly play host to while in the country, spokesman for Madam Oduah actually confirmed the vehicles were meant for his boss and were needed to protect her in the face of several threats she had received from certain interests she might hurt in the course of her duty as Minister of Aviation.

    Honestly I don’t have any problem with the minister riding a bullet proof/armoured car if her ministry could afford it. I am sure many of her colleagues and most of our politicians ride one. I think some of them do have genuine security concerns/fears. Why she had to force NCAA to cough out the money is my concern.

    If truly she had been receiving threats from God knows who over whatever she has been doing as Aviation Minister, she ought to have gone to her boss and friend President Goodluck Jonathan to seek extra protection if she wasn’t satisfied with the security arrangements around her. It is not the business of NCAA to buy those cars for her, if truly she needs them, but that of her employers, the federal government of Nigeria. If her ministry couldn’t afford them then the presidency should have paid if it was convinced that her life was in danger. To have burdened NCAA with the cost of the armored limos was an attempt to cripple the agency and endanger the flying public.

    In the face of inadequate human capacity to discharge the onerous tasks of aircraft inspection and certification, 1.6 million USD in the purse of NCAA could have done wonders in the training of its personnel. Because of paucity of fund, I understand statutory trainings, abroad in most cases, for NCAA personnel are no longer being carried out as and when due. They are now staggered with a huge backlog. As it is in aviation, if you are not rated on a particular aircraft type you cannot inspect or certify it even if you are the best aircraft engineer around. And this type rating has expiry dates, some are due every six months, just like a pilot’s license. Who knows, may be some of those our aircraft falling down from the sky were certified fit by incompetent engineers. We now know where the money for their training has been going.

    The annoying thing about this $1.6 m limousine purchase for the minister was that NCAA had to borrow the money from a local bank by mortgaging it’s future earnings. So, the money the agency has not earned it has spent, to provide comfort and security for Madam Minister.

    Whoever approved that purchase has misappropriated or is it misapplied public funds and must be punished. Mind you, this is not the first time the NCAA and the other parastatals under the Ministry of Aviation were being forced to do the biddings of Madam Minister.

    Come to think of it, how much does an armoured limo costs that we are buying two for $1.6million? Those who know say the two cars should not cost more than N75million. Can’t you see something fishy here? If EFCC still have any teeth to bite, this is the time. And if President Jonathan is serious about his anti-corruption stance, then he should act now and save Nigeria’s Aviation and the flying public from Madam Minister.

     

  • His blood on his hands

    He nailed an innocent man on the cross. So, his blood is on his hands.

    That would be history’s damning verdict on President Goodluck Jonathan, when the odyssey of eminent jurist, Justice Isa Ayo Salami, former president of the Court of Appeal, suspended for the past two years, is written.

    For fleeting partisan glory, the Jonathan Presidency has earned itself eternal stain. It is odium well earned, for a reckless campaign against justice and electoral sanctity.

    If this appears a tad too hard, a refresher on the Justice Salami story will do. His “capital crime”, to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), particularly its reactionary bloc in the South West, was that the Court of Appeal, where Justice Salami was President, flushed out election robbers in Edo, Ondo, Ekiti and Osun states.

    That the robbers stole the vote was beyond question. That the Court of Appeal, after the earlier tribunals, found enough evidence to confirm a heist and kick out the robbers was not in doubt.

    The problem was the powers-that-be would rather have a quisling – like Justice(?) Thomas Naron, already dismissed for his judicial malfeasance in the Osun gubernatorial judicial challenge – do bare-faced injustice, which Justice Salami was not.

    For that, they swore to “deal” with him. But the jurist took all of their vicious punches, and still remained on his feet of honour, until he bowed out at the statutory age of 70 on October 15.

    Salami left in a blaze of glory, his integrity undiminished and his place secure among the pantheon of the brave, the committed and the principled, in Nigeria’s often troubled judiciary.

    But his traducers are covered in the odium of their own plotting and conspiracy, so much so that the tattered umbrella is now home to ferocious and conflicting old and new power rascals, dancing naked in the market place.

    Live by injustice, die by injustice! Gather by injustice, scatter by injustice! That would appear a fair epigram to PDP, now in the throes of breaking up.

    It is instructive that a party whose South West rascals swore to destroy Justice Salami is, before our very eyes, itself self-destructing!

    It is sobering lesson, if ever there was one! Live by intrigue, die by intrigue!

