The Nation Newspaper

Category: Femi Orebe

  • Insecurity has become a national embarrassment; a disincentive to foreign direct investment

    I do not think any region should now wait for government before it takes steps to quell this ravaging insanity

    Relying on a multi- pronged study put  together  by International organisations such as OECD, IMF, DFID and Transparency International  to assess the health of the Nigerian economy on economic growth, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), a leading professional services firm, recently presented to the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo,  a frightening  report titled ‘Impact of Corruption on Nigeria’s Economy’. The report, presented by Mr. Uyi Akpata, Country and Regional Senior Partner, West Market Area concluded that by 2030, corruption could be costing Nigeria up to 37% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This, by any standard,  is a dire report, given  the fact that Nigeria has, for several years now,  been borrowing to finance its successive national budget. One , therefore, neither  needs be a trader on the Nigerian stock market  nor need  do  any extensive  studies to know that insecurity, as epitomised by daily kidnappings  all over the country  has  become, far more than  corruption ,  the sharpest dagger  at Nigeria’s solar plexus.

    Kidnapping has become so rampart, and overwhelming, that a journey, a mere 50 kilometres from one’s base, could now very well be the last his/her loved ones would ever see him alive. With Zamfara mines closed down by government, areas hitherto considered relatively safe in Yoruba land, like  the Ilesha – Akure axis, is now  seriously being described  as the ‘Southwest Zamfara’ of mayhem, where bandits  could now seize travellers, march them into deep jungles to rape,  sodomise, or out rightly kill,  if  a  hefty ransom is late in coming.  A bus load of CAC, Agbara Itura, Oke Odo, Lagos , members,  returning from a burial ceremony somewhere in Ekiti, was  recently reported to have escaped  such gruesome ordeal only because their driver courageously drove through a colony of well armed, rapid fire bandits. Also at around the same time, a haggling dialogue between one such kidnapper with his God forsaken broken English, and  the  kidnapped farmer’s  relation, in the  same  Southwest , now trending,  was ongoing, negotiating ransom, like the victim was a cartel. Not done, there is the story of another set of seven young women returning from a funeral in Ekperi Town near Auchi, who were kidnapped around Easter. Held for three weeks, at the end of which the families coughed out a N14M ransom, these poor women, wives and mothers, were reportedly “smelling from  rotten, and rotting flesh;  the result of  endless, violent rapes by different gangs of  bandits. Nor are these examples exhaustive of what disaster currently roams the land. Now is any war more brutal than these? Can the sinner’s biblical perdition of the last days be more gruesome?  What exactly is happening, and wont Ali Baba be completely out of his mind, to wish to come to Nigeria, in its present dire straits, to invest his funds, even though stolen? Who, today, would go and invest in Libya or Sudan, two countries Nigeria now equates to?

    How will all these reduce the punishing poverty ravaging the country as farmers have been forcibly made to abandon their farms on the pain of death, in all parts of the country, and food security, once taken for granted, is unerringly becoming a mirage? And God knows I am not talking of Boko Haram- ravaged North East or the North West home of bandits. Where exactly do we go from here? And when will government, federal, state and local, give this ogre the needed emergency surgery it deserves, rather than serving us the now meaningless “things are under control”, by the Nigerian police which, God forbid, some are already accusing of complicity? When will the president kick into motion his new love for true federalism and when will the council of state convoke the consultative forum needed to appropriately interrogate this looming apocalypse? When will local communities, under the lead of their traditional rulers be mobilised by state governors to own their respective security and when will each ethnic group wake up and kick into motion those things, and organs, e.g Egbesu in the Niger Delta area and OPC, Agbekoya etc, in Yoruba land, that had traditionally kept them at peace even in war times?  The Yoruba, for instance, are known to be absolutely capable of cursing its forests well enough to ensure that no home born traducer, or foreigner, can peaceably live within them to ignite chaos. I think that time has come if we are not to become IDPs ,even without any formal declaration  of war against us. I do not think any region should now wait for government before it takes steps to quell this ravaging insanity.

    All these, especially my suggestions here, become the more painful when it is realised that there was no dearth of warnings to various levels of government in all parts of the country. Though severely bugged down by the Boko Haram fiasco, there were more than enough warning to our security agencies to have taken preemptive measures against this national pandemic.

    One such study  was by Dr Abubakar Siddique Mohammed of the  Centre for Democratic Development Research and Training, Zango Shanu, Zaria. The study which had, as its focus: ‘Banditry, Kidnapping and Killings in Zamfara and Katsina states’,  and carried out a whole four years ago,  was so penetrating, it could very easily have served as a silver bullet  for resolving issues of insecurity, pan Nigeria. According to Dr Mohammed, the study started with the farmer/herders conflicts in the North-West states of Kaduna, Katsina, Sokoto and Zamfara, which he describes as the epicentre of insecurity in the North.  It started out as farmers/herders conflict but soon degenerated. In the areas studied, he said, were many ungoverned spaces: No electricity or  telecommunication, and local governments existed only in name. There was no presence of the state, as a want-away governor like Abdul’aziz Yari  of  Zamfara was more in Abuja than in Gusau, his state capital. The roads were extremely bad and the people left to their fate and devices. All these while taking huge monthly federal allocations from Abuja. The crisis soon  took ethnic coloration which is what has now spread all over the country with even some armed  bandits, from outside Nigeria, now ravaging the South, kidnapping, raping and killing, even as they become instant millionaires.

    Continuing, Dr Mohammed says this was the point at which the bandits acquired AK 47 rifles as a means of balancing the opposing terror. With these sophisticated weapons, Nigerians everywhere are now fair game. The study equally touched on the country’s security architecture which it concluded cannot successfully deal with the crisis. A 370,000 men/women strong police, it says, can never effectively cover the 774 local government areas and tackle the different security challenges in each. The same thing, it went on, goes for the army. Both, it concluded, had to be seriously expanded, and a third force established, as a bridge between the army and the police.

    Their numbers, and the capacity, are simply not enough, it says. “There are other factors that we have to deal with. The North-West is the poorest part of the country. We have so many educated boys who are unemployed and many more uneducated who have lost everything including hope. We must tackle the issue of poverty or the problem will keep escalating”, and, of course, spreading.

    Concluding, the researcher said: “We have been working in those areas for more than four years and we have made our findings public but no government agency has ever asked us what we have found.  The complexity of global politics has further complicated issues, so there is a need for a review of the security architecture. We need to introduce a new force;   a rapid force that is superior to the police, armed and rapid, to deal with banditry, superior to the police but inferior to the Nigerian Army. The army will now be left to protect the country’s territorial integrity”.

    If we are not to kill off every hope of economic development, increased GDP and, by our own ineffectiveness, reduce Foreign Direct Investment coming  into the country, government must move rapidly to put in place, processes towards true federalism, increase the numbers, and capacity of our security forces, as well as further aggressively tackle this grinding poverty. In the short run, all streets and forests in the country must be rid of kidnappers and killers, whatever fanciful names, they are called by.

  • The furore over cannabis and c

    There is no doubt that there is so much to know and fully appreciate in this dangerous engagement.

    I have in the past few weeks read fascinating, indeed tantalising articles, about how legalising cannabis, and making Nigeria a global player in the cannabis trade market would, ipso facto, turn our country into a global economic Eldorado. For its proponents, all Nigeria has to do is put appropriate laws in place to checkmate abuse as if  the trend in Nigeria is not to abuse every, and all, laws. I challenge them to prove that Nigeria is in the quagmire it is in today because of lack of laws. What one single law have Nigerians not abused and, even if there were any, aren’t there enough lawless security operatives to turn the other eye?

    I am not exactly getting involved in the debate; rather, I am yielding this column today, to one who should know, a medical doctor to boot, with decades of hands-on experience in the  handling of  the deleterious consequences of drug use/abuse. He is my dear aburo, the seminal Dr Dokun Adedeji, Director-General, Christ Against Drug Abuse Ministry (CADAM), as he takes us through the other side of the story.

    Lately, much dust has been raised about the economic opportunities inherent in the increasing global trade in cannabis. This debate had engaged the global players in the economy. The local fire was inflamed in Nigeria during our preparations for the General elections last year by one of our presidential candidates who campaigned on the promise that if he won, he would make Nigeria, a global player in the cannabis trade market.

    The temperature of the debate was increased last week when it was publicly stated that Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu, the Ondo State governor, with the NDLEA Chairman as part of his entourage, was in Thailand to study and advocate for Nigeria’s participation in the global cannabis market with Ondo State acting as the driver of the initiative.

    There is no doubt that there is so much to know and fully appreciate in this dangerous engagement.

    CADAM – Christ Against Drug Abuse Ministry – an NGO involved in various activities in preventive, treatment and rehabilitation and aftercare services to curb the frightening increasing trend in substance abuse in our nation, is greatly disturbed by this intention of the Ondo State Government and is for many reasons.

