The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Ethics, education and community

    Ethics, education and community

    Today I start a series of reflections on what I consider the foundation of a progressive society: the education of the public or public education. I think it is fair to say that the future of any community or nation is going to be determined by the attention it pays to and the resources it provides for the education of its members from the cradle to the grave. If the preceding reasoning is true, then education of the public is also a matter of ethics. First, if we bring children into the world, we have a moral responsibility to educate them so they have a meaningful life experience. Second, educating its public is in the interest of any community that prioritises peaceable living and development. And there is a general consensus among thoughtful people that if a community gets right the priority of educating its members, it can be assured of the addition of all other good things of life.

    I just argued the point that the education of its public is a matter of ethics for any community. But I have not shown, it may be pointed out, why a community should bother about ethics or morality. Indeed, why do we need to worry about shared moral beliefs or moral rules? Why can’t individuals create their own rules and play by it or even refuse to follow their own rules in a consistent fashion? I think many of us would protest the sense of this question because it appears to ignore the reality of our times. Many people, especially the highly placed, now create their own rules and don’t necessarily play by them unless they are assured of benefits for themselves. The point, however, is that even those individuals would be first to advocate common moral rules because it is not in their interest if everyone were to imitate them.

    Without proper communal standards of conduct, anarchy is bound to prevail. And where anarchy prevails, individual survival or progress is jeopardised. But if proper communal standards are essential to avoid anarchy, it should also be recognised that proper communal standards of conduct require shared moral beliefs. These are trying times for decent human living. The fact that there is so much trouble around us point to the absence of adequate moral values.

    We are witnessing the negative impact of the erosion of shared moral beliefs and standards across the land. It is not just in terms of divergent religious or ethnic values. Indeed, deep down their roots, every religious or traditional value system has important shared beliefs about the sanctity of life, about the good of communal living, about the care of the offspring. And communities still survive and make progress because the majority of their members accept and respect the primacy of moral values and principles. Morality is an internalised private cop, which if completely abandoned will spell doom for all. In spite of the odds, we still have generalised shared values about the wrongness of kidnapping and armed robbery just as we do about the immorality of corruption.

    The more insidious agent of moral and value conflict has to do with the inequalities caused by disparities in access to good education. In the normative sense, education refers to two—narrow and broad—processes. In the narrow sense, we may see education as the process of bringing up the youth, training and instructing them for particular—whatever—ends. Broadly, it is the development of a person’s awareness, the transformation and regulation of emotions, wants, and attitudes. To be educated in this sense means more than to be trained for a job. It is to be brought up for good citizenship.

    Education is a value; an educated person is an improved person and the end-product of an educational system is a desirable product. Education, in this sense, prepares one for a wholesome life and for living well, which does not necessarily mean materially well. Obviously, then, formal institutions of learning have a role to play in providing education in this sense but there is much more to it than formal institutions are capable of offering. In any case, a community or nation must come to terms with this sense of education because it is its most important resource as a social force.

    Let me suggest the following syllogism: To educate is to improve; every human person needs to be improved; hence every human person needs to be educated. I think there is a very important sense in which this is true. But there is one caveat or two. First, it has also been suggested that education can dehumanise in which case it does not improve because it cannot be both. We may deal with this by making a distinction between genuine and fake education, what Carter G. Woodson once referred to as mis-education. While genuine education improves, mis-education dehumanises.

    A second caveat has to do with the second premise of the syllogism: every human person needs to be improved. The question is by whom? And the answer is by self and the community. Self-improvement is certainly an obligation that everyone has to bear responsibility for. “I have been made; I will have to remake myself” is an important traditional axiom. But we know that the human being is wholly dependent at birth and this extends to the first seventeen to eighteen years of life. Some can gain independence earlier but not without enormous and debilitating struggle the scars of which sometimes permanently impair future development and progress. Therefore from infancy to adolescence every human person needs a community of fellow human beings to take responsibility for his or her education.

    The community has a genuine interest in educating its public to avoid a degeneration of its existence. Mwalimu Nyerere’s sagacious reasoning in this matter is instructive: The purpose of education, he observes, is to transmit from one generation to the next the accumulated wisdom and knowledge of the society, and to prepare the young people for their future membership of the society and their active participation in its maintenance or development. Traditional communities paid serious attention to this important area of their responsibilities within the scope of the resources—tangible and intangible—available to them. The question we must ask ourselves is “how have our contemporary societies fared with regard to the discharge of this grave responsibility?” This will be the focus of attention next week.

  • Sanusi is right

    I have followed with interest the activities of Sanusi Lamido Sanusi for quite a while right from the time he was in UBA, then First bank and now the CBN Governor. I have found him to be a man driven by the passion to see that Nigeria does not continue to punch below its weight locally and internationally. It is of course common knowledge that Sanusi is from the royal house of Kano where his grandfather Muhammad Ardo Sanusi was the imperious Emir of Kano who clashed with the Sardauna of Sokoto, Ahmadu Bello, the then Premier of Northern Nigeria and had to be removed as Emir and his younger brother Alhaji Bayero succeeded him. Emir Muhammad Ardo Sanusi produced excellent children and at a time, three of them were in the diplomatic service and Aminu Sanusi the father of Lamido rose to become the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after serving as an ambassador and High Commissioner in several places. He later became the Ciroma of Kano but unfortunately died rather prematurely. He was a highly respected diplomat with strong views and will and would not allow himself to be ordered around during the era of military dictatorship. It was in this circumstance that he angrily left the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I met his younger brother in the late 80s when he was Ambassador to Indonesia with concurrent accreditation to Malaysia. He was an exceptionally gracious man, generous to a fault and with a sense of patriotic service not found nowadays anywhere in Nigeria. I knew Ambassador Aminu Sanusi, the former Permanent Secretary fairly well. I was a graduate student in Canada when he was High Commissioner in the late 1960s. Later on, I met him and told him I was fascinated by the life and times of Sir Muhammad Ardo Sanusi his father and I would like to write his biography. Ambassador Sanusi was excited about my project and promised to assist especially in provision of data but unfortunately he passed on soon afterwards. There was also another Sanusi who was Deputy High Commissioner in London and all of them had a sense of noblesse oblige of wanting to help the common man as part of their God given responsibility.

    The CBN Governor Sanusi is following the family’s tradition and footsteps especially in wanting to be a tribune of the common man and in speaking truth not only to power but also every time he has the opportunity to do so. It is in this light that one welcomes his search light on the Nigerian bureaucracy. He is right on the button by suggesting that our civil service in the centre and in the states and local government areas is over bloated and has become a drag on development. In some states and at the federal level personnel emolument and overhead constitutes sometimes close to 80% of the annual budget with little left for capital projects and development. The situation at the local level is the most pathetic. First of all, there is hardly any service that one could call civil at the local level. People merely gather themselves together at the end of every month to share federal allocation. Some of them do not have offices or desks. Where there are offices, sometimes six to 10 people are sharing the same office and the same desk. Most of the time they have nothing to do and it is common knowledge that some of them show up for work only twice a week. This is why I find it ridiculous that some politicians, who should know better, are talking about a three tiers of government in their so-called presentation before the constitution review panel. There is nowhere in the world where a federation is a federation of local governments and states. We must go back in this country to a federation of state and leave local government alone to the states to create and un-create as they like.

