The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Brief memo on constitutional review

    Brief memo on constitutional review

    Let me say right away that I do not believe in President Goodluck Jonathan or anybody setting up a small committee to review the constitution of Nigeria. The President or the National Assembly was not elected for this purpose it would be ultra-vires for them to do the work of a Constituent Assembly. I sincerely hope that our bright lawyers would not allow any constitutional imposition on hapless Nigerians. If they succeed in doing this, it would not be different from the constitutions the military imposed on Nigeria since 1979. Because nature does not allow a vacuum, we must continue to operate our present constitution while the government should put into process the mechanism for electing a constituent assembly. Whatever the constituent assembly arrives at would become the basic law or constitutional grundnorm of Nigeria. This is the process advocates of a sovereign national conference have in mind and nobody can argue that this is not a democratic process.

    The basis of a constitutional order is that the people are supreme. All powers must emanate from the sovereign will of the people. Whatever the constituent assembly passes, either good or bad, and approved by a referendum of the people, becomes almost immutable and not subject to frivolous review or constant tinkering. Whenever a constituent assembly is convoked and if I’m lucky to be a member, I would be guided by the following brief:

    Structure of Government

    Our country Nigeria shall be a federation and the constituent members of this cooperative federation shall be states. The Federal Government shall have power over the following enumerated functions:

    1. Currency 2. Immigration 3. Defence 4. Customs and Excise 5. Foreign Affairs 6. Post and Telegraphs

    7.Railways 8.Aviation 9.Shipping 10.Intelligence

    11. Ports 12.Air space 13. Exclusive Economic zone

    Whatever is not enumerated shall belong to the sphere of authority of the federating states of the union. But I would make provision for areas of concurrent jurisdiction such as:

    1.Policing 2.Higher Education 3.Highway development

    4. Taxation 5.Revenue collection, particularly federal taxes where applicable. 6. Health 7.Power generation, transmission and distribution.

    All other areas not enumerated as above shall lie in the purview of the states. These would include:

    1. Primary Education 2.Secondary Education 3.Agriculture 4. Highways 5. Inland Water transportation 6. Local Government 7. Minerals 8. Land 9. Forestry, etc.

    All other things not enumerated as belonging in the purview of the Federal Government shall be under state’s jurisdiction.

    Once the number of units of political organization known as states is set down by the constituent assembly, we would lay to rest forever, the question of state creation. The number of states in the federation should be determined by the constituent assembly, which would have the power to merge or split existing states but state creation must be based on rational principles such as contiguity and economic viability.

    No state would be created on the basis of sentiments or political convenience. The late Chief Obafemi Awolowo believed in creating state on the basis of common ethnic identity. This principle would suffice for the Yoruba, Igbos and the core Hausa states but would do no such thing for the remaining 250 odd ethnic groups and sub ethnic nationalities in Nigeria. Small ethnic groups living next to each other would have to be lumped together in viable political entities based on the principle of economic viability. With these divisions of powers, there would be no room for conflicts

    NO THIRD TIER OF GOVERNMENT

    Local government would not constitute as it is now a third tier of government. The Federal Government would have no hand or power in creating local governments. The principle of subsidiarity would apply and there would be complete devolution of power to the states and the states would be left to determine how many local governments they want in their areas.

    Each state would be encouraged to maximally develop its resources both mineral and agricultural resources in a rather co-operative and competitive rivalry.

    Funding of Federal Government

    Funding of the central government would be done through federal taxes levied on minerals as well as custom and excise duties and export duties levied on agricultural commodities. The state by and large would keep their resources to themselves after payment of appropriate taxes to the Federal Government.

    Security

    The security forces of the country shall consist of equal numbers of citizens of Nigeria recruited on equal basis from federating states. They shall also be deployed as territorial forces in their areas of recruitment, but training shall be coordinated from the centre. This may sound rather outlandish and impractical, but this is exactly what is done in the UK and; the British Empire on which the sun never set, owed much to this arrangement. The constitution also must make illegal and criminalize any coup d’état or violent seizure of power by the military. From the above, it is quite clear that I’m a supporter of pristine federalism and resource control while at the same time believing in the unity of the country, but my system would be based on devolution of powers to the state, while vastly reducing the power of the centre so as to minimize conflicts in an ethnically plural country like Nigeria.

    The Legislature

    The legislature shall be elected at federal and state levels by universal suffrage and the system of government shall be parliamentary system. The leader of government at the state and federal level would be leader of government’s business in the House. The Senate shall be elected on equal basis by the federating states while the House of Representative shall be based on population. The leader of government at the state level shall be called the Premier while the leader of government at the federal level shall be called Prime Minister. There shall be a ceremonial Head of State at the centre who shall be called President. The Premiers and Prime Minister shall hold office for a maximum of eight years.

    The Judiciary

    There would be at the apex, the Supreme Court headed by the Chief Justice of the country. Below it shall be federal and state Appeal Courts and Federal High and State High courts. The post of magistrate shall be abolished and where necessary, customary and Sharia courts shall exist if demanded by the people.

    Official Language

    The language of education and business in the country shall continue to be English, while each state would be free to determine what local language to use in their legislatures and state government s. this is what is done in India, Switzerland and Belgium.

    It would now be left for my legal colleagues to put my ideas in proper legal phraseology.

  • When the President speaks

    When the President speaks

    How goes it, comrade?”

    “All is well my brother; He is on the throne.”

    “There you go again. Who’s on the throne now? That’s how you launch into mysticism and religious mentalism to stop an important intellectual peregrination.”

    “Please, please, spare me; spare me. I haven’t recovered from the Sunday morning presidential admonition from the Villa. The long, sterile sermon in the church and then Monday’s somehow mendacious Independence Anniversary speech that has raised so much dust.”

    “Mendacious? How dare you? That was a well crafted speech. Were you looking at the messenger, instead of receiving the message?”

    “Haven’t you been in town? They say the President didn’t get it right when he said that Transparency International noted that Nigeria is the second most improved country in fighting corruption. The organisation said it never made such a rating. Opposition parties are latching onto that to lash the President, saying he should apologise to Nigerians for deceiving us. A lying President? Oh! I don’t believe it. Who wrote the speech? Was there no editing?”

    “I didn’t know that was what you were driving at. But that wasn’t the only incongruity in the presidential speech.”

    “You’re right boo. Didn’t he say that several government programmes and projects are creating wealth and millions of job opportunities for our youths? Where are the jobs? He cited the You-Win programme. I haven’t seen anyone who has won it; have you? The local content initiative in the oil and gas sector; is that subsidy? All we hear are oil kids and their billion naira subsidy deals. Every rich man’s son is into oil and gas, even if he has never been to the Niger Delta.

    “And the Agricultural Transformation Programme. Many have asked me: what is so called? The cassava bread initiative? How many have had the rare opportunity of having a bite of the bread? What’s the taste like? What’s the price like? For rice importers, everyday is Christmas; they are happy.”

