The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Oyinlola: Testimony of a PDP governor at work

    Something new, beautiful or ugly always comes out of the old South-west. The West bred NADECO or “Agbako” if you prefer Diya’s nomenclature. It equally bred the self-styled Abacha‘s ‘new realists’, headed by Ebenezar Babatope who told us Abacha was the best to have happened to Nigeria. His other fellow travelers include Elder Wole Oyelese, Dr Walter Ofonagoro, and Wada Nas.

    It was also the western Abacha administrators that constituted the vanguard of what they termed ‘Abacha historic mission’. Leading the pack was Colonel Olagunsoye Oyinlola then of Lagos, under the assault of man-made plague-broken roads, UN cleared refuse dumps and Abacha state sponsored violence. Other ignoble members of the Abacha fraudulent ‘historic mission’ were administrators Nwosu of Oyo and Ahmed Usman of Ondo among others.

    But the Fourth Republic has lived up to its reputation by throwing up the ugliest of the wild, wild, West. No matter how PDP governors from other geo-political zones tried, it will be difficult to beat the records of James Ibori described by a London court as ‘rogue in state house’, or that of Lucky Igbenedion who earned the same appellation from a Benin court. Ayo Fayose of Ekiti, Gbenga Daniel of Ogun, Adebayo Alao-Akala of Oyo, all accused of squalid conducts in government houses still have dates with the court. The West produced more firsts. It produced Olusegun Agagu of Ondo, Professor Oserheimen Osunbor of Edo, and Segun Oni of Ekiti and Olagunsoye Oyinlola of Osun who were indicted by the courts for stealing others’ mandates.

    For those who may be wondering about how South-west PDP governors have been able to chalk up such unenviable and unsavory reputation, the defence put up by Oyinlola, before the Prof. Femi Odekunle-led six-member panel of inquiry set up to investigate the circumstances surrounding the procurement of an N18, 38b loan and other major financial transactions by his government between May 29, 2003 and November 27, 2010 provides two possible explanations – incompetence or greed or both.

    First Oyinlola, swore he was motivated by service to his people to take the loan of N18.35b which exposed his state to ‘huge monthly repayment of a sum of N615 million to service a loan that by all accounts had no viable source of repayment’. He has told us that faced with a situation where “salaries of civil servants and pensions consumed 90 per cent of the earnings of his state” following “a reduction in the federal allocation to states in 2009, when the crises in the Niger Delta affected oil production” he was left with no other choice but to seek the help of the leadership of his state House of Assembly which in his words “advised us to take the loan at interest rate of 13% to address germane issues of 2010 Budget.”

    After obtaining the loan, his “administration used part of the loan to award contract for kits for the use of pupils in primary and secondary schools because of the poor performance of students in science subjects and Mathematics”.

    We have no reason to doubt Oyinlola’s genuine concern in this regard. But the question is how come it took the loan for an administration that had been in office for over seven years to realize the ‘poor performance of Osun state students in science and mathematics’? How was the decision to award contact arrived at? This question is relevant because we are not going to invent the wheel. Obama has just proposed in his next year budget a huge sum for the training of about 100,000 science and mathematics teachers to enable America catch up with China. But here it is a lot easier to award contracts than train teachers.

    A big chunk of the loan also went into the six stadia projects; the governor claimed was not even the idea of his government. According to him it was ‘the youths of the state that called the attention of its administration to the development of sports, during one of the open forum programme organized by his government’. We were not told if this youth-initiated policy was subjected to rigorous debate by the cabinet or the rubber stamping house. But the ex-governor saw in the borrowed idea, an opportunity to spread infrastructural development through the location of a stadium in each of the six zones across the state.

    But the question again is does Osun need six stadia in a situation where Lagos that harbours millions of enthusiastic football and other sports fans until recently had only one? And if Oyinlola’s administration was persuaded that six stadia were needed, should the contracts be awarded less than a year to the end of his term? What is the time frame for the completion of the projects? These questions are also pertinent because ex-governor Oyinlola also disclosed to the panel that some of the contracts his government awarded for roads rehabilitation were not implemented by the contractor. He has had to seek the intervention of Ooni of Ife because cancelation of the contracts was not a viable option since Osun state according to him ‘stands to lose about N500million’.

    There are more questions: “Why was the entire loan fully drawn by the PDP administration prior to the commencement of projects, even when the construction periods of the various projects for which it was meant were between 12-24 months? Oyinlola’s admission that only N10.1billion was drawn down does still not answer this question.

    Whose interest was being served by lodging the loan in an account with the same bank without accruing any interest while the state simultaneously made payment of N615 million as interests and charges .?

    Whose interest was served by an administration that spent over seven years in office, had N67.3billion excess free oil windfall to play around, and yet left behind a legacy of suffocating N615 million loan monthly repayments?

    How for instance was Osun state whose total IGR under Oyinlola never exceeded N300m going to survive with a monthly loan repayment of N615 million spread over 13 years?

    Aregbesola no doubt has an axe to grind with Oyinlola who stole his mandate for close to four years; but he has in my view tried to rise beyond the bitter politics of the state by merely describing his predecessor’s scandalous action merely as ‘running foul of simple rule of sound financial management’.

    The truth of the matter is that Oyinlola and his state House of Assembly have not behaved differently from other South-west PDP governors who have been indicted or facing charges in court for squalid behavior arising from unimplemented contract bazaar they dished out just to satisfy the greed of PDP members.

    In a more decent society, Oyinlola who was shamed by Marwa’s superlative performance after his dismal Lagos outing would never have been presented for an elective office by a political party worthy of its name. But in character with PDP philosophy of service to members only, Oyinlola , after another scandalous outing in Osun State, and an indictment for electoral fraud by an Appeal Court, has moved up to become national secretary of the PDP.

    As part of our continuing nightmare, PDP which in itself is deficit in honour and morality following the indictment of nearly all its past party chairmen is moulding our nation in the image of some depraved ex-governors, ex-Senate presidents, and ex-Speakers of the Lower House and committee chairmen.

  • The nature and dynamics of insurgencies (II)

    The nature and dynamics of insurgencies (II)

    This religious and sectarian insurgency emanating from the Arab world has now spread to Nigeria where, since 2009, the government has had to face the growing security challenge posed by Boko Haram (Western education is evil) to its authority. Before then, very little was known of the existence of this sect and its objectives. It was preceded by the activities and operations of the militants of the Niger Delta, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) that posed a grave security threat to Nigeria’s oil installations. Here, the grievances were mainly local and economic. Through dialogue, the federal authorities have been able to reach an agreement with the militants involving training abroad for them and some generous financial compensation. But even this can only be a partial solution to a problem that is deeply rooted in the political and economic history of the Delta region.

    The nature of the colonial legacy is responsible to a large extent for the emergence of political instability and the consequent emergence of insurgency in Nigeria. The Boko Haram sect is the product of a political and social process that failed to ensure an even development in the country, with the North lagging far behind the South in economic and social development. The insurgency in the North is a symptom of a deep seated malaise going back to the colonial area during which colonial policies adopted led to the North, the largest and most populous part of the country, falling behind the rest of the country in virtually all respects. Boko Haram is the direct consequence of the failure of northern leaders to invest in the education of their people. It is this failure, and not mere religious differences, that accounts for the deep seated grievances of the Boko Haram insurgents in Nigeria. The process and pace of modernisation in the North have been much slower than in the South. This situation creates frustration among the northern youths who find themselves unable to compete with their southern counterparts in all respects, even in the North.

