The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday

  • APC tremors not entirely irredeemable

    The battle between the All Progressives Congress (APC) state chairmen and their national secretariat may get nastier if both the party’s national chairman and the presidency do not find a coordinated way to resolve the misunderstanding tearing them apart.

    Unfortunately, despite putting a brave face on the budding crisis, the ruling party’s national secretariat and the presidency have maintained a stiff and awkward relationship that does not bode well for the party’s ambitious scheme of national political dominance.

    On September 23, the state chairmen had written the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) led by Adams Oshiomhole to urgently address the concerns raised about vacant leadership positions in the party and disaffected members complaining about their unrewarded campaign contributions.

    The state chairmen gave the national leadership a two-week ultimatum to find a resolution. That date expired without nothing more than a whimper from the national secretariat.

    To underscore the seriousness of the complaints and disaffection in the party, APC governors have lent their collective voice to the disquiet and embryonic conflict building up among party faithful, warning that except those complaints were addressed, the party could fracture irreparably or punch below its weight in future elections.

    No state chairman put the disaffection better than the party’s Enugu State chairman, Ben Nwoye, a youthful, charismatic and articulate leader thought to be one of the party’s rising stars. Said Dr Nwoye: “The situation is getting critical and our members are becoming disenchanted and losing faith in us for something that is not our fault. We don’t know what to tell them again because it is getting to a stage they can no longer understand the direction of the party. There is no response yet, but when it is time you will hear from us. You will hear from the party faithful; those who believe they worked hard for the party and have been left behind and out of the system while those who worked against the government and the party have been rewarded. You will hear from those who participated in putting the government in place in various states and have been abandoned.”

    Though he acknowledged that discussions were going on, he nonetheless sounded a note of warning:  “We are planning and we are organising ourselves,” he said cryptically. “Whatever that will be done will be a collective decision of all of us and it will be made public; it won’t be in isolation.

    The chairmen are speaking the minds of the people, those who sacrificed, worked hard and promoted the cause of the party but have been left behind. We are speaking the minds of the contestants who have promoted the image of the party and have been neglected; the minds of the people who nurtured the party in the non-APC states but have been left behind while the PDP people are rewarded.”

    But the party seems preternaturally sanguine about the troubles coursing through its ranks, notwithstanding the severity of its crisis. Some party officials, while not dismissing members’ complaints, suggested that conflicts were a natural consequence of any party organisation, and are meant to be always eventually resolved.

    Indeed, the APC National Vice Chairman( South-South), Hilliard Eta, volunteered that party members’ complaints were already being addressed. Neither the party chairman nor its spokesman has said anything to substantially address the problems. It is, however, not impossible that the party leadership view the problems with the seriousness they deserve.

    The APC is lucky that the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is also at sixes and sevens, and at odds with not only its members, some of whom are even more deeply and intransigently disaffected than APC members, but also with its soul and ideology.

    The PDP defines itself as somewhat conservative, but it has been unable to really match that ideology, when it is able to accurately define it, with its actions in and out of office. Such a party, which has so far been unable to chart a vigorous direction for the future or summon the resolve and confidence needed to give battle to the ruling party, may be hard put to navigate its way out of the quagmire which electoral defeat had confined it. In short, the PDP can only present itself a better alternative to the APC after it has smothered its own demons.

    Except it is living in denial, the APC must acknowledge that its members’ complaints are genuine, and their demands moderate. The APC won the last elections despite their escalating unpopularity, in fact more probably because of the disarray to which the PDP had fallen after it unprecedentedly lost the 2015 elections by a very appalling margin.

    That the APC won in 2019 by the skin of their teeth — though they deny this because of the margin of their victory — should lead them to recognise the yeoman efforts made by their rank and file. That recognition has been sadly tame. This flickering recognition has in turn led party leaders to take their members for granted, starting with the presidency which has not managed in more than four years to form the character of rewarding party faithful with appointments. In addition, as party members indicated with sound logic, the last ministerial appointments were made largely regardless of party loyalty and contributions. They cite the example of Ogun State where the former governor who worked against the party in the state successfully nominated ministers.

    The complaints registered by APC members in the states, and underscored by the party’s governors, indicate that the party may be heading for trouble. The complaints are genuine and weighty. If they are not addressed, they will severely hurt the party once the PDP gets its act together. The ministerial list is expended and cannot be revived; but there are still enough attractions left in the bowels of Nigeria’s vast and labyrinthine government to satisfy the hunger of party faithful, enough to encourage them to develop a sense of belonging.

    Party loyalists cannot but agitate vigorously, as they have begun to do to impress it on the minds of party leaders in the presidency that a change of attitude is needed to service the party and keep its organs lubricated. That change of attitude will be difficult to engineer, given the exigencies of the moment; but in the coming years, the kind of change that recognises and rewards the contributions of members must manifest if the APC is to survive and flourish.

    In addition to the needed attitudinal change, the party has more than three years left to react to the resurgence of the PDP, probably enough time to prevail on the Muhammadu Buhari presidency to bequeath a sound party structure and philosophy to the APC going forward. The APC, despite the best efforts of Mr Oshiomhole, is still not run professionally, nor is it imbued with the uplifting ideas capable of rallying its troops and vanquishing its enemies.

    There is little hope that the president himself will become converted to the universal principles of organising political party; but regardless of whether the president transforms himself and/or his politics, the party must still go ahead to build itself up and imbibe the requisite ideas and strategies. Hopefully, they can summon the unity and strength needed to deliver these changes.