    “ My brother, na wa; my hand fall. And those figures. What the hell are they actually indicating? Who understands them?”

    “Oh that! He said Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has grown by 7.1 per cent and people have been asking me: where is the growth? You see, there is a kind of disconnect. What does the man in the street know about GDP? He wants to feel falling food prices, crashing transport fares and dropping school fees; not some esoteric figures that, in his view, symbolise the elite conspiracy to deceive the masses and obfuscate the real, hard, solid facts he confronts every day.

    “Nigeria,” said the President, “has become the preferred destination for investment in Africa, ranked first in the first five host economies for Foreign Direct Investments (FDI), accounting for over 20 per cent of FDI flows into the continent. Besides, there are over N6.8 trillion commitments. Haba! Who are the mean chefs who cooked up these figures? The figures we have, but where are the facts? The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) says it has 249 new members. Is that a foolproof thermometer to gauge the economy’s temperature? What has happened to those once vibrant textile factories where thousands earned a living? How fares the N70 billion textile revival fund? Will Dunlop and all others that fled the stifling environment here return? I’m just sick of it all. All figures, no facts.”

    “Look, my brother, Dr Jonathan doesn’t want to be pessimistic, you know. He needs to deliver a message of hope and give the impression that the ship is on the right track.”

    “I understand, but the hyperbole. That Nigeria is the investors’ haven? Who invests in a country troubled by merciless kidnappers, armed robbers and blood thirsty fundamentalists, who murder innocent students and ordinary folks looking for means of survival? Who?”

    “But the President says many Nigerians have acknowledged that there has been a significant decline in the spate of security breaches.”

    “You see, that is what we’re saying. Where is the truth in that? Who are these Nigerians? If the Villa crowd and their friends are safe, does that mean other Nigerians are safe? Why don’t they ask the parents of those defenceless students murdered in their sleep in Mubi? Why don’t they ask the families of Delta Commissioner Hope Eghagha and his slain police orderly’s? Have they checked with the family of the slain Borno Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Zanna Malam Gana? The former Prisons chief Ibrahim Jarma. Lagos bureau de change operators who were killed in the bloody Sunday shooting spree. The Kano Civil Defence chief, who was killed alongside his wife and three-year-old kid. Businessman Oddi Nweze. Missing TV presenter Rasaq Aremu Gawat. And many others who never thought death would come so early and in such a brutal manner right in their homes or on the street.”

    “These are the cold facts. The figures are scary. We’ve lost count. When people were going about with knives and daggers, we did nothing. Then they started carrying locally made guns. We did nothing. Now, they bear AK-47 rifles, pump action guns and grenades as well as bombs. Everyday is like going to war, a war we know nothing about. A senseless war waged by senseless people against a senseless system.”

    “You’re right. But don’t you see politics in all this? Didn’t some people say they’ll make the country ungovernable for the President?”

    “I understand you. You see, my brother. I’ve reflected on the matter. There’s politics of security and security of politics. When the two clash, the result is the extremism that we see and feel now. So, these times call for no sophistries and duplicity. No. It’s time for action. Today you say you’re talking with angry sect leaders to whom life is all about blood and death; people who have vowed never to be placable; tomorrow, guns boom. More deaths.”

    “Yah! We all feel it, my dear. That’s our country for you. But, my point is that it’s wrong for people to hang it all on Jonathan’s head. He can’t do it alone.”

    “That’s what you people always say. The theory that one person can’t change a nation is strange. Why are leaders elected if they can’t change things? It is when they are seen to be changing things radically that others follow, not when they are lethargic and lackadaisical. When you sought our votes, you kept yelling ‘I, I and I’. Now, you say ‘we; I can’t do it alone’ and ‘there are many Nehemiahs in the National Assembly (really?), in the Federal Executive Council, the Judiciary’. There are those who insist the President should be a preacher; one is being forced to believe them.”

    “In those early days of the administration, Dr Jonathan was so proud of his respect for the rule of law and due process. He no longer romanticise them. What happened?”

    “What a question. Anyway, how do you expect him to go on singing rule of law and such niceties when the National Judicial Council (NJC) has been scorned by the Executive. The NJC, several months ago, recommended the reinstatement of Appeal Court President Justice Isa Ayo Salami, but the Presidency has been sitting on the matter, appointing an acting head for the court, even as it has been said again and again that the NJC has the final say on the matter. Is that rule of law? You see, leadership is about courage, vision and sincerity. Truth. Justice. When these are lacking, what you have is like a truck with flat tyres; you push and push and push but it won’t move. May the Nigerian truck not lose its tyres. “

    “Amen!”

    Otedola: Not so fast, Reps

    The House of Reps is at it again. It has set for itself the spurious task of probing how Femi Otedola paid his N141b debt to the Asset Management Company of Nigeria(AMCON), according to spokesman Zakary Mohammed. To do this, the House will take some time off another crucial mission – that of raising members’ allowances to N7m per quarter (Isn’t that peanuts for such hardworking men and women of integrity?)

    It’s no news that the frontline businessman accused Farouk Lawan of collecting $620,000 bribe from him. Lawan, one of the leading lights of the House and self-styled anti-corruption crusader, is to face trial. This has brought the House to ridicule and opprobrium from which it may not recover so soon.
    Otedola was owing AMCON; he has paid. What is the business of our dear Reps in that? Would they have loved Otedola to stay a debtor for ever? When will the House spare a thought for Boko Haram? When will kidnapping and robbery get a mention? Who owns the assets Otedola pledged for the loans; the House? Of what use is this probe? Probe for probe sake? Shouldn’t other debtors be encouraged to follow the Otedola example? Is this score-settling or crime-cracking? I’m tempted to believe the former is the case, not the latter.
    But don’t our Reps have some shame?

  • Travails of information ministers

    Travails of information ministers

    Most past Nigerian ministers of information have tended to end their tour of duty on a sad note. This is precisely because successive Nigerian leaders, in an age when development in communication has rendered even multi-terminal communication channels obsolete, sadly still see communication as a two-way affair between the government and the governed. This perhaps also explains why even those that had genuine intention of serving their fatherland often ended up squandering the reputation and goodwill that took years to build as they, in the words of Alhaji Babatunde Jose, struggle ‘to walk the tight rope’.

    Neither professional training, nor success in past endeavours has ever prepared a minister of information for the challenges of an office designed not only to block other channels of communication, but also label opposing views as treason. Communication, the nerves of government designed to help government measure the pulse of public opinion, is viewed as a tool for sedition. The failure of past successive Nigerian governments cannot be totally divorced from their penchant to listen only to themselves.