    Northern Nigeria had been politically restive for some time. Before 2009 when Boko Haram first emerged there was the Maitasine rebellion which the Obasanjo government succeeded in putting down, largely through the application of force. But the underlying problem that produced Maitasine in the North was not really addressed. Boko Haram is the direct successor of Maitasine. Most of the northern states have since come under the savage attacks of the Boko Haram insurgents. There is now a serious danger that the insurgency may extend to other non-Fulani parts of northern Nigeria. Plateau State is the new target of attacks, though the competition for land between Fulani herdsmen and the indigenes in the region is also a major factor in the ethnic clashes there. Plateau State, part of the old Middle Belt, has a large Christian population as well. Its people have always historically been at logger – heads with the Hausa-Fulani who want to dominate the area. So, here the battle is for the control of this mineral rich part of Nigeria. It is both economic and political.

    A recent country report on global terrorism by the State Department of the United States showed that in 2011, 136 attacks were carried out in northern Nigeria by Boko Haram resulting in the death of 590 people. In terms of the global number of casualties in the Boko Haram attacks, Nigeria was placed fifth, after Afghanistan (3,353), Iraq (3, 063), Pakistan (2,033), and Somalia (1,103). It was reported that in 2011 there were some 978 terrorist attacks in Africa with Nigeria alone accounting for over 20 per cent of those attacks. The report stated that the sect was more deadly and vicious in its attacks in 2011 than in 2010. In 2010 only 31 attacks by Boko Haram were reported by the media. This figure increased in 2011 to 136. This year the number and frequency of Boko Haram attacks are likely to be even higher as the sect has increased its tempo during the current year. Already, it is estimated that Boko Haram attacks have resulted in the death of over 1,000 people in northern Nigeria since 2009.

    A former head of the Nigerian Army, Gen. Danjuma, has publicly expressed concerns that Nigeria may become a failed state like Somalia which has integrated on account of a long drawn out insurgency. Many northern leaders have also condemned the sect and blamed it for the situation of economic paralysis in the North There is increasing public concern that the sect seems to execute its vicious and bloody attacks so easily and with almost complete impunity. Despite its best and brave efforts the Joint Task Force, comprising the Army and the Police, has not yet been able to evolve a strategy to effectively tackle and contain attacks by the sect. Vast swathes of northern Nigeria have been rendered ungovernable and ‘no go’ areas. In the states that have been hit by Boko Haram, economic activities have been totally paralysed. The Plateau State has been one of the main targets of these attacks. It has suffered more casualties from the Boko Haram attacks than other states in northern Nigeria. The attacks appear religious in nature as most of them have been targeted at churches and Christians in northern Nigeria. Christian leaders have been restrained in their response to these attacks, but have warned that they may be obliged to urge their people to retaliate as the government has been unable to offer the victims of these random attacks any protection. A few mosques have also been attacked. But these attacks are directed against Muslims who are thought to have fallen behind in the strict practice of the Islamic doctrine and have fallen for the trappings of Western civilisation and way of life that the sect considers evil and unacceptable to strict Islamic doctrines.

    The Boko Haram phenomenon and the emergence of terrorism in Nigeria have to be considered as one of the unsavoury consequences and legacies of colonial rule in Nigeria. British colonial rule in Nigeria sought to create a new state by bringing together under a single colonial administration a country of such wide cultural and ethnic diversity. The central historical fact of Nigeria is that, like most of the other African states, it owes its existence as a nation state to European imperial ambitions in Africa. Lord Lugard, the first colonial governor of Nigeria, and the man who carried out the amalgamation of Nigeria, admitted at the time that Nigeria was ‘a mere geographical expression’ of this new British dependency. The territorial boundaries, the political institutions, and the images of these African states, are the result of European ambitions and rivalries in Africa. But colonialism was both a factor of cohesion and a source of friction. While it brought under one rule people with different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, it did very little to integrate them into one nation.

    The roots of the current insurgency by Boko Haram also lie in the fragility of the political institutions that Nigeria inherited at its Independence in 1960. Post-colonial Nigeria has remained a weak state. The post-colonial political and economic systems were far too weak to contain the centrifugal tendencies in the country. The federal system of government agreed upon at Independence was unbalanced. It failed to provide an equitable distribution of power at the centre. It is this quest for a more balanced political system that has been at the centre of Nigeria’s post-colonial political history. The post-colonial framework was itself the product of the nature and style of the British colonial administration in Nigeria. It created huge divergences in administration in northern and southern parts of the colony.

     

    •To be continued

     

  • The resource control furore: one more word

    The resource control furore: one more word

    Three weeks or so ago today after my two-part piece on the onshore/offshore dichotomy on allocation of the country’s oil revenue, the issue seems to have returned to the front pages of our newspapers.

    First it was President Goodluck Jonathan himself who, through his spokesperson, Dr. Reuben Abati, pronounced the 2004 Act abrogating the dichotomy a closed issue. Shortly thereafter, his Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Mohammed Adoke, followed suit. Then six days ago, the new president of the Nigerian Bar Association, Mr Okey Wali, announced that the NBA “fully endorses” the position of the Attorney-General. Wali, it may be recalled, was a one time attorney-general of Rivers State, a leading oil producing state.

    “We,” he said, “agree with the AGF that this matter has been settled by the highest court of the land, the Supreme Court in AG Adamawa State and 22 others versus the AG Federation and eight others…we condemn any attempt by some politicians and their sympathisers to deliberately over-heat the polity by resurrecting the matter.”

    With due respect, Wali, Adoke and his principal are guilty of, at best, playing politics with the law, and, at worse, downright lying with it, akin to the subterfuge of lying with statistics.

    To begin with, as the three gentlemen know all too well, Supreme Court judgments are not cast in stone; all over the world apex courts have been known to reverse themselves when the need arises. Second, if the word of Supreme Courts is final and irreversible why did many of the most vociferous objectors of the re-opening of the 2004 Act even more vociferously reject our own apex court’s April 2002 judgment upholding the onshore/offshore dichotomy as untenable, to the extent that they even threatened to secede from the country? Why did they insist that beyond the court’s judgment there has to be a political solution?

    However, the issue here is not only that Supreme Courts can reverse themselves. It is also not only that these latter-day the-word-of-supreme-courts-is-final advocates are being inconsistent. More importantly, the issue is also that the Supreme Court never dismissed the case of AG Adamawa State and 22 others versus the AG Federation and eight others on its own merit, as Wali would want the world to believe.

    True, the court unanimously dismissed the case of the 22 states that sought the nullification of the 2004 Act which abrogated the onshore/offshore dichotomy for the purposes of revenue allocation among states. But the judges also differed among themselves on the merit of the case. For example, whereas Justice Oguntade said he did not see “anything intrinsic or extrinsic” in the law which was contrary to “the letter and spirit of the 1999 Constitution”, Justice Kutigi dismissed it only on the grounds that the plaintiffs went about their case the wrong way.

    “It is,” he said, “doubtless that this action seeks to challenge the validity and effect of the 2004 Act. But the plaintiffs had chosen to go about it the wrong way…Unfortunately, the plaintiffs have not asked this court for any interpretation of the relevant provisions of the Constitution or of the 2004 Act itself. They therefore committed a blunder!”

