The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • V-P’s lodge and PDP profligacy

    Namadi Sambo as a PDP prince is an accomplished Nigerian who made his fortune first, as a successful architect, and later, as a contractor to northern state governors. Before he was forced into politics by his people, he could afford any luxury money could buy: houses, exotic cars and private aircrafts , long before ownership of private jets became a fad among PDP serving governors, their contractors and our soul winning prosperity prophets that fervently support them with prayers. But Namadi remained a very humble man. Even as an accomplished man prevailed upon by his Kaduna State people to serve as governor on the platform of PDP, he remained himself – a self effacing humble man.

    Namadi has not changed much long after President Goodluck Jonathan, who has a weakness for those who swim in money picked him as his vice president following Yar’ Adua’s death. His executive functions as spelt out in the constitution includes ‘participation in all cabinet meetings and, by statute, membership in the National Security Council, the National Defence Council, Federal Executive Council, and the chairman of National Economic Council.’ Beyond this, the VP only enjoys delegated powers like deputy governors, commissioners and ministers/special advisers to the President. In fact he recites the same oath of office like them.

    Sadly, Namadi has been under severe strain since accepting to trade his peace, freedom and limitless powers of a state governor to serve under President Jonathan. First, his family house in Tundun-Wada area of Zaria came under the attack of gunmen following the post election violence that greeted Jonathan’s celebrated landslide victory. In recent times, the house still undergoing renovation has come under attack once again by the rampaging Boko Haram insurgents who injured a police man and killed a poor shoe maker who had the misfortune of trying to earn a living by practicing his trade not far from the VP’s house.

    Besides these attacks from hoodlums and Boko Haram insurgents, Namadi has come under severe attack of Nigerians. He has been blamed for the ongoing N7 billion VP mansion initiated in 2009 long before he was dragged from his comfort zone as a governor to become vice president. He has similarly been widely criticized for the additional N9b PDP contractors claimed is needed for a mansion reported to be nearing completion.

    Namadi has also been called upon to carry the can for the N8.4 b PDP fortune seekers budgeted for his office in the 2012 budget. Out of this N1.7 billion (approximately $10.3m) was to be spent on trips, N1.3b (approximately $9.7m) on office stationeries, N2b on repair/maintenance of office/residential buildings. Others were, N382 million for vehicles; N53 million for office furniture; N1.7 billion for office building and residential quarters.

    All the above budgetary provisions were supposed to be statement of intensions but since Doyin Okupe not too long ago told us that for PDP, such provisions amount to licence to spend, we can safely assume all the above provisions have been fully implemented. After all, PDP is only accountable to PDP.

    If I were to advise the VP in view of the on-going Namadi bashing, for funds others claimed to have spent on his behalf, I would have counseled the VP’s resignation to spite PDP and save his own integrity. After all, PDP has demonstrated these past 13 years that it can run the presidency without a vice president.

    It started with President Obasanjo. Following blame game over corruption by the president and his deputy, (PDP family quarrels are usually over the sharing of our resources among its members), Obasanjo did not only chase Atiku Abubakar out of office, but also out of his official residence which he transferred to the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) under the guise of abiding with Abuja master plan. Atiku ended his term hiding in one of his private houses in Abuja.

    Those who attributed the good fortune of the nation to the fact that Obasanjo did not come to grief during his term, didn’t need to wait for long. Yar’ Adua sadly soon came to grief. PDP proved once again that the post of a vice president was superfluous. A bereaved nation soon discovered that, Yar’ Adua’s wife, his son in-laws, Ibori and other wayfarers that constituted his kitchen cabinet took over the running of affairs of the nation. The ailing president was flown abroad without the knowledge of Vice President Jonathan. The nation’s budget was forged. Contracts were awarded. While the president was away in Saudi Arabia hospital, the vice president had no idea of how resources of the nation were being deployed.

    But for the intervention of civil society groups led by Pastor Tunde Bakare, who with his caustic tongue, forced the law makers to come up with what was called the ‘doctrine of necessity’ Vice President Jonathan was effectively sidelined in spite of the constitutional provisions.

    By resigning honorably, to spite PDP, Sambo will not only stop his name from being used to perpetuate further evil, such a patriotic act will also save the nation about N35b being the sum total of the amount PDP wants to spend on the mansion and two years budget allocations to the VP’s office. This interest free money will help the process of development

    Unlike in the US where president Obama needed to borrow $100m towards training mathematics and science teacher over the next 10 years to prepare American youths for competition against Chinese youths, Jonathan can deploy N35b for revolutionizing the educational sector by producing well equipped teachers and Ph.D holders that will mould our youths for the challenges of the future.

    From the FCT’s proposed N50b 2013 budget, President Jonathan can add the amount earmarked “for the designing and construction of the residences of the President of the Senate, David Mark; his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu; the Speaker, Aminu Tambuwal; and his deputy, Emeka Ihedioha”. It is public knowledge that these top public officers already have personal mansions in Abuja. And since this is a legitimate endeavour under our constitution, they should be encouraged to use their personal houses or lose the rent to the state as it is the case in Britain.

    In any case neither President Jonathan nor the minister for Federal Capital Territory has told Nigerians what became of the mansions built for the senate president and the speaker by the Obasanjo administration. If as in its character, PDP has sold the mansions to its members, shouldn’t the proceeds be deployed towards building the proposed new mansions instead putting fresh burden on tax payers?

  • Here is the news….

    Here is the news….

    FOR a long time, agents of violence dominated the headlines. They were all over the place: Boko Haram, kidnappers, armed robbers and their cousins, the subsidy scammers as well as ethnic warriors, who kill whole families in one fell swoop.

    Not anymore. Our celebrities are back. They elbowed their way back to the front page last week. As usual, they did it in a big way. Dr Mike Adenuga Jnr, chairman of mobile giant Globacom, donated N500million to Bayelsa State flood victims.

    When Adenuga was named the chief fund raiser for the Committee on Flood Relief and Rehabilitation the other day, those who claim to know the reclusive businessman swore that he would rather plough his personal cash into the relief efforts, rather than go cap in hand to raise money. Pride? Not really. Style? Sure. Ever seen a bull begging? But, many are asking if the business guru plans to let the cash go round all the flood-ravaged states. Why Bayelsa first? Is it the worst-hit? Is it because the President comes from Bayelsa? The questions are many, obviously coming from those who are not aware of Adenuga’s capability to spring surprises.

    Alhaji Aliko Dangote, the immensely endowed – the richest in the black world, says Forbes – president of the commodities king Dangote Group and chairman of the committee, had earlier donated N430million to the relief efforts. He instantly hit the headlines and went back to his business of making money. He returned last week in a frightful manner – isn’t that the way of the rich? – by shutting down the Benue Cement Company in Gboko, Benue State. Thousands of jobs are now hanging in the balance.

    Dangote Cement complained that the government had opened a floodgate of imported brands, precipitating a glut in the market and sparking a painful disinvestment plan. Public affairs analysts went to town. Will BCC be shut for good? If there is a glut, why are prices not crashing? What is the fate of the legion of workers and their dependants? Will the government succumb to “ blackmail” and ban importation of cement?

