The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

The North: No to secession try regional integration

‘As much as every ethnic race and their affiliates deserve an independent country, there is only one solution – we must return to the previous system of governance before the tragic civil war. This time, ethnic groups must be allowed to choose whatever region they sincerely want to tag along with. No ethnic group MUST be forced or lumped together in the name of some fuzzy history. In this way, any region can develop at its own pace with little or no external interference. The mutual feeling of distrust and ill-feeling will disappear to some extent. – A commentator.

Alhaji Bello Kirfi is a distinguished man of honour whose services to the country spanned over 28 years and still counting, that is, if he does not succeed in truncating Nigeria. For ease of reference, and to let my readers know that Alhaji Bello Kirfi’s call was not a flash in the pan or made by some inconsequential personality, here’s a snapshot of the technocrat. He was Permanent Secretary for four ministries, Health, Land and Survey, Education and Finance and retired as Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Bauchi state. A former Minister of State, he also served as director, Bank of the North, Equity Bank and Steyr (Nig).Ltd. He is currently the Chairman of Giwo Holdings Limited. A truly lucky and privileged man, and he is certainly not alone as Northern civil servants go, Alhaji Kirfi attended the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and graduated with a diploma in Accountancy in 1971.

With a background as illustrious as this, it should not surprise that Alhaji Kirfi was able to assemble the eminence grise .of Nigeria’s North-Eastern geo-political zone amongst who were highly regarded Malam Adamu Ciroma, Ex-Defence Minister, Gen T.Y Danjuma,

former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Alhaji Yayale Ahmed, Ex-Petroleum Minister and Senator, Professor Jubril Aminu, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, Alhaji Adamu Maina Waiziri, Gen Timothy Shelpidi (rtd), Alhaji Bunu Sheriff, and Alhaji Aliyu B. Modibbo.

Also in attendance were: General Yakubu Usman; Deputy Senate Leader, Sen. Abdul Ningi; Senator Aisha Alhassan; former Minister of Women Affairs, Hajia Inna Ciroma; and former Education Minister, Alhaji Dauda Brima. And nobody could have been surprised to see the distinguished Professor Ango Abdullahi, former University Vice-Chancellor and foremost Northern irredentist.

The fact that Alhaji Kirfi invited General Danjuma to the summit must be proof positive of his belief that there is a groundswell of reasons why the North must now ‘secede and take its destiny in its own hands’. I say this because he cannot claim to be unaware of what would be the disposition of a man who has serially asserted that another civil war will practically kill off Nigeria. He must have felt that there are some commonality between him and those invited as to the disadvantages the North currently suffers from the status quo. But it did not surprise, either, that the General was one of those who, at least, temporarily squelched the call to secession.

What then are the conjecturable reasons for the call?

Without a doubt, since the Southern friend the North inflicted on us all turned against them by neutralising, if not completely eliminating, the sources of easy money and arrogance of power, it has been jeremiad upon jeremiad amongst the hitherto extremely powerful Northern politicians/soldiers. Obasanjo has completed his denouement of this class of Northerners when he went ahead, without as much as asking their permission, to make the late Yar Adua the choice of the North to succeed him. For purposes of clarity, Obasanjo did not do that for altruistic reasons but just to be the voice behind the throne, a throne he knew had been weakened, ab initio, by the incoming President’s state of health. This neatly eliminated the Northern influence to the point that by the time Hajia Turai came unto her own, not a single Northern politician , or any of the erstwhile swashbuckling generals, could any longer rein in her excesses. Not a whimper was heard from Minna where two former presidents of Northern extraction reside nor from Kaduna where power had formerly oozed from. Indeed, Obasanjo had gone further to defoliate some sources of unconscionable personal wealth further driving in the bitter sword.

And he was not done.

Even though rotational presidency as party policy had been formally ratified by the Peoples Democratic Party which, ipso facto, meant that a Northerner should succeed to the presidency at the end of Yar Adua’s first term, given that he was no longer available to continue in office, Obasanjo did much more than Chief Edwin Clark in edging on former Vice-President, Goodluck Jonathan, to throw in his hat into the presidential ring. Things have never been the same ever since.

It is not unknown that some Northerners have since promised to make the country ungovernable for Jonathan and the consequences have been absolutely ferocious. Boko Haram, even though did not come at the instance of these disgruntled politicians –since they were originally the roughnecks of the ANPP government in a particular state in the North-East – have since found justification for their extreme excesses in the angst the PDP politicians have against the President.

I, however, believe that the immediate precursor for the secession call is Jonathan’s decision to no longer treat Boko Haram with kid gloves. Rather than the hoped-for intervention funds, ala those government has put in place in the Niger-Delta area, humongous funds some Northern leaders would think they would again latch on to further pauperise their people as has habitually become the norm, the President has chosen to treat Boko Haram as urban terrorists who deserve nothing but strong hands. No longer do we hear of negotiations with some faceless bloodhounds which North-East elders continue to make their demand.

I agree completely that the Federal government must intervene appropriately in taking the North out of its economic miasma which, without a doubt, has been self-inflicted because its elite has, over these many years, been very selfish and completely unsympathetic to the agony of its hoi polloi. Northern leaders should, however, start a process of replacing their sundry sterile summits with serious discussions on how to economically empower their people. In this regard I strongly recommend that they interrogate, very seriously, Regional Economic Integration as panacea to the lingering economic incubus in that part of the country.

The DAWN Document which copiously documents South-West’s DEVELOPMENT AGENDA FOR WESTERN NIGERIA, but which many have demonised as the document to underpin Yoruba secession fromNigeria, is a serious document put together by the Yoruba intelligentsia and Professionals and to which the legislative houses in the region have since bought into and is being assiduously driven by its governors who have since set up Ministries of Regional Integration..

The North, it must be said, cannot always rely on the federal government. It may bear relevance to mention here that during the Obasanjo years, with an Alhaji Muktar Shagari as the Water Resources Minister, and to the near total exclusion of the South-West, billions of naira were being voted for irrigation projects in the North that AGBAJO, a Pan-Yoruba Socio-Cultural Association, had to set up a 3-Man Rapid Response team, to react to the almost weekly announcement of these humongous awards at the end of every Executive Council meeting. That then was a function of how much hold the North had on Obasanjo until he was able to break loose.

That preferential treatment for the North is no longer possible is one of the reasons predisposing any group of Northern leaders to suggest ‘Araba’. Without a doubt Alhaji Kirfi must have confided in very many of the confreres before the summit and the fact that the Ciroma’s and the Danjuma’s were able to shut it down now does not mean it is dead as a cause.

October 21, 2012
Thinking the unthinkable

From Friday October 26th till Sunday October 29th, the cream of Yoruba intelligentsia, business elite, dominant leaders of the Yoruba progressive wing, or the Afenifere old guard as they are known , and emergent political conquistadors gathered at the alluring ambience of the Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Ibadan to map out the way forward for the Yoruba and Nigeria.

Snooper was there, and was as busy as the proverbial beetle. It was not as a learned pundit or intellectual hell-raiser, but as a humble student of history. And history was aplenty to learn from. As Solzhenitsyn, the great Russian writer has noted, there can be no greater test for a doctor than to suffer an affliction in his own speciality. There is a crisis of intellectual initiative in contemporary Nigeria, and snooper is badly hit.

The first shock on entering the hallowed premises of the Tropical institute was profoundly cultural, and then perhaps social and political. It is hard to imagine an oasis of rationality in a desert of disorder. But there it was in all its lush splendour. Everything worked, including the showers. The staff were polite and focused. And yet virtually all of them are Nigerians.