    Justice Oguntade might as well have been right. But then he was talking merely about the abstract principle of the letter and spirit of our supreme law of the land. The story might have been different if the principle were tested against some specific issues.

    In any case, the fact that not all the Supreme Court judges agreed that the case lacked merit left enough room for a re-examination of the case.

    So for our President to say the case should not be re-opened because it has been pronounced upon by the Supreme Court is simply untenable. Worse, it betrays an attitude that he is the President, not of all Nigerians, but of a section of it – specifically the section he comes from which seems implacably opposed to the re-opening of the issue.

    Feedback

    Newswatch: sad end to a great news magazine

    My piece last on the sad putative demise of Newswatch elicited 41 texts and a couple of emails. Nearly a dozen of the reactions corrected the date I said Dele Giwa, one of its four founders, died on; October 19, 1986, not in 1985 as I said. The majority of them were angrier with the top management, led by Ray Ekpu, for apparently allowing themselves to be suckered by Chief Jimoh Ibrahim than with the chief for killing the magazine in effect.

    One of the reactions also corrected the date I said Newbreed made its debut. This correction is published below along with some of the more interesting ones.

    Sir,

    I enjoy your column every week for the quality of efforts evident in it but do not always agree with your conclusions. Just a minor information: Newbreed came on stream in 1972 not 1976. I remember this clearly because myself and Chris Okolie were charged for seditious publication over my article “Rivers State as I see it” published in its April 1974 edition.

    Joe Agbro. +2348051821777

    Sir,

    It is surprising that the founding editors of Newswatch will sell one per cent to Jimoh Ibrahim without checking his antecedent. This man is Nigeria’s Mitt Romney. He buys troubled companies not to revive them but to sell off the assets and make profits. I have no tears for them.

    +2348023049640

    Sir,

    As usual your piece on Newswatch was a master piece. However, you should have mentioned the fat millions collected by the squad. They sold their rights of ownership of the magazine to a Smart Alec. Please advise them to use the millions to run for seats in the National Assembly where there is free money. No crocodile tears from them. Dele (RIP), whom I knew very well at Brooklyn College, (New York), would have done the same or worse.

    Rest in Peace Newswatch.

    D.M. Badamosi fmngs +2348037044586

    Sir,

    One is not surprised you remembered Obasanjo’s ban on Newbreed in the 70s but can’t remember that it was your Nupe brother, Ibrahim Babangida, who was responsible for the ban Newswatch suffered. By now your articles should reflect the views of a nationalist not a tribalist. It is too early to forget the deeds of Obasanjo and Babangida.

    +2348038358461

    Sir,

    I agree with your commentary today on the rise and fall of Newswatch magazine. As a student, there was no week I did not buy Newswatch magazine at N1.50. Similar magazines now sell for N500 and this is a good measure of how much the Naira has crashed over the years.

    It is very sad indeed because the magazine as an idea and now a brand should have been sustained, no matter the circumstance.  Nigeria is also failing today because we do not know how to build institutions.

    Kind regards.

    Ehi Braimah

    (08033017348)

    Dear Sir,

    I have read and followed your writings since my school days. I am in my late 40s now. So I have read you a long time.

    What some people do and we call it business turnaround in Nigeria is simply hostile take-over and asset stripping. Your catalogue of our dear Chief’s escapades bears me witness.

    Only a fool with means and connections will not have gone for those companies he went for. NICON with all those houses and what not was a sitting duck. Nigeria Airways had more landed property than planes. So if a Corporate Undertaker shows up? Hide the assets list.

    Sir, I write today, not because I have qualifications in Literature, Entrepreneurship and Business turnaround but because Newswatch’s murder could have been prevented. We have this knack of taking our own counsel in this country. The tendency is to rate size, intelligence or connections over diligence.

    I am saddened because these were men I respect so much, and who back then, wanted me to work with them before life took me on a different route. Their error of judgement and lack of care in signing the papers is at best infantile.

    Who was their financial adviser? I am sure they had none.

    •Otherwise there would be no need for these shares nonsense.

    •How come they signed off the company without receiving the promised capital injection. At least they should have followed BPE’s Nitel saga.

    •How did Chief succeed in opening an account in the name of a company he is yet to acquire and be the sole signatory?

    Sir, I am sure you see the point now? Newswatch was acquired for nothing.

    He opened the account, transferred money into it and is spending the money himself.

    Let them talk to a good business lawyer who is versed in mergers and acquisitions. This is not a journalistic battle, it is a business war. You don’t carry a gun to fight a man in a tank; you stay far and shell him with anti-tank missiles.

    Babafemi Oduyingbo

     

  • Nigeria@52; Ogun Crash; Wanted: Nollywood ParaOlympian and historic films; Wasted 60+yrs

    Nigeria@52; Ogun Crash; Wanted: Nollywood ParaOlympian and historic films; Wasted 60+yrs

    The arrogance of government knows no bounds as we ‘celebrate’ Nigeria at 52. Shame on all governments as Nigeria ‘boasts’ of 4,700Mw- enough for a town in UK or USA when we have spent enough for the needed 100,000Mw and still reject ‘God’s’ solar power used by sunless countries.

    Another 30 innocent Nigerian lives lost in Ogun State last week! No Nigeria@52 celebration for them or their families! The trailer company will go free, of course, while the families of the dead are condemned to parentless penury! America’s normal road is 4-6 lanes each side while Nigeria’s best road is two potholed ‘lanes’ except for the irrelevant 10 lane road in Abuja -the heart of darkness and profligacy. Is what is good for Abuja not good for all Nigeria’s major roads or do they have three heads in Abuja? Nigeria’s CINS of Corruption, Incompetence, Negligence, Selfishness need exorcising!

    The Ogun crash will create more physically challenged Nigerians. The success of the Nigerian Paralymics Team is a 2012 Nigeria@52 story of triumph over adversity facing athletes. In another country, directors and writers would sign up Paralympians to turn their stories into award-winning ‘Triumph over Adversity’films. But no. Our Nollywood seems preoccupied with wizards and kidnappings, violence and violation, love and lust. The ‘new’ films should highlight the early life of Paralympians, other challenged individuals and those groups fighting for access to buildings and vehicles, educational support, more mobility aides, employment and training opportunities and show the odd governor or company sponsoring a wheelchair, airline ticket or laptop donation.

    Once again at Nigeria@52, governments at LGA, state and federal can, but will not, address budgets, policies and infrastructure for the challenged. One NASS member’s Salary and Perks (SAP), is more than the annual budget for all associations of the physically challenged nationwide.

    The government and NASS refuse government support for modern museums and exhibitions. The implementation of a personal aggrandisement NASS Museum Plan should be suspended. It is a mockery to have a museum for the questionable activities of politicians of questionable productivity and very high cost: Returns ratio when the nation lacks arts, science and history museums and exhibitions. These are part of education, entertainment and entrepreneurship and job opportunities for millions of youth worldwide.

