The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

Thankfulness

It is the season of year when, if we are privileged and sufficiently wise to count our blessings and name them one by one, we might be pleasantly surprised at what God has done for us. It is time for thanksgiving. And as has been a tradition for me, I have to enlist the support of my bosom friend, whose demeanor this year has been a bit of a surprise too. He not only acknowledged the reality of our people-hood, he also extolled the virtues of our democracy in spite of its challenges.

“In this season of thankfulness, may I ask you a simple question? What blessings are you most thankful for?”

“That is not a simple question” Opalaba responded. “First, it is unfair to categorise blessings in ascending or descending order. A blessing is a blessing and all blessings are equal to a thankful spirit. Second, however, since our experiences are complex and often compartmentalised, for purposes of analysis we may categorise them. We are all supposed to be political animals. I don’t believe that I am. I am a medical professional, you are a philosopher. I am a family man as you are. And we are both spiritual beings. In each of these spheres of our lives, there are uncountable blessings. Therefore, for all the blessings I have received I am most thankful and will forever be.”

For some reason, my friend sounded tamed and subdued. How weird! I wondered to myself, what could account for this sudden appearance of rationality. Could it be the near-death experience of the past year? Mindful of the need to sustain the civil tone of our dialogue, I simply tagged along.

“That’s wonderful, Opalaba!” I chimed in. “I agree completely with your observation. We are pieces of complex machines and our complexity must be acknowledged and applauded. So tell me, what are the reasons for your thankfulness, all things considered?”

“Let me start with the political,” Opalaba answered. “Though we have not always agreed in the matter of the direction of our political life in the country of our birth, I have also been the one that appreciates the fact that it could be worse. And I can tell you now that when we talk about blessings and thankfulness, the driving force of my attitude is that possibility, indeed probability, of it being worse.” We are still one country and one people. Imagine what it would mean if you have to apply for visa to visit your in-laws on the other side of the Niger! Now I easily accompany you, but I don’t know what I will do if I need to go to the Embassy of ?? to get a visa! The thought of it makes me sick!

I told Opalaba how insightful his observation was. It reminded me of my service agent at Darcas Dealership whose instant response to the normal “how are you?” greeting was always: “I could be worse.” That indeed is the spirit of thanksgiving. To know that the situation could be worse is to be thankful first that it isn’t but also second, to entertain the hope that it would be better. However, I wanted to probe Opalaba more.

“You know, of course, that the “it could be worse” spirit is a dangerous one simply because it leaves a lot of room for complacency and resignation to fate or destiny. If you come to the conclusion that our political arrangement and its outcome for our wellbeing could be worse, doesn’t that let the powerful operators off the hook too easily? How will they be held accountable for their excesses and lapses? And by the way, while I am also apprehensive of what a breakup might mean for someone like me who have extended a handshake across the Niger twice, applying for a visa is the least of my concerns.”

“To suggest that matters could be worse is not to suggest that it could not be better. Indeed there is a certain amount of negative connotation to “it could be worse.” Note that my response could have been “it’s great! I can’t ask for a better political arrangement!” More importantly, resignation or complacency should not even be an option for the reason that even the most advanced political systems are also constantly challenged to improve. What we need is the engagement of citizens as the gadfly of democracy and egalitarianism. At any rate, I am thankful that in this country, we have a large number of citizens who are willing to make the necessary sacrifice to move the country forward.”

“You are right again, my friend,” I complimented Opalaba. “As the last general elections in God’s Own Country demonstrate, democracy is always going to be work-in-progress. With some states enacting laws that suppress votes by cutting the number of days for early voting, or demanding photo identification, you would have to wonder what their understanding of democratic election is. It took the vigilance of citizens to ensure that democracy was not ambushed by oligarchs. And I am thankful that we did not have a shortage of hands literally and figuratively. Otherwise, the outcome would be different.”

“Politics is important because it directs all other spheres of our lives,” Opalaba observed. “But it isn’t exhaustive of our experiences. We have a social life, a spiritual life, and of course a personal life that matters to us. And in all these, I am thankful. I know that my redeemer lives and I am going to live the rest of my days making sure that I please Him. I am thankful for the grace which I do not intend to abuse.” True to his nature, Opalaba now wanted to know what I am thankful for, not minding my self-assigned role as the questioner.

“I cannot ask for a better social life,” I volunteered to my friend. “I am thankful for the joy of family, for the experience of true friendship, for the opportunity to live in a society that allows me to flourish physically, mentally, and spiritually, and for the life that I have chosen. I am thankful that when I saw the need, I was able to make my modest contribution alongside others to the renewal of the hope of democratic governance. And now that I have answered the call of duty to serve my profession at another level, I feel blessed and thankful.”

Everyone has good reasons to be thankful. And as the scripture attests, from the mouth of little children, we are able to discern the lessons of life. A girl who could not be more than six years of age put the matter of thanksgiving extremely well the other day. Asked by a television reporter what she was thankful for, the girl responded: “everything.” And before you wonder what could be the reference to everything in the life of a six-year old, the girl added: “Even when you fall on a sidewalk, you still have reason to be thankful because you could learn one thing or two from the fall.” How philosophical!

Happy Thanksgiving!

November 23, 2012
When presidents fight

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has a way of dealing with his protégés when they fall out of line. He doesn’t call to talk to them, especially when the issue at stake is in the public domain; he rebukes them in the open, probably for the benefit of the people who he believes should know where he stands. No doubt these people would have preferred that he called them in private and say whatever he likes to them, but Baba doesn’t do things that way.

Obasanjo seems to get a kick from ridiculing his ‘boys’ in public and I have tried to hazard a guess as to why he does this, without success. Could it be because they don’t listen to him when he advises them in camera? Could it be because he wants to be seen as pro-people? Obasanjo pro-people? It sounds somehow because he is not known to be a man who shows concern for the people, except it is politically motivated.

Really, why does Obasanjo take delight in talking down to sitting presidents when he has unrestrained access to them? Assuming he was in those people’s shoes, how will he feel if he was at the receiving end? Knowing Obasanjo for who he is, he would never allow such attacks to go without a fight. Presidents are a cult of sorts. Whether serving or not, they bond together, meeting and conversing at forums exclusively meant for them. Such forums should provide a veritable ground for an ex to advise a sitting president and avail him of his own experience while in office.

With his native intelligence, Obasanjo may think that such forums are not appropriate for the discussion of certain sensitive matters under which we can categorise his castigation of his one-time minions for perceived poor handling of the affairs of state.

Ask former military president Ibrahim Babaginda; ask the late President Umar Yar’Adua and now President Goodluck Jonathan has got the length of Obasanjo’s tongue. In 1986, Obasanjo tore Babaginda apart over the military dictator’s Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), which the gap-toothed general said had no alternative.

