The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Security and the national conference

    Security and the national conference

    I have dealt with the important issue of security as the foremost responsibility of government in a liberal democracy more than I really wish to. But recent events have brought it to the fore of our attention one more time. The unfortunate execution of innocent students in their sleep is the worst nightmare of any parent and of a government that cares. And it’s unclear how many more we must experience before we come to the realisation that our government has failed us in the matter of security. The second is the embarrassing face-off between the federal government and the Rivers state government and its fall-out on the security of the state.

    In view of its importance, then, security has to be a priority item on the national conference agenda. Since reasonable citizens have disagreed over the monopoly of internal security by the federal government, we have to have a rational discourse over how best to security the lives and properties of citizens and why state police should be a practical option.

    We must realize, firstly, that those opposed to the creation of state police have not taken a stand on its constitutionality. They know that doing so would beg the question whether the constitution rightly prohibits the idea. And since the debate itself is predicated on the present legislative efforts to amend the constitution, it would have been grievously out of sync to argue against it from a constitutional perspective.

    Secondly, there is a consensus on the part of citizens that the present federal police systemhas undermined the security of citizens. From its inadequacy in dealing with armed robbery, kidnapping, militancy, and other crimes that endanger citizens and undermine the development of the nation, it is crystal clear that the system is broken.

    Third, a majority, if not all of our political leaders know about the effectiveness of state and municipal police in other lands. So it would be disingenuous of anyone who has seen it work elsewhere to doubt its effectiveness here.

    Two concerns have been raised against the institutionalisation of State Police. The first is the potential for the abuse of statepolice by politicians, especially governors and the party in power. The second is the issue of financing the system. In other words, everyone appears to agree on (i) the present perilous state of internal security, (ii) the inadequacy of the federal police to deal with it, and (iii) the universally acknowledged effectiveness of state and local police in dealing with internal security in any nation. But because of the fear—imagined or real—that politicians, especially governors are likely to use it as an instrument of oppression, and uncertainty about where the funds are going to come from, reasonable and well- placed patriotsare against the institution of state police.

    Neither of these concerns appears to me unresolvable. At most, they are challenges that reasonable people can meet and overcome. Take the case of funding. If security is the foremost responsibility of government, surely state governments can be expected to source for the means of discharging this responsibility even if it requires moderating expenses in other sectors. Indeed, an effective system of internal security has the great potential for generating internal revenue that not only pays for itself but also yields substantial dividends for investment in other sectors. Certainly such a regime can expect to attract a decent amount of domestic and foreign investment into the state. With business and industrial investment, opportunities are created for youth employment which in turn creates buying power, which leads to more investment and the circle can only be a virtuous one.

    There is a second consideration about funding. Even now that the police falls under the exclusive list of the Constitution, state governors cannot be unconcerned about resources available to the police commands in their states. For, they are still responsible for securing their citizens. A good number of governors have created State Security Commissions that raise funds for the police, while some raise their own vigilante groups. It may be argued that what such Commissions source from businesses and charitable organizations are grossly inadequate to fund state police. The point, however, is that when duty calls, human creativeness always provides an unfailing response.

    How about the major concern that state governors and their party members will use State Police to harass their opponents? This is not an imaginary fear because it happened during the First Republic. But the reality of the experience of almost half a century ago, vivid as it still might be in the inner recesses of our minds, cannot be a reliable yardstick for determining how we should live our lives. Consider an analogy. Fifty years ago, we were sleeping with our doors and windows wide open, enjoyingdivinely endowed fresh air. We would be crazy fools to indulge in such fun today no matter how remote our villages are. Instead we rely on fans or air-conditioners and generating sets.

    The mark of our humanity is rationality, and endowmentwith which we are able to think through the most efficient and effective means of meeting the challenges that we face and identifying the most efficient means of satisfying our wants and needs.

    If we are wary of the experience of the past—premiers using state police to torment opponents—and we know that federal police has not worked efficiently and effectively to secure us, then we have to put on our thinking caps and device an effective means of avoiding the unacceptable experiences of the past. We might want to ensure that governors—we got rid of Premiers—do not have a monopoly of supervisory authority over the State Police. We do this by creating a police system that is civil but apolitical. Each state might have a State Police Commission that is transparently independent,with representation from major sectors of the civil society, and financially autonomous, with constitutionally guaranteed revenue.

    Secondly, if we are fearful that governors may use state police to rig elections—harassing political opponents while empowering the rigging industry of supporters—then again we need to device a means of avoiding this inauspicious outcome. Presently, state governmentsare responsible for local government elections while INEC is responsible for federal and state elections. This is in itself an anomaly in a federal system which the conference must also open to discourse. In any case, if the first proposal is acceptable and the governor has no monopoly power over the police, then the fear of using it to rig elections would have been misplaced.

    There is a final consideration. For almost 20 years now, since the elections of 1993 and its aftermath, there has been one constant refrain against proposals for changing our way of doing things, especially those that we all agree are not working. Whether it is change from dictatorship to democracy; or unitarism to federalism; the opposition has always expressed a baffling lack of confidence in our collective maturity. We were told that we were not mature for democracy; that the kind of federalism we seek is dangerous in light of our present political circumstance. And now we are told that state police is for mature societies. The people making these claims consider themselves mature. In fact it is their maturity that gives them the audacity to advise against taking steps that they believe the country is not mature to take.

    Will this country ever be sufficiently mature to take one small step toward its destiny? And when it is deemed ready, will there be a country?The President’s Committee on National Conference has its work caught out.

  • Why we must keep talking

    Why we must keep talking

    President Jonathan announced in his Independence anniversary day broadcast that he had decided to set up a committee, headed by former Senator Femi Okunrounmu, to prepare the ground and modalities for what he called a National Conference/Dialogue. His decision was totally unexpected and caught most observers napping. It has been received by the public with mixed feelings. The President of the Senate, David Mark, has also declared himself in support of a national conference Those, like Professor Nwabueze, leader of The Patriots, a group of elderly persons that had been calling for a sovereign national conference, and a member of the preparatory committee, feel that President Jonathan’s offer of a national conference did not go far enough. It is considered a kind of tokenism. Regrettably, he will not take part in the work of the preparatory committee due to illness for which he is presently receiving treatment abroad.

    Others like Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State, have denounced the proposed conference/dialogue as illegal and fraudulent, insisting that only the National Assembly can review or amend our Constitution. But the National Assembly has not shown much resolution in this respect. It has been dragging its feet on the matter. Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, a leader of the APC, on returning to the country after three months abroad, has dismissed the proposed national conference as diversionary, a Greek gift, intended to cover up the failure of leadership in the PDP Federal Government. But he was careful enough to add that this was his personal opinion and not necessarily that of his party, the APC. There must be some members of the APC, who consider a national conference a good idea, worth supporting. So far, his co-leader in the APC, General Buhari, has not reacted publicly to the proposal for a national dialogue.

    Whatever his real intentions may have been in offering the nation the opportunity of a dialogue, I think President Jonathan should be commended for finally calling such a conference. In fact, the move came as a complete surprise to many as he had previously not shown any real interest in the idea of a national conference or dialogue to talk about the myriad of problems facing our nation at the moment. He says he is calling the conference in response to the yearnings of the people. His decision to call a conference now is courageous as it entails some political risks for his government. Once the conference starts he will be in no position to guide or control it. The tables may in fact be turned against him as it will provide his political opponents a platform for criticising the government for its failures. All the same it is better, as Winston Churchill, the British war-time leader remarked, to ‘jaw-jaw than war-war’. The alternative to talking is war which will not do our country any good at all.