    By this insistence on a NASS museum, the house exposes itself to ridicule as the true history of the country is yet to enter the syllabus in any intelligent or critical detail, perhaps because the truth is bitter, unbelievable and ‘too sensitive’. But parents know Nigeria’s history and teach it. There are many good and bad biographies and autobiographies which if stripped of their sugar-coating could be compared to reveal the truth. This is a goldmine for researchers, scholars and filmmakers in modern Nigerian history. They can cut out the self-aggrandisement and come up with the authentic history of Nigeria 1960-2011 probably in several parts. The writers of such masterpieces can make them relevant by borrowing a leaf from other historians and writing the history as a ‘fact and fiction’ or ‘faction’ around fictitious individuals such as aides to the politicians involved or ordinary citizens happy, troubled or traumatised by the time. This is already being done about the Civil War and the independence era. Because we did not have a pre-independence bloodbath does not mean it was painless or not worthy of accurate record. We have the mosquito, not ourselves, to thank for that ‘ease’. Make the films, please.

    At every October 1, we appraise Nigeria. The generator noise has cost us and deafened us for the last 30 years of my own Soyinkaian ‘wasted’ generation, now 60+years. Today, we and Nigeria are nowhere near what we dreamed of when we grew up sharing our plans and expected outcomes in Nigeria’s schools and on university campuses. Looking back, life has been so incredibly difficult, complicated by CINS. Unknown to us, and perhaps unknown to them, the evil military and subsequently the malignant political class were planning Nigeria’s financial and structural destruction. Military unitarianism and ethnic fiscal and political mis-applied federalism engineered Nigeria’s failure. Today’s Nigeria is not what we worked hard throughout the last 45 years as diligent university undergraduates, dedicated NYSC members and professionals. Are we the problem as we were in the civil service and government?

    We have largely succeeded in bringing up our children at home or abroad and have lived almost our entire adult lives subsisting without and substituting for absences of tap water, electricity, landlines, security or care from the state. We have had almost nothing good from our country except what God has given that politicians cannot take away – family, the glorious Nigerian weather and clean air now polluted by 100,000 okada 2-stroke motorcycle engines in a murderous and misguided employment drive! We witnessed the economy collapse from 1970s N1:$1.5 to N150: $1. Today the preposterous N5000 banknote looms like a lethal cloud threatening malignant devaluation. Easily filled potholes litter the landscape taunting every responsible engineer while our politicians prefer stealing while we suffer mentally and physically in preventable traffic jams while they do beautification projects –planting a flower beside the pothole! What is it about Nigeria that makes politicians feel they can fail and nothing will happen to them or the country? One day there will be no country for them to rape and no road for them to escape! Where are the politicians who love the people and Nigeria@52?

     

  • Amosun’s infrastructural financing model

    Amosun’s infrastructural financing model

    “Rough waters are truer test of leadership. In calm water every ship has a good captain”—Swedish Proverb.

    Ogun State Governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, has again unveiled another financial masterstroke that promises to transform the infrastructure landscape of the state. The parlous financial position of his state compelled him come up with a novel idea that will enable him use other people’s money to develop his state.

    An innovative financial system that would see well-placed construction companies undertake the construction of developmental infrastructure, especially roads, for the state on credit to be paid in instalments later. The arrangement is a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) scheme.

    The payment plan, which is a direct fallout of the confidence he has instilled in the state’s financial system would come in form of ‘promissory note’ (or Treasury bill) arrangement. The idea is akin to the popular ‘hire-purchase’ arrangement that commercial drivers enter into with auto-dealers whereby a vehicle would be released to commercial drivers on credit and the money for the vehicle is paid over a period of time.

    However, unlike in the case of the normal ‘hire-purchase’ arrangement where the auto dealer keeps a copy of the vehicle key and is at liberty to confiscate the bus if the driver defaults in the payment, the companies in this arrangement will not be able to do that hence the need for a law, making it mandatory for the state government to stick with the payment agreement no matter what, whether there is a change in government or not.

    This arrangement can also be likened to a situation where a worker buys a 32’’ LG Television set from his cooperative society on credit with a promise that payment be deducted from his monthly salary over a period of time.

    To allay possible fears of any default in the re-payment schedule, Senator Amosun has sent a bill to the State House of Assembly asking for the enactment of a law establishing a ‘sinking fund’-a pool of funds dedicated for a specific purpose- in the financial firmament of the state.

    The proposed law also seeks to set up a legal framework which must be adhered to whenever the government wants to access any loan in the state. The law would serve as an instrument for enforcing fiscal and financial discipline.

    The bill titled “A bill for a law to provide for the raising of loans through issuance of bonds, (treasury) notes and other securities, and for connected purposes,” spells out the steps and procedures to be taken by the government whenever it wants to access any loan, a sort of regulatory framework for taking loans. The bill also seeks the establishment of a ‘sinking fund’ by the state government. The ‘sinking fund’ will be made up of 15 percent of all Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the state and must be dedicated to the repayment for projects executed under the ‘promissory note’ arrangement.

    Interestingly, the ‘promissory note’ initiative presents the people of Ogun State with a ‘Win-Win situation’. It ensures that situations where funds meant for projects are diverted becomes a thing of the past, and ensures that the people will enjoy the infrastructure before the state will start paying for it. The law would equally serve as bulwark against the diversion of developmental funds.

    This novel idea would at least ensure that the people of Ogun State can always see what their money is spent on.

    The state Commissioner for Finance, Kemi Adeosun, at a recent media briefing, dismissed insinuations that the Bill sent to the legislature was to facilitate the state access to Bond. She explained, ‘it is like people in Ogun State are fixated with bond. But the bill we sent to the Assembly is not to ask for approval to take bond. Yes, bond is good as a long term financial instrument, but we are not going for it. That is not our intention. The finances of Ogun cannot sustain a bond presently. Our debt portfolio is high and our IGR is low. We inherited a debt profile of N87 billion in 2011 and as at today we have reduced it to about N60 billion; but our IGR is still very low and all these would be taken into consideration when they want to calculate the amount you can take as bond.

    “Again, the process that would lead to a bond is long and might not materialize until the final year of the administration”, the commissioner noted. She added the process of accessing a bond “include applying and getting approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), appointment of a legal team, financial advisers, trustees as well as the consent of the Federal Ministry of Finance, all these after we must have secured the approval of the state House of Assembly on the move.

    “With a Bond, you have to issue what is called Irrevocable Standing Payment Order (ISPO). With an ISPO, your allocation won’t come to you intact again. The debt would be deducted directly from Abuja. Before the allocation gets to you, the Federal Ministry of Finance deducts at source.

    “We are not running away from accessing a bond. We are not scared of the approval process either but we simply don’t think that a bond is the only option at the moment. We don’t think it is an appropriate and viable option for now. But with this ‘promissory note ‘arrangement, no ISPO is needed. All we need is the goodwill, a Memorandum of Understanding and a firm commitment from the government in the mould of this law we seek from the House of Assembly,” the commissioner stated.

    This novel idea promises to fast-track development across the three senatorial districts of the state as no fewer than six companies are already on standby to construct 10 roads for the benefit of the people. With the arrangement, the people of the state can practically eat their cake and still have it!

     

    • Balogun is an aide to governor Amosun

     

  • Sanusi’s loss, Nigerians’ gain

    Sanusi’s loss, Nigerians’ gain

    After weeks of intense debate on the proposed N5000 note, the Presidency waded in last week and doused the raging inferno. The debate had placed many Nigerians, especially stakeholders in the economy, at daggers-drawn with the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, and its management. The tension had become so palpable that it could be cut through with a knife. At that point, it was obvious that the unexpected could happen. But it took a long time to come. And when it finally came, it was with a bang: Sanusi lost, Nigerians won.

    The whole thing was ignited a few weeks back when Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the governor of the apex bank, came under klieg lights and announced that the apex bank had concluded arrangements to introduce the N5000 currency bill into the country’s financial system.