    The anti-Salami campaign was started by a newspaper advert by Iyiola Omisore, a former senator and post-Olagunsoye Oyinlola Osun gubernatorial hopeful, in which he made uncouth and reckless allegations against Justice Salami and his Court of Appeal, suggesting the then Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) partisans had allegedly compromised the court in their party’s victorious appeal.

    To be sure, Omisore was hardly neutral in the matter. For one, he had just been electorally pulverised in the 2011 senatorial race. For another, his bid to succeed the judicially sacked Oyinlola had turned a pipe dream. For the incoming Rauf Aregbesola, he knew, it would not be business as usual.

    Heraclitus-speak, there was no stepping in the Osun river twice. Osun’s political dynamics had changed forever! From politics of rumour-mongering and blackmail, it was morphing into politics of development. In other words, Omisore saw stark political death staring him in the face! That advert was, therefore, a death spasm of sorts; hence it was a study in wildness and recklessness.

    But that spasm sparked other high-tension conspiracies from even higher places. Pronto, came former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu’s strange “promotion” of Justice Salami, a sitting president of the Court of Appeal to a non-ranking member of the Supreme Court!

    Salami rejected the Trojan horse, only to be swarmed by other conspiracies. That climaxed in his suspension, which the National Judicial Council (NJC), through E. I. Odukwu, announced on 18 August 2011. The NJC charge was that Salami had “perjured” Katsina-Alu, simply because Justice Dahiru Musdapher, next in line for CJN Katsina-Alu’s job but alleged witness to Salami’s claim that the CJN asked him to pervert justice in the Sokoto gubernatorial case, would not confirm – nor rigorously deny – the allegation.

    But the same NJC, but now under CJN Musdapher, on 10 May 2012, lifted Justice Salami’s suspension and asked President Jonathan to reinstate the jurist. Was that CJN Musdapher’s brave but nuanced effort to salve his conscience, after opting not to confirm Justice Salami’s allegation? No one is sure now!

    Before this decision, however, the Retired Justice Bola Babalakin Reconciliation Committee had put Salami in the clear. It had also cleared the justices involved in the Osun and Ekiti gubernatorial appeal cases of all wrong doings; but indicted former CJN Katsina-Alu, for going beyond his brief in the Sokoto gubernatorial case.

    For “peace”, however, Justice Salami and indeed all of the parties were advised to withdraw their respective cases on the matter. Inasmuch as Justice Salami’s camp were not averse to withdrawing the cases, they insisted on reinstatement first – and soundly so, if you were dealing with a treacherous presidency.

    It was at this juncture that President Jonathan, himself a beneficiary of justice in his battle against the Umaru Yar’ Adua presidential cabal, decided to vote for injustice, clinging to the cant of sub-judice. He would not reinstate Salami because of cases in court!

    Perhaps, President Jonathan had emotional attachment to the injustice Salami’s Appeal Court was fobbing off? Indeed, during the Ekiti re-run, its Ido-Osi abracadabra and the fleeting heroism of Mrs Christian Conscience, there were media speculations that since President Yar’Adua had grave issues with his health, it was a certain Vice President, hitherto scorned, by the Yar’ Adua cabal as “spare tyre”, was the one flexing his muscles and giving the Ekiti vote robbers the Dutch courage to essay such in-your-face electoral robbery.

    This remains an allegation yet to be proved. But not so, the president’s anti-Salami scheming, using every trick in the book, to stone-wall Justice Salami’s reinstatement, until his statutory retirement.

    But as it happens, injustice and impunity have started consuming their own children.

    Oyinlola, who sat on Aregbesola’s mandate for nearly a whole electoral term, has had his own mandate as PDP national secretary annulled. Even his “election” as “New PDP” national scribe has been judicially pulverised, on account that “nPDP” was unknown to law.

    Olusegun Oni too, gubernatorial impostor in Ekiti, was also shoo-ed off his purported PDP office of South West national vice-chairman. Earlier, Don Quixote Oni had journeyed to nowhere, asking the Supreme Court to rule on a case Salami’s Appeal Court had already concluded. He fell flat on his face.

    And Jonathan himself? He is now undertaker-in-chief of his PDP, the electoral rogues of which he scandalously lent the dignity of his presidential office. Yet, it’s morning yet on comeuppance day, for direr judgments are bound to follow!

