The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • Now, Okon puts pounded rice on the menu

    The times are very desperate. After spending a whole day hunting for forex to pay for a periodical in London, snooper came back home with his tail between his legs and completely famished. Comprehensively drunk on paraga, Okon and Baba Lekki were quite a sight to behold.

    “Okon, what is on the menu?” snooper called out.

    “Menu don become fenumonu or menuduro”, Baba Lekki whined with sadistic relish.

    “I am not talking to you crazy old man”, snooper snarled.

    “Oga no vex. Na Sapele water dey worry baba. Menu na pounded rice”, Okon said with a sneer.

    “And what is pounded rice?” snooper shrieked.

    “Na rice demcustom steal from dem smuggler and we come steal from dem. To pound rice you must to impound rice”, the mad boy snorted with malice. Snooper was momentarily speechless from the revolutionary wickedness of the whole scam.

    “And how come that on Monday morning you put breakfast and also breakfast in the evening?”snooper demanded angrily.

    “Oga, as we dey use formula 101, it means say if you breakfast for morning you must to break your fasting too for evening, abi make I let hunger wire you finish?” the unruly boy demanded.

    “I think you are out of your mind. By the way, you put Ogi and Akara for Tuesday morning and then Ogi and Shakara for Wednesday morning. What is Shakara?” snooper screamed.

    “Shakaranashakaraoloje. It mean say na only ogi you go drink after all demshakara. When akara no deynashakara remain”, the mad boy sniggered.

    “And when Shakara don kaput naSakara music remain. You no see now say menu don become menukuro”,  BabaLekki interjected with icy disdain.

    “You must be a lunatic. I think you lot are out of your mind”,snooper stuttered and banged the door on the crazy duo.

    “Oga he better say make man dey out of mind than to dey out of pocket. If you get assets make we dey sell dem now like dem crazy federal government”, Okon croaked.

    “Okon, I don tell dem foolish man make him run comot go him village, When hunger wire am well him go run comot Lagos. Ile kokont’agbe” Baba Lekki added.

     

  • Peter Obi exports his brand

    Peter Obi exports his brand

    It is good to have a good brand. It has been famously noted that while Nigeria imports what it has in abundance, it exports what it doesn’t have. Ever heard of Peter obi’s paradigm of state parsimony or the notorious fiscal frugality of the former governor of Anambra state?  Ever since Obi’s testimony about his niggardly disposition and exemplary financial prudence went viral, snooper has been quietly and furtively on duty.

    Listening in to the debate among cyber rodents, one can say that the reaction has been mixed. While many applauded Obi’s stellar probity, others denounced him for pandering and for opportunism.  A few are unwilling to forgive him for the rank perfidy of abandoning the APGA submarine for a helping of pottage that never quite materialized under Jonathan.

    Snooper must now weigh in on the debate without any further ado. Snooper snoops everywhere and at any time. As an international vagrant afflicted by the wandering disease of Sokugo, snooper often sleeps in Lagos only to wake up in far flung outreaches of the globe. Often this wanderlust yields encounters that are as surreal as they are outlandish.

    Towards the very tail end of the month of August, snooper was prowling around the plush ambience of the Hilton Hotel at JFK Airport in New York, ogling at the bevy of oriental airline hostesses when a quiet altercation at the reception attracted his attention. Lo, it was the inevitable Peter Obi himself coolly and courteously arguing his way out of a tricky situation. Calling him governor did not deter the impertinent American girls who probably thought it was a nickname any way.

    Apparently, Peter’s earlier booking had gone missing in the system and the girls were bent on slamming him with on the spot booking tariff. But the former governor was having none of this, insisting that they must look for the old booking. For a man of Peter’s famous fiscal discipline, the difference made a lot.

    As the argument went back and forth, Snooper quietly excused himself to continue his vigil. When yours sincerely met up with the former governor at breakfast the next morning and asked how it went, Peter, dressed in a tracksuit, replied with a miserly grin that the girls eventually came to their senses.Needless to add that the breakfast was complimentary.Anyone for Peter?

