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  • Still on the Constitution and bad workmen

    Still on the Constitution and bad workmen

    Among the usual mixed reactions this column gets, that from one, Mike Oyeleke, to last week’s piece on what I obviously considered our wrong-headed belief that the sure-fire solution to the country’s problems is to fix its Constitution, looked like a most logical rebuttal of my thesis.

    For Oyeleke, whose reaction is reproduced below, I was obviously wrong to blame Nigerian politicians for quarrelling with our Constitution. They are, he says, right to do so because the country’s Constitution as the principal tool for its development is defective and in dire need of fixing.

    The gentleman’s point of view is likely to resonate well with advocates of Sovereign National Conference; they seem to believe convoking an SNC to fix our Constitution is the panacea to our problems. It is hard, I believe, to find a more simplistic thinking on how to solve Nigeria’s problems.

    True, our Constitution is defective and in need of fixing; it is a wrong reading of my piece last week to assume I did not think it is defective. After all, nothing man-made is, by definition, perfect because Man himself is imperfect.

    My argument was simple; warts and all, if Nigerians had kept faith with their Constitution their country would never have been in the terrible mess in which it is. To quote one of the respondents to my article in question whose response I did not reproduce here, one, Ogbuba Gabriel who said he is an engineer, “A good worker can mend a crack with a bad tool to some extent.” I, for one, couldn’t agree more.

    By the same token, even with the best tool available, no positive result can ever be achieved with the kind of bad faith Nigerian politicians have demonstrated in upholding the country’s Constitution in their politics.

    The monumental corruption and waste that have been exposed in the country’s oil subsidy regime is, for example, not the fault of the country’s Constitution. Neither is the Constitution to blame for the monumental “mismanagement and misapplication” of the country’s ecological fund – to use the words of the Senate Public Accounts Committee which recently said it has discovered N400 billion of the fund had been used in the last 10 years to buy such creature comforts like presumably expensive vehicles for public officials rather than for protecting and improving our environment. No doubt if half, or even less, of this huge amount – and chances are the corruption and waste was understated – had been spent on dredging our rivers and streams and generally on safeguarding our environment, the flood disaster we have witnessed this year all over the country, which has claimed hundreds of lives and thousands of livelihoods, would have been avoided.

    Again, it is not the fault of the Constitution that, as one of my respondents said, our presidential system has proved prohibitively expensive. The Constitution is not to blame, for instance, for the decision by our federal legislators to fix their own wages and allowances and keep us totally in the dark about the size of those wages and allowances. On the contrary, the Constitution couldn’t have been more explicit than it was about the conflict of interest in allowing public servants to fix their own remuneration.

    In these and all other cases of corruption and waste, there are sufficient Constitutional guidelines to stop abuse. There are also sufficient guidelines on how to punish abuse – and reward compliance. The problem for our country is that these guidelines have mostly been observed only in the breach. The problem is also that hardly does anyone get punished when the guidelines are breached. Instead our reward and punishment system seems to put a high premium on wrong doing and on self-service, as has been glaringly demonstrated by the country’s thoroughly discredited National Honours awards.

    By all means let us correct the flaws in our Constitution. But if we truly want our country to develop we must approach its amendment with the full knowledge of, and respect for, the fact that a rule is not worth the paper it is written on if, as is obviously the case in Nigeria, it can be disregarded with impunity, especially by those entrusted with the power and authority to ensure compliance with it.

    Talking about the importance of our politicians leading by example as the way out of our national decay, I witnessed a small but symbolically mighty example of it last week in Ekiti State when, on a visit to its governor, the youthful John Kayode Fayemi with my publisher friend, Chief Ikechi Emenike, he asked us to join his convoy on a trip from Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, to Ekiti East Local Government for a town square meeting with its people on next year’s budget.

    The first thing that struck me was that his convoy was a short five or six vehicle long, with himself and his commissioners and aides that accompanied him in a bus. That was a far cry from your typical governor’s convoy.

    However, what struck me even more was that the convoy actually obeyed traffic lights within the town, had no siren and did not disrupt the traffic on the highway all the way to its destination.

    It is small examples of leadership by example like this, much more than our proclivity in amending our Constitution at the drop of the hat, that will make the big difference in our struggle to become a peaceful, stable and prosperous nation.

     

    FEEDBACK

    Re Constitutional amendment: a bad workman…

    Sir,

    The tools the Nigerian politicians work with are not original tools. Rather they are working with corrupted tools. Whereas in America the senate president is the vice president, in Nigeria we have a vice president separate from the senate president. Since the tool is corrupted so will there be complaints by those who use the tools. Shouldn’t the office of the attorney general be separated from that of the minister of justice? Shouldn’t each federating state have its own constitution and its own police? Should the National Assembly members determine their pay? Bad workmen, bad tools.

    Mike Oyeleke, +2348162441631

     

    Sir,

    Thank you for your very interesting article: Constitutional amendments: A bad workman… This is just to correct a small mistake. You stated that Major-General Aguiyi Ironsi abolished the Independence Constitution. That assertion is factually incorrect. The Independence Constitution is the 1960 constitution. But there was another constitution in 1963. It is called the Republican constitution. It was the one abolished by Major-General Ironsi.

    Hon Samaila Mohammed, Jos

     

    Sir,

    I agree with you that the constitution do not constitute far greater problem in Nigerian affairs than the behaviour of our politicians. However, there is no doubting the fact that some sections of the present constitution need to be amended. And while the paramount condition for our national progress is change in attitude and behaviour, I also think that there is need to jettison this costly presidential system for a more cost effective parliamentary one. Unfortunately our legislators won’t support such move because they are only interested in feathering their nests with our collective wealth.

    Kingley Aduga, 08133071697

     

    Sir.

    Amend the constitution of Nigeria one million times it will not solve our problems. This is because those who are to protect and enforce will be ones that will work against it.

    Dr. John Ogbadu

    Sir,

    You will no doubt support that the present constitutional status quo be maintained given that your part of the world is unfairly favoured by the document. Yoruba speaking people of Kogi State, for instance, are treated like slaves by Igala colonialists who believe the state was a gift to them by (General) Ibrahim B. Babangida! Are you saying in all honesty and sincerity that they should continue to groan under such constitutional bondage? It is definitely going to be costlier in the long run to perpetuate such constitutional injustice, cheating and unfairness which may breed new militants and boko haramites.

    Musa Bakare

    +2348036351937

     

    Sir,

    As usual, you got your dates mixed up. Murtala was assassinated in 1976, not 1975.

     

    S.K. Mustapha

    +2348034235782

    Maiduguri

    I stand corrected. MKH

     

     

     

     

  • Independence without celebration

    Independence without celebration

    I could have written this piece earlier but waited to appropriately gauge the mood of Nigerians last Monday, October 1, the 52nd Independence anniversary of the country.

    On the eve of that day, Ayo, a young Customs officer in Lagos had called me to wish me happy Independence Anniversary in advance. Soon after this, he added a caveat! “Sir, is it true that prices of petrol might be hiked tomorrow?” Initially, I was speechless. Then I quickly put myself together and replied: “I don’t think so. No sane person would do such a thing on Independence Day of all days.”

    “But remember sir that the last fuel price hike was on New Year Day, January 1, and people are already doing panic buying”. In spite of this, I stood my ground and asked him to perish the thought. That is the extent of the mortal fear that has been etched into the sub-consciousness of the average Nigerian.

