The Nation Newspaper

Category: Lekan Otufodunrin

  • What a developed country is

    Former Mayor of Bogota in Columbia, Enrique Penalosa must have a ‘weird’ sense of reasoning. His definition of what a developed nation is intriguing and thought provoking.

    While many would prefer to simply describe a developed nation as one where the standard of living is very high Penalosa’s definition is graphically apt.

    According to him, a developed nation is not where the poor have cars, but the country where the rich use public transportation. If the number of likes on this definition on my facebook is anything to go by, many obviously wish our leaders have this kind of understanding of what development should be.

    Penalosa is definitely not against the poor having their own cars if they so desire and can afford it, what he simply wants and did during his is the provision of enough infrastructure and other facilities that will ensure that majority of the people are not denied basic necessities of life.

    He is obviously against the situation where citizens are classified as rich or poor based on what kind of facilities they utilize. The government has the responsibly to provide basic infrastructure which everybody should find good enough to utilize. Unfortunately this is not the situation in the Nigeria presently.

    While in some developing and developed nations, top government functionaries and even rich members of the public can use public transportation, the dream of everyone in Nigeria is to own their cars even when they cannot afford to maintain one and the roads are not good.

    Our transportation system has continued to degenerate despite the billions allocated to the sector. The Rail which used to be a reliable means of transporting people and goods across the country is yet to be restored to its good old days.

    Due to lack of good rail system as in other nations, Nigerians who cannot afford the exorbitant airfare have to resort to dangerous long journeys either with their own vehicles or commercial transport. The high rate of accidents on our roads is avoidable if our rail system is in order and the roads are in good condition.

    For the super rich in Nigeria, some of whom their source of wealth is questionable, buying their own jet has become a fad.

    Instead of widening the gap between the poor and the rich, government policies must result in improve standard of living as defined be Penalosa.

    The citizens must feel the effects of economic policies in concrete terms that give them a sense of a leadership that cares and a country they can be proud of. The government should not be claiming to be implementing a transformation agenda which majority of the citizens cannot attest to.

    The recent controversy over the outcome of the rebasing of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by the National Bureau of Statistics which puts our economy the first in Africa and the 24th in the world is a good example the progress we are supposed to be making without much movement.

    The federal government can celebrate positive economic indicator if it wants, but like many have noted, what is the benefit of increased GDP to the ordinary citizens if they still have to battle with poverty, unemployment and myriads of other challenges that make daily living a miracle?

  • Unemployable graduates

    In the last few weeks, I have been agonizing over the obvious disconnect between the training graduates get in higher institutions and what is expected of them in whatever industry they are supposed to be employed.

    My worry is informed by how clueless many graduates are when asked what difference they can make  in companies they apply to work in. Many of them assume that their certificates are enough to get them employment.

    I am usually disappointed when I ask a job seeker what kind of job he or she wants and the reply I get is  “any job.” My impression of such applicants is that he or she does not have any special skill.

    Having a certificate is good, but been able to do what the certificate claims the applicant has the capacity to do is much more important.

    Why should any employer employ an applicant who cannot add value to the productivity of his or her company? While it is true that the unemployment rate is high in the country, what is also true is that some unemployed graduates are unemployable.

    Some of the unemployable graduates have a good share of the blame for not having the skills required of them due to their own passion for the course they studied, but the tertiary institutions in the country can do better in producing industry-ready graduates.

    What is apparent is that there is not enough collaboration between training institutions and the industries they are producing graduates for. Training institutions are not doing enough to know skills required of graduates and adjust their curriculum as required.

    The course content of some courses in higher institutions in the country are obsolete and not industry relevant. I am aware of the bureaucracy required to approve new courses by the Nigeria Universities Commission (NUC) and the Nigeria Board for Technical Education (NBTE) which is a shame.

    If only they realize the disservice being done to the graduates produced, the approving authorities will allow more dynamism in courses offered our universities and polytechnics.

    While private universities seem to be finding a way round the problem by offering unique courses, most public universities are still steep in their old ways. Students are thought obsolete theories from outdated text books with little or no room for practical.

    In the present global village, we will be shortchanging our youths if we don’t give them the benefits of contemporary education that can allow them compete with their colleagues worldwide.

    The new definition of education is the ability to unlearn, learn and relearn.