    But even as Jonathan and his PDP roil in the cauldron of impunity, it is a case of “two presidents”: one Jonathan, of the Federal Republic, who used his high office to attempt to crush an innocent jurist; and two, Salami, of the Court of Appeal, whose sheer integrity has turned the high-wire plots against him to glory.”

    Jonathan nailed an innocent jurist. Not even all the waters of the Atlantic can clean his hands of his career blood.

  • Questions on Abia Workers Award

    It was David Gemmell in his book Shield Of Thunder who said: “I may be stupid, as you say, to believe in honour and friendship and loyalty without price. But these are virtues to be cherished, for without them we are no more than beasts roaming the land.”

    The above aphorism is axiomatic. One cannot attract friendship, honour and loyalty with paying price for it. The price for it is personal sacrifice and selfless service to humanity at all the time. That is what attracts an honour to be cherished by all. It was this sacrifice that Governor Theodore Orji has made right from his days as a public servant and still making now as governor of Abia State. With outstanding track record in public service that spanned for over two decades, Governor Orji on assumption of office in 2007 made the reformation of the state civil service top priority. This was not only because the sector was his primary constituency, but because he had always known and believed that a strong and refined civil service is a pillar for successful and good administration.

    Appreciating Orji’s remarkable achievements in the state civil service and other sectors of the economy, the Abia civil and public service workforce under the aegis of Consolidated Abia State Public Service (CASPS) recently rolled out drums in grand style in Umuahia, the state capital to honour of Governor Orji for job well done.

    The event which was well-attended by the workers in the state took off with an interdenominational service and ended with an award of “Icon Of Public Service” to Governor Orji by the workers.

    One may ask or wonder: what has the governor done for the civil servants in the state to deserve such honour which is rare and unprecedented in government/civil servants relationship in the country?

    Having been part of the civil/public service before becoming governor in 2007, there is no doubt that Orji has deep knowledge of the sector and the problems bedevilling it.  Tackling the rot and internal squabbles orchestrated by its politicization and lack of transparency, Orji’s government brought the core values of merit, transparency and professionalism into the service.

    To start with, several workers that were due for promotion over the years, but had their promotions stunted for political reasons were expressly and meritoriously promoted and paid their entitlements without minding whose ox is gored. Those due for retirement, but have continued to manipulate their records to remain in the service illegally were properly investigated, retired and paid their entitlements without delay or victimization.

    Workers in the state started attending periodic training and workshops that were being sponsored by the state government to acquire new skills and competences to improve on service delivery. With the national minimum wage of N18,000 signed into law, some state governments across the country could not pay their workers the minimum wage till date giving flimsy excuses of lack of fund. The Abia government even though not among the richest states in the country, started paying her workers N21,000 as minimum wage as against N18,000 national minimum wage.  The state government tackled the menace of ghost workers which was an age-long tradition and a conduit pipe in the service by introducing compulsory biometric data capturing of all workers in the state civil service. Major beneficiaries of the rot in the service who wanted the status quo to be maintained tried everything to resist the reforms by inciting other workers against the innovation.

    But the state government remained undaunted, and insisted on the compulsory biometric data capture of all the workers to eradicate the ghost workers’ syndrome and leakages. It was during the process that the state government discovered that in different council areas of the state not less than 1, 727 workers were ghost workers. These were numbers of workers that did not show up or report for capturing during the verification exercise that lasted for months, whereas they have been receiving salaries and allowances for years from the state government.

    According to the Chairman of the Biometric Data Implementation Committee and Chief of Staff to the governor, Cosmos Ndukwe, Aba South Council area with 245 ghost workers topped the list, followed by Isiala Ngwa South with 153, and Osisioma Ngwa with 138 ghost workers.

    Others were Ikwuano, 117; Umuahia North, 123; Umuahia South, 101; Isiala Ngwa North, 92; Umunneochi, 65; while Ugwuanagbo Local Government Area had the least with 28 ghost workers.

    The development also tackled the problem of truancy in the civil service as most workers especially in the commercial city of Aba before now only come to collect salary at the end of the month without working. Today workers in the state receive their salaries and entitlements as at when due. The state government has also started housing scheme for workers at Amuba Housing Estate where several houses have been constructed by government to be occupied by the workers on the owner/occupier basis. Payments for the houses will span for some years to enable the workers to meet up with the payment and their other financial obligations.