Less than three miles away is the urban hell of Ojoo where berserk trailers compete with its equally disturbed denizens for the laurel of lunacy. The Americans at the apex of things at the Tropical Institute would have none of this nonsense. They have created a little America in suburban Ibadan. If Ojoo and its deviant ethos were to be transported to America, the entire inhabitants would have been quarantined as a threat to national sanity.

The distinguished and illustrious Yoruba sons and daughters who thronged the Tropical Institute did not come for sight-seeing, but it helped in this particular instance to show how far Nigeria has regressed. So did a guided tour of the institute at the end of proceeding.

They came from far and wide. From the academic community, the arms-bearing strata, the business and industrial sector , the political class, civil society spectrum and indeed from the powerful Diaspora. It was , so to say, perhaps the greatest collection of Yoruba brains since Chief Jeremiah Oyeniyi Obafemi Awolowo dined alone.

Needless to add that it was a revealing and illuminating occasion. It was also not without its great ironies. Unlike major gatherings of the Yoruba in the past that held under an atmosphere of federal siege against the people or against the backdrop of an imminent dissolution of the federation itself, this one took place in an atmosphere of perfect tranquility.

Ironically, it was this seeming atmosphere of peace and political placidity that increased the background anxiety. Coming after eight years of sustained assault on law and order, on political rationality, on the fundament of the federation by a power mafia led by a Yoruba son and culminating in an election marked by spectacular fraud, the joke was on the Yoruba elite.

This time around there was no Kaduna mafia to rail at. There were no Hausa-Fulani hegemonists to harangue and harass. The caliphate supremacists have retreated into their dark laagers, battered and badgered into submission by the militarised might of a monster state. Having contributed their own quota to the stunning incompetence and malevolence of the Nigerian state, there was a lot to be modest about for the Yoruba elite.

If a bungling old soldier, a combatively incompetent autocrat, was all they could contribute to moving the nation forward, then why have they been disturbing the peace of the nation for 40 years? For the Yoruba, the enemy is not abroad. The enemy is within.

In such circumstances, it was to be expected, and also perfectly rational, that Obafemi Awolowo should loom large. And the sage from Ikenne was there in all his commodious and overpowering presence. Awolowo hovered over the conference like a presiding deity and spiritual paterfamilias. He dominated the proceedings, and at every turn, his illustrious name was invoked like a timeless talisman.

It is a measure of Awolowo’s stature as a politician and philosopher that 20 years after his death, it has proved impossible to move Nigeria or the Yoruba nation forward without first coming to terms with his prognosis and prognostications. Just as it has proved impossible for the capitalist world to move forward without first coming to terms with Karl Marx’s historic hectoring, it is impossible to think Nigeria without first thinking through Awolowo. But since Nigeria has been in permanent denial as far as Awo is concerned, the best thing is to leave Nigeria severely alone until we all come to our senses.

That being said, Awolowo remains the greatest Yoruba man in recorded history. But just as the late twentieth century was to prove that despite his devastating critique, Karl Marx was nothing but a great closet capitalist, it may yet be that when Awolowo’s ideas are fully implemented, he would be seen as the greatest closet Nigerian, contrary to the impression of his many traducers who dismiss him as a tribalist.

It was not surprising that the surviving Awolowo lieutenants were there in their full strength. These are the titans and grandees of the struggle for the emancipation of the Yoruba within the federation of Nigeria. History will accordingly note their heroic stance and principled refusal when it mattered most. The last five years must have been a nightmare for them, having seen their flock dispersed and their influence dramatically whittled down.

And so they sat in suburbia Ibadan hunched with fright and disoriented by looming political irrelevance. Despite the occasional sabre rattling by the most rambunctious of them, it was clear that the fire has gone out of the belly of the old men. Their 2003 capitulation to Obasanjo was historic in the sense that it was an acute reading of the handwriting on the wall and of the mood of the sophisticated Yoruba political mob.

Having studied them at close quarters between 1999 and 2003, Obasanjo forcibly appropriated their mantra as defender of Yoruba interests without provoking massive revolt and animosity from his northern patrons. Thereafter, Obasanjo raided their ammunition dump to the bargain. If you say you are the defender of Yoruba interests against northern domination, here is a Yoruba son who is providentially positioned to do it much better and with vast federal resources too.

Reading the script correctly but fatally was Bola Ige who was on the verge of resigning from the federal cabinet in order to quarantine his beloved South West from the PDP power-mongers even while conceding the centre to Obasanjo. But by then, the great Cicero himself had done enough to undermine and hobble the AD and had also supplied enough ammunition for his own demystification to Obasanjo.

It would have been a nasty dogfight indeed with Ige in a lose, lose situation. Thereafter, the west succumbed to internal conquest by a mafia that knows everything about power but nothing about its responsibility. The result is the political regression and underdevelopment that stare us in the face today.

But you cannot step into the same river twice. If Awolowo himself were to be alive today, he would have had to reinvent himself severally and severely to take on board new political realities. Brilliantly proactive as usual even while holding dismal cards, Awolowo saw this when he retired from active politics in 1983.

Something tells this columnist that time is up for the Awoist old guard. But among the Yoruba there is a protocol for the retirement of elders. Snooper will not support the old men being harassed and harried into humiliating political dotage. Let them take their time in a dignified exit. We must learn from the crisis of the last eight years and even from Obasanjo’s iconoclastic intervention, whether we like him or not. Having proved themselves to be human and fallible if the old men are expecting instant obeisance from the new generation of progressive Yoruba political warlords, they are in for a rude shock.

October 21, 2012
Amend the people, not constitution

Changing the 1999 constitution without changing attitudes will be a wasted effort

Most people would agree that Nigeria’s 1999 constitution is a flawed document. The product of a succession of manipulative military juntas, it was the shaky platform used to usher in a Fourth Republic that could not wait for the perfect thing – given the tense political atmosphere in the country in the immediate aftermath of the deaths of General Sani Abacha and Chief M.K.O. Abiola.

Any constitution written for a country with Nigeria’s diversity is bound to be problematic because of the need for endless compromise. In our case the agreement seems to have been to leave all the hot button national issues alone in the vain hope that some sages down the line will get around to addressing them.

That has not happened. Instead all those questions have come back to haunt us on an almost daily basis. That is why most reasonable people won’t argue with the need to amend the constitution to enable our democracy grow.

But much as amendments are desirable, there’s much about the current process that just makes you wonder whether it won’t all end in tears.

At the last count the Senate Ad-hoc Committee on the Review of the Constitution headed by Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, disclosed it had received 240 memoranda on the subject. A similar committee in the House of Representatives says it has also received well over 200 such memos.

This will suggest feverish interest in the process. But nothing could be farther from the truth. Powerful interests like governors and other factions of the political elite have seized the process – predictably – and this is reflected in context of the issues that are emerging as top of the agenda for review.

Among them are things like state creation, state police, tenure for political office holders, independent candidacy, proportional representation, onshore-offshore dichotomy, indigeneship and adjustment of the 13% derivation principle.

Some Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) are evening pushing items like rewriting the whole document in gender-neutral language, or more explicitly so that references would be made specifically to “he” or “she” rather than the politically-incorrect current references to only “he”.

In the unlikely event that this massive shopping list of amendments pass muster, then the advocates would celebrate the fact that Nigeria has finally joined the ranks of countries with so-called ‘progressive’ constitutions.

I beg to demur. What may be progressive or desirable for some might not necessarily be in the national interest at this point in time. There are those who argue that you don’t need a constitutional amendment in other to create states. They say the procedure is already clearly spelt out in Section 8 of the present document.