    There are many old ways of doing things which we must unlearn to acquire new emerging knowledge.

    The Canadian example which Paul Brennan, Vice President of International Partnerships of the Association of Canadian Community Colleges shared in a recent interview is very instructive for bridging the gap between academic institutions and employers.

    According to Brennan the Canadian system requires all institutes and every programme to work closely with employers and employees of the sector to help them develop and constantly adjust the content of the programmes.

    “Our deans and faculty must meet with an advisory committee of employers twice a year to discuss emerging needs for jobs in the Canadian and global marketplace and what improvements to the curriculum need to be made so that it better prepares our learners to find jobs and keep them,” Brennan explained.

    The unemployment situation in the country is very critical and we need to do something urgent about it starting from how we train our graduates.

  • Moro’s untenable defence

    Moro’s untenable defence

    Penultimate Saturday’s avoidable death of about 19 job seekers during the recruitment by the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) is yet another sad commentary on the state of our nation.

    What should have been just another routine recruitment has turned out to be another national tragedy that has further damaged what is left of our image in the international community.

    How can the NIS justify organising such a massive exercise without making necessary arrangements to prevent the kind of stampede witnessed in all the centres nationwide during which many applicants were  also wounded.

    With the number of applicants, it should have been apparent to the NIS that other options should have been considered to conduct the exercise. There was just no way a hitch-free recruitment test would have been conducted with the crowd of applicants that turned out for the exercise.

    Even though NIS claimed that some of the applicants were not invited for the interview, there is sufficient indication that the pre-test screening was not thorough enough. More applicants should have been screened out by raising the qualification requirements to reduce the number of those who should have come for the test.

    Even if the number of those qualified was still high, the recruitment should have been in phases to accommodate a manageable number in the various centres at a time.

    I find it difficult to accept the excuses offered by the Minister of Interior, Abba Moro and the NIS.  They should count themselves lucky that we have a president who is ready to accept any lame excuse for a shoddy performance instead of penalising them for not living up to expectations.

    Normally, the Minister and the Comptroller of the NIS should have resigned considering the tragic outcome of the exercise instead of passing the buck for what they should have envisaged.

    Just as in other instances of shoddy handling of official assignments, Moro and the Comptroller are getting away without being penalised.

    Despite the public outcry over the unfortunate incident and the demand for the sacking of those responsible for bungling the recruitment, the president has not responded in a way that is commensurate with the magnitude of the casualty recorded.

    We didn’t need this kind of tragedy before the federal ministries and agencies would be directed not to conduct the kind of exercise NIS did. With the level of technology we have access to in the country, the NIS test could have been conducted without having the mammoth crowd we had at the centres nationwide.

    What the NIS has confirmed is that many government organisations are either not in tune with modern ways of doing things or that they prefer to stick to old options for reasons best known to them at the expense of the country.

    As many have noted, the large number of applicants for the NIS job is an indication of how bad the level of unemployment is in the country. Why would so many applicants, including those who were not invited, turn up for the NIS test if not for the desperation of many graduates to get jobs? While the number of higher institutions and other training institutions keep increasing, vacancies have been declining.

    The unemployment situation in the country has to be urgently addressed by not only the creation of more job opportunities by the government and the private sector, but provision of a conducive environment for entrepreneurs to thrive.

    It is bad enough that graduates are unable to find jobs years after graduation and have to roam the streets in search of anything they can do, but to subject them to the kind of treatment NIS gave them is not acceptable.

  • Pastors from hell

    Time was when Church titles like Pastor, Reverend, Bishop, and others were reserved for reverend gentlemen who are real God’s servants. In every way, they lived up to their titles and were hardly found engaged in anything that could question their integrity.

    The process of being ordained for spiritual leadership positions was very thorough then unlike now, when virtually anyone who fancies the titles can claim it, recruit his or her congregation, and start preaching any message that suits him or her.

    If this is not the case, how do we explain the present situation where the media is awash with reports of various heinous crimes committed by some supposed Church leaders in the country? It is either they are involved in one fraudulent case or the other, or they are charged for sexual assaults against their members.

    Instead of ministering to the needs of members who come seeking solution to one challenge or the other, some ‘Pastors’ take advantage of them. They twist the scriptures to exploit their members with all kinds of false theology. They sleep with women under the disguise of deliverance and helping them to get pregnant. They pronounce false prophesies to draw attention to themselves.