SAP as an economic policy was harsh and Nigerians groaned under it. The late Chief Gani Fawehinmi (SAN), who in his characteristic manner , tried to provide an alternative through enlightened debate was arrested and kept in detention for long. Thus, other Nigerians were cowed from speaking out on the issue. Like a bolt out of the blue, Obasanjo descended on Babaginda and his SAP.‘’Any economic policy’’, he said, ‘’must have human face and milk of kindness’’.

Any policy, which does not pass this test, is not worth it, he said matter of factly to the admiration of Nigerians. In the heat of the crisis caused by the illness of the late Yar’Adua, Obasanjo was on song again. Responding to criticisms that he foisted a sick man on the nation, Obasanjo absolved himself of blame. He said he could not be held responsible for the way the late Yar’Adua turned out in office.

Taking a shot at the late Yar’Adua, who he went round the country campaigning for in 2009, Obasanjo said if someone is given a job to do and he knows that he is not fit to do that job, the best thing is to call it quits. Obasanjo said : ‘’If you take up an assignment, a job, elected, appointed; whatever it is, and then your health starts to fail and you will not be able to deliver to satisfy yourself and to satisfy the people you are supposed to serve, then there is a path of honour and the path of morality’’.

It was an unkind cut because Obasanjo cannot feign ignorance about the late president’s health challenge, but that did not stop him from speaking out in public then. If Obasanjo could not be restrained from talking by the late Yar’Adua’s health challenge, how can President Jonathan, who has no such problem expect Obasanjo to keep quiet if he believes that things are not going on well in the country.

Does the Obasanjo that Jonathan knows behave like that? No, he doesn’t. Obasanjo is known for calling a spade a spade, whether you like it or not. So, he was simply behaving true to type when he took Jonathan to the cleaners over his handling of the Boko Haram insurgency.Baba did not say anything new as we all know that Jonathan has been too soft in his handling of the delicate Boko Haram issue.

The president is only being

cautious in his approach,

but do the group and its backers appreciate this? It is good to be meek and gentle, but it is not noble to allow that gentility to be taken for granted, at least not in this Boko Haram case.

The group needs to be handled with iron hand and this is the message Obasanjo was trying to pass across by criticising the president. So far, Jonathan has taken it too easy with the group. Truly, going by his track record, if Obasanjo were to be in charge, things would not have been handled this way.Give it to Baba.

With his military background, he would have taken some drastic actions, which by now, may have changed the course of events. It may not have necessarily ended the Boko Haram insurgency, but the point would have been made that no group can just wake up one day and resolve to wage war against the society for no just reason without paying the price.

Of course, there would have been some collateral damage, but a message would have been sent across. What is the message that Jonathan is sending across with his handling of the group’s excesses? I’m sorry to say there is none whatsoever and that is the truth.Rather than see Obasanjo’s broadside as an attack on his administration, Jonathan should see it as a wake-up call to do something about this Boko Haram insurgency before things become worse than they are.

There is no need for him to go to battle with Obasanjo over this issue. The group that he should do battle with is Boko Haram and the sooner he faces this enormous challenge the better for us all. Whether the Odi invasion was a failure or not, one thing is certain, we had a president who rose to the challenge of the time and did something.

The question posterity will ask Jonathan is what did he do when his country was burning under the Boko Haram threat? Will he want to be remembered like Nero who fiddled while Rome was burning? It is not enough for Mr President to lament the invasion of the seat of power by Boko Haram elements; what the nation expects him to do is to fish out these people and bring them to justice.

May God grant him the will to do this.

November 22, 2012
Islamic insurgency in the West African Sahel

The Sahara desert has historically not been a hindrance to people’s movement from North to south and vice versa and from East to West. Events happening in one part of the Sahel (shore of the desert) eventually reverberate in other parts of the Sahel. The camel euphemistically called the ‘sheep of the desert’ has always provided means of transportation across the desert. Goods like gold and even slaves and kolanuts have usually found their ways into the Maghreb and beyond through Trans Saharan trade routes. Whilst goods made in the Maghreb and Europe and the Middle East have always found their way into the savannah and rain forest regions.

By the 14th century or even before that time the Arabic script and its local variant, the ajami were widely used in Kano and Katsina, Goa and Timbuktu as a result of diffusion of arab and Islamic culture into these areas. Islamic civilization flourished in the savannah and the Sahel to the point that the Islamic centre of Sankore in Timbuktu provided a training school for the ulama of many cities in the savannah and Sahel. Many of the products sold in morocco for example, the famous Moroccan leather were actually goat skins from Gobir and Zamfara. The point being made is that modern international frontiers are relatively new in these parts of Africa. The people still move easily across national frontiers without realizing they are moving from one country to another. This is why the infiltration of West Africa by Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, Al-shabab from Somalia into the Sahel and our own home grown boko haram with possible external links are now causes for worry.

We now have a situation in Mali where the Toubou or taureg people have taken over the northern part of Mali and are destroying sacred burial grounds of the past Islamic leaders as a part of salafist opposition to the Islamic shrines which they see as anti-Islamic. The city of Timbuktu in particular is being destroyed as part of this salafist campaign and a part of the West African civilization is crumbling before our very eyes. But what is actually very dangerous is the division of Mali along ethnic and racial lines. The area being claimed by the secessionist group in Mali is not coterminous with racial divide between Tuareg and Blacks. In any case, the tuaregs are a wandering people without any particular homeland that can be said to be their original home. In which case, their new country in northern Mali will be a replication of Mauritania where blacks and moors live together in an unhappy marriage.

The situation in the Sahel as a whole, not just northern Mali, has become a cause for worry for important players in the global community particularly the North Atlantic Powers. America and France in particular, have strategic interest in this part of the world. Since the collapse of Libya under NATO pressure, a lot of arms have found their ways into the hands of insurgents in the sahelian part of West Africa including our own part of the Sahel. This is why we have a community of interest with the countries in the west to impose a pax Africana on the Sahel. The UN Security Council is seized with the question of peace in northern Mali and the Sahel as a whole. If Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb is not stopped in Mali, then the same situation will repeat itself in Niger, our Northern neighbor and also in Chad in our North- East where there has been a history of rebellion by their Saharan tribes.

What is to be done? ECOWAS is being prodded and goaded into sending troops into Mali so that the country can assert its sovereignty over its territory including the secessionist northern Mali. This will be in consonance with the Africa Charter of the AU which enjoins on all African Countries to respect their colonial boundaries. Once this principle of inviolability of international borders is breached, no one can predict where it will lead. It certainly could lead to irredentist wars in Africa because of the artificiality of our borders. This is why the secession in northern Mali is not in any body’s interest. It has also been suggested that drug traffickers are beginning to use this territory as transit camps to the Maghreb and southern Europe. The flow of arms into these areas can also destabilize the whole of West Africa and lead to the collapse of many states and consequential movement of huge population that can destabilize the entire world. The armed rebels in possession of hand carried missiles may pose threat to civil aviation across the Sahara desert.