    The civil service at the state level is also a parasitic service with its innumerable Permanent Secretaries and Directors all earning fat salaries that should have been used to develop the states. This bureaucratic paraphernalia at the state level are simply unsustainable. This is why some of us believe that instead of creating states, we should go back either to the old regions and make the present zones regions in which existing states would be mere provincial administrations.

    At the federal level where all the money in Nigeria is, top civil servants, many of them with estates in Abuja are more corrupt than politicians. They formulate policies to suit themselves, share and buy civil servant quarters among themselves and teach politicians how to exploit the system and loot the treasuries. They build mansions at home and abroad and even Assistant Directors at the federal level have been known to appropriate huge resources to themselves, thus, becoming billionaires in a country where people are starving. In most cases and at every level, civil servants collect gratification before they perform routine jobs. It is also common knowledge that civil service is not only bloated but it is corrupt and stinks to the highest level. If we are to abolish the civil service in this country, nobody will miss it. This is what Lamido is talking about and he has the support of many Nigerians. Sometimes in order to reform the system, one has to dismantle it first. The situation in our country is getting to a point of irredeemability and that is the truth.

    What has been said about the civil service is probably true of every facet of our national life. The executive, legislature and the judiciary stink to high heavens. Of course there are a few odd ones who are clean the late Justice Kayode Eso of blessed memory was one of them. The political leadership has to demonstrate seriousness about confronting corruption. A situation where federal parliamentarians are paying themselves salaries and perquisites of office of over 25 million naira a month, a sum that is unthinkable in the United States, the richest country in the world is simply unthinkable, unacceptable and unsustainable. All of us in this country must speak up in order to save this country from imminent collapse and revolution. If we don’t do something now, both the guilty and the innocent, in the words of James Baldwin will face the fire. This is a bitter truth in a new year and it is my prayer that all of us who can do something about our plight will rise to the occasion. Happy New year to all my readers and God Bless Nigeria.

  • Jonathan’s posters, opposition leaders and 2015

    Ever since the rumour mill became agog that he may contest the 2015 election, President Goodluck Jonathan has consistently refused to be drawn into what he and his aides consider to be an ‘idle talk’. A wise man, the president neither denied nor confirmed that he would run. His position has always been that the time is not yet ripe for him to make his intention known. He will do so in 2014, which is less than 365 days from now, he once told us. He also made it clear that if he decides to run, he is eminently qualified to do so.

    Reading the lips of the president, there is no doubt that he will run in 2015, but until he says so, it is taboo for us to speculate about his ambition. Some people, who seem to love the president more than himself cannot wait for him to declare for the race before they start canvassing support for him. These loyalists have printed the president’s posters and painted the Federal Capital City red with them. I don’t know how the president honestly feels about it all, but we are being made to believe that he is not comfortable with what is happening. Can that be true? Is there anyone of us that sugar won’t melt in his mouth?

    Yes, what we are seeing may be the hand of Esau, the voice certainly is that of Jacob. Those pushing the president’s posters are no ghosts. They are flesh and blood like us who know what they are doing and why they are doing it. They may not have the president’s consent, but do they really need it when they know that in the man’s heart of hearts he will be chuckling to himself that yes ‘’my boys are doing a damn good job’’. The posters are a way of preparing the ground for the president’s declaration when as he has told us the time is ripe to do so. The president may not have approved the pasting of his posters all over Abuja, but can he feign ignorance of the planned clampdown on opposition leaders?

    Even within the Presidency all is not well all because of 2015, going by what we are hearing. The North, which is interested in returning to power is set to pitch Jonathan and Vice President Namadi Sambo against each other in order to achieve its aim. What is not known is whether Sambo will go with the North or remain on the side of his boss. With the way things are playing out on the political scene, we have interesting days ahead. If Sambo ditches Jonathan for his people won’t we have another Obasanjo/Atiku brouhaha on our hands? And if he decides to side with his boss, won’t Sambo become a pariah at home? The choice is that of Sambo. Wherever he chooses to be, I know that he will weigh the options well before jumping into the fray.

    Like the North, the opposition has never hidden its intention to wrest power from Jonathan in 2015. Knowing that it failed to win the Presidency in 2011 because of its refusal to merge and confront Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) machine in that year’s election, the opposition has been meeting and planning on how to kick out PDP in 2015. Not unexpectedly, the PDP government is jittery because it knows that if the talks succeed, the opposition may kick it out of power in two years time. To avert that, it has covertly launched operation stop the opposition. The aim is to scuttle the opposition’s merger plans toward the 2015 presidential poll.

    Since the government has control of the security agencies, its problem is half solved. These security agencies are to be used to muzzle the opposition. These agencies are said to be gathering reports on some opposition leaders which will be used to tarnish their image. The Jonathan Presidency is ready to go to any length to stop the opposition. It is prepared to adopt even crude means to achieve its aim. In political warfare, it believes that all is fair, as long as the means justifies the end. Right now, a former top official in government is being harassed and hounded all over the place because of the belief that he is interested in the 2015 presidential election. Is that an offence? It is not, but the harassment is a ploy to force him out of the race so that the coast will become clear for Jonathan. Yet, the president is saying that he has not made up his mind about 2015. They should say that to the marine.

    If he has not made up his mind yet about 2015, why then are opposition leaders like Gen Muhammadu Buhari and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu being tormented? Is it a sin to be an opposition leader? Politics is a contest of ideas and those who think that they have what it takes to contest for political office should be allowed to do so without let or hindrance. To hire people to rake up mud about your opponents all in the guise of political contest is not a decent way of playing politics. Like the posters issue, the president may not know the atrocities some people in his administration are committing in the name of politics and by way of protecting his political future. Now that he knows, he will surely do something about those who are protecting his interest by trying to run others out of the 2015 race in a shabby and unholy manner. Or won’t he?

    Adieu, Giwa’s mother

    Until her death, Madam Elekhia Giwa mourned her beloved son, Dele, who was killed by parcel bomb 27 years ago. Nothing would have pleased the late Mrs Giwa more than to have seen her son’s killer brought to book before she died on Tuesday. Dele died at a time she needed him most to take care of her. She was 60 in 1986 when Dele Giwa, the founding Editor-in-Chief of Newswatch magazine was killed. For 27 years, she was in tears and praying that the killers be found. Painfully, she died without her prayers answered. We can still do something for her so that she can rest in peace in her grave, and that is by finding the killers of Dele Giwa.

          RE :Dipo Ayeni vs the police

    From time immemorial, police job is not for brilliant, bold and intelligent people but for gossips and the dafts. These people will never open the Criminal Code and procedure law to enforce them, but to extort money from people and share with their godfathers, who will always defend them from heinous allegations and even recommend them for promotion. FROM : 08037607020

    This is about Traffic Warden Service travails with the Nigeria Police and Police Service Commission-(a): non-promotion, (b): non-issuance of uniforms and accountrements, (c): after passing confirmation examinations as AST with their general duty counterparts as ASP, confirmation is denied. The AST-second star not approved, (d): many of us were promoted last in 2003.  FROM : 08033455106.

    Ayeni’s assertion regarding the police is happening in all federal establishments. From 08033375336.

    Jesus withdrew from those who wanted to make him king because he knew that it is impossible for a righteous person to flourish amidst lawless individuals. (John 6: 15). In Ayeni’s case, there is a time to speak and to keep quiet. (Eccl. 3: 7). He chose the right time. (Prov: 14: 27, 34). From Samson, Ibadan, 08188542644.