I would go further to say it is downright unpatriotic to be talking about creation of new states when many of the existing ones are virtually on their knees. State creation is a slippery slope. The Nigerian politician will never get sated until we have one for every ethnic nationality.

Again, take the issues of a six or seven year single tenure, and the requests by registered political parties for proportional representation (PR) as means of taking heat out of the contests for political office. I doubt whether the introduction of these items into the constitution will change what is wrong with our politics.

Even if we provide a single tenure, blood will be shed over who gets it at any point in time. As for a PR system that replaces the current first-past-the-post arrangement, all that it will do is ensure that more people – outside of the current ruling parties – hop on the gravy train. But is that in itself a guarantee that these new office holders would be coming to serve? You know the answer to that one.

Let me reiterate that I am all for amending the constitution. But I think we need a bit of a reality check here, and not go around thinking that we have found the perfect cure for the problem with Nigeria.

Let’s not forget that there are countries which don’t even have a written constitution and things still work in a reasonably organised fashion. Three of those nations are New Zealand, the U.K and Israel.

A constitution alone is no guarantee that the system will work. Indeed, amending the 1999 document without amending the attitudes of the people who will operate it will simply make the on-going exercise an expensive wild goose chase.

A reckless and irresponsible driver will readily crash the best engineered and retooled car on earth, and the problem won’t be with the vehicle but the driver’s immature conduct. In the Nigerian case, rather than work on the driver we would start tinkering with engine of the blameless automobile.

In discussing this issue I always project a hypothetical scenario. Most independent-minded people will say that the US constitution works. Now, if all 200 million plus Americans were removed from their country and replaced with all 160 plus Nigerians, would that constitution still work in the hands of the new arrivals? A document does not a country make.

For all the flaws of the 1999 constitution, my position is that we have not given ourselves enough time to use and test it. The United States constitution which is 225 years old has only been altered18 times in that period. In our case I have lost count of the number of occasions when we’ve sought to touch up the document in the last 13 years.

A few of those occasions we tried to do so for blatantly selfish reasons. A case in point is when former President Olusegun Obasanjo tried to amend the constitution to give himself a third term – a stunt that blew up in his face and short-circuited the process.

Given the interest of presidents, governors and legislators in some of the items listed earlier, I believe that some sort of broad review of the constitution will happen in the not too distant future. It is in their collective career interest to see that they push this through. But what they will end up producing will be a document by the political elite for the political elite – never mind the empty boasts about being the people’s representatives.

The overwhelming majority of Nigerians are not engaged with what is going on, and very few understand how it could affect their future. Many are probably battling with the devastating impact of floods that have swept away their homes to care about new states and single tenure.

But if the ongoing review is to be free from the stain of illegitimacy which the 1999 military construct suffers from, it has to be subjected to some form of mass participation. If there will be no sovereign national conference, a decent compromise would be a national referendum that allows ample time for national discussion at grassroots level.

I suspect that were this to happen, some of the things that are so important to our politicians will swiftly bite the dust. Unfortunately, the middlemen in the National Assembly will never let this happen.

October 21, 2012
Obama wins debate but does not recover lost ground

•The first battle you must win is the one with your toughest adversary: yourself

AFTER a flaccid first debate performance, President Obama redeemed himself in the second event. His performance was nearly masterful. Unlike the first debate where his responses bored the listener by being too wordy and enmeshed in the arcane, his second debate answers were pithy. He not only evinced command of facts and figures that seemed elusive in the first encounter, he spoke of large themes such as economic fairness, gender discrimination, peace and security, and the role of government. Some of what he espoused was too much a rehash of moderate-conservative orthodoxy to do him or the nation much good. Yet, at least, he talked as if he possessed a vision for the country and that the burden of the last four years had not reduced him to a transactional president satisfied with minor policy initiatives at a time when only major steps will suffice.

Taking small steps when the moment begged for a series of huge leaps was the trademark of President Hoover. In the American political context, Hoover’s name is synonymous with failure. As the surge waters of the Great Depression descended on his countrymen, all Hoover could advise was for them to hold their breath and pray they did not drown before the tide subsided. After the first debate, Obama was in danger of being perceived as the spiritual heir of Hoover’s palsied incrementalism.

The difference between the two debates was the president came into this one with starch in his collar. It was a contentious sparring session. This time, the president did not hire himself out as his opponent’s trampoline. This time following the biblical guidance on giving and receiving, the president delivered more blows than he took in. The long-term importance of his combativeness should not be missed. Throughout his political career, President Obama painstakingly positioned himself as a “non-offensive” black man so as not to perturb too much of a largely white electorate. In 2008, this strategy helped him win the election against an irascible, mercurial John McCain. In 2012, it might help him to lose it.

In surrendering the first debate, Obama gave away more than he realised. He allowed the fallacious Romney to appear presidential, thus pilfering in one easy night a chunk of the goodwill Obama had studiously cultivated over the years. The results of the first debate were extraordinary in that the considerable electoral movement toward Romney was disproportionate to the performance levels of the two candidates. Romney won that first debate but Obama’s performance was not so meritless as to justify the erosion of support he has suffered. Startled by the loss of fortune occasioned by that debate, Obama was forced to reassess his passive black man strategy. His performance at the second debate shows that he decided to shelve the passive approach. As such, the second debate may be more important for what it taught Obama than for anything it revealed to the voting public.

President Obama learned he could publicly confront, fight and even ridicule a leading white conservative and still garner enough support to have won the debate. In a politically divided nation, a leader will lose his way if his guiding principle becomes “thou shall not offend.” He has to realise everyone will not like him and that many will bitterly oppose him, politically and personally. Thus, the most prudent thing is to battle your opponents by fashioning policies that attract and galvanise a winning electoral and governing coalition. Obama may now understand that he can forge such a coalition by asserting himself more than he can by acting demure. He may now understand a black man can actively battle against a conservative white opponent without being completely written off by the white electorate as a Mau Mau run amok. As long as he fights wisely and well, he will maintain enough support. If the president holds on to win the election, he will be able to view his first debate performance as a blessing in disguise. Without having that setback, he might not have abandoned the passive approach and only by abandoning this stance can he move from being a middling chief executive to becoming the excellent one we expected.

Mitt Romney lost the debate but did not suffer in the opinion polls. Romney did not do poorly, he just did not equal Obama. One of his problems, Romney appeared confident, perhaps too confident. Some of his answers were tinged with the plutocratic arrogance he successfully hid during the first outing. One could sense his natural disposition was to be dismissive of minorities and women whom he did not consider among the masters of the economy. The concern he expressed for their welfare was as meretricious as a streetwalker’s affections. All in all, the debate showed Obama at his best was better than Romney at his. Strangely, this might do Obama no good. Although he scored less than Obama, Romney did not implode during the debate. Undecided voters, who are mainly white conservative moderates, can still conceive of Romney as being president. While there is no greatness evident in the man, they believe he can do a yeoman’s job in office. This will be sufficient for them to base their vote on tribal (racial) affiliation. Since they do not feel Obama has proven to be an exceptional president, they feel no hesitation dumping him.

The working thesis in this election is that if these white conservative moderates sense that Obama is only slightly better than his opponent, that slight advantage will be a disadvantage. It will not deter them from flocking to Romney. In American politics, the admonition against changing horses in mid-stream does not apply when the incumbent steed is black and the challenger is a white thoroughbred.