    Anyway, the following day, October 1, I listened to the President’s broadcast that morning as he reeled out his achievements so far. It was reassuring though. But statistics aside, what Nigerians actually need this time is to measure the quality of their life. Has there been any improvement in the last 13 years of democratic governance? I say this because I share the admission of the President that he alone and not one man alone can change the fortunes of Nigeria.

    We have passed through decades of decay, decadence, indiscipline, corruption, embezzlement of public funds and all that. That Nigeria is still standing as one nation today is probably due to the benevolence of the Almighty God. Every sector, every section, and every age bracket have contributed to the morass of underdevelopment the country has been grappling with.

    Under the military interregnum, there was a common enemy, as various aspersions were cast on the military as if they were some foreign elements or strangers who had cornered the reins of power to foster a selfish agenda. We never took cognisance of the fact that, except for the head of state, military governors or military administrators of each state and a few aides, all other members of the cabinet were civilians. Even the civil service, the engine room of government, was run solely by civil servants. Not one of them was a military man.

    So, if the military rulers stole money, they did not perpetrate the looting alone. They were aided or, even in many instances, goaded by the civilians in high places. It was the civilians in sensitive places who taught them how to steal and what to steal. Today, the civilian collaborators of the military are walking freely and causing problems everywhere with their ill-gotten wealth, but nobody is talking.

    That brings me back to 1999. We all know what we passed through to achieve democratic governance. Many precious souls were lost in the titanic struggle to ease off the military from power. But how many of those who stood before the barrels of the guns are in power today? The political firmament is being dominated by the offspring of those who brought the country to its knees prior to the events of January and July 1966. Many of the political parties, that is, if they can be called as such, are populated by crooks and known criminals. Their agenda: to loot the public till in order to oil their selfish and extravagant lifestyles.

    In the rat race to empty the treasury, strange bedfellows are now cohabiting. It is no longer “what we can offer, but what we can get”. That is the reason why there is a permanent fratricidal war going on in most of the political parties. When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. As our politicians are embroiled in an open war of attrition, it is the people and the development of the nation that bear the brunt.

    No other time in Nigeria has the drums of war by ethnic nationalities been so high than today. Those who have been schemed out of the political equations in the country have resorted to championing the parochial interests of their ethnic and sectional groups. This, they intend to use, as bargaining chips for political ascendency. To achieve this, they must heat up the polity to breaking point.

    While the ethnic jingoists are doing their own, others are using religion and other pretences to conceal their real intentions. Besides, all the present form of criminality – kidnapping, violent robberies, internet fraud and social media crimes – are the manifestation of a society where the craze for materialism at all costs has reached an alarming crescendo. It is like those who cannot join the politicians to loot have devised their own ‘ingenious’ means to amass wealth even if it means that blood must flow freely.

    Look at Boko Haram or whatever it is called. Though the lethargic security system in the country could be blamed for not nipping this nonsense in the bud, the increasing number of new converts to the rapacious and rampaging gang is worrisome. It means some people are profiting from the entire brigandage. In a country where religious pluralism holds sway, is it not pure eccentricity to assume that a rudderless group of people could foster a particular religion or doctrine on the country?

    Now, it is getting increasingly clear that the gang of marauders has the blessing and active connivance of some unscrupulous security agents, which is why their activities have been proving intractable. Yet, what is really at stake is the struggle for the control of the levers of power. All is about power, not to change or improve on the destiny of the country but to rape it ceaselessly and mercilessly.

    As I write, I can imagine the life of squalor and destitution the victims of the recent flood disaster in the country are facing. Do the politicians care if they are washed away by the surging flood? As people are driven out of their places of abode, petty thieves and robbers are all over the place making away with any property they could lay their hands on. The government that should have provided the needed succour seems to have no solution to the problem. Consequently, many of the displaced Nigerians are now left entirely to the vagaries of hunger, disease and untimely death.

    That is why I see this year’s independence anniversary as a contradiction of what I witnessed in the United States of America, USA, on June 4. That day was America’s Independence Anniversary.

    Independence Day in America is always a huge celebration. You could smell the festivities before the D-Day. Various manufacturers and shopping outlets unleash a deluge of promos, discounts and lotteries on the public, while people scramble to arrange for barbeque all over the place. People travel far and wide for revelry.

    In the afternoon of that day, I accompanied my friend to their church – a newly commissioned Redeemed Church of God at Richmond area of Houston, Texas. The place was packed full with picnickers who were all Nigerians. Apart from a cow on a barbecue, sausages, corn and every item of merriment were also in abundance. As I watched the joyous multitude, what ran through my mind was: “Here are Nigerians celebrating the independence of another country almost 7,000 kilometres away from home with such élan and excitement. Even though many of them could hardly live above subsistence level, they were sure that their conditions can only improve, not get worse like that of their fellow men back home.

    The lesson from this is that we must wake up from our deep slumber, eschew all forms of unhealthy rivalries – ethnic, religious or political – bury our parochial interests and join hands to move this country forward.

     

  • Hail to the pothole; the beatification of the pothole in Nigeria; GCFR Pothole

    Hail to the pothole; the beatification of the pothole in Nigeria; GCFR Pothole

    Ask politicians if they know that one potholeincreases travel time, causes accidents with injuries and death and creates orphans and widows. Ask what the 500,000,000 to a billion potholes cause economically and mentally in Nigeria?

    It is official, we have been mis-led. The old colonial and then early republic efficient army of pothole fighters, aka PWD, was defeated and disbanded by the military probably simply because they both wore khaki. PWD refers to the defunct dead and executed Public Works Department charged with road maintenance and anti-pothole activities which are not nuclear physics but have a 100 year history. The PWD does this through its foot-soldiers armed with a wheelbarrow, shovels, head pan, a pick, a watering-can for pouring tar, a stove for tar in the watering can, a road beater and sometimes even a small roller all under a tripod of sticks with a red flag to warn road users that important government work – pothole filling – was taking place. They wore khaki -shirt, canvas shorts and a straw hat. This PWD army successfully fought potholes countrywide. So why change a winning team? What happened to that legacy causing the present pothole virus? This in spite of billion-billions declared as spent and the ineffective ‘over 400 engineers’ retrained by FERMA. No Nigerians escapes the dreaded ‘potholeitis’ of FERMA and stateERMA and LGAERMA.

    The military abandoned professionalism and failed to recognize the PWD as a most effective weapon of mass destruction of potholes in the war on potholes. Potholes grew wild. No one could combat them. The military was interrupted by an epidemic of coups, corruption and incompetence and the terrorist potholes mutated into many shapes and sizes. The military announcing a strategy to wipe out the terrorist potholes which had nearly ground the country to a halt and claimed many lives. It was a new secret weapon – ‘the contractor’ to kill potholes in their thousands overnight. ‘The contractor’ was a monumental failure and contractor status was rubbished, associated with quick wealth for no work. Contractors were defeated and blamed the rainy season for failure as if Nigeria has the highest rainfall in the world. It soon became obvious that pothole fighting required a new weapon. The contractor was replaced by ‘the mega-contractor’ attracting multiple billions of naira presumably to fight billions of potholes all at once. This was another failure. Both the contractor and mega-contractor blamed everyone except themselves for failure of ‘The Pothole War’. The professionals are there providing power and pothole filling around the world. Empower them or else face destruction of the nation. Why should Nigeria be the pothole of the world?