  • The $500M aviation intervention loan

    Once again, our amiable Minister of Aviation Princess Stella Oduah has been brought under severe strains over the Chinese $500m loan that Federal Aviation Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) is to use for procuring 300 brand new aircrafts for our domestic airline operators. This like other giant steps, such as the initial N300b intervention fund, the ongoing N49b renovation of 22 airports, her lost war with foreign airlines over unfair fares, her resolve to float a national carrier and her 11- man tour of Europe, the US and China in search of investors, has been enmeshed in controversy.

    It is a shame many Princess Oduah‘s detractors dismiss her as having little to flaunt as a minister beyond her PDP membership card and proven record as a grass root party ‘mobiliser’. They conveniently ignored that as a wife to former minister of works, as former NNPC staff and as the chief executive of Sea Petroleum and Gas Company Limited (SPG), an independent marketer of petroleum products since 1992, she is better equipped for her current position than many other PDP card carrying ministers.

    Princess Oduah is one minister that has personified the face of President Jonathan’s transformation agenda. For the survival of our domestic airline industry, she had while the war against foreign airline industry over exorbitant air fares was raging, embarked on a tour of America, Europe and China seeking new investors. Oduah’s detractors seemed to have resolved to deny her the credit for this Chinese $500m loan by downplaying the dividend of her relentless efforts.

    In spite of her commitment to the survival of our domestic airlines industry, the aviation minister, perhaps apart from the president and Alison-Maduekwe, the petroleum minister envied for creating s many PDP billionaires, the minister remains the most vilified public official of Jonathan’s administration. But Oduah should ignore detractors and move on with her crusade. She should take solace that public service is a thankless job. She should also take a cue from her overwhelmed principal, president Jonathan who has ignored the virulent attack on his person; first by northern leaders who are facing revolt of children they deprived of education ; the Igbo elite in their hide out in Lagos and inside Aso Rock who blame him for the kidnapping of children for ransom by Igbo youths whose plight they ignored while they were busy making money; and the Yoruba who unfairly criticize him for infrastructural decay forgetting Obasanjo their son was a PDP president for eight years.

    Sadly, critics who often claim the minister’s policies attracted so much controversies because they are whimsical products of reflexes of a Nigerian fraudulent oil marketer, have been so uncharitable to this hard working minister whose admirers described as ‘an Amazon’ and a Nigerian patriot . It is not totally correct to say most of the minister’s policies were not subjected to rigorous debate. If however such debates were monopolised by those with vested interests such as card carrying PDP members, this by no means can be said undermines the minister ‘s committed to the success of PDP inspired transformation agenda.

    We had the Managing Director of Jimoh Ibrahim’s defunct ‘Air Nigeria’, Kinfe Kahssaye, asserting during stakeholders meeting that ‘the key way to ensure that Nigerian airlines return to profitability is for the Federal Government’s support in terms of finance or tax waivers, as it is been done in other parts of the world from time to time .’

    We also had Amos Akpan, the Managing Director of Capital Airlines, on record as saying during a stakeholders’ meeting that ‘the money the airlines make is not enough to pay for the cost of their operation and service their debts to Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), the Nigeria Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) as well as pay hundreds of millions of naira owed oil companies’. In all, the stakeholders claim the 16 domestic airlines owed financial institutions and regulatory bodies, about N325 billion.

    And lest we forget, the ongoing N49b development of 22 airports around Nigeria was a fall out of the stakeholders’ debate. It would be recalled the former head of communication of the defunct Nigeria Airways Limited (NAL) now CEO of Belujane Konsult, Chris Aligbe had during the stakeholders meeting called on “government to upgrade the airports’ with a view to ‘concessioning.’ them” .

    After such presentation by the minister’s party associates, critics have not told us what they expected a minister who represents a federal government that controls more money that it can reasonably manage, spending money like water, building a N16b mansion to meet the taste of a vice president, constructing a N2b banquet hall inside Aso Villa, and constructing a waste full 10 lane dual carriage way inside Abuja, to do beyond throwing money at a cause she believed in.

    That domestic airlines like Arik, Aero and Air Nigeria whose Managing Director led the crusade and got N35.5 billion today jointly owe AMCON over $700m debt cannot in my view be attributed to lack of robust debate or the minister’s incompetence . A minister committed to transformation agenda of her party cannot be persecuted for acting on inputs of her party members and their sympathizers.

    The minister’s war with foreign airlines also followed the stakeholders report of how foreign airlines swindle Nigeria of about N3.7 billion yearly and their violations of Nigeria’s aviation laws. It was also from the self-serving report of the stakeholders the minister discovered how foreign airline like British Airways swindle Nigerians by charging non-competitive fare of $10,070 for a First Class return seat from Abuja to London while the same facility through Accra costs $4,943.

    Of course, committed to the world view of her party ignored, the minister ignored the argument of others to the effect ‘that market forces that today work in favour of the airlines will also work in favour of ordinary Nigerians, if only ministers, governors legislators, bureaucrats and other parasites stop insisting on first class or business class tickets of foreign airlines’. She went ahead to give a ridiculous ultimatum to the airline, along with Virgin Atlantic to restore parity in fares or risk a ban by Nigeria. That was on March 27 2011.

    And now the current $500b is enmeshed in controversy between the CBN that often talks from both sides of the mouth and the Bank of Industry, a conduit pipe for what former Commandant, Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, Group Capt. John Ojikutu has described as is ‘a recycling of public money for some people.”

    The apex bank and Bank of Industry insist the money was not meant for the airlines to re-fleet their airlines; the minister has vowed through (FAAN) Spokesman, Yakubu Dati, that government had ‘concluded arrangement to purchase 30 brand new aircraft for airlines to boost their operations.’

    The minister is insisting on setting up a new national airline. This will probably be supervised by NCAA, NAMA and FAAN, all the bodies that wrecked previous government efforts. She is equally undeterred by lessons from her tour of Europe and America where British Airways merger with Iberia airlines (International Airline Group) IAG, the world third largest airline in terms of annual revenues is battling with its own problems; where American Airlines and US Airways are trying to reach agreement on merger for the former to exit bankruptcy while Branson the Virgin Atlantic man with a magic touch is selling parts of his empire.

    Blame not princess Oduah if the earlier N300b intervention fund is being treated as PDP “family affair’. President Jonathan, on whose table the buck stops and not our amiable princess Oduah should be held responsible for the slip-slop policy in the aviation sector

  • Honours 2012

    Honours 2012

    THEY are all gone. The bangers of fun and fire. The excited crooners at packed city buffets and the revellers at glamorous street carnivals. The beach crowds and the army of itinerant drummers. They are all gone. Gone with the Yuletide.

    So are the sorcerers, the fortune tellers, the pessimists and the doomsayers whose verdict has been so damning – 2012 was a bad year. Floods that spared neither the rich nor the poor and bloody encounters in which thousands died. Boko Haram. Air and road crashes. Communal upheavals and other national calamities.

    But was 2012 all about blood, bombs and bullets? Didn’t some of our compatriots distinguish themselves, despite the stifling environment? In normal times, there would have been a scramble to deck them all with medals, but these are, no doubt, perilous times in which everyone, including those professional award organisers whose remarkable patriotism is often mistaken for sycophancy or fraud, is battling to survive.

    Was it a mere omission? Mischief? I really can’t say. But, being a column of records, Editorial Notebook is today giving honour to whom it is due.