    This is not going to be a sovereign national conference with full authority to take executive decisions on the future of our nation. No responsible government will make that kind of concession as it cannot be sure where such a conference would lead to. The issue here is not whether or not such a conference could end up calling for the dissolution of the nation. That would be a tragedy to be avoided at all cost. Rather, the point being made here is that once again the nation has been given an opportunity by the government to come together and discuss all the problems with which our nation is currently afflicted. Of course, we have in the past had similar conferences. Only as recently as 2007 we had Obasanjo’s National Political Reform Conference. Senator Okunrounmu and I participated as delegates at that conference which I think made some useful contribution to the resolution of some of Nigeria’s critical problems. Yes, it broke up on the third term agenda of President Obasanjo and the issue of true fiscal federalism, which the delegation from the Southsouth wanted reviewed, but which the northern delegation opposed. But there were other recommendations by the Conference that, if implemented, could have solved some of Nigeria’s urgent problems. The decisions of the Conference were referred for consideration to the National Assembly by the Obasannjo government. But nothing came out of it with the National Assembly insisting that any amendment to the Constitution has to emanate from the Legislature.

    Some will argue that nothing has come out of previous national conferences, and that the same fate will befall the proposed national conference. It is true that statistically Nigeria has held more national conferences than other countries. Virtually every Federal Government, military or civilian, has called a national conference in our country to try and resolve some of our problems as a nation. But then Nigeria is in so many ways unique and needs to keep talking to resolve its problems. In 1951, we started with three powerful regions, but now have 36 states instead. Some might consider this as too many and would argue that the Federal Government in the present dispensation has become too powerful, and the states too weak. Without a dialogue these constitutional anomalies will not be resolved. It is the only way to accommodate the fissiparous tendencies in our country. These are legitimate issues that can be discussed at the conference.

    We need to resolve so many issues such as the current incongruous political structure of the country, fiscal federalism, the creation of state police, terrorism, religious and ethnic conflicts, kidnapping, public corruption, the rule of law, mass poverty, and the poor infrastructure in the country. If necessary, the issue of secession may even be discussed fully, frankly, and openly. Reuben Abati, the President’s spokesman, has said there are no ‘no-go’ areas in the government’s programme. Every thing, including secession, is up for discussion. But it is doubtful that any delegate or state would openly call for secession at the conference. Despite our tribal differences and current difficulties, most sensible Nigerians feel it is better to keep Nigeria together than sponsor its break up. Our leaders may fan the embers of tribalism for political reasons, but I doubt if they would really like the country to break up. After all, they are the main beneficiaries of a united Nigeria with the vast economic and financial opportunities it offers them.

    The story has been told of how Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, then leader of the NCNC, advised the Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello, leader of the NPC, that Nigerians should forget their differences. The Sardauna replied rightly that we should not forget our differences, and must continue to discuss them. That is the spirit in which the proposed national conference should be approached. Nigeria’s problems will not be solved by one conference, one government, or even one generation. It is basically one of poor leadership and governance, not the Constitution, one of the most elaborate ever. Through the kind of dialogue now proposed we must continue to work on this failure of national leadership until a national consensus on values and ethic emerge in our country. If we talk, we can make some progress in solving our national problems. If we do not, then it will make things more difficult for us as a nation. The alternative to talking is another civil war which we may not survive as a nation. Despite fears on both sides of the political divide about its possible outcome, I urge the public to fully embrace the proposed national conference and give it all its support.

  • Sub-standard goods: Absence of consumer protection

    Oga, your two front tyres na China, if na the same you want for the back, na N8, 000.each”. This unsolicited advice was coming from one of the shop attendants that swooped on me as I drove into a tyre retail shop on Awolowo way last week. I had bought the two front tyres a week earlier from the Ladipo spare parts market at N15, 000 each with the shop owner swearing they were original. The two back tyres I was trying to replace cost about N24, 000 each from a once successful but now collapsed Nigerian tyre company that I was told imported them from South Africa.

    But noticing the doubts boldly written on my face, the young sales attendant who was trying to ensure a sale is made added “ But Oga instead of the ‘China’, buy ‘tokunbo’ for only N5,000, you will get better value because na from importers of tokunbo cars we buy from.”

    After the initial confusion, what came to mind was the last month’s acknowledgement by the Director General (DG) of Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Ikemefuna Odumodu that “20% of road accidents in Nigeria are due to sub-standard tyres”. Then the reality of how vulnerable and helpless Nigerians that have been left at the mercy of the merchants of death, the importers of sub-standard goods and their street agents, increased the turmoil going on in my mind.

    Odumodu painted a grimmer picture. “Due to paucity of data, SON cannot give the exact figure of how many Nigerians are dying on account of fake products”; What was not  not in dispute is “that the country has become a dumping ground for substandard goods”.

    Testifying before the National Assembly joint Committees on Trade and investment earlier, Odumodu had disclosed that “N1 trillion is spent annually on importation of fake products, 80% of which come from Asian countries”.

    He said items seized in 2012 include N2billion worth of cables, N200 million worth of iron rod and tyres worth N5m. After destroying N2.7b worth of fake goods this year, SON premises is still littered with several trailers loaded with imported sub-standard goods, as well as huge cache of other assorted confiscated goods ranging from gas cylinders, clippers, electrical cables ferried from raided warehouses. But these efforts according to him represent only a tip of the ice bag. In fact one of Odumodu’s staff, Mrs. Chritabel Okoye claimed that “95% of goods in Abuja markets SON visited were fakes”.  The same picture or possibly worse scenarios play out in other Nigerian major cities where apart from substandard goods,  every corner is littered with imported used baby dresses, used baby school bags, used women underwear and assorted second clothes while president Jonathan’s ministers shed crocodile tears over the failure of the N100billion textile sector bail-out.

    Sub-standard goods are global phenomena and a threat to the health and socio-economic development of developing nations. But while other nations including India that recently banned mobile phones without IMEI number that could help authorities track users, along with toys and milk from China, are leaving no stones unturned to address the menace, our own government has continued to demonstrate its ineptitude and insensitivity to the well-being of Nigerians.

    Nigerians already know that a government that is prepared to visit hardship on its own poor as well as its middle class car owners for the theft of about N1.7trillion by members of the governing elite, slam double taxation of about N30, 000 on vehicle owners in the guise of new plate numbers, and allocate a disproportionate share of the national resources to sustain the greed and scandalous life styles of members at the expense of the poor cannot be trusted. But if Nigerians have come to terms with a PDP government that is ideologically committed to the exploitation of the poor, what they did not bargain for is PDP government becoming an accomplice to crimes of a few greedy Nigerians and godless foreigners against helpless Nigerians.

    For instance, the government’s misguided 2011 policy that led to the eviction of SON from the ports in the name of decongesting the ports has resulted in SON chasing symptoms rather than the disease. All they have succeeded in doing is apprehending trailers filled with sub-standard goods and their drivers while the brains behind crimes against Nigerians who cynics believe are government officials or their

    fronts with access to state free funds are shielded. The question has been how many genuine Nigerian business men who laboured for their money will abandon trailer-laden sub-standard goods worth billions of naira at the premises of SON or remain indifferent when impounded goods worth billions of naira are burnt.