    I will come to that presently.

    But first, some facts about the present situation of drug/substance abuse in Nigeria and the efforts made over the years by the government, local NGOs and international agencies to curb or eliminate this scourge.

    The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) was established in 1989 through Decree 48 now Laws of the Federation 1990 charged to do the following – eliminating the growing, processing, manufacturing, selling, exporting and trafficking of hard drugs of which cannabis is a significant component. That Law has not been amended in any form to the best of our knowledge.

    Just recently, worried by the increasing involvement of our teenagers and youths in the use of dangerous and sometimes prescriptive drugs, with the attendant consequences of destructive practices amongst them and in the general population, the federal government inaugurated a Presidential Commission, PACEDA (Presidential Advisory Committee for the Elimination of Drug Abuse), to engage the various stakeholders in the society and thereby find a way to significantly deal with this societal menace.

    From our experience and interactions with this Committee, we are glad to say that a great work has been, and is being done.

    We must not truncate their intervention through this unnecessary distraction that seems to concern itself with economic benefits at the detriment of the social and personal health of our nation and its teeming, vulnerable youth population.

    It is important to highlight some frightening statistics that should worry every Nigerian about this growing epidemic.  We are, indeed, in an epidemic, and we better face that reality and team up with the federal government through PACEDA and all other agencies and bodies working in this drug prevention area.

    Recently, Prof. Moji Adeyeye, the Director-General of NAFDAC, told a shocked nation that over 70% of the youths in Kano State are on drugs!

    Let us also state that the codeine ban does not now seem to be the desired first approach. Before the ban, codeine-containing cough syrups were available for less than N1,000 but today, this same medication can be obtained by users for anything fromN5,000 to N10,000! We have just driven its sale underground and the market is booming to those who know where to purchase.

    It is a known fact from surveys that 90% of abusers are teenagers and young adults aged between 15-29. Most unfortunately and from our field experiences, the age of use is coming down even to as young as nine year olds!

    80% of substances traded in and used in Nigeria is cannabis/marijuana. And this is with its illicit growth and use. We can only then imagine what will happen when an unrestrained growth is permitted. How much of official deterrence is possible with the growing trend of various criminal activities that are stretching the capabilities of our law enforcement agencies?

    The following facts can be obtained from the 2018 UNODC Report published recently –

    • About 15 million Nigerians use drugs – this probably represents the total population of Ghana, Togo and Benin put together.
    • The above translates to about 14% of the population.
    • The South-West Region comprising of Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun and Ondo States account for about 22% of drug use and 14% of cannabis use.

    Lagos State accounts for about 33% of all drug use and 20% for cannabis. Oyo State – 23% of all drug use and 15% for cannabis. Ondo State has 17% of all drug use. Osun State 14% and Ekiti State, 12%.

    This is therefore not the time to join the global bandwagon of cannabis trade. The consequences of this action will hurt us in the future coming on the heels of the dangers of the present unchecked trend.

    There is no doubt that there are medical benefits of cannabis but all these are done under controlled environment and for specific ailments or purposes.

    Some of the constituents in cannabis like cannabinoids THC ( tetra hydrocannabinol) cannabinol(CBN) and cannabidiol (CBD) – used in the treatment of childhood epilepsy, neuropsychiatric disorders, cancers, anxiety, etc are still being researched even as they are being used. That should be the direction of engagement in our opinion.

    It is known that about 10 States in the USA have legalised the use of cannabis for recreational purposes and Canada did the same last year.

    Many of these states are beginning to register an emergency room increases in the reported cases of psychoses. Colorado has reported about 40% increase. Every care is needed to understand the trend and therefore protect the future of our young population. The future is more pregnant for the growth and development of our Nation than the immediate pecuniary benefits of today. Whoever sows the wind will reap the whirlwind.

    We in CADAM do not think that with the present situation, we should tinker with what we have not properly researched and articulated an evidence-based approach.

    The global cannabis market offers about 32 billion dollars potential according to the BDS and ArcviewMarket research. About 23 industries ranging from medical to pharmaceutical and others, are angling for a part of the groovy train but a lot of work need to be done here before we jump into the ocean of seeming opportunities. We must learn to swim first!

    We are pleased by the immediate intervention of the General Buba Marwa led PACEDA in the debate.

    Nigeria can ill-afford to join the global fad without understanding what the consequences may be, particularly with the precarious state of our own local drug/substance use situation.

    In conclusion, as indicated in our proposal presented to PACEDA during their visit to Lagos State in April 2019 and to various state governments we have approached to partner with in their various initiatives to combat this menace, we are again stating publicly that we are against any surreptitious moves to ‘legalise’ the growth, production and consequent use of cannabis without any template to counter its consequences.

    We are willing to partner with the federal government, the state governments (as we are already doing with Lagos State), the local governments, every other local and international agencies to combat the menace of drug and substance abuse.

    Nigeria is in an epidemic and we must all work together to save the soul of our nation and the lives of our young population who look up to us for the safety of their future.

  • Kayode Fayemi as Chairman Nigerian Governors’ Forum: The man for the time

    The NGF must confront insecurity on a non party basis

    Innumerable congratulations, Excellency. We are here today for serious business so let it suffice for me to say, as I mentioned in my text message to you, that  I have sent you five congratulatory messages in as many months, and by His grace, good news will never seize in your household. Amen.

    The emergence of Dr Kayode Fayemi – former, and serving, Governor of Ekiti state , an academic and policy wonk, with a doctoral degree in War Studies from King’s College, University of London who, though governed the state with about the ‘littlest’ monthly federal allocation, still turned out the first ever Nigerian state governor to pay a monthly stipend to the elderly, a policy he ensured, as Director of Policy for the APC, at inception, became the corner piece of the Buhari administration’s social investment programme – at a time like this, cannot have been more apt.His educational and political trajectory, not forgetting his democracy credentials should, to a great extent, serve not only him, the Nigerian Governors’ Forum , but also a currently, highly traumatised Nigeria, besotted with some grueling, multi- faceted challenges, amongst them economic, and wide ranging insecurity. Governor Fayemi could possibly not have been better prepared for the challenges eagerly awaiting the distinguished  members of the NGF .

    Of these, I shall draw attention to only two very critical issues, with the pervasive, almost intractable, national insecurity, topping the list. The other is the emerging Local Government/Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) snafu at a time the President has just spoken about the inevitability of true federalism, if Nigeria is to make a headway.

    How the  in – coming Chairman leads his colleagues to tackle these two problems will not only assist governance at the federal level, it will significantly determine whether, or not, we are a serious nation, and  understand, how far we have regressed in recent years because of our divisive, and anti developmental politics. Nobody will easily forget how the NGF stood, ramrod, against every attempt by President Goodluck Jonathan to save for the rainy day. When recession subsequently hit the country with crude oil selling at its lowest in decades, the governors were the first to shout blue murder. One of Governor Fayemi’s greatest challenges would be how to moderate the greed of his governor – colleagues, many of who are already dead set in their ways.

    He obviously should need no telling about how the rampaging insecurity in the country can effortlessly mess up all his APC federal government has achieved in the past 4 years. Insecurity has become so pervasive that not a few state governors had literally sang the Nunc Dimitis. Indeed, his immediate predecessor felt no shame, whatever, asking that a state of emergency be declared in his state. This speaks largely to the needless, and totally unhelpful, unitarism currently in place in Nigeria.

    Under his leadership, the NGF must confront insecurity on a non party basis as no bandit, no Boko Haram or kidnapper asks what political party his would be victim belongs to. The Forum must thoroughly interrogate the causes, and not just the evidences of insecurity, several of which we see on a daily basis. So horrible is it in Katsina that the President, this past week, despatched  top military and other security personnel to the state. The governors must help themselves too. They must establish a synergy with the National Assembly, work amicably with that arm of government to facilitate the creation of state police when the much talked about community police would become truly operational. They should also work towards affecting a massive increase in the number of our serving police men who are currently evidently overworked.. There is also the much needed constitutional  amendment  that will have state commissioners of police being made responsible to state governors. Incidentally, these things  require no rocket science if only all arms of government will work harmoniously for the sake of the people.

    As you read this, it is not only Abuja-Kaduna road that is a death trap. There are many such roads, and axis, all over the country; not forgetting that many Sambisa-like forests, all over the country, have reportedly been taken over by kidnappers who operate in 10’s, and 20’s, brandishing weapons that are alien to our security forces. It will be quite helpful if, under Governor Fayemi’s leadership, our governors would work in harmony with the Executive to ensure that these ragamuffins are cleared from wherever they are hiding. Otherwise, Nigeria risks a great diminution of the advances the Buhari government has made in agriculture since many communities, in different parts of the country, have since abandoned their farms as a result of the bestiality of murderous Fulani herdsmen. The NGF, as first responders in stares under attack, must help the executive to fashion out a reasonable, safe and equitable way out of the present situation. Needless to say, increasing decertification, and climate change, in general, must  induce some consideration for the millions of herders we have in Nigeria. But those of them, in their thousands, who have transmogrified into armed robbers and kidnappers must be flushed out..