    Dangote Cement has invested a fortune in manufacturing. It deserves to reap the fruits of its labour. Importation is easier and cheaper – fewer workers to pay, no huge diesel bills, no spare parts headache and, therefore, more cash to make. If local manufacturers can get the market flooded, why allow importation, even as prices have stayed up there? The Nigerian economy defies all theories in the book. Here, the law of supply and demand hardly gets its due. Everything is upside down, in the language of the songster, the late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.

    Sanusi Lamido Sanusi also grabbed the headline. He slammed federal character, saying it promotes mediocrity. He demanded to know the relationship between the number of ministers and the principle. Many in the audience at the National Economic Summit in Abuja were wondering when the number one banker will stop talking. He had on November 27 in Asaba said that there was no economic sense in spending about 70% of our revenue on civil/ public servants, even as we are faced with a mammoth infrastructural deficit. His lucid postulation, expectedly, raised so much dust. Unionists were falling over one another to attack Sanusi. Many abandoned the message and went after the messenger. A man known for speaking his mind, the Central Bank chief almost apologised.

    Sanusi need not fret. He is entitled to his views, no matter how bitter such views are. With a suffocating bureaucracy, the economy cannot improve. The elite should insist on true federalism where the centre is made less attractive and there is devolution of power to the states. The Federal Government has become an overfed elephant, weighed down by its massive size and driven by a complex brain box that frequently malfunctions. It is stuck, like a truck with flat tyres. A situation where, according to the enfant terrible, 70% of earnings goes into recurrent expenditure is absurd.

    It is interesting that the Sanusi theory has come at a time the House of Representatives is threatening to order his arrest for shunning its summons. Remember the loquacious banker has been defending the right of the bank not to surrender its budget to scrutiny by the legislature, following the tradition in other places. Will police chief Mohammed Abubakar be asked to seize Sanusi? We are waiting for the drama which, like so many of such past braggadocio, may end in a sickening anti-climax.

    Those who had been asking where former Edo Governor Lucky Igbinedion had been got an answer. There were photographs of the former governor representing his dad the Chancellor at the Okada University, decked out in full academic regalia befitting of an experienced professor of Atomic Physics, his trademark moustache glittering, smiling as students were handed certificates during the convocation.

    How time changes. Not long ago, Igbinedion was accused of fleecing Edo of a huge amount of cash. He was hauled before a court. All that was left was for him to be sentenced to prison. But fate – sorry, I take that back – Justice Marcel Idowu Awokulehin intervened. He ruled that the former governor should pay a fine and go in peace. Plea bargain. Igbinedion then kept a low profile. Now, he is back; not to those days of lavish bunga-bunga continental parties and repulsive display of wealth. No. It is the academic circle, a world of freedom. Will students spare a thought for his experience?

    Women were not left out. Folorunso Alakija was listed as the world’s richest black woman by African Business Magazine. Instead of jubilation, it was condemnation that filled the air. Her critics started comparing her with the super star Oprah Winfrey. Some said she is a hairdresser; others described her as a tailor turned fashion designer. How did she come about an oil block? Has she ever been to Oloibiri? Which magazine is so called? The scornful questions were many.

    I am told the National Association of Beauticians and Hairdressers has sworn that it will no longer stand by and watch its leading lights being subjects of mockery by idle hands. It has briefed a Lagos lawyer who is well versed in litigation to file a writ on its behalf because, according to a source, every opportunity it has to shine on the national or international stage is snatched away and derided – remember former Speaker Patricia Olubunmi Etteh? Is it a crime to be a hair dresser?

    In the United Kingdom, the Duchess of Cambridge checked into a hospital to treat acute morning sickness. Then, the media hit the overdrive in celebration of a less than two-month phenomenon. Television stations descended on the story in a ravenous manner. It was as if they were reporting the Olympics all over. Newspapers cast sensational headlines and ran indepth analyses about the Royals. All this for a baby that was still being formed in the womb? It was difficult to understand.

    But the excitement ended in a tragedy when two Australian DJs played a prank, calling the hospital and getting a nurse to put a hoax call through for the Duchess. Realising that she had fallen for a prank, Nurse Jacintha Saldanha committed suicide. The contrite pranksters have been crying. When “honour and humour clash”, should the resolution be suicide? The lesson? Even sensation has its limits in an unnecessarily exciting matter. But will anybody commit suicide here on questions of integrity? How many men – and women – of honour do we have?

    Also on the foreign scene, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi issued a set of decrees that conferred on him some absolute powers. The people rose in unison to express their disappointment that a man who rode to power on the crest of a popular movement would so soon bid to entrench a dictatorship. At what point will leaders be jerked into the consciousness that the people’s power is supreme?

    That was the week of the rich–and the powerful. Now, kidnappers are back. On Sunday, they snatched Prof Kamene Okonjo, the 82-year-old mother of Finance Minister Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in Ogwachiuku, Delta State. And on Monday, they grabbed Mrs Tayo Rotimi, wife of the former military governor, Brig.-Gen. Oluwole Rotimi, who was also Nigeria’s Ambassador to the United States. Both women are yet to be found. What a country!

     

    Obasanjo: From Ghana to Osun

    ORMER President Olusegun Obasanjo must have been wondering why Nigerians are so difficult to please. Despite the strenuous schedule on the farm in Ota, he accepted to lead ECOWAS election monitors to Ghana. Instead of praising his selflessness, critics have been so unsparing. They say he is the apostle of do-or-die elections and that his democratic credentials are suspect, considering his handling of the two elections that took place during his tenure. He was also desperate to secure a third term, they say, forgetting that Obasanjo had said that if he had craved tenure extension, God would have given it to him the way a father would hand his kid a toy.

    Back from Ghana, Obasanjo rushed down to Osun to settle the chieftaincy dispute at Orile-Owu. Then, he was asked to unveil the statue of the late Chief Bola Ige, the former Attorney-General and Justice Minister. Ige was murdered after resigning from the Obasanjo administration. His killers remain unknown to date. How did Obasanjo feel unveiling the statue?

     

  • That PPPRA’s baptism of fire

    That PPPRA’s baptism of fire

    For the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, under the current leadership which just marked one year in office last month, the last two weeks can be said to be its own baptism of fire by the media.

    For right or wrong reasons, every organization, especially those in the public eye, often have their day in the media court. And since the journalism is history written in a hurry, many at times many organisations get undeservedly seriously bruised even without having the privilege of turning in all the facts of their case. Some others get their just dessert and the deserved knocks and go home sulking and sad thereafter.

    Two weeks ago, the chief executive of the agency and his team came calling at the National Assembly to honour the invitation of the Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Representatives on Petroleum (Downstream) to defend the budget of the agency.

    It was in the course of handling this important task that something went the unexpected way. The whole drama centred on how much accrued to the agency through its internally generated revenue and the use to which it was put. The PPPRA boss had informed the law makers about the N5.7 billion that was generated and listed the sub heads under which the fund was expended in line with what was approved by the Budget Office for its 2012 overheads and personnel.

    In the spirit of true democratic practice and wanting to asset its authority, the legislators had reaffirmed the role of the legislature in respect of appropriation and proceeded to warn sternly that the MDAs have no power to expend any fund without the legislature appropriating it. The PPPRA boss was invited for a second session the following day and the law makers’ day’s job was done.