    If it has been difficult to unmask the brains behind importation of sub-standard products, critics believe it must be because PDP whose leading members have been fingered as playing ignoble roles in the fuel subsidy and  pensions scheme scams, crude oil theft, banking sector collapse, betrayal of the privatization dream as conceived by the World Bank, etc is involved. Importers of all goods are licensed by government. The CBN has records of money transferred for specific purposes and the goods come in through our ports and borders manned by the customs. And in any case, government has the capacity to trace all imported goods to their source.  Yet for 14 years it has been a game of government hypocrisy.

    It is the same story of hypocrisy with crude oil theft until the ‘new PDP’, came out to confirm what we have always suspected- that government knows those behind the crime while PDP contractors like Doyin Okupe and Ijaw ethnic irredentist like papa Edwin Clark have diverted attention by justifying award of multimillion dollar contracts to government new allies, the repentant Niger Delta militants. And we have no reason to disbelieve the new PDP. Not too long ago, one of the ships apprehended with stolen fuel was traced to a fuel dump allegedly owned by a former minister. Like other scams involving high profile PDP members, their siblings or fronts, the case seems to have died a natural death.

    Perhaps this explains why the British Deputy High Commissioner tongue in cheek, told our government last week on Channels Television Programme that it should  do its job of  securing our borders and waterways instead of chasing stolen crude oil to London market just as SON  now chases imported sub-standard goods to warehouses and markets.

     

    Rip- off and conmen

    Many of the communication service providers are swindling Nigerians and smiling to the banks. Subscribers are debited between N10 and N100 naira for services they never requested for through unsolicited test messages. At between 10 and 50 naira, a service provider with 14million subscribers can rake in between N140m and N740m from only one unsolicited service dumped on unsuspecting helpless subscribers.

    Predictably, government has chosen to look the other way. It is inconceivable that a company driven by profit motive will fritter away millions ostensibly to thank customers for patronage. The Yoruba say “owo Abu ni a nfi se Abu lalejo’ literarily meaning we use Abu’s money to entertain Abu.

     

    SPECTRANET

    As if to put a lie to the above antics, SPECTRANET has demonstrated it is in Nigeria only for profit. Aping government, it has shamelessly adopted the template used by government to extract N30, 000 from its citizens with existing valid vehicle plate numbers, SPECTRANET has even gone beyond merely forcing its subscribers to cough out N18, 000 and three months compulsory subscription for a new modem on the excuse that they have upgraded their equipments even when there was nothing

    wrong with existing subscribers modem obtained less than two years ago. Now subscribers who have been on Spectranet’s  N8,500 ‘unlimited package’ for about two years who complained they are not getting joy in spite of this new rip-off were told by the shop attendants that their unlimited status had been scaled down to 10.GB by fiat ‘because of’ too many subscribers’. Meanwhile, the Indian owners have gone into hiding, while subscribers only moan.

    The irony is that experts have confirmed that the SPECTRANET’s N8, 500 ‘unlimited package’ rip-off, is about 500 times slower than a N1, 500 monthly package subscribers enjoy in Europe. But here those making outrageous profits attribute exploitation of Nigerians to the Nigerian factor-a euphemism for government connivance or ineptitude.

  • Come, let’s reason together

    On October 1 when Nigeria turned 53, President Goodluck Jonathan took a step which he had hitherto vowed not to take. He raised a 13 – man committee to prepare the blueprint for the convocation of a national conference. Not too long ago, the president told the world that there was no need for such a dialogue, with the National and state assemblies in place. As the representatives of their constituencies, these lawmakers, he said, were in a better position to hold such talks.

    For long, many Nigerians have canvassed for a national conference with constituent powers. A national conference that will not be subject to the whims and caprices of the government. Such a conference has its implications and that it seemed was why the president shied away from it. The conference he is now proposing may after all not be the kind of conference the advocates of a sovereign national conference have been clamouring for.

    The kind of conference the president has in mind will not have sovereign powers, I can bet my life on that. Never mind that he has raised a panel to midwife it, the president will still have a huge say in the shape and content of the national dialogue if it holds. I am not being sceptical, but I have this gut feeling whether the conference will hold considering the time left for it and the next general elections. We have about 16 months left to the 2015 elections. If we factor the time for the conference into it, we will find that there will be little or no time.

    The issue is that since the president is the brain behind the planned conference, the talks must hold during his tenure. This means that it must take place before the elections. As we all know, you just don’t jump into an election, you must plan for it, beginning from the electoral commission to the parties. The parties must hold their primaries to pick candidates, who are expected to campaign before the elections. All these must be done within the next 16 months and here we are talking about a national conference.

    It is good to talk no doubt, but this invitation to a jaw – jaw from the president weeks after Senate President David Mark flew the national conference kite looks a bit curious. How did they suddenly see the light that national conference is the way to go in order to resolve some burning issues? Are they sincere in their endorsement of a national conference? Or is it as some people are saying a ploy by them to douse tension over 2015? Really, it is curious that Jonathan and Mark have suddenly seen something good in having a national conference after all these years.

    They were strongly opposed to the conference, which they described in the past as uncalled for since we have a National Assembly, which should take up that task. Indeed, what are we looking for in a national conference that cannot be found in the National Assembly? Are they not both national in character as their names imply? To me, the planned national dialogue is dead on arrival. It will not achieve anything if it ever holds. Unknown to members of the Dr Femi Okurounmu – led national dialogue advisory committee, they may be on a wild goose chase.

    Many of them are upbeat about the assignment because they think that the president means well in bringing them together to plan the talk. This dialogue thing is all a gimmick to quieten the polity, while he digs in silently and systematically in achieving his plan of returning to power in 2015. While we are busy talking, he will be covertly plotting his return to office. Is there enough time left for convening this conference between now and the next elections? The Okurounmu panel has six weeks to complete its job, that is if it is not forced by ‘circumstances beyond its control’ to ask for an extension of time.

    Within these six weeks, it is expected to, among others :

    • consult expeditiously with all relevant stakeholders with a view to drawing up a feasible agenda for the proposed national dialogue/conference;

    • make recommendations to government on the structure and modalities for the proposed national dialogue/conference;

    • make recommendations to government on how representation of various interest groups at the national dialogue/conference will be determined;

    • advise on a time frame for the national dialogue/conference;

    • advise government on legal procedures and options for integrating decisions and outcomes of the national dialogue/conference into the Constitution and laws of the nation; and to

    • advise government on any other matters that may be related or incidental to the proposed national dialogue/conference.

    To discharge this mandate in

    just six weeks is not going

    to be easy and those close to the president, who advised him to take this step know that too well. I foresee that by December, the panel may still be sitting in order for it to, as they will tell us later, ‘’be able to do a good job’’. Let us assume that the panel suggests a time frame of six months for the conference, will it not eat into the period when the country will be preparing for the 2015 elections? Can the country afford to be holding a conference and also be preparing for elections at the same time?

    Won’t there be confusion? What about the cost? Is it advisable to embark on such a costly venture when it is not certain that we will see it to an end because of its likely clash with the election time table? Talk, as they say, is cheap, but the consequences are often unpredictable. Are these latter day converts of national conference ready for this? This should be food for thought for them.