    The situation has gotten so bad that these days, it is sometimes difficult to identify fake Pastors who have perfected their act and taken advantage of the freedom for anyone to establish worship places.

    Those who claim that Church has become one of the fastest-growing ‘business’ are right to an extent. There are many people who claim to be Pastors today who have no reason to be but for lack of other things to do. Their spiritual antecedences are questionable and they have no moral basis to lead any group of persons.

    These are the set of Pastors who engage in all kinds of survival strategies until they are exposed for what they really are. Unfortunately, before they get caught, they would have done so much damage and cast doubts in the mind of the people about spiritual matters.

    To be sure, the rot is a global challenge that is not limited to our country. Last week, I watched a documentary titled ‘Seed of sin’ by a Kenyan television station about the menace of fake pastors in Kenya, based on the case of a female preacher who was jailed after being found guilty of false claim of healing members of HIV and AIDS.

    And when I first read about a South African Pastor asking his members to eat grass to cure them of whatever disease they had, I thought it was one of those social media make-believe stories. It turned out to be real when I watched the video later as the Pastor bragged about taking his members to a new level of revelation.

    I have no doubt that there are many genuine men of God in Nigeria and in other countries who have been a blessing to their members in diverse ways. But there is an urgent need to check the activities of the fake ones by whatever means.

    They have done enough damage and should not be allowed to continue to have a field day at the expense of the unsuspecting members of the public.

    Allegations against them should be thoroughly investigated and guilty ones should be treated like the criminals which they are to serve as a deterrent to others.  Church members should also be more discerning and like the Bible warned, check all spirits and be sure it is really of the Lord.

  • Boko Haram menace

    Between last Sunday when my last piece titled Stop Boko Haram Now was published and last Friday night when I wrote this week’s piece, the insurgents in North Eastern part of the country have gone on rampage leaving no one in doubt about their determination to advance whatever cause they claim to be fighting for.

    Last Tuesday, the terrorists in one of their bloodiest attacks left 59 school children dead when they struck at the Federal Government College, Boni Yadi, Yobe State. Even before the country recovered from the shock of the mindless attack on innocent students, they struck again in neigbouring Adamawa State killing at least 37 persons.

    On Friday, there was panic during a condolence visit by the Adamawa state Governor Murtala Nyako to some victims of the recent attacks when Boko Haram men were said to be heading for the venue. Gun shots were fired into the air by security men to protect the governor from any possible attack. It is uncertain where next the insurgents would strike as the situation appears helpless despite assurances by the federal government that security measures are being taken to stop the endless killings.

    My heart goes out to the families of the school children and others who have so far lost their loved ones in various attacks. The students have paid the ultimate price for what they knew nothing about. Last year, students of a School of Agriculture in the same state were also killed a dawn raid. It’s inconceivable why the terrorists have chosen to make the students their target. If not for any other thing, it confirms the evil stuff they are made of while claiming to belong to a religious sect.

    Until the situation is really brought under control, it may no longer be safe to allow schools in the endangered areas to remain in session. While it is important for the students to acquire education, their lives are more precious. Except their safety can be guaranteed, which doesn’t seem certain presently, the students should not be exposed to further danger.

    Much as one appreciates the efforts of the federal government through the military forces to checkmate the terrorists, a lot still has to be done to prevent the insurgents from having a field a day killing residents of the affected states.

    It is evident that tactics being used by the Joint Task Force is not achieving enough result and new strategies have to be adopted before more havoc is wrecked by the insurgents who seemed determined to make the states ungovernable.

    Nigerians are tired of being told by the federal government that it is on top of the situation when hundreds of persons continue to get killed by the rampaging Boko Haram gunmen who have the least regard for the sanctity of life. Whatever urgent steps that need to be taken have to be acted on urgently in the face of the war declared against the country by the insurgents.

    If the country does not have the capacity to combat the terrorists as alleged in some quarters, it should not hesitate to seek necessary foreign support.

    The affected states and the federal government have to be more committed to ending this crisis once and for all before it consumes us all. The issue should not be politicized by any group. There is no need to trade blames. What we need is the solution.