    There are needless potholes all around and all governments’ attempts at billion naira beautification projects and also ‘job creation’ road cleaning teams are rubbished because the nation’s 100m+ citizens are stuck in a ‘billion potholes’ watching the absurdity as road sweepers sweep around potholes and the cement for pothole filling is diverted to flowerpots and roadside decorations. Simple politics: Fix potholes, clean gutters, do beautification! They do not go hand in hand, they go in sequence. A pothole is a sign of abject failure of government and is unacceptable. It is not to be ‘managed’ or endured. A government Council in the UK paid out £750,000 as fines for axel, tyre and break damage to cars. Our neighbourhood watches, NGOs need to make pothole awareness a national clarion call. Governments should heed the warning. When Obasanjo was stuck in potholes near his home he was booed and ‘stoned’ with pure water. Politicians may be ‘stoned’ with shoes or actual stones. Only politicians, not the people, will prevent this by their good works. Roman road exist today without potholes 2000 years later. What type of idiot cannot build a road that will survive rainy seasons? Such a person does not deserve to be an engineer or politician in a ‘great’ country like Nigeria. Fast forward to today 2012.

    Today, is it not true that National Assembly members take N35-45 million/quarter or $2-4,000/day while Indians make $3,000/month and Obama earns $300,000/year? Is it not true that Nigerian government contracts are 30% more in dollar terms than anywhere in the world while we get 100% less delivery on contracts? The failure of the pothole to be filled is judgment and massive failure of politics, politicians and civil service. A failure to prioritize the needs people using the road daily. We require a planning loving pothole filling government before potholes get ‘GCFRPothole’ as having most effect nationwide.

    Retribution, restitution, revenge describe politicians’ actions to each other and the nation. One day we must be prepared for the revenge of the people especially if Ghana streaks ahead with petrodollars. ‘Ghana’s Peaceful Evolution’ will contrast with ‘Nigeria’ Coming Violent Revolution’ and our politicians will be to blame, not the Nigerian revolutionaries. The children of those denied pensioners will wake up annoyed enough one day to take the enforce the law. Governance is not a joke about how much tax Nigerians can endure for no services. Power, potholes all need fixing by December not an illusionary promise for 2020. We know the figures. We know there is money. What is missing is political and professional competence and love. If not let us ‘beatify and beautify the pothole’ in Nigeria and raise it to Sacred Pothole’ status, making it untouchable while we die!

  • Rewriting history

    Rewriting history

    World acclaimed literary giant and celebrated novelist Professor Chinua Achebe was at his controversial best last week. In his attempt to reopen the debate on the role of Nigeria’s war time leader, General Yakubu Gowon and his Finance Minister Chief Obafemi Awolowo, in the 30-month civil war especially as directed towards Biafra, the literary icon let slip, once again, his hatred for those he perceived to be enemies of Biafra.

    His selective perception of events of that unfortunate period in Nigeria’s history and the principal actors that helped shape them left one in no doubt that our dear Prof is more than ever prepared to not only drag us back to those bad and dark old days, but also sow the seed of discord and most likely hatred, between Yoruba and Ndigbo.

    To continue to blame Awolowo for some of the policies, (economic and political) of the Gowon Federal Government during and after the war, as they affected Biafra, especially from a jaundiced point of view will do nothing to enhance the policy of reconstruction, rehabilitation and reconsstruction that Nigeria introduced after the war.

    History is good to the extent of serving as a useful guide to the future but when those who chose to write history decided to suppress some facts in order to justify their positions, then the generation reading that history will certainly be in trouble. That society, to the extent of relying on that history, is doomed.

    It is not in my position to speak for Chief Awolowo. The late sage had answered all allegation relating to his role as a member of the Federal Executive Council during the war, at a town hall meeting he had in Abeokuta in 1983 so those who would like to blame the Yoruba or Chief Awolowo for the misfortune of Ndigbo in Nigeria should look in the mirror. Where else in Nigeria outside Biafra, were Ibos allowed to take back their properties after the war, apart from Yoruba land? Where else have Ibos prospered more outside the south east if not Yoruba land? Of all the ethnic crises that have been bedeviling Nigeria since after the civil war was there a time Ibos were targeted or sent out of Yoruba land? Those fanning the embers of ethnic division in this country or revisiting/rewriting history for selfish purpose had better be careful lest they get consumed in the inferno that could follow.

    Pray, what purpose is this Achebe’s history of the Nigeria civil war so to speak, suppose to serve especially now that Ndigbo is trying to court Yoruba in their quest to assume Nigeria’a presidency in 2015. It is possible to want to explain Achebe’s position away as that of a maverick, but if indeed he is, he is one maverick with gravitas. It would be foolish and dangerous to ignore him. If only Biafran leader, Colonel Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu had written that book on the civil war that we all expected from him before he died, may be the issue of who did what during the war would have been put to rest and we wouldn’t be having jaundiced history of the war. But come to think of it, would Ojukwu’s account of the war have settled the controversy? I don’t think so. May be is good he took his memoirs to his grave. Sadly, we will never know.

     

    45 and above

    The National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) is running against time to ensure that all Nigerian pilgrims for this year’s hajj in Saudi Arabia make it to the holy land before the closure of the Saudi airspace on October 20. The commission has 11 days from today to accomplish the airlift and the omen looks good for now following the resolution of the row between Nigeria and Saudi Arabia over the participation of some unaccompanied Nigeria female pilgrims in the hajj.

    As you are probably aware the Saudis turned back some of our women from the hajj on the ground of not being accompanied by male guardian or Muharram as stipulated by Islam.

    After much diplomatic verbal boxing between both countries, the matter has now been resolved but only those among the women that are above 45 years were given the green light to come for the hajj by the Saudis. Any one below that age will have to produce her Muharram which in this case could be NAHCON. As you read this, the airlift has resumed and normal services restored so to speak.

    Following my position: ‘That hajj humiliation’ last week on this page, a lot of you readers out there have been sending your responses, they were quite interesting. While I fully support any effort aimed at sanitizing hajj operations in Nigeria, NAHCON should not be spared as the main body in charge of Muslim pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in Nigeria. There are so many sharp practices going on there, especially in the appointment of airlines and tour operators for international pilgrims. Some airlines are fond of abandoning their passengers in Jeddah after the hajj, leaving them at the mercy of the Saudis only to be evacuated by NAHCON or even the presidency using other more efficient airlines. The case of some of the tour operators is even worse, they often times leave their pilgrims to fend for themselves, providing no accommodation for them and yet have been paid for this. The federal government should look into issues like these including the kind accommodation the Saudis give to our pilgrims in Mina where all pilgrims are expected to spend a minimum of three nights under tent as part of the hajj rites. Some of these tents are horrible and their condition worsened by the dirty attitude of some of our pilgrims. Things like this tell negatively on our image over there. Nigeria should look into this.

    Here are a few of your views.

     

    Sanitize hajj operation

    Salam. I read your sincere and frank opinion on the harsh treatment meted to Nigerian females on Holy Pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. Well, when I learnt about the incident I was happy because I felt, perhaps, the Saudi Authorities wanted to sanitize the system.