     

    A woman’s burden

    The rape case between a monarch, Oba Adebukola Alli, the Alowa of Ilowa – Ijesa in Obokun Local Government Area of Osun State, and a former Corps member, Helen Okpara, ended in an anti – climax of sorts on Tuesday. In our culture, we are reserved when it comes to man – woman relationship. By this, I mean that when a man and woman have aything to do together they keep it to themselves. Men don’t take to the rooftop, shouting that they have slept with this or that woman. That is kiss and tell and men, who are worthy of that name do not indulge in it. Some do to score cheap point or boost their image before friends. Men and women are God’s creatures. One cannot do without the other. This is why God said he created woman to be an helpmeet for man. ‘’For this reason’’, God emphasised, ‘’a man will leave his father and mother and cling to his wife and they will become one’’.

    God created man and woman to live in harmony. Over the ages, this has been so, except once in a while when some men show the beast in them by forcefully sleeping with women. In recent times, cases of rape have been rampant. Even tots are raped by men old enough to be their grandfather. Of the lot, the Helen – Alli case stood out before it was concluded on Tuesday. The case generated public interest because of the calibre of the man involved. People wondered why a monarch would rape a woman. If they had their way, the monarch would not have had his day in court. He would have been found guilty as alleged by Helen and not as charged. Justice Jide Falola of the Osun State High Court sitting in Ikirun discharged and acquitted him for want of evidence.

    To prove rape, the judge held, the following ingredients must be supplied : the used bedsheet, the victim’s torn underwear, a medical report showing forceful penetration and bruises on the victim’s private part. In a society where a woman risks being ostracised for admitting to have slept with a man, can she be that bold to provide all these requirements if raped in order to get justice? My heart aches for womanhood.

  • Deji Falae, what a terrible loss

    A left Nigeria on September 30, thinking all will be well with our country until I come back but on Thursday October 3, all hell broke out. I got a call from a friend of Deji asking me if I knew where he was. I told him he should know that he would be in Akure where, as a state commissioner, he normally resides. He again sent me a text that he was asking me this in connection with The Agagu burial. Later another mutual acquaintance called me and started crying that Deji was no more. At this point I called my nephew Akin about this strange news. Then the whole episode was made clear to me. I felt very bad about this terrible loss. Deji was like a son to me. He had been introduced to me by Akin my nephew and I later found out he was also a friend to my daughter. I of course know his highly cerebral father and his mother who was my classmate at Ibadan Grammar school higher school class in the 1960s. Deji was my lawyer and helped me with estate services. Over the years he became one of my sons. I would never have thought I will be writing about him in the past tense. I watched his political trajectory with admiration and support not knowing in retrospect that he should have stayed away from politics and public appointment. This is just crying over spilt milk because what will be will be.

    I have agonized over this air crash over and over and wonder why the frequency in Nigeria. Of course with the pervasive corruption in all aspects of our life in Nigeria who knows whether pilots in our country are properly certified? Some of them may be flying with forged certificates. Anything is possible in our country. Some of the planes flying in our country were once described by our minister of aviation during the Babangida regime as flying coffins. One wonders if anything has changed. After a while we would forget about this tragedy and move on as if nothing happened. The only people who will continue to suffer are the families of the bereaved, parents, wives and siblings of the departed souls to whom the tragedy will remain forever a cause of sorrow.

    I remember the last time I saw Deji was at Chief Dele Falegan’s book presentation in Ado-Ekiti. I was the reviewer of the book and he accompanied his dad and mom who are close friends of the Falegans. I could see the joy of the parents when we had to acknowledge the young Deji Falae before his father as protocol demanded. Apart from speaking to him once or twice since then, I hadn’t seen him for a while and never did I think I would not see him again. Nobody can imagine what the poor parents will be going through right now. I do not know what to say to them other than to continue to pray for them for submission to the will of the all-knowing God who alone can make this wrenching tragedy plain to them. To the young family he has left behind, I pray and commend them into the merciful hands of God for Gods care and protection.

    This is the second time I have mourned the departure of a young person well known to me. The Dana crash which is still fresh in our minds took away several young people including Ehime Aikhomu. We wailed and cried and we were told never again, but here we are again. The time is past when government should take a hard look at the aviation industry in Nigeria and allow professionals and experts to run the ministry rather than money seeking politicians sent there to raise money for the next election campaign. In many parts of the world, air travel is the safest means of transportation but unfortunately not in Nigeria. Let us wring from our government that something will be done to put an end to these string of sorrow bearing episodes in our national life. To those of us who have lost loved ones the October 3rd episode, will live for very long time in infamy, sorrow and tears. We have no alternative to making air travel safe in Nigeria if we are not to continue losing our bright and the best people who are very critical to our national development. Many people out of fear prefer to travel by road no matter how distant the journey may be, but this is not the solution because the hazards on the roads are not inconsiderable. If one is not killed by armed robbers and armed police, one could be killed by the craters on the roads. We as a country have gotten to a point when we have to decide to take all necessary measures to ensure that air accidents  do not become a recurring decimal. ADIEU DEJI FALAE

     

  • Robbing the Dead

    A pall of sorrow, tears and grief descended on the entire country last Thursday. This was triggered by the unfortunate death of 13 people on board a chartered aircraft which was carrying the body of Olusegun Agagu, former governor of Ondo State, to Akure, the Ondo State capital, for his burial ceremony. The aircraft crashed a few minutes after take-off from the domestic wing of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos. Apart from the 13 victims, seven other passengers of the ill-fated aircraft who sustained injuries, including Feyisaye Agagu, the son of the late governor, were rushed to various hospitals in Lagos for treatment. One of them later died bringing the total death toll to 14.

    Reports have it that the crash afforded some bad boys and hoodlums the opportunity to prey on the victims of the disaster. This group, comprising mainly youths from Mafoluku area of Lagos where the crash occurred and their accomplices from nearby Nigerian Aviation Handling Company, NAHCO, motor park, were the first to arrive at the scene of disaster. As soon as they got there, they turned the whole arena into a stealing spree. They battled with the thick smoke that bellowed from the wreckage, with the ulterior motive of stealing from the victims while pretending to be on a rescue mission. It was as if the unfortunate incident provided them with the needed opportunity for self-enrichment.

    This group successfully robbed the victims dry. The boys simply picked any item they could find around like phones, laptops, handbags and money. A guy was said to have started it all. In an attempt to rescue the injured pilot, the guy stumbled on his laptop and picked it. That degenerated into frenzy as others started looking for what to steal. In the melee that followed, the whole place erupted in fisticuffs as the boys fought one another over who should own what. While this ugly scene was going on, the victims were left burning inside the aircraft until fire-fighters and the police came to disperse everybody.

    That was not the first time an incident of this nature happened in the country. On October 22, 2005, when a twin-engine Boeing 737 belonging to Bellview Airline crashed at Lisa Village, Ogun State, killing all the 117 passengers on board, rescuers who thronged the scene literally stole the victims blind. Many of the youths within the vicinity of the crash, were said to have made bountiful harvest from stealing money and other valuables from the victims. Most of them were said to have used the proceeds from the satanic act to buy motorcycles, popularly called okada, which they converted to means of transport for commuters.

    Such immoral behaviours are common scenes at accident spots all over the country, including scenes of fire disasters and collapsed buildings. While the victims of such unfortunate incident ruminate over their losses, majority of those who come around pretending to be pacifying them, often turn the place to an opportunity to loot and steal whatever they could lay their hands on. This bad behaviour is not limited to hoodlums alone as law enforcement officers and other government officials are known to engage in such nauseating acts.