  • Stop Boko Haram now

    I was tempted to join in debate over the surprised suspension from office of Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi as Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria by President Goodluck Jonathan last Thursday but I would rather not.

    Much as Sanusi’s suspension is a major issue considering the controversy it will continue to generate in the weeks ahead, I have been haunted by the picture of children among victims of the renewed attacks by the  Boko Haram insurgents in Borno State that I would prefer to dwell on the worrisome endless killings in the North East region of the country which requires the urgent attention of the federal government.

    They looked forlorn in tears and uncertain of the future ahead of them.  With details of the horrifying attacks unleashed by the terrorists on some villages where they escaped from, the trauma the children and other victims must have been subjected to is unimaginable.

    It is difficult to understand why any group would engage in this act of inhumanity to man in the name of whatever cause they claim to be fighting for. Hundreds of innocent persons have been killed and injured while others have been rendered homeless by the group which have not only claimed responsibility but has threatened more attacks.

    So much lives and property have been wasted that more than ever before urgent steps must be taken before the insurgents chase everybody out of Borno, including the Governor Kashim Shettima who claimed that the gunmen are better equipped than the men of the Nigerian Army on ground in the state.

    I was not surprised by the reaction of the presidency which must have been scandalized by the Governor’s statement despite the various resources and men deployed to stop the carnage.

    Instead of engaging any claim and counter claim over the situation in Borno and other states where the insurgents have been wrecking lots of havoc, the affected states and the federal government must close ranks and find a lasting solution to this major challenge which has brought the country into focus in the international community for the wrong reason.

    The federal government can definitely not be accused of not being committed to ending the crisis. It must be admitted that the presence of the residents in the battle areas has hindered the Nigerian military from launching an all out onslaught to smoke out the insurgents.

    It is apparent that the military is trying hard to minimize the civilian casualties and the nature of this delicate assignment for the Nigerian armed forces has to be appreciated.

    The scary situation playing out in Borno which may spread to other parts of the Country if not quickly checked must have informed the resolution by the House of Representatives to call for the relocation of the Army Headquarters to Borno.

    While there may be no need to relocate the army headquarters over this matter, there is need for better strategies, equipment and men to effectively prosecute this War against the Boko Haram group which seems determined to make the North Eastern States, if not the whole North ungovernable.

    Whatever should be done to stop the Boko Haram must be done. The group must not be allowed turn the country or any part to another Somalia.

  • Nigeria is it, but…

    It’s not always that you get the opportunity to showcase your country to first time visitors.

    I was glad to perform the task last Sunday when I had the privilege of hosting three colleagues from Ghana, Sierra Leone and Cameroun after a meeting in Lagos.

    Being their first time in Lagos which they have heard a lot about, their excitement about being live in the famous city was understandable.

    I did my best to show them some of the places they requested to visit and some places I thought they would love to see.

    My guided tour of Lagos and Otta in Ogun State turned out to be a mix of the good, the bad and the ugly experience for my guests who were very grateful for what one of them called “my generous Nigerian hospitality” contrary to the impression his countrymen think of Nigerians.

    As we drove from the hotel in Ikeja to Cannanland, Otta for Church service at the 50,000 seater Winners Chapel auditorium and later headed back to Victoria Island, my guests could not hide their admiration for our mega facilities and infrastructures.

    They were mesmerized by the Winners Church and Covenant University complexes.

    My Ghanian lady colleague noted that the best private university in Ghana could not boast of half of the structures she saw at Covenant University.

    “ You Nigerians don’t know what The Lord has done for you. You should be grateful instead of complaining,” she remarked.

    The third mainland bridge was also a sight for them to behold as the Sierra Leonian wondered why the government in his home country has not thought of building a bridge like ours to link the capital city of Freetown to the airport located on an Island. To fly out of Sierra Leone, he has to travel by land, sea and air!

    They were also captivated by the imposing CMS/Broadstreet landscape and insisted that I park on the bridge to take pictures.

    Being widely travelled journalists, they have seen better structures, but as one of them said, it’s nice to know that Lagos is indeed a mega city.

    On sighting Segun Arinze on an advertisement billboard, they recalled his various roles and that of many Nigerian actors in Nigerian films they have watched. Explaining the popularity of Nigerian films in his country, My Cameroonian colleague said, “You people have so tortured us with so many films but we always enjoy every moment of watching .”

