The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Investing in people: A senator’s example

    I clearly remember not paying much attention as my room-mate ranted about having to meet his relatives anytime he had to pay his school fees. In my mind, I could not comprehend having to meet relatives anytime I needed money as a student. According to Tonye, that is my room-mate’s name, he needed the financial support of several different ‘uncles’ and ‘aunts’ to enable him remain in school as a student. I had always envied how he carried along, doggedly pursuing his academics despite his financial challenges which was all too glaring. While other students had spare cash to involve in luxuries of parties, eating choice foods, even if for a while and engaging in frolicking, Tonye never participated in that. He was too busy chasing his sustenance.

    However, I thank God that Tonye has since qualified as an electrical engineer and now works with a multinational. He now lives the good life but as I reminisce, I can’t help but wonder at what would have been Tonye’s fate if he didn’t have ‘benefactors’. Or the fates of some others like him who were not so fortunate?

    It is in this vein I’m saluting the intervention of Senator Magnus Abe who represents Rivers South-East Senatorial District in the National Assembly. While I have not benefitted directly from his largesse, as someone who I have been following my heart goes out to all the indigent students which he helps in providing good education for. And for that, I believe he should be commended.

    In a recent discussion of philanthropists, especially concerning education, his name kept bobbing up. There is a wise saying that goes thus: ‘Give a man a fish and you’ve fed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you have fed him for life.’ By giving indigent students opportunity to get an education is like sowing a seed – the result which is mostly bountifully. That exactly seems to be case of senator Abe’s involvement in education.

    As a lawyer, Senator Abe definitely understands the reason for being not only lettered but also ‘learned.’ Hence, I find it not particularly surprising that he has invested in the educational lives of members of his constituency. As part of his 2012 constituency projects, he commenced construction of two primary schools in his constituency, located in Rumusoya community in Oyigbo and Sogho community in Khana Local Government Areas of Rivers State.

    Also, Senator Abe procured Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) forms for 378 indigent students. Till date, 567 stdents have befitted from the scheme which started in 2011/2012 with 189 students. He also paid the school fees of indigent final year students from his constituency in institutions across Rivers State. Benefitting from this were about 320 students drawn from the University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State University of Science and Technology, University of Education, Rumuolumeni and Polytechnic Bori.

    Not forgetting students aspiring to becoming his professional colleague, Senator Abe also gave scholarships to 40 students to proceed to the Nigerian Law School. Being in touch with ordinary folks, he surely understands that funds could be stumbling blocks for many of them realising their goals of becoming lawyers. Surely, beneficiaries of his scheme won’t forget him in a hurry.

    And recently, Senator Abe pledged to push for a laboratory for the Department of Anatomy in the university through the National Assembly. Definitely, the man knows the import of education.

    Apart from doling our money to students for their needs, Senator Abe also listens to them, coming down to their level. Watching him at a parley, I couldn’t help but admire how he engaged the students in discourse. While campaigning to be senator, he had promised to intervene in the area of education. It is noteworthy that he is living up to his words.

    Also, since becoming a senator, he has beamed concern for the mangrove Niger Delta environment. And knowing that fishing, which is the traditional occupation of his people is under threat by reckless oil prospecting he, as Chairman, Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), in conjunction with the federal government, is instituting a better oil production process. This is commendable as it prevents environmental degradation.

    And to encourage the fishermen in Oyorokoto community of Andoni Local Government, Senator Abe donated fishing gear to fishermen in the area. The gear included 100 safety vest, fishing nets, marine twines, assorted crayfish nets, anchors and marine ropes.

    Of course, while it is not directly in his schedule to canvass for such level of developments, methinks the senator is on the right path. Personally, I think it is worthy to having a lawmaker who not only influences law to suit his people and by extension, many others, but one who is concerned with even the ‘mundane’ of procuring funds for his constituency members to access a better life.

    At the moment, the rumour-mill has it that, on the behest of people, he plans on going back to the senate for another term. Surely, while I think others can aspire to that position, I must concur that Senator Abe is indeed loved by the people as his praise is being sung in nooks and crannies of his constituency. And from what I gather, the senator has a genuine love for his people, a love seemingly reciprocated.

    For these reasons, Senator Abe would do good to continue to throw his hat in the ring in the race to be part of the nation’s highest lawmaking organ. Should he win, that victory will not be for him but for the whole of Rivers South-East Senatorial District because unlike some other political aspirants in our clime, Senator Magnus Abe is indeed a man of the people.

    • Nwinee writes from Port-Harcourt

  • A President’s endless distractions

    A President’s endless distractions

    There is no end to some people’s malevolence.

    If  they could not give Dr Goodluck Jonathan another jet plane to add to the burgeoning Presidential Fleet, or a cassava plantation to supply the raw material for his favourite breakfast loaf, or a pond for breeding fish for the gourmet pepper soup that is the best accompaniment for cassava bread, or a shipload of his accustomed beverage, couldn’t they at least have said a perfunctory “Happy New Year” to him and carried on with their lives of desperation?

    Or, since he is scholar and an intellectual, they could have presented him with a basket of books carefully selected from the best-seller lists of the leading trade journals.

    Instead, in the dead of night as 2012 faded into history and 2013 was emerging from the womb time, they slunk out of their malignant dens and painted the entire Abuja, government buildings not excepted, with election campaign posters warning those who might be thinking of challenging Dr Jonathan in the 2015 presidential race to perish the thought.

    “2015: No vacancy in Aso Rock in 2015,” the posters, bearing a portrait of a half amazed and half bemused Dr Jonathan in his trademark fedora, proclaim sententiously.

    Anticipating the querulous who might be led to ask why there would be no vacancy in Aso Rock, the poster declares: “One good term deserves another.”