    Since then, the debate over the desirability or otherwise of the introduction of the new currency had spread like a wild fire in the harmattan. In most cases the observations raised by people have not gone down well with Sanusi and his lackeys. One of this was the comment made by former President Olusegun Obasanjo at a forum in Lagos. Obasanjo had said that the introduction of the bill was capable of crippling or killing production, thereby causing hyper-inflation. Pronto, Sanusi carpeted the former President, describing him as a “bad economist.” He pointedly asked whether Obasanjo could be said to have contributed to inflation in the country by introducing the N1000 bill during his tenure as president.

    Surprisingly, the position of Obasanjo was commended last week by Professor Shamusdeen Tella, a renowned economist. He insisted that the former President was right to say that the introduction of the new notes would not be in the interest of the country’s economy. Tella said the reasons given by Sanusi to conclude that Obasanjo is a “bad economist” are not in tandem with the current economic trends. He explained that the importation and fluctuation levels in the country’s currency had created huge instability in the domestic enterprise, resulting in broader inflation and, as such, “the circumstance does not warrant any higher denomination at all in the system now.”

    According to Tella, “collecting higher denominations will mean that people would lose confidence in that money … All these did not happen when such denominations were introduced by Obasanjo’s regime. So Obasanjo is right. Even when he brought the N1000, people accepted it.” Tella also warned that the implication on CBN’s insistence “is that there won’t be anything called cashless economy anymore. There will be serious implication”, he said.

    Also last week, the position of Tella and others before him actually got a boost when both houses of the National Assembly came down heavily on Sanusi and the CBN. They passed different resolutions asking President Goodluck Jonathan to stop the CBN from introducing the controversial N5000 note.

    However, going by Sanusi’s trademark obstinacy, I doubt it if CBN has not commenced the production or even finished printing the currency and minted the new coins. Nigerians should not be surprised if this becomes an open secret tomorrow. I am saying this because there seems to be a tinge of desperation in Sanusi and his lackeys who have been trying to sell the idea to the public at every available opportunity.

    The media has been awash with advertorials over the issue. And these advertorials cost a fortune to place in prime time television and major newspapers. Now, by suspending the project instead of outright cancellation, is the presidency saying that the CBN can continue to waste huge sums of money on the so-called enlightenment? The government should know that Nigerians have spoken; they don’t want the new currency and coins, and no amount of propaganda can change that mindset.

    Like many people have rightly observed, the new CBN’s move is a contradiction of its cashless policy, which has not even been accepted in Lagos. People have been devising ingenious methods to circumvent the policy since it was introduced. Sanusi himself attested to this fact recently when he openly admitted that the banks were conniving with their customers to sidetrack the policy.

    It is a known fact that the informal sector controls a big chunk of the volume of cash in circulation. The market men and women in Oshodi, and Oke Arin markets in Lagos; Ochanja Market in Onitsha; Fegge Market in Kano; Ariara Market in Aba; and Agenebode market in Edo State transact their businesses in Ghana-Must-Go bags stacked with naira notes. Majority of these traders are peasants and illiterates who do not have any business with the banks. Therefore, I do not see how they can embrace this cashless gambit. I think Sanusi should rather concentrate on how to strengthen the cashless policy and make it work than dissipate energy on selling the idea of N5000 note to unwilling Nigerians.

    The other issue is the coins. Sanusi wants to change some lower denominations of the naira like N5, which carries the portrait of Tafawa Balewa; N10, which bears Alvan Ikoku; and N20 which spots late General Murtala Mohammed on it. These people represent many things to many people across the geo-political divides in Nigeria. The implication is that Sanusi is set to consign their memories to the graveyard of history.

    Nobody should tell the CBN governor any longer that Nigerians do not like coins. Just like one of the parliamentarians observed last week, even beggars don’t collect coins from alms givers. If Sanusi is so adamant, let him try and introduce the N5000 in coin. Nobody will touch it. Our goods and services are not priced in smaller digits. When it becomes necessary, they are approximated to the next higher denomination. Think of any minute object or commodity such as oranges. It is either they are N10 or N20 each. So why does Sanusi want to devalue our currency by other means?

    However, the CBN governor may have probably played the political card by proposing that three women activists of blessed memory -Olufunmilayo Ransom-Kuti, Margaret Ekpo and Gambo Sawaba – will jointly adorn the face of the N5000 note. Even at that, there would still be problems. For instance, in Sanusi’s own part of the country, women are more often relegated to the background in the scheme of things. They can neither be heard nor seen, as it were, which is why many of the men keep their women out of public eyes. The culture there is that women should naturally play second fiddle. What this boils down to is the fact that the stark illiterates in this part of the country, who are mainly traders handling high volume of cash, may not want to have anything to do with the N5000 note.

    But Sanusi and his henchmen have a readymade answer for this. They have come out with the cheap propaganda that those who do not want to spend the money are free to reject it. If a person goes to cash money in the bank and the counter clerk tells him that all he has are N5000 notes, what will happen? The customer will have no other choice than to succumb.

    As things are now, there is the need to do more research on the real problem bedeviling the naira. This is with a view to fashioning out an appropriate panacea to resolve it rather than the perennial introduction of higher currency and redenomination.

    Besides, the usual arrogant posture with which Sanusi has dealt with such issues in the past, and which has manifested in his behaviour over the years, does not augur well for somebody in such a sensitive position. Sanusi must demonstrate civility and flexibility at all times in his conduct because it is not the man that makes the institution; it is the institution that makes the man.

  • In lieu of cassava bread and fish pepper-soup

    In lieu of cassava bread and fish pepper-soup

    As Nigeria prepares for its Independence anniversary, I was hoping that the beleaguered Jonathan Presidency would, out of the discontinuities of the year past, diligently search for a common thread around which common purpose can be constructed, to reinvigorate the Administration and move a stalled nation forward.

    A key event in the celebrations, a lecture delivered by Ghana’s former president John Kufour, offered President Goodluck Jonathan a fine opportunity to articulate this common thread and, with it, weave a narrative that can reassure and inspire his compatriots and summon them to greater endeavour.

    Even those who felt that a foreign head of state, serving or retired, was not the most appropriate person to present the lecture on such an occasion, would still have allowed that that it was as good a platform as any for the host to reach out in solidarity and renewal to his compatriots.

    But Dr Jonathan blew the opportunity big time.

    Even if Dr Jonathan is saving his National Day broadcast for precisely the kind of address, charging him with blowing the opportunity presented by the Kufour lecture hardly amounts to a rush to judgement.

    He could have confined himself to some bland remarks on the substance of the lecture and the guest speaker. He could even have drawn some praise – which he surely can use – by claiming it as an instance of the commitment of his Administration to the spirit of ECOWAS and the African Union and the African Peer Review Mechanism that it invited a former head of state from the neighbourhood to deliver the Independence Anniversary Lecture.

    Instead, Dr Jonathan chose to use the occasion to denounce and demonise Lagos residents who staged, in response to his ill-advised decision to end a phantom subsidy on petroleum products last January, one of the most stirring and ennobling protests Nigerians have witnessed in recent memory.

    Lagos, consistent with its status and history, was the epicentre of the protests that went on without loss of momentum for nine days and would have continued if Dr Jonathan had stuck to his vow that there was “no going back” on the issue. He did not go back all the way to the status quo ante, but go back he did, forced to beat a petulant retreat.