    Since I went on Hajj in 1995, when I learnt that Muslim women on Hajj are expected to be accompanied by Muharram, I often wonder why our Muslim leaders are flouting this injunction. I became more disturbed when I experienced first hand, what these-so-called female pilgrims do while in the holy land.

    Many marriages have been dissolved because of illicit affairs which have their roots in Saudi Arabia, just because the female went unaccompanied. The term ‘Alarafa Mi’ is one of the expressions commonly used by these pilgrims.

    In order to avoid this kind of ‘humiliation’ in future, Aminu Tambuwal and other Nigerian Muslim leaders must sit down, guided by what the Quran and Hadith say, and sanitize the hajj operations in the country.

    Those who have no duty performing hajj should henceforth not be allowed to even get near hajj camps not to talk of being in the holy land. They (Muslim leaders) must be prepared to leave the system better than they met it.

    Thank you once again for your frank ‘talk’. More ink to your pen. From Sulaiman Olagunju.

     

    Tell them

    Salam, may Almighty ALLAH (SWT), grant you his mercies, protection, guidance and the wherewithal to continue telling the facts to those destined to hear and heed to them. Amen.

    Expecting part 2 of “THAT HAJJ HUMILIATION”, GOD BLESS. From Shehu A. Hassan (Giginyu Quarters, Kano State).

     

    Mistresses?

    Could the humiliation have something to do with the fact that some of the women who go there end up becoming mistresses to Saudi men among other activities that make them not to return to Nigeria after the Hajj. I know of two of such cases, both of them married, one a pilgrim from Jos, another from Kebbi State.

    It could be a moral thing. I am sure the Saudis need the money that genuine Nigerian pilgrims provide to the local economy during their stay.

    Anonymous

     

    Cheap sex

    There is no humiliation in this matter of Hajj. The rules of the holy pilgrimage are clear and no breach must be tolerated. I know not a few who made quick money prostituting during hajj. Some Arab men have very little self control and would easily fall prey to relatively cheap sex. Anonymous

     

    Good job

    Nice column today, Waheed. Very enlightening. Good job. But what kind of ‘immoral’ activities are you talking about? Why didn’t you explain? Anonymous

  • Copyright Commission and impunity

    Copyright Commission and impunity

    Would a Director General wilfully disregard the directive of the nation’s chief law officer without any consequence? Or, should a lawyer flagrantly disobey a subsisting court order barring the agency he heads from any such act by despatching his men to raid such a body corporate? These posers would form the basis of this discourse. But first, a brief background to what has become a titanic rivalry between a government regulatory agency and a private organization within the same sphere of influence.

    The Nigerian Copyright Commission, NCC, came into being with the promulgation in 1988 of the Copyright Decree (No. 47) of that year. The Decree was re-designated the Copyright Act in Cap 68 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 1990 and amended by the Copyright Act (Amendment) Decree (No. 98) of 1992. The Act makes provision for “the definition, protection, transfer, infringement of, and remedy and penalty thereof, of the copyright in literary works, musical works, artistic works, cinematograph films, sound recordings, broadcast and other ancillary matters”.

    The Musical Copyright Society Nigeria, MCSN, on the other hand was set up in 1984 to take over the responsibilities of Performing Rights Society, PRS and Musical Copyright Protection Society, MCPS both of the United Kingdom as they divested from Nigeria. Prior to this, most Nigerian composers and authors were registered with them for the collection and distribution of performing and mechanical rights in musical works. While many Nigerian creators transferred to MCSN, others remained with both PRS and MCPS. This prompted MCSN to enter into reciprocal representation contracts with them by which it (MCSN) became vested with the copyright in virtually the entire repertoire of copyright music in Nigeria.

    Also, MCSN has reciprocal representation arrangement with SACEM of France, ASCAP of USA, whereby it represents their interests in Nigeria and vice versa. It is a full member of La Confederation Internationale Societies des Auteurs et Compositors, CISAC, (International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers), the International Bureau of Organizations Managing Mechanical Reproduction Rights, BIEM and affiliated to 225 societies in 118 countries.

    MCSN thus predates the establishment of the copyright commission and the expectation was that both would work together to create a robust copyright system in the country. After all, the government regulatory agency was just starting out and with MCSN already on ground, a symbiotic relationship was all that was needed to expand the frontiers of copyright for the benefit of musicians, authors and publishers. Sadly, the commission shut out MCSN from its radar once it took off, choosing instead to midwife a brand new organization, called Performing Mechanical Rights Society, PMRS, which morphed into today’s Copyright Society of Nigeria, COSON, licensed as “government sole collecting society”. Meanwhile, MCSN’s application for approval as a collecting society was rejected! Why the pioneer Director-General of the commission (and others that followed) could not license two collecting societies to pave the way for the liberalisation of the sector and create choice for stakeholders is still a matter of conjecture. Refused approval by the commission, MCSN was either to atrophy or seek life support. It thus instituted a series of court cases against the commission many of which it won giving it the leeway to operate as owner, assignee and exclusive licensee.

    But the commission has refused to recognise the court rulings and would rather abate the infringement of MCSN’s works by writing to corporate pirates not to pay royalties to its rightful owner because it “is not approved as a collecting society”. This has crippled the administration of copyright in Nigeria since its “sole collecting society” does not own the works it was officially licensed to collect from! And the petitions to the commission by MCSN are treated with levity. That was until the current Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke, SAN, waded in.

    Initially, he referred the dispute between MCSN and the commission to the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO, for mediation. But in a letter to MCSN dated August 10, 2011 discontinuing the process and signed by the current Director-General, Afam Ezekude, the minister directed that “both parties be advised to seek judicial resolution to the issues in dispute by pursuing on-going suits instituted at the Federal High Court. Parties are further advised to refrain from taking any action which is capable of undermining the judiciary and to ensure respect for and observance of the law”.

    A few days after, one of the pending cases instituted by MCSN against the commission for the enforcement of its fundamental human rights occasioned by the raid and arrest of its chief executive with another staff, as well as the removal from the office of files and essential equipment in 2007, came up for ruling.

    In his landmark judgment on August 25, 2011, Justice Archibong of the Federal High Court Lagos, was unequivocal when he said: “The first Respondent (Copyright Commission) has failed to acknowledge, appreciate, or welcome the notion and reality that owners and assignees of copyright can enforce property rights without necessarily being registered as a collecting society by the copyright commission. registration as a collecting society is not a prerequisite for the enjoyment and exercise of rights of an owner or exclusive licensee of copyright”.

    He had then pronounced: “Nothing in the Copyright Act denies the owner, the assignee or the exclusive licensee of a copyright the right to collect royalties for the performance of their works in public or to transact commercially with anybody in respect of such works or appoint agents to claim and enforce directly their rights under Section 6 of the Copyright Act and I so hold. The offence of purporting to perform the duties of a society without the approval of the copyright commission created by Section 39 of the Copyright Act cannot and does not relate to the activities of owners, assignees and exclusive licensees of copyright and I so hold”.

    The judge further clamped a Garnishee order of N40 million against the commission for damages with the specific order for the applicants: “not to be arrested or further arrested or detained by the respondent or any of its officers, or agents unless a proper and complete investigation has been carried out and the applicants are reasonably suspected to be guilty of a criminal offence”.