    It was from here the media took over. The following day the media was awash with screaming headlines on how N5.7 billion was blown on staff, as one newspaper noted in its headline. Days later, some newspapers, drawing from the drama on the floor of the House and the sensational report of the event by their correspondents, took position, in editorials, calling on authorities to scrap PPPRA.

    Indeed a sober study and analysis of the encounter will bring out two salient facts. One, what the law makers were after that day was to establish their authority, perhaps rightly, that by law, the role of the legislature to appropriate is sacrosanct and cannot be compromised; two, it was never in dispute that the sum of N5.7 billion was appropriated for overheads and personnel for the agency in the 2012 Budget. What was in contention was where the fund was sourced from.

    For any discerning analyst, it may not be too far to see that this may just have been much noise over little or nothing.

    Contrary to the impression created about a major secret deal blown up, the overheads and personnel cost of the agency (not salary and allowances alone) went through the rigour of budge scrutiny and was duly appropriated. At no time during the session did the law makers describe the salary and allowances of PPPRA as something they were getting to know for the first time.

    And contrary to the submission of N5.7 billion divided by 249 members of staff, that appropriation was for both personnel and overheads such as expenses incurred in its operations duly vetted by the budget office.

    Indeed, little effort at information gathering would have shown that what PPPRA officials earn is not different, or rather similar to what obtains in other agencies of government in the oil and gas industry such as Nigeria Petroleum Development Trust Fund NPDTF, Petroleum Equalization Trust Fund PETF, Petroleum Products and Marketing Company, PPMC, among others.

    Indeed, it is because of this standard salary structure that staffers of one of the agencies are routinely transferred to others as the situation requires without such workers feeling shortchanged, or unduly favoured.

    The agency’s Chief Executive, Reginald Stanley had cause to correct the wrong impression of a jumbo salary at PPPRA days later, describing it as a gross misrepresentation of what he said while appearing before the august committee.

    He said the sum of N5.7billion, when broken down into sub-heads, actually accounted for staff salaries and allowances, National Contributory Pension, Pension Payments, National Health Insurance Scheme, Pay-As-You-Earn tax element, overheads, and other sundry deductions, consistent with what obtains in other MDAs, especially in the Oil and Gas Sub-sector. He added that ‘PPPRA does not operate a peculiar salary structure independent of what obtains in other sister organizations within the oil and gas sub-sector. We are fully aligned with other organizations on what we earn. We receive budgetary allocations on yearly basis, like others, and we account for every kobo spent, in the spirit of transparency and accountability, all for the good of our country.’

    Downstream oil sector analysts will readily attest to the efforts PPPRA has put into the works of sanitizing that sub sector of the oil industry in the last one year. Records clearly show that owing to some stringent measures put in place by the new leadership, PPPRA has brought down payment on subsidy by 49.7 per cent in 10 months when what was paid between January and October this year is compared to what was paid during the same period in 2011.

    While the federal government paid N1.351 trillion as subsidy between January and October 2011, what was paid during the same period this year came to N679 billion, with NNPC receiving N337.7 billion while other marketers received a combined figure of N342 billion. With this feat, the agency has been able to save some N671 billion in 10 months for the nation.

    Of course, anyone familiar with this industry will testify to the fact that bringing this about took some efforts. Since November 2011 when the Stanley led team took over with a clear mandate by the supervising ministry to restore sanity to petroleum products importation business, the team has hit the ground running and it has not looked back. Indeed, the first step he took which gave a clear signal that he meant business was the pruning down of the oil importing and trading companies licensed to import products from an all- comers and unwieldy 126 to 42 by the first quarter of this year.

    Not just that the figure has today been brought down to a manageable 39, stringent measures and regulations have been put in place to enthrone transparency, accountability and quality service delivery.

    A few of these measures will suffice in this analysis. One of the earlier measures taken by the agency was the restriction of participation in fuel importation to only owners of coastal discharge/depots facilities, thus reducing participation in the PSF Scheme to only genuine and capable marketers. This move has achieved an added advantage of motivating more investments in the development of petroleum handling facilities, thereby promoting local content development ensuring better management of participants in the PSF scheme.

    To enthrone transparency in the scheme, a number of measures were put in place, which today the nation is benefitting from remarkably. They include: the introduction of certified cargo inspectors to enhance operational efficiency and accountability in the areas of products receipts, in line with international best practices; introduction of Double-Three-Two (3-3-2) inspector system to monitor product imports. With this, three inspectors nominated by the agency will confirm vessel arrival quantities; three inspectors will confirm vessel discharge qualities, while two other inspectors will confirm the qualities physically trucked–out of the depots. Taking physical control of discharge values at depots is another initiative that has helped to eliminate risks of Back-loading activities.

    The Agency has also tightened requirements for import documents such as Letter of Credit, Bill of Lading, Form M, DPR License, Shore Tank Certificates etc thereby eliminating risks of Bill of Lading manipulation and ensuring integrity of products discharge data to justify subsidy payments.

    To battle the evil of round tripping, the Agency imposed a ban on cargo from storage tanks in West African coasts, except from refineries and blending plants; it also imposed a similar ban of ‘homogenized cargo’ in further pursuit of its war against round tripping.

    The Agency hit the bull’s eye in July when it subscribed to Llyod’s List of Intelligence Sea Searcher services, for tracking vessels movements around the world. This is to determine the true origin as well as monitor vessels movement right from take off until they berth on the nation’s shores. Industry watchers described the measure as master stroke in the battle to sanitize the industry.

    More interesting is the fact that the agency obtained NNPC’s commitments to comply with all the measures and requirements for PSF processing just like all other marketers.

     

    •Yakubu wrote in from Lagos

  • The North and Boko Haram

    The North and Boko Haram

    Violence and insecurity is not peculiar to northern Nigeria. Nigeria as a whole is at a point where perhaps its security apparatus needs a radical surgical overhaul in order to better guarantee the safety of the lives and property of the people who, in addition to coping with crippling poverty, have had to also contend with progressively worsening levels of insecurity through successive years, especially since the return to civilian rule on the eve of the 21st Century. What, however, seems to be increasingly peculiar to the north as far as violence and insecurity is concerned is the brazen terrorist toga the violence continues to don. And since mid-2009 when, starting from the then-hotbed of Bauchi State, a radical group first engaged security forces in gun battles across some states of the north, things have hardly let down. From gun duels and attacks with crude war material that group is now the infamous face of violence in Nigeria as its tactics get ever more sophisticated. That group – Boko Haram – continues to thrive in spite of consistent chest-thumping by the government that somehow the government is prevailing in the war against insecurity and violence.

    No doubt, Nigeria’s borders with other states contributes to the problem as some of the foot soldiers carrying out the violence have been found to be from some of these West African countries. Perhaps, this means that the efforts at border patrol and security measures in border towns have not been concerted enough. However, security forces may ransack compounds, and even invade and kill whole towns. This would no doubt, have its own success. Still, we would only just be scratching the surface of the issue at best because sheer, outright force does not seem like the only viable solution to the problem.

    Which is why it ought to (emphasis on “ought to”) be heartening that some people across both sides are beginning to consider dialogue in all this. But you wonder how feasible dialogue, productive dialogue in the interest of peace, is here considering the unrealistic nature of the group’s demands. If dialogue happens, that would be great. However, there are a few things that are beyond the direct control of the government that need to happen in order to have a chance of bringing about peace to the north.