    But underlying the complaints state chairmen have made, and which are corroborated and even given impetus by the governors, is the fear that rather than unite against the enemy in the coming years, the APC might instead exacerbate their fault lines, renew the battles that sundered them during the primaries, and fatefully ignore their reinvigorated enemy as they fight to the death among themselves.

    The choice before the APC is frighteningly stark. While there is nothing to indicate that they will make the right call, they must be keenly aware that should they make the wrong choice, as they seem poised to do, they will be brutally massacred in a manner that makes any hope of revival impossible.

  • Delicate times for politicians in Edo

    By Sentry

    The quiet war between Governor Pius Obaseki and his estranged godfather and National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Comrade Adams Oshiomhole is taking a toll on the relationships between members of the political class in the state.

    Gone now are the days when politicians from different political camps interacted freely with one another without fear that any untoward meaning would be read into their actions.

    These days, they have to think twice before they interact with members of rival political camps just so that they don’t get into trouble with their political mentors or benefactors. In one of such instances, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in last governorship election in the state was said to have got into trouble with his party members for  allegedly travelling in the same plane with Oshiomhole from Benin to Abuja after a chance meeting at the airport. PDP members in the state were said to have accused Iyamu of engaging in anti-party activities for hobnobbing with the national leader of the ruling party.

    In another instance, Governor Godwin  Obaseki was said to have withdrawn his support for Hon Edoror as candidate for the seat of the Speaker of Edo State House of assembly simply because he visited Oshiomhole to tell him about his ambition and also seek his blessings.

    Governor Obaseki was said to have interpreted Edoror’s visit to Oshiomhole as pledging loyalty to the APC national chairman, hence his decision to withdraw his support for him and transferring same to Frank Okiye who eventually became the Speaker in controversial circumstances.

  • The marriage that never was

    It would have been the marriage of the decade and, indeed, of the century. Everyone from the political class to the diplomatic community and the business community and fellow heads of government waited with bated breath for a ceremony that would have marked the second time a sitting Nigerian head of state would be getting married after General Yakubu Gowon’s wedding to Victoria Zakari in 1969, but President Muhammadu Buhari and the Minister of Humanitarian and Disaster Management, Hajia Sadiya Umar Farouq’s rumoured wedding in Abuja Friday turned out a fluke.

    The origin of the rumour remains yet unclear, but the social media were awash with the story and talked it up until everyone was caught in its frenzy. Rational-minded people who expressed doubts about the veracity of the rumoured marriage were dismissed by its promoters as incurable cynics determined to rob Hajia Sadia the chance of being nominated as the person of the year for winning the President’s heart.

    The day came, however, and it was the doubters that triumphed. Contrary to the widespread rumour that the wedding would take place after Friday’s Jumat service, nothing of that nature happened. Little wonder the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has been waging an unrelenting war against fake news.

    Dismissing the rumour in a statement on Friday, President Buhari’s Special Adviser on Information, Femi Adesina, said it was a deceptive manoeuvre by its fabricators.

  • What Buhari told Melaye after budget presentation in Abuja

    Since the picture emerged of President Muhammadu Buhari pointing his index finger at Senator Dino Melaye after he presented the 2020 budget at the National Assembly on Tuesday with Dino responding by hailing him with a salutary fist, there have been speculations as to what the President was telling the senator.

    Observers who have followed the confrontational stance of Melaye with the Buhari government and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) closely were quick to guess that Buhari was issuing a threat to the cantankerous senator. But a source who was at the scene of the interaction has told Sentry that what Buhari said to Melaye was nothing of a threat but a question that is pregnant with meanings.

    According to the source, Buhari simply asked Melaye: “You mean you are still in this chamber?”

    Of course, the question is open to different interpretations considering the issues around Melaye. Since his days as a member of the House of Representatives, the senator who until he was sacked by the Court of Appeal yesterday represented Kogi West has come across as a querulous fellow whose presence is known to provoke crisis in the legislative chambers.

    But he has been unusually quiet in the 9th Senate; a development that many has attributed to the failure of the former Senate president, Dr Bukola Saraki, to return to the upper chamber following his defeat by the APC candidate in Kwara Central during the last National Assembly elections.

    Still, other watchers of events would interpret Buhari’s question as an indication that Buhari had already got wind of the direction of the Court of Appeal judgment that sacked Melaye on Friday and was simply expressing surprise that the deposed senator was still in the chamber.

  • Falcons, Doha and our buck passing game

    By Ade Ojeikere

    The deafening noise from sports venues isn’t unexpected because we are experts in passing the buck. We are specialists in reaping where we did not sow. Planning isn’t in our DNA. We don’t organise competitions, we don’t spot athletes, we don’t nurture them, we don’t have facilities, we don’t  train coaches, just as we only remember athletes exist when competitions beckon – if we care to attend such tournaments.

    Is anyone shocked that Super Falcons won’t be in Tokyo, Japan, for the 2020 Olympic Games? What did we do to motivate the girls to excel during the qualifiers? What did we do to create the enabling environment for the home-grown girls to mature to stardom? The last time the Falcons played at the Olympics was in Beijing in 2008. Since that time, nothing has changed in the dynamics of the women’s game, largely because we like to rest on our oars. Little wonder we were shocked by the Ivoirians.