    By and large, it goes to show the incalculable damage our value system has suffered in this country in recent times. Today, if your car is stuck in the mud or on a sandy terrain which are the hallmarks of some of our roads, you dare not beckon on people around, whether youths or adults, to help free your car from the trap. If you do so, you should be prepared to part with some hard-earned money as compensation for these commercial sympathisers. All is about money and nothing else. This is dangerous to the future of our youths and the future of the country as a whole.

    It is a pity that nobody, not even the elders of our society or even the government at whatever level, is paying any attention whatsoever to this irritating attitude that has gained currency over the years. If all people think about anywhere they are is how to make money by all possible means, whether fair or foul, to the extent of even robbing the dead, then, there is no other way to explain it than to say that we are a cursed people. I have no apology for that.

    However, the news of the crash has continued to grip the whole country with fear and trepidation. It was one crash too many. Since 1969, the country has witnessed more than 40 air crashes and close to 1,000 deaths in the history of its aviation industry. On November 20, 1969, a Nigeria Airways BAC VC10 from London crashed on landing in Lagos, killing 87 people on board. This was followed by another one on January 22, 1973, when a Royal Jordanian Airlines Flight 707, carrying 171 Nigerian Muslims returning from Mecca and five crewmen, crashed in Kano, killing all on board. Since then, it has been a litany of crashes culminating in the Sunday, June 3, 2012 air crash involving a Dana Airlines Flight 9J 992 with 153 passengers on board.

    Four months after, precisely on October 25, 2012, Danbaba Suntai, the governor of Taraba State, and five of his aides narrowly escaped death when a Cessna 208 aircraft piloted by Suntai crashed into a hill in Adamawa State. On December 15, 2012, the nation was again thrown into mourning with the news of the death of Patrick Yakowa, who was then the Governor of Kaduna State, and General Andrew Owoye Azazi (rtd), former National Security Adviser to the President. A total of six persons were burnt in the helicopter crash which occurred in the forest of Okoroba community in Nembe local government of Bayelsa State.

    From all indication, it is as if the nation has not seen the last of these unfortunate air crashes that have kept on occurring every now and then. With the frequency of air crashes in the country, one might be correct to conclude that Nigeria ranks highest among African countries or developing countries with the highest prevalence of air crashes in the world. Speaking at an aviation forum in Lagos recently, Tony Tyler, the Director-General of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), disclosed that 50 per cent of global plane crashes in 2012 occurred in Africa. According to him, African airlines recorded one accident for every 270, 000 flights for 2012, while the industry average was one accident for about 5, 000,000 flights.  Tyler, who described the figure as shocking, therefore urged African governments to invest in safety, infrastructure and capacity building for the personnel working in the aviation sector.

    The Civil Aviation Act, which was passed into law in 2006, sufficiently empowered the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, to effectively regulate the operations of airlines and ensure that they adhere strictly to the rules. But some airline owners have been accused of disobeying the same rules. Most of the airlines operating in the country are believed to be in the habit of skipping maintenance checks. They are possibly aided by some unscrupulous officials of the regulatory bodies who either allow them to postpone the checks or settle for below-the-level types for pecuniary gains.

    However, the latest plane crash raises a question about the implementation of the recommendations of a report on the causes of plane crashes believed to have been submitted to the federal government by the Accident Investigation Bureau a long time ago. Perhaps, if the government and relevant aviation authorities had promptly acted on the content of the report, it is possible that last Thursday’s incident could have been averted.

    It is high time airline operators in Nigeria noted that the safety of the flying public is first and foremost dependent on the proper functioning of the aircraft and its components. Maintenance plays such a crucial role in flight safety and it is the responsibility of the aircraft owners or operators to ensure that the aircraft in their fleet are properly maintained.

     

  • Fashola: ‘Lagos Solar Generation’; Ibadan-Lagos-disgrace; RCC/ BJ emergency repairs pls;  Lifejackets pls

    Governor Fashola invites us to ‘Let’s talk power’ so let us talk ‘Solar Power’. Governor Fashola, if countries with minimal sunshine, like the UK and Germany, can have rooftop solar panels and solar energy powering cities like in Spain, the USA and Israel, ‘Can You Please Take Lagos Solar?’ The cost of solar equipment, under-education in solar potential and lack of solar planning laws hinder progress. The Lagos State Building Code should encourage new buildings to have a solar component and be more environmentally friendly.

    Recognise, Reward and Award excellence in solar companies. Increase plans and 2014 budgets  for major solar use in the secretariat and local authorities for security lighting in street lights, bus stops, market, motor parks, neighbourhoods, foreshore lighting, Bar beach, recreation areas, schools, tertiary institutions and hospitals all needing security and lighting all night and solar public buildings and lampposts at festive periods.  The equipment cost is a constraint but the cost of solar panels and batteries has gone down by 80% accompanied by a marked improvement in solar battery efficiency. Solar technology is evolving rapidly as demonstrated at 2013 Solar Energy Expo in Dubai. Nigerians including Engineer Yomi Bolarinwa were there and have 2013 cutting edge knowledge to be tapped –but no one will tap them. Talk to embassies.

    Nigeria should beware therefore of ‘Solar Dumping’, the delivery of old solar technology as ‘aid’ or by solar contractors seeking to drop obsolete solar equipment in Nigeria. Nowadays even two years is old technology. Solar equipment costs are high and it takes five-plus years to recoup the cost in savings from cut electricity bills. It behoves Lagos State, federal government, CBN to come up with a ‘Long Term Solar Loans Strategy’. A low interest, 2-4% multibillion Solar Loan Facility would instantly provide 10,000Mw off grid. Importation duties should be waved. Cleaning of solar panels is work for thousands. Creating ‘The Solar Generation’ would be the next big thing in Nigeria after DSTV, the ‘Generator Generation’ and the ‘Cell Phone Generation’. How the UK is planning 20,000Gw while we are still using the odd solar powered torch is a mystery and misery.

    Wanted: A Governor Fashola driven ‘Solar Lagos Project’. Where are Nigeria’s solar factories making solar panels, flat and curved, and solar batteries? We made glass and batteries at Triplex and Exide. Under Obasanjo we got a tobacco factory instead of cellphone factories so no phones Made In Nigeria. God gave us petroleum but we export it and re-import our needs at huge extra costs. God gave us the sun. We ignore it while countries with 10% sun power their people into the 21st Century. LASU should be given a Lagos State Solar Grant for research into solarising Lagos.

    We must encourage new great leaders. A Fashola led ‘Let’s Act Solar Power’ will place Lagos as a leading solar city in Africa. The reason why Nigerians were considered the ‘Happiest People on Earth’ is not our politics but the fact that the sun remained in our otherwise miserable lives. The politicians cannot yet give the sun only to party members -like allowing only party members to live on the sunny side of the street.  The sun brings a smile to the sick, the broke, oppressed and  miserable. Too much sun is not good but every day starts with that warm glow of hopeful rays.