During the debate, the two men battled over many issues. Governor Romney tried to berate “Obamacare” but his attack seemed unduly rehearsed and wooden. Health care reform has been President Obama’s signal piece of legislation. This column has repeatedly assessed this attempt as a flawed compromise where an impuissant Obama yielded too much to the insurance companies and did not sufficiently protect low-income consumers. Obamacare is the equivalent of giving the poor a raincoat. That would be fine in a storm except that the insurance companies are pelting them with rocks and bullets not water. The poor need a Kevlar shield. Obamacare provides only the image of one. In reality, the measure was not truly health care reform but insurance reform. More people will be entitled to insurance but they will pay a higher price. Those who have little money will end up purchasing insurance policies with coverage that will prove elusive when most needed. As badly as it sounds, this improves the current system. This is where Romney told on himself. He presented no alternative save the current way. He would rather continue feeding a vulnerable public to ravager insurance companies. In effect, he would toss everyone into the water. The fit and lucky would make it to shore. If the alligators don’t get the rest, the piranha will. Such is the way of life and death in the Romney-world of health coverage flimsily regulated.

Regarding the issue of fair pay for women, Obama reminded the audience that he championed legislation calling for equal pay and expanding women’s legal rights thereto. Romney tried to steer away from this big issue by trumpeting that his record of hiring women to important positions when he was Massachusetts governor demonstrated his commitment to equal distaff treatment. However, he never mentioned whether his female staffers received salaries equal to their male counterparts. He dared not enter that territory. He is on public record opposing equal pay for women. When Obama effectively assessed that Romney’s position was not only unjust but poor economics, Romney could not fashion a retort. There was none to fashion. If he told the truth lurking in his heart – that women are lesser beings and thus deserving of lesser pay – he would surely throw the election. Thus, he sat and silently smirked waiting for this awkward issue to pass.

The most dramatic moment of the debate focused on Libya. Romney thought he had Obama cornered. Romney was right on one point. There was a corner. However, he was dead wrong as to who was in it. Romney strutted about like a bantam rooster when Obama stated he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror merely one day after the attack happened. Romney implied Obama was lying. When the moderator informed Romney the president had indeed used those words, Romney looked nonplussed as if someone just handed him a passage to read in Sanskrit. Attempting to regain composure and the offensive, Romney suggested the Administration had purposely misled the public about what occurred in Benghazi. Obama’s riposte was the highlight of the evening. Firmly and passionately, he defended his team and his own integrity. He said he took full responsibility for Benghazi but that Romney’s insinuation of a cover-up was offensive to decency. Obama declared that was not the way he conducted business as commander-in-chief of a great nation. He said it so deftly that one was left with the impression that Romney alleged a cover-up because that is exactly what he would have done had he occupied the Oval Office at the time. With the turn of a few choice sentences, the accuser, not the accused, was revealed to be morally shallow.

The most important segment of the debate centered on economic policy and taxation. Sadly, Obama stuck to the old saw that deficit reduction was a top priority. He endorsed the recommendations of a commission he established to reduce deficit spending by 4 trillion dollars in ten years. Trying to be even-handed, he said this would be accomplished by budget cuts on one hand and tax increases on the rich on the other. This is unsound economics. In a period of weak economic growth and significant private-sector debt deleveraging, reducing government deficit spending is the road to economic deflation. In the end, such deflation hurts the poor and working classes while benefitting the financially endowed.

Meanwhile, Romney crafted a tax proposal that seems to give a bit to everyone without taking anything from them. It is too easy to be true. It is also mathematically implausible that the proposal would reduce the deficit. This is where the fun starts with Romney. If implemented, his proposal will produce a higher deficit. Either he tackles this with higher taxes which could be economically poisonous if those taxes fall too heavily on the working and middle classes. However, he could well let the higher deficit stand. Spurring more economic activity by putting more money in private-sector hands, this policy would be condign. Ironically, this is what should be happening given the current economic circumstance. If this is Romney’s ultimate design, he must be given credit. The ersatz conservative may actually be attempting to accomplish through the sidedoor what an unabashed progressive Democrat would have tried through the front one. Sadly, on economic matters, President Obama has not been a progressive or even a liberal. Thus far, he has had the mind and heart of a 1970’s Republican wrapped in black skin and adroit in the symbolic rhetoric of the mild social liberalism of the first two decades of the 21st century. In other words, Obama is a liberal on social issues but a moderate-conservative on economic matters. The nation would be on more solid footing if the president were less amphibious.

The silliest moment of the debate came when both candidates claimed government does not create jobs, only the private sector does. This nonsense is particularly ironic coming from two men willing to devote so much time, log so many travel miles and spend billions of dollars to win a government job. It is a fairy tale of free market orthodoxy that teachers, firemen and air traffic controllers do not perform real and valuable service to the public and the economy. It makes no sense to believe that when government spends money for the construction of a road, bridge or railway that the laborers on these projects are not performing “real jobs” because the money comes from government. The truth is that government is an important direct employer and indirect job creator in every nation, including America. Without government exercising this function, the economy would be reduced to perpetual depression. That is a fact that no amount of free-market cheerleading can mask. Not only is it wrong it is dangerous for it belittles the role of government at a time when government has a very important role to play.

In the end, Obama acquitted himself at the second debate. He proved that he is better than Romney. This advantage may be insufficient to sway undecided white voters. The majority of this group may decide that tribal affiliation trumps Obama’s skill and temperamental advantages. While the debate may not stop the move of this segment toward Romney, it has helped to reactivate Obama’s own support base. This will be important to maintaining his leads in many of the key states (Ohio, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, etc.) that will ultimately decide the election. If he does survive this battle of attrition and hold to the presidency, perhaps the lessons learned in the second debate may lead to a different way of governance in his second term. Stylistically, the president has learned he can be more assertive without alienating the American heartland. Perhaps more importantly, he may summon the courage to break with mainstream orthodoxy and veer toward a more progressive economic path. This path would promote the retooling of the American industrial sector, bolster the middle class with more jobs and better wages, and assure the continued viability of the programs at the core of the American social compact: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Beyond the immediate fallout from the debate, the longer-term hope is that he breaks from the strictures of conservative thought. We do not require this new hope to be one of audacity. We just pray it will not be a forlorn one.

October 21, 2012
Okon speaks on Awo

May we know you, please?” one of the interviewers, a born charmer, opened with smiles and easy charm.

“If you no sabi Okon, wetin you dey do here? See me see trouble oo”, Okon demanded.

“No, no, we mean can you tell us about your background?”, the poor fellow added.

“Aha”, Okon began in an expansive mood. “My back no dey for ground ooo. I tell you ten Yoruba wrestlers no fit do dat. But my name be Okon Anthony Okon, my father be Uzor James Uzor. We don dey live for Slessor’s street so tey. I come from Calabar. My father come from Calabar. Him papa come from Calabar. Him own papa come from Calabar. Him own papa come from Calabar. Dem papa come from Calabar. Dem papa come…”

“Enough of this rubbish and drivel”, the mean looking chap screamed.

“Na your papa be rubbish and driver. My own papa be palm wine tapper”.

“What? I’m gonna take out this stinking asshole”, the mean one scowled and was about to get up.

“Twenty of you no fit. If I no wan go out, you no fit take me”, Okon shouted as he began an elaborate war ritual.

“John sit down”, the leader of the team ordered the surly one with full authority.

At this point, the fellow in traditional costume who had been eyeing everybody with mirth and relish got up and started singing an ancient Yoruba tune.

Eyin te maja wa (Those who have brought the mad dog)

E mo’kun ko le oo ( Do not relax the tight leash)

Eyin te mu were wa (Those who have brought the madman)

E ma jo’kun o ja (Do not let the leash snap).

Everybody, including Okon, started laughing, and the interview got on an even keel all over again. The man in traditional dress sat down, beaming with mischief.

“Prince Okon, can you tell us about your father?”the great charmer asked in a soothing and rather unctuous manner.