    A grand distraction – in fact, I am almost prepared to call it the Mother of all Distractions – this malevolent, cantankerous, and unpatriotic NewYear present to Dr Jonathan.

    Dr Jonathan is of course no stranger to distraction. In fact, distraction has been his constant companion since he took office. Well before he could spell out the details of his much anticipated Transformation Agenda, Boko Haram launched a campaign of indiscriminate murder, its object being to destabilise the Administration as a first step to setting up an Islamic Republic in Nigeria.

    When the Transformation Agenda finally got under way, it quickly fell victim to the mass protests that broke out across the nation, following termination of gasoline subsidies that had virtually paralysed the economy. The protesters and their manipulators could not see that only a few privileged persons were profiting from the pernicious subsidy, and that ending it was in the public’s best interest.

    For the nine days the protests lasted, Dr Jonathan was so distracted that he lost track of the Transformation Agenda altogether.

    Then followed yet another distraction, from Dr Jonathan’s village, of all places. The Italian contractor Gitto Construziani, I gather, had refurbished the old village church in Otuoke from its own abundance and in the finest tradition of social responsibility and corporate good citizenship.

    But Dr Jonathan’s political adversaries claimed that he had knowingly solicited a gift from a contractor doing business with the Federal Government, and that at the very least, the whole thing was shot through and through with conflict of interest, if not actual sleaze. Some have even gone so far as to demand his impeachment or resignation, or both.

    Even the elements conspired to add to the distraction. Raging floods swept away tracks laid for the nation’s first bullet train, paralysed newly commissioned power plants, washed away vast farmlands bursting with the first fruit of the agricultural revolution Dr Jonathan had initiated, and destroyed thousands of silos chockfull of grain and other produce

    What Dr Jonathan has now been confronted with, however, has got to be, as I was saying, the Mother of all Distractions.

    Instead of focusing with his accustomed laser intensity on the plans and programmes and projects he has drawn up to make 2013 our annus mirabilis, he has to waste precious time and resources disowning the election posters and dissociating himself from a project that is not even a part of his iconic Transformation Agenda.

    The people behind the posters do not wish Dr Jonathan and Nigeria well. They fear that if he is allowed free rein to transform Nigeria, they will cease to have any political relevance. For they cannot say they are coming to transform what has already been transformed.

    Hence their strategy: Keep him so busy denying that 2015 is on his mind that he will not be able to pursue the Transformation Agenda with vigour. Then seize on that failure to pre-empt his candidacy, and thus send him packing out of Aso Rock…

    Some gullible people whom we shall always have among us seem to believe that Dr Jonathan had fore-knowledge of this diabolical scheme and might even have endorsed it.

    If they need indissoluble proof that Dr Jonathan did not have and could not have had anything to do with it, however remotely, they need look no farther than the contemptuous manner in which some of the posters were displayed.

    A good many of them were wrapped around refuse bins or posted on dumpsters. Are the malevolent elements behind the campaign not thereby saying that any ambition Dr Jonathan might be nursing for 2015 is destined to end up in dust bin?

    Assuming – just for the sake of argument – that Dr Jonathan is interested in running for re-election in 2015, can it be supposed that he would denigrate his own aspiration in this manner? Not even his most implacable critics have ever accused him of masochism.

    The Jonathan we know is a sportsman in the pristine sense of that term.He loves genuine competition, and he is so secure in his person that losing means nothing to him. When he plays squash, he tells his opponents at every opportunity: “Don’t be coy. Defeat me if you can.”

    Contrast this, if you will, with your typical president whose unspoken message to the fellow across the net is: “You think you are smart? Defeat me if you dare.”

    Is the Dr Jonathan we know the kind of leader, then, to resort to a tawdry poster campaign to pre-empt a challenge in a race that will not even come up until 2015?

    Proxies of the agents of distraction have been going round asking why Dr Jonathan has not unleashed the forces of national security to smoke out those behind the poster campaign if it is true that he knows nothing about it and if he is genuinely distressed by it.

    The more despicable among them are asking whether it is mere coincidence that Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State has been buying acres of space in the newspapers to proclaim, just when the “No Vacancy” posters surfaced in Abuja, that he does not intend to seek the office of President, has never harboured such an intention, and never will harbor it.

    Persons of this diabolical cast of mind forger that Nigeria is now a constitutional democracy where freedom of speech and of press is guaranteed in equal measure to the ambitious and the unambitious, and even to agents of distraction. They forget that the days of authoritarian rule, of government by decree, are gone forever. They want to goad Dr Jonathan into playing Goliath.

    They will do well to remember that he did not become President and has not remained in that exalted office by submitting to blackmail of any stripe.

    The distraction must stop forthwith… Collectively, we must say to them, with the utmost indignation: Enough. Let President Jonathan be. Leave him alone so that he can devote all his energies to accomplishing the urgent task of National Transformation.

     

    Correction

    The historian Segun Osoba has written that he was not present at the 1989 Guardian Lecture I referred to in my December 18, 2012,column (“Omoruyi: A scholar’s lament”), and could not therefore have reacted in the manner I described.

    I and a Guardian staffer monitoring the audience must have mistaken a look-alike for him.

    My regrets.

     

  • David versus Goliath (The cement war)

    David versus Goliath (The cement war)

    Lanre Opakunle, Plant Manager of Lafarge WAPCO’s Lakatabu Ewekoro plant in Ogun State gave rather insightful contribution on the raging controversy as to the cause(s) of the so-called-cement glut over which Dangote Cement had drawn the shutters on its Gboko Cement plant. (See The Nation December 31, page 6). It could not have been better timed given the raging low intensity corporate warfare between Dangote Cement and Ibeto Cement, the fringe player now accused of flooding the local cement with imported cement.