    Either as elected leaders, or usurpers of political office through military coups, successive Nigerian leaders have often insisted that they and they alone, must determine the information the people get. For this reason, Balewa government in the first republic, exasperated by views of opposition, set up its own newspaper, appropriately regarded by Nigerians as ‘government views paper’. Murtala Mohammed/Obasanjo regime took over the Daily Times, a privately owned newspaper with independent views and the New Nigerian which mirrored the views of the northern establishment. Shagari tried unsuccessfully to appeal to journalists to mirror the views of his government which he deceitfully equated with that of the nation.

    Buhari came up with an obnoxious Decree Four which made it an offence to report even the truth that ran contrary to the views of his regime. Babangida’s liberalization of ownership of radio and television was in the end self-serving. Obasanjo had such disdain for other views that he likened journalists to dogs.

    Now Jonathan, a product of public opinion like many of his predecessors, has been agonising over his inability to use the awesome power of the presidency to stop criticism of his government’s handling of Nigerian problems which he rightly said were of no creations of his. He thinks the economic views of Dr Okonjo-Iweala which has only reduced our nation to one of the poorest nations of the world in spite of our limitless potentials, a system that has failed even in Europe and America where the mixture of capitalism and welfarism has produced something akin to communism, or those of Dr Doyin Okupe, the self styled ’attack lion’ who recently told half truth about the usage of $1000 bill in US, and those of CBN governor that has rendered thousands of once gainfully employed people jobless, are superior to those of other stake holders in the Nigerian project including former Heads of state.

    The tragedy has been that those called upon to sell government vision are often some of the best products of our society. Tony Momoh, my ‘Oga’ at the Daily Times was a highly principled and successful editor. He was soon to discover all government wanted was not to share information, but force its views on the people. Following Dele Giwa’s assassination through a parcel bomb in October 1986, two days after he was accused of anti-government activities by State Security Services (SSS), Momoh had pledged a government probe of the incident only to back down later saying “a special probe would serve no useful purpose”. By 1987, he had started a government inspired crusade for the press to see itself as tools’ “for the promotion of national unity and integration” of the ruling elite. By 1988, if Momoh had his way, only radio sets that could disseminate only what the government wanted the people to hear would be available. Dismissing opposing views of those opposed to Babangida’s N1billion political party headquarters, Momoh had said no amount was too big to defend democracy since the alternative was dictatorship. As Babangida’s ‘transition without end’ took its tolls on Nigerians and its economy, Momoh resigned himself to writing ‘letters to my countrymen’ until Babangida replaced him with the humour master, and former custom officer, Alex Akinyele, as his information manager.

    Yar’ Adua found in Dora Akunyili, a professor of Pharmacy and a former Director-General of National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) an ideal information manager. She squandered all the goodwill she had acquired in her misadventure into the ministry of information. She passionately defended the views of the administration with all her might until she resigned from PDP government. Today apart from the ill-advised, failed re-branding of Nigeria project, she is remembered more as an accomplice in the historic vote theft in Ekiti State.

    Labaran Maku was equally well-equipped for his current job. He had been President of University of Jos Students Union and officer of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS). He had been a reporter, political editor, member of editorial board of two national newspapers and Deputy Editor-in-Chief during his career as journalist. To cap it all, he was once the commissioner for information and later the Deputy Governor of Nasarawa State from 2003 to 2007.

    It is hard to see a man better prepared for the job than Maku. But despite this string of achievements, Maku has moved from one disaster to the other. His latest folly earned him tongue lashing by the Senate president. Maku, according to David Mark is “a careless talker. He talks very carelessly. He did not think properly. He is not an educator and we need to educate him. I hope the president cautions him and calls him to order.”

    Maku who had said that “the National Assembly could not dictate to President Jonathan” was also reminded of the Doctrine of Necessity which was passed into resolutions by the Senate and House of Representatives in February 2010 on the strength of which and the then Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan became Acting President.

    Before them, Maku had in an attempt to defend President Jonathan’s alleged refusal to say “Amen” during a church service when prayers were being made against corruption, had stated that ‘it was because he is president of both the “rich and the poor, shoed and shoeless, corrupt and incorrupt.”

    Maku also said that just as you cannot accuse God of being evil for sending sun and rain to both the good and bad, so you cannot accuse the president of being corrupt for “sending love and friendship to both the corrupt and the very corrupt.” Even Akinyele the master of humour couldn’t have done better.

    On the general protest that followed the removal of fuel subsidy in January this year, Maku had said ‘the youths were just being used’, the same way he was used by big oil barons to mobilise students, as a student leader in the university. If he did not act out of conviction as a student leader, it is doubtful if a leopard will change its skin at old age, even as a minister.

    Maku in particular seems to have always courted controversy. The enthusiasm which he has brought t o bear on his work as information minister is not markedly different from that of his student leadership almost three decades back. He talks without reflection but with such passion that tends to give the wrong impression that those who work as minister of information are necessarily hungry people.

  • Otedola’s curious N141b debt settlement

    Otedola’s curious N141b debt settlement

    It is good to have friends in high places. In a country like ours where people believe so much in connections, we struggle to have friends in such quarters. The reason for this is obvious. Having friends in such places confers a lot of privileges. It opens doors and at the mention of your powerful friend’s name, others will cringe before you.

    Some will even bow to you because they know that you only need to speak the word and they are finished. It is indeed good to have friends in high places. With the support of your powerful friends, you can get away with anything, including murder.

    Having friends in high places has its advantages no doubt. In the interdependent world that we live in today, it is good to know people be it in politics, business or at the social level. We need to move out of our cocoons and make friends for the betterment of our lives and society.

    The essence of friendship is to have people to fall back on when the need arises. Some of us are good at making friends; some are not that lucky, no matter how hard they try. We collect friends for different reasons. Some deliberately make friends in high places because of what such friendship can fetch them. Those people are not assets to their friends, but liabilities. But do they care?

    They don’t because they intentionally made such friendship because of what it can fetch them. These are people who go to government offices, throwing their weight about and asking through their body language, do you know who I am? They are super connected and they leave no one in doubt about that. Where some talk of friendship in high places, they boast of friendship in higher places. They are friends of leaders of the country and you know what that means; it means power, raw power. Because of their closeness to power, they tend to treat others with disdain, forgetting that their privileged position should make them humble.

    Being a friend of the president of a country should make any rational person to be fearful and grateful to God at the same time. It is a privilege, which many crave, but which only a few can obtain. So, those who obtain this rare favour in the face of the Almighty should be mindful of how they use it. Such favours are not meant to be used by shouting all over the place that I am the friend of the president.

    Those who are true friends of a president are known by how they contribute to his success; they are known by the kind of public good they dispense; they are known by their humanitarian gestures; they are known by their ethical and moral conduct; they are known for their uprightness in all their endeavours.

    These are attributes of a person, who does not want his powerful friend to fail through his questionable conduct on account of their friendship. But what do we have today? We see all over the  place, people hanging around the president because they want to be identified as his friend so that others can say of them : don’t you know that man, he is the president’s friend. Nobody can touch him; anything he does, he will get away with it. Yes, on earth, anything they do, they will get away with it. But in the Hereafter, we will all answer for our deeds. Even the president will answer to a higher president.