“Ha, my papa, my papa, may god receive am if he don quench becos one day he come disappear say he wan go fight dem French for Bakassi but mama say na Owerri agaracha wey come turn him head with Ofe nsala. But na better palm wine tapper. Na him dey supply Awolowo with palm wine when he dey Calabar prison. At times sef, the Yoruba wizard go vamoose from prison to come drink palm wine”.

There was total silence. Everybody was stunned by the gale of the revelation. It was the surly chap who recovered the initiative and went on the offensive.

“That sounds to me like a load of shitty crap”, he moaned under his breath as the leader whipped him with his eyes into quick compliance.

“Prince Okon, what we are saying is that Chief Awolowo was a teetotaller”, the leader opened cautiously.

“Taller than who? I beg no vex me oo”, Okon said as he sprang up. “Awolowo na short man, he no tall pass anybody”.

“Asiwere. (Madman)”, the man in traditional costume said with a superior smile. He seemed to have a full measure of Okon as the Calabar rogue avoided him.

“Prince Okon, what we mean is that Awolowo never drank or smoked”, the leader offered with a calm mien.

“No be dat you for say? All dis gbamugbamu grammar I no dey. Abi no be the yeye Sina boy who say grammar no be success? But you Yoruba people, I no get your problem. Anything that Awolowo man tell you you take am as if god don speak. Yeye people wey dey worship one man”.Okon said with a deflated look.

“All right, all right. What do you think about the last census?” the leader asked Okon with all authority.

“Which census? No be di thing we dey talk about for dis yeye kontri? You count all dem camel and cattle for dem north finish, you count all the oporoku and dem anoya people for the east, you count all dem Yoruba bush meat and goat finish but you no fit count all dem fish and shark for Calabar creek. So dat one na census?”, Okon snapped. Everybody started laughing, except Okon who wore an angry frown.

October 21, 2012
Free and fair election in Ondo State?

Time will tell if the people of Ondo State actually spoke in a free and fair election a few hours ago. But if at the end of vote counting today or tomorrow Ondo State 2012 gubernatorial election is adjudged by citizens and political parties to be free and fair, the federal government would have endeared itself to citizens of the state, more than any other government since 2000. If there was any party that engaged in rigging in last night’s election, that party would have endangered the life and peace of innocent citizens in the state. Such political party(ies) would have robbed the state of direly needed peace and progress.

The history of election rigging in Ondo State (as part of a larger unit in the past or in its present form) has been characterized by damaging disruption to the state’s economy, polity, and culture. Any party that rigged in yesterday’s election – caught or not caught for rigging—must have repeated some act that had brought disaster to Ondo State in the past. It must have created a problem that is difficult to get over emotionally, even after court adjudication. It must have caused a division that is capable of further alienating citizens from their government and pitting families and communities against each other.

Historically, election manipulation in the area that is known as Ondo State today has been a source of disaffection not only between the winner of an election perceived to have been rigged and the governed but also between families and communities that believe they have been cheated and those perceived to have benefited from cheating. When parties cried out loud about the possibility of rigging in the last few weeks, it was to ensure that a politically evil act is not done in a state that has a Monastic view of electoral integrity, a people that do not separate their ego from their vote, a people that traditionally view agents of election rigging as abusers of their humanity.

A verifiably free and fair election in Ondo State would be a rare gift to the people from Jega’s INEC and the federal government that is responsible for providing security, to prevent rigging. In my trip to the state in the last two weeks, I was amazed by how many narratives of agony from election rigging I heard from citizens I consider too young to know so much about the destruction that rigged elections had wrought in the state in the past. Any accomplishment by INEC and security forces to prevent election rigging, though a statutory responsibility on their part, would have saved the state and its citizens the harrowing experiences captured in didactic tales told by youths about the danger of election fraud in the state.

Election fraud in the Sunshine state had always been a source of economic, political, and cultural convulsion. For example, in 1965, an attempt was made to rig the election of a professor candidate of NNDP against a trader candidate of AG to the Western House of Assembly. The NNDP candidate was a man of stellar reputation and man of high integrity who happened to have ideological differences with the AG. After duly losing the election, he congratulated his AG counterpart. But the ruling party in Ibadan chose to give the NNDP candidate electoral victory which he openly rejected. This attempt to steal votes through media announcement fractured the town emotionally for a long time. Citizens got violent with individuals and families that supported the ruling party to change election results. Scars from the days of violence over election in the state, otherwise known as Wetie are still on the faces of several families today.

Similarly in 1979, a day before the election to the House of Representatives, some successful business men were caught conducting voting in their houses twenty-four hours before the official election time. Some accomplished professionals who were in the race for the Federal House were also caught trying to steal ballot boxes on the day of the election. These acts infuriated the citizens, leading to slaughtering and singeing of those believed to be robbing citizens of their citizenship rights. Such acts left indelible scars on the psyche of life-affirming adults and children at the time.

In addition, the stealing of Ajasin’s votes for Omoboriowo in 1983 led to large-scale violence. People of Ondo and now Ekiti states were incensed by what they considered to be acts of dehumanization. Citizens that were generally known to be pacific in their communities got on the streets, destroyed government property, killed prominent citizens, and caused general mayhem in all the towns of the state. The gory nature of the events of the time is better left unrepresented in print. The only election rigging that did not lead to open violence was the one of 2007. But the financial and emotional cost of two years of contestation between PDP and Labour Party and the crisis of legitimacy that the contestation threw up left negative impact on governance and economy of the state and on the psyche of citizens.

If at the end of the exercise today or tomorrow citizens and their political parties feel satisfied that the election of yesterday was free and fair, INEC and President Jonathan would have created a respectable space for themselves in Ondo State’s election museum. They would have enhanced the country’s electoral democracy in a verifiable way. For citizens of the Sunshine state whose grandparents and parents have known violence on account of electoral fraud, it must be dangerous to imagine another election with any trace of fraud.

October 21, 2012
Dame Patience: The guessing game continues

The First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, has finally returned to Nigeria after a 54-day therapeutic trip to Germany. Her flight to Germany in late August, if that was where she went, was a closely guarded secret, with some of her aides eventually coaxed into suggesting that she went on vacation, and would return when she was fully rested. Like her abrupt departure, her stay abroad triggered speculations about the reason for the trip and the destination. Did she have food poisoning, appendicitis, or cosmetic surgery? No one was sure, no one is sure still, but all local newspapers offered diverse perspectives, and her husband and presidential aides lent no helping hand in shedding light on what newspapers came to dub the Dame Patience affair. It must be a reflection of the interesting standards of the Nigerian media that no medium had a realistic clue why she travelled, nor apparently where she went. Indeed, the way she spoke at the airport on her return mid last week, it would not be surprising if media establishments thought she never travelled at all.

Whether it is acknowledged or not, the Jonathan presidency has managed the Dame Patience story much more efficiently than the immediate past First Family managed theirs. Nigerians knew the hospitals in Saudi Arabia and Germany where the late President Umaru Yar’Adua received medical attention, and what ailed him. Moreover, they also knew the story became a tragicomedy. But in the case of Dame Patience, no one knows where she went or how to categorise her trip. According to her, she was not at any hospital we knew, let alone the hospital where Yar’Adua was attended to, the Horst Schmidt Klinic in Wiesbaden, Germany. So where did she go? Mum was the word. Secondly, she said she did not have any surgery, not to talk of tummy tuck, and had no terminal illness as her detractors speculated or hoped. So what ailed her? Again, mum was the word, except to add that her husband adored her shape. Magnificent. After all, it is pointless asking her husband what he thinks of her shape, or imagining what men think of the shapes and sizes of their women.