    No doubt, the Lafarge chieftain helped put, in perspective, the problems plaguing indigenous industrialists. Unfortunately also, he left a gaping window on what I consider a troubling aspect of the corporate behaviour of our indigenous venture capitalists. I shall return to that later.

    Let me attempt a summary of the views of the Lafarge chieftain on the rage over the so-called glut in the cement said to be a grave threat to the multibillion-dollar investment in the industry.

    First, he confirmed the glut, which he attributed to the increase in local production of cement and the continued importation of subsidised cement. Secondly, he acknowledged – and I consider this important – the problem of low sales and high inventory – the logical consequence of weak and ineffective demand. While admitting the cyclic nature of demand for cement, he could not understand why sales have not lifted since the onset of the so-called peak season.

    His words are particularly instructive: “the market was dull during the rainy season. The current period is supposed to be the peak of production and demand. But the reverse is the case as there is no demand. It means something is wrong. About 220,000 tonnes of clinker are on ground, not being used…Most of our workers are roaming. Ninety percent of our trailers are idle. We are operating at less than 50 percent capacity. The cost of production is high. Our plants are experiencing challenges…Once the place is filled up, we have no choice but to shut down”.

    Unfortunately, he would in the same vein lapse into the same deliberate misdiagnosis of the problem – the issue of the so-called glut arising from the influx of cheap, substandard foreign cement. He would bemoan the fact that cement importation has continued despite the glut in the local market, a situation he says, “calls into question, the backward integration policy of the federal government”.

    Some of course would argue that it comes to no issue that two foremost players in the industry – Dangote Cement and Lafarge WAPCO – have found a common enemy in Ibeto on which to hang all of the problems facing the industry. I started this by referring to what I consider a troubling aspect of the corporate behaviour of our indigenous venture capitalists. The point I seek to make is that the near paranoid anti-competition instincts of the typical local venture capitalist has never been given the attention it truly deserves. Given their grave implications for our trade and market practices, I think the time to beam attention to these practices has come.

    Lest I be mistaken, I have not sought to understate the problems of the industry or even industries generally. The problems are real as to be indisputable. And as I have always argued on this page, the local industry needs all the muscle that a federal government can give by way of tariff walls, duty waivers, and other forms of direct incentives to make them truly competitive. But then, the question that most Nigerians have not bothered to ask is where will the Dangotes of this world, the Lafarges and other thriving multinationals without the hefty support in the first place? And should they be allowed to deny others the use of the same ladder with which they rose to their pre-eminent positions?

    The point therefore is that the so-called survival quest of the local venture capitalist must be balanced by considerations of consumer interest. Year in, year out, we read of billions of naira declared as profits to shareholders – nothing wrong as that is what keeps business going. Of course, we do know that the other leg of what keep businesses going is the ability of the consumer to make a purchase. At this time, no one seems to bother. And the future: to get as many players as possible on board and hence unlock the vice-like grip of the current players on the industry.

    How many Nigerians can afford to buy a 50kg bag of cement at the ruling price of nearly N2000? Given the reality of declining disposable incomes, the answer would seem obvious: fewer and fewer Nigerians. Where is the housing industry in which the industry is expected to make its bumper sales? Or even the construction industry?

    But more pertinent is whether the price actually represents the best price in the circumstances? To start with, it is doubtful that many Nigerians would agree; even more doubtful is that government will agree going by its tepid attempt in the past to get the producers to bring down the price. The problems of the industry are certainly not new; the problems affect the cement manufacturers as indeed other players in the economy. The yarn about the influx of foreign cement is obviously designed to court the sympathy of Nigerians. Of course, with the prospects of another factory closing shop at a time of high unemployment, government’s back would expectedly be on the wall.

    However, the larger issues remain. Clearly, the suspicion has lingered that the pricing regime is sustained by the current structure of the industry – which permits the existence of a few dominant players, a situation which effectively renders the consumer a price taker. The emerging oligopoly should ordinarily be troubling in an industry where the consumer should ordinarily be king. But more troubling is the failure of the government to anticipate the possibility of collusion and other anti-competition practices in the absence of anti-trust legislations.

    Above all, we must shudder at the one-sided equity in which few manufacturers would enjoy some incentives while denying others the same; clearly, the Santa Claus image of government as one that dispenses favour to operators by the rule of the thumb, or one that is aligned to special interests, must be deplored.

    I need to make the additional point that the so-called war is not about the cement consumer. It is about access to the Nigerian gravy – the winner-takes-all industry where only the fittest survive. The consumer is only a hapless bystander in a game they are programmed to lose. So we watch. And enjoy.

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  • Yar’Adua’s ghost

    Yar’Adua’s ghost

    Those who heaved a glorious sigh when former President Umar Yar’Adua passed on should rethink. Don’t gloat quietly. We have not slain his ghost forever. In the words of Poet Dylan Thomas, he has not gone “gentle into that good night.”

    The past few months point to his “rage against the dying of the light.” His meek and gentle soul is squirming in his grave. He haunts us from the soft earth of Katsina where his body was swathed in cloth and domiciled forever.

    His ghost – or ghosts – hovers over us with subliminal vigour. Unlike other personages, Yar’Adua translated at death into many ghosts. The ghost of succession, the ghost of the cabal, the ghost of the doctrine of necessity, the ghost of acting or not acting president, the ghost of ethnic divide and north-south infighting, the ghost as intriguer.

    When he was sick, he was a Lazarus who died and came back to life. Like in the book of Genesis, when the serpent seduces Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, Yar’Adua “shall not surely die.” And the nation, ever facile to the theatre of the absurd, embraced it all, shivering with a sadistic thrill at all the actions, tensions, climaxes and anti-climaxes.