    On earth, let all those who want to use the president to achieve their selfish desires continue to do so, but a day is coming that there will be a Pharaoh who knows no Joseph.

    Nobody can really put a fin

    ger to the kind of relation

    ship between President Goodluck Jonathan and oil magnate Femi Otedola beyond the fact that they are friends. Their friendship, I have heard it said, predates Jonathan’s assumption of office. According to the grapevine, Otedola was there for the president when the cabal was hellbent on stopping him from emerging acting president before the death of President Umaru Yar’Adua in 2010.

    Some even said he committed time and money to the Jonathan project before and after Yar’Adua’s death. So, both men are close. Because he is not an ingrate, the president has brought Otedola close to himself since he came to power and the oil baron is seen all over the place with him. It was said that when things seemed not to be going well for Otedola, it took only a little push from the president for him to get his bearings back. I don’t know how well his businesses are doing, but from the look of it, things are not bad for him.

    The chink in his armour may be his alleged indebtedness to the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) for which he and 418 others were blacklisted by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Their blacklisting followed their alleged reluctance to service the debt despite the buying of the loan by AMCON at an agreed price.

    Otedola’s debt was put at N192.4 billion, but it was bought by AMCON for N140.9 billion. With over N50 billion chopped off his debt, it was expected that Otedola and others who enjoyed similar mark down on their loans will promptly begin to service the facility to continue to enjoy the support of their banks. You can trust the Nigerian businessman, they never did that.

    They started to play the waiting game to see what will happen next. Meanwhile, they were still going to their banks for more loans. This leads us to this question : Should a debtor that refuses to service his/her debt be allowed to obtain more loans? The CBN answered this question appropriately by blacklisting the debtors. I agree with the CBN.

    What kind of precedent will we be setting if we treat debtors like the ones blacklisted by CBN with kid gloves while going after small debtors with a sledge hammer? It will be a bad precedent and the consequences for us as a nation will be grave if we continue to pamper big debtors.

    Many banks are dead today because of the refusal of some big debtors to defray their debts. Many of those debtors are strutting all over the place as lords of the manor, despite causing the death of these banks. Why will a debtor refuse to pay? Is it for lack of fund or what? Can he choose to pay at his own will or as scheduled by the bank?

    Barely one week after news broke of his being blacklisted, Otedola reportedly paid his N141 billion debt. Just like that; yes just like that. So, he had the money all along but chose not to pay? Why did he choose to pay now? To ensure that he continues to enjoy credit facility from his banks? No, that cannot be the case since he was compelled to pay up by CBN’s action.

    I don’t know how much Otedola is worth, but one thing I know for sure is that N141 billion is a huge sum, which cannot just be picked up off the street. Where did he get the money from? What are the assets he sold?

    AMCON must come clean with the people on this issue because of insinuations that Otedola might have benefited from his friendship with the president. For me, it is not a sin to have the president as a friend, but it will be wrong to use that friendship to gain undeserved favour.

    Will other debtors benefit from such help so that they can continue to remain in business and be able to borrow money from the banks until they are killed just like some financial houses before them? Friendship should not stand in the way of justice; no, not at all. The people have the right to know how Otedola was able to raise such huge sum within so short a time when he could not do so for years before the CBN threat.

  • Ugo Ozuah, yet another victim

    Ugo Ozuah, yet another victim

    Imagine this scenario: a man met a lady. Both of them got talking. One thing led to another and they both agreed to live together as husband and wife for the rest of their life. For two good years, they courted, dreamt dreams, ruminated on how they would go about their lives and finally are joined together in holy wedlock.

    What follows is the reception where nice things are said about the couple. There are smiles all over, the bride and groom grinning from one corner of the mouth to another. On such a day, appetite will take a flight. The stomachs of the duo are naturally filled with joy, not food. Some dance steps follow. Gifts are exchanged. Flower bouquet is thrown at spinsters by the bride. The story of how they met, sometimes in edited version, is told.

    Five days after, while people still reminisce on the beautiful wedding, the groom is gunned down by a heartless, satanic individual who put paid to a jolly life of marital bliss that was just about to begin.

    The questions are: how will the wife feel? Was she married or not? Can she move on with her life? Can she revert to spinsterhood once more? Will anybody readily go for her again, given the cultural and traditional beliefs of people in this part of the world? What should she do?

    I have tried to recreate what has befallen the family of Ugochukwu Ozuah and Joan, his wife, who got married on September 15. The couple’s joy was abruptly cut short five days later, when the groom was allegedly shot and killed by policemen attached to the Anthony Division, Lagos, while dropping his friend off.

    The friend, Erikefe Omene, said that he still could not understand why the policemen shot the deceased. According to him, “We got into his car, a Honda CRV, and he drove out. As we approached the expressway, policemen came around. Ozuah parked the car and we both alighted so we could stop a taxi. But before he made to shut the door, one of the policemen said, ‘Who’s there? Who goes there?’, and shot Ozuah, who then fell flat on the floor. I thought the policemen might come around to shoot. So, I ran back into the estate.”

    Omene said he went to the deceased’s house to inform his wife about what had happened. He said Joan and her in-laws took another car and drove back to the scene. Upon returning to the scene about 10 to 20 minutes later, he saw more policemen, including the Divisional Police Officer, standing near Ozuah, who was lying down in a pool of his own blood. The DPO said he just received a phone call that someone was shot. I then told the DPO that it was a policeman that shot my friend. The DPO then asked me to explain and I narrated the story to him. He said, ‘Are you sure it wasn’t someone in black that shot your friend?’

    Omene said he remained with the DPO and reiterated what had happened but the DPO was adamant, saying the killers must have been armed robbers in police uniform. Omene added that he and the DPO then drove to the hospital where the doctor said Ozuah was dead. Omene said he was later taken to the police station where he wrote a statement, while Ozuah’s remains were deposited at the morgue.

    What is baffling in this whole episode is the police insistence that it was actually armed robbers and not policemen that murdered the young man. Since the incident occurred, Ngozi Braide, the spokesperson for the Lagos State Police Command had continued to inundate the public that indeed it was some ‘unknown’ armed robbers that snuffed the life out of Ozuah.

    From the behaviour of the policemen from Anthony Police Station and their DPO, who quickly came to the scene, one cannot understand the spurious attempts to cover up this heinous crime. The DPO said he responded to a call that armed robbers had shot someone. And when he got there, he did not know what to do than to stare blankly at the helpless man on the ground. He waited till Omene came back before deciding to take the dying man to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.

    Why will the DPO ask if Omene was sure that it was a policeman that shot Ugo and not somebody in black? Ugo had money in his wallet, his car, as well as, his cell phone was intact, so what was the motive of the armed robbers? Although nobody can stay in the comfort of his home and pontificate that it was a policeman that shot Ugo, but, the storyline of the police, especially Braide, is loaded with either half truths or outright fallacy and falsehood.

