The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • National Conference, a must

    In recent times there has been call for “sovereign national conference”, “constitutional conference”, conference on “true federalism” and so on. Whatever name it is called, the time for a constitutional talk is now. From all indication it seems there is some kind of unhappiness with the state of the nation. There are two sides to the debate. There are those who feel there is nothing wrong with the present constitution. There are those who feel there will be no development unless we have a new constitution. I am on the side of the latter. Ab initio the present “military” constitution has made the centre too strong for a country whose founding fathers and their people opted for a federation as the best way of keeping our ethnically plural country together. On the march towards independence, Obafemi Awolowo and Ahmadu Bello representing the Western and Northern Nigeria respectively opted for federalism. While Nnamdi Azikiwe of the Eastern region wanted a unitary constitution. While Azikiwe once pleaded with Nigerians to forget their ethnic differences, Ahmadu Bello said we should not forget but understand them. Awolowo actually parroting Giuseppe Mazzini described Nigeria as a “geographical expression” and that there is no Nigerian as there are French, German or English people. He was absolutely right. It took the pogrom in the North in 1966 to convince Azikiwe and his cohorts that Awolowo and Ahmadu Bello were right and correct in their analysis of Nigerian politics.

    From the above follows the fact that the independence federal constitution of 1959 and 1964 should be the starting point of constitutional re-jig of the Nigerian state. These are the only constitutions that can begin with “we Nigerians solemnly bind ourselves by this fundamental basic law” any other constitution including our present one is a fraud imposed on us through the force of arms. Some may sneer that in 1959 there were only three regions. Yes I agree. It is either we go back to the grundnorm of 1959 or we apply the same principles to the present 36 states structure fraudulently imposed upon us by the military. The present state and local government structure is not only unsustainable but it is also wasteful. Even when we retain the present 36 state structure, there is nothing wrong in running the country as a federation.

    Switzerland is about the size of Lagos State, it has ethnically based cantons independent in almost all areas apart from common currency, customs and immigration. Belgium is also a small state with the French and Dutch speaking regions almost relating to each other in a confederal structure. There is some sense in those who suggest that the present six zones should be the federating units of this country. This will do for all the zones except the South-south which may have problems. Whatever we decide, the time is ripe to have a look at the structure of the country so that we can design the right kind of architecture. It is no use burying our head in the sand and thinking all will be well. An unhappy marriage sooner or later will collapse and to save an unhappy marriage one needs to find the course of unhappiness.

    There is disquiet and unhappiness in the Northern part of Nigeria. Boko Haram may be a religious manifestation, but it is shrouded in political mystery. Professor Ango Abdullahi retired former Vice-Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello in an interview in the Guardian on Sunday a few weeks ago, let out the cat when he said this disquiet in the North is not unconnected with the disequilibrium in the allocation of resources from the federal distributable pool which favors the oil-producing states against those not producing oil. While I agree with him that the oil-producing states may not have the absorptive capacity for the kind of money they are getting and that accounts for the Ibori kind of phenomenon where governors run away with state exchequers, my antidote will be that some of these monies can be saved against when oil will run out in those states rather than outright denial. Ango Abdullahi in his views said very little about the non-performance of the northern governors and rampant corruption in the North as the cause of the neglect in the North occasioning Boko Haram. Some of the northern governors have in some cases 2000 special assistants and advisers!

    There is this feeling in the country that unless one’s ethnic group controls the federal government, one’s ethnic group has lost everything. Nothing can be far from the truth. What has the ordinary northern Nigerian gained from decades of northern monopoly of power? I do not know what the Yoruba people gained from the Obasanjo’s presidency and what the Izon are gaining from the Jonathan’s presidency. The predominance of this feeling is the more reason why we must talk to reduce the power of the centre and transfer the centre of activities to the zones and the states. As long as the centre remains this strong, this country will never have peace. There is no zone or part of the country that lacks resources. The South-south may have oil, so does the South-east and South-west or at least some parts of them. The agricultural wealth of this country is in the North and partly in the South-west, South-south and South-east. There is need to challenge different parts of this country to bring to the federal table the resources deposited by God in their different zones. I support resource control and I believe this is the only way to have peace and respect for one another in this country. Let us talk to design a commonly negotiated architecture that will ensure that each part of our country develops at its own pace and according to its own culture without any enforced homogeneity. California and Rhode Island are both states of the United States union. So also is West Virginia and Texas. They do not have the same resources and there is no even national level of development. There is no need for one. The fingers are not equal. Children in the same family are not expected to have uniform level of performance. One must be a beckon to others. But at the end of the day each person has his or her own unique and peculiar attributes which when taken together will enrich the whole. It is the same with states. We must find out and understand our differences and similarities and try to live with them in a new constitutional architecture.

     

  • Will Dana fly again?

    The rate of turn over of airlines in Nigeria is high.  In the past 10 or so years, no fewer than 20 airlines have come and gone. Many of them died after one or two crashes; others just went under, probably because of mismanagement. Airline business is not for everybody. It is not for the small fries, but for the super-rich, those who have the wherewithal to put in place all the things necessary for a smooth operation.

    What it entails to run a successful airline business are planes and those toys don’t come cheap. An aircraft good enough to service a route, whether domestic or international, must be in good condition.

    It must be a plane that has undergone all the necessary checks and has been certified fit to fly. Such planes must not be tokunbo as in those rickety jalopies that most of us drive on the highway. To fly in the air and to drive on the land are two different things.

    We cannot afford to take in the air any of the risks we take on the road by driving unserviced cars or those which engines are quarter to pack up. If we can risk driving cars without good headlamps or tyres, we cannot do the same when it comes to flying. Everything about an aircraft must be shipshape. This is why after an aircraft has flown for a certain number of years, it is no longer used. Its second hand value is not as high as that of a car.