    The staying power that the Boko Haram ‘brand’ continues to demonstrate in the north, especially in its two strongholds of Borno and Yobe states is, arguably attributable to the attitudes of indigenes of the two states, side-by-side the suspected membership composition of the group. There was talk across town recently especially in Yobe, that some of the recent success enjoyed by the Joint Task Force in identifying members of the group and their lairs in Damaturu and Potiskum was down to the fact that a few more people in those cities came forward to blow the whistle on suspected Boko Haram elements, leading security forces to more precise targets rather than having blanket information. This sort of ‘snitching’ is what has to happen more with Boko Haram. Such attitude to violence is one of the things that had not happened often enough in the past especially in Borno State, which has allowed the group to continue to spread its violent tentacles as though its members were aliens with superhuman ability to completely evade attention until Violence Hour strikes. In truth, however, sentiment and lineal affinity has always interfered with the people’s thinking as far as Boko Haram is concerned. As many families are inextricably tied to the group one way or another with having a deviant family member on the group’s payroll, innocent members of the public usually feel compelled to play the unwitting accessory as the family ties that bind them force them not to expose their family member as belonging to the group. But as demonstrated with the relative success of the security forces in the two Yobe towns where this attitude changed, be it for a split second, fighting the group’s brand of warfare is every peace-loving person’s responsibility.

    So, the people have to decide whether they will continue to allow their affinity towards family members who do not give a hoot about the safety and security of their innocent brethren becloud their sense of longing for peace. The people must simply wean themselves of that rather misplaced allegiance and realise that self-preservation and the preservation of innocent lives is infinitely more golden than protecting the interest of murderous, suicidal family members. They don’t have to go too far to find precedence to follow. In 2009, when a teenage Umar Farouq Abdulmuttallab attempted to blow up an American aeroplane, some attributed his behaviour to his privileged upbringing. But it turned out that his father, having watched him closely for a while, had been worried enough to alert the authorities that his son was showing extremist inclinations. In the end, although that act was not directly responsible for the botched bombing attempt, it vindicated his father and the family. It showed that not even a father could be swayed by filial ties to stand in the way of the safety and security of other people, even if his actions meant he was discrediting his own flesh and blood. Similarly, every well-meaning northerner has to accept that the safety and security of the innocent should be superintendent to their rather primordial considerations of filial protection over those whose actions directly and indirectly deepen their misery and make their own kith and kin endangered species in their own land.

    Another primordial factor that seems to be hindering the fight against violence in the north is the attitude towards religion. And by religion here, this writer means the interpretation of Islam by most northerners as against practically everything else, including contrary religious views and religions. If we chose to be naïve we can say that the Boko Haram problem is not a religious cancer. We can also elect to be simplistic and call it a sole problem of religion. Either way, we may not be doing justice to the issue. Simply, as it is today, violence in the north has a socio-religious touch to it, fuelled by political elements here and there. In the midst of this, other criminals of various ilks have exploited the situation to their own diabolical ends such that what we now have is a hydra. But this is one hydra with stronger tentacles of religion and politics – politics feeding on religious fervour to ignite an all too inflammable social canister.

    So, a good way to go is for people in the north to start looking at religion differently, stop seeing everything through the vaunted superiority of the religious compass. What if the people become less uptight and sensitive about religion? What if they start to look at religion honestly as a life journey encompassing tolerance, understand others and allowing other opinions to precede even when this may not be in their own best interest? What if religion is no longer a struggle between faiths or beliefs to them? What if they begin to see Islam as not a fragile Masonic doctrine that must be protected aggressively from others? How about they begin to see religion as a pattern of a series of interconnected faiths each with their peculiarity that might not always seem linked or pleasing to one set in the series, but then the one set does not harm the other set? I tell you what might happen: there would be less room for anyone or institution to attempt to mess with the sanity of individuals or groups by colouring everything as a religious struggle in which every man has to protect his own corner.

    That way also, the people would begin the process of extricating themselves from ‘personality-institutions’ and instead embrace ‘institutional-institutions’ and authority – learning to give their allegiance to rules, social contracts with all, as well as institutions, rather than subjecting themselves to being (mis)led by individual or group of individuals only, no matter how wealthy or ‘knowing’ the individuals may claim to be.

    But then considering the poverty level, the level of ‘unletteredness’ and the depth to which person institutions and religion has already sunk into the psyche of the people in the north, who will bell this cat?

     

  • Berger; Rich Nigeria; Anti-corruption plan; Punish bad advisers; Passing Amnesty and TI exams

    Berger; Rich Nigeria; Anti-corruption plan; Punish bad advisers; Passing Amnesty and TI exams

    Ogere lanes are trailer-free at last! But for how long? Berger, RCC and FRSC must manage traffic better with only very senior, not lowly, officers making plans and taking traffic closure and diversion decisions. Berger and RCC are known for their high contract fees and Nigerians, their employer, expect to be treated with respect on the road in 2012.

    Nigeria is rich but some lie that Nigeria is poor. But check first class in any plane for ‘poor’ government officials and politicians. Presidents can steal 50% of the budget and other corruption takes 50% of the rest and Nigeria still manages to survive on the 25% remaining and the survival strategies of our daily-paid market women and hawkers. Ever hungry, the greedy Nigerian leadership captures the struggling taxed person in cashless systems to ‘chop their money’ also.

    Imagine what Nigeria would have become if every corrupt scheme revealed since 1999 had been nipped in the bud by a vigilant computerised bank police or EFCC or ICPC? What has Nigeria budget to do with the $700,000,000 or N105,000,000,000 – N105billion or N1050/Nigerian Abacha loot and all other stolen loot? The mothers it was meant to save are now dead, the youth it was meant to save are now despondent and recruited for trafficking and prostitution or unemployed, the hospitals lack that equipment, the libraries and laboratories in schools are empty, the Lagos-Ibadan and Ore-Benin and the East-West Highway lack their third lane or rehabilitation or completion, 10m deadly potholes remain unfilled. These and free health, free education, free non-toll roads, cheaper agricultural products, reduced taxes, toll free roads were all expected from that money.

    When generals get greedy and politicians get peckish, they, like locusts, lay bare the land. Horrifyingly, Abacha’s name still survives on a stadium as a monument to his corruption suspected to be in excess of $7,000,000,000, N1,050,000,000,000/ N1,050billion or N10,500/Nigerian. Remember the First Gulf Oil Windfall $12.5b, N1,875,000,000,000 or N1,875billion or N18,750/Nigerian believed by the Financial Times of UK to have been ‘lost’ under Babangida. The most recent examples of colossal corruption being N275b petroleum subsidy scandal, multibillion naira pension debacle, unascertained corruption in Customs, unfathomable ignored un-investigated corruption in NPA where ‘saint’ PDP leader Bamanga Tukor held sway, when a private $5m non-refundable loan for a ship was believed to have been floated and set sail, the nation’s real tax cheats and any bribe-demanding FIRS and their local state counterparts, the FRSC and LGA touts who have replaced Police checkpoints and the new improved wole-wole environmental enforcement monsters, and you can see why we have such little faith in Nigeria.