    When he was buried and succumbed to the era of the shoeless maestro, we only had a short respite before he reminded us that our leaders are not always dead but they follow our scent. Hence, in all our histories, we even deified our dead, especially in Yorubaland. Enter Ogun. Enter Oya. Enter Sango. Exit mortality.

    He is not in the throes of the presidency today, but we see his ghosts in five states already, roiling and tormenting the governors. They include Kogi, Kaduna, Taraba, Enugu and Cross River. In each of these states, the troubles of the last days of Yar’Adua are alive and well.

    As I write, Governor Danbaba Suntai of Taraba State, Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu State and Governor Liyel Imoke of Cross River are abroad for medical reasons. Governor Patrick Yakowa died in an unfortunate air disaster, while Governor Idris Wada escaped death in a fatal accident that lapped up his ADC. He sustained leg injuries and may be confined to the wheelchair for about half a year. All of these instances evoke the constitutional fever that dramatise our lack of faith in the glory of the rule of law. They also expose our political class for not transcending the puerile antics and feline manoeuvres of the intriguer.

    Last week, Governor Suntai’s media team wired us a picture of the governor with his wife and newly delivered twins. Since pictures don’t lie, the message was clear: all those (shall we say cabal?) who are hankering for his position on the pretext that he suffers brain damage and could not assume the post of governor again are baying for constitutional blood. The man is alive, they tell us, and capable of taking up the task when he resumes soon.

    Is that Yar’Adua in the Suntai guise? Remember the story of the broadcast from Germany? Yar’Adua’s voice became the subject of acoustic analysts. Was it his voice? Was his voice faint, a feint, or ruddy, or technologically enhanced? Some are doing same to Suntai’s picture. At home, some politicians are already in the labyrinths of manoeuvres, trying to outdo each other in case the man is unable to return fully to this job.

    In Enugu State, we have received a welter of news reports and rumours. A recent one has it that, just like in the late president’s time, Chime was expected to return to stave off impeachment woes before December 31 last year. Many people waited in vain. There were also reports of his death, which were denied. Both sides fuel such reports: those who want to prop their man and those who would oust him.

    Governor Wada announced, with a hint of patriotic vainglory, that he did not want any treatment abroad. But political players in the state say it was more out of survival. The man may see live ghosts around him already, like those of rival Echocho and legislators against whom he scored dubious victory over the leadership of the state house of assembly. He would rather limp at home or chafe in a wheelchair or snuggle in the humble succour of a local hospital than risk the omen of plotters plodding their way to his throne while he recovers in a foreign land. Yar’Adua was not well when he stole back into the country even if he could not resume his office.

    Imoke’s story, like Wada’s, is still in sedate waters apparently, and his votaries are calming nerves in public. Like the early days of Yar’Adua, subversive tongues are either not wagging or are muted by mischief-makers jockeying for his power.

    The most potent is the Yakowa story. Here the man dies but the state suddenly reminds us of the primordial temper bisecting Kaduna State: Christian versus Muslim, Hausa-Fulani versus others, northern Kaduna versus south.

    That was the tension that whirled up the Yar’Adua story as the so-called cabal wanted to avert a Jonathan presidency because of his southern roots and Christian beliefs. In Yar’Adua’s case, he died and a southerner came to power. In Kaduna, the northern, Muslim and Hausa-Fulani man took over. Just as Jonathan felt slighted as the number two man, Yakowa’s successor confessed openly to the contempt with which some members of Yakowa’s cabinet fiddled with him in his days as second fiddle.

    Who says we cannot see the ghosts of the late president at work? In all, we see that the political class is impatient with the law, and would want to force things. Power is a great aphrodisiac, and those with a will would grasp and beaver away to get it.

    We should shun the sense of ill grace on both sides: those in power who would not leave and those outside grasping desperately to outplay incumbents.

    The law is clear, but those who are sick love to squeeze the last out of their health until nature’s ultimate triumph either in their favour when they survive or against them when they are permanently incapacitated or die.

    So when we thought that Yar’Adua had gone, we are reminded of what Mark Twain wrote: “Stories of my death are greatly exaggerated.” We also remember the great Azikiwe, when he was rumoured to have passed on. Ever a man of theatre, the Owelle of Onitsha quipped, “I am not in a hurry to leave this planet.”

    When we invoke past leaders’ ghosts, it is often for ugly things. A decade ago, Adam Hoschfield wrote a book titled, King Leopold’s Ghost about the Congo in the colonial era. King Leopold, whom a historian described as a “big-minded man in an insignificant kingdom,” turned the Congo into a vast slave land of miners to enrich Belgium. His ghost is invoked today because the mines inflict wars, hunger and other tragedies of the place today.

    It is not to our credit that this is how Yar’Adua comes to memory, over our contempt for simple laws. But Yar’Adua fights back to jolt us to respect law and show decency, virtues of which he was a victim both from the machinations of those who fought for him and against him.

    But Yar’Adua will not go until we rise above such malicious folly. United States President George Washington in his last days told his physician, “Doctor, I die hard, but I am not afraid to go.” Yar’Adua is like Duncan’s ghost in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, when the usurper Banquo exclaims to the ghost: “Avaunt and quit my sight. Let the earth hide thee, thy bone is marrowless and thy blood is cold.”

    We need a political sacrifice to Yar’Adua, and that is a rise from our puerile politics to the dignity of law and order. When Socrates was dying, he said, “I owe a cock to Asclepius, do not forget to pay.”

    The sacrifice we owe is a fidelity to the constitution. Then Yar’Adua can have an eternal rest.

    As comedian Bill Cosby noted, the past is a ghost and the future is a dream. When Yar’Adua rests, we can follow our dream. Which means the ghost is not Yar’Adua but us. When we do right, the ghost goes; when wrong, it appears.