The US and France are apparently prepared to provide logistical support for military intervention in Mali. For this purpose, an ECOWAS force of 3000 soldiers is being assembled to which Nigeria would probably contribute some battalions. Exactly how many soldiers would be necessary to achieve success has not been fathomed out, but anybody with a sense of military history should know that the kind of force that would be needed is not going to be one or two brigades but perhaps a division or two. The area involved is larger than France even though sparsely populated. In other to effectively occupy the area and to uproot these ‘dessert rats’, one would need to defeat them in detail. After their defeat, there will be need for an effective occupation. It seems to me that the ECOWAS leaders have not grasped this. In the history of Chad that we know, France was never throughout its colonial days able to hold the area together. And since 1945 to the present day, the government has not been able to do this. This is simply because of the hostile environment which is comparable to Mali.

It is hoped that the West African force when it goes into Mali, will receive massive French and American logistical assistance particularly the provision military helicopters and combat aircrafts so that what the ground troops will be used for will effectively be mop-up operations. Anything outside this is doomed to fail. ECOMOG was not able to defeat rebels in Liberia and Sierra-Leone without the support of the UN and the additional intervention of British forces in Sierra-Leone in particular. And this is an area much more militarily hospitable than the inhospitable environment of the desert where ECOWAS troops will be fighting much more formidable opponents with the knowledge of the environment and a foe also driven by the fervor of Islamic fanaticism.

There is perhaps no option other than military intervention. ECOWAS cannot simply acquiesce with the dismemberment of a fellow member. But in intervening, it must aim at success because failure will not only expose the organization’s weakness, it will encourage either secessionist forces to rear up their ugly heads. But for me parroting General Colin Powell, no country or group of countries should embark on a military expedition until it has overwhelming power to compel success. A force of 3000 troops in a desert the size of Northern Mali is in my own estimation not overwhelming enough and it seems to me an invitation to failure or to a war of attrition lasting many years.

November 22, 2012
Kagame in Nigeria

Rwandan President Paul Kagame was in Nigeria two weeks ago on a private visit at the invitation of a local Foundation. It was his first visit to Nigeria. The highlight of his short visit was the Spring Lecture on Public leadership of the Oxford and Cambridge Club of Nigeria, which he delivered at the Eko Hotel in Lagos.

The Spring Lecture, an annual event, is a tradition shared by the two great British Universities. I was delighted to attend the lecture which was well attended by other Oxbridge graduates and their guests. I have visited the country before and I was eager to hear directly from President Kagame a personal account of recent developments in Rwanda, and how it emerged successfully from the tragic event of the genocide there a decade ago.

President Kagame spoke enthusiastically and with justifiable pride and passion about the phenomenal economic and political progress achieved since he took over power in Rwanda, after the horrifying genocide that virtually destroyed the country. Rwanda is no longer a pariah state. Under his watch, the country is ostensibly more stable now. There is a general sense of normalcy there, though tribal violence and conflict remain a potent threat to its future stability. Rwanda appears to have put its ugly and dark past behind it. Some of the major economic transformation in Rwanda in recent years is being highlighted in the global media as a good example of sound economic management. Its growth rate in recent years has averaged eight per cent. This is striking as President Kagame came to power in the most inauspicious circumstances, after nearly a decade of civil war and genocide in Rwanda, in which nearly one million Tutsis, the minority tribe, were slaughtered by the Hutus, the majority tribe. The violence was a revenge for the 1972 slaughter by the Tutsi of some 200,000 Hutus, an event that attracted little global attention at the time. This time, the Tutsi genocide stirred the conscience of the world. Its primitive and horrifying savagery was incredible, even by African standards. It was worse than the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. It was the worst in Africa’s long history of bloody civil conflicts. But, like the recovery of Nigeria after its bloody civil war, Rwanda’s recovery from the tragic event and the deep seated tribal hatred that caused the genocide has been hailed and admired widely all over the world. Africans tend to forgive and forget more readily than other races.

In general, poor people tend to forgive and forget more easily, since their means of vengeance is limited. But as Chinua Achebe’s recent controversial book, ‘There was once a Country, and the response to it have shown, the victims of violence do not forgive and forget completely. They simply wait for the right moment for vengeance.

Rwanda has had a chequered political history of serial and tribal violence. With its undulating features and terraced farming, it is a beautiful, small, but landlocked country in Central Africa. Until its independence in 1962, it was one of the three Belgian colonies in Africa, the others being Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Rwanda and the neighbouring Burundi were so small that Belgium governed them as one territory, Rwanda-Burundi, to reduce the cost of colonial administration. Neither was considered by the Belgians as really viable economically on its own. Because of its poor resources, the Belgians did not care much for the colony. Unlike the Congo, described as a geological scandal, Rwanda and Burundi were very poor countries, the poorest in Africa actually. At independence, the two countries had the lowest per capita income and GDP in Africa. They had little or no natural resources and were almost totally inaccessible to outsiders.

Even now very little is known about Rwanda. It remains one of the most obscure countries in Africa. There are no foreign correspondents in Kigali. The few in South Africa hardly ever go there. It was brought into global attention by the tragic events that occurred during the genocide.

In 1973, I had the privilege of visiting Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda and found its natural beauty breath taking. I was serving then as Nigeria’s acting High Commissioner in Uganda, from where we were concurrently accredited to Rwanda. I actually drove there myself with my wife and our two young children, through Uganda, which shares its borders with both the Congo and Rwanda. It was a hazardous journey, but it was the easiest way to get to Kigali from Kampala. The alternative route would have been to fly to Kigali through Nairobi, Kinshasa, and from there to Kigali. There were no regular commercial flights. Most people going to Kigali from Kampala went by road. Our journey took us through frightening hair spin roads, up on the beautiful hills of Rwanda. It took us some six hours to get to Kigali from the Ugandan border where we had spent the night before very comfortably.

At the time, Kigali was a small, sleepy, and unpretentious town, with only a few tarred roads and one major tourist hotel. Even though Rwanda is recorded as one of the most densely populated countries in Africa, but with a total population of only five million, Kigali itself was probably not more than two million in population then. The future of the country looked really bleak, so bleak that nearly half of its population had emigrated to the neighbouring countries of Uganda, Kenya, and the Congo, in search of employment and better economic opportunities. It was the only way to escape the crushing poverty in Rwanda.