    Corruption thrives in an audit vacuum. Every Nigeria based public and private organisational head can today ‘nip corruption in the bud’ with a Department-based anti-corruption ‘Early Warning Keeping It Clean Policy’. In every office introduce this ‘Six Point Anti-corruption Plan’: 1. Anti-corruption Regular Weekly Internal Auditing. 2. Anti-corruption Monthly not Annual External Auditing. 3. Anti-corruption Compulsory Cellphone Bank Account Alerts to 10 senior staff in event of money movement in or out of the account. 4. Anti-corruption employment and training of anti-corruption staff. 5. Anti-corruption Signatures, increase to 4 to 5 on all accounts. 6. Anti-corruption Invitation to EFCC and ICPC, in short anti-corruption rotation randomly chosen by ballot, to staff a desk in the organisation.

    Since 1999, we are still ‘surprised’ at corruption. Of course elimination of fertiliser fraud and the nauseating sums of money being made public are a step, but prosecutions and subsequent convictions are in order but government paradoxically reduces the judiciary budget. Happily the NASS is seeking an upward revision of this. What does the judiciary need to reduce our court case times by 50%? As the budget is being discussed NASS should note that the Israelis are building 3000 homes –just like that- while we arrogantly demolish 300 home estates in a 14,000,000 home deficit country. Don’t look at the politics. Look at the facts. In a country where 80% live on less than $1 /day, how dare anyone budget N7-9,000,000,000 for the Vice President’s compound and a further N2,200,000,000 for an Aso Rock extension to the Presidential banquet hall? This totals more than N10,000,000,000 or N100/Nigerian available for low income housing.

    The crazy civil servants and Special Advisers responsible for these outrageous plans should be identified, exposed, censured and probably sacked. Only punishment will caution others. They cannot claim anonymity for their stupid decisions. For example, which civil servants stopped the Lagos-Ibadan road from being made three and four lanes over the last 40 years? Someone must have been ir-responsible. The ministry already has approved plans by the World Bank contractor in 2008. How much was he paid for government’s ‘breach of contract?’ The contract should have been returned to that same contractor.

    And yet the leadership lectures young Nigerians on ‘sacrifice’ and why free education is not possible and why they should be patient because ‘Rome was not built in a day’. Well Rome was eventually built and if the Roman leadership was as greedy as Nigeria’s, there would be no Rome today and there may be no Nigeria tomorrow. Success is not achieved by vitriolic political complaints against Amnesty International and Transparency International methodology and conclusions. Nigeria should learn to pass this annual exam, honestly with PQPs and a ‘Pass Examination Formula’ and national strategy –better human rights, a better coordinated anti-corruption drive.

  • Challenges before ABU’s Agric Colleges

    Challenges before ABU’s Agric Colleges

    Ahmadu Bello University is 50 years old this year and has just celebrated this epoch-making Golden Jubilee. One of the important divisions of the University is the Division of Agricultural Colleges which controls and manages the three Colleges of Agriculture of the University in Kabba, Samaru and Mando road, Kaduna. The Colleges were originally mandated to train middle level manpower called Agricultural Assistants and Field Assistants in Livestock Management.

    While the Samaru College started formerly as School of Agriculture in 1932 with some 17 students specialising in Grains and Legumes, the Livestock Services Training Centre at Mando Road, Kaduna started operation in 1951 and the Kabba College started also as School of Agriculture with its first intake of students in April 1964, specialising in Tree Crops and Horticulture.

    By Decree No 26 of June 1, 1971 (Ahmadu Bello University Law Amendment Decree), Kabba School of Agriculture together with Samaru School of Agriculture and the Livestock Training Centre at Mando Road, Kaduna, were brought under the Division of Agriculture and Livestock Service Training of the Ahmadu Bello University with its own Director.

    As the various Schools/Colleges of Agriculture were given their mandates, they went about teaching and training thousands of young Secondary School leavers and some older ones from farm centres to acquire the necessary tools and knowledge expected of them in their new career; especially in crop production, animal husbandry, survey, engineering, extension, science and others.

    In years gone by, students were well trained to be generalists by very dedicated teachers, to pass on their acquired knowledge and skills to farmers, as their curricula covered almost every aspect of agriculture needed by the huge Northern Nigeria. As middle level workers, they therefore filled the wide gap between the farming communities and the policy makers. There is no doubt that the same tradition has continued except that there are now greater choices of areas of specialisation, from Pre-ND to National Diploma and to Higher National Diploma in Agricultural Technology, Engineering, Home Economics, Farm Power and Machinery, Irrigation Agronomy, Agric Extension and Management, General Agriculture, Horticulture, Animal Production and Health Technology, and others.

    Thanks to the Colleges of Agriculture which have graduated thousands of general and specialised agriculturists, employed in many parts of the country, the population of Nigeria has been increasing, particularly in the North, rather than decreasing because these well trained agriculturists have contributed their services towards agricultural production, both in quantity and in quality to stem hunger.

    The nation is now blessed with an agriculturist as the Minister of Agriculture in the person of Dr. Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina (triple A), who is looking inward in making Nigerians believe in themselves, in producing enough food to feed themselves and have surplus for export, through the beacon he has lit by the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) of President Goodluck Jonathan, which every state and local government should key into and emulate. It is expected that the Division of Agricultural Colleges, ABU should be the reservoir of the army of the middle-level and higher level manpower needed as foot soldiers for the country’s agricultural transformation agenda, especially, in the northern states. Consequently, the Minister of Agriculture should be a friend of the Division of Agricultural Colleges and should give, not only the necessary but sufficient financial and moral support to DACs; by galvanising the total support of Mr. President and governors to mobilise funds, material and human capital for DACs, ABU.

    It is quite fascinating to know that many alumni, including the writer, who left the agricultural sector, for other pursuits, have, on retirement, returned to invest in agriculture, empowering young people with wages and salaries earned from employing them; thus contributing to food security, reducing unemployment and Nigeria’s dependence on food importation. The Colleges of Agriculture should be commended for grooming and inspiring these alumni to believe that there is no alternative to food production to conquer hunger, reduce unemployment and improve the standard of living of the people of Nigeria.

    Current and future challenges before the Agricultural Colleges of Ahmadu Bello University are enormous as they require the where-withal to surmount them.

    First, they require adequate funding in order to do the following, among others:-

    • Retain the best lecturers/staff

    •Employ new ones who are well qualified and interested in the job.

    •Provide adequate facilities to meet the teaching requirements.

    •Expand their curricula to meet the demands of Nigerians, especially in the North, such as irrigation, fishery, high quality livestock for quality meat, milk and top class semen for artificial insemination.

    •Provide scholarship to lecturers and students to overseas institutions, especially those with ecosystem similar to Nigeria, in order to acquire modern knowledge or state of the art skills and exposure to be imparted on Nigerian Farmers.

    Second, special challenges continuously confronting the Agricultural Colleges of Northern Nigeria are the negative effects of drought and the spread of the Sahara Desert over the North, with their attendant reduction in arable land and yields, including the displacement of farming communities and livestock. Specialists in this field may have to be recruited by DACS so that their knowledge and experience in combating the spread of the Sahara Desert can be acquired and imparted on students of DACS.

    A lot can be learnt from experiences of neighboring ECOWAS countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, and also from Saudi Arabia, Israel and Australia. These countries virtually live in desert areas and are surviving.