    Falcons were  struggling in most of their matches, needing the individual feats of goalkeeper Nnadozie or the scoring ingenuity of Asisat Oshoala to save Nigeria blushes. What is apparent is the need for new players to displace the ageing stars. The Falcons’ side is almost predictable and cannot surprise any serious soccer nation itching to rule Africa. We should clear the women soccer deck of its irritability. This should start with getting a new coach, who will decide those he or she wants to work with. Those having baggage in the old order should be excused and made to account for their stewardship.

    Read Also: How NFF caused Super Falcons ouster from 2020 Olympic ticket

    Falcons doesn’t require massive rejuvenation. What the team needs is systematic integration of younger players. This can only happen with a new coach and a management structure. The old hands are burdened by  their fixation on what they are used to. They aren’t daring enough to drop some of the girls who are nearer being coaches than playing the game. They have lost the speed to compete with younger girls paraded by other countries, such as Cote d’ Ivoire.

    Falcons are a world class brand, rated higher than the Super Eagles in the monthly FIFA ranking. NFF should give the team the attention the Eagles get, if we truly want to make qualification for major events our birthright. The team should never be handled by unqualified coaches, who are neither CAF badge nor FIFA badge holders. The federation should head hunt good coaches for the girls who will add value to what they bring onto the pitch. The Olympic ticket is gone. Now, it is stocktaking time for the players, coaches and federation chiefs. We need a new team.

    The case of  the Athletic Federation of Nigeria (AFN) is pitiable. I wonder how members haven’t resigned their appointment after the disgraceful manner in which they treated the $150,000 over-payment by IAAF. AFN members knew what they ought to have been paid as support for the local meets was $15,000. When AFN realised they were paid $150,000, $135,000 more, it ought to have raised the alarm with IAAF and returned the extra cash. Nigeria didn’t need to wait until IAAF discovered that it had made a mistake.

    Equally disturbing was the twists and turns of returning the cash. How does Nigeria want the  international body to bring anything good to this country, given the way we reacted to a mistake. It wasn’t in our interest to blame IAAF accountant, if we returned the money the next day.

    Athletics used to rival soccer in results because those who ran the federation were former internationals who knew what to do and were passionate in ensuring that nothing went wrong. These federation chiefs cherished sponsors of the game and religiously stuck to dates of competitions  as young men and women. The present administrators wouldn’t be bothered by the dearth of competitions for as long as they can attend tournaments outside the country for estacode, even if our athletes do not make podium appearances.

    For a new dawn in athletics, the federation should ensure that grassroots competitions  are resuscitated by getting a marketing team to visit corporate firms to sell their programmes. AFN chiefs also need to go to past sponsors to apologise for their gaffes. Perhaps, the defeats of AFN chieftains in IAAF’s elections will send the message that without the athletes, nothing works. When Nigeria dominated athletics, it was easy for them to win elections. Of course, countries with winning athletes had their officials winning elections.

    From  Doha meet, it is clear that Ese Brume is Nigeria’s poster girl in athletics. Brume lost the second place in the women’s long jump by one metre. She should never be allowed to cater for herself through meets. What such things do is that the athletes burn out before the major competitions and the only way to have control over our elite athletes is for AFN to discuss with the sports minister  how he could use his influence in the corporate world to get sponsors for our star athletes, such as Brume and Divine Oduduru, who specialises in the 100 metres dash and 200 metres. They should be monitored and given the star treatment Americans and Jamaicans give their top athletes. Oduduru holds personal bests of 9.86 seconds for the 100 m and 19.73 seconds for the 200 m. Oduduru made his debut on the 2019 IAAF Diamond League circuit at the 2019 Herculis meet, but finished in last place.

    Raymond Ekevwo,20, is the 2019 African Games 100 metres champion. He was also a member of the Nigerian 4 × 100 m relay team that won a silver medal at the games. He became the Nigerian junior champion in the 100 metres at the 2016 Dr  Olukoya Youth and Junior  Championships, winning with a then personal best of 10.35s. As the national junior champion, he was selected to represent the country at the 2016 IAAF World U20 Championships. He, however, missed the race as the Nigerian team did not arrive in time for the competition. The other poster boy, Chukwuebuka Cornnell Enekwechi, 26, is a Nigerian-American track and field athlete, specialising in throwing events. He is the 2018 Commonwealth Games Silver medalist and reigning African Champion in the shot put. He is also the 2019 African Games Champion and the reigning Nigerian National Sports Festival Champion.

    The Mobil Athletics Championship used to draw huge crowds to the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos. They were mostly attracted by what they saw in the previous editions or were enthralled by the rave reviews the athletes got in the media, prior to the event. The arrival of top stars, such Mary Onyali, Fallilat Ogunkoya, Adeniken, Ezenwa brothers and Chidi Imoh as well as many others, made newspaper headlines. The athletes wore tight-fitting wears that trended even after the competitions. Mobil athletics was a fiesta many loved to watch and the Sportscity was centrally located for workers to troop in after work to watch the elite races which were deliberately timed to hold from 6pm.

    Those who did well at Mobil were categorised, such that it was easy to differentiate the elite from others who also ran. In fact, Mobil was the basis for picking the country’s representatives at big events. Selection for Mobil was as problematic as picking Nigeria’s final list of 23 players at the World Cup.

    If Nigeria must return to the glorious years, AFN chiefs must replicate the good things of the past. And it starts with giving our elite athletes  a sense of belonging. They must see themselves as our ambassadors, not in name but in deed.