    Step forward Chief Tony “the fixer” Anenih. When former President Olusegun Obasanjo elbowed him out of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Board of Trustees (BoT), his opponents thought he was finished. Sure they had him on the rope; his PDP was trounced in Edo in an unprecedented manner, with the chief losing his home base of Uromi. He became the subject of campaign rally jokes, with some saying “the fixer” had been fixed. The godfather is gone, others cried. Now he is back in contention for the BoT chair, which became vacant when Obasanjo was forced by circumstances to throw in the towel. And, wait for this: Anenih is back as chairman of the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) board.

    Those idle critics who know nothing of the complexity of such sensitive appointments have been grumbling. Is Anenih the only one in town? Why NPA again? Is this his compensation for the loss of Edo? Is this also part of the preparation for 2015? I disagree. Who else should get the Politician of the Year trophy?

    He initiated no earth-shaking bill. Neither did he mount a protest for a leadership change as he had done several times. Yet no lawmaker hit it big like Hon. Farouk Lawan, the Kano lawmaker who businessman Femi Otedola accused of demanding a bribe from him. He said he handed Lawan $620,000 cash, some of which he claimed the lawmaker loaded into his babanriga pocket; the others he stuffed into his starched cap and decked it, smiling. He was being filmed.

    Lawan accepted collecting the cash, saying it was to prove that Otedola bribed him. But he vowed never to surrender the prize, daring the police to take him to court. For months, the police threatened to get the money. They never did as Lawan stuck to his gun. Now, all is quiet and Mr Integrity carries on with the swagger of a folk hero and not the sobriety of a man with a big question mark on his character. Despite Speaker Aminu Tambuwal’s popularity, Lawan beats him to the Lawmaker of the Year trophy.

    Those who said Obasanjo had something up his sleeve when he suddenly quit the PDP BoT chair may not have been wrong, after all. He has fired some sorties at the Jonathan administration, lashing it for being too sluggish over Boko Haram. He said when he was confronted with a similar situation in Odi, he was decisive. He has just repeated the tirade in a CNN interview. Now, many are asking: what does Obasanjo want? What did he do when he had his own chance? Did he not plot the third term debacle and lied about it? The popular thinking is that when he begins to attack a government he helped to install (remember Yar’Adua?), then there is trouble; the government should watch it. Obasanjo goes home with the Critic of the Year Award.

    Less than two years in office, Owelle Rochas Okorocha has become the toast of the town – thanks to his unusual style. He appointed some 72 aides, including Nollywood stars, told the people that they would be running the government and threatened to turn Imo into a sort of El Dorado. No doubt His Excellency has kept his promise. The people have never had it so good and Imo has become the envy of other states. Recently, they got a two-week Yuletide holiday; other states got just two days. The celebration was unparalleled. It all climaxed in last weekend’s magical wedding of the Owelle’s daughter to one of his commissioners. Those busybodies who will never mind their own businesses are asking: Is the first son in-law the one to hold the fort when His Excellency begins to pursue his presidential ambition?

    One was tempted to give it to Musa Kwankwaso, who organised the mass wedding (a record 1,000 brides and grooms) the government sponsored. Or Peter Obi, who has been supervising the demolition of kidnap suspects’ homes. Or Emmanuel Uduaghan who risked it all and rode on all manner of boats to reach out to distraught flood victims. But, fair is fair. Okorocha gets the Governor of the Year Award. He is the most innovative, the most stylish.

    Even without going through the rigours of making a new movie, he mounted a show that never got to the public but, shockingly, became an instant box office hit. He was arrested for carrying drug, held for 25 days and forced to defecate several times. Each time he went to the toilet, a bulletin was issued, but no drug was found, even as scanners insisted he was pregnant with some strange substances. A court granted his request to be allowed his freedom. Babatunde Omidina, the comedian, was set free and awarded N25m damages. All through last year, the cash-strapped National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) was pleading with the court to free it of the damages burden. Who else should get the Artiste of the Year trophy if not Baba Suwe?

    Until he became governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), not much was known of Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s activism. Those who worked with him testify to his thoroughness, his skills and his character. Now Sanusi grabs the headlines with ease, like a knife slicing through margarine. The other day in Warri, he said there would be no development if we continued to offload all our cash on civil servants to the detriment of infrastructural development. There was uproar. He fought lawmakers with an unusual vigour, defending the autonomy of the CBN. His cash donation to Boko Haram victims raised so much dust. Every time he speaks, the whole place quakes.

    Now, leading academics are writing papers on Banking and the Sanusi phenomenon. The other day in Lagos, I ran into one of them who had just approved the topic of a doctoral dissertation, “The evolution of Sanusinomics: Banking activism, post-merger complications and the implications for a depressed economy.”

    Shouldn’t Sanusi get Banker of the Year trophy?

    Besides Sanusi, another official whose activities had a great impact on the populace is Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke. The mind-boggling subsidy claims and payments got more complex. The more money was thrown into the matter, the deeper the row. By Yuletide, petrol had become scarce in many cities, with prices rising to as much as N130 per litre. The Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), which is touted as the magic pill for all that ails the sector, is stuck at the National Assembly. The call for Mrs Alison-Madueke’s removal was so vociferous that it reverberated all over, except in the seat of power. Those armchair critics who were confounding idealism with managerialism, pushing for her sack, started asking: What is so special in this minister? I do not know, honestly but for standing firm in the face of tribulations, Mrs Alison-Madueke has snatched away the Best Minister trophy.

    For so many years, flour bread was the favourite on breakfast tables. We never knew what we were missing, until cassava bread was discovered – thanks to the enabling environment provided by the Federal Government. Now, the stuff has displaced flour bread, after a long road show by Minister of Agriculture Akinwunmi Adesina. The acceptance of the product by bakers and consumers has been stunning. Even at the Villa, cassava bread is the delight of all. Here then is to the Product of the Year.

    The other day there was a bomb scare at the National Assembly. A prominent politician was once rumoured to have died, but before newspapers rushed to the press, he came out to announce that he was hale and hearty. These, no doubt, were big hoaxes, but neither was huge enough to displace the discovery of oil in Kwara – a piece of news that sent many into wild jubilation. It turned out that the announcement may have been premature. The Kwara oil debacle is the Hoax of the Year.

    So long!

  • The colour of rape; Prevention; Rainy season Road works and 365 day FRSC Campaign

    The colour of rape; Prevention; Rainy season Road works and 365 day FRSC Campaign

    The colour of rape is the title of a short story in my book Nene And Other Stories published by Bookcraft. Rape is a beast attacking a less powerful being. Why is it that the poor in strength must die ‘to live’ and get justice? The Indian student called ‘India’s daughter’ dying 13 days after being raped and thrown out a moving bus is horrifying. All such boys’ or men’s evil plans and recordings for facebook coverage of such heinous acts says a lot about the social, family, institutional, medical, police and legal stigma, systems and structures in many countries involving black, white and yellow peoples i.e. worldwide. Naturally Nigeria is replete with similar episodes from the poor to the privileged, from disorganised to organised society and even police stations are involved in such violent abuse of uniform privilege. Kidnap by political thugs and ritualists for rape, ritual and other abuses in public transport are rife.