    Olakunle Abimbola describes it as ‘baiting a needless crisis”. However, the incipient war between the executive, the NGF and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) may end up needing a Treaty of Versailles to resolve and that would only be tentative because had Versailles succeeded, Hitler’s war, aka World War 11, would most probably not have occurred. This coming war is tricky; positioned as it is, betwixt the anti- corruption war, Buhari’s numero uno programme, and true federalism to which he recently sang some panegyrics. Governors would have a titanic struggle to  douse the claim that many of them have  been fleecing Local Government funds and, ipso facto, rendering that level of government literally useless. But theirs would be no less herculean than the combined ammo of  both the Feds and the NFIU would have to contend with. The brickbats are already flying but, not being learned, I shall not get into any legalistic disquisition. Rather, I shall, respectfully, press into service an evergreen statesman, the one and only Uncle Bola Ige who, for me, has clinically finished the Local Government debate.

    I quoted the Cicero as follows on these pages in an article  on Sunday, 30 July 2017:

    “In his column in The Sunday Tribune of 27 April, 1996 from which I shall quote at some length Chief Ige wrote: “anyone who has a good knowledge of the local government system, its history, theory and practice, not only in Nigeria but also in civilized countries, cannot be surprised at what is happening in various parts of the country since the Federal Military Government announced the “creation “of new local government areas. I personally have been shocked and pained by the violence that has been unleashed in some places and I am apprehensive that the tinder box is waiting to be ignited in some places where uneasy calm exists. There are modalities that govern local government systems all over the civilized world. The first is that a local government must be truly government at local level. In other words, the people of a given area must be allowed to come together, of their own accord, and in a spirit of agreeing to some sort of social contract, to run their local affairs. The community must of course be easily identifiable – usually they must be people of the same stock, or citizens who inhabit a town, or a village or a quarter as existed both during the colonial times and when we had regions. That was also what happened when I was governor of the old Oyo State. Local government system was based on emirates where they existed or administrative units where there were no emirates in the North; in the West, it was based on the combination of the Obaship system and innate democratic inclinations of the peoples of Western Nigeria; in the East where the people were largely republican, the local government system was based on the clan. Unfortunately, the Murtala-Obasanjo federal military government began the nonsense that has remained with us. Pretending that they wanted a better Local Government administration, they set up a Commission, headed by Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki. In my opinion, the recommendations of that commission were the worst disaster to have happened to local government system in Nigeria. For instance, it was from there that the idea of uniformity in size, scope and administration was introduced”

    The Yoruba in discussing a matter like this would say, O so si ni lenu, O bu iyo si meaning somebody farted in your mouth and instantly added salt”.

    The new NGF Chairman will be expected to put into navigating these, and other critical issues of state, his well known perspicacity, experience and love of Fatherland.

    I wish him well.

  • Insecurity: It is time for a Marshall plan for the North

    Looking back now, I completely agree with Tony Sani, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) Secretary-General who, in a recent exchange of mails, told me that Nigeria is a big river, being fed by tributaries, and that when one tributary is poisoned, the river will be polluted. A comparable Yoruba  proverb, translated loosely, has it that, if your flat mate is eating what would make him/her cough all night, and you keep quiet, rather than warn him, it is unlikely you too would sleep. Nigerians will remember that Northern political leaders of the pre, and early independence era were, however, warned about the  inescapable consequences of denying any section of the region western education. The whirlwind is here with us and no part of the country can now begin to gloat because one of those tributaries feeding Nigeria has been massively poisoned, and the entire land is in trouble. We cannot now begin to finger point; rather, we must work together to design a marshal plan that will stop this our collective march to Golgotha.

    Writing this past week, under the caption: Southwest Under Siege – The Nation , Thursday, 16 May, 2019 – Tunde Oluwajuyitan opined: “While government’s apparent loss of grip in the besieged communities in the north has led to increased hostilities among the restive ethnic groups, the southwest that has always been home to those fleeing from the war zones of the North, and others that seek peaceful environment to actualize their potentials, is fast becoming the new theatre of war”. To understand what Dr Oluwajuyitan is saying here is to know that the Southwest was by far the most peaceful part of this country until some light years ago.

    All that has changed.

    Wrote Gen A K Togun (rtd) recently: “I have been fighting Bororo scourge in Oke Ogun and Ibarapa areas since year 2000 under the auspices of  Ifedapo  Security Movement. I started the Vigilante system which has spread beyond Oke Ogun into Yoruba land. ODCF & Oke Ogun Council of Elders have adopted Ifedapo Security Movement as Oke Ogun Security Committee with me as the Chairman. I am also the Security Consultant to the Yoruba through Yoruba Council of Elders ( YCE). When Fulani herdsmen issue came up in Nigeria more than 3 years ago, Yoruba made it clear that no Yoruba governor should give land to the Fulani herdsmen anywhere in Yoruba land. But there is a recalcitrant Baale in Oke Ogun,  who is not only harbouring Bororos, but selling land to them. Some two months ago, he received, and  settled, 4 trailer loads of Bororos in 10 locations”.

    That is not all. It is, indeed, far worse.

    According to a release signed by both the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of AOKOYA, a coalition of several Pan Yoruba self-determination groups which includes the Yoruba Nationalist League, (YONL) Association of Yoruba Retired Officers, (AYORO), Federation of Ilaje Peoples, (FEIP), Itsekiri Peoples Alliance, (IPA), Oodua Peoples Congress, (OPC), Oodua Revolutionary Coalition, (OREC), Agbekoya, Oodua Students Alliance, (OSA)  there are 1,123 cells belonging to armed Fulani herdsmen, in forests and highlands, across Yoruba territory. The cells, according to the press release, are well organized and appear to network with each other. Their mission, they  say, are unknown, but it would  appear that they  have lately began martial training.  The cells, they further assert, are manned by between 30 to 50 young armed Fulani herdsmen, whose focus is kidnapping and rape, and the imposition of a state of siege on Yoruba land”.

    Only a fool would believe that all these facts are unknown to the Nigerian security forces whose leadership may, of course, not be keen on seeing anything sinister given the findings of the Chinua Achebe Leadership Centre which, in a related research, alleges complicity between them and the herd owners..

    I state all this publicly for the following reasons:

    *For the Nigerian  authorities to know what a keg of gun powder  Nigeria is sitting on;

    *For the authorities to know that a shooting war, as is currently going on, will not solve the problem and as I wrote here  last week, how many of these hapless people would you kill? And that is even if the leadership of the Nigeria security apparatti is keen on shedding the blood of a single Fulani herdsman..

    * To put a lie to Alhaji Atiku Abibakar’s words to the effect that: “”Unless Nigerians vote out the All Progressives Congress administration, killings by herdsmen will continue, and ultimately, spark series of ethno-religious crises that will be irreversible”.

    And finally, but most importantly, to call on the hundreds of billionaires in the North to kick start  a MARSHALL PLAN  for the  rehabilitation of  the millions of Almajiris/out of school children from which the evil groups now tormenting Nigeria conduct about the easiest of recruitments  because these flotsam and jetsam of Northern Nigeria must, willy nilly, eat.

    This  should remind us all of the gospel  which Bill Gates, the world’s second richest man, preached to the Nigerian government during the special session of the expanded National Economic Council held in Abuja, on Thursday, March 22, 2018.

    For me, there are  two eloquent  takeaways from that speech:

    *That  the Nigerian government’s execution plan focuses more on physical capital, over and above  human capital development,  which doesn’t fully reflect people’s needs, and,

    *That the Nigerian government should maximise its greatest resource, which is the Nigerian people, saying that the country can only thrive when every citizen is able to thrive.

    The time is now, for that slew of Northern billionaires to begin to deploy their billions towards uplifting the living standard of their compatriots whose sole attraction to them, presently, is their groveling rankadede obsequiousness. The time is now to go into every nook and cranny of every hamlet, village, town and city in the North, grab every Almajiri of between  ages 18 and 30  and  enroll them in fully equipped skills acquisition centres, while the others, 15 and below, should be sent to heavily expanded schools.  State governors who,  year in year out, are being accused by EFCC of stealing billions of naira, should now be properly monitored, to  ensure that they spend funds only on  those things that would make life better for the people. It is in the interest of the rich to rehabilitate these wretcheds of the earth, lest the rampaging insecurity now overtaking the entire country , or even war, wipes off all they are aggressively storing up for their unborn generations, as if those ones would be born with their hands tied behind their backs.