    Beyond the glitz and glamour however, they were quick to note how dirty the environment was. They wondered why refuse littered the major roads in Otta and some buildings along the roads were not painted.

    While our meeting we had earlier attended lasted, they were shocked by the poor electricity supply. They were no strangers to power failure in their countries but it was not as bad as they experienced during their stay.

    Perhaps lowest point of our tour was the encounter with policemen who sighted me answering a phone call while driving. One of them threatened to shoot even after I had parked as directed by another member of the team.

    The Ghanian was so scared by the experience that she asked that we should return to the hotel. She just couldn’t imagine why the policeman should cork his gun in the open for the offense I committed. It won’t happen in Ghana, she swore.

    The next time they return to visit Lagos, I assured them we would have fixed our electricity problem considering the on-going privatization of the sector. For a country that claims to be the giant of Africa, the state of our electricity supply is a shame and rubbishes whatever progress we claim to be making in other sectors.

    The earlier we solve this problem and others the better to make Nigeria the ultimate destination economic and tourist capital of Africa.

  • Strikes unlimited

    First it was the Academic Staff Union of Universities ( ASUU) that was on strike for about six months over the non-implementation of an earlier agreement with the federal government.

    It took the intervention of President Goodluck Jonathan to resolve the deadlock which is one of the longest strikes by university lecturers in the country.

    Thankfully, lectures have resumed in federal and state universities and we can only hope that the federal government will not renege on any of the fresh agreement like before.

    While the ASUU strike has been resolved, many other unions are either on strike or threatening to embark on strike.

    Despite the assurance by the Ministry Of Education, negotiation with the Academic Staff of Polytechnic is still deadlocked after cumulative six months of strike which was suspended and resumed.

    Officials of the union stormed out of a meeting last week noting that the government was not showing enough commitment to meeting their demands like it did in the case of ASUU.

    Earlier in the month the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) suspended its planned nationwide indefinite strike to allow for full implementation of all elements of the agreement between the association and the government within set lines.

    The NMA President Dr Osahon Enabulele said the strike was suspended to allow for full implementation of all elements of the agreement between the association and the government within set time lines.

    The doctors had embarked on a five-day warning strike from 18 December to 22 December last year, over their demands and warned of an indefinite strike starting January 6 if their demands were not met.

    They had demanded proper funding of health care in the country , provision of a regulatory environment for practice in the health sector and the expansion of universal health facilities to cover all Nigerians.

    Others demands are the upgrade of health infrastructure, elimination of fundamental injustices done to doctors in terms of workplace conditions/conditions of service as well as other health sector challenges.

    However while the nation was spared the doctors strike, the Joint Health Sectors Union and the Association of Health Professionals last Friday ended a three-day nationwide warning strike which paralyzed most health institutions nationwide.

    The striking workers meeting with the Labour Minister, Chief Emeka Wogu and his counterpart in the Ministry of Health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu, was inconclusive as both parties could not agree on how to resolve the crisis.

    Except an agreement is reached and implemented indications are that the health workers may embark on ill scale strike which will definitely have disrupt medical services in the country since doctors cannot fully operate without other health professionals.

    It is unfortunate that years of neglect and non implementation by past agreements has left the present government with the burden of meeting the demands of workers in various sectors.

    The federal government however has to rise up to the occasion and take necessary steps to redress the worrying development where no one is sure which union will be the next to declare a strike.

    Instead of waiting for unions to declare strikes, the government has to be pro-active in addressing some of the grievances of the workers. In some cases, what the workers are asking for are adequate funding of their sectors and policies to have an enabling environment.

    It is curious that the government usually has to be forced to accept terms it had earlier rejected.

    The situation where the President has to be dragged into negotiations with unions should not arise if necessary actions have been taken instead of allowing the situation to deteriorate.

  • The HND stigma

    My wife is a polytechnic graduate but if she has her way, she will not approve of anyone attending a polytechnic.

    Her reason is simple. She has experienced lots of discrimination in her working career which makes nonsense of the official claim that the Higher National Diploma (HND) is an equivalent of a university degree.

    Based on her experience and that of others she knows, she thinks polytechnic graduates are unfairly treated by employers both in the private and government establishments and I think she is right.