    The dangers to female petty traders and hawkers are well documented but still young girls and even educated female bank officials are sent unaccompanied to ‘the male meat market’ i.e. the rooms, houses and offices of customers and clients to deliver wears from bread to requesting bank deposits and to collect money owed or promised often at a high price- rape. Does the girl or woman ordinarily want sex in those circumstances? Remember that non-consensual sex, we-did-not-agree-but-I-had-to-or-he-would-have-become-violent-or-denied-me-my-goods sex, even when not resisted sex, is also rape. The female should she be expected to die in order to prove beyond a doubt that she was raped. Prevention is better than cure as you cannot cure a rape victim. The memory is never erased by love or money but justice is a good start. But as any rape victim knows, a lawyer’s probing questions are almost as humiliating as the rape but even more public.

    Prevention and successful prosecution includes proper, easily read and remembered numbering of taxis, okada, danfos and their drivers for easy identification, driver ID stuck to the back of driver’s seat so that back-seat passengers can identify the driver and vehicle ID which are all used to prevent sexual assault, robberies and other attacks in normal countries. What sexual excesses and crimes, lecturer-student, student-student, lecturer-lecturer, go unreported in our tertiary institutions? To quickly get a legal case from any rape that will stand up in court, the NMA, Nurses council and government police, health and legal ministries must ensure that the ‘International RAPE PROTOCOL’ is available and operational in clinics, hospitals, police stations and female and male prisons. Are medical students, nurses and police officers taught this protocol during undergraduate, tertiary, postgraduate and cadet training? Are sympathetic female police officers automatically chosen for investigation and interviews in rape cases?

    All women politicians, perhaps this will be a useful use of so-called first ladies, civil servants, corporate women, women’s groups in and out of government and women NGOS should set aside their political and ethnic and religious differences and take a real constructive visible and vocal STAND AGAINST RAPE’ in the media and on the roads, putting ‘RAPE’ on the agenda. Beyond powerful rallies, banners, posters and television and radio talks a lot of education and preventive information strategies must be done by and to the male sectors of the country as they are the perpetrators. Specifically this should target male market boys, area boys, thugs, secondary schools, tertiary institutions, religious leaders targeting religious youth organisations and the targeting of male dominated government organs like the civil service, the armed forces, the police, customs, Civil Defence, FRSC and NGOS like Boy Scouts, Man O War, the Red Cross etc to educate firstly themselves and then targeted segments of the community. The citizens can be easily engaged through the use of slogans and songs in Nollywood and Nollysongs and even careful use of comedy and MCs at public promotional functions using local languages on the air. A neglected educational avenue is the multibillion naira poster commercial market. Posters can declare messages like ‘RAPE IS NOT OK, IT SHOULD BE 21 YEAR JAILABLE CRIME.’ ‘REPORT OFFENDERS.’ ‘DATE – DO NOT RAPE’. ‘LET HER ‘NO’ MEAN ‘NO’ TO YOU’. ‘HER ‘NO’ MEANS ‘NO’. ‘WHEN YOU RAPE –THERE IS NO ESCAPE’ ‘FROM YOUR CONSCIENCE AND THE COURT’. Imagine the local and global impact if such a variety of messages are adopted by advert gurus for corporations who make billions of advert stickers and posters daily like Coca Cola, Pepsi, MTN, Glo, Etisalat, Star, Gulder, Guinness, Malta, Maggi, etc and immediately include them in their advert material for campaigns.

    The Nov/Dec 2012 repair the ‘holiday roads’ must be extended 12 months a year, as in normal countries. If Nigerian governments and contractors are too incompetent for rainy season work, they should quit and let another government come in or compress 12 months’ work into the dry season by double time work, day and night, with extra crews. Actually due to ‘incompetent mobilisation’ we only have three months a year to build Nigeria’s road network, so it will be 2080 that we get our East West Road and our second Niger Bridge, which governments have failed to deliver for over 30 years. I go don die!

    Similarly, if FRSC claims its EMBER campaign a success, government should direct FRSC to conduct EMBER level of activities year-round to keep sanity on the roads. Start with an FRSC ‘UARY’ CAMPAIGN.

  • Still playing dangerous politics with Boko Haram

    Still playing dangerous politics with Boko Haram

    For the umpteenth time, President Goodluck Jonathan has seized the opportunity of his attendance at a church service to reassure Nigerians that the end of Boko Haram insurrection in Nigeria is well nigh. This time it was a service on the last Sunday of last year at the Ekklisiya Yan Uwa a Nigeria (EYN), in Abuja, to mark the end of 2012.

    “We are,” he told the congregation, “suppressing the insurgency. For instance, before Christmas, we were told the whole of Abuja will be burned down, including Maiduguri, among others. Though we had some incidents but they were minimised… I assure you the excesses of Boko Haram will be brought to a reasonable control in 2013.”

    I do not know any member of the congregation, much less talk to anyone of them. But I’ll be surprised if the President’s assurances induced anything else but “we’ve-heard-all-this-before” big yawn. After all, have his past assurances not almost always been followed by even worse spate of bombings allegedly by the sect?

    It will be a big pleasant surprise if the President’s assurance makes any difference this time. However, I, for one, have my doubts based on at least three reasons. First, we have a President who seems easily given to hyperbole, at least on Boko Haram. This is a dangerous flaw in anyone’s character, but even more so in a leader, if only because it will invariably lead him to over-react in looking for solutions to a problem.

    The reader will recall how our President once described the sect’s threat as worse than the country’s civil war between 1967 and 1970. This was at the National Christian Centre, Abuja, during the 2011 end of year service. It simply beggars belief that anyone, much less the president of a country who, like our own President, is old enough to have experienced it, can compare the horrors of a full scale war with the effects of any insurrection.

    The President was back again to his hyperbole mode during last year’s end of year service. This time he went beyond our borders to compare the Boko Haram insurgency to the civil war in Syria and to the rebel insurrection in Central African Republic. The wars in those countries, he said, are “akin to what Boko Haram is trying to do in Nigeria, to take over Abuja so as to make me and those in government to go and hide.”

    His comparison of Boko Haram with the CAR rebels is understandable, but isn’t it incredulous that he will compare himself with Syria’s president, Bashar Assad, whom the West and Israel, the main sources of our President’s foreign security advisers in his fight against the sect, regard as the bad guy who should be kicked out of office and out of his country or who, better still, should be dead?

    The second reason I am sceptical about the President’s last assurance that the end of Boko Haram is nigh is his predilection for using churches instead of secular institutions to make pronouncements about the sect. Since last November alone he has used occasions of church events no less than four times to pronounce on the sect, as if Muslims too have not been victims, probably worse, of the sect’s terror. Our President’s apparent preference for churches, as against secular institutions, to speak on this ostensibly religious issue exposes him to suspicions that he is not averse to exploiting religion to divide and rule Nigerians.

    Thirdly, his recent altercation with his erstwhile benefactor, former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo – of recent there appears to have been a falling out between the two – over the President’s handling of Boko Haram suggests that, like so many Islamophobes in and out of this country, he believes in one law for terrorism in his part of the country and another for the Muslim North.

    The genesis of the altercation between benefactor and protégé, as we all know, was Chief Obasanjo’s dismissal of the President’s handling of Boko Haram as “tepid” compared to the iron fist with which he said he had handled a similar insurrection by the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) in November 1999.