At its independence, the Belgians left a terrible colonial legacy in Rwanda which eventually led to its long civil war and genocide. In both Rwanda and Burundi, the Belgians yoked together, under one colonial administration, two different and mutually hostile ethnic groups. The Hutus, a Bantu ethnic group, are the majority tribe, with 85 per cent of the population, while the Tutsis, of Nilotic racial stock, are the minority. But in both countries the Belgians contrived to hand over power to the Tutsi minority, which formed the back bone of the Army before and after independence. The Tutsis ran the country as badly as the Belgians. Under their rule, tribal colonialism replaced foreign colonialism. In Burundi where the Belgians handed over power to the Tutsi monarchy, it was overthrown by the Tutsi dominated Army, which embarked on ethnic cleansing against the Hutu majority. In 1993, a Hutu, Melchoir Ndabaye, won the general election, but was assassinated in 1994 by the Tutsi minority which assumed power again. In Rwanda, a Hutu-dominated government was overthrown by a Tutsi militia which installed a Tutsi government. In retaliation, the Hutus struck back by embarking on genocide against the Tutsi minority. That is the origin of the genocide in the country about which there was despair globally.

Now, President Paul Kagame, a Tutsi, has had some success in ending the despair in Rwanda. He has brought back some hope to the country. Under his rule, the country has recovered from the ravages of its long civil war, and has, by all accounts, made astonishing economic progress. Economic liberalisation has brought in substantial foreign investment in the tourism and service industries. Its FDI per capita is one of the highest in Africa. Kigali, its capital, once a sleepy town, is beginning to look like a modern city, with relatively good infrastructure. Rwanda’s per capita income has increased significantly. President Kagame could boast in his lecture that Rwanda is now 94 per cent literate, and that 90 percent of its population is covered by health insurance. He has tackled public corruption in Rwanda vigorously. The scope and range of Kagame’s reforms and the economic transformation of Rwanda are confirmed by nearly all the reporting multilateral financial and economic institutions, including the WB and the IMF. But unemployment is still rife in the country. For all this, President Kagame deserves credit and commendation.

But there are still some leadership challenges in Rwanda that President Kagame has to face squarely. He is being denounced increasingly at home and abroad as a despot. These critics argue that he does not tolerate any domestic dissent and that the two elections he won over the years by over 95 per cent in a country with a tribal structure such as Rwanda’s were a sham. Many of his domestic critics have fled abroad to European capitals for their own safety. Some of these media criticism may be exaggerated as claimed by President Kagame, who dismissed them at the lecture as biased. But when I brought this issue up with him after his lecture, he appeared rattled and uncomfortable. He defended his regime angrily. He did not appear keen or willing to discuss the issue, or to introduce the necessary political reforms in Rwanda to complement his impressive economic reforms.

Like in most African states, tribal colonialism has replaced foreign colonialism in Rwanda, with the Tutsi minority holding the reins of power and subjugating the Hutu majority. There is no easy answer to this complex African political problem. But the tensions generated by tribal politics in Africa can be substantially reduced by allowing all the ethnic groups greater participation in the political process. The democratic process must be free and fair. A greater accountability at all levels of government will also help. Regrettably, this does not appear to be the case in Rwanda now. It is unlikely that its economic transformation under President Kagame can be sustained without the Hutus, the majority tribe, being given a fair share of the political power in Rwanda, now held predominantly by the Tutsi minority. This is the great test that President Kagame now faces. Failure to address this problem will undermine his impressive economic record. Worse still, it may lead again to the horrendous cycle of violent tribal conflict that almost destroyed the country a decade ago.

November 22, 2012
The fearful evil oracle and his god son

If I were an adviser to President Jonathan, I would have counseled self restraint in taking up issues with Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, over his recent public rebuke. Tragically, the president’s outburst about the success or failure of the ‘Odi treatment’ is not the answer to crisis of leadership raised by Obasanjo.

But more than this, the president more than anyone else knows his acclaimed god father is a leader who is generally regarded as an evil oracle with goodwill towards neither friends nor foes, a leader who thrives more amidst political intrigue and above all, a godfather who according to his daughter, senator Iyabo Obasanjo Bello, neither forgets nor forgives. No past leader is known to have ever survived a battle of intrigue with the ‘ebora’ of Owu.

I am sure the president is also aware Obasnjo who has publicly admitted nothing embarrasses him is not in a hurry to change people’s perception of him as a man who strikes against those who regard him as friend when they least expected. He ate pounded yam with Ahmadu Alli in the afternoon and master minded his ouster as PDP chairman in the evening. He joined the people against embattled IBB during the last days of his fraudulent transition. Abacha, who he had dismissed as the main beneficiary of Babangida ‘transition without end’, did not take chances. He roped him into a phantom coup and put him on death row.

But he survived Abacha to emerge a two term president. He single handedly enthroned ailing Musa Yar Adua president but turned around to denounce him. He did everything including denying the zoning policy enshrined in PDP constitution to enthrone Dr.Goodluck Jonathan as president. Now, he says Jonathan is a weak president. He is holding him responsible for the monumental corruption that has come to characterize government these past years.

As a creation of Obasanjo, one would have expected the president to be conscious of Obasanjo’s well documented periodic interventions in the affairs of the nation; an intervention which most often tragically ended as a tale of doom foretold for past successive deaf leaders. President Jonathan ought to have known from experience that Obasanjo would at the end exploit these interventions to position himself on the side of the people, as he had successfully done in the past when the nation came under the assault of its elected, self or god father imposed leaders.

But as it is always the case, what Obasanjo has just told the president was a rehash of what others who are genuinely worried about the health of our nation have said. Muhammadu Buhari, Bola Tinubu and other patriotic Nigerians have called attention to the president’s inability to confront his corrupt PDP buccaneers who do not give a damn about the health of the nation. The only difference today is that because it was Obasanjo who raised these issues, the self serving presidential aides, paid by the tax payers to help the president in his decision making process cannot demonise Obasanjo or accuse him of ’insulting the president’. They simply abandoned the president to fight his own war with a god father who neither ‘sleeps nor forgives’.

But since government, as the president knows, is a trust, I think the reprimand by Obasanjo, should help him to deeply reflect on what informed the general atmosphere of mistrust by millions of Nigerians who massively elected a God fearing leader about 18 months ago, but today allege his government is behind the massive looting going on in the country just as they accuse him of inept handling of the Boko Haram insurgency. For the purpose of this inner reflection, let us do a quick recap of some unnerving actions of “a Jonathan we don’t know”

Towards the end of last year, it was President Jonathan who alerted his fellow Nigerians about the existence of ‘oil cartel’ that was sabotaging the nation’s economy. What Nigerians got in place of presidential decisive punitive action was a New Year gift of over 300% increase in the pump price of fuel. The president appealed for support claiming the economy would collapse without such an action. Critics who maintained government action was a mere strategy to raise fuel tax to satisfy the greed of government parasites became targets of government intimidation and harassment.