  • A New Nigerian nation

    A New Nigerian nation

    President Goodluck Jonathan has in the last two weeks, been speaking on his vision for Nigeria this year. Apart from making lofty promises on development projects that will usher in employment and create wealth, he also touched on other non-tangible variables upon which real progress of this country will ultimately predicate.

    This was encapsulated in his new vision of Nigeria where everybody will be involved in the task of nation building. For him, Nigerians should brace up for the task of nation-building as the task of developing the country should not be left to the government alone. He would want us to celebrate the New Year with higher emphasis on national unity, peace, stability and progress above other considerations.

    Though this exhortation is not entirely new, it touched on some of the irreducible decimals for our continued survival as a nation. We can therefore ignore the central thesis of this presentation at a great peril. This is especially so at this stage of our national life where fissiparous and centrifugal tendencies have increasingly posed the greatest obstacles to development.

    There is a consensus that we must vigorously address the debilitating challenges of our national development for us to survive as a people. The fact that we have continued to trail on the ladder of development indicators despite the enormous resources at our disposal suggests that there are certain issues of our national existence we are yet to get right. And until we meaningfully and realistically identify and address them, this country will continue to falter.

    It is not enough to be a naturally endowed country. It is also not sufficient that we are an oil producing country reaping bountifully from its competitive price in the international market. These are not sufficient to launch us into the orbit of greatness. After all, there are countries doing pretty well in terms of development even without such a comparative advantage.

    That seems to be the central issue thrown up by Jonathan when he urged every Nigerian to be involved in the task of nation building and not to leave it for the government alone. It must be stated that nation building and national development do not essentially connote the same meanings. Whereas national development is a more embracing terminology that even encapsulates nation building, the latter involves the psychological reorientation of the citizens to inculcate in them, a sense of common national identity. It seeks to construct a common sense of belonging, cohesion and identity from the disparate, centrifugal and plural interests that compete for the loyalty of the citizens. In our case, it seeks to build a Nigerian out of the various ethnic and religious groups that have been the greatest sources of national disloyalty. When we achieve that, we will no longer see ourselves as Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba or Ijaw. We will begin to identify ourselves as Nigerians; the same way an American sees himself as an America wherever he finds himself.

    It is our inability to forge this common sense of national identity that has in the main, been the greatest obstacle to our national growth and development. Jonathan’s call on all to be involved in the daunting task of nation building is an admission of the inherent difficulty in achieving national development without forging a common sense of national unity and identity. That has been the greatest undoing of this country and its manifestations are palpable in all aspects of our national life. That is why successes in great national endeavors are usually appraised along the confines of how best they satisfied primordial and sectional predilections.

    That is why today, ethnic and religious cleavages rather than waning have further reinforced with greater ferocity, posing the greatest threat to the very foundation of this country. It is the same reason that has been largely responsible for the bitter competition for political power at the center. Today, politics is all about what accrues to the various ethnic groups through their elected members. Religion and ethnicity are in constant struggle with the state for the loyalty of the citizens.

    There is no way meaningful development can be achieved with such disorientation among the citizenry. That is why some sections of the country are talking of regional development and integration. The propelling force of this thinking is rooted in the loss of faith in the capacity of the Nigerian state as presently constituted, to fast-track even and balanced development of the constituent units.

    Incidentally, certain policies of our federal order such as skewed federal structure and residency factor have not helped matters. They have variously worked in the direction of alienating the people from that common sense of national identity direly needed for national progress. Curiously, the elite are the greatest purveyors of these destabilizing tendencies. Tribalism or ethnicity manifest as soon as there are spoils of our common patrimony to be shared. It is an elite commodity that most often does not tally with the feelings of the common people at the grassroots. But the elite take quick resort to it in their quest to gain undue advantage over others. Any genuine effort at nation building must start by whittling down the overbearing influence of ethnicity and religion in the nation’s body politic.

    It is the same trend that accounts for the devious successes the Boko Haram religious sect has been recording in its self-assigned militant agenda. It is difficult to talk of nation building in the face of the obstacle to it which that sect represents. Jonathan was right in arguing that nation building should involve all Nigerians.

    But there are structural changes that must be effected for quick progress to be recorded in this direction. Our defective federal structure is one. Residency factor is another. A situation the federal government literally controls life and death in this country through the excessive powers at its disposal is an obvious obstacle to nation building. Devolution will go a long way in reducing the acrimony that go with power struggles at the centre. With it, the constituent units will be more creative and focus more of their creative talents on how to elevate the living standards of their people through harnessing resources of comparative advantage.

    It is also a discredit to nation building that we are yet to settle the controversy surrounding the residency factor. A country that discriminates in employment matters and the enjoyments of the rights that go with citizenship because of state of origin cannot hope to forge a common sense of identity from it. Today many states prefer to employ foreigners instead of skilled Nigerians from other states. In some others those that were employed several years back have been sacked for no justifiable reason than they hailed from other states. And we want to build a nation out of this ruinous practice.

    These and other inequities of our federal structure are matters to be addressed for Jonathan to approximate nation building of his dream. Good enough some of the identified challenges are currently before the national assembly for possible amendment. Jonathan should identify with such amendments if he is serious on the matter.

  • Too much money chasing too much frivolity

    Too much money chasing too much frivolity

    Between them, three women have partitioned Nigeria into an overbearing and scheming country. It is doubtful whether the three – Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (Finance), Stella Oduah(Aviation) and Diezani Alison-Madueke(Petroleum) – do so deliberately. But by their policies, and the vociferous arguments they summon to drive them, the country’s fate seems sealed, at least under President Goodluck Jonathan. The situation was probably not better under Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s presidency, but in those days it was at least difficult to determine where Obasanjo’s overbearingness began and where the conceitedness of his appointees ended. We groped in that fogginess for eight years to 2007 assured that some sort of balance could be conjured by nature itself. Nature, we convinced ourselves, abhorred imbalance. But under Jonathan, there is no fog anywhere, nor is nature keen to intervene.