    Though a lot of efforts, such as tree planting, have been exerted by governments of northern states particularly, the far North, much more efforts in the area of research and acquisition of appropriate knowledge or technology from relevant countries and international organisations, like the United Nations and, its specialised agencies, are still needed, as the Sahara Desert continues to spread southwards from the fringes of the North.

    Third, another challenge for the agricultural colleges is the heavy burden of climate change causing drought, and very high temperature/global warming in many areas, and heavy rainfall and floods in some other areas, as currently being experienced this year in particular, at unexpected time of the year. This phenomenon creates challenges to students of agricultural colleges, to their lecturers, and most specially, to farmers whose templates regarding timeline for different farm operations are distorted. The issue involved is to device an adjustment mechanism to adapt to climate change. What the Division of Agricultural Colleges should do is to set up a satellite liaison unit that links the division with specific organisations or institutions, with the aim of sharing valuable and useful information that would be helpful to farmers in the northern states, in particular, and the country in general, so as to obtain more reliable forecast of the weather.

    Information from these various organisations and institutions should be collated, examined by the Division of Agricultural Colleges staff and students and thereafter, disseminate same on daily basis to agricultural ministries to inform, warn and advise farming communities accordingly.

  • Tackling the challenge of Aba roads

    Tackling the challenge of Aba roads

    In the past, leaders in Nigeria have failed the people; too much promises, less action hence the average Nigerian hardly has any confidence in their leaders. But even at that, there are still leaders with integrity, who have made promises, kept them in the face of daunting challenges of leadership in the country today.

    One such leaders is the governor of Abia State, Chief Theodore Orji, a man who has consistently keep to his election promises since he was re-elected for second term in 2011. Today Abia State, hitherto a backward state on the development index in the country, has witnessed and is still witnessing uncommon transformation drive courtesy of legacy projects being executed by the present government. Anybody who has followed the politics of the state since 1999 would never believe that such progress could be made in the state within the short period of Governor Orji’s re-election. All these have been made possible, thanks to the successful and peaceful liberation of the state from the stranglehold of the former governor, Orji Uzor Kalu’s political dynasty.

    The successful execution of some legacy projects in the state among which are the new workers secretariat, International Conference Centre, Amaokwe Housing Estate, Judiciary Complex and others within a short period of Orji’s re-election is a clear testimony and evidence that his government was hijacked, delayed and distracted during his first term in office by his predecessor and now estranged and frustrated godfather. Now the people must have realized what they lost in terms of developments in the years of political godfatherism.

    That is why the planned probe of the ex-governor’s administration is very much supported and hailed by the people. This is because such probe will give an insight on how the collective resources of the state was mismanaged and cornered by a particular family for more than a decade with nothing for people. Truly, Governor Orji has shown that he is a better student of politics and governance than his predecessor, and the people of the state are already testifying and reciprocating it with the tremendous goodwill and support they have shown for his administration since his re-election.

    Not forgetting his election promises on tackling of infrastructural challenges in Aba, Governor Orji has built a pedestrian bridge in front of Abia State Polytecnic Aba along Aba/ Owerri to save the life of commuters especially students who had fell victims of road accident along the road in the past. His government has also constructed and rehabilitated many roads in the commercial city of Aba, including the long-abandoned Ukwummango road before the rainy season sets in.

    But with the torrents of rainfall coupled with heavy flooding in the city, government contractors working there left the sites to avoid wastages and shoddy jobs. But instead of understanding the true situation of things, some armchair critics especially the leadership of NBA in have since made themselves a pawn in the hand of Orji’s predecessor, to criticize and accuse Orji’s government of abandoning Aba roads.

    The criticisms should never be allowed to derail the administration’s vision and commitment in Aba, knowing full well that it is much easier to be critical than to be correct, especially when such criticisms are being sponsored and paid for to achieve selfish political aim.

    It was the British politician and author, Benjamin Disraeli who once said: “If you believe in what you are doing, then let nothing hold you up in your work. Much of the best work of the world has been done against seeming criticisms. The thing is to get the work done.”

    The above aphorism is Orji government’s philosophy in the face of sponsored criticisms and attacks at his government since he liberated the state from Kalu dynasty. As a man who lives and abides by his election promises to his people, Orji’s government has mobilized contractors and work has commenced on 16 roads that need serious attention in the city as the rainy season subsided. He had made it clear before now that contractors had been mobilized to commence work on the roads any moment, so that motorists and commuters could enjoy the roads during the yuletide celebration but the doubting Thomases did not believe him.

    The roads witnessing construction works which was flagged off by the governor recently include Azikiwe, Jubillee, Cemetery, Milverton Avenue, Eziukwu/Okigwe roundabout, Ama Ogbonna, Nwala by Faulks road to Brass Junction at Aba Owerri road, Ngwa road, Ohanku which is on-going; Emelogu Road completed but to be added drainage; Ehere, Omoba road, Umuola road, Ikot Ekpene road from Opobo junction to Bata, Amaogbonna/Omuma by ACCN, Nwigwe by Nwagba Avenue and Geometric Access road Aba.

    With these projects, it is clear that the present administration in the state had always meant well for the city and the residents, but faced with natural and financial challenges to take the city to the next level. That is why the state government has always called on private investors and federal government to partner with them in tackling the challenges in Aba for good.

    The present government in the state has never claimed repository of solutions and answers to the daunting environmental challenges in the city; rather than engage in blackmail or shifting-blame, it has continued to tackle them systematically and effectively since it came into office despite the paucity of funds.

    As the government has started the reconstruction of 16 roads in the city, what will armchair critics like the NBA leadership in the city and their paymaster do or say now? Will they applaud government efforts or continue to make mockery of themselves before the people in the name of criticisms against the state government?

    • Ofodu wrote from Abuja

     

  • Ngozi!

    Ngozi!

    Pop artiste, Felix Lebarty, once did an ode to Ngozi, an object of his love – or more correctly, the object of his musical persona’s love. The number was a sweet-sour complaint about Ngozi, who now came for love, then came for money but hardly ever gave his doting beau what he really wanted: her heart.

    Felix’s output, a musically sweet and frothy work, fell within the matrix of 1980s musical releases aimed at captivating the youth of that era. On the same canvass played the likes of Dizzy K. Falola’s Baby Kilode? and Alex Zitto’s (a very popular act in those days) Babywalakolombo, all highly danceable party hits but all based on the theory that women are nothing but sex symbols.

    Ironically, no matter how objectionable this sexist profiling would appear, women themselves gyrated most to its sweet poison! By the way, that is no exclusive social crime of the 1980s. Even today: maybe it is the economic squeeze, maybe it is youth brainlessness which is no monopoly of any age, but you still find girls lending their bosoms and bums to the most objectionable of musical videos.

    But Ngozi, the subject of this column today, is the direct opposite of Felix Lebarty’s Ngozi.

    She is the late Mrs Ngozi Agbo. Agbo Agbo, her widower, described her as a “complete woman”, at The Nation/Coca-cola Nigeria-Nigeria Bottling Company 4th Campus Life Awards, on November 24.

    That award, aimed at spurring socially responsible youth via campus journalism, could well be a collective dream. But Ngozi was without doubt the moving spirit and most visible symbol of that dream. Indeed, future generations would credit her with its birth.