    But because we are a nation that likes to cut corners in everything we do, we don’t seem to care about human lives in a business where priority should be given to safety of patrons. This is why airlines bring in all sorts of rubbish under the guise of aircraft and the regulatory agencies will look the other way until the worst happens. Then we will start to run helter-skelter as it was the case with the June 3 Dana plane crash in which 153 passengers died.

    We have heard all the things said about the airline since the crash. Despite the things said about Dana and the aviation industry generally, I can safely place a bet that nothing has changed. If we should look into the place today, we will be shocked by the amount of rot still there.

    Yet, the government has hastily returned the operating licence of Dana. For the airline to do what? To cause another havoc by flying people in an unfit aircraft? No matter what superlatives those in government may wish to dress Dana with, the people are not impressed. The government should not forget that in the recent past some airlines were so described, but how did they end?

    They ended up badly. I am not saying that Dana will go the same way, I am just drawing our attention to this, so that we should not be carried away by a so-called record, which has given some families anguish. How will those in government feel today, if any member of their families had been in the ill-fated Dana plane? Will they be talking the way they are now doing or behave like true human beings, who are bereaved?

    What has happened has happened, no doubt, but we need to learn a lesson to avoid a recurrence. This unfortunately, we have not done because those in power are more concerned about the business aspect of it all than the safety and security of the flying public.

    Why the haste in returning Dana’s licence? If the government knew it was going to let Dana off with a slap on the wrist, why then did it set up the Obakpolor committee? Or did the committee recommend the return of the licence? I don’t think the committee did that because, according to Aviation Minister Princess Stella Oduah, government took the action after being satisfied with the ‘’airworthiness of the airline after a rigorous technical, operational and financial audit.”

    If really Dana is that buoyant, why has it not paid the compensation due to the victims’ families? To some, the money is nothing, but what seriousness has the company shown in fulfilling its obligations to these people? Besides, what steps has the airline taken to show remorse over the tragedy? I am not against Dana returning to business after doing what is needful and necessary.

    There is nothing to show that it has been up and doing in the discharge of its obligations. Till today, many families, who lost loved ones in past crashes have not been fully compensated. We are talking about crashes, which happened over six years ago. Today, all those airlines are no longer in business, so who will compensate those families?

    Since that is the case, how are we sure that the return of Dana’s licence will facilitate the airline’s compensation of victims’ families? Does it have a time frame to do that? If it doesn’t, the government should give it a deadline to pay up, after, of course, the necessary verification. Dana cannot get back its licence on a platter without meeting its customers’ families at the point of their needs.

    Unfortunately, thegovernment too is not protecting customers. This may be why till today, airlines still treat passengers shabbily through unethical business practices. Is it the return of Dana’s licence that will make them sit up? Was Dana not one of them before the June 3 crash? I say this because of the statement credited to Princess Oduah that the airline’s licence should not have been suspended in the first place.

    She said Dana, after an audit, was found to be the best in the country. How do you suspend such a company? she asked rhetorically. Can Dana be better than ADC and Bellview in their heyday? I don’t think Dana can hold a candle to those two airlines when they were in business. So, what are we talking about being the best or not the best airline? Statements like these do not portray us as a serious nation. Such statements will also give the offending party, that is Dana, in this case, a sense of security that it can do anything and go away with it as long as its books are in order. We have turned ourselves into a cash and carry society.

    Perhaps, this is why the aviation sector is comatose. Those in the industry today are no better off than those there in the past and if care is not taken the sector may collapse. Presently, it is at the precipice and a little push, it will tip over. What do you make of a sector where the government is working hand in gloves with the operators to undermine the business in terms of providing the necessary infrastructural backbone? The only thing they know how to do is to fix fare and increase it arbitrarily. No business grows like that. Why are we blaming landlords for ripping off tenants, if we cannot stop airlines from charging passengers cut-throat fare?

    Despite all the money they made in the past, where are Intercontinental Airlines, Concord, ADC, Bellview, EAS, Slok, Sosoliso, Albarka, Okada, Savanna, Triax, Oriental, Air Mid West, Dasab, Fresh Air, Harco, Harka, Space World, Chachangi and Air Nigeria, among others today? It is a case of something built on nothing. What will happen? As the lawyers will tell you, ‘’it will fall’’. I pray that Dana learns from this or else, we shall be singing its nunc dimitis soon.

     

  • Edwin Clark’s blind fury

    Saro Wiwa the leader of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) who in a satirical piece “Africa kills her sun” (1989) predicted his eventual murder by Abacha, loved his native Ogoni land. But he loved Nigeria no less. He was a patriot who believed in one indivisible Nigeria. Saro Wiwa who with his broad humour, often forced his compatriots to applaud his celebration of the absurdities of our endowed nation when what he wanted was to make us dissolve into tears, had in a piece in The Guardian attributed the tragedy of Niger Delta to the conspiracy of the Yoruba and Igbo because of ‘the unbridled acquisitiveness of the latter and tribalism of the former. I had in a reaction titled “Saro Wiwa’s Misplaced Aggression’ published on August 28, 1990 argued that the problem of Niger Delta was as much that of the elite of the area including those who became administrator of Bonny and later federal commissioner in their twenties. The innuendo was not lost on him.

    A few days later, coming out of the office of Dr Olatunji Dare, the then chairman of The Guardian Editorial Board who also doubled as the company’s Corporate Affairs Director, he had stopped briefly by my office. With his characteristic biting humour, Wiwa, a man without malice against any tribe or any Nigerian including Abacha who murdered him, mournfully lamented ‘Jide you trivialise the Niger Delta problem because you have never been there’.