    Nothing stops Sambisa forest  from becoming the largest skills’ acquisition centre in the whole world given the millions of  trainees that would have to be enlisted in the various programmes. Of course, their Southern counterparts  must also generously contribute to this Marshall Plan. They only have to remember their flat mates eating what would make them cough all night, and render them, in turn, sleepless. It must be obvious to all today that to sanitise, and stabilise the North, is to remove more than half of our security challenges. This proposal has nothing, whatever, to do with politics. It should therefore be completely party blind. Nor should it cost the Federal Government a dime.

    The sponsors would only be giving back to society, and humanity, but they would end up the real beneficiaries because the poor they are rehabilitating, unlike them, actually have nothing to lose.

    We must, forever, appreciate our fighting forces, many of who had given the utmost in their service to the ; but continued killings, on both sides, will at the end, do our country no good. Rule of law must, instead, be allowed to take its rightful place in our affairs. In the meantime our uniformed men and women  should be deployed to  go and rout all those armed gangs who are alleged to have built fortresses in forests  all over the country while each ethnic group must also stand up for their own salvation, whatever that will take.

    A stitch in time, they say, saves nine.

    Once these evil people have been accounted for, one way or the other, the North must, meaningfully, confront its ballooning population, which is guaranteed to worsen the Nigerian conundrum, if unchecked.

     

    ARE NIGERIANS THIS SHAMELESS?

    The World’s Athletic Federation (IAAF) in 2017, mistakenly paid the Nigerian Athletic Federation (NAF) $150,000, instead of the $15,000 it pays to members annually. It immediately requested refund. But for where? Or is it not Nigeria?

    Some shameless Nigerians are still sitting on that money which they had, most probably, quaffed.

    Now, IAAF has given a fresh 2 week ultimatum for the refund,  failing which, a global ban would be slammed on Nigeria and all her athletes.

    Does the Ministry of Sports still have a minister?

    He should have been long gone.

    But then this is Nigeria.

     

     

     

  • That Nigeria may not go burst before our very eyes

    The 2019 general elections over with the candidate I support, sitting President Muhammadu Buhari, returned to office with a whooping over 3M plurality of votes over his main opponent, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, I think the time has come for me, and all who love this country to talk truth, not just to power, but to ourselves. I say this because of the dire, and extremely precarious, circumstances Nigeria now finds itself, only marginally better than  Somali,Sudan and  Syria at the apogee of its recent mass murders, especially after Russia escalated the all time butchery to a World War 11 killing equivalent .

    While in Syria the casus belli was regime preservation, ours – banditry, kidnapping and  terrorism as in Boko Haram, are  largely the consequences of a century old feudalism in Northern Nigeria. And it is not as if the Northern aristocracy was not warned because Awo did, severally, and repeatedly, pointing out  the disadvantages of mass illiteracy, and without a doubt, his free and compulsory education, introduced in the West in 1955, ought to have served as enough leitmotif for the then entire three regions. It must today be haunting that leadership that when Ahmadu Bello encouraged education in the Southern fringes of the North, especially in today’s Kwara and parts of Kogi- areas where professors are now literally three for a penny, in the core North going to school was  seen as reducing the rankadede battalon made up of the poor and their children.

    With the present revolt of the Almajiri, the chicken have come home to roost.

    It may be apposite at this stage to mention that in the admission exercises to both the University Colleges of Jos and Ilorin, both of which I had first hand experiences of, to complete the portion allocated to catchment areas(North) we had to admit, start from below, that is, from the lowest per cent marks. This is why I was not surprised to  hear that in this year’s admission into the country’s Unity Schools, cut off points were as follows, courtesy a  trending Whatsapp chat.

    Anambra : 139, Rivers: 130

    Katsina :14, Lagos:150

    Kwara:144, Kano :18

    Forget, meanwhile, that appointments or recruitments into federal government jobs and agencies, respectively, are the exact opposite of the above with North always having the lion share of everything, the down side really is that in any Northern village, town or city today, there are hundreds, if not thousands of  literal lay abouts, almajiris,  in particular, not only waiting but,  actually, praying to be recruited into any of these murderous gangs presently  tormenting the country but especially the North where, as you read this, nine year old  kids are  being wired with bombs to go and effect maximum killings.

    Equally as you read this, one or two conferences are ongoing hearing how  many police, /army or air force emergency teams are  being set up to confront the bandits. But truth be told, how many of these  helpless people will you kill and how effective  would that method be, in reality, when for every one bandit or Boko Haram killed, twenty are waiting, pleading to be recruited to be able to feed, at all?

    This  means that the challenges are rather intractable and it is exactly why leaders and the security forces must now  think out of the box and come up with fresh paradigms to confront a problem that has metastasized  to an extent that you cannot now say any part of Nigeria is safe.

    For instance, we have now  learnt that the miners banned from Zamfara had relocated to Osun state in search of gold;  most parts of Yoruba land, as we would show below,  have been infiltrated by filthy looking Fulani herdsmen who translate into kidnappers once they have sold off their herds, communicating, with top grade handsets with their  well heeled controllers located outside the region.

    In resolving this horrendous menace which is fast spreading to Yoruba land, and instead of  attending to  which the El Rufais of Arewa land, are Afghanising, looking for godfathers in faraway  Yoruba land, it is with all emphasis at my disposal, that I endorse the following steps, recently suggested as solutions. As encapsulated in a statement signed on behalf of the Yoruba Koya Leadership and Training Foundation by the duo of the group’s Convener, Otunba Deji Osibogun and a Trustee, Senator Tokunbo Ogunbanjo a “wake up call” has gone  to all Governors and Governors-elect in South West Geopolitical Zone , urging them to give the region’s security maximum consideration. They are to take actions aimed at safeguarding their people as posterity would never forgive any of them who look askance when Yoruba land is being run aground, surrounded..

    According to the group, Yoruba Land has been encircled by external criminals masquerading as herdsmen and they are mostly from Kebbi, Katsina, Kano, Sokoto and some West African Countries,  who are being dropped, daily in Yoruba Land, by Heavy Duty Trucks. They are to be found inside forests in Oke-Ogun axis of Oyo State; Ido/Osi, Ikole, Oye, Irepodun/Ifelodun, Ijero and Efon-Alaaye areas of Ekiti State; Obafemi Owode, Remo and Ayetoro-Imeko in Ogun State; Ife/Ijesha / Iwaraja in Osun state and Akoko-Owo-Akure land in Ondo state, pretending to be herdsmen who rear cows during the day but are, in reality,  kidnappers and armed robbers.

    Most of the freed kidnapped victims, when interrogated by this group’s Security and Intelligence Team have confirmed that their abductors are mostly Fulani herdsmen, some of whom are non-Nigerians. “Consequently, they continued: we call on all Governors in Yoruba Land, including the incoming ones, to as a matter of urgency, set machinery in motion to flush out these criminals.

    “To start with, all heavy duty trucks, and trailers, coming into Yoruba Land should be thoroughly searched at border towns. All herdsmen in Yoruba Land must be duly registered and put on jacket/uniform whenever, and wherever, they are located.. According to the group, these people are now penetrating into Lagos State under the guise of  being okada riders, whereas, they are advance teams, digging for information to be delivered to their  compatriots for operations.

    “We therefore suggest that a Law be enacted to ensure that all Okada riders operating in Lagos State should be registered, at designated centres across the state, with their Bank Verification Numbers taken. Jackets with registration numbers must be issued to them after meeting all requirements and payment of registration fees. Anyone caught riding commercial motorcycles without uniform should be arrested and charged to court in accordance with the appropriate laws,” the group said.

    The group further appeals to all Landlords and Community Development Associations (CDAs) to thoroughly fulfil all tenets of Know Your Customers (KYC) before engaging Security Guards so as not to live with enemies within.

    The group is saying, by all these: Orisa bo le gbe mi, fi mi si le bo se ba mi meaning we  will help ourselves if the federal government will not..

    However, I am at a complete loss when everybody thinks President Buhari is the only man to tackle and solve these problems in the North. As already mentioned, these problems are a century old, if not more, and every leadership cadre in that part of the country is vicariously liable for its increasing Somalisation but, more especially the elected governors. Unfortunately rather than massively invest in education and agriculture, and passionately invest in human capital development, what we see at the end of their tenure , are most of them being hauled before courts by the EFCC to account for billions of naira they have allegedly stolen. And these are people who don’t miss a year’s hadj to Mecca or pilgrimage to Jerusalem, thinking they can mock God.

    I have wondered to no end  as to when Northern leaders would show remorse in the North being a massive drain on a country to which they contribute the least since, by neglecting the care of the people, literally all means of productivity have gone kapüt, the once flourishing textile mills are as dead as dodo; agriculture with its massive irrigation infrastructure has become a life and death affair – no thanks to Boko Haram – and herding which used to characterise peaceful, stick wielding herdsmen, has since been weaponised, whether at home in the North or in the fartherest precincts of Southern Nigeria.