    Before the coming into office of the present government, workers in the state have no befitting and functional secretariat to operate from. State ministries were scattered in different makeshift locations in the state. The old workers’ secretariat that was built many years ago was dilapidated and uninhabitable. That was pitiful working condition of an average worker in the state then.

    But immediately after Governor Orji won his second term in office, the state government embarked on the rehabilitation of the old workers secretariat and the construction of new ultra modern workers secretariat with modern facilities. Presently, rehabilitation has been completed at the old workers secretariat and is occupied, while the new one which is a five-storey building with an elevator and other modern facilities is nearing completion and would be soon commissioned. Since the present government came on board in the state, workers have not for once embarked on strike for any reason. The government has been able to create an atmosphere of mutual understanding and harmonious relationship thanks to Governor Orji’s pragmatic leadership approach and utmost concern for workers’ welfare all the time.

    So clearly the workers’ award to Gov. Orji is well deserved and befitting, because his government has done well for workers in the state.

    • Dr. Uwa, a medical practitioner wrote from Aba, Abia State

     

  • When philanthropy turns lethal

    When philanthropy turns lethal

    Philanthropy runs deep in the Saraki family.

    Its patriarch, himself the Oloye, Dr Abubakar Olusola Saraki, was a legendary giver. You always knew when he was in his country home in Ilorin GRA, to take a break from his endless trips abroad in search of new deals, to nourish and consolidate old business, or to undergo medical treatment.

    Large crowds would gather on the precincts of the expansive villa – old men, old women, young men, young women, pregnant women, women carrying their babies on their backs, children, people in all sorts and conditions of distress, some of them from the crack of dawn – waiting for the man they reverentially called Oloye to emerge from the innards, hold court, and hand out gifts with his accustomed generosity.

    They would go home with all manner of gifts – cash, food parcels, painkillers, and fabrics. Those familiar with this routine said no one ever left empty-handed or sorely disappointed.

    The next day the crowds would gather again, and the next, until Oloye left town to attend to his sprawling business interests across the globe.

    This philanthropy was the root of Saraki’s phenomenal success as vote harvester and political king-maker in Kwara State. If you agreed to his terms, he endorsed you for whatever office you were seeking, even if you did not belong in the same political party. And at election time, he delivered far more votes than you needed for victory.

    The formula failed him only once, when he tried to make his daughter Senator Gbemisola Saraki governor, just as his son Bukola was completing his second term on the job and had positioned himself to succeed the sister, aforementioned, in the Senate.

    To be fair to Bukola Saraki, he had stated for the record that it would be “immoral” for his sister to succeed him as governor. Still, it would be hard to praise him for high-mindedness. For, it was immoral for his sister to succeed him as state governor, what made it moral for him to succeed her as Senator representing Kwara Central?

    In the end, it was not morality that settled the matter. Oloye Saraki’s deeply conservative base, Ilorin Emirate, was simply not ready for a woman governor, even if that woman was his daughter. Her candidature never got off the ground. The philanthropy did not flag. But this time, the votes were just not there for the harvesting.

    His failing health deteriorated, and he died without enthroning another king, and without knowing for sure whether what happened to his daughter’s governorship bid was merely a setback or the end of his hegemonic hold on Ilorin politics.

    It may well be, as some detractors have been saying in light of the collapse of the family’s Société General Bank and with regard to some other financial transactions under investigation, that much of what was fuelling Oloye Saraki’s philanthropy was OPM – Other People’s Money.

    Even if this is indeed the case, we must still give him high praise. For, how many of the tens of thousands of Nigerians living the good life on OPM ever think of giving back anything, much less giving back on such a large and sustained scale as the Oloye?

    Senator Saraki has been carrying on in the tradition of his father, handing out gifts to the less privileged, especially during Muslim festivals. But in his hands, what used to be an orderly occasion, festive even, has turned not merely riotous but positively lethal. Not once, not twice, but three times now have such occasions degenerated into primal stampedes in which dozens were trampled to death or suffered grave injuries.

    Last week, 20 persons were reported to have died in the stampede for a piece of the Sallah gifts the Senator was handing out at his residence in Ilorin. At least as many persons were injured or fainted.

    This macabre spectacle was a reprise of a similar occurrence on May 27, 2011. By one estimate, no fewer than 10 persons died in Ilorin in the stampede for rice and other items Dr Saraki was distributing at Mandate House, his campaign headquarters.