    Wiwa was right. The truth is that many of the northern governors who denounce the Niger Delta governors’ battle for 50% derivation and attribute their impoverisation of their own people through inept leadership, to the paltry Niger Delta’s 13% of the federation account have never been to the Niger Delta. They cannot appreciate the ‘denigrating poverty arising from economic strangulation and devastation of a richly endowed land’. All they read about is the blame- game between successive irresponsible federal governments that tried to exonerate Shell and other oil firms from criminal devastation of economic trees and drinking streams by blaming pollution on illegal bunkering, (oil theft done by hacking holes in pipelines and siphoning off crude, which is transferred to barges in the delta and later to ships off shore) as if such activities were carried out by ghosts.

    It is only by visiting that one will come to appreciate the scotched land left behind after oil spillage and pollution; appreciate the travails of those who spend four hours between Yenagoa and Oporoma in rickety boats even when proceeds from oil are being used to build bridges over land in Abuja. I saw children whose hair had turned brownish, a development doctors attribute to malnutrition. I saw a yam seller in Ugheli market cut a tuber of yam into five parts. Many cannot afford more than a portion. In the remote villages of the Niger Delta, poverty hits one on the face in the midst of plenty.

    But outside the devastated Ogoni land, I have equally seen the level of greed among local and national leaders who fraudulently claim to be fighting on behalf of the poor. I saw James Ibori promoting the candidacy of Yar’Adua with the federal allocations earmarked for development his state. We have been told by a British court the quantum of money taken from Delta State. I saw Alamieyeiseigha’s mansion near German town in Maryland, USA (recently confiscated by US government); we all witnessed the roles played by Dan Etete as Abacha oil minister. We have just been told how Diezani Alison-Madueke as oil minister, presided over theft of over N2trillion by vultures from all parts of the nation. We have in the last five years seen Jonathan as Vice president and President operating not differently from his immediate or distant predecessors who in the name of economic growth become captives of those Jonathan himself referred to as ‘oil cabals’

    And 22 years after the privileged encounter with Wiwa, one of the brightest ‘African sons’, I have never been more convinced that the Niger Delta problem is that of its political, economic, and intellectual elite. If we ignore their conspiracy in the first republic, we cannot ignore the rape of the people by indigenes Wiwa himself described as ‘vultures’ under the military, who has now integrated into their fold the erstwhile leaders of the armed insurgency. Neither can we ignore the mindless looting that has gone on for 13 years of PDP administration in the Niger Delta and at the federal level.

    The Niger Delta Development Commission was set up as a Federal Government agency by Olusegun Obasanjo in 2000 with the sole mandate of developing the Niger Delta and ameliorating the sufferingof the poor. In September 2008, President Umaru Yar’Adua created the Ministry of Niger Delta and retained NNDC as a parastatal. Both initiatives are managed by the elite of the area. Sadly, 12 years down the line, the fate of the poor of Niger Delta are not different from – to use Saro Wiwa’s phrase ‘those poor living in filthy tuberculosis infected environment in Ibadan or Kano’.

    There is no doubt Edwin Clark is eminently qualified to speak for his people. As Headmaster, Ofoni Southern Ijaw, 1954, Bomadi, 1955-57, Assistant Community Development officer, 1957-61, Director, Asaba Textile Mill 1967; Commissioner for Education, Mid-Western State, 1968-71; Commissioner for Finance and Establishment, Bendel State, 1972-75, Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1979-83. He has paid his dues. His whole world, besides the brief period he served as a federal commissioner in 1975 and Pro-Chancellor, University of Technology, Minna, 1983, revolves around his people.

    But the problem is that tribal irredentists, because of their egoistical tendencies, are dangerous in a multi ethnic society. There is no doubt Chief Clark, because of his blind fury against perceived enemies of Jonathan including the harmless noisy Pastor Tunde Bakare who led civil society groups that rescued Jonathan from Yar’Adua Mafia, led by a vicious Niger Delta ‘vulture’, has become a danger to everyone. ‘Who are they to tell us how we spend our money’? He recently angrily queried, in response to critics of official looting by custodians of Niger Delta commonwealth.

    Two weeks back, he successfully convened the South- South Peoples Assembly (SSPA) meeting attended by former governors, ministers, senators and other leaders of the geo-political zone. Tragically, instead of addressing those problems, the highlights of the outcome include the unanimous endorsement of President Goodluck Jonathan to run for a second term in 2015 and the resolve to sensitise his people for war with the North over ‘the ‘cash and carry’ offshore Act enacted by the National Assembly in spite of Supreme Court ruling and assented to by Obasanjo who needed the support of South-south governors in the 2003 election.

    Besides the half-hearted call for the convening of a national conference of all ethnic nationalities, a more divisive issue even within the zone, little effort was made to reach a consensus on regional agenda, without which the zone remains the weakest link in the quest for regionalism. Beyond the claim to ownership rights of onshore/offshore oil wells, the multi-ethnic and multi-lingual South-south has nothing in common.

    All this is overshadowed by unwarranted attack on the North by Clark, who Keita clamed was until recently their close ally, and his unfounded allegation of attempt to pull down the administration of ‘a minority God has chosen to rule’ by those who according to ACF spokesman, A.Z Sanni, control number 2, 3,4 and 5 positions in the same administration.

     

     

     

     

  • Transformation from a traffic viewpoint

    Road users will have to contend with the challenge of change as the new Lagos Road Traffic Law 2012 takes effect in the mega city of about 20 million people. The wide-ranging law introduced in August, which seeks to establish proper ways of using the roads across the state, will likely prompt an initial period of adjustment but in the long run make the roads safer for members of the public.