    The former president couldn’t have chosen a more apt occasion to rebuke his protégé; the 40th anniversary celebration in Warri on November 22, last year, of the call of Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor to the ministry. As president of the Christian Association of Nigeria few, if any, have spoken more forcefully than the pastor against any form of accommodation with Boko Haram. To date no president of CAN has been as hawkish as the pastor, not even Dr. Sunday Mbang, the retired Prelate of the Methodist Church, who was once quoted as saying, “Whether they like it or not we will not allow any Muslim to be president of Nigeria. I am declaring this as President of CAN.” (Thisday, July 31, 2000.)

    As if to add salt to an injury, Chief Obasanjo’s belligerent former spokesman, Femi Fani-Kayode, added the gratuitous, and evidently incorrect, rider that Odi effectively destroyed MEND; as several press adverts that seem to have the imprimatur of the Presidency have pointed out, MEND merely went deeper underground after Odi only to return with a vengeance that ultimately forced the Federal Government to negotiate an amnesty for all Niger Delta militants.

    In his own response to the former president, President Jonathan, during his media chat last November, in effect, described Odi as a crime against humanity. When, he said, as then deputy governor of Bayelsa, himself and his boss, Diepriye Alamieyeseagha, visited Odi after the operation ordered by Obasanjo all they found were, “some dead people, mainly old women and also children. None of those militants was killed. None. So the bombardment of Odi was to solve the problem but it never solved it.”

    This raises the logical question of why the President has since persisted in using the same method against Boko Haram insurgency that he has strongly denounced as a crime against humanity. One possible answer is that for the president MEND was “us” but Boko Haram is “them.” Another and related answer is that it is against his political interest for peace to return to the North where opposition to his retention of the presidency in 2015 is likely to be strongest.

    Those, like the President, that insist on a hard-line solution to Boko Haram obviously miss the historical lesson of terrorism, even of the emergence of Boko Haram and of the apparent inability of government to destroy it. Contrary to Obasanjo’s claim of government’s failure to nip the sect in the bud, its massacre in Maiduguri in July, almost ten years to the anniversary of Odi, was predictably worse, if only because Odi is a hamlet compared to Maiduguri as Borno State’s capital.

    It is also telling that when the late President Umar Musa Yar’Adua ordered the army to put the sect down, he boasted that “The operation we have launched now will be an operation that will contain them once and for all.”

    As we are all by now painfully aware, putting down Boko Haram has been anything but a cake-walk. And no one interested in ending its terror will deny the fact that what Amnesty International described at its November 1, 2012 press conference in Abuja as “serious human rights violations carried out by the security forces in response (to Boko Haram), including enforced disappearance, torture, extra-judicial executions, the torching of houses and detention without trial,” will never work.

    Anyone who imagines that it will should take a lesson in the history of terrorism. One good place to start, as I once mentioned on these pages, is a three-page primer on the subject in The Economist of August 20, 2005. As the report pointed out in a comparative history of 19th and 20th century anarchism and contemporary jihad, just like repression did nothing to stop the former it also cannot on its own deter the latter.

    Terrorists, the magazine said in its wise editorial to the West on the subject, “…can be caught, sometimes before they have done anything terrible. That argues for excellent intelligence and police work. Perhaps their numbers can be reduced by ameliorating the grievances that lend them justification for their attacks. That argues for political action. And certainly the public needs re-assurance. That argues for honest explanation – that terrorism does not threaten any western government, that retribution, like police injustices committed in nervous haste, is likely to provoke more violence, that new restrictions are unlikely to bring new safety.”

    None of these three elements – excellent intelligence and police work, political action and honest explanation – exists in President Jonathan’s strategy for bringing an end to Boko Haram terror.

    Instead what we have, as I said on these pages in my longest piece on the subject to date (December 6, 2011), is a government that seems hell-bent on playing dangerous politics with Boko Haram.

     

    Corrections

    Last week’s piece elicited a number of reactions on factual errors it contained along, of course, with many interesting comments. I’d intended to publish them but lacked the space. I’ll do so next week, God willing, along with reactions to the piece before on the 70th birthday of General Muhammadu Buhari, former military head of state and a leading opposition figure.

     

  • Manko’s ‘rare’gesture

    Manko’s ‘rare’gesture

    This year’s New Year festivities did not go without some alluring side issues. One of them was the gesture extended to ‘suspects’ in police custody in Lagos. On New Year’s Day, Umar Manko, the Lagos State Commissioner for Police, ‘disarmed’ himself and put aside his uniform in order to cater for the needs of suspects in his custody. He transformed into a Father Christmas, dishing out food and drinks to suspects brought out from the cell of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, (SARS), at the Command Headquarters, Ikeja, Lagos.

    When asked for his comments on the unusual gesture from equally unusual quarters, Manko said the suspects deserved to celebrate the New Year like others. According to him, policing the society is not limited to crime prevention and control, but uniting people. He added that being a suspect should not deprive one the enjoyment of his fundamental human rights. Manko further said that the gesture would be extended to other suspects in police custody across the state, adding that Divisional Police Officers (DPOs) and Area Commanders (ACs) had been given instructions to that effect.

    In all, no fewer than 125 suspected robbers, kidnappers, arms dealers and receivers of stolen goods, among others, were hosted by Manko. Some of the suspects who spoke to reporters at the occasion thanked Manko for his gesture. This ‘social interaction’ between the police boss and the suspects was the first of its kind in the command’s history, and I doubt if this had happened anywhere before in the history of the Nigeria Police.

    Since he was posted to Lagos as Commissioner of Police, I have watched Manko’s activities on the sidelines with keen interest. In the first instance, I knew he must possess some outstanding qualities to deserve such a posting to a state regarded as the commercial capital of the country. In addition, Lagos is undoubtedly an irresistible attraction to criminals, which is why the government cannot toy with the issue of security.

    In my curiosity, I had inquired from some of his colleagues those qualities that stood him out as a person to police a state like Lagos. One of them, Leye Oyebade, Deputy Commissioner of Police who once called the shots at the state CID, Panti, Lagos and now with Zone 5 Police Headquarters in Benin, spoke glowingly about him. He described Manko as a peaceful, easygoing and hardworking police officer. In terms of policing, he said, the police boss is a tactician, a master strategist who can hold Lagos successfully when it comes to fighting crime and criminals wherever they are.

    Not quite after my ‘inquisition’, late last year, daredevil armed robbers struck on a bright Sunday afternoon. From Agege to Gbagada, Anthony to Mile Two to Surulere and almost everywhere, the rampaging armed robbers left their signature mark – sorrow, tears and blood. It was a day the hoodlums momentarily took over Lagos with little or no resistance from the police. Worst affected by the onslaught of the hoodlums were bureau de change operators who lost huge sums of money and some of their members to the melee that ensued.

    That ‘coordinated’ operation by the hoodlums jolted the police hierarchy. Mohammed Abubakar, the Inspector General of Police, who quickly dashed to Lagos to assess the situation, described his men as “sleeping on duty” on the fateful day. Manko, who later addressed the press, did not betray any emotions. Rather, he ordered all Divisional Police Officers, DPOs, in the command to be on their toes. He warned that any DPO who allowed criminals to have a field day in their areas of jurisdiction would be severely dealt with.

    But Manko did not stop there. He went about diligently to match his rhetoric with actions. Pronto, some members of the gang were apprehended. From there, the Compol spread his dragnet to many states outside Lagos. At the end, almost all the hoodlums who participated in that orgy of violence were reined in. This was followed by the police’ seizure of the cache of arms in the custody of the criminals. The way and manner their ‘armoury’, which included many dangerous weapons and even grenade launchers, was uncovered is a testimony to the job of a “master strategist”. Their chief ‘armourer’ or arms supplier was also taken in.