    In November 2010, at least 11 persons had lost their lives in similar circumstances. The state government had swung quickly into a damage-control mode and put the number of fatalities at four. But that is still four persons too many, for an occasion designed to provide succour to those in distress.

    Senator Saraki has rightly suspended all such events and issued a message of condolence to the relations of the dead and the injured. But that is cold comfort. He should not embark on another philanthropic outing until he has devised fail-safe measures to ensure that those who gather to receive gifts do not end up trampled to death or maimed.

    There is no doubt that he means well and cares deeply. Despite his solicitude and that of others who are ever so willing to give out of their abundance, we shall always have the distressed with us. His challenge is to find a way of dispensing his philanthropy that is safe and respectful of the dignity of the people who flock to his home from necessity or desperation.

    Ours is not yet a litigious society, the type in which a man who crashed the car he had stolen from a parking lot sought damages from for his extensive injuries from the car’s owner on the ground that if the owner had kept his car in a good working condition, the accident would not have occurred and he, the petitioner – and car thief —would still have the use of his legs.

    Or the type in which the driver of a recreational vehicle that crashed while he was away from the steering wheel sought compensation from its manufacturers on the grounds that nowhere was a warning displayed that you could not leave the steering wheel while the vehicle was in motion to make coffee in the kitchenette at the rear.

    Both petitions failed, I should add. But they go to show what can happen in a litigious society. Nothing is too frivolous, too outlandish, to bring before the courts.

    In such a setting, Senator Saraki would now be drowning in an avalanche of wrongful-death lawsuits brought by relations of the casualties seeking hefty damages on the perfectly reasonable ground that he knew or should have known from experience that a stampede was likely to occur for the gifts he was dispensing, but had failed to take measures to forestall it; in short, that the deaths and injuries resulted from his negligence.

    But ours, fortunately for him, is not that kind of society – at least, not yet.

     

  • Wages of hubris

    It is not unlikely that some Nigerians would pass off the controversies surrounding the purchase of two choice BMW cars by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) as needless storm over nothing. I must confess that few of those I shared my thoughts with on the matter in the course of the weekend couldn’t understand what the matter was let alone be bothered.

    For some, the problem was the newshounds. Supposing the purchase was captured in the NCAA budget? How are we to know that the $1.6 million (N225 million) cost was outrageous? Do we have evidence that procurement rules were not followed? And should these suffice to stoke the furore that we have seen since the news broke?

    In any case, isn’t that the way the business of governance is conducted in these parts?

    I understand why many Nigerians, long inured to malfeasances by public officials would see nothing wrong with a minister directing a parastatal under her watch to purchase her fancy auto for her exclusive use. The development, in my view, not only underlies the grave crisis of values governing public service, but is at the heart of the crisis of governance.

    I have taken good look at the rationalisation offered by Joe Obi, Stella Oduah’s Special Assistant on Media few days after the scandal broke. It provided a good window into the hubris that has become the driver of governance, a measure of the extent to which the cancer gnawing slowly at the heart of the nation’s soul has come to metastasise.

    “Yes” offered Obi, “some security vehicles were procured for the use of the office of the honourable minister in response to the clear and imminent threat to her personal security and life following the bold steps she took to reposition the sector”.

    And he would further supply the context: “When she came on board as the minister, she inherited a lot of baggage in terms of the concession and lease agreements in the sector, which were clearly not in the interest of the government and people of Nigeria. And so, she took bold steps and some of these agreements were reviewed and some were terminated, and these moves disturbed some entrenched interests in the sector, and within this period, she began to receive some imminent threats to her life; therefore, the need for the vehicles”.

    And as if to reassure Nigerians of his boss’ good faith, he asserts: “It should be noted that these vehicles are not personal vehicles and were not procured in the name of the honourable minister; they are utility vehicles and are for the office of the minister, and if she leaves the office, she will not be taking the vehicles along with her.”

    In this, Obi is at least more truthful than Yakubu Datti, the so-called coordinating spokesperson for aviation parastatals who, without thinking, simply dismissed the report as lacking in substance – something beneath his principal, who owned barges and depots before accepting the lowly job of minister of the republic!