    We must make their welfare our responsibility. We must get them coaches and give them training grants,  which will stop them from running for cash.

    Perhaps, if Blessing Okagbare had been treated like the queen of the tracks, which she was, we would have set the templates for producing equally talented replacements, if not better ones. Nigeria only remembers Okagbare when we want to attend competitions. But for the benevolence of the former Delta State Governor Dr. Uduaghan, Okagbare couldn’t have attained some of the feats she achieved. Since Uduaghan left office, Okagbare has been tottering.

    The majority of our good athletes had scholarships in American universities where they developed into top stars. Some of the previous athletes have left school. We need to tap from their experience by ensuring that they are given jobs which will rub off on our emerging stars. I was excited when the sports minister appointed Mary Onyali as his SSA. Nothing could have been better than that if we truly want to rediscover our good past in athletics.

     

  • PMB as unlikely economist

    By Segun Ayobolu

    In one of his not infrequent, characteristically expansive moments, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, in assessing the President Muhammadu Buhari administration during the first term, gave Buhari a pass mark in the war against corruption and insecurity but concluded patronizingly that PMB lacked a firm grasp either of economics or foreign policy.  That was, of course, before the Ota farmer’s letter-writing knives were fully drawn and he could find nothing worthy of commendation in the lanky General from Daura.  The inference could only be that OBJ believes he is a virtuoso of sorts in those areas in which he rated PMB low particularly economics. Not many will agree.

    In his first coming as military Head of State, OBJ simply adopted the massive state-led interventionist development policies that were the dominant paradigm of the time. And during his second incarnation as elected civilian President, OBJ went in a diametrically opposite direction. This time, he wholeheartedly embraced the free market, neo-liberal economic policies that had become the reigning conventional wisdom.  OBJ seemed to lack any deeply held developmental philosophies of his own.

    In contrast, PMB would be the last to make claims to possessing any delusional mastery in an arcane field in which he has no rigorous theoretical grounding. Yet, he appears to hold very strong and consistent, instinctual convictions as regards the kind of policies indispensable for the economic emancipation of a poor, dependent, neo-colonial economy like Nigeria. Of PMB’s first coming as military Head of State between 1983 and 1985, noted political economist, Professor Adebayo Olukoshi, writes, “One of the factors that underlay the Buhari regime’s crisis management policies was its conviction that fraud and indiscipline were central to the economic problems of Nigeria and that all steps would have to be taken to eliminate these ills”. The Buhari military government adopted a strongly nationalistic stance in its approach to the management of the national economy.

    According to Olukoshi, “While agreeing, like its predecessors, with the IMF on the need for fundamental reforms in the Nigerian economy, the Buhari regime was unwilling to accept the recommendations of the IMF for the devaluation of the naira, the across-the -board privatization of public enterprises, the liberalization of trade and the withdrawal of petroleum subsidy. In the view of the regime, these measures were inappropriate for tackling Nigeria’s economic problems”.

    With the Buhari/Idiagbon regime insisting that “to abandon the economy to market forces, as the IMF recommended would merely complicate matters”, it was no surprise that the talks between the regime and the IMF soon collapsed.  The western powers tightened the economic squeeze on Nigeria and the Buhari regime was soon history with the General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida coup of August 27, 1985.

    Read Also: Does Buhari want to live in people’s hearts forever? 

    I must confess that I was one of those who jubilantly welcomed the fall of the Buhari government and the ascension to power of the gap-toothed, all smiling, IBB. While the Buhari/Idiagbon military government’s nationalistic and patriotic economic instincts were admirable, the government’s assault on fundamental human rights and the rule of law; the sheer arrogance of its functionaries and their utter insensitivity to public opinion was intolerable. However, with the benefit of hindsight, if we knew what tortuous paths the nation would traverse for the next one and a half decades, would we have celebrated Buhari’s loss of power in 1985 the way we did? It is a difficult question to answer.

    Of course, the IBB regime wasted no time in taking the country into the full embrace of the IMF and its neo-liberal, so-called free market economic policies. Oh yes, there are no doubt many benefits that the country reaped from the comprehensive deregulation and liberalization of diverse sectors of the economy undertaken by the IBB regime under the philosophical guiding hand of the IMF. Yet, it is indisputable that Nigeria emerged from IBB’s Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) poorer, more dependent, more indebted, more unequal, more de-industrialized, her more jobless than before the undiscriminating adoption of the IMF’s neo-liberal pills.

    On the massive devaluation of the Naira by the regime on Friday, 26th September, 1986, as a core component of SAP, for instance, renowned billionaire businessman and statesman, the late Chief Alfred Rewane, had written: “As my friends and I discussed the implications of the government’s announcement, I expressed the view that the devaluation of the Naira was a recipe for disaster and that within five years, the Naira would be worth less than 20 percent of its then existing value, leading to the possible collapse of the Nigerian economy. I reminded them of a standard economic argument that devaluation of the national currency is best contemplated where the nation’s economy depends largely on the export of manufactured products for its foreign exchange earnings, and where the devaluation is considered appropriate to ensure the competitiveness of its manufacturers”.

    Taking issue with the contention of IBB’s ‘Presidential Advisory Committee on Economic Affairs’, headed by the late Professor Ojetunji Aboyade, that overseas investors would be attracted by a cheaper Naira to invest in the country, Chief Rewane had retorted: “Well, that may be impressive stuff for an undergraduate class on the principles of economics, but it certainly is not so in the real world of business. There are factors more critical than cheap currency in rating the congeniality of an investment climate, and the presidential advisers should be presumed to know that”.