Not long after, it became a public knowledge that the president men and women deliberately sat on the KPMG audit report that revealed monumental stealing in NNPC. To discredit the message, government officials and political office holders decided to turn the searchlight on the personalities behind KPMG-the largest professional services company in the world.

On the eve of the presentation of the Farouk Lawal House Committee report that exposed the theft of over N2 trillion from the nations treasury, Otedola the rumored friend of the president and a confirmed PDP fund raiser was aided by the state to video tape Farouk Laval while receiving $620 of $3m agreed bribe to ensure the name of Otedola’s company is expunged from the list of defrauding firms.

The focus changed from the contents of the report to the leadership of the lower House after PDP leading light had watched a preview of the video. The report of the Aig Imokhuede presidential technical committee was also a damning verdict of soiled hands of some leading members of the ruling party involved in shady oil deals. Instead of the president tendering an apology to millions of his face book admirers he had let down, what we have seen so far is ‘motion without movement.’

The ongoing devious maneuvering to discredit the report of a committee headed by Nuhu Ribadu, known for his integrity by government appointees is perhaps what has finally forced Obasanjo to take side with frustrated erstwhile president Jonathan admirers.

On Boko Haram, besides Obasnajo the dreaded evil oracle , others not as gifted have equally argued the war on Boko Haram could have produced a different result if the president , known for protecting his friends with might and means had deplored half of the energy used in protecting his friends to wade off political foes , in Balyesa, Edo and recently in Ondo, to Borno and Yobe. During the last Ondo state governorship election, borders were closed days to the election with the IG in direct control. The share number of soldiers and policemen deployed to the state while the election lasted ensured miscreants and trouble makers were put on the run.

Since the rest of the country is at peace, the president’s frustrated admirers wondered why their Commander in Chief has been unable to direct the IG to shift his base to Borno or Yobe, swarm the area with soldiers as he did in Ondo leaving behind a handful of men in uniform to curtail the activities of ‘Okada’ law breakers in Lagos, overzealous south south militants who have hijacked our president, after securing mouth watering contracts and Igbo professional kidnappers on the trail of prominent and not so prominent Igbo citizens that stray home from their safe havens of Lagos and Abuja.?

The rest of the souths west, the president can handover to OPC, best equipped to hand out justice to petty thieves and ritual killers. Let us ignore the evil oracle. Who says the spate of killing of innocent Nigerians by those the government even with its control of awesome apparatus of state power claim are led by ‘ghosts’ does not deserve desperate action.

November 22, 2012
A season of death: Justice Kayode Eso; Justice Promotion= injustice to accused; Customs: Don’t burn, Donate!

This November is the season of death. Death is hurrying to make the 2012 quota, just like government’s budgetary ‘last quarter’ mis-spending rush. With the murdered victims of Boko Haram bombs, cattle-farmers wars and floods we also see major deaths in politics, medicine, media and law. No one is ever old enough to die. Professor Bayo Olumide, eminent neurosurgeon, Alhaji Lam Adesina, Dr Olusola Saraki Mr Bode Alalade, broadcaster par excellence and now Justice Kayode Eso. He was the Truth and Reconciliation Icon, true Nigerian, author of books and ‘executive lawlessness’, primus inter pares, legal stellar light, doyen of arbitration, outstanding conversationalist, with great wit. It was always a pleasure to be in his presence. He was partial to the youth and an inspirational iconic role model whenever he graced an Educare Trust activity. Many will recall him being the trial judge who found Wole Soyinka ‘not guilty’ as ‘the man with the gun’ at NBC, Dugbe. May his large heart and soul Rest In Perfect Peace. Amen. With these deaths, governments and media producers have again lost the opportunity to fund historical and motivational documentaries, interviews, Nollywood and radio programmes on making and broadcasting the ‘life and times’ of these great men. Unfortunately, in spite of the well-known anticorruption efforts of Justice Kayode Eso and others, the judiciary is still suspected of corruption, and also stands accused of unnecessary injunctions and adjournments.

A small inexplicable observation on the legal learned world: The recent celebrated and well deserved elevation of certain justices raises an important legal, moral and economic question while the National Assembly and the Legal Council are preoccupied with deliberating on weighty issues like gay marriage, constitutional review and plea bargaining. Why does the judiciary always make an ‘ass of itself’? Imagine a judge trying several complex cases some for 19 months. Suddenly she is promoted with ‘immediate effect’. If this happened in another professional, business or family sphere we would be in court claiming damages for ‘breach of contract’, ‘deception’, ‘false pretences’ et cetera. Remember this was believed to be the problem at the heart of the Justice Salami affair –to get him out of the way, kicked upstairs. The result is that the cankerworm of injustice breaks out right in the judge’s chambers and the courtroom. If the judges themselves were victims of such injustice would they not be up in judicial arms? Can a country like Nigeria, not known for its expeditious justice delivery service, really afford such expensive judicial ‘luxuries’ or delays? Unfinished cases are abandoned even as we celebrate well-deserved judicial promotions. Later another judge has to start all over again.

Social science departments, lawyers’ groups like the NBA and FIDA and NGOs like JDPC and Consumer Protection bodies should compute the huge multimillion naira cost of this cause of ‘delayed justice’, cost of a retrial in emotions and frustration, in repeat legal fees and transportation and feeding, the cost to the accused and witnesses, the cost to the country-all totalling N50-100m for such elaborate cases and unquantifiable ‘judicial inconvenience’ by police, prisons, prisoners, witnesses, litigants and lawyers. This cost does not take into consideration the well-known judicial slogan that ‘justice delayed is justice denied’. Would it not be better to promote the judge, start the new salary grade but keep him or her as a judge of that court until he or she has finished all existing cases expeditiously, cleared the courtroom desk? Fellow Nigerians, languishing in prison ‘awaiting trial’ and innocent till proved guilty, should be protected from such judicial licence. We are happy when judges are promoted but it is good judicial judgement to ensure that they finish all cases pending before abandoning the court. Indeed why do judges not set aside several days for continuous hearing of a particular case to prevent the ‘adjournment syndrome’.

Another socio-legal conundrum: On TV we regularly see goods, drugs and tyres being burnt by Customs or NAFDAC or NDLEA. Environmentally speaking tyres should never be burnt in the open because they environmentally toxic substances which pollute the air badly and also damage the lungs of passers-by, even NAFDAC and Customs officials. Tyre burning should be banned nationwide by a Law ‘Burning of Tyre Prohibition Act’. Burning may be the only option to disposal of seized hard drugs if you do not breathe in the drug filled air around the fire, but why does Customs burn all seized goods? Many such endangered goods are not harmful and are still good enough to save lives if donated to the needy flood victims, and repatriated prostitutes from Italy, freed trafficked persons, orphanages, Red Cross and religious organisations known for their non-corrupt humanitarian work. This would be punishment enough for the smugglers. Fund-raising for these groups is a difficult task in Nigeria. So why this ‘seized wealth to waste’ burning? If the authorities burn tyres, a known major pollutant method, why do they not burn the ammunition and guns they seize and what happens to them? So why burn sieved frozen chicken, rice, cloth and clothes in a country where environmental pollution from smoke is a major problem and 70% of the country is in poverty? Customs should be legally empowered and forced to give seized goods to an independent ‘Bureau of Smuggled and Recovered Property’ or NEMA for forwarding to recognised NGOs, orphanages and handicapped schools. Let the poor, not environmental pollution, benefit from seized goods.