    The law is designed to correct wrong behaviour on the roads such as disobeying road signs, using cellphones without hands free devices, smoking or eating while driving, driving against traffic, driving without valid driving license and refusal to obey traffic lights. There is no doubt that these are negatives and amount to dangerous conduct, which cannot promote road safety. Some people have raised a hue and cry over the aspect of the law that makes it an offence to use a phone, smoke or eat while behind the steering wheel, but the question to ask is whether indeed such acts do not have the potential for distraction, which could prove costly on the road.

    It is a fact that so many road accidents happen simply because people fail to behave appropriately while using the roads and this new traffic law is essentially targeted at improving road safety. For instance, just last month there was news that an official of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), Ahmed Balogun, was crushed to death in the Ajah area of the state by a driver who was driving against traffic. This unfortunate incident happened while the public was still debating the pros and cons of the new traffic law which was yet to take effect at the time. It was a tragedy that could have been avoided if the driver had behaved rightly. Under the new law, driving in a wrong direction and neglecting traffic directions, as in this case, will attract one year imprisonment and forfeiture of the vehicle to the state for a first offender, and three years imprisonment and forfeiture of the vehicle to the state for a second and subsequent offender. Those who argue that the penalties for traffic offences under the new law are too severe should ponder on the fact that breaking the law could result in the death of someone, and not just a pedestrian but also a driver or passengers in a vehicle.

    In line with its focus on safety, the new traffic law has provisions for commercial motor cycle operators who constitute a significant segment of road transport workers in the state. Against the background of the notoriety of these motorcyclists on the roads and their public image as accident-prone road users, this aspect of the law, despite protests, shows that the government is actually accommodating by not imposing an outright ban on motorbike operators.

    Rather than compound the road transport situation in the state where many people rely on motorcyclists to move around by outlawing their operation, or blocking the source of income of these motorcyclists, the traffic law rather attempts to create an environment where people can move about without difficulty or trouble and motorcycle operators can do their business safely. Under the law, it is an offence to ride a motorcycle without crash helmet for the rider, against traffic, on the kerb, median or road set backs, and to convey more than one passenger at a time. In addition, a motorcycle operator should not carry a pregnant woman, adult with baby, and child below the age of 12. Furthermore, commercial motorcycles should not ply certain expressways and bridges, and are expected to operate between 6am and 8pm . A serious reflection on these provisions of the law will show that they are sensible and in tune with road safety objectives. By making safety a priority, the traffic law can be said to have a human face. What do people essentially need when it comes to using the roads after all, if not safety?

    However, in addition to the bottom line of road safety, there are other aspects of the law that have to do mainly with taming the somewhat chaotic road transport situation in the city. These are largely less contentious and include violation of routes by commercial vehicles, non-display of routes and route number on vehicles, disobeying traffic control personnel, parking on yellow line on any public highway and illegal parking, illegal U-turns, wrongful overtaking of other vehicles, driving or parking on the walkway or kerb.

    It is a welcome development that the new law restricts the activities of members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers to their offices (NURTW), and forbids the extortion of money from commercial vehicle operators in the city, as this will clearly help to establish the necessary order on the roads.

    Even before the introduction of the road traffic law, Lagos State Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola in July demonstrated his commitment to order on the roads when he arrested an Army Colonel and a Sergeant for driving on the dedicated Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) lane, an action for which he received a Citizen Responsibility Award from the National Orientation Agency (NOA). The illegal use of the BRT corridor remains an offence under the new traffic law, and there is no doubt that this is well in place.

    The good side of the law is that it is transformational in nature, and reflects good governance with its concern for the safety of the people and order on the roads. Like any law that is meant to serve as a deterrent, it specifies penalties for offences, such as fines and jail terms, which have been criticized in some quarters as excessive and harsh. However, the fact is that the types of behavioural changes envisaged by the law probably require those punitive possibilities in order to achieve the desired results. With the promulgation of the law, it is time for road users to adjust to a new traffic culture while the government should ensure that it works as well as possible so that the city can benefit from its transformational essence.

     