    For a moment, let us put aside the policy parade of the Finance and Petroleum ministers, and instead concern ourselves with the Aviation minister, who is on some sort of rampage. It is of course mere co-incidence that the three ministers are from the Southeast/South-South. Their power and influence – some say dominance – is probably not due to their states or regions of origin. They are influential partly because of their intellects and mostly because of their personalities. When it comes to the debate over finance and poverty, have you ever tried to convince the highly opinionated Okonjo-Iweala that the square of the longest side hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides? Forget it; it’s a lost cause. No matter how right you are, she is even righter. If you draw the sword of Pythagoras, she will counter with the shield of Euclid. And you would be lucky to get in a word when she is declaiming on any topic.

    Diezani (I mean no disrespect; her first name, which is not common, is simpler to use than her hyphenated surname) is probably the most oratorical of the three, and certainly the most dashing. What degree of persuasiveness she loses by way of conjured or ambiguous facts and figures, especially when she is put to task by the National Assembly and the querulous long-suffering public, she makes up for by way of sheer verbal profundity. It is always an unequal combat when a brilliant but not fluent speaker meets an eloquent exaggerator who can manage to pay occasional homage to logic. Whereas the Finance minister undermines your statistics and makes you doubt the sources of your figures, the Petroleum minister overwhelms you with her rolling words and glacial composure, thawing only sparingly to remind you of her humanity, nay, femininity. Neither of the two ministers is ever able to convince anyone about the fidelity of the facts and figures coming from the two ministries, whether as they concern poverty and the application of fiscal tools to regenerate the economy, or as they concern fuel consumption or the so-called subsidy regime.

    Of the three, however, Oduah, who is the main focus of this piece today, appears to be the most daring and enterprising, and perhaps the most energetic. By dint of her obtrusion, she has managed to raise the status of the Aviation ministry from a sedate, backroom bureaucracy to a frontline and, if we should borrow a phrase from modern analysts, cutting-edge organisation. As her obtrusiveness during electioneering showed, when she made the so-called Neighbour-to-Neighbour unit of the Jonathan campaign organisation a powerful instrument propelled by delicate and indecipherable financial engineering, she has a knack for turning water to wine, and turning a molehill to a mountain. Left alone in the Aviation ministry, as the Jonathan government seems increasingly bent on doing, she could soon begin imagining the prospect of developing a rocketry department in the ministry with the objective of putting a Nigerian on the moon, if not next year, then the year after. Her imagination is so fecund that, like God observed of human beings at the Tower of Babel (Gen 11), whatever she proposes to do she was likely to accomplish. But of course I exaggerate, for Oduah’s fecundity is neither profound nor without a terrible price.

    During the 2011 electioneering, Oduah knew how to get things done. She has transferred that talent and energy to her present assignment. Somehow, she does not seem to be discomfited by lack of funds. She is renovating, modernising, and in some instances, expanding the airports in the country, of course, in phases. And from all evidence, and by frequent fliers’ testimonies, she is doing the renovation to taste. But that exercise, as salutary as it seems, jars against a sensible consideration of the economics of airports. Might the renovation not be an unsupportable elevation of aesthetics over functionality? Ghana’s Kotoka Airport is not as fascinating as Murtala Mohammed International Airport, but it is better maintained, better utilised, friendlier to travellers, and there is always a general sense of sanity and safety in its precincts. I won’t push this point, however, for Nigerians, high and low, are eternally fond of the meretricious.

    Oduah speaks interminably about grandness in the aviation sector without a correspondingly grand and realistic paradigm to support her dreams. She wants at least one International Airport comparable with the best in the world. But in which aspect of Nigerian leadership is there anything comparable with the best in the world? Is it in observance of the constitution? What of the justice system, education, politics, healthcare, and all other human development indicators? This objectionable lack of realism, as personified by Oduah’s approach to aviation matters, is discernible in the attitudes of Nigerian leaders to the construction of State Houses, legislative complexes, official residential quarters, and the headquarters of some powerful ministries, departments and agencies. Oduah’s comparable airport terminal will pander to our outsized ego, and nothing more.

    Perhaps the most disagreeable policy to come from the Aviation minister is the decision to float a new national carrier barely 10 years after the same federal government scrapped the old carrier, the Nigeria Airways. The old carrier was scrapped because the government and its World Bank economists argued that governments were notoriously inefficient in running businesses. With maniacal zeal, the previous government scrapped virtually everything publicly owned. Official residences and cars were monetised. Roads were to be offered to willing concessionaires, and even Federal Government Colleges were scrapped. Virtually nothing was to be left in the hands of the government except the privileges of power. Now, they are gradually reversing themselves – a troubling indication of sloppy thinking, official grandstanding and depressing lack of public debate.

    When the Aviation minister first mooted the idea of a new carrier, a columnist with this newspaper argued along the following lines: “Oduah indicates the new national carrier will welcome private equity and be jointly and professionally managed to make it a successful venture. In addition, she says, if all things go well, the new carrier could hit the skies before many months. But it was not too long ago, however, that the government invited Virgin Atlantic to invest in the airline business in Nigeria over the ashes of Nigeria Airways. It proved an impossible task after just a few years, as the new airline made huge losses estimated at more than $300m between 2005 and 2010. In 2007 alone, Virgin Nigeria Airways lost nearly N10 billion. Moreover, Virgin Atlantic Limited never took more than 49 percent equity in the Virgin Nigeria project. So, what has changed? Oduah says the government has learnt its lessons, and will not repeat the mistakes of the past. She is confident that a new national carrier operated jointly with private capital will fly. Nonsense.