November 21, 2012
Aruma Oteh, Reps and Rams

When people say there is monumental rot in the Nigerian system, government officials who are the kingpins of the rot are quick to dismiss it as balderdash. In spite of this, like a festering sore that has developed gangrene, you can smell the rot, feel it and see it as it walks on all fours all over the place.

An example of this pervasive rot in the system is what is currently going on at the Security and Exchange Commission, SEC, under the watch of Aruma Oteh, the director-general, DG, of the commission. Though she had held sway as DG since 2010, Oteh probably came into national limelight in highly controversial circumstances this May. It was during the sittings of the House of Representatives’ ad-hoc committee that investigated the near-collapse of the Nigerian capital market. Oteh had caused a stir at one of the sittings when she pointedly accused Herman Hembe and Azubuogu Ifeanyi, who were then chairman and vice-chairman respectively of the House Committee on Capital Market and Institutions.

Oteh accused Hembe of demanding a bribe of N39 million from SEC for the hearing and an additional N5 million. She also alleged that Hembe received money from the commission to enable him travel to the Dominican Republic for a conference which he neither attended nor refunded the money to the commission.

The development led to an open verbal altercation between Oteh and Hembe, a situation which finally culminated in the suspension of the probe. A new panel headed by Ibrahim Tukur El-Sudi from Taraba State was later put together to continue with the hearing. But the matter did not end there as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, stepped in. The anti-graft agency subsequently arraigned Hembe and Ifeanyi for alleged diversion of public funds.

Oteh’s confrontational attitude and allegation at the hearing had caused so much bad blood between her and members of the National Assembly who have since been seeking their own pound of flesh. When the two chambers resumed from their long recess in September, they, at different times, passed different resolutions asking the President to remove Oteh from office. As things stand now, there is a stalemate over the issue as the President seems not to be in a hurry to consider the National Assembly’s demand.

Perhaps, it is in order to placate the members of the House Committee on Capital Market that the SEC DG went out of her way to buy rams for them as gift during the last Muslim festival of Id-EI-Kabir. But the members must have learnt a bitter lesson from the fate that befell the two former leaders of the Committee and, therefore, decided to excuse themselves from Oteh and her rams. Instead, they are demanding investigation into how the SEC allegedly spent millions of naira on rams. Call it “twice beaten, once shy”.

In order not to play into Oteh’s hands this time around, the Committee went a step further by reporting the “curious offer of rams” to the leadership of the House. Even at that, the House members claimed that pressures are still being mounted on them to come and collect the rams. One of them told a newspaper recently: “You can imagine the level of waste in SEC. Is it its business to buy rams at a time many people have died as a result of the collapse of the capital market? We want the executive to look into this.”

But Obi Adindu, the DG’s Communication Adviser, was quoted as saying that the commission did not offer the rams as bribe to House members. According to him,”the fact is that the leadership of SEC is operating a well-known zero tolerance policy for misconduct and that is why strengthening of the capital market is a key line objective of the reform agenda”. On the issue of Sallah gifts, he said, “There is an established practice in the commission in which the commission extends felicitation to well-wishers”.

A Yoruba proverb says, “Aitete m’ole, ole m‘oloko”, literally translated as “if the owner of the farm does not make haste to apprehend the thief, the thief could apprehend the farm owner”. This, I believe, is what informed the current hoopla the House members are making to draw attention to the latest development between them and the SEC DG. The members maintained that it was an unprecedented gesture because SEC had never sent any gift to them during any festive period. According to one of them, “that, clearly to us, was attempted bribe. It was the same way the commission attempted to give us #30million and later turned against us that we demanded a bribe. This is a confirmation that the DG is desperate to remain in office.”

From a critical analysis of this incident on both sides of the divide, Oteh must have actually goofed. What is left or what is now being done is damage control. It depends on those managing the SEC DG herself. In the first instance, she shouldn’t have become an emergency ram merchant or vendor overnight simply because she needed to win over the legislators. In the process of doing that, she has now found herself enmeshed in a deeper crisis bordering on mismanagement and total lack of discretion. She could have envisaged that the members would react this way since the memory of what happened to their colleagues -Hembe and Ifeanyi – in May this year is still quite fresh if not permanently engraved in their memory.

It is unfortunate that Oteh has unwittingly allowed herself to be made a scapegoat. Take another look and you will discover that the members who are now hell-bent on dragging her to Golgotha are only playing to the gallery. After all, it is a common knowledge that things have a way of changing hands in the National Assembly. The members are known to devise various ingenious methods to squeeze something even out of stone, particularly in the process of carrying out their ‘oversight functions’ and all that. Also, each time they pick ‘quarrels’ with the executive arm of government, and they do so at the slightest inkling. More often than not, such quarrels usually end‘dramatically’.

But trust image makers. Adindu said it was an established tradition in the commission to extend felicitations to well-wishers. If I may ask: who established such a tradition? If not bribe, what do you call that? What has dragging innocent rams all over the place got to do with the recovery of the capital market? Then come to think of it. How do the committee members fall under the description of ‘well-wishers’? In my own view, Oteh and her handlers should have known from the onset that the committee members are anything but well-wishers. If she earlier thought that she had them as friends, now she needn’t look far any longer for her real ‘enemies’. Again, who told Oteh that flooding the National Assembly with rams could massage the ego of the House members? It is simply one public relations move gone awry, and no amount of white-washing could exterminate the indelible stain and stench it has inflicted on her.

By the way, why has the experience of this Harvard graduate who had spent some years abroad before coming to head SEC continue to fail her? The other day she was accused of being a bad manager by SEC management who said she hardly involved them in her policies and decisions. At that time, it almost looked like an orchestrated gang-up. It will be a disaster if nothing has changed. Certainly, holding sensitive management meetings through text messages and other electronic mails does not speak well of a Harvard graduate who spoke with raw bravado on national television the other day. Now, she is at the receiving end of her own medicine. Maybe the chickens have come home to roost. Too soon!

November 21, 2012
The President and NCC’s dirty war

In contrast to the oil sector which has remained a by-word for corruption, waste and inefficiency since the seventies, there is widespread public perception that the old telecommunication sector, at least from the advent of mobile telephony some eleven odd years ago or so, has turned into an excellent demonstration of how privatisation can turn the fortune of an economic sector around.