    Today, apart from taking care of millions of IDPS , the North is daily gulping billions, in all currences, for equipping, and maintaining, all manner of ‘Puff arders”, the most expansive, to date, being: Air force Operation ‘Diran Mikiya’, with a coordinated air strike and a force package of two attack helicopters, 1000 policemen with counter terrorism unit (CTU), federal special anti-robbery squad (FSARS), anti-bomb (EOD) squad, “Operation Maximum Safety” with 510 police personnel and 40 patrol vehicles”.

    More annoying, however, is that there are no clear signs of abatement to the rampaging banditry.

    Therefore, true Federalism is the only answer.

  • To a loyal reader of this column

    I cannot now remember how long Emmanuel Egwu of Ebonyi State  has been a dedicated reader of this column but I have  known him as a constant source of encouragement for the little we try to do on these pages. He has been both a critic and a source of encouragement as he has, week in week out, taken time out to comment on all the articles appearing here in the column. He has certainly been an adrenalin booster for me too but we shall come to him shortly.

    For now, let us deal with a matter of urgent national interest.

    I have lately come to attach less, and less importance, to things emanating from a wing of Afenifere but all that disappeared, however momentarily, after I read Senator Femi Okunrounmu say as quoted below on the maximum thievery going on in the National Assembly which has, again,  just awarded itself N23B as severance package for its members, atop the humongous amount of money they haul home monthly. According to newspaper reports, Senator Okunrounmu was reported as saying: “We have been commenting for years without any appreciable result to show for it. Nigerians are so docile; they are a very docile people who fail to take necessary action to prevent recurrence of an incident like this” “Otherwise, the National Assembly will not embark on this type of journey when Nigerians are suffering. All the recklessness would have stopped if Nigerians cared. The National Assembly can take all the money and Nigerians would keep quiet.”So, my comment would amount to nothing because whatever we say, the National Assembly will still do what it intends to do and get away with it. They make ridiculous budgetary allocations to themselves; they collect money recklessly and spend with impunity”.”We are aware of the kind of provisions they make to themselves regularly. We know what a senator takes home every month compared to what Nigerian workers earn. We have been commenting on this for years, but what have we done about it? “The National Assembly lawmakers know they can do what they are doing and get away with it, hence they are not bothered. We can stop them if only we get on our feet and march on the National Assembly. We must say enough is enough.”

    As I have written severally on these pages when will Nigerians wake up to their own salvation? By the way how many heads do we think Algerians, Sudanese or Venezuelans, have tat they all troop ot against bad governance?. Must we, the people, too look askance if the federal government would not lift a finger towards ending this roguery?

    Any way Fela had long ago sang for the Mumus of Nigeria in SORROW, TEARS and BLOOD when he sang:

    “People self they fear too much

    We fear for the thing we no see

    We fear for the air around us

    We fear to fight for freedom

    We fear to fight for liberty

    We fear to fight for justice

    We fear to fight for happiness

    We always get reason to fear:

    We no wan die

    We no wan wound

    We no wan quench

    We no wan go

    I get one child

    Mama dey for house

    Papa dey for house

    I wan build house

    I don build house

    I no want quench

    I want enjoy

    I no wan go

    Ah!

    So na like this we go dey look?

    God bless the duo of  Monday Ubani and John Nwokwu, two lawyers who  have dragged the Attorney General of the Federation, Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC, the Senate and House of Representative before a Federal High Court in Lagos over huge salaries, allowances and remunerations being collected by National Assembly members. Also joined in the suit which was filed on Thursday is the National Assembly Service Commission. In an originating summons filed before the court, the two lawyers are asking the court to determine whether by relevant sections of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the National Assembly members had the power to fix their salaries, wages, remuneration or allowances.

    “In an affidavit in support of the suit, sworn to by Ubani, he contended that based on relevant sections of the constitution, it was illegal for the National Assembly members to continue to collect the sum of N13.5 million monthly as running cost, N750,000.00 as consolidated salary and allowance and N200 million constituency project allowance as revealed by recent newspaper publications.

    Ubani argued that by virtue of relevant sections of the 1999 constitution as amended, RMAFC is the only authority permitted to fixed the salaries, allowances and remuneration of political office holders, including that of National Assembly members.

    He further contended that the actions of the defendants have continuously depleted the national economy, subjected Nigerians into hardship and exposed the country into economic recession.

    He also argued that the defendants by their action connived and colluded with themselves to rob Nigerians of their common patrimonies, wreck economic havoc and economic earthquake on the national economic development. Consequently , Ubani and his co-plaintiff are asking the court to among other things, make a declaration that RMAFC is the  only body responsible for determining, the salaries, remuneration and/or allowances of the National Assembly or political office holders.

    They also want the court to make an order that the each member of the National Assembly should refund to the federation account the sum of N13.5 million and N10 million respectively collected as running cost since 2015 till date,  within 14 days of delivery of judgment”.

    Nigerians would soon know whether the law serves the people, or the mighty.

    Back then to my friend Egwu

    Egwu has been absolutely untiring, commenting, at some length, on each and every one of my articles here. I reproduce below two of his comments which are, however, edited for space purposes.

    On: The mega-scandal of predatory legislature

    “Except that Nigeria is a place where God is always for all, and everyone for himself, your write up on the above subject,  and the stirring argument you appropriately brought to bear on it,  should have been enough for long suffering Nigerians to troop out, en mass , in a redemptive revolution to ensure an end to this brazen legislative banditry, on top of the humongous salaries they haul  home monthly even as millions of Nigerians are not sure as to where their next meal would come from. If only the people would all rise and do  the  needful to stop this cruel enslavement by the NASS, and curtail other excesses in government, I have no doubt, whatever, that the economy would record a massive turn around and our politics will become far less predatory , and killing, since money is at the root of our ugly politics.

    The North: Militancy and banditry and the rest of us

    Thanks for your interactive style which would always make matters more comprehensible, and a lot clearer. The Zamfara mayhem is simply a case of sowing and reaping. The north’s religion, or cultural heritage, permits the existence of Alamjiris, a group of somewhat abandoned children, most of who cannot trace their parents in a thousand years, and therefore, a sitting duck for recruitment by Boko Haram and other vagabond groups now tormenting the North. They go about in search of crumbs falling off from the master’s table just as they  beg for arms and wander about. This they do daily while the rich live in stupendous opulence in the same community. It is unimaginable the rich never thought these people would one day become societal monsters. When they start asking questions about how they grew into a life so nasty, brutish and short, and there are no satisfactory answers, the  result is what we are now seeing in the North

    The answer to all these lies in providing massive incentives for educating the youth both in Zamfara and other affected states. This must be followed up with the provision of quality youth empowerment programmes to engage the youths and the downtrodden of the areas in meaningful ventures. A hungry man is an angry man, and an idle mind will ever remains the devil’s workshop.

    Good governance and people-oriented leadership is the ultimate and enduring solution.

     

  • The North: Militancy, banditry and the rest of us

    “It is really crunch time.
    This harvest of despair is the product of many years of servile bondage, repression, suppression, deliberate pauperization of the people and placing their destinies and lives at impossible angles. My late father used to warn the Northern elite. This is morning yet, the Somalization of the far North is fast becoming a reality – Dr Nwagwu CC

    Completely unknown to me that this newspaper would be running an interview it had with Anthony N. Z Sani, my friend, and Secretary- General of the Arewa Consultative Forum in its edition of Sunday, 14 April 2019 in which, incidentally, my own article: IT IS CRUNCH TIME appeared, I had written to him as follows three days earlier on Friday, 12 April, 2019:

    “Tony what’s the problem with the North? Please talk to me at some length. Why has the North become a killing field? Is it that human lives mean nothing up there? I am at a complete loss; so am raising these questions in my column this Sunday. Without a doubt feudalism, I guess, is at the root of Northern problems. For far too long education was denied to the children of the poor. Of course, you know that more than religion, illiteracy is the problem and it is what invigorates Boko Haram. But who and who is funding BH and are our security agencies so helpless they can’t find them out all this while? Has it occurred to Northern leaders the region is becoming a massive drain on the country?

    What is the exact cause of the problems in Zamfara?

    However, the million dollar question really is: how do we exit these North- inspired problems? Please feel free to share this  within your circle so we can generate well distilled reactions”.

    Never known to disappoint, Tony wrote back as follows:

    “Good morning and thank you for the concerns. I think there is a swarm of locust in the land and we do not seem to know the pests. Hence our inability to device the appropriate pesticides. I am happy some of you down there are also concerned. This is because Nigeria is a big river being fed by tributaries, and when one tributary is poisoned, the whole river is contaminated.

    When  in 2011 there was post elections problems and the hoodlums burnt down  some traditional rulers’ houses, Prof Bolaji Akinyemi called and warned about the consequences of destroying the only platform of effective control in the North. To him, it is not time to dismiss the vestiges of indirect rule. That is, he saw wisdom in indirect rule by the British. Then there was the problem of education whose slow pace of development in the North cannot be blamed entirely on the leadership all of who could not possibly be depicted as feckless. I told him to consider the time Western education started in the South and when it reached the North which is almost a century. There is also the factor of unbridled growth in population. I mentioned “unbridled growth in population” because, the rate is not commensurate with growth of the economy, hence  the poverty that comes with unemployment. For instance, the population of Nigeria and Britain were at par at our independence but today  Britain is 62M while  Nigeria is about 180M.