    That reminds me of an incident not too long ago. A driver of the Lagos State Ambulance Service, LASAMBUS, Jimoh Fasasi, reportedly died after he was allegedly brutalised by some policemen from the Surulere Police Station at Barracks Bus Stop, Lagos. Eyewitnesses said Fasasi was on his motorcycle when he was arrested by policemen on the fateful day. An argument then ensued between the two parties. One of the eyewitnesses alleged that one of the policemen hit the driver with the butt of his gun. The man fell on the ground.

    “Not long after that, some LASAMBUS staff got a call. The caller was shouting that they should hurry, that Fasasi fell down after he was hit with a gun and that he was foaming. By the time they got there, he was stone dead.” Another eyewitness, in the area, said immediately the policemen realised what had happened, they fled the scene and took the motorcycle away.

    In her moonlight tale, Braide, said the eyewitness’ accounts extracted by the police were different: “The eyewitnesses we talked to said after he begged and they did not listen to him, he wanted to rest under an umbrella owned by a recharge card seller there. They said he started panting and later fell. He then hit his head on the ground. Braide said the deceased’s visible head injury was because he hit his head on the ground”. That story is probably meant for the marines.

    In spite of what happened, the policemen did not rush him to the hospital but left the scene with his motorcycle. It is obvious that Braide was being economical with the truth. An officer who until recently was Braide’s boss at the Special Fraud Unit, Ikoyi, Lagos, described Braide as an intelligent officer. I know that the job of a police spokesperson is very tough – daily defending the indefensible. I can only pray that she should use her intelligence positively and not to pull cotton wool over people’s eyes.

    I have encountered excellent policemen who carry themselves with respect, dignity and candour. But again, there are many of them, even senior police officers, who I cannot stand. I am sure if policemen and other security agents work according to their callings, half of the insecurity problems we are now battling with in Nigeria would have been permanently solved.

    However, the resolve of Mohammed Abubakar, the Inspector General of Police, IGP, to identify and fish out the killers of Ozuah is reassuring. Already, a dedicated email address and phone lines have been put at the disposal of the public to enable anybody an unfettered access to the investigating team. That is the hallmark of a God-fearing IGP who brooks no nonsense. I am not surprised though. Fasasi’s case is still pending too. It is only hoped that at the end of the day, the killers of Ozuah and Fasasi will be unmasked and brought to justice. We cannot continue to lose our citizens in this senseless manner.

  • Still on Nigeria@52: Where is the love? The rights of Women at work; Police palaver

    Still on Nigeria@52: Where is the love? The rights of Women at work; Police palaver

    Nigeria or at least the electorate is still searching for a truly great selfless Nigerian with the love of Nigeria and the love of Nigerians as the cornerstone of his or her presidential policy thrust. As we ‘celebrate’ 52 years let us ‘cerebrate’ on the huge lack of achievement during that time compared with God-given resources, mineral, manpower and mental. If Ghana had a 100th of what we had, imagine where Ghana and Ghanaians would be now. We are also constantly reminded to look at Indonesia where imaginative leadership motivated by a deep love of Indonesia and Indonesians resulted in that Asian tiger riding on palm oil plantations originating from Nigeria. So we may be one year older, but are we one year better or one year wiser?

    The idea that the federal budget is for stealing needs a change. An anniversary is a good time to swear renewed allegiance and oaths to the country and citizenry. Of course they have been sworn but did they mean anything beyond photo-op for the paparazzi and yawning time for local channel viewers?

    I join millions of fellow Nigerians to apologise to our female police, rank and file, for the law that forbade them to marry or have children for three years after joining up and needing more than automatic permission to marry. Perhaps such a law exists throughout many uniformed and civil service institutions and even some banks et cetera may have such secret policies. I hate to think how many of them were forced to compromise themselves with immoral senior officers in order to get that ‘Permission To Marry’ stamp. In Nigeria nothing is as it seems and exploitation of employees is seen to be a right for the ‘authority figures’. They see nothing wrong with such bestial behaviour as ‘that was what so-and-so did in the ‘glorious past’, so why should they be any better?’ Nigerians will exploit every loophole and this is why we need much more good high level monitored policing from a better equipped, better focused police service than is available at present. Our police service must join the 21st century police services in many areas including human rights and employees’ rights. Giving birth is a national service –hence maternity leave. Some of the police stations are unworthy of the name with no facilities or amenities for the police- male and especially, female.

    The old standard Nigeria Police station should be re-designed with a leaf taken from South African Police stations, though the South African Police let Africa down by creating Soweto Two by shooting 44 miners and then accusing the miners of murder under an old obnoxious apartheid law. Police equipment referred to above includes every police station utilising locally available IT know-how with computerising of the police station and digital cameras to record crime scene and detained suspects for criminal face recognition records and fingerprints to avoid the Ibori incident, intelligence and weapons.

    Every policeman should have a pre-paid cell phone. This ‘no marry’ is blatantly discriminatory as it did not forbid men from doing the same. In these days of men developing cold feet over marriage for financial and other reasons, such a law complicates an already difficult situation further. Let us remember that reproducing is a national responsibility which keeps the population steady or growing. This obnoxious rule should have been thrown out years ago by the Police Service Commission and must be thrown out by the NASS if it has not already done so. It is as bad as the old Maternity Leave Law which gave ‘Six weeks before and six weeks after delivery’ under which most Nigerian mothers in employment would lose days and weeks if she gave birth earlier than was predicted by her Last Menstrual Period (LMP) or did not start leave early enough. Most women have always desired to work longer to around 36 weeks so as to get about 8-10 weeks with the baby post-delivery before having to send them to creche or give them up to a nanny at home. It was an avenue for extortion from the helpless women by unscrupulous doctors who had to sign the maternity leave forms especially for civil servants. I personally fought for years, and successfully, to get the Maternity Leave Law to be a consolidated to read ‘12 weeks maternity leave, regardless of the date of delivery’. Unfortunately some retrogressive elements in the federal and state governments are still living in the past and insisting on cancelling any leave not used fully if the delivery comes before six weeks into the maternity leave. By using the ’12 weeks consolidated Maternity Leave’ we were able to eliminate frustration of the mothers, a mountain of paperwork as the date the mother wanted was when the leave started and fraud from medical personnel colluding for money to alter maternity dates. The women in NASS and state assemblies should fight to ensure that the ’A Pregnant Woman is Entitled To 12 weeks Consolidated Maternity Leave’ is what is being practiced in their areas. Enough of cheating women. Women must demand their rights to pregnancy and full three months maternity leave. For Police or the public, ‘Pregnancy is a National Service’ lasting much longer than nine months and still too many fellow Nigerian women die trying to complete this service. What will Nigeria@53 bring? Is there any ‘Love for Nigeria’ out there?