This public perception has a sound basis. Today mobile phones number in their tens of millions in sharp contrast to less than 15 years ago when fixed phones were only for the well-heeled or well-connected and numbered only in their few thousands. Mobile phones have also been relatively cheap to buy and use compared to what we had before, if not compared to elsewhere in the world. Not least of all, the services the private phone companies provide have been making quite a bundle for their shareholders and users alike.

Behind this public perception of a relatively efficient and profitable telecommunication sector, however, there seem to lurk a level of corruption which seems different from that of the oil sector less in its nature than on its depth and scope. Indeed there are experts I know who believe, given the way Nitel, the government telecommunication company, was privatised, corruption in the sector is worse than in the oil sector, regardless of the public perception.

We may quibble about the depth and scope of the corruption in the telecommunication sector, but no one can deny that it is there – and that it is big.

Any Doubting Thomas need only refer to recent newspaper reports of how the management of the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), the regulator of the industry, has been washing its dirty linen in public.

It would seem the first blood in the commission’s running feud was drawn by Dr Bashir Gwandu, NCC’s Executive Commissioner (Technical Services), who has been at daggers drawn with the Executive Vice-Chairman of the commission and its chief executive, Dr. Eugene Juwah, almost from the day Juwah took over from him as acting chief executive following the retirement of the penultimate chief executive, Mr Ernest Ndukwe, a couple of years ago.

On October 8, Leadership ran a front page lead story in which it alleged that President Goodluck Jonathan had approved a waiver of a little over 1billion Naira to a company, MTS First Wireless Services, which Dr. Juwah had worked for and in which he had shares before it went belly-up a few years ago. This was also before he became the CEO of NCC. The insinuation in the story was obvious.

Even the most casual reading of a full page advert entitled “Mr. President, Please Save NCC now!”, published in the Daily Trust of October 23, among other newspapers, and signed by five members of a Business and Technology Publishers Forum (BTPF), which they claimed is “a professional body of seasoned Nigerian journalists who are actively engaged in the reportage of Business and Technology especially ICT in the country,” can only lead one to conclude that Juwah and his sympathisers believed the source of the Leadership story was Gwandu.

Predictably, the BTPF advert’s conclusion was that the only way the P4resident can save NCC is to sack Gwandu who, it alleged, has been a serial saboteur of the commission’s management since he was first appointed a commissioner about seven years ago, all, they said, in his bid to become the commission’s CEO.

BTPF is not alone in its call for Gwandu’s sack. Sources close to the supervising ministry say it too would not be averse to sacking the executive commissioner.

The President may yet succumb to the pressure to do so, even though this would not be so easy because it requires the approval of the Senate. But even it were so easy, the President would be ill-advised to listen to the BTPF because sacking Gwandu will not make the issues involved in the now open management feud in the commission and about which Gwandu is accused of talking to the press, to go away. On the contrary, it can only raise questions about the President’s oft-stated commitment to fight corruption. For, there are indeed sordid goings-on at the NCC.

First, no one has denied that the President has approved a huge waiver for the MTS with which Juwah had had links. I believe the insinuation in the Leadership story that this was his handiwork is somewhat unfair to the man. He may have worked there before, but the initiative for the waiver did come from him. Instead it came from his supervising ministry. Besides, the President did not have to approve. So even if he had a residual interest in MTS, the blame for the waiver should go to the minister and the president.

In his own attempt to defend himself from the charge of conflict of interest in the case, the Executive Vice-Chairman told Thisday (October 21) that the allegation was an attempt by enemies of the Jonathan administration to discredit its record of performance.

“It is,” he said, “now obvious that there is a motive and an agenda by some elements who are enemies of this administration and who are bent on stopping us from excelling.” Coming from someone I do not believe should be blamed for the MTS waiver, this is rather disingenuous.

As Juwah himself said in the interview in question, the waiver came about because of moves by a new putative owner of Starcomms, Multilinks and MTS to merge and transform the three into a company that can compete with the Big Four in the industry, namely MTN, Glo, Airtel and Etisalat. All three merging companies, he said, applied for waiver but only MTS was given. This, he said, was because of the three, only MTS had gone bankrupt. This was in 2007. “It was,” he said, “no longer a going concern unlike Starcomms and Multilinks.”

Surely as an industry consultant, Juwah must know that when you buy companies, as the chap he said was behind the planned merger of the three did, you buy them with all their assets and liabilities. Why was it necessary for anyone to ask government to shoulder the liabilities of MTS?

Juwah, obviously, could have done better than trying to defend the indefensible.

Then, of course, the MTS is not the only indefensible going-on at the NCC. There is even the more serious issue of the improper underselling of spectrum in no bid deals, the two most prominent of which were the sale of one spectrum to Open-Skies Limited led by Chief Emeka Offor – someone whose permanence in the corridors of power is almost legendary – and a similar sale of another spectrum to another company with the almost cynical name of Smile Communications Limited (Could it be that its owners enjoy smiling all the way to their banks at the expense of others?).

In both cases the spectrums could have fetched the country much, much more that the price at which they were sold. And in the case of Open-Skies, not only did it pay peanuts for its spectrum; it failed to meet the deadline for payment more than once. Worse, it did not and still does not have a licence from NCC to use any spectrum.

Worse still, at the time the company bought the spectrum it was yet to be properly retrieved from the Nigerian Police Force to which it had initially been allocated for security purposes but which it had failed to use.

Again, it seemed more than mere coincidence that Open-Skies rushed to complete its payment only after the police had acquired a $406 million security surveillance system in preparation for the use of the spectrum. This can only fuel suspicions that Open-Skies acquired the spectrum merely to speculate with it, akin to land speculation.

Certainly the President should move to save the NCC, as our telecommunication beat reporters have urged him to in their advert. However, what he should move against is not Gwandu but the messy goings-on at the NCC which the commissioner has been complaining about but which our concerned reporters see as the antics, indeed, “the lies of an ambitious Commissioner,” to use their own words.

November 21, 2012
Nothing is impossible

The last decade has marked Africa’s highest level of growth in history. Businesses have experienced increasing returns on their investments, proving that investing in Africa today can yield high returns compared to most regions around the world. Although foreign investment is still low, a collective decision by Africans to take advantage of this opportunity can stimulate the push required to bring the region into the forefront of the global economy. We have the knowledge, skills, know-how and capital to build a new future for Africa and by investing in our people, we can make large strides towards eradicating poverty and closing the development gap.