    “Why should we be qualified to serve together and yet our certificates are not equally rated at the point of employment,” she usually asks in discussion about graduate employment.

    When she was employed in a state teaching service commission, she and her HND graduate colleagues were placed on level seven unlike graduates who got level eight placements. She later got to know that HND holders have to acquire a Masters degree in teaching-related fields to aspire beyond a particular level, unlike degree holders.

    She eventually got admitted for a Post Graduate Diploma degree at the Lagos State University but the same university refused her admission for Masters Degree on the excuse of being an HND graduate.

    She had to opt for another state university outside Lagos for the required Masters course which lasted for almost four years instead of the stipulated one year.

    She is so happy to have finally overcome the stigma of having an HND, which according to her officially makes polytechnic graduates in government service feel inferior even with the staff number assigned to them until they get higher qualification.

    The private sector has apparently taken a cue from its government counterpart and it is usual for HND graduates to be discriminated against by employers who sometime don’t even employ non university graduates.

    My wife’s situation captures the burden of many polytechnic graduates which is rather unfortunate considering that but for the limited spaces for university admission many HND graduates would have preferred to get a degree. Some even have better secondary school certificates but have no choice but to attend polytechnics after waiting endlessly for university admission.

    The ongoing strike by polytechnic lecturers which has not attracted the same level of attention as that of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, (ASUU), by the federal government confirms accusation of government’s indifference to polytechnic education by the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, ASUP.

    According to ASUP President, Chibuzo Asomuhga, even though the government agreed to implement four of their demands before the strike was suspended in July, none of it was implemented until the union resumed the strike on October 4 last year.

    Just as in the case of the ASUU, the government seems to have perfected the act of failing to implement agreements reached with unions which has always resulted in further strike.

    Polytechnics in the country are indeed in a deplorable state and there is urgent need as demanded by the lecturers to carry out a NEEDS assessment, as it was done for universities to determine the funding requirements and provide them.

    It is bad enough that the president now has to intervene to end strikes by some unions or associations in the country. If that is what is required in this case, so be it. The strike should not be allowed to continue to minimise the damage already done to the education sector in the country.

  • Limits of social media activism

    It a recent training for some student journalists in Lagos, award-winning journalist Tolu Ogunlesi wondered how journalism was practiced in the pre-internet period. His question was informed by the ease with which writers now source for information and share their thoughts through various digital platforms.

    I shared with him and the participants how journalists had to go to libraries to check old newspaper cuttings for background information, dictate stories word for word when analogue telephones failed to go through and be at the mercy of few local prints and broadcast organisations.

    Thanks to technology, communication is now done with much ease with various platforms available to share information at a click to a global audience.

    Unfortunately, the unrestrained freedom to communicate is being abused with some ‘citizen journalists’ sharing false information and sometimes indulging in baseless criticism.

    Much as there was genuine cause for concern over the section of the proposed bill on electronic fraud that stipulated a seven-year jail term for who intentionally publishes slanderous messages about government electronically, it cannot be totally faulted based on what the electronic space has become.

    What it sought to punish before it was deleted following public outcry was “anyone who intentionally propagates false information that could threaten the security of the country or capable of inciting the general public against the government through electronic message shall be guilty of an offence.”

    I agree that the law could be misused by intolerant government officials, but a situation where some people under the cover of freedom of expression resort to misinforming the public through sharing of false information that can threaten the security and peace of the country is not tenable.

    The electronic platforms have become a haven for all manners of writers who have the least regard for the right of the person they are writing on to fair hearing. Unsubstantiated allegations against government officials and others are widely circulated with malicious intentions.

    While people should be free to hold the government accountable through alternative media like the online platforms, it should be done within the limits of the law and code of conduct for journalists.

    We don’t have to like government officials, but in the words of Charles Prestwich Scot, facts are supposed to be sacred and comments free.

    Social media writers can afford to rejoice over the deletion of the controversial section of the bill but they have to realise the need to exercise the freedom to publish with due sense of responsibility.

    For public officers who have been used to being reported by the traditional media only, they have to come to terms with the new reality of multiple options to beam the searchlight on their activities.

    More than ever before, government activities will come under intense scrutiny and appointees should be ready to speak up when necessary instead of getting unnecessarily agitated over some criticisms.