    At the 3rd Campus Life Awards in 2011, Ngozi was there. But at this year’s edition, she was gone! She was not only there last year, she promised another life, perhaps to continue her life of positive youth activism. She was heavy with child. This year however, that child is alive and well; but the mother is gone. Months after that tragic incident, it is still extremely hard to swallow that bitter pill: that she is no more.

    Nevertheless, the Bespoke Event Centre venue of the awards reverberated with her beautiful spirit: a husband that has put behind his grief to answer the call to service by the “complete woman” that too briefly became his wife; Ngozi’s son, sweet product of a marriage that ended too soon and the bevy of youth, future flowers of the country, that have savoured Auntie Ngozi’s mentoring and would forever treasure her memory. This is not to forget Wale Ajetunmobi, the young ex-Campus Life (reporting from Unilorin) graduate that now coordinates the pages for The Nation!

    And speaking of mentoring, Mr. Agbo has continued where his beautiful wife stopped. Though no member of The Nation family, he has taken over the “Pushing Out” column space, the virtual pulpit from which Ngozi weekly engaged her brood. It is a bitter-sweet tale of a “complete woman” leaving behind a “real man” to continue the good work of ceaseless service to the Nigerian youth.

    Now, if Ngozi was the extreme opposite of Felix Lebarty’s Ngozi, Mr. Agbo too would appear the direct opposite of that chauvinistic and sexist mindset that assumes no brain ticks beyond a woman’s vital statistics and cosmetics – no matter what ability that woman has shown.

    But Ngozi is not worth celebrating just because she left behind a heroic and model husband. Even that, to be sure, is not exactly routine around here! Rather, her memory is sweet and will continue to endure because in a country which governments remain scandalously remiss at catering for and mentoring the youth, Ngozi dared to be different, even as a private citizen.

    Chinua Achebe in his new book, There was a Country, referred to his generation as “A Lucky Generation” – lucky because the departing British took very good care of them, in the hope that generation would replicate such care for a future generation of Nigerians. Fond hope!

    Achebe’s contemporary and Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, had been much more censorious of that generation. He dismissed them as “wasted”, because they have been unable to recreate the el-Dorado that nurtured them into world beaters in their youth. Indeed, to lift an image from The Man Died, Prof. Soyinka’s Civil War prison memoir, Soyinka’s generation just developed a cotton wool mentality, consuming everything, producing nothing!

    Ngozi and her generation are the direct victims of this failure; and the fate of the Nigerian youth today is well and truly pathetic. That is the redemption battle Ngozi’s Campus Life initiative is all about. So far, it has succeeded beyond dreams – and the beauty is that, to quote Prof. Achebe, it is morning yet on creation day!

    Campus Life 2012 Awards makes four “generations” of champions, with two of the previous Campus Reporter of the Year winners present. Hannah Ojo (English, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife), won the inaugural “title” in 2009. Gilbert Alasa (Foreign Languages, University of Benin, Benin City) won it last year; and this year carted away the award for opinion writing. Gilbert, for weeks after Ngozi’s death, ran her picture as display picture on his face book page.

    The “current champion”, 2012 Campus Reporter of the Year, Gerald Nwokocha, is an Information Technology (IT) graduate of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO). He is now a youth corps member and under his belt, has already tucked a daring but socially conscious investigative story of a corps member who soldiers killed, after mistaking him for a Boko Haram member. Even on the award podium that night, he kept on pushing for “justice” for the dead. Scratch a writer, and you would probably find a reformer?

    The diverse disciplines of the rank of winners this year is simply breath-taking, showing that the Nigerian undergraduate, despite the trying times, is no robot outside his core study. Check out the honours list: Emeka Attah (Political Science, Unizik) and Ngozi Emmanuel (Mass Communication, Unizik) – winners, Culture Category; Uche Anichebe, (Law, Unizik) – Investigative Prize; Habeeb Whyte (Law, Unilorin) – Personality Profile; Gilbert Alasa (Foreign Languages, Uniben), – Opinion Writing; Gerald Nwokocha (IT graduate, FUTO) – Politics (and overall winner), Chisom Ojukwu (Chemical Engineering, FUTO) – Sports and Esther Mark (Mass Communication, Unijos) – Entertainment.

    Chisom Ojukwu, it was, who made the most telling confession of the night, while speaking on behalf of other winners. It was: the prize money and winners’ plaques first drew him to the Campus Life Awards. Not anymore. Now, it is the burning zeal to change society for the better.

    Ngozi must be smiling wherever she is now! Sleep on, gallant lady. With Coca-cola Nigeria, Nigerian Bottling Company and The Nation carrying on from where you stopped, your dream for the Nigerian youth is all but assured.

  • Recovering the nation’s soul

    Recovering the nation’s soul

    If  Nigeria‘s unflattering scorecard on the Transparency International’s corruption perception index had meant to stoke a soul-search by the Jonathan administration to appreciate how far metastasised the cancer of corruption has become, and by extension, the lack of seriousness by his administration to confront the monster that threatens the foundations of the polity, it has clearly failed to achieve anything near those. Rather, the administration has opted to mount denials while it struggles to persuade itself (certainly not the now cynical citizenry) that the war against corruption is being fought with vigour.

    The context of course is the latest ranking of TI and the nation’s place as the 35th most corrupt nation in the world. Should anyone lose sleep? Is anyone suggesting that the report is spurious given the scale of sleaze in high and low places being daily revealed? Whereas the claim that the government is doing its heroic best to fight corruption is neither here nor there, the issue is whether the so-called strategies are having the desired effect of curbing the virus of corruption. The answer, being so obvious, makes government’s defence of its so-called efforts, rather egregious.

    No doubt, government’s claim to activism may not entirely be without some merit. After all, if only for the heightened tales of trillions looted outright by officials, plus the countless trillions siphoned via undelivered value for monies said to have been lawfully appropriated, the soulless machine described as the Nigerian government under Jonathan’s watch could, with some justification, claim success – at least going by the number of probes it has instituted – the same way a medic could choose to measure success by the cycle of visits made by the patient to the infirmary.

    The question is – does this amount to winning the anti-corruption war?

    Just as the administration’s claim of commitment and achievement in the prosecution of corruption cases comes across as questionable, there are countless reasons to suggest that the full dimensions of the malaise are far from being fully grasped. I do not wish to dwell on government’s so-called records of achievements, particularly the racket now described as subsidy-gate in which a cartel of 197 oil barons were alleged to have shared of N232 billion, or even the countless other findings from probes spawned in the wake of January 1 protests and the sour tales of vanishing billions. For an administration that appears to have aided and abetted many of the bazaars in the first place, should anyone be fooled by the burst of energy in what is increasingly a half-hearted attempt to punish the alleged subsidy thieves?

    I am alarmed by the increasing reality that corruption has become a way of life. Once, it was tempting to see corruption as exclusive to the public sector. Today, it is as pervasive as it is engulfing – sparing no institution of society. Not the sacred precincts of the religious institution or the hallowed chambers of the judiciary or even the family institution, are exempt. These days, the rule appears to be that the bigger the heist, the higher the likelihood of being able to suborn state institutions to fob off attempts at enforcing restitution.

    Measuring the impact of corruption can be quite daunting. In the public sphere, the cost is reckoned in terms of undelivered value on every unit of public funds spent. In the last decade alone, we have seen how the gap between the value appropriated and value delivered have continued to grow – no thanks to the culture of graft in the public sector.