It was clear, as Dame Patience put it, that she experienced trying times, but due to God’s mercies could now have a second chance in life. So, she did not dispute the fact that she had certain unnamed difficulties, and except she spoke bad English, we got the impression those difficulties nearly took her life and attempted to destroy her first chance in life. Though she did not take Nigerians into confidence, and had spoken cynically and derisively about a few who wished her what God did not plan for her life, she gloated that Nigerians actually prayed for her in her time of trouble, and God answered the prayers. This column joins the prayer warriors to wish her well.

Of all the questions Nigerians were dying – oh, that morbid word again – to receive answers to, Dame Patience answered none. It seems even more likely that now and in the foreseeable future, with a considerably mute presidency and cheerfully scornful aides, there will be no answer provided to any question about the First Lady’s trip and her supposed illness. The best the presidency wanted to give anyone during her absence was the few minutes video clip broadcast by the government television station NTA showing a vibrant Dame Patience exulting about taking photographs with her visiting husband and announcing her eagerness to return home. And the best we will ever receive now that she has returned is her airport rebuke and sermon. There will be nothing else, not even if there should be a reoccurrence of the unknown trial she obliquely referred to, God forbid.

The airport sermon itself was nothing transcendental, and nothing like the exegeses we are used to when we read Martin Luther or John Calvin. But it was at least simple and touching, if a little exaggerated and affected, and perhaps even engaging and disarming. Hear her in her inimitably alluring grammar: “Thank God Almighty for bringing me back safely to Nigeria. Wherever there are good people, there are also bad ones. There are few Nigerians that were saying whatever they liked; not what God planned because God has a plan for all of us. And God has said it all that where two or three are gathered in His name that He will be with them. Nigerians gathered and prayed for me and God listened and heard their prayers, so I thank God for that. At the same time, I will use this opportunity to tell those few ones that are saying that anybody that goes to the Villa or Aso Rock will die. They mentioned Abacha; they mentioned Stella Obasanjo; they mentioned Yar’Adua and other people. But why did those people not mention those who went there with their families and succeeded and they still came out alive? We should remember that Aso Rock is the seat of power and that is where God has ordained for us Nigerians that our leaders should rule from and to rule us right. God is wonderful and His infinite mercy endures.” Clearly she has read her Bible, and she studiously quoted the right passages. But until she alluded to those who wished her dead, few Nigerians knew such talk was abuzz on the Internet, nor that during her therapy she was unnerved by the morbid online chitchats.

If the media would welcome Palladium’s counsel, instead of asking questions to which answers may never come, they should rather come down hard on the governors, ministers, wives of governors and other highly placed government and party officials who indulged their sycophantic bent by going to the airport to receive the First Lady. That was not a show of love. It was typical, insufferable Nigerian flattery. If the governors and ministers were so grovelingly idle, perhaps we should appeal to the officious and obtruding National Assembly to invite them to the legislative chambers – invitations that apparently irritate the likes of Sanusi Lamido Sanusi of the Central Bank – to ruffle their flimsy feathers.

According to some newspaper reports, at the airport to receive the returning and obviously refreshed First Lady were Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State, the increasingly technocratic and dashing Petroleum minister Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, the soft-spoken Environment minister Hadiza Mailafia, Education minister Ruqayyatu Rufai, Labour minister Emeka Nwogu, many ministers of state and wives of some governors – all fawning, wife of the Senate president, and many other government officials. Their excuse must never again be that invitations from the National Assembly weary them; for if they could shelve their work to receive the First Lady at the airport, they must be willing to go to the ends of the earth to honour National Assembly invitations, no matter how distracting or cumbersome. Absence, they say, makes the heart grow fonder. It must, however, be deeply ironical and quintessentially Nigerian that Governor Dickson was also at the airport to receive one of his permanent secretaries. Is order of precedence no longer valid in Nigeria, that the senior finds it imperturbable to fawn at the feet of his subordinate in government?

As the second round of guessing game begins, this column welcomes Dame Patience back home to enjoy the second chance she says life is offering her. And by the way, she kisses far better and far more natural than her husband who, in the photographs published on the front pages of Thursday newspapers, made what should be an adorable spousal exercise look like, well, an ordeal. In her broad smiles there was not a hint of distress; but in her sermon there was a touch of the Chief Olusegun Obasanjo Christian conversion – the use and application of elementary theology to underscore the cumulative rejection of one’s detractors. As Dame Patience prepares to forgive her rumour mongering enemies, let her also be prepared to read more online speculations about her health and the recent German trip. She has put the testy trip behind her; but she will not be able to ignore the avalanche of speculations likely to lather her every cough, every wince and every sneeze.

October 21, 2012
Only truth will set us free

Relief returned to the country as First Lady Dame Patience Jonathan’s plane touched down in Abuja last week. Moments before she stepped off the aircraft, her hands went up in the air, a broad smile flashing across her dark-goggled face. It felt good to be back after what she called her “trial time.” That trial took over a month to conquer. And it was, crucially, about health. On the one hand, she was relieved and happy; on the other, she was quite sad and concerned. She expressed those contrasting emotions almost in equal measure. Waxing spiritual, in fact, quoting the Bible, Mrs Jonathan just about blessed those who prayed for her. As for those who spread uncomfortable tales about her during her ordeal, the First Lady had a word of caution, to put it mildly. They will do well to remember that God’s plans are different from man’s, she told the tale bearers, some impertinently reminding their audience that not all First Couples going into Aso Rock came out intact. Some thought and speculated that she had gone for either a face job or tummy tuck.

I subscribe to the Dame’s admonition because life is too precious to be made light of, especially when it is in any danger. Besides, man’s best efforts to declare who will live or die, often fall flat simply because he is so miserably unqualified to venture into that field. Doctors, for instance, have given up on their patients, only for the condemned to bounce back to life.

Still, it is quite easy to understand why Mrs Jonathan’s health status excited the tale bearers. There is so much secrecy surrounding leaders and their spouses in this country. We know pretty little about those whose business it is to mind our business. And where information is scare, speculation thrives. Where truth is nonexistent, lies fill the vacuum. We have experienced this all too often and paid very dearly for it. Our leaders across the tiers of government, as well as elected or selected ones, steal away to foreign lands, claiming to be on vacation, whereas they went in search of answers to their health questions. They are entitled to their privacy, of course, but at some point and to some extent, individual privacies must be surrendered to the public. For public officers are, after all, public property, as it were, being sustained by taxpayers.

In the days of President Olusegun Obasanjo, it was after the unfortunate death in 2005 of his wife Stella at the hands of an incompetent doctor in Spain that Nigerians learnt the First Lady had gone for a tummy job. The physician was later jailed for placing a tube in the wrong place, his licence suspended for a time. His last high profile patient was just weeks away from her 60th birthday.

In President Umaru Yar’Adua’s era, things worsened in this regard. When the president’s health seemed to fail and the people desired to know the truth, the issue of squash and how he could play it almost nonstop, popped up. When the president disappeared from view entirely, his handlers said everything was just fine. When it finally became public knowledge that Yar’Adua was rushed to a Saudi hospital and that he might be there for a while. His minders said all was still well with his administrative obligations, and that he could indeed preside over the affairs of the country from any part of the world. Then, one fateful night, when much of the country had gone to bed, his caretakers smuggled him back, still doing their best to sustain the lies they had been serving up. One day we heard the Commander-in-Chief was ascending and descending the staircase; another day we were told he recognized his mother. One day it was all over.

All the secrecy and lies were unnecessary. They reduced the number one man to an object of manipulation. This was unfortunate. His handlers also gave Nigeria away as a lying country but, more crucially, they made infirmity look like something of which to be eternally ashamed, whereas everyone knows that people, including presidents, nurse one disease or another, some even doing so through life.