     

     

  • Constitutional amendments; a bad workman…

    Constitutional amendments; a bad workman…

    A bad workman, the English say, quarrels with his tools. Few people demonstrate the accuracy of this aphorism as Nigerians – certainly the politicians among them – do in their attempt, once again, to review the Constitution of their country as it clocks its 52nd year of its Independence from British colonial rule on October 1, 1960.

    First, it took them all less than six years to throw away the parliamentary constitution they had inherited from their colonial master and, in effect, adopt a unitary constitution.

    Not that ordinary Nigerians really had much choice in the matter when the soldiers overthrew the country’s unpopular civilian rulers on January 15, 1966. That first coup has since been blamed much for being the trigger of the country’s sharp decline since Independence. But this is only being wise after the fact; back then most Nigerians believed the coup was good riddance to bad rubbish.

    Naturally, when Major-General J. T. Aguiyi-Ironsi took over power as our first military ruler he and his colleagues abolished the Independence Constitution. Then in February he set up a Constitutional Study Group under Chief F.R.A. Williams, aka “Timi the Law”, to work out a new constitution. However, even before the group could settle down to work, the new head of state enacted Decree 34, the unification decree which abolished the then four regions – North, West, East and Mid-West – and replaced them with the provinces in those regions as the units of administration.

    That, as is well known, proved his nemesis; in July there was a bloody counter-coup in which the top casualty was the general himself, and following which the new kids on the block quickly abolished the decree. This was in September, barely two months after they came to power.

    The counter-coup, in turn, led eventually to a three-year civil war which ended in 1970. By then General Yakubu Gowon who had taken over from Ironsi as military, ruler, had been in power for over four years. When the war ended he promised a return to civilian rule in four years i.e. by 1974. However, as the deadline approached the man changed his mind and it became apparent that he had allowed himself to be persuaded by those around him that, like several of his counterparts elsewhere, notably Egypt, he should swap his khaki for mufti and remain in power.

    This, again as we all know, proved his undoing; he was overthrown in 1975 but unlike his hapless predecessor, he did not pay the ultimate price, reason being he was out of the country at the time of the coup.

    Apparently the new set of military rulers learnt the lessons of the demise of their predecessors, which was that in the long run no good ever came out of wanting to cling on to power; they promised to return the country to civilian rule in three years and set about their commitment with a vigour unknown in most military dictatorships, certainly those in Africa.

    Such was their commitment that even when some misguided elements in the army killed the head of state, General Murtala Mohammed, on February 13, 1976 in a failed attempt to overthrow his government, the new military rulers stuck to their transition programme to hand over to the civilians on October 1, 1979.

    The lot of implementing the programme fell on General Olusegun Obasanjo, General Muhammed’s deputy. Top of the programme was the provision of a constitution for the country. Before his assassination, General Muhammed had inaugurated a Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) under – who else? – “Timi the Law.”

    Suspicions that there were strings attached to the CDC’s brief soon provoked a huge controversy. The suspicions were first aired by Malam Aminu Kano, the late radical politician who led the opposition to the ruling party in the North. During one of the conferences organised around the country to generate input for the CDC – this one was on the Congo Campus of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, in March 1977 – Malam Aminu claimed there was not only a “soft-subterranean influence” by the army to jettison the parliamentary democracy of the First Republic and replace it with American type of presidential democracy. He also said he had reason to believe the CDC had succumbed to the military’s influence.

    This columnist had the privilege of reporting the story for the New Nigerian as a junior reporter.

    That claim got Chief Williams’ dander up. Unless the radical malam withdrew his claim, the chief threatened in effect, he would sue him for slander. This threat got my bosses understandably worried, given the chief’s huge reputation of hardly ever losing his cases. So worried were my bosses they sent me to Kano to seek clarification on the issue from the malam.

    I did and he stuck to his gun. “I must,” he said in a short written statement he gave me, “say that I have grown old enough in the politics of Nigeria and generally of Africa to avoid equivocation or sycophancy and to know the difference between political consistency which is hard to maintain and political acrobatism, simple to operate. The first I will continue to do, but the second I condemn and reject until death, suffering and ostracisation notwithstanding.”

    The New Nigerian led with the story in its edition of April 4, 1977 under the headline, “Aminu Kano Unrepentant – stands by his words.” As far as I know, Chief Williams never sued the malam until his death.

    More significantly when the CDC submitted its report to the authorities it opted for the American type presidential democracy as if in vindication of malam’s claims. As we all know this was adopted by the Constituent Assembly (CA) of 1978 that eventually wrote the 1979 Constitution that ushered in the Second Republic and a document which has remained the country’s constitutional framework, give or take not a few amendments by the various military regimes that have ruled this country up to 1999.

    And so it was that the first opportunity Nigerians had of drafting their own constitution without supervision by any colonial master, they chose to throw away the one they had inherited, lock, stock and barrel.

    It has since become conventional wisdom to say the military imposed the presidential system on the country. The truth is much more complex than that. True, the Obasanjo regime that midwifed the constitution not only held a veto over it. It exercised the veto by inserting a few important clauses in it and deleting a few, without subjecting the document to a referendum or to even reconsideration by its CA.

    However, the fact was that the mostly elected 1978 CA agreed with the military in their choice of the presidential system over the parliamentary. It was also a fact that there was a popular support for the system. So it is simply historical revisionism to blame the soldiers alone for the country’s jettisoning of parliamentary democracy after the country had used it for less than six years.

    In truth the greater blame for this “imposition” should go to our politicians who, it seems, have a penchant for quarrelling with their tools. This much should be obvious from the fact that most, if not all, of them blame our Constitution more – much more – than their own behaviour for the problems of this country.

    According to The Punch (September 29), there are at the moment 264 proposals before our National Assembly for amendments in our Constitution which is barely 12 years old. Among these, the newspaper said, are 61 demands for the creation of states before the Senate and 27 for same before the House of Representatives, making a total of 88.

    Neither the parliamentary constitution of the First Republic, nor the presidential one we have since replaced it with are perfect, being documents written by imperfect human beings.

    It is also true that it makes no difference what type of tool a country chooses to solve its problems with. In the end, however, what is more important than the right choice is how a tool is used. Only a bad workman, which your typical Nigerian politician is, will contemplate amending a constitution he has used for barely 12 years in no less than 264 places.

    Worse, only such a bad workman would demand for the creation of 88 more states in a country where we all agree, the existing 36 have proved too unwieldy and too costly.

  • Osun SAS and the reign of rumours

    Osun SAS and the reign of rumours

    For some time now, the rumour mill in the State of Osun has been unduly astir and agog with its worrisome pastime of tickling the ears of people with fantastic untruths. The emerging pattern appears to be that anytime the government of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola introduces any comprehensive people-oriented policy, those whose pseudo patriotism inspires to harvest defeat from the jaw of victory quickly move to town, spawning a web of lies to discredit the programme.