    About leadership, who allowed the imminent collapse and closure of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway with 15 kilometres of traffic five lane wide, 10,000 vehicles long with one million people, daily desperately struggling down that obstacle course? NEMA, if that is not an emergency and disaster, what is? Do we require the death of all these people in a fireball on the expressway? Nigerians know that awarding a contract is never an end to suffering. Nigerians are suffering maximally, stranded for seven hours daily in 2013 while RCC and Julius Berger warm up. Contractors must please show the milk of human kindness. Nigerians expect ‘CONTRACTOR EMERGENCY MEASURES PLEASE’ for patching dangerous pothole and the worst areas within 24 hours pending reconstruction. Painting and deployment of pretty concrete barriers and clearing the median can come later. The main problem areas are Julius Berger areas – very rough/absent road surfaces at the Mountain Top University, Redeem Crossings, Hayday

    Petrol station, Takol, Asese. The road authority should create a Nigerian solution to the massive Nigerian problem of queue jumping– a major cause of prolonged driving time for those who stay in the lanes. The placement of barriers every 20 metres on the shoulders would make it impossible to queue jump.

    Breaking News: The human cannot swim without learning. When will we learn? A life jacket for everyone on the water will save lives. Why is no one listening? We have just lost 42 or 100 citizens and an additional 18 more citizens on the River Niger. Lampedusa, off Italy is the watery graveyard for Africans seeking backdoor entry into Fortress Europe and now over 300 more. None had lifejackets. Is anyone listening? A life jacket costs little compared to a life. A life jacket is reusable, recyclable and is less than a N1 per use if 1000 trips are made. A life jacket keeps the wearer alive. If you do not provide or use a life jacket for your wife, children, relatives or employees you are a murderer or a murdering government and should be tried as such.

  • Niger State 2015: a prognosis

    Niger State 2015: a prognosis

    All politics, as the Americans would say, is, in the end, local. Meaning, politics, in the end, is about simple everyday mundane issues rather than about big and intangible ideas.

    In recent times undoubtedly big and not so tangible issues such as the national budget, the privatisation of electric power, crises of internal party democracy, Election ’15 and, only last week, the national conference, sovereign or otherwise, have dominated our politics.

    However, in the last two weeks this column has avoided these somewhat big and not so tangible issues and dwelt on the more mundane issue of traditional rule, first in my home town, Bida, and then in Suleja, one of the major towns in my home state, Niger. This was for the good reason that each of the emirates celebrated an important milestone for the No. 1 Citizen of its emirate, both of which have been prominent in the history of the country.

    As the reader can see from the title of this piece, I have decided to remain local this week once more and briefly discuss the politics of the 2015 governorship election of my state, whose slogan is “Power State”, not, as is widely misunderstood, on account of the fact that it has produced two military heads of state, an Air Force chief and many generals, but because it contains all the hydroelectric power stations in the country.

    Staying local one more time this week was not easy in the face of the surprise announcement during his October 1 Independence Day speech by President Goodluck Jonathan that he will soon order a national conference and the mixed reactions the announcement provoked.

    Niger State may not be the bellwether of Nigeria’s politics, but as one of only three states in the country to have produced two or more heads of state – the other two being Kano and Ogun – not to talk of its many prominent generals and topnotch politicians like Professor Jerry Gana, its politics deserves more than a passing public interest.

    In its edition of May 21, Daily Trust carried a full page advert signed by Bala Yakubu Gawu, in which the author concluded that the man to beat in the state’s governorship elections, in 2015, is its Deputy Governor, Honourable Ahmed Musa Ibeto. Ibeto, who is from the Kontagora senatorial zone of the state, was once the state’s chief of protocol. He was also a member of the House of Representatives.

    By means fair or foul, the country’s ruling parties – from the Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC) in the First Republic, through the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) in the Second Republic, to the Peoples’ Democratic Party in the current dispensation – have always won elections in the state.

    Going by the ruling PDP’s zoning arrangement at the state level it will be the turn of the Kontagora zone, aka Zone C, to produce the next governor. Zone A (Bida) has had its turn between 1999 and 2007 while Zone B (Minna) will come to the end of its two four-year terms in 2015.

    The advert in question discussed only the possible candidates for the PDP governorship ticket from Zone C. Apart from Ibeto the others mentioned in the advert were Muazu Mohammed Bawa, the state’s commissioner of Finance, Abubakar Sani Bello (Habu), former commissioner of Commerce and son of retired Colonel Sani Bello and son-in-law of former head of state, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, Aminu Yusuf, the secretary of the state’s PDP and Mustapha Bello, former minister of Commerce, younger brother of Col Bello and current Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Council.

    Conspicuously missing from Gawu’s list were Ibrahim Ahmed Matani, a former head of service and currently commissioner of Agriculture, three time senator, former DIG Nuhu Aliyu and Abubakar Sa’idu, chairman of Wushishi Local government and son-in-law of state’s governor, Dr Muazu Babangida Aliyu. Even more conspicuously missing was Mohammed, first son of General Ibrahim Babangida, who seems to have since quietly dropped out of the race possibly because, though his ancestral home is Wushishi, his family has always been identified with Minna.

    The trouble with Gawu’s advert was that it seemed too much of a sponsored promotion for Ibeto. First, the advert conveniently ignored an undertaking Ibeto reportedly gave that the price for his two-term deputy governorship under Dr Aliyu was his forfeiture of his governorship ambition. Second, experience for experience in public service and politics he is no match for Engineer Mustapha Bello and Senator Nuhu Aliyu. Third, if it comes to connections at high places, an element which seems to have become central to winning elections in Nigeria, he is no match for Bello Jr., who, apart from his father-in-law, can count on his father’s childhood friends, classmates and military colleagues like Generals Babangida and Gado Nasko, former FCT minister, for support. Fourth, as if to create even more trouble for Ibeto and his party, Bello Jr. defected to the CPC before the APC merger, following his falling out a long time ago with the state governor over issues of policy.

    Another trouble with Gawu’s advert apart from those it inexplicably left out was that it assumed Niger State, being historically an Establishment state, would be PDP’s to lose in 2015. This assumption ignores the fact that for years now Kontagora has become an opposition territory. If, as the Americans say, politics, in the end, is all local, whoever wins PDP’s governorship ticket is not likely to win Zone C for the party. Although in Nigeria, General Olusegun Obasanjo has shown back in 1998 that you don’t have to have home support to win an election, the lack of a home support is a serious minus for any politician. This was obviously why, in his second term bid in 2003, the general made sure by all means that his party swept his native Southwest zone.

    The probability that Kontagora will remain opposition territory has reportedly prompted the party’s kingpins of the state’s origin in Abuja, notably Professor Jerry Gana, to canvass the option of making the party’s governorship ticket a free-for-all. This would be patently unfair to Kontagora. But whether the PDP primaries becomes a free-for-all or not, the new opposition party, the All Progressives’ Congress (APC), stands a good chance of winning the governorship election in the state if it gives its ticket to a plausible candidate from Zone C.

    Among those said to be gunning for the ticket for now are Ibrahim Musa, the zone’s senator, Ibrahim Bako Shettima from Bida, the Congress for Progressive Change’s (CPC’s) governorship candidate in the 2011 elections David Umaru from Minna, the All Nigeria Peoples Party’s governorship candidate in 2007 and 2011, and Bello Jr. from Kontagora.

    Because Zones A and B have had their turn in governing the state, Bello Jr. seems APC’s best chance of beating PDP in the state, especially if anyone from outside Kontagora picks PDP’s ticket and if Bello Jr. picks his running mate from Bida, the state’s biggest senatorial zone.