Yar’Adua’s protectors either neglected or more ignorant of the fact that leaders are never judged by their health profiles, but by their records. Tumours have been extracted from presidential insides, and the executive patients returned to duty. Commanders-in-Chief have had their diseased hearts attended to. One president administered one of the most powerful countries in the world from a wheelchair, and at a time of great crisis.

The First Lady’s health concerns brought back the pains of the past. For one, her well being is of interest to the entire nation by virtue of her position. Enshrouding the whole “trial” period in secrecy, kept much needed information from Nigerians to whom she is a mother. No one knew exactly where she was or what was happening to her and how she was coping with it. Even those disposed to prayer may have been starved of precise prayer points. A vital point in all this is that this sort of secrecy alienates leaders from their people. And consequently, as in the case of the First Lady, scarcity of information put the rumour mill and tale bearers to work, bringing a whole lot of distraction to the country and it’s people.

Mrs Jonathan was disturbed that the “bad people,” to borrow a term from her arrival response, went as far as mentioning a certain hospital in Germany. She dismissed the claim, as she denied going for plastic surgery or stomach operation. All were denials and denials but she may be right and all the rumour mongers wrong. Still, the First Lady failed to set the records straight. She neither named the ailment for which she was flown overseas, nor disclosed the hospital where she was attended to. She desires respect and support, and rightly so, but it is equally imperative that she does not starve her people of information.

Still, the First Lady should not be singled out for blame. Why? It is not a personal failing. Hoarding information from the public is a national pastime. See how difficult it is to make freedom of information easy. Everyone keeps what they should give out. It is hard knowing how much our leaders earn, how much they pay in tax, how much they get to lead or how much they spend leading. It is difficult to get the truth.

But that is the basis of leadership. We need the truth. Our leaders need to open up more. They need to admit where they have failed. Only truth will set us free.

October 21, 2012
Trading sovereignty, debts and values

Last Thursday, Greeks went on the streets for the 20th demonstration against austerity measures aimed at making Greece capable of meeting its debt obligations under the auspices of the EU which has just won the Nobel Prize for the way it has handled the euro zone debt crisis. The demonstrations came on the day EU financial czars were to meet in Brussels over Greece and its bail out progress report. A Greek woman in an interview shouted that Greece should pay its peoples salaries and hospital bills and stop paying the creditors. An economist mused that Europe should pool sovereignties which is something the British never want to hear. In a BBC Hard talk programme a French Minister said achieving social justice is at the heart of France’s new government policy of taxing the rich massively to fund revenue generation, pay Frances huge debts and reduce its spiraling deficits.

From China came the news that the country’s growth rate has stalled from 7.6% to 7.4 % because of the decreased demand for its products especially from the huge market of the euro zone in now dire economic straits; and from nearby Ghana came the news that a court in Accra has ordered the seizure of an Argentine ship because of Argentina’s debt default of 2001.

Unfortunately, Greece has replaced Argentina   nowadays as the wayward or prodigal son of the global financial community and the   painful human side of that opprobrium is what the Greek woman has uttered in blind fury at austerity and economic solutions that create more human misery and do not have a human face. But then Greece has to pay her creditors and honor its sovereign debt obligations to remain a credible member of the global financial system. No one or nation on earth wants to be like Greece today and that was very aptly and succinctly put at the expense of incumbent President Barak Obama by his opponent at the last town hall presidential debate last Tuesday in the US.

Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate put a dagger at the heart of Obamanomics, the   economic policy of the US government in the last four years, when he said that the US could not afford another four years of Obama’s presidency as that would create a debt crisis for the US similar to the euro debt crisis. According to Romney – ‘We ‘ve gone from   $ 10tn   national debt to $16tn   of national debt. If the president were reelected   we ‘d go to $20tn of national debt. This puts us on   a road to Greece.‘ Given events in Greece and the sovereign reputation of that nation nowadays, Mitt Romney has laid a grievous charge and painted a dire figure of Obama’s economic policies that cannot be easily waived off especially as the Greek demonstrations took off almost after the debate that many thought Obama had won this time around.

Although there is a third debate on October 22 there is no denying that Obama has found his mettle to defend his policies but there is not much he can do to deny high unemployment figures as well as the glaring deficits. More importantly he must find a quick advert or campaign message to counter the ‘road to Greece message‘ of Mitt Romney as the satellite pictures of the austerity demonstrations in Greece on the global media are bound to be exploited by the Mitt Romney campaign team in influencing the electorate in the November 6 presidential elections.

In reality what Romney and the Greek woman have said separately are two sides of the same coin. The woman reply is personal anguish while Romney’s categorization is sovereign and is being used to get a political advantage and win power from Obama. Both are allowed in politics and in any democracy and both have taken a step further. You can bet the Greek woman will be in the forefront of the demonstrations on the street of Athens and will predictably be dealt with by the police. With regard to Romney it is up to Obama to allow his opponent to trick him out of the White House.

At the first debate Obama looked like a king who forgot his clothes at home and almost danced naked. At that first debate Obama allowed Romney to look, as his supporters said, dynamic and radiant while Obama looked professorial and stuck on issues. The town hall debate has equaled matters a bit but there is no denying that the aura of incumbency has been badly damaged by the challenger who has become bolder and like a lone wolf that has   smelt blood, now knows that the this president can be mortally rattled in this close presidential race. It is my considered opinion that the Obama campaign team must be more aggressive than hitherto and the best opportunity for now is to counter ‘the Road to Greece‘ message as it affects Obama’s domestic economic policy. This is because for once an incumbent president in the US presidential campaign has allowed an opponent to successfully make a mockery of his existing economic policy using an example of a very economically sick foreign nation – Greece. That really is unfortunate for the Obama campaign team.

On the suggestion that the EU members must find a way to pool sovereignties I think that is   an idea   that is easier said than done. What part of individual member nations will go into the sovereignty common pool and which will not? Is it security, finance, banking, political parties, or tourism? Given the unique culture, chequered history and peculiarities of each nation,   who will bell the cat and cast the first stone   in surrendering sovereignty? Can Germany with its history of fiscal discipline and prudence ever come to accept Greece’s profligacy as a way of life to be condoned or tolerated?

Can any EU nation other than France tax its rich citizens that high and take compliance   for granted as a fait accompli? Can any other nation in Europe respect its monarchy like the British do and how are the British going to put that in a common European sovereignty pool when it is the basis of their political stability? And how many EU nations can put up with the sex and fun loving lifestyle of Italy‘s former PM Silvio Berlusconi the owner of the AC Milan football club and the most popular Italian leader of our time? Really pooling sovereignties in the EU will involve so much horse trading and bargains that Europe may not be able to recognize itself at the end of the exercise.

However the cheering news on the global economic scene was the news from the Chinese of a reduction in their growth rate, albeit minimal. To those who think that Chinese economic growth was going to burst, the slow pace is good news. To the Chinese who have planned their economic progress with the Chinese Communist Party holding the reins and its high officials firmly in the saddle, the small reduction is a sign of economic stability. This is because China‘s growth has been based on exports and manufacturing with credit financed investment directed by the Chinese government.

So China has never claimed that its economy is unregulated or that the blind forces of the market are in control and competition is there for the taking by all stake holders. It follows therefore that since purchasing power from its customers overseas especially the euro zone is diminishing because of the global financial crisis its economic performance results must reflect such shortcoming hence the slight reduction in the growth rate as reported for the quarter under consideration.

There is no denying that China will eventually take over the world economy given its huge resources and the discipline of its political leadership in providing what has been called guided democracy in most of the mock democracies littering the globe .