Creating a business climate that will attract investment also requires the creation of an environment where human capital can flourish. Businesses need people who are empowered, well-educated and can think critically in an environment that is stable, peaceful and values diversity. The continent needs healthy, curious children and youth who have the stimulation, education and training needed, starting at an early age, to become change agents and entrepreneurs capable of driving economic and social growth. For these reasons, I am a founding member of the Global Business Coalition for Education, which is focused on enabling businesses to support efforts to achieve education for all.

I first became interested in a career in business when I was still in primary school. I remember buying cartons of sugar and selling them to make a small profit. Even at that age, people told me I had a flair for business – but without the literacy, math and interpersonal skills I learned in school, I would not have been able to tap into this talent. It is therefore sad to see so many young children in my country, Nigeria,who are not able to gain these basic skills at an early age.

The current statistics paint a gloomy picture. According to UNESCO 2012 figures, over 10 million school-aged children are not attending primary school in Nigeria – and this number has increased over the past three years. The number of out-of-school children in Nigeria is approaching 20 percent of the world’s total and makes up over one-third of the 30 million children in sub-Saharan Africa who receive no education whatsoever. In Africa as a whole, another 21.6 million children are out of lower-secondary school.

While getting every child into school is vitally important, the quality of education they receive must also be addressed. In Nigeria, for example, we see children pass through school without learning the basic skills expected from primary level education. I recently read a study conducted by USAID in two states in Northern Nigeria last year indicating that nearly 70 percent of primary three students could not read a single word of simple text. This is yet another reminder that the potential of our country and region is in jeopardy if we fail to have every child in school and learning.

My company, Dangote Group, continues to address issues on education through our corporate social responsibility efforts and the Dangote Foundation. Dangote Academy, for example, has two programmes for vocational and management training. The vocational program provides a one-year scholarship for technical and vocational skills training for students from polytechnics around Nigeria. This year, we absorbed 87 percent of the students into our existing operations. But we know more needs to be done – singular efforts cannot change the trajectory of a nation, let alone a continent. Our governments need to make education and learning a priority. Educational budgets must exceed their current numbers. Civil society must continue to hold government accountable and as the private sector continues to drive growth, businesses need to support these efforts strongly. With the Global Business Coalition for Education, I am committed to bringing more national and global businesses together to support efforts to expand educational opportunities across Nigeria.

Without a global push to achieve universal education by 2015, supported by the Secretary-General and his newly-appointed Special Envoy, Gordon Brown, we will remain a continent that will fail to unlock our potential and instead continue to be bound to conflict, poverty and limited development. Repeating the growth of the previous decade will be impossible without ambitious investments in the people of Africa. Quality education is the right of every child and the obligation of every country. Businesses cannot be bystanders – we must do our part to be active, collaborative, and supportive participants.

On my desk I have a mounted quote that says, “Nothing is impossible.” That is how I feel about the future of the African continent. Nothing is impossible if we make sure every child – and adult – has the opportunity to unleash their potential through an inclusive, high-quality education that prepares each individual to succeed and propel Africa into the league of global economic champions.

• Aliko Dangote is the President/Chief Executive of the Dangote Group. This article was first published byFinancial Times of London in its global perspective special report tagged:This is Africa

November 20, 2012
In defence of how China picks its leaders

The coverage in the western media of leadership changes at the Chinese Communist party’s 18th congress has been almost uniformly negative. Critics say corruption pervades the upper echelons of the party, policy issues are not publicly discussed and the Chinese people are completely left out of the process.

There is some truth to such criticisms but they miss the big picture. The Chinese political system has undergone a significant change over the past three decades and it comes close to the best formula for governing a large country: meritocracy at the top, democracy at the bottom, with room for experimentation in between.

There is a good case for popular participation at local levels. People usually know what’s needed in their communities and they have a good sense of the competence and character of the leaders they choose. In fact, most Chinese participate in local-level elections.

In a big country, however, one person, one vote is problematic. From a moral point of view, citizens should vote for the common good because their votes affect not just themselves but other people. Yet voters tend to vote with their pocketbooks. Many can’t even do that well, since they lack economic competence. One group of voters – the rich – has a better understanding of economics and finds it easy to skew the system in their favour.

To remedy the problem the economist Bryan Caplan proposes tests of voter competence, but that’s a non-starter in democracies because nobody wants to give up the vote once they have it. Hence, it really is the end of history, but in the bad sense that no improvements are possible once the system of one person, one vote is in place.

There is a deeper problem with democracy. It confers voting rights only to adults within national borders. But it’s not just voters who are affected by the policies of the government: non-voters such as future generations and people living outside the country are also affected. In Europe and the US, the public repeatedly votes for lower taxes and higher benefits, recklessly mortgaging the future of their countries. And let’s not mention global warming.

So how leaders should be chosen at the central level? Ideally, the process should be meritocratic: the mechanism should be explicitly designed to choose leaders with superior competence and virtue. Over the past three decades or so, the CPC has gradually transformed itself from a revolutionary party to a meritocratic organisation.

Today, universities are the main recruitment grounds for new members. Students need to score in the top percentile of national examinations to be admitted to an elite university that grooms future leaders. Then they compete fiercely to be admitted into the party. Only high-performing students who have undergone thorough character checks are admitted.

Those who want to serve in government then usually need to pass government examinations, with thousands of applicants competing for a single spot. Once they are part of the political system, further evaluations are required to move up the chain of command. They must perform well at lower levels of government and pass character tests. Then there are more position-specific exams that test for specialised skills.

The advantages of Chinese-style meritocracy are clear. Cadres are put through a gruelling process of talent selection and only those with an excellent performance record make it to the highest levels. Instead of wasting time and money campaigning for votes, leaders can seek to improve their knowledge and performance. China often sends its leaders to learn from best practices abroad.

Yes, meritocracy can only work in the context of a one-party state. In a multi-party state, there is no assurance that performance at lower levels of government will be rewarded at higher levels, and there is no strong incentive to train cadres so that they have experience at higher levels because the key personnel can change with a government led by a different party. Hence, less talent goes to the bureaucracy, because the real power-holders are supposed to be chosen by the people.

In practice, Chinese-style meritocracy is flawed. Most obviously, there is widespread corruption in the political system. Term and age limits help to “guard the guardians”, but more is needed to curb abuses of power, such as a more open and credible media, more transparency and an effective legal system, higher salaries for officials, and more independent anti-corruption agencies.

When it comes to political systems, western opinion leaders are still stuck in a narrative of dichotomy: democracy versus authoritarianism. But the competition in the 21st century, as the scholar Zhang Weiwei writes, is between good and bad governance. The Chinese regime has developed the right formula for choosing political rulers that is consistent with China’s culture and history and suitable to modern circumstances. It should be improved on the basis of this formula, not western-style democracy.

• The writers are a professor of political theory at TsinghuaUniversity and a Shanghai-based venture capitalist.

– Financial Times

November 20, 2012