    Do you, dear reader, detect the hubris a la Obi? Note the phrase “imminent threat to her personal security and life following the bold steps she took to reposition the sector”; add to it the claim of inherited “baggage in terms of the concession and lease agreements in the sector, which were clearly not in the interest of the government and people of Nigeria” and the picture of what is the minister’s oftentimes misguided if not entirely misdirected activism comes revealed.

    So, for personal security, a lone, reform-minded minister would be rewarded with prized toys of two bullet-proof BMW 760 Li cars worth $1.6 million drawn from the coffers of cash-starved NCAA, cars that some say should have cost no more than $40,000 apiece! That is how to run a self-help republic!

    How about the minister’s two-pronged self-help of shunting aside the justice ministry and the police in her self-consuming messianic mission to change the face of aviation for good? How about casting herself as lone star in the cabinet of dunderheads? What does it say about self-help being acceptable when public funds are involved?

    The problem here is that the minister merely acted in ways typical of public officers who have come to see parastatals as their pot of fortune. Don’t forget, this particular minister has never been known to be a fan of due process. If you recall, she it was who jettisoned all known niceties of due process and financial regulations in pursuit of her dream of airport modernisation? Does anyone now remember her tango with aviation stakeholders over unilateral expenditure of BASA funds outside the strictures of parliamentary appropriation? Is the minister not simply treading a familiar path here?

    Now the onus is on her to explain the utmost secrecy surrounding the transaction and whether or not it was it breach of the procurement law. Clearly, Nigerians are interested in knowing the approving authority considering that the amount involved ordinarily exceed ministerial approval limits. It would be interesting to know if the purchases were done with the approval of the President or the Federal Executive Council.

    None of these of course compare with the most bizarre rationalisation by Fola Akinkuotu, the Director General of NCAA at the so-called press conference in Abuja last week. Now, the NCAA-DG does not know the cost of the armoured vehicle; yet he affirms that “the cars are operational vehicles used in the various operations of the NCAA in transporting the minister and aviation related foreign dignitaries as part of its operations”.

    Armoured vehicles to transport the minister and visiting foreign dignitaries? What rules under the IATA protocol mandates NCAA to provide bullet-proof vehicles to visiting dignitaries? What else does the NCAA chief know? Has he ever heard about ministerial approval limits? By the way, how did the NCAA pull off the transaction in the absence of a functional board? Were the processes done under the sole authority of the minister?

    I think the aviation industry is in more trouble than we can even begin to imagine.

    So where do we go from here? Those expecting a tremor will be disappointed as nothing will happen; not to a member of the Amazon-triumvirate at the drivers’ seat of the Jonathan administration. As sure as daylight, the hysteria will peter out until another expensive distraction surfaces to engage us. That’s how it’s always been. That is how it would remain.

  • The Jonathan ambush

    The Jonathan ambush

    The idea of an ambush is military. It connotes surprise, and the executor of the ambush assumes the position of the superior, being the aggressor. President Goodluck Jonathan played the ambush man when he propounded the idea of a national conference. He seemed to have ambushed everybody. He set up a committee, sprinkled it with some progressives while also ladling it with his advocates and marionettes.

    President Jonathan had turned his about-face into virtue. He who pooh-poohed the concept as subversive and unnecessary turned into the spearhead. The imitator had become the originator. He was not the author of the story, but he had become the narrator, the protagonist and the omniscient raconteur. He understood the power of surprise in a story, especially the modern novel. He acted as if he read Ian Watt, who theorised on the novel as a genre premised on surprise as weapon. He imposed surprise on the narrative and it caught everyone, especially the progressives, with their pants at the knee.

    Other than that, he seemed to have read Harold Bloom, the author of the concept known as the anxiety of influence. That concept says the imitator so well emulates the original that the originator appears as the imitator. It is the ultimate fraud of identity. While it lasted, Jonathan was having the time of his opponents’ lives.

    So, in starting off his national conference, the president wore two hats, one of a literary genius and the other of a military strategist. He was at once a Napoleon and a Dickens. He thought so for a few days and his men basked in the new intellectual and political glory. Even many progressives, who had thought that the Nigerian moment had come to talk itself out of its age-old illusions, found themselves pitching their tents with the helmsman of Aso Rock.