  • Breaking the cycle of revenge

    Breaking the cycle of revenge

    In the city of Jos in the Plateau State of central Nigeria in early July this year, a group of Christian Berom tribesmen gathered together at a somber funeral for over 60 innocent individuals recently murdered in the home of a pastor by Muslim Fulani herdsmen. While in shared mourning, they were descended upon under a rain of bullets from a number of armed men, again Fulani. Twenty more were killed, including two leading Berom politicians: a Nigerian Federal Senator and the Majority Leader of the Plateau State Assembly. In response, a number of Berom, the dominant ethnic group in the area, retaliated the following day by killing any person in the area they identified as Fulani, bringing the weekend’s death toll to over 200.
    Despite the bucolic slogan of Plateau State – “The Home of Peace and Tourism” – the area has been plagued by this vicious cycle of violence between the Christian Berom and Muslim Fulani populations for over a decade. As both groups are motivated by codes of revenge and honour, any violent act is set to trigger a series of other bloody counter-attacks.
    Amidst the seemingly sectarian nature of the conflict, the central government’s role, both directly and indirectly, in the violence against the Muslim periphery goes largely unnoticed. The sequence of events above was triggered by the Nigerian security forces who the Fulani associate with the Berom. Shortly before the Fulani attack, the security forces burned to the ground 50 Fulani homes in retaliation for a Fulani herdsman being accused of killing a Nigerian soldier.
    Many are shocked at the brutality of these attacks, with commentators quick to blame attacks against the Christians on “al-Qaeda-linked” Boko Haram, the murky and undefined group located in northeastern Nigeria among the Muslim Kanuri people. The leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, cited the incidents of cannibalism against the Muslim population in Jos in his defence of the Christmas Day bombings in 2011.
    The Fulani as well as the Kanuri could have responded to attacks upon them by means of traditional tribal justice using dialogue through councils of elders or through the religious leadership. They, however, took a route which negated both their tribal and religious traditions, and in the mutation, slaughtered innocent Christians in churches and their homes, including infants. Therefore, their story, their cause and any sympathy for them are lost.
    In order, however, to understand the present violence which plagues the heart of West Africa, we must look to the history of this region itself and the place the Fulani herdsmen have held on the periphery of Nigeria.
    Prior to British colonisation, the Fulani had supported the Fulani religious leader Usman Dan Fodio, who claimed descent from the Prophet, in overthrowing the Hausa States and establishing the Sokoto Caliphate in the early 19th century in what is today northern Nigeria. When the British established the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria in 1900, they instituted indirect rule over Sokoto with its Fulani and Hausa inhabitants, relying on the pre-existing state structure and Muslim leadership. Britain even went so far as to declare itself “the greatest Mohammedan Power in the World” in the Nigeria Gazette during World War I in order to bolster support from the Muslim population. In 1914, the British united Northern and Southern Nigeria into a single colony. It proved to be an unhappy marriage.
    Throughout these political changes, the Fulani herdsmen remained firmly on the periphery, continuing to evade taxes and searching for adequate grazing lands for their vast herds of cattle, their sole means of economic livelihood. Major JA Burdon, an early 20th century British administrator in northern Nigeria, spoke of the intense attachment the Fulani have with their cattle: “The herdsmen are peaceful and inoffensive; they became warriors through the necessity for self-defence… trusting for the defence of their treasured herds, their one possession, to neither horses nor armour, but only to their spears and their desperate courage.” Tending their cattle was an important aspect of their code of honour, Pulaaku, or “Way of the Fulani”, which was also a means of providing social order among their nomadic clans.
    With independence from Britain in 1960, the national politics of Nigeria was dominated by a series of coups and counter-coups as the major ethnic groups – the Muslim Hausa and settled Fulani in the north, the Christian Yoruba in the south, and the Christian Igbo in the southeast – vied for national dominance, including a deadly civil war in the late 1960s which resulted in the deaths of nearly 2 million people. Apart from this, nearly a hundred other ethnic groups, both Muslim and Christian, found themselves living side by side in the Middle Belt region which serves as the border between the Christian south and Muslim north.
    After independence, Fulani herdsmen began to increasingly shift their herds south into the Middle Belt region and establish more permanent settlements. This was largely due to the devastating Sahel drought of the late 1960s and 1970s which greatly reduced both their grazing lands in the north and the size of their herds. In addition, the development of new farming practices in the Middle Belt region during this period decimated the tsetse fly population which was harmful to cattle and previously served as a barrier to the Fulani herds.
    With the growing number of Fulani in the Middle Belt, the herdsmen were seen to be “settlers” or outsiders by the indigenous population or “indigenes”, especially the largely Christian Berom farmers. The Berom farmers complained of the destructive presence of cattle on their land and resorted to stealing or killing the herds, often at the cost of the lives of the young Fulani boys who would tend the herds, a traditional means of displaying courage. The Fulani responded to these overtures of violence with equal or greater brutality.
    Large scale violence erupted on September 7, 2001 when the palpable tension between Christians and Muslims led to the Jos riots in which over 1,000 people were killed in a week. A Nigerian government investigative committee found that between September 2001 and May 2004, the conflict resulted in the deaths of 53,787 individuals.
    Since 2001, the Fulani have been subject to targeted discrimination by the government and risk being arrested, tortured, or killed as well as seeing their homes destroyed in dragnet operations and “revenge missions” by security forces. In November 2008 after rioting broke out, the Berom Governor of Plateau State implemented a 24-hour curfew and issued the security forces a “shoot-on-sight” directive, resulting in over 130 deaths. After the attack on the funeral where the two Berom politicians were killed in July, there were calls from the Berom community to expel all Fulani from Plateau State. Ahmed Idris, a Representative from Plateau State in the House of Representatives, referred to these deportations as “ethnic cleansing”.
    The losses to Fulani livestock have been equally devastating and represent one of the greatest threats to their identity. The leader of the Fulani organisation Miyetti Allah stated in February 2011 that herdsmen had lost about eight million heads of cattle in the past decade. He warned that for the Fulani, “the race was facing extinction”.
    The Fulani ethnic group stretches beyond Nigeria and across West Africa, where the Fulani are variously known as Fulani, Fulbe, Fula, or Peul, and this same conflict which fuels the violence in Plateau State can be found elsewhere. In Ghana, as the Fulani shifted their herds south, vicious battles erupted pitting the Fulani herdsmen against local farmers and the security forces. One Ghanaian MP captured the hostile attitude towards the Fulani when he publically announced in December 2011, “If in the course of defending ourselves they have to die then it is justified. So killing them I personally support it”.
    In order to find a means to peace in a country like Nigeria with such rich ethnic and cultural diversity, a level of accommodation and understanding is required. The government should respect both the Fulani’s traditional culture, including accommodating land needs with designated grazing routes, and give them their full human and civil rights as Nigerian citizens.
    With the Berom and Fulani of the Middle Belt caught in this cycle of revenge, leadership that underlines compassion and non-violence from both their respective faiths, Christianity and Islam, is desperately needed, such as the August 2012 visit of the Catholic Archbishop of Jos, Ignatius Kaigama, to the Jos Central Mosque where he was hosted by its Imam, Sheik Balarabe Dawud. In Archbishop’s words, he intended “to dispel the notion that Muslims and Christians in Plateau State cannot meet”. Only by heeding the message and example of their religious leadership and living up to the ideals of their respective faiths can peace return to the long suffering people of Plateau State and Nigeria.
    …Professor Akbar Ahmed is Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington, DC and the former Pakistani High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.