    But then, the private sector is hardly better. Just as the last financial crisis has shattered the myth about the so-called discipline of the private sector, the impact of the delinquency on the public sector can be quite as devastating. It is worth recalling that the treasury had to shell out more than a trillion naira in bailout funds for its club of delinquent lenders.

    That is how steep the wage of corruption can be.

    Now, I do not pretend that curbing corruption is going to be any easy – any more than one can pretend that it can be a wholly government affair. Indeed, it seems to me as a battle that must be won if the nation’s lost soul must be retrieved. Clearly, there is a lot that the government can do to tame the culture of impunity, to expand the scope of service delivery to facilitate deliverables of governance, and of course to strengthened the institutions in the justice delivery chain.

    Of course, the current strategy of catching the culprit after the act is hopelessly flawed particularly as the larger society appears to have surrendered in some morbid complicity to the monster even when the countless obstacles on the path of institutions notably the police, anti-graft bodies and the judiciary makes the prospects of an all-out battle against the club of social delinquents truly daunting.

    But then, it seems to me that the Nigerian corruption story cannot be explained outside of the collapse of the moral order as we knew it. Once upon a time, Nigerian relished the virtues of hard, honest work and the privileges attached to it. That now belongs to some distant past. Whereas our capitalists, unlike their western counterparts, have long dispensed with the protestant ethics in their wild embrace of a spurious capitalism stripped of any known rules, what is on offer is a grotesque capitalism in which the due discipline of work and the finesse of regulations are missing.

    As a consequence, society has since relapsed into a kind of jungle in which crass individualism rules.

    Where do we go from here. Good question. I do not think that we need new Nigerians. What we need instead are new attitudes. Here, the starting point is to make our governments work for us. I suspect that we will all require a new theology which although heaven bound, also stresses the virtue of civic responsibility. Just as the mission to recover the nation’s lost soul promises to be long and bumpy, it is something that has become urgent. However, if there are any consolations about the challenges which lie ahead, it has to be in the knowledge that the seeds of regeneration will emerge, from nowhere else, but from the ashes of the current rot.

    Happy to be back.

  • Asaba: Beautiful without ‘Okada’

    Asaba: Beautiful without ‘Okada’

    Asaba, the capital city of Delta State always amazes me. I don’t know whether to say that it is a city that is often on the threshold of history or a city that attracts history to itself. Whichever one it is, Asaba sits in a vintage place where it enjoys the cynosure of activities not only from Niger Deltans but Igbos across the Niger. For Asaba, its major beauty and attractive tendency lies basically on that well-known handshake across the Niger, a handshake that breeds good neighbourliness, love and peace.

    But that is even besides the point here now. I hadn’t been to this wonderful city in the past couple of months. When I arrived there a few days ago to board a bus back to Lagos, the sparkling cleanliness and the orderliness of the town stunned me to my marrow. For many years, Asaba had been a place I held so dear to my heart. Due to a nasty experience I had in the hands of thugs and motor park touts when I was in the university many years ago, I never bothered to stop over at Upper Iweka section of Onitsha, Anambra State to board a bus to Lagos. For me Upper Iweka is a no-go area, a nightmare, a total contrast to the peaceful orderliness of Asaba.

    So, as usual on Sunday, the 25th of last month I headed to Asaba from Onitsha for an onward journey to Lagos. As soon as I arrived Asaba, two issues, very basic ones at that, quickly arrested my attention. One, I immediately noticed that there were no Okadas (Motor bikes) plying the roads. Second, I noticed that there were a lot of Keke NAPEP (Tricycles) stationed at different road junctions in the city.

    I was a bit taken aback when I asked and was told that I couldn’t enjoy a quick ride on a motorbike from that end of Ogbo-ogologo to Ibusa junction by Asaba – Benin Expressway. Traditionally I love to ply on Okada because it is easier and faster to get to my destination. Secondly I don’t usually need any protocol to make it happen. And so for me Okada is it especially at the point of emergency.

    So you can imagine how disorganized and perplexed I was on that early Sunday morning. However, the truth is that the ban on Okada has made Asaba more dignifying. Orderliness is the second nature of the town now. There is total respect for pedestrians and for human lives. People stroll and trek without fear of being run over by Okada. The level of decorum and decency in the city truly brought me back to my undue ‘love’ for Okada. For me then and even now, Okada constitutes evil; it belongs to the past as far as city transportation is concerned.

    Here is a city thriving now on good organization, good transport system which makes a total mockery of why we even degenerated to the level of allowing Okada to operate in the first place. What is the essence of Okada in a place like Asaba where there is plenty net work of good roads? Now with the introduction of Keke NAPEP, movement has completely become more secured, more assured and more pleasantly enjoyable.

    As I stood there pondering over what to do, a good Samaritan, for Asaba has a dose of such people, strolled over to me to find out what was amiss. After I told him my dilemma, he beckoned on me to follow him. At the junction not too far from the spot, he pointed to a Keke NAPEP park opposite. “They’ll solve your problem over there,” he said gently and then took his leave. With this, I was again reassured.

    With just N200, I boarded one Keke to the Ibusa highway junction to get a bus to Lagos. For me, it was the best form of picking a taxi drop. My interaction with the Keke NAPEP Operator was also instructive. Not only that the guy, who gave his name simply as Ikenna, is a native of Ogbunike, in Anambra State, he was equally more relaxed driving his Keke gently than being on the fast lane for which Okada is known.

    “My brother,” he said to me in the course of our conversation, “it is good to do what I am doing now. Okada is no good. In fact let’s give kudos to Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan whose love for the lives of the people first informed his decision to ban Okada,” Ikenna squirmed.

    He admitted that when the ban was first made, they almost went mad with anger. Everybody said it would not work. People kicked against it. Even some called the governor names, saying he was against the people. But it is a different story today. Asaba is cool, like a maiden on the threshold of her wedding. The city bubbles with clean smell and fresh coziness. You can’t take it away from Governor Uduaghan, a thorough-bred medical doctor who understands the ugliness of the Okada menace and how they have rendered a lot of people dead, legless, lifeless, handless and so on. The menace, the governor said, had to stop.

    Asaba now beckons on tourists. It welcomes lovers of peace, and promoters of good things of life. No wonder the city is now home to more people who flock into it to develop and invest. Good soup, na money make am, as we usually say in our local parlance. Let the bubble continue as the governor is also set to dismantle a lot of illegal and roadside motor parks in the city. If Asaba will truly wear the toga of an ideal state capital, that should be the next action by the governor.

    Illegal motor parks truly make mince meat of the governor’s efforts to decongest and make Asaba a model and modern town. Not only that the illegal motor park operators extort money from travelers, they usually hoodwink them into believing that what they do is decent and proper.

    Governor Uduaghan has to wade in now to create the necessary imprint. Especially those parks by Ibusa junction, along Asaba – Benin highway, where they usually deceive passengers who would board and may never get to their destinations. They operate with antiquated vehicles and hike fares, promising what they cannot provide.

    If these parks are destroyed forthwith, in no distant time, the city of Asaba will be among, if not the most ideal tourist destination in the country. For those who want to be away from their homes for a while, a stroll to the city of Asaba now provides the required tonic to make life worth living.

    • Azuka is a native of Okoh, Delta State.