    From then on, the police boss had recorded streaks of success in his exploits against crime and criminality in the state. I am not saying that crime has totally been wiped out of Lagos, but the fact remains that wherever the call of duty demands, Manko has been able to rise to the occasion.

    However, this is not to say that only Manko deserves to be singled out for commendation for policing Lagos. Security, as we all know, is a collective responsibility. The Lagos State government has made it one of its topmost priorities to ensure the safety of lives and property in the state. Through the Security Trust Fund initiated by the state government, corporate bodies and other well-meaning individuals in the state have, through their collaboration, been sustaining the fund. This is probably why the security agencies in the state have been living up to expectations in recent times. Besides the police, there are other security agencies like the Army, the State Security Service, the Navy, Air Force and Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, to name a few. These outfits are toiling day and night to ensure the safety of lives and property in the state. The relative peace in the state is due to the synergy between them.

    But there could be a few slips here and there. If we all live to our responsibilities in the society; if we all volunteer prompt information to the security agencies; and if we don’t engage in any cover-up, whether of our neighbour, relation or even children who may have been lured into crime and criminality, the state and the country will be a better place to live in. This is because criminals live amongst us. They are not visiting ghosts from any other planets. If we turn a blind eye, they could endanger the lives of our neighbours, our relations, our friends or acquaintances, our children and even ourselves. Criminals constitute an intolerable nuisance to the society. That is why they must be exposed and stopped in their tracks at all times.

    Back to the main gist. Manko’s New Year’s gesture is a novel development. This is because suspects in police custody all over the country are usually treated as sub-human beings. Whenever a suspect is arrested, in most cases, when he appears in public, you see a half-clad person almost stripped to the pants. The suspects look unkempt. Some are battered in the course of interrogation to the point that they give up in police custody and are buried as unknown persons.

    Therefore, what Manko has demonstrated is that we should treat the unfortunate ones in our midst with human face. If this is so, perhaps, we might soon be living witnesses to a situation where the police will refrain from extra-judicial killings of suspects; where innocent people will no longer be framed up or railroaded into jail on trumped-up charges; and where policemen will not brutalise innocent people and even suspects in the name of extracting confessions from them. No doubt, this will engender a situation where policemen will respect the fundamental human rights of all regardless of status in the society.

    Manko’s gesture is worth emulating by his colleagues all over the country, many of who are known to be ‘goalkeepers’. As goalkeepers, they grab whatever money or anything that comes their way without any inclination to give to the less privileged or even their subordinates who are usually short-changed.

     

  • Cement armada? No, just drama

    Cement armada? No, just drama

    The theatrical-minded may well dub the trade tiff between Ibeto Cement Limited and the Dangote Group a play called Cement Armada.

    It is a grim drama all right, being a real-life trade scuffle between an entrenched interest and a competitor that wants to break in but feels illegitimately blocked.

    But there is certainly no armada, for if there were, cement prices could have come crashing. They have not. That therefore locates the trigger of this grim drama beyond the two corporate gladiators; and right in the other-things-being-unequal extant business atmosphere which, if not corrected, is fated to cripple everyone in the long run.

    That is the correct interpretation of this drama, which the powers-that-be must address. But first, the claims and counter-claims.

    The Dangote Group, heavy player and clear market leader in essential consumables like cement, sugar, salt, flour and pasta, fired the first salvo on 6 December 2012, when it announced it had shut down its Gboko, Benue State, cement plant; on alleged glut resulting from “dumping” of cheap cement imports, contrary to the Federal Government’s policy of complete local manufacture of cement.

    Lafarge WAPCO Cement, a co-player and once-upon-a-time market leader, has weighed in on Dangote’s side, affirming indeed imported cement was hurtful to the local manufacturers; and therefore to Nigeria’s long-term economic survival. Is this the hand of Esau and the voice of Jacob?

    Lanre Opakunle, Lafarge’s plant manager for its Ewekoro II, Ogun State, plant, certainly does not think so. He said 60, 000 tonnes of cement remain unused in the plant’s silos while 220, 000 metric tonnes of clinker, an intermediary cement product, literally chokes its factory, just like Dangote Cement’s woes of a glut of 38, 000 tonnes of cement, and lots and lots of clinker.

    Like Dangote Cement, Mr. Opakunle lamented the high energy costs, with low pour fuel oil, which has jumped from N25 a litre in 2009 to N107.76 a litre by November 2012; making a 331 per cent leap. High haulage costs, in the absence of efficient rail to truck the cement bulk, add another 20 to 25 per cent, to the price of cement, therefore pricing the product out of the reach of most.

    The dire situation could well threaten no less than 46, 000 jobs from the Dangote end alone, if Joseph Makoju, ex-WAPCO, special adviser to Aliko Dangote, president of the Dangote Group and president, Cement Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (CMAN), is to be believed. That would be horrible indeed, were it to happen, in a country already crippled by mass joblessness.

    Musibau Lawal, Lafarge WAPCO’s production manager, not unfairly links the current local cement challenges, vis-a-vis imported cement, to the comatose Nigerian local textile industry, perennially at the mercy of imported fabrics.

    With alleged cement glut in China finding a haven in the Nigerian market, he argued, a “paltry” duty of 20 per cent and a levy of 15 per cent make imported cement not only very cheap, but also an open tomb for local cement manufacturers. So? The government, he clearly suggested, must jerk up these duties.

    Fine and legitimate argument – until, of course, you ask the question: how much of cement is imported? Ibeto Cement, on whose neck the local cement manufacturing lobby is about hanging a charge of cement-import Judas, has provided an answer: 1.5 metric tonnes yearly; which it claims is less than five per cent of the Nigerian cement market.

    Again, if cement is a regional business because of its bulk, can sole importation into the South-East/South-South market, where Ibeto plays, lead to a “glut” in the whole of the country? That is doubtful, by the very illogicality of the argument. Ibeto’s import could not therefore have caused it, even if rival local manufacturers in the South-South, and to some extent, the South East, would feel short-changed by its “cheap” imports.

    So, what did? Cement is most probably over-priced because the industry is an oligopoly; and the local producing cartel is, at worst, blaring a business nationalism orchestra to keep prices up; or at best, reeling from the inclement local production weather.

    If the problem is the first, then it is most regrettable and unpatriotic, even if ironically, the cartel plays on a high-pitch patriotic orchestra. If it is however the second, that is for the government to sort out: radically improving on those key indices – power, rail, policy inconsistency, financial infrastructure – that make local production sheer hell.

    It is certainly not by goading the government to go back on its commitment to Ibeto, to rectify the 2005 unjust closure of its Bundu Ama, Rivers State factory, canonised by a judgement order of court, after free and unfettered negotiations.

    That is what WAPCO’s Mr. Lawal seems to suggest. But changing the cement-import template, from the Ibeto agreement, would do no one no good. Hiking the import duties would push up prices, and make cement even more unaffordable, with disastrous consequences for local cement. Besides, it would put the Federal Government in hot legal waters.

    Dangote and Ibeto, in the trade tiff, have stacked cards on each other to win an argument. Dangote tried to paint Ibeto as the import Judas standing between Nigeria and self-sufficiency in cement production. It also threw in the scarecrow of factory shut-downs and loss of jobs. Ibeto counters by painting Dangote as a monopolist leading a local cement cabal of oligopolists to elbow out legitimate competition. All is fair in a trade war, as Dangote is no devil any more than Ibeto is a saint.