  • What do the Yoruba want?

    A grand family meeting, like theAugust 30 Yoruba Assembly held in Ibadan, Oyo State, would as of necessity come with many viewpoints. It is not unlike the fall of the proverbial mighty elephant, at which knives of all shapes make a proud showing.

    A lobby at the one-day confab complained of Yoruba “marginalisation” in federal appointments. That is true; and the complaint is valid. If the Yoruba are integral part of the Nigerian federation – which they are – it is their moral and legal right to share from the federation’s benefits. If their share declines, vis-a-vis other partners’ in the federation, they naturally must complain for the imbalance to be righted.

    Still, let it not be forgotten that “marginalisation” – as valid as it is – started as a survivalist cry from the Yoruba mainstreamers, who lost out in the electoral sweepstakes of April 2011. The mainstreamers’ political view is that development in the old Western Region must start with as many federal appointments as the region could possibly coral. That is the plain sharing mentality, which has put everyone in the ditch; and which the Ibadan assembly was trying to correct.

    The futility of such appointment-led development thesis is shown in the Obasanjo example. Olusegun Obasanjo, a Yoruba, was two-term elected president, the ultimate position which decides who gets what. Still, his tenure was a disaster for Yorubaland, so much so that at the height of his presidency, he blithely boasted that Lagos – the crown jewel of the region, former federal capital and still the commercial capital of the country – was a jungle. And he probably was proud to leave it so!

    The mainstreamers’ federal-pork-is-paramount-to-development theory is contrary to the progressives’ view that the South West must be stand on its own, independent of any federal pork. Indeed, since the Awolowo-Akintola tango of the First Republic, these two starkly contrasting political viewpoints have driven the dynamics of politics in the region.
    In any case, there is need for conceptual clarity. Without prejudice to the legal and social rights of the Yoruba in Nigeria as presently constituted, why would they complain that a system is doomed (that is the sum total of the Ibadan meeting: that the present Nigerian system is unsustainable) and yet insist they are marginalised under the same crumbling system? Is that not a contradiction in terms?

    Away from the mainstreamers now, even Adeniyi Akintola, SAN, a legal luminary of no mean calibre and a man with genuine generosity of spirit, proudly announced himself as a Yoruba and Ibadan “irredentist”. “Irredenta”, the word from which “irredentist” emerges, means victims of ethnic imperialism.

    In the context of restructuring therefore, the Yoruba of Kwara and Kogi states, clamouring for realignment with their kith and kin in the South West, are rightly victims of the irredenta of the current Nigerian structure, which groups them as part of the “North”, when really they ought to be part of the South West. That much was said by the area’s representatives at the Ibadan summit.

    But in the context of Nigeria, what does Yoruba or Ibadan irredentism mean? A Yoruba poised to grab more than its due? Or within the South West, in a restructured Nigeria, an Ibadan primed to resume its old imperialism; that climaxed in the disastrous Yoruba civil war, the Kiriji War (1877-1893)?

    Akintola, a bosom friend of decades but unfazed Ibadan nationalist nevertheless, could not have meant what he said in these two imperial senses. Neither could the Yoruba conferees. But there is always a chance of misrepresentation – and wilfully so – by anti-restructuring elements, eager to muddy the waters and scuttle the campaign.
    But Gen. Alani Akinrinade, convener of the Assembly, was very clear at his pre-summit media luncheon comment: that the Yoruba had always been federalists in their political evolution; and would want such productive federalism replicated on the Nigerian front, so that different sections of the country could develop at their own paces and, by so doing, strengthen the Nigerian union, and save it from perennial but life-threatening crises. On “marginalisation”, he said it would not have mattered who held what, if the country was well run.

    Which leads to the next logical question: what do the Yoruba want? From the Ibadan summit’s communiqué, it would appear what any right-thinking Nigerian would want, after 98 years of false steps, since the Lugard amalgamation of 1914. A nasty Civil War (1967-1970), ruinous military rule, the 12 June 1993 presidential election annulment crisis and 13 years of shambling along under civil rule (with the Boko Haram insurrection as the latest nation-threatening crisis) only underscore the feeling that something fundamental is wrong with the country.

    So, the call for a restructured Nigeria is sound. The present Nigerian structure, with a rich but idle centre, is not only a recipe for mindless corruption, but also a charter for underdevelopment, borne out of perpetual crises. With each subsequent occupier trying to coral the common wealth for its own ethnic champions (the latest being Goodluck Jonathan’s Ijaw presidency, handing former militants suspect marine and oil pipeline contracts), it is as if every section is grabbing what it could from a sinking Nigerian ship. Now, if the idea is not for the ship to sink without trace, then restructuring towards a new beginning makes eminent sense: having a federal government; with much stronger six regional governments, as development centres.

    With a skewed structure settled, there is the imperative of whittling down the cost of governance, especially at the centre, which under the proposed new dispensation, would support regional economic activities, after taking charge of central agencies like defence, external affairs, currency and customs.

    To cut down cost of governance, the Yoruba conference suggested adopting Westminster system of choosing ministers from elected parliamentarians in the House of Representatives. If this happens, what role will the Senate, a key institution of electoral balancing in a federation, play? These are areas of serious debate en route to arriving at a mutually acceptable new constitution.