    But on September 18, officials of the commission raided MCSN again, this time arresting five staffers who were detained for two days and carted away files and computer units. In a statement justifying the action, Nseabasi Ukagwu, of the Public Affairs Unit of the Commission stated: “The operation was carried out following information that the said MCSN was performing the duties of a collecting society without the approval of NCC”. And it relied on a 2010 judgment which is on appeal at the Supreme Court by MCSN between it and an alleged infringer, not the commission as basis for the action. Pray, what about the subsisting court order of 2011? Is it a question of selective adherence to judgments?

    • Johnson, a public affairs analyst wrote from Abuja.

  • Albert agonistes

    Albert agonistes

    Caveat Emptor: the title of this piece, after John Milton’s Samson Agonistes, takes nothing from Prof. Albert Chinualumogu Achebe, without doubt Africa’s most popular novelist. It is only to get into the genre of literary-powered political forays, as the literary giant first did in his The Trouble with Nigeria (1983); and now, with his newly released Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970) memoirs, There was a Country.

    Both express Achebe’s long running agony on how Nigeria savagely did in – and, in his fervent view, continues to do in – his native Igbo people. In the professor’s cosmos of demons, as far as Nigeria’s sad narrative is concerned, the Hausa-Fulani post-colonial empire builders run neck-on-neck with their Yoruba co-conspirators, in an unconscionable bid to crush the Igbo.

    And in the hottest part of this Achebe hell reigns Obafemi Awolowo, in Achebe’s view, the Igbo Enemy No. 1. Though Chief Awolowo has been resting with his creator for some 25 years now (leaving behind his profound thinking and winning developmental ideas to rattle and dazzle a stiff-necked Nigeria), the literature professor’s enduring clinical hate for, and analytical prejudice against the Awo persona would appear undiminished, the stuff of which professorial spite is made.

    That was clear from Achebe’s The Trouble with Nigeria. It is reinforced in There was a Country; at least from the excerpts released by Penguin, the book’s publishers; and published in The Guardian of London, in which Prof. Achebe literally canonisedAwo as the philosophical king of Nigeria’s post-independence systemic and systematic crushing of the Igbo.

    Yet, wild or jaundiced, Prof. Achebe has his points, particularly in the sickening festival of mutual hurts – and hate – that is the story of Nigeria.

    To be sure, the Civil War (1967) was an unconscionable gang-up against the Igbo by the rest of Nigeria. But so was the June 12 annulment crisis (1993): a pan-Nigeria gang-up against the Yoruba. The Goodluck Jonathan opportunistic abridgement of the zoning policy; and his resultant “pan-Nigeria mandate [as Ripples put in a previous piece] of Southern Nigeria and the Middle Belt” (2011) was a pan-Nigeria gang-up against the political North. Again, as Ripples earlier put it, Nigerians at crucial junctures in their history, always band together for injustice to inflict pains on the section at the receiving end.

    While the East was at the receiving end during the Civil War, there is nothing to suggest that a section of the Igbo, Prof. Achebe’s perpetual “victims”, did not merrily join the pan-Nigeria gang-up against the Yoruba on June 12; and against the political North in 2011.

    Witness: the Uche Chukwumerije (now a senator of the Federal Republic) Goebbels show for Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, in a bid to sustain the criminal annulment of the 12 June 1993 presidential election that MKO Abiola won and for which cause he lost his life. Chukwumerije’s orchestrated threats and war drums sent the Igbo scuttling across the Niger. And didn’t the late Ikemba Nnewihimself gloat that his Abacha-era National Constitutional Conference “mandate” was superior to MKO’s presidential mandate?

    Also, witness: the scandalous over-voting in the South East, in the southern electoral conspiracy to crown Goodluck Jonathan at all cost; and give the Hausa-Fulani hegemony its comeuppance!

    In all of these, where fits in Achebe’s emotive tale of the Igbo as perpetual victim, always sinned against but never sinning, to borrow a phrase from Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles?

    Still on the Civil War: it was one mass slaughter to be decried, no doubt. But before that war, was the first coup (15 January 1966); where the idealism of Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, and his fellow braves badly miscarried. Then came the counter-coup (29 July 1966).

    But in-between the two coups were the pogroms, the mass murder of the Igbo in the North, that turned the Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi government a nightmare.

    The pogroms triggered the war, which was just as well – for whichever people would fold their arms and swallow the brazen elimination of their kind, without lifting a finger? But something else also triggered the pogroms: provocative Igbo youths taunting Kaduna locals over the killing of the Sardauna, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, and other northern leaders in the first coup.

    Of course, at independence (no thanks to British perfidy) was an uneasy North-East power cohabitation, which left the North that worked least for independence, in the power cockpit; but which nevertheless rewarded Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s nationalist strivings with a ceremonial presidency.

    If the January 1966 coup threatened this delicate cohabitation, the post-coup taunts sent the Hausa-Fulani hegemony into blind panic, realising their loss of power might just be the loss of everything. That drove the counter-coup, which drove the Civil War. So, whereas the Civil War was sold as a patriotic endeavour to keep Nigeria one, it was actually a northern plot to consolidate federal power, if not by the ballot box, then by the bullet.

    In Things Fall Apart and its tragedy, Achebe created the Okonkwo complex: that brash penchant to rush at a problem (consequences be damned!), even if you were not in full control. As Okonkwo rushed to his doom, many blamed Emeka Ojukwu for “rushing” headlong to war; and committing his people – as if many in his shoes, under those circumstances, would have done otherwise.

    But so did Achebe, Okonkwo’s literary creator, in a stunning case of life following art. Unlike Wole Soyinka who tried to explore a “third force” (neither Igbo secession nor northern unification farce) to checkmate the war, and paid a hefty price of 22 months in solitary detention in a Lagos gulag, Achebe jumped into the war, on his native Biafra side, as war ambassador.

    Unlike Ojukwu however, Achebe emerged from the war with an eternally poisoned psyche. That would explain his wild charges against Awo as Igbo Enemy No. 1; and even wilder charges against the Yoruba as stoutest obstacles against Igbo success in Nigeria.

    The Yoruba, with their Afenifere (live and let live) credo, have more productive things to do than mount themselves as blocks against other people’s success; even if, to be fair, there is a great deal of rivalry between the two peoples, as is to be expected in a federation.

    The Civil War and its heart-rending horror and bitter after-taste resulted from serial errors for which everyone is today a victim. Explosive and insensitive comments in There was a Country, therefore, are highfalutin distractions (with literary licence to boot!) that do no one no good.

    Even if Nigeria breaks up today, peoples of the former territory would still find ways of relating with themselves – after all, that Yugoslavia is defunct does not automatically raze Serbs, Croats and the rest from the face of the earth. So, why is Achebe, 81, using yesterday’s hurt to poison the well for tomorrow’s generation?

    The trouble with Achebe, like his Trouble with Nigeria, is his unrelieved bigotry against others, ironically served as red hot jeremiad, protesting anti-Igbo bigotry.

    That is the story of his just released bitter Civil War memoir. It is a most dangerous distraction.