    What rate of GDP can cope with such increase?

    Without a doubt, the challenges are  far more overwhelming than  the capacity of the leaders, considering the difference between the level of education at independence, and today, in the North. The difference is much. Somehow, I believe in what Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore once wrote that: order, justice, liberty, common decency, and prosperity, are never the natural order of things but  are attained through ceaseless hard work by the leaders, and the led,  and  that there is no country or society that is perfect. What matters when challenges arise is consciously directed effort to overcome them. I believe that President Buhari has what it takes to overcome our challenges.

    Terrorism is universal, and unfolding; and Nigeria has predisposing factors that encourage it. The sponsors of BH may not  even be Nigerians. During one of our interactions with Alhaji Atiku Abubakar on the underlying factors of  terrorism or insecurity, he traced BH to thugs used by Gov Kachalla and Senator Modu Sheriff. The same thing with Niger Delta militants and in Benue State where Gana, who was the leader of political thugs, has turned out the terror Frankenstein monster.

    Whether he is right or not, one cannot say.

    When the minister of finance (read Defence) accused traditional rulers in Zamfara of complicity in banditry, I had my doubts. But sad if it is true.  Then it might be born out of fear  which one  can liken to the Palestinian saga. When asked why they did not expose Hamas members, the Palestinians said doing so would have made Hamas kill them at night, and as they feared to expose them, the Israelis bombed them making them losers, either way. In the same way, our soldiers killed many village heads in  the North East during the President Jonathan administration, because of the suspicion that they shielded members of the sects which they did out of fear.  When PMB came in, and overwhelmed the sects, the same villagers started to give information to the security people. In the same way, some traditional rulers in Zamfara  may shield the bandits  out 0f fear for their peoples’ safety.

    Sani and I went on, and on, in a few exchanges but let’s cut to the chase and properly distil  his full throated piece in which he identified: lack of education,  uncontrolled and unbridled population growth and poor governance. It is  sad that poor governance continues till today as exemplified in the 10M plus out of school  children who  wander about as Almajeris whilst the governors go about in their free flowing babarigas, at best buying  them Okadas after which they are trucked down, in their hundreds, to every nook and cranny of the South, as Okada riders maiming themselves as well as their patrons.

    I am sure the governors call this Youth Empowerment. May Allah forgive them.

    So what has been the response of the Northern elite to the debilitating factors so perspicaciously identified by the Secretary – General of the ‘numero uno’ Northern group which, for once, this past week, weighed in on the progressive Somalisation of the region when it called on President Buhari to stop the killings?

    Northern political elite read politics into it when, before and after independence, Awo drew their attention to what trouble the North was breeding when it chose, deliberately, not to educate the children of the poor, when it looked askance at both the Western and Eastern regions putting massive investment into education. Today village chiefs, even some minor Emirs,  are being chased out of their palaces. And like Dr Nwagwu wrote in my intro, this, unfortunately, is  only the beginning, as Somali, Sudan and Syria have shown.

    With regards to over population what was the North’s take away when during the 2015 campaigns Mrs Patience Jonathan, poked fun at the North on account of its many children most of who are thrown into the streets from early age? Which one single governor made a move towards checking his state’s unproductive population growth ? Or which cleric lent a hand in their tough preaching’s which governor El Rufai had to warn against? The North has many, if not most, of our highly regarded and adorned monarchs. What has any of them done to mitigate the factors that continue to undermine the North economically, and socially, but never politically?

    Isn’t political, even traditional power, for a purpose?

    How exactly has the Northern traditional and religious elite – helped to positively impact governance at both national, and sub national levels, and how are they currently helping a seemingly overwhelmed President Buhari? Or wasn’t it only this past week we heard that Zamfara monarchs are helping bandits with intelligence? Have they taken out time to reflect on a future when the North begins to reap the  real whirlwind?

    And do they, or the North in general, ever reflect on what a drain it has become on the national treasury even as nothing points to a remediation of current realities at a time when the country’s entire security apparatchik lies smack in the hands of Northerners who are supposed to know, and be familiar, with the terrain? Finally, like Sani wrote, the Northern elite must reflect on the fact that:”Nigeria is a big river being fed by tributaries, and when one tributary is poisoned, the whole river is contaminated”.

    They should, therefore, turn a new leaf, help out, and be their brothers’ keepers, as the holy books enjoin us all.

     

  • It is crunch time

    With the Nok and Sokoto civilisations dating back to between 800 BCE and 200 CE and the Fulani Islamising Hausa in the early 19th century, (Sokoto Caliphate, 1803) even though Hausa aristocracy had accepted Islam from Malians as far back as the 14c, I have many times wondered at what manner of humanity now populates these once highly civilised lands who now daily slaughter themselves without let or hindrance. What exactly has come over Northern Nigeria? When did the retrogression set in and what exactly underpins it: religion, economics, ethnic hate or a lack of human feeling?  How come things got so bad, Defence Minister, General Mansur Dan Ali, could accuse some traditional rulers of “helping bandits with intelligence and thus compromising military operations”, and exposing the men and women of our armed forces to utmost danger? When did things become this bad in Northern Nigeria?

    Also, apart from the federal government, what  has the northern aristocracy – both traditional and religious – done  to stem this all-pervading mayhem –North central,  Northeast  and  Northwest, stop the killings, quit quadrupling  the appalling  number of widows and orphans and, for God’s sake, stop  remaining this humongous drain on the country’s financial resources?

    How does Nigeria escape this conundrum?

    We begin to address these issues today as the column hosts a very perspicacious Professor of Engineering, former rector of The Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti, on a topic that bears relevance to these challenges.

     

    IMPERATIVE FOR A SOVEREIGN NATIONAL CONFERENCE

     

    Professor Olawumi Ajaja

     

    Restructuring, as a term has become rather nebulous, given the definitions now being attached to it by various persons. For some, it is resource control, to others it is geographic, while another group sees it simply in terms of power devolution.  Some months ago when the call for restructuring became  really strident, former President Olusegun Obasanjo was quoted as saying that what Nigeria needed was mind restructuring. We will have to await his further lecture on this but I am at a complete loss as to how much mind-restructuring he accomplished in his 12 years as the country’s chief helmsman, first as Military Head of State 1976 – ’79, and later, as a democratically elected president, 1999 – 2007.

    I was a pioneer beneficiary of Awo’s Free Primary Education programme into which I was enrolled in January 1955. Our generation witnessed significant developments in the then Western Region, among them the First Television Station in the whole of Africa. Other Regions also made remarkable progress in education and infrastructure procurement. That progress was made possible by the country’s truly federal structure which was, unfortunately, terminated by the military coup of January 1966. Nigeria’s growth subsequently became stunted, due largely to the unitary system of government imposed on by the military.

    The constitution handed down by the military, which we now glorify as democracy, has been aptly described as “militocracy”, which it actually is, in reality. Nigeria currently has 36 states, most of which depend almost exclusively, on monthly handouts, and tokenism, from Abuja for their very survival.

    The result is that the federal government, with its huge allocation of 56% of total federal revenue, is loaded with responsibilities which should rightly belong to the states and local governments. Examples include Agriculture, Water Resources, Industry, Solid Minerals and Housing. In my straight 18 years in Ekiti, all I have seen as federal projects are the Silos which had never been used, the Federal Secretariat and the CBN building, both of which have remained “work in progress” for nearly two decades. In spite of the existence of a Federal Ministry of Water Resources, taps in the state are drier now than they were before the state was created in 1996. The Ministry of Works, visible only as FERMA, is only seen patching pot-holes.  All these are the results of the federal government taking on far more responsibilities than it can efficiently, and competently, handle.

    As a result of an insufficient and epileptic power supply, the past few years have witnessed several industrial ventures moving out o9f Nigeria and relocating to neighbouring countries.  On account of  our very poor power supply,  textile industries, auto Assembly Plants, Paper Mills, Steel Rolling Mills and companies manufacturing important items like shoes,  batteries, roofing sheets, wire and nails,  which were thriving in the 70’s are today virtually non-existent; contributing hugely to the country’s high unemployment rate.  Decentralising power generation and distribution is now a must, if Nigeria is to witness any meaningful industrial development. Singapore, a one-city state whose population is less than that of any state in Nigeria, generates and distributes power so efficiently that it has not experienced any serious power outage in more than 30 years.