    The ruling party’s chances of losing the state is hardly helped by the fact that its caucus seems to be in a predicament over who to back for the party’s ticket between Ibeto, Mustapha Bello and Abubakar Saidu, the chairman of Wushishi Local Government and the governor’s son-in-law who also has the support of the governor’s younger brother, Mohammed Aliyu, the managing director of Niger State Development Company, reportedly the man with the greatest influence over the Chief Servant’s policies and programmes.

    Chances are the next governor of Niger State may be Abubakar Sani Bello.

     

    FEEDBACK

    Last week I promised I will publish two rather lengthy but thoughtful reactions to my last two columns. I am sorry I am able to publish only the shorter one this week for lack of space. I shall publish the other one next week, God willing.

    Sir,

    I enjoyed your tribute to the Etsu Nupe in “Ten Years of the 13th Etsu Nupe” published in the Daily Trust of 18th September, 2013. However, I disagree with your view that “once Bida fell (to British forces), the collapse of the caliphate all the way to Sokoto proved more or less a piece of cake. . . “

    No doubt, the British West African Frontier Force faced a gallant enemy in their two-day battle to capture Bida in January 1897, suffering 17 wounded and 8 dead in the process. Yet, the subsequent conquest of the caliphate did not come any easier for the British, who for instance, lost 14 soldiers in a single encounter with forces loyal to the Emir of Kontagora on Helo Island in the River Niger in October 1898.

    At the Battle of Yola in September 1901, the British suffered 2 dead and 41 wounded, while at the Caliph’s last stand in Burmi in present Gombe State, British casualties amounted to 2 dead and 54 wounded (First Battle of Burmi, April 1903) and 103 dead and wounded (Second Battle of Burmi, July 1903). Interestingly, the defeated Emir Abubakar of Bida fought gallantly in Burmi, alongside Caliph Attahiru and Emir Ahmadu of Misau, and once again, he managed to escape capture by the victorious British forces.

    In short, if the mighty British Empire suffered heavy casualties and took six years to achieve the conquest of the Sokoto Caliphate, that conquest cannot be described “as a piece of cake” by any standard.

    For more on the military battles of the British conquest of the Sokoto Caliphate, readers are referred to the book “War on the Savannah” by Risko Marjomaa, published by the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, Helsinki (1998).

    Dr. Nura H. Alkali

     

  • Gambari-Akinyemi-Anyaoku: Diplomats as spectacles

    All over the world, countries are benefitting largely from the recent utilisation of the privileges of global mediascapes and digital technologies for the reinforcement of their international image, articulation of their foreign policies and a consolidation of their positions in the comity of nations, as the preferred destination for not only tourist and economic activities but also as major ideological enclaves for negotiating the world’s power structures. This is why perceptive governments have invested massively in satellite televisions and cable channels, together with the internet and other electronic spaces to affirm the robustness of their democratic experimentations, their desire for tactical alliances with other nations and their own relevance to the trajectories of world events.

    This reality has not, however, always been so, as nations have hitherto always relied on skilled legates who represent their interests and aspirations, and if need be, constantly see to the sometime urgent task of rehabilitating their image, on the world scene. Such envoys work in other countries to establish strategic collaborations and mutual cooperativeness which almost always foster reciprocated benefits and world peace for their home countries and other partner and friendly nations. This is so crucial a task that Daisaku Ikeda observes that “history is filled with tragic examples of wars that result from diplomatic impasse. Whether in our local communities or in international relations, the skilful use of our communicative capacities to negotiate and resolve differences is the first evidence of human wisdom.” Diplomats therefore become the custodian of the repertoire of wisdom for international cooperation and national well-being.

    To bring it closer home, imagine, for instance, that Nigeria had no representatives in countries abroad, and decisions regarding the nation were left at the mercy of foreign forces, impervious to its national interests and hostile to its citizens, then we are immediately faced with the full implication of the invidious absence of international secular intercessors who could have salvaged strategic advantages for the country through the deployment of refined tact. Thankfully, the country’s march towards development and a virile national growth bears the necessary signature and imprints of well-trained diplomats-intellectuals who have safely steered the nation’s vessel on the often dangerous coasts of international relations. For me, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, Professor Ibrahim Gambari and Chief Emeka Anyaoku represent an unusual trio of committed Nigerian mediators on the global stage. They are unusual because each brings to his duties a sense of responsibility obviously derived from the strict discipline of intellectual rigour. In other words, they typify how the country’s history and evolution as a state are undergirded by the deeply nuanced insights of patriotic statesmen whose transnational activities on behalf of the nation have steadied its journey to development and greater international relevance.

    When we call to mind the enormity of the task of retooling and redirecting the national project in Nigeria, we cannot but fail to see the urgency of committing to it all we have got. When human capital development becomes the first law in any blueprint for sustainable development in a country, intellectuals invariably play a pivotal role in defining its path to greatness. And, an unenviable dimension of that role concerns convincing other nations of Nigeria’s strategic significance in the world. In other words, we find in Gambari, Anyaolu and Akinyemi scholars whose voices help to give direction and purpose to Nigeria’s internal and external efforts to achieve its (inter)national goals. Rethinking the national project therefore isn’t the sole preserve of statesmen, politicians and intellectuals that we have been celebrating hitherto. There is also an external/international dimension that necessitates the insertion of patriotic legates and their diplomatic acumen as significant contributions to its direction and configuration.

    In Professor Gambari, a former Visiting Professor to John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and former Director General of the Nigerian Institute for International Affairs, we find an instance of how academic erudition conspires with pragmatic skills in foreign policy and relations to help achieve the realignment of the Nigerian dream in terms of Nigeria’s strategic alliances with other nations. A former External Affairs Minister, Professor Gambari provides much inspiration for many to seize the pluses offered by the unfettered marketplaces of ideas and critical intellections in the service of the Nigerian project. The Kwara-born academic who was appointed by the UN Secretary-General and the Chairperson of the African Union Commission as Joint African Union-United Nations Special Representative for Darfur in 2010, has also been recently appointed the pioneering Chancellor of the newly established KWASU, a university which hopes to utilise Gambari’s and other reputed scholars’ vast intellectual capital to advance education in Kwara State.

    The need to erect the development ambitions of a state on the foundation of sound intellectual ideals and an unswerving commitment to the state’s objectives and its foreign policies locks Gambari and Professor Akinyemi in the same legation mould. Akinyemi succeeded Professor Gambari as the Director General of the famed Nigerian Institute for International Affairs. What is most striking about Professor Akinyemi’s work as Nigeria’s former Minister of External Affairs is the innovative bent of his commitment. The Technical Aid Corps (TAC), his programmatic idea, was initiated to foster the spirit of volunteerism and patriotism in Nigerian professionals expected to promote national development and the country’s image abroad. In Akinyemi, therefore, we confront the axiom that ideas generate insights that propels development efforts anywhere. For instance, Nigeria’s space and nuclear programme, which has become robust and intensified recently, received one of its earliest advocacies as far back as 1987 when Prof. Akinyemi averred that the country “has a sacred responsibility to challenge the racial monopoly of nuclear weapons.” Such statements could only emanate from emissaries with uncanny insights for identifying the often hidden details in the development dynamics of a nation.