    Most parts of the country, except the South-east, were also convulsed by the protests. It is necessary to recall this fact, which Dr Jonathan seems to have conveniently forgotten or deliberately ignored. Rarely had Nigerians been so united, for so long, on a single issue, with such firm resolve.

    In his extempore recreation, the protests had nothing to do with the contentious subsidy; rather, they were a pretext for executing a plot to topple his Administration. The protesters were not actuated by genuine grievances; rather they were “manipulated” by persons intent on preserving a corruption-soaked regime of subsidy re imbursements.

    “Look at the demonstrations back home, look at these areas this demonstrations are coming from, you begin to ask, are these the ordinary citizens that are demonstrating? Or are people pushing them to demonstrate?” Dr Jonathan quipped.

    Then he zeroed in on Lagos, in the manner of someone who had been nursing a bitter grievance.

    “Take the case of Lagos, Lagos is the critical state in the nation’s economy, it controls about 53 per cent of the economy and all tribes are there. During the demonstration in Lagos, people were given bottled water that people in my village don’t have access to, people were given expensive food that the ordinary people in Lagos cannot eat. So even going to eat free food alone attracts people. They go and hire the best musician to come and play and the best comedian to come and entertain, is that demonstration? Are you telling me that that is a demonstration from ordinary masses in Nigeria who want to communicate something to government?”

    Yes, Dr Jonathan; that demonstration was “from ordinary masses in Nigeria” who wanted “to communicate something to government.”

    And what these “ordinary masses” who had put aside the divisions of class and creed and tongue wanted to communicate was this: that they are tired of being victims of serial misrule, of policies that subvert rather than advance public well-being, of cluelessness and lack of vision in high places, of having their names taken in vain, without corresponding adherence to their interests and values.

    This was the same message that rang out loud and clear wherever the protesters staged their rallies.

    Thanks to that N1 billion annual feeding allowance from the public purse, Dr Jonathan was probably too busy eating fresh-baked cassava bread and fish pepper-soup and any victuals under the sun or even beyond it that presidential plate may fancy – to hear what the protesters were saying or see what was really going on.

    But did he not read the “security reports” sent daily to his office by “security agents”?

    If those reports are of any value, they would have recorded that one Friday afternoon at the height of the protests, demonstrators formed a protective ring around their Muslim brethren to enable them say their Jumat prayers in relative peace without constituting a target of opportunity for religious fanatics or agents provocateurs.

    That is the kind of solidarity Dr Jonathan should seek to build upon, not demonise; solidarity born out of common purpose, and of the realisation that we all are keepers of one another.

    The security agents would have told him that no serious crimes were reported while the protests lasted. Their reports would have related that the bottled water that seems to have moved Dr Jonathan to such high dudgeon was provided by some of the civil society organisations that coordinated the protests, and that no “packaged meals” were on offer.

    Perhaps they would have remarked the woman in the Lagos suburb of Agege who ordinarily fried and sold akara by the roadside but gave away her entire ware for one day to the protesters as a mark of her support

    This was the spirit that animated the protests.

    It is therefore an egregious misreading of the events of last January to portray the protesters as the unthinking dupes of unpatriotic manipulators bent on extracting unearned subsidy reimbursements from the treasury even if that meant plunging the country into bankruptcy.

    It is worse: It is a libel, and a gratuitous one at that.

    Now, it is incontestable that the Presidency has the most formidable instruments of manipulation at its disposal – NTA and FRCN, to mention only two. So why didn’t it deploy them to manipulate Pastor Tunde Bakare and Owei Lakemfa?

    If the protesters could not eat fresh-baked cassava bread and other delicacies flowing from the state-of-the-art grill at the Presidential Villa, why can’t they eat akara without being slandered? If they cannot afford the pleasure of downing cocktail after choice cocktail, why begrudge them bottled water?

    Even it they were served “packaged meals,” when did that qualify as conduct deserving presidential censure? When did “packaged meals” become the preserve of the Presidency?

    If residents of Dr Jonathan’s village cannot afford bottled water, whose fault is it? What did he do to empower them to afford bottled water when he was a director of the development agency for the oil-producing areas, OMPADEC, later as deputy governor, and subsequently as governor of Bayelsa?

    Can it be that, as President, he caused a university to be sited in the village with federal funds and corralled a government contractor to “donate” a church to the community but didn’t give a damn about providing something as basic as water for his people?

    If there is any redeeming grace in all this, it is in the revealing glimpse the Jonathan we still don’t know provides into the presidential mind. We now know that he is not in the least intimidated by those seeking to join issues with him, or for that matter by manipulators.

    “For me,” he said at the Independence Anniversary lecture, “if I see somebody is manipulating anything I don’t listen to you but when I see people genuinely talking about issues I listen.”

    So, there you have it.

  • How do you treat people like Kwankwanso?

    How do you treat people like Kwankwanso?

    Reading Rabiu Kwakwanso in the papers over the weekend on why the South east does not deserve a sixth state like most of the other geopolitical zones in the country has once again reinforced the widely held belief about the arrogance of the northern political elite and the scorn with which they treat non Hausa/Fulani Nigerians.

    Kwankwanso as you know or if you don’t is the governor of Kano State, Nigeria’s second most populous state after Lagos and the centre of commerce and industry in the North. The State is also home to Maitama Sule the politician legendary for his oratorical skills who once said that northerners (read my lips;Hausa/Fulani) are better suited for leadership (in comparison with other Nigerians). Leadership he concluded is in their DNA.

    If you add Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the current governor of the Central Bank, another Kano indigene,to the above list and consider some of his provocative utterances and actions at the apex bank, then you begin to have a rather disturbing or distorted picture of the Kano elite, a subset of the larger political leadership in the north.

    I say distorted because it is this same Kano that had produced the great Mallam Aminu Kano, the undisputed leader and champion of the masses. From here also came Abubakar Rimi, Sule Lamido (now governor of Jigawa), former Governor Ibrahim Shekarau and a whole lot of progressive minded politicians/leaders, academics living or dead that have contributed immensely to the development and progress of this country without casting aspersions or looking down on the rest of us.

    Lest I forget, Datti Ahmed, a medical doctor is also from Kano. And if you recall Ahmed was the one championing the case against administering polio vaccine on children in the north the other time,claiming it was a plot by the western world to kill Muslim children. Can you imagine this coming from a medical doctor?

    These characters are by no means the true face of Kano people and as such should be treated as individuals, so Kwankwanso is on his own I guess.

    The Kano State governor now in his second term and who many suspect harbors a presidential ambition (2015/2019?) in challenging deputy Senate president and chairman Constitution Review Committee, Ike Ekweremadu’s call for a sixth state to be created in the South east vehemently opposed such a move and called on National Assembly members from the north to be on the look out to prevent any attempt to create an additional state in the east through the back door or amend the constitution to give the president power to pick ministers from the geopolitical zones as opposed to each state.

    His argument was that the South east both in terms of landmass and population is too small for an additional state and if any state deserves to be created it should be from Kano state which he says should be broken into three. He pointedly accused Senator Ekweremadu from Enugu state of promoting an ethnic agenda on this issue while denying that he, Kwankwanso is also championing the northern interest. Relying on the last Census figures, the Kano governor said if his state was broken into three, each of he three states will still be bigger than Ekweremadu’s Enugu both in terms of size and population.