  • Why some things can’t change

    Why some things can’t change

    Just as rows between the executive and the National Assembly over budgets have become a permanent fixture of the nation’s experience, it is fairly easy to spot the contrived nature of the latest row now on the verge of being escalated. That the National Assembly is again hinting at a showdown with the executive over the shape and size Budget 2013 clearly suggest that the issues involved in the division are far more intricate, or rather deeper, than the parties would let Nigerians into. After all, it is barely two months since the Lower House threatened President Goodluck Jonathan with the sword of impeachment over an alleged failure to implement Budget 2012.

    Whereas the bone of contention last time was the performance of the budget, this time, the disagreement centres on the basis of revenue estimates – the reference benchmark price for the nation’s crude to be used in the formulation of Budget 2013. The executive is said to have set the price at $75 a barrel –consistent with its 2013-15 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy, whereas the lawmakers prefer the higher price of $82 a barrel as part of its plans to reduce the budget deficit.

    The more I reflect on the tango, the more I am reminded of the story of husband and wife locked in a feud. While both partners admit to the raging low-intensity war; however, the matter of the casus belli, being matters behind drawn curtains, would remain a guarded secret!

    It does not matter that the ordinary citizens, on whose behalf the whole theatricals are being staged, are for all intents and purposes, unknown quantities in the equation. Indeed, by the time the whole brouhaha is stripped of the pretences and the attendant grandstanding, the issues underlying the feud comes to nothing on substantive matters of governance – the very things that are supposed to count.

    Not that the unfolding drama does not have a comical side to it. Courtesy of the impeachment axe dangled by the lawmakers in August, the budget implementation is believed to have gone some notches up – with the finance ministry reportedly turning on the treasury tap with capital releases to Ministries, Departments and Agencies in deference to the threat. However, while the degree of implementation remains a subject of guesstimates, the question of why the funds were held up in the first place has not quite been sufficiently addressed by the finance ministry. That obviously would have to wait – that is if it will ever get attention.

    For the Presidency, the dividend has come by way of the latest mantra: the mantra of performance contracts for ministers and other strategic officials of government. This is what the lack-lustre administration appears to have hung its new activism. Added to this is the fad –road shows mounted by ministers and heads of parastatals to announce commitments to timelines and specific deliverables in the budgets they formulated in the first place!

    Of course, it seems unlikely that the angers of the Reps spoiling for war over perceived poor budget implementation of Budget 2012 would be doused permanently anytime soon. In the first place, the field reports from its oversight activities would seem to suggest that the rosy picture of implementation painted by the executive is not exactly correct. Indeed, Abdulmumin Jubrin, the Chairman of the House Committee stated that much when he reportedly told the duo of Yerima Ngama and Bright Okogwu, the Minister of State for Finance and Director-General of the Budget Office penultimate week that the degree of implementation remained “dismal”. Second reason is the status of the pork said to have been built into the budget by the lawmakers which Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala described as the fuel feeding the lawmakers fury. See why the lawmakers cannot but be angry?

    What we are seeing would seem a case of the lawmakers bidding their time with the benchmark price of crude assumed in Budget 2013 supplying the perfect foil. Whereas the executive wants the 2012 benchmark crude price of $75 per barrel retained, the lawmakers have since reasoned that a higher price of $82 would be desirable.

    Of course, the argument has long endured – and I agree to an extent – that a conservative benchmark price makes sense given the potential volatility of oil prices and the need to insulate the budgetary process from its possible shocks.

    The arguments of the lawmakers in favour of higher benchmark price are, without question, no less persuasive. Adopting the higher price means hiking the federally collectable revenue to N7.9 trillion from the N7.3 trillion figures of 2012. Aside translating to a federal government share of N4.137 trillion, the case of the hike would be better appreciated when it is realised that the 2013 Budget has an in-built deficit in excess of N1.3 trillion. Need I add that higher revenue figures portend good for the pork described as constituency projects?

    The old illusions are, no doubt, back. I refer here to the illusion that more cash in the coffers would somehow translate to better budget performance. This is where, in my view, the lawmakers erred tragically. They want more cash, no doubt; the pertinent question however is – more cash, for what?

    Let me be clear, I have argued on this page that there is no way meaningful development can be achieved without bold and equally ambitious programmes of public expenditure, particularly in upgrading the enablers of the real sector. Just as it seems clear to me that the problem isn’t so much about what gets spent but the question of the value delivered in the end, it is even clearer that the posturing by the lawmakers over a patently flawed budgetting system is unhelpful.

    Isn’t it amazing that the lawmakers cannot appreciate this elementary point – that for every naira spent to deliver on capital projects, the federal government currently spends thrice the amount to service the running of the bureaucracy and the allied infrastructure of governance? Are we ever going to address the question of how the bureaucracy’s cart has come to drag the nation’s development horse?

    I must also state that the posturing of the executive is no less hollow. Apparently, it seems in order that the federal government would continually impose the so-called benchmark price by fiat and without the concurrence of state governments – co-beneficiaries from the consolidated fund. And while it suits it, it mounts the high streets with its vacuous preachments on frugality even when – as the example of the illegal subsidy payments does show – it is not exactly averse to unilaterally dipping its itchy fingers into the piggy bank called the excess crude account.

    I guess it’s time someone out there educate the rest of us on what makes the federal government believe that it has exclusive preserve of common sense. I suppose the same goes for the need for reconsideration of the basis on which the so-called funds are shared by the two-tiers of government. By the way, where are the federalists?

     

  • A conclave of freeloaders

    A conclave of freeloaders

    Freeloaders, all. And ingrates to boot.

    Some six weeks ago, they dominated the front pages and the headlines in the national media, from the moment they landed at Abuja Airport until they departed some four days later and even thereafter.

    They were the talk – and indeed the envy – of the town as they were whisked from one event to another in the finest automobiles that ever rolled off the assembly lines of the Bavarian Motor Works in Germany, from lavish breakfast, with judicious helpings of cassava bread, I gather, to sumptuous lunch, and thereafter to opulent dinner, with the choicest victuals in between.

    By one account, one of them could not find her way to Abuja in a manner befitting of members of the conclave. Pronto, an executive jet from the Presidential Fleet had to be dispatched to Lilongwe to fetch her, and apparently to fly her back at the conclusion of the proceedings.

    Practically all of them were heard to remark in their less guarded moments that never had they never enjoyed such a good time, inured from the querulous intrusion of the media back home and the malicious gossip of the domestic staff.

    They came, they ate, and they left, laden with precious souvenirs.

    But not a word of solicitude or solidarity has been heard from members of this conclave, severally or jointly, about their ailing Abuja host who left nothing to chance to ensure that they would forever remember their visit as the happiest time of their lives.

    As far as I could ascertain, they have not sent flowers to her bedside in the German hospital where she is reportedly convalescing, let alone a deputation to comfort her. Nor have they summoned the presence of mind to send a goodwill delegation to her husband through whose office all that munificence they enjoyed had flowed.

    Anyone who has hosted a regional conference, to say nothing of a national conference, knows how exacting the task is. Hosting an international conference is prohibitively more exacting. When it comes to staging a continental conference involving first ladies, the task grows by geometric progression.

    Indeed, so enormous was the stress and strain occasioned by the convening and hosting of such a conference that the convener had to repair to the quiescent clime of Dubai just to decompress. But the damage had been done, and opportunistic complications set in.

    And yet, as I was saying, the African First Ladies Peace Initiative, to come right out with it and call the conclave its proper name, has expressed no concern or solidarity with its chairperson and convener, Dame Patience Jonathan, with her husband, and with the people of Nigeria.