What is not too certain is for how long the Chinese government which is financing the production of communication gadgets and IT equipment at an unprecedented rate at its massive computer villages in China is going to be able to monitor the flow and use of the information in and out of China and still be able to keep power within an elite group of party members who still run China as at now.

China was rattled by the North African street revolutions and thought it could not happen in China. It has been emboldened in this frame of mind by events in Libya where it felt cheated by the French and English who ditched Gaddafi, an age long ally of Russia and China, both long communist friends. China is using events unfolding in Syria to consolidate its official view that strong governments must not give in to popular uprising such as those that removed Mubarak in Egypt and later Gaddafi in Libya.

That is at the heart of its seeming solidarity with Russia in not allowing the no fly zone in Syria as it knows that the masses of its people are watching on the internet and pondering why what is sauce for the goose in foreign lands cannot be good for the Chinese   masses at home.

October 20, 2012
NAFDAC’s new anti-counterfeiting strategies

The menace of counterfeit and substandard drugs is no doubt one that has been on the front burner of national discourse as far as the safety of the health of Nigerians is concerned. This led to the setting up of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) by the Federal Government in 1993 with a clear mandate of safeguarding the health of the nation through the provision of effective regulation of the food, drug and chemical sector of the economy. While NAFDAC’s mandate covers the food and chemical industry, it is the drug market that draws the most attention, no doubt because of the pivotal role the sector plays in the health of the nation and because of the lucrativeness of the sector which makes it attractive to unscrupulous counterfeiters out to profit at the expense of the safety of Nigerians.

Over the years, successive Directors-General of the Agency have come up with different strategies to curb the menace of fake drugs and each in his or her own way has helped to significantly address the problems working together with officers of the Agency. According to studies conducted by NAFDAC from 2001 to 2012, there is a positive trend in the progressive decline in the incidence of counterfeit medicines in Nigeria. In 2001, counterfeits stood at 40% due largely to the indefatigable effort of the NAFDAC team under the then Director-General, Prof. Dora Akunyuli, this was reduced to 16.7% in 2005. Shortly before she left the agency, however, there were threats of resurgence of the incidence as counterfeiters too have not rested and have also continued to come up with novel ways of evading detection by NAFDAC and other law enforcement agencies. A study carried out in 2008 shortly before the arrival of the current Director-General of the agency, Dr. Paul Orhii, on the Quality of Anti- Malarials in Sub-Saharan Africa (QAMSA) puts the incidence of the faking of anti-malarial drugs at 64%, which led the new DG declaring a zero tolerance war on counterfeits shortly after assuming office.

In the past, a common strategy adopted by NAFDAC is the use of NAFDAC registration number on packages to be able to detect fake drugs. But drug counterfeiters taking, advantage of the growing access and sophistication in printing technology now manufacture fake drugs affixed with fake NAFDAC registration number and package them in such a way that they closely resemble the original registered by NAFDAC, thereby circumventing the checks put in place by the Agency.

It is in realization of this fact that the current administration of Dr. Paul Orhii came up with a strategy that is not just only effective but one that is also guaranteed to place the agency many steps ahead of the counterfeiters in such a way that every of their move is anticipated, checked and thwarted by the agency. One such strategy is the introduction of cutting-edge technology by Dr. Orhii that has provided a more profound method of detecting counterfeits on the spot. Technology like the TRUSCAN machine, for example, have been deployed by the agency at the ports and entry points of the nation to carry out on the-spot-check of drugs before they are cleared into the country. The Agency’s officers have also gone to the 36 states of the federation and the FCT with the TRUSCAN machine, paying unscheduled visits to medicine outlets to fish out counterfeit drugs and destroy them. NAFDAC, as the first medicine regulatory agency in the world ever to deploy the technology and its effectiveness in curbing the menace of fake drugs has not only drawn the attention of international medicine regulatory agencies, but has also made the agency’s DG, Dr. Orhii the toast of the moment among foreign governments and in the industry.

Other technologies deployed by the agency to fight counterfeiters are the text messaging system (Mobile Authentication System) that puts the power of drug detection into the hands of the consumers who can send a direct message using the code on the drug they are about to purchase to verify whether it is genuine or fake. There are also other additional technologies like the black eye and the Radio Frequency System technology introduced by the agency to help in the detection of fake drugs.

The result speak for itself: three and a half years after Dr. Orhii came on board, the incidence of counterfeiting has been reduced drastically by the Agency. A national survey on quality of medicines using TRUSCAN device was conducted by NAFDAC across the 36 states and the FCT between January 2010 and April 2012. The result of the survey showed that the incidence of counterfeiting has been reduced to 6.4%. Another survey on the quality of medicines was conducted in Lagos State in May, 2012, using the TRUSCAN device. Tests carried out on medicines comprising anti-malarial, anti-biotics, anti-diabetes and anti-inflammatories showed that counterfeiting was at 3.8% in the state which is significantly less than the national average. Lagos is less than the national average in this regard because of the emphasis placed by NAFDAC on the state as it is the main transmitting line to the nation. In addition, the agency’s enforcement directorate is domiciled in Lagos, a factor which has increased the level of surveillance, the level of awareness and enforcement efforts.

These results in so short a period has drawn the attention of regulatory agencies in Kenya and Sierra Leone who have sent people to study NAFDAC’s success in the use of cutting-edge technologies. Dr. Orhii has been invited three times by the Council of Foreign Relations in America to explain how NAFDAC is winning the war using cutting-edge technology. Interestingly, part of the DG’s lecture was used by the Council of Foreign Relations in its report to President Obama which also formed part of the US President’s submission at the G8 Summit in May this year.

Another strategy introduced by NAFDAC is the WHO-Pre-qualification pursued by the agency for Nigerian pharmaceutical companies. This is a paradigm shift introduced by Dr. Orhii who felt that it is just not enough condemning China and India for the importation of fake drugs into the country, but for national security reasons also, Nigeria must increase its self-sufficiency in the availability of drugs. This new approach signals NAFDAC’s shift from just merely acting the policeman, to an agency that is a catalyst for national development. NAFDAC hopes through the granting of WHO-Pre-qualification to Nigerian pharmaceutical companies to increase the acceptability of Nigerian drug exports abroad so as to increase their revenue generating capacity and provide prospects for the employment of researchers, laboratory technologists etc by the industry to drive the development of the industry at home. So far, WHO has visited Nigeria three times and six pharmaceutical companies have the prospects of getting WHO-Pre-qualification for some of their products.

To further increase the chances of as many pharmaceutical companies as possible to meet the requirement of WHO for Prequalification, NAFDAC has been at the forefront of pushing for a 200 billion naira intervention fund for the pharmaceutical industry that would enable the industry to put in place all the needed infrastructure that would help them meet the best global standards. All these are further predicated on the need to enable Nigerian pharmaceutical companies to meet local demands for quality drugs which in the long run will help to effectively eradicate counterfeit drugs imported into the country.

Knowing full well that the fight against fake drugs cannot be left for one person alone to wage, Dr. Orhii had, when coming on board as NAFDAC DG, solicited the support of Nigerians in winning the war against fake drugs. Thus, the agency’s doors are open to those who have ideas to contribute that would help in the successful eradication of the incidence of fake drugs in the country. NAFDAC, under Dr. Orhii, is not only keen on eradicating fake drugs, but is also keen on taking the agency to a higher level, making it not only the foremost regulatory agency in Africa, but also one to be reckoned with in the world. As the counterfeiters are striving hard, NAFDAC is also striving harder to get ahead of them.

•Durojaiye Olumuyiwa is a Public Affairs Analyst

October 20, 2012