    Few months ago, some local political irritants and their unconscionable federal sponsors sought in vain to make sense of their hollow claims that the governor had concluded plans to first Islamise the state and then secede using the services of the young men it had trained in Cuba. These accusations fell flat and their sponsors were soon put to shame.

    The latest in this concatenation of ridiculous and reprehensible rumours concerns the activities of the joint security taskforce code-named Swift Action Squad (SAS), recently inaugurated by the state government to combat criminality and make the state unappealing to criminals of whatever pedigree. The objectionable gist in the current rumour making the rounds is that the men of this new security team are fashion police put in place by the government to deal with ladies who dress indecently, and to harass innocent citizens!

    Of course, since the rumour began, not one of the many ladies so punished by men of the SAS for wearing “too sexy clothes” has come to validate the bland claim. Except in the waning and circumscribed imagination of the peddlers of the rumours, nobody has come forward with a shred of evidence to prove a case of harassment or act of impunity against the joint patrol team of security men.

    In the version voyeuristically favoured by one Alabi Sodiq (circulated on some blogs and published in the September 4, edition of Thisday newspaper), it was claimed a young lady was “arrested” by SAS operatives on Saturday August 25, at Iwo. He claimed that the lady “was accused of wearing a top revealing her breast and the soldiers forced her to remove her top so as to totally reveal the breast she was ‘trying to flaunt’. Then, goes the story, a passing innocent Okada rider, who had no idea what was happening, was also stopped and asked by the soldiers to fondle the exposed breast of this young woman. The Okada man tried to turn down this offer and that’s a decision he would be regretting for a long time. He was mercilessly beaten and at the end he had to do as asked”.

    On the surface, it appeared Sodiq was doing the right thing that any public-spirited, law-abiding citizen would do – calling the attention of the authorities to the unlawful actions of a security unit, more so that, in his claim, the information was not fictitious. But in truth, this was blatant disinformation meant to cause needless apprehension in the peaceful people of the state. Except that he saw a young girl running for whatever reason on sighting a patrol vehicle, every other thing in his boondoggle was a product of hearsay. Perhaps because he is alien to the culture of crosschecking the facts of his claims beyond any scintilla of doubt as any credible writer and well meaning citizen would have done, he unquestioningly accepted the hogwash he was told hook, line and sinker as gospel truth!

    For those living in or visiting any part of Osun, it is very clear that all of the red security vehicles used by SAS have bold numbers inscribed on them, both front and back, for easy identification. The easiest thing for anybody who witnessed the wrongdoing of these security men to do is to take down the number and include it in their reports. But in the circulated reports against SAS, not one person – not even the seemingly observant Sodiq– has provided the vehicle number of the particular SAS unit that carried out the rumoured act. There has not even been any simple verbal description of the vehicle. Not one of the different versions of the wicked rumours gave a clear description of the actual place where the incident occurred. I have heard and read different places like Osogbo, Ile-Ife, and Iwo mentioned without any precise location within them identified as the place where passers-by witnessed the event.

    Assuming I were ignorant of what the average Nigerians can do with their camera phones at the scene of a sordid event, I might not have bothered surfing the net for a video or picture from episode. However, since the story was a product of the fevered imagination of rumour-mongers with sinister intentions, no single picture or video clip exists to affirm the veracity of the claims. It was Nigerians, not foreigners, who witnessed the beastly assault some low-minded Naval ratings executed against Uzoma Okereke sometime in 2010, that recorded the shameful acts and uploaded it on the Internet for the world to see. Did camera phones or other similar devices go into extinction while soldiers assault and harass a lady and an okada rider (the imaginative creations of mischief makers)?

    Moreover, I remember that the Special Adviser to the Governor Aregbesola was on live broadcast of the state television station about two weeks ago to encourage witnesses or victims of the untoward acts of SAS to contact him or the TV station with useful information. He gave out his personal number and six other numbers for this purpose. Not a single person has ventured in that direction.

    I have the hunch that those behind these rumours are incorrigible enemies of the state, who are unhappy with the progress being made. It is not even unlikely that these supine and faceless people behind the misleading tales are the ones who are exceedingly uncomfortable with the reality that they may not be able to rig elections because there is a crime-fighting military apparatus on ground. Politically-motivated crimes are stamped out in Osun and the graceless sponsors are in distress, hence the horrible rumours. What is more, in the better-forgotten years of the Oyinlola administration, Osun citizens were at the mercy of criminals. Today, it is a different story with the current administration. With the solid presence of security men in strategic areas around the state, it is very possible that criminals are sorely troubled that the party is over. This too could be another reason for the ruinous claims against the new security outfit the government has put in place to ensure the security of life and property of the people.

    While it is not impossible that some of these security men could be guilty of certain excesses in the performance of their duty, it is also not inconceivable that some weightless politicians and their foot soldiers incapable of deep introspection would resort to cheap lies and rumours in order to destroy a scheme that serves the people of the state very well.

    In his address at the inauguration of SAS, Aregbesola did not mention fashion policing as part of the duties of this security scheme. What will make sense is for people to report any unseemly conduct by members of the squad, with verifiable evidence. It is another way we can all participate in the onerous task of ensuring the security of the people of our various communities. Let all mischief makers, rumour-mongers, and political irritants know that no edifice of lies can survive where the sledgehammer of truth is active.

    • Alowonle writes from Osogbo

  • CBN debtors’ list

    CBN debtors’ list

    •People who take loans must be ready to pay or face the consequence

    LAST week, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) returned to the name-and-shame tactics of publishing the names of the financial sector’s biggest debtors. Prominent among the 113 companies and 419 directors/shareholders in the list are Femi Otedola, Alhaji Sayyu Dantata, Sir Johnson Arumemi-Ikhide, Prof Barth Nnaji (former Minister of Power), Mrs. Elizabeth Ebi and Dr. Wale Babalakin.

    Unlike in the past when it stopped at the point of making the names public, this time, the apex bank announced the extraordinary measure of shutting them out of further credit. It also threatened to hand them over to law enforcement agents in the event of their continuing neglect to fulfill their repayment obligations to the lenders. Banks which flout the directive would be made to make an immediate provision of 100 percent of total principal and interest outstanding in the account of the customer and related parties – without prejudice to regulatory action that the CBN may further take.

    As a newspaper, we are torn between the tendency to criminalise debts that is increasingly commonplace, which we deplore, and the offensive criminal impunity underlying the transactions that have now constituted an albatross to the financial system. Much as we are willing to concede to a world of difference between the class of genuine borrowers who became unwilling victims more by factors beyond their control than anything else – and the class that now constitutes the delinquent class renowned for preying on the financial system, the trouble has been in spotting the difference.

    Unfortunately, in the circumstance in which the banking sector found itself saddled with a staggering toxic loan portfolio of N3.4 trillion, the CBN seems to have reasoned that the situation dictated drastic measures. At this point, it is increasingly hard to fault the apex bank. True, the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) has taken over most of the toxic loans in the bid to give some breather to the financial system; this itself has come at huge costs to the treasury. Meanwhile, a good number of the debtors have neither shown enough efforts to engage their creditors let alone the willingness to pay what they owe.