    While it is not difficult to understand Kwankwanso’s problem or concern over another state in the South east, what is rather disturbing is why would a State governor, a leader of his stature want to deny others their right. If all he wants is two additional states for Kano why say others should not have their own.? But we all know Kwankwanso and some northern elite want more than that. Most importantly they want the North’s numerical advantage in terms of number of states over the South and the political domination (of the South) which it confers on them to be retained at all cost. An additional state in the South east could alter this strength with serious political and economic implications for the north. One more state for the zone would automatically means more federal resources going to Iboland. Of course you know the implication of this in terms of infrastructural development of the area and may be less money for the other states.

    But why should the North want to dominate the rest of us or hold others to ransom or rather have things their way always? Honestly speaking what would the North or our compatriots in the North lose if the Ibos have one more state? I can’t see it? The problem here I think with people like Kwankwanso is that they don’t want to let go of the influence peddling/dispensing that they have been used to all these years since Lord Lugard’s amalgamation of 1914. But the truth is that the North or its people has not benefitted meaningfully from this near hegemonic control of Nigeria by the northern elite, instead the Kwankwansos of this world have been feeding fat on their undeserved advantages/privileges as leaders of their people to the detriment of this same people.

    If a sixth state in the South east will bring fairness and equity as Ibos would want us to believe why is Kwankwanso opposed to this? If he wants more state(s) out of Kano or elsewhere in the North let him or those in his boat apply and their request should be treated like others; on the table,with the criteria clearly spelt out and known to all. If at the end of the day the South east or any other zone got its wish or failed to the whole nation would know why.

    This attitude of its either my way or the expressway as being displayed by Kwankwanso is not in the best interest of the country most especially the North. This is the same attitude the North is adopting over the controversial issue of State police. If the Kano State governor believes his state is big enough to give birth to two other states because of the peculiarities of its size and population, why shouldn’t a state like Lagos,because of its peculiarities be allowed to have its own police force? It is not compulsory for others who don’t want to to have their own separate police, but those who can afford it and want it to be allowed to have it provided they comply with the law? Shikena!

    In our warped federalism we still want a very strong central government, a strong state when it suits our purpose and even a powerful region to serve our needs. The North does not want another state in the South east so that it can use its numerical advantage over the south to easily rally the nineteen northern states to veto or out muzzle the seventeen states from the south on any issue that requires national voting in say the National Assembly for instance. Even if nobody at least not Kwankwanso is saying so that is the belief here and this doesn’t bode well for national unity. While he is opposed to the president being allowed constitutionally to appoint ministers on regional basis, he sees nothing wrong in the North constituting itself into a regional bloc to dictate what happens in this country. Eating your cake and having it, eh?

    Instead of raising dust or sweating unnecessarily over issues that could divide us Kwankwanso and his likes, and I must confess they are not limited to the North alone, should be routing for fairness and equity. There are people like him here as well but may be they are not occupying the kind of public office he’s occupying, and when they make his kind of provocative statement only a few pay attention to them.

    While calling Kwankwanso to order, it is also necessary to advice our compatriots east of the Niger to also learn how to get things done without necessarily inviting the wrath or annoyance of others. The Ibos have a way of having a good case but spoiling it through bad presentation. They must learn to cooperate with and carry others along. In Nigeria no one ethnic nationality can do it alone. We need ourselves. So, Kwankwanso, no threat please.

     

  • The wages of obduracy

    The wages of obduracy

    The nation ought to see itself in debt of gratitude to President Goodluck Jonathan for terminating Project Cure – Sanusi’s obsession with finding cure for ringworm when a more malignant cancer is indicated. There are several reasons why Nigerians ought to be grateful for the mercy intervention by the President.

    First, it seemed unlikely that the “curers” would ever come to agreement with majority of citizens on the need, or lack thereof, for the curious therapy. The situation is hardly helped by the perception of the CBN as an arrogant, insular institution that sees itself above the common herd; certainly not one to be swayed by the weight of public opinion.

    Secondly, never, it seems, has a therapy proven to be so divisive; it seems to have verged to the point of constituting a major distraction both to the administration and to the apex bank itself. With due respect to the assumed merits as sold by the apex bank, Nigerians seem to have convinced themselves that the unique selling point simply fell short – and miserably too – on the list of items that should constitute the priority for the bankers bank.

    Furthermore, it was one instance in which the apex bank would seek to re-write the rule of economics –a science that prides itself as one involving choice among competing possibilities. When majority of Nigerians appeared united in their rejection of the restructuring, the CBN threatened a fiat as if it was itself not a creation of statute. Not once or twice did I hear the CBN maintain that the planned exercise was not open to debates since it claimed the measure not only had the backing of the law, but had the approval of the President.

    The President’s intervention, in my view, may have in fact saved the CBN from itself. Unfortunately, one of the unintended consequences of the Sanusi obduracy is the current situation in which a reconsideration of the entire notion of the apex bank’s so-called autonomy is being called up.

    Now, I know a throng out there who would argue that this is no more than a knee-jerk, or if you may, reflex reaction to the Sanusi exuberance. They are probably right just as I would argue that one needed not to cut the nose to spite the face.

    But the question of foreclosing the debate on the future of the apex bank, particularly the notion of its autonomy belongs in a different realm. Agreed, there are those who would rather see things from the narrow prism of current experience – something of a punishment for the proverbial lone bull raging in the financial house’s china shop, an individual whose abiding love for hugging controversies would ordinarily appear as incompatible with the conservative traditions of the apex banking institution. But clearly, there are other Nigerians who see in the debate, a great opportunity to realign the rules of the apex bank, to make its processes more transparent and to ensure a more accountable institution.

    This is where the current concern about the apex bank’s autonomy comes in. What is autonomy anyway? I understand the word at two levels. One is operational; the other is best described as administrative and procedural.

    The former is what needs to be preserved. Indeed, I have not heard anyone argue that MRR or whatever monetary policy instruments the apex bank may chose to adopt be made a subject of extraneous oversight. Indeed, its capacity to respond to monetary policy challenges would probably need strengthening, not curtailment.

    Outside of the monetary policy terrain however, there should be no such thing as absolute autonomy. A most vivid illustration is the requirement for the CBN to secure written approval from the President in any plan to restructure the naira. Coincidentally, I have not quite seen anyone argue that this requirement is neither necessary nor desirable. While those pushing for absolute autonomy do not bother to make the fine distinction, it seems to me a part of the deliberate muddling of facts to reinforce a particular line of argument.

    The CBN Act of course says that the institution should be sacrosanct. That is precisely the issue. It needs not be. Why – because to allow it, is to make our CBN the most powerful one in the world.

    I need to illustrate. Up till August 2009, it was doubtful that many Nigerians knew how powerful the CBN governor is. After the unprecedented sacking of the executive management of the then ailing banks, the situation would change. I couldn’t recall Nigerians expending much energy debating the action against the bank chiefs whose criminal lapses nearly brought the entire financial system to ruin. If my memory serves me right, most Nigerians readily agreed that the cups of the delinquent bankers were already full and running over.

    But then, Nigerians would become divided over a number of issues. I cite two examples.

    First, was the unilateral takeover of the banks without recourse to the club of existing shareholders. For a club not adjudged to have been culpable in bringing ruins to their institutions, the class was to suffer double jeopardy from the unchallengeable powers of the CBN. Aside being forced to wear the label ‘guilty by association’, their situation would be compounded with the denial by the apex bank of their right to recapitalise their institutions.