    He turned out to be wearing false hats, an impostor in political fashion. The matter turned awry when he said the conference would report to the National Assembly. Suddenly, it became clear to many that the president alone understood what he meant by a national conference. The progressives abided the illusion of a sovereign conference. They thought that once the process began they would take the initiative from the president and his PDP viceroys, and Jonathan would lose control. They probably had history in mind, like the French Revolution when a mere meeting of the legislature turned into a conflagration of mass protests that torpedoed the system. Some groups had started unveiling their terms, and others started gearing to write their memorandums and positions. This was another ambush. They thought Jonathan, whom they often wrongly call clueless, would fall piteously into their traps.

    How wrong! Jonathan did not know that the victim of the ambush would be none other than Jonathan himself. By saying that the conference would report to the National Assembly, he committed a grave error. He assumed that those who had supported him would just tag along like a sheep. He did not know that many would suddenly realise that he did not know that he could not fool us.

    You can fool some of the people some of the time, crooned Abraham Lincoln, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. Some who supported him retraced their steps and started telling him, “sorry, no cigar.”

    That is the story. What those who understand the concept of the national conference want its decision to be binding on everyone and every institution, including the National Assembly and the president. When such a parley begins, the people take charge of the nation. That is why it is a national conference. The progressives have often called it sovereign because they feel that every topic will be on the table, including the very survival of Nigeria as a nation. In fact, that would be the very first topic because on it hinges every other deliberation. The Jonathan administration set a trap by saying everything is on the table. How false. If everything is on the table, it will not be subjected to the wisdom of the National Assembly.

    If the national Assembly would have to ratify the proceedings, then the legislature would assume that it (the National Assembly) is not a topic for deliberation. But the conference would have decided also how the legislature would work, how its members are elected, how the constituencies are delimited, what powers they should wield, their terms of office, and their sources of funding. If such a matter gets to the assembly, the report would be subjected to a committee. That committee of a few men would now impose its ideas and distortions on the submissions of persons elected all over the country. Again, they could be at the receiving end of lobbyists from different political, ethnic groups as well as business moguls. At the end of it, the result will be a shadow of what the people’s representatives decided. It would look like the story of the Christian Reformation in Europe. The Reformation was mocked by historians who noted that Erasmus laid the egg but Martin Luther hatched it. But Erasmus said the colour of the bird was different from what he intended.

    Yet, once the National Assembly completes the job, the president must give his assent. The president and the lawmakers will become judges in their own causes. The presidency will also be a subject of the conference’s work. What if they curtail the president’s powers, what if they say the states will have more money than the centre and the police will no longer be at the beck and call of the centre? Ideally, once the conference begins sitting, all institutions, including the presidency must cede authority to the leadership of the conference. The president and governors become a little better than ciphers. That is how fundamental such a conference is.

    So, President Jonathan exposed the philosophical vacuity of his conference. So what it means is that he does not really intend this to be a groundbreaking affair, but just a conference to keep us silent and divert attention.

    Yet on the flipside, one cannot assume that convoking a conference will be easy. We cannot assume that voting the people into the conference may not be rigged or controversial. One cannot assume that the deliberations would not hit deadlocks or whether even after the conference has finished its work, the referendum would not be swindled out of the people with a fraudulent vote counting. These will be challenges. But we need to give it a try, and see if the people will insist on their own sovereignty and reclaim their mandate if the referendum is rigged. The great Yale scholar and philosopher, Robert Hutchins said, “the death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.”

    If soveriengn conference fails, then we can say the people ambushed themselves. But that will be a terminal ambush. We shall have assured ourselves that we have decided to rig ourselves as a people out of a future of progress. That is better than a rigmarole and cosmetic dance that Jonathan has placed on the Nigerian stage.

  • Conference decisions

    For very obvious reasons, the impending national conference will continue to dominate public discourse for quite some time. Not only will the processes leading to its final convocation be contentious, the conference proper promises no less rancorous. The envisaged controversy was given fillip when President Jonathan indicated in his Independence Day broadcast, that he too was uncertain on its appropriate nomenclature, which he then charged the committee to figure out.

    Since then, debate has centred on whether it should be a sovereign national conference or just a national conference with many rooting for the sovereign variant. Issues were also raised regarding the incongruity in having a sovereign national conference with all the democratic structures in place. The argument is that you cannot have two sovereigns at the same time.

    But Jonathan seemed to have responded to this dilemma when he said last week that the decisions of the conference will be subjected to the national and state assemblies for ratification and incorporation into the constitution. For this to be realized, he then urged Nigerians to persuade their representatives at the national and state assemblies to get the recommendations of the conference incorporated into the constitution.