    Even after his eventual emergence as elected President of Nigeria, in 2015, Buhari evidently still remained as reluctant to throw the country’s economy at the mercy of rampaging market forces as he was as military Head of State three decades earlier. True, the Buhari  administration today operates within the context of considerably strengthened global neo-liberal market forces and has been forced to accommodate degrees of currency devaluation, fuel subsidy removal and increases in Value Added Tax ( VAT). Yet, there still appears to be reflexively ingrained in PMB’s subconscious, Professor Noam Chomsky’s cutting observation that “Those who expect to win the game can be counted on to laud the rules of “free competition” – which, however, they never fail to bend to their interests. To mention only one obvious lapse, the apostles of economic liberalism have never contemplated permitting the “free circulation of labour…from place to place,” one of the foundations of freedom of trade, as Adam Smith stressed”.

    Thus, rather than abandoning the national currency to market forces as would have been dictated by the tenets of neo-liberalism, for instance, Mr. Godwin Emefiele’s Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), certainly under the influence of PMB’s body language, has not shied away from intervening in the market to ensure sustained exchange rate stability in the interest of the national economy. And the massive injection of funds into the Buhari administration’s Social Intervention Programmes, hitherto under the purview of Vice President Yemi Obasanjo, is another feature that distinguishes economic management of the PMB administration from the preoccupation with conservative austerity measures associated with neo-liberalism or ‘financialism’.

    Without being an economic theoretician, PMB has nevertheless stamped his imprimatur on the economic philosophy of his administration albeit in an understated manner. As the newly inaugurated Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC) settles down to business, we can only hope that the body will add value to the progressive economic policies and poverty alleviation strategies it meets on ground and eschew narrow doctrinal and doctrinaire ideological considerations.

    Despite their undoubted pedigree, members of the PEAC have, in my view, as much to give as they have to receive. Theirs should certainly not be the disposition of that member of IBB’s Presidential Advisory Committee on Economic Affairs, who had wondered in exasperation on national television, why even Awka market women felt qualified to contribute to a national debate on whether or not Nigeria should obtain an IMF loan! The economy has become too important to be left to economists.

  • Integration, security and synergy

    By Dayo Sobowale

    Social  institutions can  be forces for good or bad depending on  the political  forces at  play  and the socio economic condition and climate in which such institutions operate.  Two  such  leading social  institutions  in  Nigeria   this week   got   highly   patriotic   as usual,   and as expected given their  illustrious  pedigrees   and literally embarked on sheer   state  building projects, to mark  Nigeria’s Independence on October 1  1960.  The    Island Club  and the Yoruba Tennis Club both located at the urbane Onikan  area of Lagos Island,   hosted  two lectures to mark  Nigeria’s 59TH Independence Anniversary on 4th October  on their  respective premises  The  Island  Club’s Independence lecture was delivered by the Vice  President of Nigeria Prof Yemi Osinbajo and the topic was –‘ The Whole is only as great as  the sum of its parts’. The Yoruba Tennis Club lecture   which was  actually its 93rd Anniversary Public Lecture  was titled ‘Perspectives on  Security   Challenges in Nigeria  from 1999   to 2019;   the Way  Forward‘, and was delivered by the Governor of Ekiti  State, Dr  Kayode  Fayemi. These two  lectures provide  a focus  for our discussion today  along the lines of topical  events in world affairs. Most    especially   the  impeachment  saga   currently  rocking America’s presidential system  of government  as well as the threat of a No Deal Brexit   that  has  literally  become a major assault   on  the concept   rule of Law and constitutionalism in Britain. Which,   hitherto   has  been   a stable parliamentary  monarchy   now    facing great    uncertainty,   given  the way  the current  British PM  Boris  Johnson  is   going about  the execution  of the  result   of the Brexit Referendum of 2016.

    We  look  at today’s   topic in the context  that Nigeria is  a  Federal system of government and a Presidential government  based on separation of powers just  like the US. The  two  lectures  will   provide  food   for thought   on   the state of Nigeria’s  federalism given  the brilliant analysis   by the VP of the   evolution of the Nigerian state from regionalism in a Parliamentary democracy  to the need for integration and synergy  in harnessing the strengths  inherent in Nigeria’s   motto  of  ‘unity in diversity.’  In  this regard Prof Osinbajo  showed  vividly  his belief  and conviction that unity and integration are the strengths    of  the Nigerian   federation    and not   its weaknesses    in spite of the challenges facing   the Nigerian  nation and the clamor for restructuring which  emphasizes disintegrative  and con -federal  political   configurations. In  the YTC lecture on Security the Ekiti State  governor showed his expert understanding of the precarious Nigerian security situation but literally  pleaded for time and understanding  of why  the situation seemed insurmountable for  now. Which  is understandable  given the fact  the Governor  is the current Chairman of the ruling APC Governors Forum and a radical suggestion can  threaten the security perspective  that  dog  does not eat  dog. But  as acknowledged  by the governor regardless of whether we have a security policy or not the fact on the ground is that  Boko Haram,   herdsmen killings, kidnapping  and robberies have  broken  loose and are now threatening the   unity  and   integrity of the Nigerian  state  and  have   been  particularly  rampant in the period under review  namely  1999 to  2019. The  present federal  government to which the Governor  can claim to be an eminent  representative  must acknowledge  that this is happening on its watch  since it came into  power  in  2015  and  has been reelected in 2019,   obviously  in the hope that  it will clear  the  security mess decisively, in the best interest of the security and safety of Nigerians and the stability  of the Nigerian state.