    “If private investors want to come into the airline business either in partnership or alone, the skies are always open. As everyone knows, the skies may be open, but the capital to establish and run airlines here has not always been open or friendly. Airline business has been a difficult one in recent years requiring the help of the government to keep it aloft…It is doubtful whether Oduah can convince anyone of the need for a new national carrier. The idea of a new national carrier is idle and wishful thinking. There is absolutely no basis for it, either financially or managerially…”

    And while we were still trying to come to terms with the new carrier bugaboo, Oduah threw us an even tougher bone to chew. According to an aviation source, the federal government plans to buy 30 new aircraft to be distributed to airlines to help them operate better and to crash air fares. Now, if there is a worse malady than this, we would like to hear it. The crazy venture, we are told, is to be funded by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) – would Sanusi Lamido Sanusi countenance this nonsense? – and the Bank of Industry (BoI). Would the planes be given free? If not, would it not further aggravate the financial distress of the operators and encumber their operating costs? And are the CBN and BoI so loaded with idle money that they can be persuaded to throw it on fantasies?

    It is not enough to absorb the fact that these three ministers are powerful and influential, or that they give the Jonathan cabinet its steely core; we must also recognise that they are in fact symptomatic of the lack of consistent policy framework required to run a disciplined, transformative and progressive government. The ministers and their policies indicate just how besotted to grand fantasies the government has become, and why their successes will be few and far between.

  • Phones for 10 million farmers take public policy to a new low

    The Minister of Agriculture, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, has denied that the federal government planned to spend N40bn or N60bn to buy phones for 10 million farmers. Thank God for the denial. But that is not all, and that certainly is not the whole truth. When the permanent secretary in the Agriculture ministry, Mrs Ibukun Odusote, spoke about the decision to buy the phones in Ogun State a few days ago, she spoke persuasively. Hear her: “We are talking about 10 million handsets; each handset would be costing, maybe N6000 or N4000 because it is in large number. We are not going to buy in pieces like that. We will buy directly from the manufacturing companies. We have agreement with some organisations in China and some in the United States; they are going to provide all these handsets for us because they are also interested in investing in the agricultural sector in Nigeria. So you have the idea and estimate of the cost. And I tell you that the money is available; it’s on ground. We are looking at the first quarter of this year to roll-out the phones, and by the end of the first quarter, we are done, and they will start hearing about the out roll-out.”

    The minister, however, justifies the decision to buy phones for farmers, but denies the sum involved. Perhaps it will be cheaper than what the permanent secretary mentioned. But whether cheap or not, the decision is still a bad one. In any case, what of the “agreement” the permanent secretary spoke about, and the “money on ground” she alluded to? Indeed, the minister’s denial could be an afterthought prompted by the outrage that has greeted the announcement. It is doubtful whether there is a farmer who can’t afford a N4000 phone, that is, assuming we have 10 million of them. Does the ministry have a register of farmers in the country, and has he confirmed their needs to the extent of willing to spend a huge sum on communicating with them? Can’t the ministry communicate with their cooperatives?

    Sometimes, it is hard to resist the temptation to think that too much money is chasing too much folly in Nigeria, often in the pursuit of one newfangled agenda or the other. From the Aviation ministry where their fecundity is costing us so dearly, and we take the pain in our strides, to the Finance ministry where obduracy and experimentalism are mixing in lethal quantities, and to the Petroleum ministry where arcanum has become the watchword, it is not clear how much policy malfeasance would be enough to bankrupt us or irreparably damage the republic.

  • Nigeria now and beyond

    Nigeria now and beyond

    How to build a better nation

    As New Year resolutions go, those of President Goodluck Jonathan were not bad. On January 1, at an Anglican Church service in Abuja, he pledged to “provide employment for our people and encourage entrepreneurship”. Again, the President promised that 2013 will be better than last year.

    The year 2012 indeed left us brokenhearted, in the main. Better endowed writers and analysts have captured the grief of the floods, which devastated a substantial part of the country, forcing many from their homes and leaving them helpless and moody in the Yuletide, with questions as to what to eat. Space has also been given to the Boko Haram onslaught, which continues to leave blood and tears in its wake in spite of the best efforts of our security community. Our tragedies were not limited to the ground or waters, though; there were also fatalities in the air, throwing the nation into mourning. Thankfully, there was some relief amid the grief. In a year in which we lost former National Security Adviser General Andrew Azazi in an air crash, Governor Danbaba Suntai of Taraba State survived an ill-fated flight. He has been discharged from hospital, with two new bundles of joy in his wife’s arms. Suntai’s counterpart in Kogi, Idris Wada, has also left hospital after a crash in his SUV left him with a fractured leg.

    2012 was largely a year many prayed would not repeat itself. It would have been proper for the President, in an end of year or January 1 speeches, to touch on these issues if only to seek lifting the people from their grief and get them to look forward to a better year. Still, Jonathan’s January efforts in the church did some good. He said the new year will be better. As president, that should boost morale. He also said our uniformed personnel were making some progress and that his administration will strengthen the security architecture, a favourite phrase of his. All of that is good.

    Yet there was something else the President said in Abuja on New Year’s Day that got me thinking. He spoke about worsening violence and a descent into shocking depths of criminality, of which Nigerians had a huge dose last year.

    He said: “It is the ambition to get rich overnight that leads to robbery, kidnapping and all sorts of crime…We have moved to another phase of terror, kidnapping and armed robbery but these are momentary challenges.”

    Clearly, Jonathan is as worried about our worsening crime record as he is about the motive: ambition to get rich overnight. The officiating priest of the day, Most Rev Nicholas Okoh was just as concerned and wasted no time to call for a change of heart. The clergy admonished every Nigerian, from the unscrupulous market woman to the greedy politician, to change their ways in the new year.