    Ripples’ interest is strictly for upholding the right of law-abiding citizens to legitimate business opportunities in a republic erected on law. Much too long, this Federal Republic has been captive to business lobbies, and would appear quite adept at conspiring with powerful interests against the legitimate interests of other citizens who, though less powerful and influential, the government, by its oath of office, is sworn to protect.

    That would explain the Obasanjo Presidency’s reckless shutdown of the Ibeto factory in 2005 and the concerted current campaign against redressing that injustice. But at least Ibeto spoke out and decided to fight.

    Not so the late Captain Israel Ademola Haastrup, patriot and sundry investor, who quietly bore his own scars to the grave, when he died late 2012. His Haastrup Jetty in Port Harcourt, got shut down only after two years of operation in 1982 and his interests in Omega Bank got lost in a troubled Spring Bank after consolidation – because the captain believed, according to his biography Captain in the Storm of Life, authored by yours truly, that the government wanted to get at specific powerful interests which it was not man enough to face. Also his Spaceworld Airline business collapsed in the hysteria of dropping planes, while Eagle Cement, in which he had substantial interest, was also clobbered by the local cement cartel.

    Now what is a Federal Republic if it cannot guarantee its citizens equal and equitable opportunities under the law? That is the crux of this cement drama.

     

  • Be a man Jonathan, own up

    Be a man Jonathan, own up

    A colleague told me recently that he met repentant Niger Delta militant Asari Dokubo in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia during last year’s or 2011 hajj operation (can’t remember which year now) and their discussion naturally veered into politics and the comrade was at his vintage best.

    Dokubo he said wasn’t happy with what he perceived as the discriminatory way Muslims from the north treat their southern counterparts and would therefore not go to the north in the run up to the 2015 presidential election to campaign to them on behalf of President Goodluck Jonathan. He would rather do his campaign for the president in the south and leave others to handle the north.

    While one is not in a position to verify the alleged position of El Hadj Asari Dokubo on northern Muslims, one can safely say at this moment that the man is not likely to campaign for Jonathan’s 2015 presidential project anywhere in Nigeria or even outside. He is simply fed up with the lackluster performance of the president and he has in all intent and purpose told the man to count him out of his second (or is it third?) presidential bid and carry his own cross.

    His grouse with the president is simple. Jonathan he opined has failed to live up to expectation and deliver on his promises. And he (Dokubo) an Ijaw man like Jonathan can not in good conscience go before the rest of Nigeria to canvass support for him for another term. What would he tell them or us?

    Expectedly the President’s attack dogs saw Dokubo’s comment as an attempt to derail their principal’s fresh presidential bid and have spared no word in condemning the ex militant. They called it bad belle, that the man was annoyed that the president had refused to renew his multi-million-dollar security contract for the protection of oil pipelines in Rivers State against theft/vandalisation.

    Recall that the presidency sometime ago discreetly awarded multi-million-dollar pipeline protection contracts to ex. Niger Delta militants covering the oil facilities in Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers States and environs. Many, including this writer saw it as a nepotistic gesture on the part of Jonathan to settle his own people, buy their support and loyalty (for 2015) and reward criminality. The contracts to Asari Dokubo, Ateke Tom, Gens. Boyloaf and Tompolo were not made public by the government until a foreign news agency scooped on it and revealed the details to the world. In criticizing the deal then, one had argued that it was not likely to deter fresh attack by militants in the region on oil facilities there, as those outside the loop of beneficiaries would see any successful attack on the oil facilities as a way of telling the president that they also want a piece of the pie.

    Recent pipeline attacks, oil thefts and piracy in Rivers and Bayelsa States have affirmed this position while the jury is still out on the success or otherwise of the contract awarded to Tompolo for pipeline protection in Delta State.

    As an aside, it is good to note that Tompolo is carving a new image for himself by veering into humanitarianism using the money he made from militancy and the pipeline protection contract to set up a foundation to take care of the less privileged in the society.

    If the pipeline protection contract was meant to shut Dokubo and co up and buy their loyalty, it failed and it remains to be seen whether the termination of his own contract was punishment for being critical of government or failure to secure the pipelines. What is clear however, is that the president is using a multi-prong approach to buy his way into the heart and mind of the society instead of working/warming his way into society through performance, to secure majority support from Nigerians for his 2015 project.

    If Jonathan wants to re-contest in 2015 he is free to and he should be bold and man enough to say so instead of beating about the bush and looking for scapegoats among critics of his abysmal performance.

    While he is denying interest in the next presidential election for now, it is no secret that he wants another shot at the presidency and his foot soldiers are already on the field trying to hoodwink us into buying a bad and failed product. It is in this light that one would want to view the half-hearted denial of any link to the Jonathan for 2015 posters now all over Abuja, by the presidency, as another of the character weaknesses of President Goodluck Jonathan. What is he afraid of? As the saying goes man dies only but once, but cowards die many times before their death.

    It is a matter of yes or no for Nigerians in case he decides to throw his hat into the ring and the earlier he throws his hat in there or keep it with wife Patience the better, instead of accusing imaginary enemies of trying to distract his attention or derail his programmes with the Abuja posters and similar campaigns for his 2015 project currently being carried out through proxies.

    From his first day in the White House, it was clear President Barack Obama was going to seek a second term barring any catastrophe and even when the US economy was wobbling and unemployment rising he was still able to convince his party and the rest of America that he remains the best man for the job. And they obliged him with a second term, but not without anything tangible to show as achievement. He was proud to point at his bailout package for the auto industry that saved millions of jobs and affirmed his commitment to strengthening the middle class, even as he vowed to extract more tax from the very wealthy Americans who constitute 2 per cent of the American society.

    These with a combination of other factors including the killing of world renowned terrorist Osama bin Laden won him a second term even when the situation on ground economically was so grim that were the times to be different or his opponent Mitt Romney better, he would have been rejected.

    Pray, as bad as things are in the country today, especially the deteriorating security situation, is there anything or a combination of things that Jonathan has done well for us to deserve another term even if he is entitled to it?

    I am sure it is this fear of what do I tell them that is driving the man into using third parties to sell his second term ambition while publicly denying them. We know the trick Mr President, you don’t need to hide behind one finger. If truly you or your people are not behind the Abuja posters and similar subtle campaigns for your 2015 project why don’t you direct that the posters be put down or ignore them? Why are you labouring to convince us you knew nothing about the posters? Conventional wisdom dictates that when someone tries strenuously to convince the other person or a people about his own position, the likelihood of lies somewhere in the explanation should not be ruled out.

    What has been lacking in Jonathan since fate put him at the helm first in Bayelsa State and now at the Presidential Villa in Abuja is a firm, strong and decisive character who knows his onions and ready to act at all times in the best interest of Nigeria and not given to nepotistic tendencies.

    It’s been argued rightly or wrongly that part of the weaknesses of his character is his inability to rein in the alleged excesses of his Ijaw kinsmen both within and outside the government. Not that his predecessors were any better or his critics would behave differently in this regard, but because of his level of education Nigerians expect a much better performance from him.

    One can go on and on pointing at his character flaws, but what we as Nigerians are not, as Jonathan probably thinks we are, is that we are no fools. We know where his going and we are waiting for him. And as we like to say here, he should not tell us a dog is a monkey.