    The Federal Ministry of Education is overburdened with several Universities, Polytechnics, Colleges of Education and even Secondary (Unity) Schools. This is a major reason why education has been on a downward slide in the past few decades. The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), a federal agency, superintends the funding of primary school infrastructure all over the country. This function should rightly belong to local governments whose officials, as presently constituted, merely draw huge salaries without any visible impact on governance. The United States, whose constitution we pretend to have copied, does not have a single Federal University.  According to the most recent rankings, 16 of the world’s best 20 universities are located in the U. S. and are all either private or state-owned!

    Another major feature of the present federal structure which is difficult to justify, given our parlous finances, is the Bicameral Legislature. Every bill that is passed in the House of Representatives must again be presented to the Senate for the same purpose. All functions of the House of Representatives are duplicated in the Senate. A single Legislative Chamber will serve our purpose while saving billions of naira which can then be diverted to infrastructure development. Moreover, the humongous salaries and allowances of these lawmakers as well as other politicians are out rightly unjustifiable. As we learnt from Senator Shehu Sani, a Nigerian senator earns more than N13 million monthly; an amount far in excess of the salaries of 25 university professors put together. It is, therefore, no surprise that Nigerian politics has become a killing field, with elections becoming mini wars as we recently saw.

    The security situation (herdsmen killings, kidnapping, armed robbery etc) which Nigeria has been experiencing in recent times has been exacerbated by the fact that the whole country (of close to 200 million people) operates under one Federal Police Command. The problems could have been more easily confronted through the establishment of a State Police, which would have a much deeper understanding of the terrain of each state. State governors would then become effective Chief Security Officers of their respective states, not in name only, but in reality.  The United States even has City Police Departments such as the New York Police, Chicago Police, Los Angeles Police, etc.

    The essence of this write-up is to underscore the importance of power devolution to the states and local governments. A unitary structure is antithetical to our size and diversity in terms of ethnicity, language and religion. The United States of America, despite its linguistic homogeneity runs a truly federal structure. True federalism will encourage healthy competition as it did amongst Regions in the First Republic, thereby engendering rapid development.

    The apprehension of a section of the country about restructuring is understandable since Nigeria’s economy depends largely on crude oil. However, with the 2019 elections now over, it is time to re-visit restructuring. Thus, a Sovereign National Conference has become an imperative if Nigeria is to escape the doldrums into which the 1999 Military-imposed Constitution plunged it. A mere National Conference, like the Jonathan 2014 national conference, will not do for some reasons. First, political parties which are not in power will find excuses to be indifferent, as the APC did in 2014. Getting the decisions passed into law by a self-serving National Assembly will be absolutely impossible, especially where it is decided, for instance, that we should operate on the basis of a unicameral legislature just as a law for single-tenure presidency would be resisted by a first term President. A Sovereign National Conference will comprise representatives from every part of Nigeria and its decisions will be passed into law, after a referendum, without being subjected to the whims and caprices of the incumbent Executive or Legislature. With Nigeria’s present structure, not even a saint in Aso Villa can make any significant positive impact on Nigeria’s development.

  • The mega-scandal of our predatory legislature

    I return to this subject  again today using, as my leitmotif, the very illuminating article: ‘For the abolition of our predatory legislature’, by Biodun Jeyifo. (The Nation, Sunday March 24). The title of this article is , therefore, not original to me but  lifted from that article which I recommend to whoever wants to be educated on the ways of the philanderers we call legislators in this clime. Coincidentally, however, I had some 24 hours before reading the  piece, stored up the details you would be reading below about the atrocious pay package of the world’s most lecherous legislature – the Nigerian; a pay package they had, through self help, captured in the national budget under what they call : “statutory transfer”, so that funds can always flow in to them unhindered.

    Of Jeyifo’s many suggestions in the piece, this is what resonates with me the most and I recommend it as about our only saving grace in this country of soul-less politicians. He wrote: “With or without the legislators’ involvement, we must abolish our predatory legislature”.

    Eleyi ki se ise eni kan- is the Yoruba way of saying this is not going to be a one man business.

    Even though he means by that – “the abolition of the legislature in its present form”- to quote him directly , but I think it will be enough to simply annul the senate, and do everything  necessary to ensure that House members receive only a  reasonable pay, commensurate with the work they do,  and certainly not this outlandish thieving.  Otherwise, Nigerians, the Nigerian police inclusive , must run this lecherous legislature out of town if , after a period of grace, to be handed down to the incoming legislature on our behalf by the Nigerian Labour Congress, acting on the combined resolutions of market women, students , and the Nigerian people in general, they fail to bring their humongous pay to an end . That notice to them must contain the unmistakable caveat that failure to so act will be an invitation to Nigerians to overrun the 2 chambers.

    In last week’s article, I suggested that the President should use moral suation, leveraging on the superior number of his own party members in both chambers, to effect necessary changes but we know the type of politicians we have. It may, therefore, be expecting too much from the President to successfully dissuade them from what led many of them into politics, in the first place – the humongous salaries and allowances which, but for Senator Uba Sani, would still have remained in the realm of conjecture. Although it has also been suggested that President Buhari could address this monstrous aberration by introducing an Executive Bill to significantly reduce the  overall cost of governance in the country, the Revenue Mobilisation and Allocation agency having gone Awol, and use the savings to fund the National Minimum Wage, Education and Health, for instance. I, however,  have no doubt whatsoever,  that such a bill would suffer a worse fate than the PIB bill which was in the National Assembly gathering dust for years before they woke up to it.

    And for those who may think that we are so helpless we cannot do anything, I recommend they read about the 1905 leaderless revolution in Russia. With no further prompting than the utter poverty ravaging the country, Nigerians will one day wake up to help themselves.

    And, for a certainty, that day will not be long in coming.

    For ease of reference and comparison, please find below, for the umpteenth time on these pages, Senators’ Annual Pay World Wide:

    * Sri Lanka – $5,100.00

    * Malaysia – $25,300.00

    * Spain – $43,900.00

    * Ghana – $46,500..00

    * Saudi Arabia – $64,000.00

    * France – $85,900.00

    * South Africa – $104,000.00

    * Britain – $105,400.00

    * Germany – $119,500.00

    * Canada – $154 000.00

    * United States – $174,000.00

    *Nigeria – $2,183,685.00

    Details of the monthly remuneration of a

    Nigerian Senator is as follows when you factor in their car and severance package and others:

    * Basic Salary (B.S) – N2, 484,245.50

    * Hardship Allowance (50% of B.S) – N1, 242,122.70

    * Constituency Allowance (200% of B.S) – N4, 968,509.00

    * Newspapers Allowance (50% of B.S) – N1,242,122.70

    * Wardrobe Allowance (25% of B.S) – N621, 061.37

    * Recess Allowance (10% of B.S) – N248, 424.55

    * Accommodation (200% of B.S) – N4, 968,509.00

    * Utilities (30% of B.S) – N828, 081.83

    * Domestic Staff (70% of B.S) – N1, 863,184.12

    * Entertainment (30% of B.S) – N828, 081.83

    * Personal Assistants (25% of B.S) – N621, 061.12

    * Vehicle Maintenance Allowance (75% of B.S) – N1,863,184.12

    * Leave Allowance (10% of B.S) – N248, 424.55

    * Severance Gratuity (300% of B.S) – N7,452,736.50

    * Car Allowance (400% of B.S) – N9, 936,982.00

    * TOTAL MONTHLY SALARY = N29, 479,749.00 ($181,974.00)

    * TOTAL YEARLY SALARY = N29, 479,749.00 x 12 = N353, 756,988.00

    The average salary of Nigerian worker based on the national minimum wage is N30, 000.00. So, the yearly salary is N30,000.00 x 12 = N360,000.00

    Remember, yearly Salary of Nigerian Senator = N353, 756,988.00 (three hundred fifty-three Million, seven hundred and fifty-six thousand, nine hundred and eighty eight Naira.

    Proportion: N353,756,988.00/N360,000.00 =

    It will thus take an average Nigerian worker 982 years to earn the yearly salary of a Nigerian Senator.

    REF: https://linksad.net/PeiYuy

    If any of these figures is wrong, the onus is on the Nigerian Senate to so indicate and set the records straight.

    To avoid the coming Armageddon, I plead with the President to move rapidly on this matter, even if all that would be saved could only go to properly equip the police to check the alarming kidnapping epidemic in Nigeria – Abuja – Kaduna road, Edo, Ondo and Ekiti on my mind.

     

    Police bestiality in Nigeria

    On a Channels television programme this past week, Mr Amobi, a respected retired Commissioner of Police, attributed most of the challenges confronting the Nigeria police to , among other things, its very adversarial origins in the hands of a predatory colonial authority too eager to compel compliance to her draconian laws, by the natives. One other major hindrance to police performance, he said,  is inadequate funding. This, of course, is common to all departments and agencies of governments since they are lucky if  they end up getting 50% of  their  approved budget in any given year. In this recurring scenario, however, it is a shame that the National Assembly continues, like robots, to approve these jumbo estimates whereas, drawing from experience, it could simply approve half the  provisional figures and stop the Federal Government from claiming it has so many trillions budget.  Budget approvals have become nothing but an exercise in futility even as I admit that budgets are, at best, estimates.  Why the continuing national self-deceit?