    Whatever happened to ubuntu, that hallowed imperative that enjoins us, Africans, to look out for one another, and in this particular instance summons the first ladies to be their sister’s keeper?

    Where is the solidarity?

    Dame Jonathan even took a shellacking for allegedly muscling her way through the bureaucracy to secure for the organisation’s headquarters building choice land in Abuja — land to which her predecessor claimed to have genuine title. She was called all kinds of names in the media, but she endured it all graciously, unshaken in her commitment to the goals and objectives of the African First Ladies Initiative.

    Is it too much, then, to expect her fellow first ladies to show humane concern for the health and well-being of one who has sacrificed so much and endured so much to advance the organization’s interests?

    When it comes to Nigeria the host country of its most recent summit, the African First Ladies Peace Initiative has been even more remiss. Since that summit, hardly has a week passed without some shadowy organisation carrying out a slaughter of innocents, much of it sectarian, in the northern part of Nigeria.

    The Independence Day massacre of 42 students of the Federal Polytechnic, in Mubi, Adamawa State, is only the latest episode of what Festus Eriye, editor and columnist for the Sunday edition of this newspaper, has with his accustomed perspicacity called a “descent into depravity.”

    If any country not at war qualifies for an urgent visitation from the African First Ladies Peace Initiative, that country, surely, has to be Nigeria, which hosted its most recent summit.

    Yet, there has not been the merest hint of a move in that direction; no appeal to the rampaging bomb-throwers and gunmen to end the slaughter and allow for the kind of mediation that women are uniquely suited to promote, as mothers and wives. They have sent no message of commiseration to the beleaguered, and offered no succour to the most vulnerable casualties, children and older women especially.

    They had better prepare an answer for their serial derelictions, for their chairperson is sure to demand an explanation when she returns to circulation any moment from now. And it had better be a robust one.

    Dr Jonathan will have some explaining to do, too.

    Something tells that if Dame Patience finds on returning to circulation that “First Lady” is no longer reflexively prefixed to her name; that she is now largely seen more as her husband’s wife than as Nigeria’s preeminent woman, and that she can no longer command the kind of attention she used to command, she is sure to demand an explanation.

    She will surely find out that her husband treated her indisposition as a family matter that did not rise to the level of national concern, and that he did not give a damn about the public’s right to know, even if only in outline, what was happening to the woman they had come to regard as Her Excellency the First Lady.

    In the process, he reduced her to an object of tawdry gossip and tabloid titillation.

    She will discover that, by his silence and his secrecy, Dr Jonathan blocked the outpouring of sympathy and goodwill that Nigerians typically manifest toward the indisposed, and that by the same measure, he may have taken her out of public consciousness.

    The video clip aired on national television the other day showing Mrs Jonathan “hale and hearty” with her husband and children at an undisclosed location in Germany did little to clear the air.

    While the reservoir of sympathy and goodwill has not dried up, she will find it no easy task to re-enter the public consciousness in a positive light.

    But one writes off Mrs Jonathan only at one’s peril. I will not be surprised if, the day after her return, she carried on where she had left off unfazed, and unstoppable as ever.

    Still, I don’t envy Dr Jonathan.

     

  • Scourge of wrong values

    Scourge of wrong values

    Two recent events have once again brought to the fore all that is wrong with us as a people. And in them, we can reasonably find the causative factors for the recurring cycle of underdevelopment and poverty that have held this nation down over the years.

    First was the conferment of national honours on 149 Nigerians by President Goodluck Jonathan during which event he threatened to withdraw the honours conferred on those who have been convicted or are facing criminal charges. The second has to do with the decision taken by the Association of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities on guidelines for the award of honorary doctorate degrees to reduce indiscriminate awards and restore the ‘age-long university culture and best practices’.

    Secretary-General of the association, Prof. Michael Faborode said the awards were now based on wealth, political office and position as well as a means of generating revenue with little or no regard for integrity, contributions to the development of the university and the nation.

    What clearly stands out from these is our scant regard for time tested values- values that are cherished and preserved in other climes as a mark of their national pride. The objective is to promote excellence and high attainment in all fields of human endeavour through the unleashing of the creative energies of the people for national development. By rewarding honour, virtue, patriotism and excellence, a statement is being made that only through such values can true greatness of the individual and the nation be attained. But the facts of our own situation seem to be negating these ennobling and high-minded objectives. Little wonder we have failed to make any significant progress in the development matrix.

    Not long ago, the National Universities Commission (NUC) had decried the flouting of university tradition on the appointment of professors. The commission was piqued that the tradition requiring peer review and assessment of such appointees by at least three professors from both within and outside the country in addition to having a ‘Professorial Chair’ were being observed in their breach. It also noted that some people were parading themselves as professors without any evidence of affiliation to any recognized university or academic discipline in which such scholarly contributions were made. The award of professorships by parastatals, research institutes and allied establishments that have neither a senate nor affiliation to any recognized university was another issue that gave the commission serious worries.

    In an article titled ‘NUC’s fake professors’, I had drawn copious attention to how these dysfunctions not only degrade our university system but the entire Nigerian society. We had also decried the high appetite of our people for sundry awards, recognitions, honours and titles without committing themselves to the necessary rigors and sacrifice that go with such elevated attainments. Our summation was that all these ruinous dispositions and high regard for vain glory signpost both the necessary and sufficient condition for colossal failure either as a people or nation.

    Perhaps, the intervention of the Vice- Chancellors may have been part of the steps to address the observations of the NUC. That could as well be. But what all these go to buttress is that something has definitely gone awry with our values system. Much is also wrong with the way and manner we currently nominate and confer national honours on people. If our national honours were conferred on people who soon turned out as convicts or suspects standing trial before our courts, then we have with us all signs of a demented society.

    It is a key evidence of the shoddiness that has over the years gone in the nomination and subsequent award of national honours to sundry characters using warped and questionable criteria. And this should not be a surprise to any one. Over the years, very well meaning Nigerians have voiced out against the conferment of honours on people solely on account of the political office they happened to occupy at the time. Merit, integrity, honour and contributions to the overall development of the country, are relegated to the back seat. It is not surprising that as soon as some of these characters leave office, they are apprehended to account for the criminal offences they committed in office. Is this not sufficient to cast a slur on the propriety and integrity of the award?

    Perhaps, were such people allowed to complete their terms before their nomination for such awards, the government may have been saved the embarrassment of having to confer its highest honours on rogue individuals that it will be forced to withdraw so soon after. Ironically, even as Jonathan is pontificating on his intention to ensure that holders of national honours are truly worthy representatives of our national values, honour and are patriotic, the last award has with it all the trappings of previous ones. Much of the recipients were people currently occupying political offices either through elective offices or by appointment.

    There is nothing to show that some of them will not go the way of those who were arraigned or convicted for one offence or the other soon after they left office. If Jonathan is serious in sanitizing the award process, he should have began by ensuring that current political office holders are disallowed from the process. Apart from saving the country the loss of face arising from conferring awards on questionable characters, we will also be ensuring that those in public offices do not use them to influence the award in their favour.

    Again, relying on ascendancy to elective positions as a veritable criterion for national honours in a clime that is still struggling to evolve a credible electoral process makes the matter more laughable.