    The measure by the apex bank, in our view, speaks to the exigency of the situation. The initiative, and, if we dare say, courage, by the CBN in making public the names of the individuals, is deserving of commendation. Far from being drastic, it comes with the territory that those who borrow from the financial system must see themselves as having the obligation to pay. Failure should therefore come with expectations of penalties, if only to discourage irresponsible debtors from bringing the roof down the heads of everyone.

    In the specific case, it seems to us a necessary step to complement the on-going efforts to sanitise the financial sector. It is important to send the signal to those whose activities contributed in no small measure to the unravelling of the sector that the impunity of that era would not be overlooked. We cannot imagine a closure to the unfortunate event that culminated in the failure of some of the nation’s big lenders, and the collateral cost of the loss of investment by nearly two million shareholders, outside of the drastic prescription. Those not averse to hiding behind legalism to frustrate legitimate debt recovery need to be taught the lesson that the alternative to being credit-worthy is being shut out of formal credit. If we must make the laws stricter to make it mandatory for people to know that loans are no free funds, we should not hesitate to do so.

    All said, we must note that the financial system would not have found itself in this mess if credit bureaus were in operation. Clearly, the coming of the bureaus as a guide to the making of credit decisions has become imperative. Everything that needs to be done to get the bureaus on board must be done – immediately.

  • Nigeria at 52

    Nigeria at 52

    To anyone in the business of public comment, one uncomfortable burden must be the duty to constantly answer to the question of whether Nigeria is headed in the right direction at every turn. Like the cliché goes – as it was in the past, so it was yesterday, so it would be tomorrow – and evermore. Like the proverbial bad coin that keep showing up at intervals, the question of the nation’s destination would again pop up at the occasion of its 52th independence anniversary.

    Let me state that ritual of self-score that keeps producing what most Nigerians have come to regard as spurious verdicts – which suggest that the nation is finally getting things right – is nothing unusual. As uncomfortable as that ritual of outlandish self-assessment is, and which successive administrations have entertained themselves to at the expense of the long-suffering citizens, it does serves one important function of letting citizen into the mind of the leader – if only to allow them measure how far detached the leadership is from their reality.

    Take yesterday’s address by President Goodluck Jonathan with its beautiful presentation of the economy as one finally revving in full throttle: an economy which in the last two years has maintained a sustained path of growth with the real Gross Domestic Product averaging 7.1 percent.

    Until yesterday, I actually thought that we had gone beyond such meaningless statistics. After the spurious growth of the last decade that neither delivered jobs nor spread prosperity, I thought the adumbrations ought to have been tempered by the frightening reality of joblessness and rising poverty in the land. In vain did I search for recognition for the troubling, but long recognised fact.

    Now, I understand: the path would point in the direction of an underachieving presidency!

    From the power situation, to the economy; from job creation to security, the President insisted that he has his hands firmly on the handle. Unfortunately, the citizens who have borne the brunt of the failed policies of the administration couldn’t be sure.

    It seems not too long ago that the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) drew our attention to the yawning disconnect between the growth and the incidence of poverty. I recall the bureau summarising the trend this way in February: “In 2004, Nigeria’s relative poverty measurement stood at 54.4 per cent but increased to 69 per cent or 112.518 million Nigerians in 2010″.

    The statistician would observe in summary that “It remains a paradox… that despite the fact that the Nigerian economy is growing, the proportion of Nigerians living in poverty is increasing every year.”

    Did the President offer proof to show that the trend has changed? He didn’t. He needn’t. Nigerians know that things have grown worse, not better!

    Let’s move swiftly to the President’s claim of performance in the real sector. In the President’s own words: “we have improved on our investment environment; more corporate bodies are investing in the Nigerian economy. Our Investment Climate Reform Programme has helped to attract over N6.8 trillion local and foreign direct investment commitments”.

    Was it entirely surprising that the President would not see his score-card as complete without touting Nigeria’s emerging status as the preferred destination for investment in the continent? Hear the President: “the nation’s share of total FDI flows into the continent is in excess of 20 per cent”. Really? Where?

    There are of course the add-ons which he threw in; the registration of close to 7, 000 companies within the second quarter of the year alone; the 249-odd new members enrolled in the manufacturers’ club – the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) as at July this year. All these – the President seems to have reasoned – were proof enough of the economy in full flight.

    If Nigerians expected the administration to be forthcoming on the specifics of jobs created through the trillion-naira FDI, they got none. Rather, it was sufficient for the President to claim that millions of job opportunities are being created for the youth and the general population – in public works, in the local content initiative in the oil and Gas sector and the agricultural transformation programme of his administration!

    Now, there must be something extraordinary in the federal government’s professed love for FDI at a time when no finger is being lifted to help the few indigenous companies. The result is that many of them have bitten since the dust. Does the love of FDI reflect our typical preference for dispensing our charities abroad?

    Now, FDI is good. Often touted as a measure of international confidence in the national economy, it is admittedly a sign that some things are being done right. The problem however is the fetish being made of the so-called FDIs.

    Coincidentally, as this is being written, I have a report quoting the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA) as stating that no fewer than 800 indigenous companies closed shop between 2009 and 2011 due to harsh operating business environment. While it seems unlikely that those in the list would be among the 249 which the President’s hyperactive MAN recently enrolled on their membership register, the President did no more than gloss over the issue of the harsh operating environment which has rendered manufacturing business a nightmare.

    For instance, nowhere did I hear the President address the question of easier access to credit; the unconscionably steep interest rates; the poor transportation infrastructure all of which constitute significant cost elements in manufacturing, but which with proper attention from government would keep the economy roaring.

    Not while there was something to boast about in the modest improvement in the power supply situation, the arrival of the Presidential cassava bread, the Presidential rice which promises to keep Thailand rice permanently outside our shores. Oh; I nearly forgot the dozen-plus contracts to revive the railways!

    Finally, does it count for anything that the Presidential Change of Guards –part of the independence ceremonies – was again held within the fortresses of the Villa?

    Does it equally matter that the place of the once bright and colourful Eagle Square as host to national events have since faded into distant memories?

    Talk about the dread of the Boko Haram being the beginning of Presidential wisdom.

    Here is to Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

    At a forum in Awka, the Anambra State capital sometime in August 2011, you spoke of the plan by the Goodluck Jonathan administration to overhaul the mortgage system. Then, you rightly identified the absence of the mortgage institution as one of the key drivers of corruption in the public service. I thought the idea was spot on.

    It seems easy to imagine that a good number of the public servants under pressure to steal public funds in order to be able to put a roof over their heads would be less pressured to do if they access to relatively affordable mortgage.

    Well, it’s been more than a year since you let us into the plan. Do we need to wait till 2020 for the plan to materialise?