    Worse is the fact that the enormity of  funds federal  legislators, in both chambers, hawk all over the place, in what they call ‘envelopes’, looking for ‘understanding’ Chief Executive officers to warehouse, can be truly astounding.

    How it started, and funding, may truly pose daunting challenges to the Nigeria police but without a doubt, its greatest problem is a lack of policing education, in which they are complete illiterates. Otherwise, why should the first thing that comes to  a police man’s mind  be shooting at an unarmed person to whom you claim to be a friend – remember, police is your friend?

    The spate is becoming so alarming that urgent steps must be taken if   they are not to daily send poor  Nigerians to their early graves whilst running away, and sometimes throwing off  their uniform, where they should, instead, confront the real enemies of state. Because of space constraint, let me repeat here, how my respected co-columnist, Segun Gbadegesin, captured this monstrosity in his article: Brutes in Uniform, in his column of Friday, 5 April, 2019: “It happened again for the umpteenth time. A young man was cut down in the morning of his life, leaving parents and loved ones to mourn. He committed no crime. His killers were not armed robbers, cultists or hired assassins. He was murdered by those paid to protect him and the rest of us. His case is just another in the long list of killings by brutes in uniform”.

    As the Yoruba would say: nilu to loba, to nijoye – that is, in a country with government, rules and regulations – some things just must not happen.

    It’s time relevant agencies wake up to their responsibilities and the National Assembly stops bleeding the country.

  • Going back to the archives – will Buhari’s anti-corruption war be an exercise in futility?

    I go back to this article – first published 6 February, 2016 – today simply because no time can be more opportune than now to draw attention to the unfortunate fact that our politicians are becoming progressively worse. Elections now over, it is obvious that no member of the National Assembly, old or new, indeed not even the predominantly APC members, who love to call themselves progressives, would see how unthinkable it is that at a N30,000 minimum wage, (N360,000 per annum), it will take an average Nigerian worker 982 years to earn a Nigerian senator’s yearly salary of  $2,183,686   (N353,756,988.00).

    No corruption is greater than this and I ask: will President Buhari confront this monstrosity head-on, or do we, M u m u Nigerians, just look on helpless at this gross reality? No, should the president do nothing about it, Nigerians should just storm the National Assembly like the Algerians are doing against a recalcitrant president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika,

    I digress.

    “What component of our education is missing in the upbringing of our political leaders who  loot the national treasury so much about 500  of them take 25% of the resources meant for 150 million Nigerians? What component of our education is missing in the development of our governors who, when caught in the net of EFCC, plea bargain or run away or use the court to cut the rest of us to pieces? I ask, what component of our education is missing in the training of our civil servants and contractors that make them inflate contracts, execute budget in the real sense of EXECUTION, and fiddle with documents to filch our finances? Finally, what component of our education is missing in the upbringing of our pastors and preachers that make them defecate on the altar of celestial adulation?” – Professor Oyewale Tomori, FAS, former Vice-Chancellor, Redeemer University.

    One needs not be an economist to know that Nigeria’s current economic circumstances demand a meeting of economically literate minds to clinically interrogate our problems and plot a way out, at least in the short term, since only a fundamental restructuring of Nigeria can cure its many ills.

    It is obvious that corruption, and our skewed structure, sit atop whatever has brought Nigeria to its present circumstances. A good reading of our history spanning the regimes of Ibrahim Babangida  right down  to President Goodluck Jonathan’s, will affirm the view that dealers, rather than leaders, ruled Nigeria throughout that long period.

    In the first place, these are a people who, in their years in office, neither diversified the Nigerian economy nor moderated their greed. Rather, they luxuriated in, and mercilessly frittered away, the billions of petro dollars that poured endlessly into the country’s coffers. Rather than encourage investment in agriculture and solid minerals, their greater concern was to amass huge personal fortunes that today see them living in stupendous luxury in hilltop mansions. Yet, despite their bulging wealth, they are so much without conscience they still collectively earn billions in pensions, and sundry benefits, at the expense of the majority poor.

    But that is not even half the story.

    As Dr Jide Oluwajuyitan recalls in “Dealers as Leaders”, (The Nation, Thursday, 3 March 2016): “the real tragedy is that Buhari is yet to start the war on corruption. All he has done so far is attacking the symptoms of a deep rooted malaise unleashed on our nation through Babangida’s Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) and Obasanjo’s mismanaged privatisation programme. The former allowed his ‘army of anything goes’, to pillage our land like a conquered territory. Part of the fallout of that was the depreciation of the naira from the pre-SAP N1 to $1, to today’s over N300 to the $1. Obasanjo, in turn, in cahoots with Atiku, presided over the sale of N100Billion assets, acquired over a period of 50 years (1958 – 2008), for a paltry $1.6b, to dealers and wheelers, their fronts and acolytes who, in turn, embarked on asset stripping to buy private jets and build skyscrapers instead of efficiently running the industries they bought at next to nothing”.

    President Buhari cannot close his eyes to these, if he wants to win the anti corruption war.

    In like manner, their subalterns, as military governors etc, did no less harm to the country’s financial and economic well-being. Several other individuals, banks inclusive, have been used to steal the country blind as every penny of the stolen trillions went through banks. Nigerians can no longer wait to see some of these banks get heavily penalised and their directors hauled into jails if President Buhari really wants to make a success of the anti corruption war that has clearly defined him.

    The same day Oluwajuyitan wrote, a usually very restrained Emeritus Professor Jide Osuntokun could not help writing as follows in his own column in the same newspaper: “The kind of looting we are being told happened is enough to depress any sane and patriotic Nigerian.

    The level of looting poses existential threat to this republic. In China, some of what happened in the recent past would have attracted the ultimate punishment (death). Some of the stories sound like they are from Ali baba and the 40 thieves. People walk into the office of the National Security Adviser, sign a piece of paper, and walk out with a mandate to go to the CBN or banks where government has money to go and collect billions for some spurious work for government or the ruling party, or even for no work at all! Nigerian crude was sold without the treasury being credited with the proceeds. Billions, if not trillions, were shared among party bigwigs as if people were playing the game of monopoly with the nation’s money.

    Government’s decision to bring the guilty parties to book had better been speeded up before people lose their patience.

    Another reason for the lingering fear that informed the title of this article is what Stephanie Findlay of AFP calls: “the Goodluck Jonathan Alibi”. This alibi, already pleaded by Olisa Metuh, PDP’s erstwhile Publicity Secretary, in his money laundering ‘no case’ submission, and which, according to informed sources, the former National Security Adviser, Col.  Sambo Dasuki, would also plead, is that both men were obeying President Jonathan’s orders.

    It would appear that President Buhari is shielding the former president from being invited to testify, even if only as a witness. This is said to be on account of a so-called pledge to Jonathan on account of his election concession as if, with the President Gbagbo example, he had a choice.

    I just hope that  the president is aware that should these people go scot free, there goes his anti-corruption war (which some U.S state officials, for yet unknown reasons, recently tried to undermine by heavily under reporting its  number of  convictions which are now in the high hundreds).

    However, whichever way President Muhammadu Buhari chooses to be remembered by history is strictly in his own hands. Nigerians have just gifted him a tabula rasa on which to write his own epitaph.

    I wish him well.

     

    As Professor Adelabu delivers UNIFE 334th Inaugural Lecture

    If anybody should be absent at this  Inaugural, it shouldn’t have been me. What next could I do other than try to make up, a tweeny little bit, with this letter  to her straight from the heart.

    My dear Professor Dupe Adelabu,

    Nothing would have gratified me more than being present at your inaugural tomorrow, 26 March, 2019.

    Unfortunately, I had contacted a very bad cough at a nearby petrol station where I had been playing drought for some years, inhaling, unknown to me , oil fumes and smoke, albeit imperceptibly.

    Over the last weekend, I began to cough and soon completely lost my voice. Diagnosis: fume induced cough. .

    I have, since Saturday, communicated only by text messages, and signs, at home. Not a single phone call.

    Really, really terrible.

    I heartily congratulate you on this huge occasion, appreciating the gargantuan effort, and the amount of self denial, that must have gone into making the exemplary scholar we have in you today. Not only papa and mama, but my egbon, your darling sweetheart, and better half, now at the bosom of our Lord Jesus Christ, as well as the children, and your grandchildren, must be beside themselves with joy on this your great occasion.

    I salute your industry, your incomparable caring heart and your inimitable public service. I deeply appreciate your being an untiring prayer warrior, as prayer has been your greatest tool, of helping Ekiti state but more importantly, the governor, and his family.

    The good Lord will continue to be your guide and guardian as he upholds you, and all yours.

    So shall it be in the mighty name of Jesus.

    Amen.

    Tinuke sends her warmest congratulations.