    Co –incidentally,   both lectures focused on   a pervasive  dysfunctional federalism and lack of synergy in  Nigeria’s   political system  and   vast  security  apparatus. The governor lamented the lack of synergy amongst the security  forces in the nation while the wording of the VP’s topic emphasized  the  allure and panacea  of  integration and synergy. Especially the type that acknowledges that   2  plus 2 is equal  to 5. However in the case of the VP’s  lecture it is   impossible not to discuss  his present travails  of office in which some people are trying  to drag his name in the mud. Indeed a questioner  at   the lecture asked if he felt marginalized  in his office as VP  and  he responded  bravely  and pointedly  that he has chosen not to be marginalized.

    To  me and most Nigerians,  some  vested interests  are  just trying to annoy  this VP   out  of office not because  of any misdemeanor  but because of their fear of his potentials to  perform  even better than he has done hitherto.   One  can liken their fear to  of Cassius ‘envy   of Julius Caesar  in Shakespeare’s play  of that  title. Cassius  famously  lamented  why  Caesar ‘bestrode the world  like a Colossus   and we petty  men  must  peer  from  under his trousers ‘Certainly  Osinbajo  is no Caesar  and will   not  by the   Grace of God  and Insha Allah  suffer Caesar’s fate.  But  there is no denying  that  he is indeed   a  Colossus in terms of the skills  and dexterity  he  has brought to play  in the discharge of his responsibilities as our  Vice   President. These  are  God  given  gifts  and if  they  are giving some people sleepless nights, it  is they  who, like   Macbeth,  in  another Shakespeare play  of that name, ‘  have murdered  sleep  and would  sleep  no  more.‘

    In  the case of the impeachment  threat  facing the US president from the American House  of Representatives  dominated by the  Democrats, it  is clear  that a lack  of synergy is tearing the American  political  system  apart. Now  we have a president who  has dug in at the White House  and would not participate in his own  liquidation in terms  of collaborating with the legislative arm of government in his impeachment  process. We  have a Speaker  who  acknowledged  that the House  has not launched impeachment process in  open house as required by the law but is using  sub committees   and subpoenas  to  launch  impeachment which is against  the law  but the House  is proceeding still  on that course of impeachment,   all  the same.

    Similarly  the British Parliamentary democracy faces an uncertain future given the way Brexit  is  evolving under the premiership of Boris  Johnson . The  courts  have intervened twice and held back   lately    this week,  in preempting the actions of the PM on if,  or  when,  he will  follow or break the  law   in   executing his   Brexit  Deal  or no  Deal   mantra .Surely   this PM  seems  bent on implementing a political  decision regardless of the law or court rulings. That  surely  is not good for the nation that prides itself on having the ‘Mother of Parliaments’.  Brexit  is making October   2019  the longest and most  decisive month in the history of British Democracy  and its   Parliamentary   Monarchy. Till    now  it    has always  been  difficult  to foresee  a dysfunctional British  Parliamentary   system or a United Kingdom  in disunity  and disarray.  Yet,   most   unfortunately,   that is what is starring the British  people and the watching  world in the face now,  right before our eyes. Once again long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

  • Jonathan rouses sleeping giant again

    Former president Goodluck Jonathan’s campaign for a single tenure of six years for the president and governors is less likely to draw flak today as it did some eight years ago when he advocated a constitutional amendment to solve the disruptions and unbearable cost enveloping re-election politics in Nigeria. Speaking in Niamey, Niger Republic at an October 2, 2019 summit on constitutional terms limit, the former president reiterated his belief that re-election politics has been both excessively costly and disruptive, costs African countries cannot afford. Unlike in July 2011 when he half-heartedly owned the suggestion, pretending to be still engaged in consultations over the idea, this time, in Niamey, he embraced the suggestion wholeheartedly, arguing that rather than risk the danger of extended or even unlimited tenure, some as bad as more than two decades, it was better to legislate one term of six years duration.

    Dr Jonathan’s argument this time, strangely, does not sound as offensive as it did eight years ago. The simple reason is that in 2011, the timing was wrong, having just won reelection at a time the fear that he could still pursue a second four-year term in 2015 on top of his completion of the Umaru Yar’Adua first term had not yet been dispelled. His arguments about a single term tenure have still not changed substantially. Here is how he put it early this week: “When Professor Wade (Senegal) was in his last tenure, he changed the constitution and extended the term limits from five to seven years. He thought he would win the election. But Macky Sall reduced it to five years. We must commend dynamic leaders like that. There is no need for one person to sit for 14 years, doing what? The country is not your personal estate. Countries are free to amend their laws. Just like the President of Niger Republic said, different nations have different ways of doing things, so it is better they have their own way of doing things…”

    Continuing, Dr Jonathan argued: “Four years is quite a short period for a country that is developing for a person who wants to change the country to do much. In Nigeria, we just finished the (2019) election and some people are already talking about 2023 election. It is distracting. That is why some people come up with the idea of a single tenure; so a president can sit down and plan all his programmes for the good of the country.”