    Perhaps the most disturbing of the Ibadan Yoruba Assembly’s communiqué is the suggestion that vigilantes should hold a pride of place in the region’s security system. This suggests impatience with the present debate over the Nigeria Police.
    Still, the South West must be careful on this sole suggestion. Vigilantes are no substitute to a decentralised police. The time for state police has come. The South West political elite and civil rights groups should press on full throttle for its actualisation. On the other hand, those who stone-wall state police, even with the glaring challenges of insecurity, must know that they risk the putative reign of ultra-nationalist militias. That is the road to Yugoslavia. It is unnecessary.

    The Yoruba have taken a stand on Nigeria’s future. Let the other zones join in the debate. To be sure, it promises a furious jaw-jaw. But it is certainly better than a bloody war-war.
    This serious talk is imperative, if Nigeria must be saved.

  • Nnaji and the power sector jinx

    For watchers of the developments in the troubled power sector, something akin to a disaster befell the nation with the ouster of Professor Barth Nnaji as power minister Wednesday August 28. For a sector that has just begun to witness some modest improvements in service delivery across the board, it was a perhaps a case of the Nigerian gnome knowing when to strike for maximum effect. That it consumed the individual who in the last months – by the estimation of the generality of citizens – gave so much and added so much value to the hitherto moribund sector is perhaps best explained by the Nigerian jinx.

    I describe Nnaji exit as unfortunate essentially because the affair is foreseeable. For a sector being primed for the most comprehensive overhaul in its history, it was perhaps expected that the entrenched forces of the ancien regime would not let go without a fight. In this, the government seems to have supplied the catalyst when it failed to anticipate the problem. Although it seems now convenient for the same government to play the Pontius Pilate, its feigning of innocence is to put it mildly, hypocritical. That the issue of conflict of interest which provided the ammo for Nnaji’s ouster did not come up earlier is only because there was no basis for conflict at the earlier stages. The matter only became hot button when the reform ship began to coast to the final, home stretch – the sale of the entities. This is where the stakes are at utmost and the government ought to have known better by ensuring that the chief midwife, like Caesar’s wife, stays above board!

    Blind Trust or not, the ex-minister’s interest in Geometric Power is certainly not hidden. This was after all where he was yanked off to become Special Adviser to the President and later Minister of Power. I personally thought that the ex-minister’s job was just about done at the point of the production of the milestone Power Sector Roadmap in August 2010. Solely on account of his interests in the sector, and given the potential landmines in the path of the privatisation process and the powerful interests at play, I believe that he ought to have been excused before the privatisation process kicked off at least to confer credibility on the exercise. That the minister and his boss, President Jonathan waited for things to get out of hand is no doubt revealing of the administration’s sloppiness.

    I must say however that Nnaji’s exit merely confirms that the gnome behind the power sector’s woes is alive and well. Today, the fear that the modest success would be imperilled by the changes is back. As one would imagine, the wild celebration by the electrical sector unions in the aftermath of the minister’s exit would merely represent the more comical dimension of the forces ranged against the reforms. But theirs is nothing compared to the dark forces that are far more powerful and sinister. These forces have the money, the muscle and the connection at the highest levels of government to guarantee that no initiatives work!
    That is to say that the fear of the sector’s relapse is not entirely unfounded. After all, the mere existence of the Electric Power Sector Reform Act 2005 – a legislation whose coming marked the turning point for the industry – could not guarantee that the reforms would move from the pages of the papers on which the law was written. Indeed, the late President Umaru Yar’Adua not only dithered in implementation – a clear violation of the Act – for nearly two years, he acted as if the law did not exist. Even his pledge to declare emergency in the power sector remained until his death – a wish.

    The lesson here is that it is one thing to have a fanciful piece of legislation; it is another to commit to its implementation.
    President Jonathan is no doubt entitled to his achievement which is modest by all standards given the resources that his administration has thrown into the sector. Of course, cash was never a problem. The administration after all began by warehousing $5 billion for the National Integrated Power Projects. That was after it secured the agreement of governors and their state assemblies to draw from the excess crude account. In spite of this, performance could hardly be said to have matched expectations. Note for instance the rather curious and confounding arithmetic of the power generation in which a country that did not start from Ground Zero currently celebrates 4000 MW as achievement. How about this for the record – that we blew nearly $20 million on the sector in the last decade alone to achieve an incremental 1,500 MW additional output! How does one explain the power sector’s arithmetic of reducing balances?

    The question is apt, considered in the background of the administration’s projections in the celebrated roadmap. By the projection, the sector ought to have delivered 7033MW by April 2011. By December this year, the generation capacity is supposed to hit 11,879 MW. Now, we are told by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission that the best the nation could hope for in 2012 – barely three months away – is 5,000MW! Meanwhile, the administration is in frenzy over achievements!

    Having said that, I personally believe that current fears about the reforms slipping into relapse mode are somewhat exaggerated. Clearly, much work has gone into grounding the institutional framework. There are also undeniable signs that progress is finally being made in the completion of the NIPP plants. Much also has been done to harmonise gas policies to ensure delivery of gas to the plants. However, it seems to me that the sustained interest of the ordinary Nigerian in the sector is what will make the possibility of a slip into the dark days very difficult. To be sure, the nation didn’t get to this point because those in charge suddenly became more committed. It did because Nigerians have gone beyond asking hard questions to demanding explanations on why in spite of the trillions of naira sunk, the government cannot deliver. One can only hope that President Jonathan and his Peoples Democratic Party read the signs of the times correctly.

    It is of course a long way ahead. The word however is vigilance – eternal vigilance. The next battle is the sale of the unbundled entities of the Power Holdings Company of Nigeria – perhaps the most critical in the entire process. Just as Nigerians cannot wait to see this phase happen, it must be seen as the beginning of the long, difficult road to improved service delivery – a step towards the so-called Eldorado of liberalised power sector.