    Chief Anyaoku’s reputation as the former Secretary General of the Commonwealth remains an unrivalled colossal testament to diplomatic diligence. Anyaoku’s skills were his capacity to weave intellectual insights into national advocacy and behind-the-scene diplomatic initiatives. Having previously worked in various positions in the Commonwealth and as Nigeria’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Chief Anyaoku, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting at Kuala Lumpur in 1989, was elected the third Commonwealth Secretary-General. He worked tirelessly to advance commonwealth agendas and initiatives, and was re-elected for a second five-year term at the 1993 CHOGM in Limassol, and after retirement, he continues to animate diplomatic circles with his robust understanding of international relations and politics. In a time when statesmen and politicians are everywhere sullied by scandals and the thirst for material advancement, Chief Anyaoku’s long years at the Commonwealth secretariat has yielded a repertoire of delegable insights and acumen Nigeria can always invest in. An emissary’s work doesn’t end outside the borders of the state or outside the ambit of the official appointment.

    For Walter Bagehot, the British economist, “an ambassador is not simply an agent; he is also a spectacle;” and as such, s/he becomes the centre and cynosure of national being and development. Our own three scholar-diplomats served the nation as dependable and selfless agents who have passionately enunciated the paradigms of the Nigeria project both at home and abroad. As spectacles, they have withstood the often hostile global gaze at Nigeria’s possibilities as a developing nation while labouring assiduously to also project the nation’s contribution to world peace and cooperation.

     

    • Dr. Olaopa is Permanent Secretary Federal Ministry of Youth Development, Abuja.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • An ‘October Surprise’

    An ‘October Surprise’

    In America’s presidential election cycle, no month is more dreaded than the October preceding the poll, which takes place on the first Tuesday of November.

    The candidates and their camps hold their collective breaths, fearing that the rival candidate or camp will unleash some dirty secret it had been hoarding – a secret that would throw the opponent off-balance or, with some luck, damage him irreparably.

    They call it the “October Surprise.”

    President Goodluck Jonathan did not exactly cripple his would-be opponents on the 2015 presidential race, but he came close to doing that when, in his broadcast marking the 53rd anniversary of Nigeria’s independence, he announced that the time had come for a “national dialogue” to address the unresolved issues of the Nigerian experience.

    The announcement took not only his political opponents but also his most ardent supporters completely by surprise. It came literally from nowhere.

    For years, he had batted away the demand for a national conference – sovereign or not – with strained civility. Though they differed on so many other issues, he and the National Assembly were united in their emphatic rejection of calls for a National Conference

    Whenever they prefaced their quest with the term “sovereign,” the protagonists unwittingly played right into the hands of the Executive and the Legislative branches, which wasted no time in asserting that there could not be two sovereigns in a given space at one time. Translation: The twain embodied the sovereignty of the Nigerian state, and any other claim to sovereignty was not merely fanciful but impermissible.

    When the demand was for an ordinary National Conference for the purpose of writing a constitution warranted by the preface “We, the People,” the response of the twain was just as pre-emptive: the power to change the Constitution was vested categorically and unalterably in the Constitution.

    Whatever its tenor or content, the demand for a conference to sort things out was dead on arrival.

    To leave the protagonists in no doubt that their quest was doomed, the twain set in motion the process for a major revision of the 1999 Constitution. A presidential panel dredged up some 54 provisions requiring amendments, and the National Assembly staged a one-day “consultative meeting” in federal constitutions at which self-selected attendees with their eyes on the refreshments and other inducements on offer were asked to vote yes or no on a raft of questionnaire items.

    The promoters were already jubilating that they were set to enter the history books as the first set of Nigerians to bequeath to their compatriots a home-grown, authentic, Constitution of the people, by the people, for the people.

    They had not taken into account Dr Jonathan’s predilection for setting up committees at the least provocation, and sometimes with no provocation.

    And so it came to pass that the day after he announced that a National Conference was now warranted, he set up a 13-member committee comprising some of its most formidable protagonists to work out the modalities for staging it and gave the committee one month to report.

    Where all this leaves Emeka Ihedioha, the driving force behind the National Assembly’s effort to foist on Nigeria what would for all practical purposes be a new constitution is now unclear. He and his collaborators must be chafing that their effort to write themselves indelibly into the history books had so suddenly come unstuck, and from a source they least expected.

    But Dr Jonathan has always moved in mysterious ways.

    Ihedioha and his colleagues will probably find some comfort in the knowledge that they are not the only persons flummoxed.

    In whatever case, it is far from clear that what Dr Jonathan is offering is what the protagonists have been demanding. Hedging his bets, he calls it a National Dialogue/Conference. The one envisages limited outcomes; the other suggests nothing less than a deliberative assembly whose decisions can be set aside only through a national referendum: take your pick.

    One faction of the protagonists, the Biafranist MASSOB has already taken its pick. It says it will settle nothing less than a conference that will allow for secession. Now, it has the government’s assurance that the agenda will be wide-open and unrestricted. But this will only deepen fears in the usual quarters that the Conference is a prelude to the dissolution of Nigeria.

    Meanwhile, among the nationalities expected to be seated at the conference table, there is already some disputation. The Northern Consultative Forum and Ohanaeze are locked in a debate over the size of the delegations, with the one claiming that, by virtue of the size and population of the North, it should have more delegates than the other.

    What would the Northerners do or say when the Ogoni, or the Ekoi, to pick just two examples, insist on the same level of representation on the perfectly sensible ground that one nationality is as important as another, regardless of size?

    But which “Northerners” anyway, when Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido says the whole thing is superfluous and that Jigawa will have nothing to do with it? Several Northern governors will probably take the same stance in the days ahead.

    On the Southwestern front where the clamour for a National Conference has been loudest and clearest, and from which Dr Jonathan must have been expecting robust support that would undercut the mass appeal of the APC in the 2015 race, the reaction has been mixed at best. APC chieftain Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, for one, has shot the offer full of holes. Some have dismissed it as a Trojan horse, while some have welcomed it cautiously.

    Regardless of whatever name Dr Jonathan calls the proposed parley, why now, when his ruling party is in disarray, when all indications are that he will seek reelection in 2015, when the entire public university system has been shut down, and when large sections of the North are convulsed by a murderous insurrection the Administration seems unable to contain with the stick or the carrot?

    There are those who contend that such a time is precisely the best moment for staging a national conference, when the governing authorities have lost momentum and direction and their legitimacy is in contention. And they cite Benin Republic, the former Zaire (now DR Congo), and Mali, as examples of countries where national conferences were held at precisely such conjunctures.

    Nigeria has drifted dangerously close, but has not reached that point yet. But it may well be that Dr Jonathan has determined that a national conference can no longer wait. After all, despite all the official denials about the state of the treasury and other issues of a fiscal nature, he knows better than anyone else the real state of things.

    In all this, only one thing seems assured: The House of Representatives will now have to abjure the conceit that a mere review of the Constitution, however wide-ranging, is what Nigeria needs, and that the task belongs principally in its province.

    “Still writing – and pontificating — without facts”

    Rattled by the allusion in my last column to a newspaper that published “exit polls” for an election that was yet to be held and fixed dubious poll numbers to a pre-determined election outcome, Eni – B (as in Eniola Bello) has written:

    “How can President Jonathan’s impressive approval rating in the North Central be due to VP Sambo factor? Sambo is from Kaduna, a state in the North West. Has Dr. Dare stayed too long in the US that he has forgotten the geography of Nigeria? If not, can it be a case of a columnist with a “determined” view fixing his “findings to that result”? Or one still writing – and pontificating – without facts?”

    My error, and I acknowledge it with regret.

    I wish Eni-B could move the newspaper in question to acknowledge its errors in the same spirit – if indeed errors they were, and not something much darker.