    From his presentation in Niamey, the former president obviously anchors his argument for a single term on two planks: one is the costliness and disruptiveness of reelection politics; and two is the shortness of one term of four years for any elected executive — president or governor — to make appreciable impact. Dr Jonathan is right about the costliness of Nigerian elections, whether it involves the campaigns by politicians or the logistics required to organise elections. Poorly regulated, the campaigns have become increasingly more expensive and labyrinthine, with candidates desperate to subvert the system, cheat their way into office, and dare a timid, burdened and poorly remunerated judiciary to adjudicate. And unable to extricate themselves from the shadowy influence and intimidation of the presidency on electoral commission workers, the electoral umpires have been hard put to measure up administratively in organising elections as well as sometimes, if not often, reading the lips of the executive in order to determine how to stack the cards against the opposition. The former president is, therefore, right that organising an election every four years in these parts can be acutely disruptive and financially debilitating.

    But the other aspect of his Niamey thesis, where he argues that a single term was inadequate for a leader to make any significant impact, is deeply controversial. His conclusion is tenuous and not borne out by experience or history. It is partly true that a new president’s task may be complicated by an incompetent predecessor, but if he has a plan to remake the country and does not lack the skills or the will to implement it, he is unlikely to fail to make an impact in four years. He may of course not complete his plan, and there is nowhere in the world where a leader executes all he sets out to do thereby rendering his successor idle, but he will have made such a significant impact that the electorate might be willing to reward him with a second term. If a leader cannot make a huge impression on his country in four years, it would be pointless rewarding him with another term. He might of course stubbornly desire the reward, which partly corroborates the electoral disruptiveness Dr Jonathan warns against, but it would be clear that he had been a failure in his first term.

    In 2011, when Dr Jonathan first mooted the idea of a single six-year term, the condemnation was furious and near unanimous. It was suggested that he was scheming for a third term, so soon after winning a full first term of his own and completing the one year left in the presidency of his predecessor, Mallam Yar’Adua who died in office. Some critics were in fact sickened by the fact that Dr Jonathan had mooted the single term idea barely two months after his presidency was inaugurated in 2011. Indeed, some even declared him a budding tyrant with a poor judgement, and a repudiator of agreements reached by his party on zoning. His critics were scathing, prompting him to declare that though he mentioned the idea to a few people he had taken no administrative or constitutional step to bring it to effect. He was still consulting, he snorted.

    Among those who excoriated him at the time were chiefly the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP), an informal coalition of political parties in Nigeria, former chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Victor Umeh, and former military head of state Ibrahim Babangida who spoke through his spokesman, Kassim Afegbua. Said Mr Afegbua in mid-August, of course reporting Gen Babangida’s opinion: ”Former President IBB is of the considered view that President Goodluck Jonathan, should concentrate energy and attention on providing meaningful solutions to the socio-economic and political problems confronting us as a nation; namely; insecurity, poor economic development, declining GDP, depleting foreign reserve, the gargantuan domestic debts that have crippled investment, and adding to unemployment, and the growing restiveness in the land…The proposal therefore is wicked, outlandish, self-serving, deliberate distraction, and an outright contempt for the people.”

    Mr Umeh was a little more conciliatory. He had said: “The President may have good intention for proposing this Bill but a critical analysis of the implications of passing this Bill into law is that people will now be elected for six year single tenure. So it is very dangerous that from the blast of the whistle, they will decide to abandon the electorate that elected them and there is nothing that you can do to them. With Section 308 Immunity Clause of our constitution; it means that it will be very difficult to remove them when they are going wrong. Six years will be a long time to allow a governor or a president who from the blast of the whistle decides to short-change the people.”

    Mr Umeh’s argument is as valid today as it was explicit and irresistible eight years ago. In none of Dr Jonathan’s public admonitions on the single term subject has he attempted to answer the conundrum: what do you do with a hopelessly incompetent or cruel president or governor who has six years to go in office? The allure of the existing two-term renewable system is that if the elected leader is good, he gets rewarded, regardless of the cost of electing and re-electing him; and if he is bad, as indeed many of them are clearly irredeemably bad, the point is that the electorate could console themselves with the chance to kick him out early. With a six-year tenure, the pain to be endured by the electorate suffocating under a bad leader would be excruciating.

    The case Nigerians should make, instead of unnecessarily debating the tenure system, is that the country should be restructured in such a way as to significantly reduce the cost of democracy and governance in order to eliminate duplication, aggravation and financial shenanigans in the electoral system. Or to jettison the presidential system entirely. As long as no answers can be found to solve the dilemma of what to do in six years with a bad and probably irredeemable leader, it may make little sense to push the proposed tenure system Dr Jonathan has seemed to fawn over.

  • PMB and PYO

    THE announcement was uncharacteristically terse coming from the Special Adviser, Media, to President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB), Mr. Femi Adesina. In a press statement, which offered no context to allow for proper evaluation by analysts, Adesina simply announced the establishment of a new Economic Advisory Council (EAC) to advise PMB on economic policy and management. The EAC, he said, would replace the former Economic Management Team (EMT) headed by the Vice-President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo and which was responsible for overseeing and coordinating the economy in the administration’s first term. The Economic Advisory Council will report directly to the President.

    Of course, the rumour mill immediately went into frenzy. All kinds of reasons were adduced for the development. The most prevalent, however, was that this signified a loss of favour in the presidency by PYO and that he was being stripped systematically of much of the powers and influence of his office. Others referred to the dissolution in the same week of the Presidential Committee on Asset Recovery, which was also under the supervision of PYO. The functions of the office have been transferred to the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation.