    Expectedly, the proposal has attracted a wide gamut of reactions. Most of those who spoke, faulted the proposition on the grounds that it amounted to another constitutional amendment process and therefore an avoidable duplication. They find it difficult to fathom how reflective of the decisions of the people the conference outcome would become if it is subjected to these assemblies that are largely peopled by those who represent the status quo. And why dissipate energy, valuable time and resources if the conference is another name for constitutional amendment which the National Assembly is currently handling, they seemed to be asking. These posers seem to have further reinforced scepticisms by the national leader of the All Progressives Congress APC, Senator Bola Tinubu on the motive of the conference. It would seem the envisaged conference may turn out a subterfuge to buy time especially given the rancour generated by Jonathan’s political ambition.

    But some others have argued that there is no way you can get the decisions of the conference into the constitution without subjecting them to the body constitutionally charged with that duty. Senate committee chairman on information, Enyinnaya Abaribe said the president’s position was proper and in tune with the fact that the National Assembly is the custodian of Nigerian sovereignty.

    At stake here again, is the location of the sovereign powers of the people in a democratic setting. In this column last week, I had dwelt extensively on the larger philosophical and conceptual issues encapsulated in this argument. We do not intend to go over them again. But suffice it to say at this point that the argument on the location of the sovereign powers of the people in a democracy would have been superfluous if elected persons, extant democratic institutions and structures had been truly reflective of the collective will of their constituents. That Nigerians are wary of subjecting the decisions of the conference to the national and state assemblies is indicative of the dissonance and of loss of faith in the capacity of these assemblies to reflect the will of their supposed constituents.

    That is the tragedy of the contraption of democracy we purport to practice on these shores. It would appear it is this lack of synergy between the collective interests of the Nigerian people and their elected representatives that accentuates feelings for the nationalities to once again, take their destinies on their hands.

    We should be seriously worried why people do not have confidence in the capacity of the assemblies to reflect and represent the collective will of the Nigerian nationalities. It is because the Nigerian nation in a strict sense of it does not exist at present. In its place, what we have are ethnic nationalities that compete with the central authority for the loyalty of the citizens. With this competition comes mistrust and suspicion. The problem is further accentuated by the structural advantages which some sections of this country enjoy over and above others. These are reflected in inequalities in the spread of states, local governments and electoral constituencies among the zones.

    Because the central authority is largely seen in terms of what the constituents stand to grab from it, forging national consensus on vexed issues of our federal order has been largely illusory. Issues are perceived from the prism of how they satisfy the predilections of the primordial groups. It is difficult to build national consensus in such a prevailing circumstance. Little wonder nation building has largely remained a mirage.

    In the issue of subjecting the decisions of the conference to the national and state assemblies, the suspicion is that these differences will again come into play. That is where a sovereign national conference derives its greatest lure. But its problem lies in the fact that the sovereign powers of our people are now vested in subsisting democratic structures irrespective of whatever reservations we may have against them. This fact is not in doubt. It is also not in doubt that the residue of the sovereign powers of this country lies with its peoples. But much progress will not be made in the present circumstance if we continue to dissipate energy on the structure of the conference.

    The fact of the matter is that there are contentious issues of our federal being that needed re-engineering if we must make progress as a united nation. A way has to be fashioned out to get some of these trashed out such that they do not continue to hinder our development. Ironically, the National Assembly has not shown enough capacity to get these issues resolved.

    Jonathan has now told us that he has no place for a sovereign national conference. That is his message and the way it is handled will determine the success or lack of it of the conference. The challenge is how to resolve the myriads of these destabilizing tendencies taking copious inputs from the people without compromising the powers of the National Assembly on constitutional amendment. It is a matter of striking a balance between the resolutions of the conference and the powers conferred on the National Assembly to amend the constitution.

    Now we know the mind of Jonathan, it is only proper we channel our creative energies to the best ways of taking maximum advantage of the seemingly difficult circumstance we found ourselves. The alternative is to spurn the entire idea. But that will not be in the best interest of our people.

    It is at this point that one considers the intervention by a leading lawyer, Awa Kalu SAN very apt. He had suggested that a way out is to subject any new or radical idea to a referendum. If approved, it will be sent to the National Assembly which will then have no power to override any decision taken at the referendum because power belongs to the people. It will take time. But if there is genuine commitment, it is realisable because some consensus already exists on some of these issues.