    Both Jonathan and the priest want a new and better Nigeria now and beyond. So do I and a substantial part of our 160m people. Most Nigerians desire a country of clean values, one where life and integrity count. But a tiny percentage of the population has negated our cravings, seeking to first satisfy their own lusts and imaginations. In this bracket are such people as armed robbers, kidnappers and those who commit “all sorts of crime” to which the President referred in the Anglican Church service.

    Still, one question remains: how do we evolve such a country? How do we kick out the get-rich-overnight ambition of which Jonathan has spoken? Our experience in these parts has shown that appeals and sermons have very little effect on criminals or even potential ones. If this were so, crime would be declining rather than increasing, given the number of people’s appeals or the frequency of clerics’ sermons.

    So if the word of mouth hardly deters criminals, what can be done? That’s tricky, but we can mount a more vigorous and transparent campaign against ostentatious tastes and such vanities, especially in high places. Our leaders have not been the most frugal people you hear about. People tend to learn more from what they see than what they hear. That is why it will be difficult to exorcise the spirit of SUVs, for instance, in this country. The rich and powerful flaunt them, leading humble folks to sell their modest cars to acquire Jeeps, even creaky ones. The lifestyles of our leaders have done little to curb criminal tendencies.

    In the run-up to the Yuletide, the cost of VP Namadi Sambo’s house caused not a little stir. The house valued at N7b in 2009 was now said to have attracted an extra N9b, making a total of N16b. What for? The N9b was needed, it was said, to incorporate the culture and religion of the Vice President into the building. Such behaviour hurts our finances and does little to discourage ostentation. Even the culture and religion argument falls flat. The house of the VP is supposed to be a national monument, not designed and built with a Christian, Muslim, atheist or freethinker in mind. If any of them should live there, surely, worship places should not be such a challenge warranting a huge appropriation of cash.

    Sambo’s tastes are not unique, though. Our leaders’ awkward preferences have caused quite a problem. If we want to see Nigeria of our dreams, we must clip such fancies. It is one way to check get-rich-overnight ambitions and build a country for today and the future.

  • A king’s ransom

    Sometime in December 2012 six management staff of the South Korean construction and engineering firm, Hyundai Heavy Industries, were kidnapped somewhere in the creeks of Bayelsa State.

    The ink was barely dry on the reports when news emerged a few days later that they had been released. Since there was no account of security forces heroics, it is no surprise to now read that the company had coughed out a tidy N30 million to secure the release of their staff.

    Now, the Bayelsa State Police Command is furious that Hyundai paid the ransom ‘without their consent’. I am a bit confused as to the reason for their anger. Are they mad because the payment was done without their involvement, or they are opposed in principle to all such payments?

    In virtually all cases of kidnapping in recent times, hefty sums have exchanged hands. These sorts of exchanges are nothing new. In the past many Niger Delta governors paid off militants to secure peace in their domains. It has also emerged that Boko Haram elements had been paid protection money in the past by some wise northern governors.

    Insecurity – whether caused by kidnappers or terrorists – will not cease when you can make N30 million for a few days work. Only in Nigeria can you achieve such a return!

  • Is journalism worth dying for?

    Is journalism worth dying for?

    Last week, I wrote about the death of late Tayo Awotunsin of Champion Newspapers who was killed along with his Guardian Newspaper colleague, Krees Imodibie, in 1991 while covering the Liberian crisis. Their death is an example of one of the major hazards journalists face while on duty.

    Every profession has its hazards known to the professionals. What is required of their employers is that necessary steps should be taken to protect them against the hazards and where it is impossible, they or their families should be adequately compensated.

    Unfortunately, this is not the case in Nigeria where journalists don’t generally get adequately remunerated despite the risky nature of their job. Some journalists don’t even get paid for months and can’t even expect any form of compensation if they get injured or killed on the job. Only few media houses have insurance policies for their staff.

    Some staff of a defunct newspaper were shocked when they learnt that apart from being owed by their former employers, the company did not remit their tax or pension to the appropriate authorities for the months they were paid.

    How are journalists expected to perform their duties as watch dogs in circumstances like this when they are not sure of what becomes of them if they lose their jobs, get injured or killed in a worst case scenario?

    I am forced to return to the issue of condition of service for journalists this week following the report that 13 Nigerian journalists were killed last year in Nigeria while covering various assignments.

    The figure said to be the highest in the history of the country since Independence, according to the President of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Mohammed Garba, is worrisome.

    As Garba rightly reiterated, there is an urgent need to intensify the provision of security and safety for journalists. Comprehensive insurance policies should be provided for journalists to encourage them to take necessary risks even when their life is at risk on the job.

    Many journalists have told me that the profession is not worth dying for and I quite agree with them. Why should anyone risk getting killed on duty when employers are unable to meet their obligations to employees?

    With increasing cases of killing by the Boko Haram and other terrorists groups in the Northern parts of the country, I really pity journalists who are based in particularly some of the volatile states like Borno, Kano, Yobe and others. When I speak with some of them, they tell me how worried they are about their safety and that of their families.

    If the journalists have their way, they would have relocated to other safer locations like other residents who have fled for their safety. Media managers should not only be concerned about getting stories from the crisis states, they should be very interested in the safety of their staff.

    I am aware that some of the worst-hit states before now were not priority states for many national media organisations in terms of editorial coverage. Now that the states are in focus due to the endless killings by the terrorists, journalists who have to remain there as a matter of duty have to be protected from becoming victims of the attacks.

    They should be well-paid to justify their working in the states, insured and provided necessary gadgets to ease their work. This is one sure way to ensure that the figure of journalists killed in the country does not increase next year when the figure for 2013 will be released.