    It has also been reported that a number of other functions, especially as regards the massive Social Intervention Project, domiciled in the   office of PYO, will be transferred to a number of other ministries. Others contend that all we are seeing is the politics of 2023 and that the fabled ASO Rock cabal is doing all in its power to discredit and rubbish Osinbajo’s image before then.  The aim, the argument goes, is to render him too politically weak to be any electoral threat in future. That in my view is to engage in unfruitful speculation about the political future of a man who is passionately doing his job and exhibiting uncommon fidelity to his boss and country.

    Another report is that PYO is paying the price for some of the actions he took as Acting President during the PMB’s indisposition last year. In particular, the cabal is said to have been irked by the dismissal of the former Director-General of the DSS, Mallam Lawal Musa Daura, when officers of the agency invaded the National Assembly causing the country great embarrassment at the time. But that was an action that was applauded both within and beyond Nigeria and brought the country tremendous goodwill.

    In any case, PMB could easily have restored Daura to his post at the DSS on his return to the country.  He could have him appointed to head any other agency were he considered that invaluable and indispensable. Indeed, the president has the power to appoint him to membership of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) if he so desires.    It is not tenable to argue that PYO foisted a fait accompli on PMB at any time.

    Speaking as the controversy raged, PYO deplored the activities of fifth columnists trying hard to undermine and destabilize the government. It is not a thesis that can be lightly dismissed. The truth is that PMB and PYO are a dream tag team in government. At least from a distance, I believe that the President shows tremendous respect to his Deputy who also evinces unblemished loyalty to his boss. We can only imagine what crisis could have occurred when the President travelled abroad for medical attention if he had a different kind of Deputy. But then, if PMB had any doubts about PYO’s intellect, character or integrity, he could just have picked another running mate to contest with him in the 2019 election.

    Even then, can we say that PMB by creating the EAC to replace Osinbajo’s EMT, is trying to marginalize and diminish Osinbajo? I don’t think so. PYO still heads the National Economic Council (NEC) as expressly stated in the constitution and which also comprises all governors as well as the Central Bank (CBN) governor. The 1999 constitution states clearly that “The National Economic Council “shall have power to advise the President concerning the economic affairs of the Federation, and in particular on measures necessary for the coordination of the various economic planning efforts or economic programmes of the various governments of the federation”.

    It was this provision that gave Alhaji Abubakar Atiku practically almost total charge of Nigeria’s economy as Vice-President in President Olusegun Obasanjo’s term. Unfortunately, his perceived mismanagement of the opportunity was part of what strained his relations with his boss in their crisis –ridden second term in office. With the benefit of hindsight, perhaps as Chairman of the NEC Osinbajo should have constituted a high powered economic team just like Atiku did when he sourced and brought a lot of brilliant young people into Obasanjo’s government.

    It is certainly not a very efficient idea for the same individuals that hold positions in government to also turn around to become the advisers to the president on the economy. This kind of situation breeds dysfunctional insularity. I have a feeling that this situation is what PMB wants to correct with the EAC. Perhaps the communication could have been handled better thus making so much of the wild allegations absolutely nugatory. Indeed, all things being equal, Osinbajo’s hands will now be freer to carry out assignments delegated to him by PMB more efficiently and effectively.

    PMB and PYO must certainly watch it so that they do not play into the hands of detractors plotting to make them go the Obasonjo/Atiku route with damaging implicatons both for their administration and the country.

     

    On the economic advisory council

     

    I am no economist. This is, thus, a layman’s view on the new Economic Advisory Council (ECA) set up by PMB.  Several analysts have heaped fulsome praise on both the President and members of the team for the quality of the assemblage. Many have proved their worth and have acquired immense experience in academia, prestigious international financial and development institutions, consultancy and central banking among others over time. However, I am disturbed that with some of the best economists that have put their expertise and intellect at the disposal of the country over the years, Nigeria’s economy still remains largely comatose with soaring unemployment and increased poverty despite sometimes vigorous growth.

    Some of these distinguished economists that have advised various governments over the years include the late Professor Pius Okigbo, late Professor Ojekunle Aboyade, Dr. Kalu Idika Kalu, Professor Charles Soludo, Dr. Chu Okongwu, Professor Sam Aluko, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala etc. So what will the new Economic Advisory Team do better or differently? Can it be that the problem is with the training of our economists and other scholars and their deep immersion in western economic theories and philosophies? Even though many would have loved to see more development economists on the team, I congratulate the new members and wish them luck in their new and onerous assignment.

  • Kogi PDP settles for Yusuf after Melaye, Idris snub

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) appears to have finally got over the challenge of who would lead the party’s campaign for the governorship election scheduled for November 16.

    The party appears to have finally settled for the House of Representatives member representing Kabba/Bunu/Ijumu federal constituency after Senator Dino Melaye and the state’s former governor, Ibrahim Idris, had both rejected the party’s offer that they should become the director-general of the PDP Kogi State Governorship Campaign Council.

    But the stealthy manner Yusuf emerged as the director-general of Engr. Musa Wada’s campaign organization has left many tongues wagging.

    The party was said to have appointed Yusuf for the position without making a public show of it because of its previous experiences with Melaye and Idris.

    A party source in the state told Sentry that the party decided to make Yusuf’s appointment a quiet affair to avoid a situation to avoid another embarrassing situation.