    The second example is the apex bank’s unilateral injection of nearly N620 billion of bailout money from its till. Compare the intervention for instance, with the United States’ Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) –put in place by U.S. President George W. Bush on October 3, 2008 to purchase assets and equity from financial institutions as a means of strengthening the country’s financial sector in the wake of the global credit meltdown.

    Or even the takeover of the US troubled lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the wake of the sub-prime lending crisis. Both interventions were undertaken by the US Treasury (the equivalent of our finance ministry) as against the Federal Reserve (the apex bank); in both instances, the relevant laws were passed by the US Congress.

    The argument as to whether the nation can afford an institution that stands as a law unto itself is one that hasn’t been made convincingly by those making the case for the retention of the powers of the CBN as it is. It is not so much about hanging anything on the neck of the current helmsman whose temperament seems to have exacerbated the issue. Rather, it merely acknowledges the need to learn from our recent past even as the nation struggles to chart a new course in financial rectitude. Global best practices or not, can anything be wrong with evolving a home-grown solution to our problems?

     

  • Ondo and the limit of spite

    Ondo and the limit of spite

    The build-up to the October 20 gubernatorial election in Ondo State is sinking into a hierarchy of spite. At each level of that hierarchy is a concert of hate.

    It tragically limits the right of the Ondo electorate to be pitched and be treated to life-changing electoral menu. It also tragically limits the significance of that election, for a Yoruba nation resolved to finding its bearing in a Nigeria on quicksand, no thanks to the country’s abiding violent contradictions.

    At a level on the spiteful hierarchy are hurting Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) gubernatorial hopefuls, who lost the party’s governorship ticket, and left the party in protest. As is the rule with estranged politicians and universally with neophytes to justify new company, demonising former company, as a rule of thumb, is alive and well.

    At another level are the Afenifere grandees who have thrown their hat into the ring, for a high-octane proxy war. Surely, as a native of Ondo State, Pa Reuben Fasonranti, the Afenifere leader whose controversial election fissured the once formidable voice of the political progressives in Yorubaland, has a stake in the Ondo election. So does Chief Olu Falae, another eminent Ondo elder. And so does, for that matter, Pa Ayo Adebanjo, the most combative and straight-shooting of the Afenifere titans who seem to chafe at the thought of a callow generation staking a claim to the Yoruba progressive franchise.

    To be fair, Pa Adebanjo, in his published reaction to Dr. Jide Oluwajuyitan’s piece, “Sons and fathers” (“Re: Sons and fathers”, The Nation, September 20), stated that he attended Governor Segun Mimiko’s flag-off campaign only because he was invited. But it needs little perceptiveness to realise the Afenifere titans’ gripping interest in the Ondo poll transcends Governor Mimiko’s civility.

    At the apex of the Ondo hierarchy of spite sits Governor Olusegun Mimiko, campaigning hard for an encore. With the governor’s campaign’s constant stream of hate and scare-mongering, about some alleged “foreigners” come to cart away the Ondo gubernatorial loot, Dr. Mimiko about exemplifies the cynical quip of patriotism being the last bastion of the scoundrel. When the turf is suspect patriotism, then raw xenophobia becomes a scalding, emotive tool.

    All levels on the spiteful hierarchy are, therefore, united-in-grudge against the ACN and its “leadership” – a euphemism for Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the party’s national leader.

    The estranged ACN former aspirants accuse him of “imposition”: of a rival in Rotimi Akeredolu, SAN, the ACN Ondo gubernatorial candidate.

    The Afenifere grandees fret at Tinubu’s alleged political conquest of the South West, a region the old lieutenants of Awo maintain they have a spiritual watching brief, just to ascertain its progressive political health. After the dismal collapse of Project OGD, during which Otunba Gbenga Daniel, former governor of Ogun State and favourite of the Afenifere elders, as a counterpoise to the Tinubu perceived threat, sensationally self-destroyed, scrambling to the Ondo war front for the last stand-off makes logical sense.

    That sweetly dovetails into Mimiko’s rather plebeian pitch to the Ondo electorate to beware of a certain District Officer (DO) and his alleged overlord from Lagos. The rallying cry: the invading Lagos army must be stopped at all cost. Repeat: at all cost! Sweet emotion! But the Ondo election should be made of sterner stuff, given the sophisticated Ondo electorate.

    Still, on the ACN. There is a lot to be said for urgently pushing more equal opportunity in the party’s consensus candidate selection system. That would save it from perennial charges of “imposition”; and the consequent demonization of its leaders.

    It is also a moot point if the ACN’s apparent get-Mimiko-out-at-all-cost strategy is wise in the short run. As Ripples has always argued, a Labour Party, LP’s Mimiko appears, on its face value, ideologically closer to ACN than the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), with its barren mainstream philosophy of structural underdevelopment. Ideological affinity, in the absence of party unanimity, would appear best suited for the South West, trying in the integration project, to preserve its people’s future by making the best of the Nigerian debacle.

    Even then, this ideological affinity argument is terribly vitiated by some notorious facts about LP and Dr. Mimiko. For one, LP has morphed from its perceived rooting in social democrats (like Britain’s Labour Party) to an empty, ideologically vacuous electoral platform open to about anyone with electoral stress and enough cash.

    For another, Dr. Mimiko the politician has proved a consummate, sly, shifty but unfazed player in free-wheeling, ideologically neuter politicking, where old enemies become friends and old friends, enemies; so long as the end justifies the meanness (apologies to Prof. Wole Soyinka).

    Witness: the anti-Labour posture of a Labour governor, during the January anti-fuel subsidy removal protests, which ensured the protests were most ineffective in Ondo State, in the whole of the South West. But surely, there must be more to elections and electioneering, particularly in a national season of anomie, than equal opportunity racketeering to coral power at all costs?

    Besides, Mimiko logs a frightful track record of serial betrayal of political colleagues (witness the late Adebayo Adefarati in Alliance for Democracy, AD and Olusegun Agagu, in PDP). The ACN accuses him of similar breach of faith in the current dispensation. That clearly makes trust and mutual confidence building an uphill, if not an impossible, task.

    So, with both party (LP) and candidate lacking in brand integrity, the ACN-Mimiko match-up was always a probability. The crunch certainly is here!

    Still, the October 20 election is not about Mimiko per se (though as sitting governor he would strive to retain his seat, in a warped political milieu where losing an election is often tantamount to a Roman emperor vanquished in a power tussle, and falling on his sword) or about Tinubu and his party (though the ACN appears to offer a sharp alternative, in the context of a South West that needs regional integration to further assert itself in the troubled Nigerian federation).

    It is rather about the democratic right of the Ondo electorate to a better deal. Which of the contending parties is likely to guarantee that? The electorate would decide that. But how can they make a sound decision when the whole place is cluttered with xenophobia, spite and allied din?

    The election is also about the strategic place of Ondo in the South West economic integration agenda. Which of the contending parties is best placed to give Ondo its pride of place in this agenda of regional economic rebirth and sustainable development? These are the pertinent questions.

    Governor Mimiko would do well to review his service in the past four years and state his future agenda, instead of his present barren tactics of fear-mongering and mind-poisoning. His opponents too should clearly state and vigorously sell their programmes.

    The October 20 election is far too important to be limited by hate and spite.