    Nigeria is not lacking in individuals who have distinguished themselves in the mould Jonathan characterized. There are former governors and others who have occupied federal and state offices without blemish. Nobody has deemed it necessary to honour them. Yet serving governors, legislators and sundry political appointees have easily smiled home with such awards even with very curious credentials.

    It may be interesting to publish the criteria on which recipients were rated and the scores of each on that scale. The outcome will be very revealing. There is also something untidy in relying solely on the nominations of state governments for such a sensitive national exercise. In the brand of politics we play in this country, there are bound to be very qualified people who are deliberately excluded just to settle political points. There has to be a way to fish out those people on their own merit so as to enhance the overall credibility of the exercise.

    In all, our country is currently plagued by a scourge of wrong values. We must work hard to weed it of the debilitating malaise of denigrating time-tested values, awards and recognitions. Those who want to excel must be prepared to go through the mills of high attainment. That is the right path to national progress.

  • Dearth of salesmen

    Dearth of salesmen

    Since I read the play, Death of a Salesman, about two decades ago, I have never lived down the pithy vitality of its language, its barebones fury and patterned telling of a lovelorn world. Its genius of moral ambiguity is vitiated by a harsh human story that haunts all those who believe they will grow old one day.

    But most potent for me has been its message about the ordinary worker, who toils from day to day and loses most of his life force to the employer, whose savage flair for profit is exceeded only by a fierce disregard for the tint and tonic of blood flowing cheerlessly in the veins of the employee.

    At the end of the day, the hoary hour comes. He stares at the stark emptiness of his stewardship of many years, his inability to care for home and hearth, and to keep the family out of want and despair. He kills himself because the salesman made his pitches, travelled the cities of America in its grim entrails, and comes back to realise that, for all his sacrifices, he never really made a sale.

    The play, written by American author Arthur Miller, was received by the world with chilly gratitude for its poignant tone and cheeky sincerity. For me, it has been a story that reminds me always of many loved ones I have known over the years, who have worked their whole lives and ended up as though, as Willy Loman – the main character – says, their lives were a “wonderful lie.”

    Individuals may not make a sale, but what of a nation, or a government, when it desires to sell itself? For the first time, I was compelled to look at the play in the context of a nation selling itself last month in New York, the world’s headquarters of the sale.

    It was at the tony New York Palace Hotel, located in the 50th street in Manhattan, around some of the shops and offices advertising and selling some of the world’s marquee brands. Feet fast and eyes dreamy, many buyers and sellers find the ambience of Manhattan the congenial locale. So that was where the Nigerian Roundtable took place, and it was billed as an investment forum to advertise Nigeria’s best to a city and world of appetite and profit.

    But when I entered the hotel, I saw the sights that could only be described as Nigerian. I met a lady, dressed in a iro and buba and it was easy to know she was one of us and I asked where the Nigerian event was happening. I was on vacation, and I wanted only to enjoy the sights and other joys of the city. But the reporter could not miss out on such a potential news event. It turned out, though, that while I waited to see foreigners, all I saw were Nigerians. Most of them were dressed in suits, except some of the women, especially the two dames of subsidy, Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Petroleum Minister Diezani Allison-Madueke.

    My eyes swept over the hall. I saw only a sprinkle of foreigners. Most of the attendees were Nigerians. I wondered what the difference could have been if the show took place in the tranquil relic of Lokoja or conceited grandeur of Abuja or in the bustle of Lagos.

    The Jonathan administration festooned the place with ministers and special advisers and even envoys from outside the United States. You would think it was a big deal, and Nigeria was going to finally nail the issue of investment.

    But as speaker after speaker spoke, it was clear this was a case of Nigerians talking to Nigerians. The few foreigners were already doing business or talking business with Nigeria, including Goldman Sachs. And I spoke to a lady, an American who said she belonged to a consulting firm for companies that invested “in your country.”

    So while a lady like Allison-Madueke made an elaborate show of making a pitch, I could not but see how comic it all was. She spoke about the changes in the oil sector including NNPC unbundling as well as the new bill, and she celebrated the upsurge in electricity supply. More comical was Okonjo-Iweala, who had earlier been cautioned by reporters when she rebuffed a question from this newspaper’s correspondent based in the U.S. She spoke at the event about savings, about the government’s attempt to restrain its spending and the general atmosphere of ease for investment.

    But what was odd was that two state governments that had good stories to tell were put in the middle of this oddity. They included the Delta State Government and the Akwa Ibom State Government. Delta State Governor Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan was represented by his senior adviser, Oma Djebah. Dr. Uduaghan, I learned, had to return to Nigeria for pressing matters after a high-scale meeting with the top brass of French diplomats, including the prime minister, for bilateral matters. Djebah, in his characteristic verve, spoke of Delta State’s potential in such areas as agriculture, health, maritime, manufacturing and education.

    But what caught the imagination was when Akwa Ibom Governor Godswill Akpabio took the stage. He had been on song speaking about his infrastructure accomplishments, as well as the investment potentials of power, education, agriculture and a wide gamut. He is one of the best governors in telling his own story, with clear-eyed humour and enthusiasm. But the drama came when Okonjo-Iweala interjected and wanted Akpabio to speak in favour of savings.

    “But I am in a spending mode,” answered Governor Akpabio, smiling. The Finance Minister, who is often described as the coordinating minister of the economy, generated some murmur in the audience, and some wondered why the minister was sounding such naïve tones.

    I wondered how a country that had poor infrastructure, education, healthcare, and many other deficiencies would be speaking savings in an investment forum when it expected people to come in and spend. It is a reflection of how Okonjo-Iweala does not understand her job that she had to embarrass herself and the country. Anyway, only a sprinkling of foreigners was there.

    Is it not by spending that you energise a poor economy? Even anti-Keynesians also know.

    Just outside, I encountered a local newspaper the New York Post that reported that Nigerian contingent who attended the United Nations General assembly had enmeshed New York traffic with its big limousines in major arteries. They wondered how such a country with its poor profile should make a grandiloquent contrast in their roads. No wonder President Jonathan came with a flood of ministers and other aides. Our nation went to New York to sell itself but New York was absent at the party. It became an interior monologue. We failed there. Then we sold something awful: our primitive love of excess with our limousines. New York did not buy.

    The worst sale came during the meeting of the U.N. on polio with President Goodluck Jonathan attending. I managed to attend. Two things struck me. Our President Acted unpresidential when the Australian prime minister entered late. She shook hands with Bill Gates and others including Pakistani prime minister. They all sat down to shake her hands. When it got to Jonathan’s, he stood up. Next was U.S. Secretary of Health who also did not stand up. Our president slumped back to his seat as though unable to find traction sitting upright. That was not a good way to sell a President. The other point was that the President said he would eradicate polio when this term ends in 2015. Fellow Nigerians, President Jonathan has now told us that he would run for another term. A poor way to sell an intention. I wonder what his speech writers were thinking, just as his Independence day stumble.

    We don’t have many good salesmen.

     

    Mimiko’s mimic men

    My column last week generated not a few hate mails from those who clearly were partisan and I accept that. They are MimiKo’s mimic men. But none of them was able to fault my content. They just questioned my motive. That is a clear case of intellectual ignorance. Rather than read, they were embroiled in psychodynamic rigmarole. They chased the wind on end. That is the quality of the coward. I would really like it if readers actually read.