  • Fashola’s way of life

    In one of his sermons, the numinous Christ differentiated the broad way from the narrow way. The narrow way leads to life, the broad way to destruction.

    That was my thought when the Lagos State Government introduced the new traffic law, the most ambitious and comprehensive of such legislation in the history of this country. And who else to do so but the governor of example, Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN). When the news made the rounds, I also anticipated a row, the voices of dissent and resistance.

    It has been called draconian, ruthless, inhuman. I call it the law of the narrow gate. Back to the numinous Christ. He said the broad way attracts all sorts of people, the wicked, the good, the fools, the heartless and the lawless. A cocktail of such human types would lead to destruction. It is the way of indiscipline, the albatross of chaos.
    So the law says: don’t eat, don’t drink, don’t beat the red light, don’t bring your okada to the major spines and arteries of the cities, don’t ride okada with two persons, keep away your cell phones, don’t drive the danfo with nonfunctional lamps, drive your heavy trucks only at night, et cetera.

    And I say why not! Go to the Lagos road and you will know why. A man in suit navigates a one-way street with the reckless gusto of the shirtless danfo driver. The rabble has converted the dove. It is time to reverse that. Recently, the streets were lined again, and the purpose is to keep commuters on their lanes. Only on Saturday, I watched a man in a new Honda Accord hug the street, as though he could not see the border between my lane and his.
    The road fines are heavy, and that is how it should be. When I first started driving in the United States, I was almost tempted to throw out the foil wrap of a cake I had just consumed on my way from Denver to Boulder in the state of Colorado. It then occurred to me that there was a sign that a fine of $1,000 loomed. For a cake that cost me about one dollar? That is the discipline we need to abide by the law.

    The road is not just the road. It is the place where we all meet. The President’s siren blares when he commutes, CEOs and the drivers are forced into the same space. The driver can hear some of the conversational intimacies of the most powerful man in town when even the wife is as far away as Madagascar. The road accommodates the slouch and the efficient, the rascal and the devotee, the sinner and preacher, the drunk and the sober, the virile and impotent, the blessed and the cursed, the damned jalopy and the chariot of the Lord. The road, whether it is as thin as needle or wide as the heavens, becomes a broad way. Broad is the gate and wide is the road that leads to destruction, many there are who find it.

    Wole Soyinka wrote a play at our Independence in 1960 and it was aptly called The Road. The Nobel Laureate, ever a traveler, is a devotee of the road. He has shown this in his marquee plays, poems, memoirs and novels. In real life, he became the boss of the Federal Road Safety Corps. The phrase Aksident Store haunts me from The Road. It is the store where all the vehicular scraps from around town are kept by a sort of tout called Professor.

    The new law is to avoid the accidents and pare the rate of scraps of tragedy on our roads. Obedience of the law is better than the sacrifice of the limbs and health of our commuters.

    As a reporter in the United States, I once visited the Denver jail for a night, and what struck me was the number of people behind bars for what is designated as DUI – driving under the influence. Of alchohol, that is. That was Denver, a tranquil cow town of low blood pressure with minimal traffic infractions.

    The road is the place of all human activities. There many wars are fought, many peace treaties signed, many lovers consummated. There children are born , David beat Goliath on the road, Samson mauled a lion barehanded. Also: Ija Ore in the Nigerian Civil war, the walk of Moremi into myth, the pogroms and festivals of our people, the Battle of the Bulge in the Second World War when Germans ensnared Americans by changing road signs, the conversion of Paul, the road to Golgotha, Mohammed’s trip between Mecca and Medina, Budda’s nights of solitude as shown in Nobel Prize-winning novel Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, the young wooer of big words in Soyinka’s play whose bag got empty and sent for a bigger dictionary, the actions in Death and The King’s Horse man, the mad man in Achebe’s short story, the slaying of Ikemefuna in Things Fall Apart, the assassination of Murtala Muhammed and John Kennedy. Every day when we wake up, we might as well remember the song of the American rock star, Bob Seger: Here I am/ on the road again/ there I am/ up on the stage.

    In the movie, The Great American Traffic Jam, everything happens from the birth of a baby to the pursuit of a criminal to the glitter of a band with guitars blaring.
    The American novelist, Jack Kerouac dramatised the rebellion of the young and restless in the 1950’s with the novel On The Road where a group of lads travel all over America in search of meaning they cannot not find. The road is nothing but a process. It is not where we are going to but where we are going through. Just like searching for regular power supply, real federalism as well as end to armed robbery, ethnic and religious bigotry, rigged elections, etc. We are forced on it whether it is well travelled or not. That was Christ’s point.

    If we don’t make it a good one, the road becomes the end of the road. Another novel, The Road, by Cormac McCarthy tells of its apocalyptic potential. We neither want to make the road an endless search nor the finisher of our souls.

    No law is perfect. When the Americans developed their constitution, they admitted it would be improved along the way. That is why they have several amendments. Somebody asked me how she could carry her baby from her home to the main street without Okada since there are only Okada. While the spirit of the law is to save the child, the convenience of mother and child may not enjoy infrastructure as yet. That is the challenge to make more roads open to such families. It is work in progress.
    The spirit of the law is in the right place, and most of it is right. That is where we should focus. Governor Fashola wants a way of life in which a narrow gate leads to life, not to death and destruction.

    We follow Ebenezer Obey’s line, “ Irin ajo la wa yi o/ ori gbe wa de le…” That is the high way, which Prophet Isaiah says the unclean will not take. That is Fashola’s way of life for Lagosians, a road pruned of dirt and deaths. It is in that spirit that Soyinka writes, “Traveller, you must set forth at dawn/I promise marvels of the holy hour.”