  • Edo governorship poll: a post mortem

    Edo governorship poll: a post mortem

    SHORTLY after Godwin Obaseki of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was declared winner of the September 28 Edo State governorship election, Governor Adams Oshiomhole enthusiastically concluded that the outcome of the poll was a crushing blow to those he described as godfathers. He named them. Though he was partly right, his conclusion was nonetheless an incomplete picture of the forces that shaped the poll. Mr Obaseki had defeated Osagie Ize-Iyamu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by more than 66,000 votes, a clearly unbridgeable and even undisputable gap. But in 2012, Mr Oshiomhole had won re-election by more than 330,000 votes, a landslide that shamed the opposition in an election that boasted of more than 10,000 voters (including cancelled votes) than the 2016 turnout.
    The resurgence of the PDP in this election should give Mr Oshiomhole cause for anxiety and Mr Obaseki reasons to proceed more guardedly in his utterances and relationships when he assumes office next month. The outgoing governor is not only popular, he is also a workaholic, and has been judged to be more faithful with the state’s resources than many other governors. Indeed, Mr Obaseki’s victory may in many ways be connected with Mr Oshiomhole’s giant and iconoclastic developmental strides in the state. But, alas, probably for this same reason, the narrowness of APC’s victory may also be connected with the governor’s grating idiosyncrasies, especially his boastful denunciation of opposition patriarchs in the state, and his uncanny ability to raise apprehension among the state’s leading elites.
    Had these reservations not manifested and united Mr Oshiomhole’s enemies against him and his party, it is probable the more urbane Mr Obaseki, the governor’s chosen successor, would have run away with a much clearer and neater victory, nay a landslide. This is because Mr Ize-Iyamu is not as popular as he imagines or campaigns, regardless of his pastoral affiliations. Yes, he is somewhat populist, somewhat given to histrionics, and has a reputation for strong-arm tactics, which he partly and gleefully applied to the relief and benefit of Mr Oshiomhole himself during the 2012 campaigns and elections, but he is quite unable to soar on account of the wearisome influence of his discredited backers. Indeed, at a time during the campaigns, it seemed the PDP was poised for an upset until Mr Ize-Iyamu and the Igbinedions made their famous birthday gaffes. For Edo which perched agonisingly on tenterhooks in deciding whether to cut its own nose to spite its face by punishing the voluble Mr Oshiomhole or to vote sensibly for developmental continuity, sanity and predictability, it required only a slight push to vote either way.
    For the next four years, Mr Obaseki, who is believed to be the governor’s main brain trust, will govern Edo. He will get the cooperation of most of the state, and inherit a solid foundation to build upon. He is more polished than both the governor and Mr Ize-Iyamu, and is expected to accurately read the hidden and open implications of the September 28 electoral outcome. He has won a major and exhilarating and deserving victory, and is inheriting a stable and fairly well-governed state. But the narrowness of his victory despite Mr Oshiomhole’s strides and the salutary effects of an APC presidency imply he is also inheriting a visibly and warily divided state. He should resist the temptation to gloat like Mr Oshiomhole. He needs to work imaginatively hard, in tandem with his reputation, and also attempt to unite Edo behind his government. He can do it if he recognises the outgoing governor’s weaknesses and limitations.
    The PDP has organised rallies to protest what they describe as a stolen election, and Mr Ize-Iyamu himself has postured aggressively against the election’s outcome and promised to go to court. It is not clear what evidence they have. But given the mood of the state and the near equanimity with which a majority accepted the results of the poll, any judicial exercise may end up a wasteful and needless adventure. Mr Ize-Iyamu’s backers may be incensed by the excruciating defeat they suffered in that crucially defining poll because they rightly take it as a plebiscite on their persons and popularity, given that some of them are in their twilight years, but the candidate himself should think futuristically and strive to rise above the fray and be the responsible person and statesman his campaign tried to project him in the past few months. That is if he is capable of that beatification; if the campaigns were not just a smokescreen to burnish a futile image that had been at bottom irredeemably scarred by the excesses of youth.

  • Thinking aloud

    • In his Independence Day anniversary speech, President Muhammadu Buhari, among other things, suggested it was futile for anyone or group to take on the might of the state. “A new insurgency has reared up its head in the shape of blowing up gas and oil pipelines by groups of Niger Delta Militants,” said the president. “This Administration will not allow these mindless groups to hold the country to ransom…No group can unlawfully challenge the authority of the Federal Government and succeed.” Apart from failing to understand the logic driving militancy and the solutions to the crisis, it is clear the president sees the state in the ancient colours of a leviathan that cannot be challenged. And beyond presidential prevarications and John Paden’s speculations about the continuing incarceration of former National Security Adviser (NSA) Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd), it is now all but obvious why the president elevates his logic and motivation expediently above the law and the constitution.
    • Not too long after hackers rifled through the information database of the Democratic Party in the United States in an obviously subterranean effort to sow seeds of distrust and conflict among the party’s presidential contenders and to give the farcical Donald Trump some advantage, other hackers, notably Julian Assange’s Wikileaks, have promised to unleash more damaging information expected to weaken Hillary Clinton’s soaring campaign. This is the age of cyber warfare. In fact, it appears a phony Third World War is already raging, with malevolent nations hacking the databases of target nations, and influencing outcomes, undermining development and stability, and crippling social and economic progress. The shape of war is drastically changing away from territorial combats and armoured tanks and artillery pieces to something more infinitely faceless and intriguing.

  • Their stories, our stories

    I may be wrong, but I get the impression that some journalists think they are doing non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and agencies a favour when they report their activities. NGOs usually have to try hard to get journalists interested in issues they are advocating, which are not sometimes major areas of coverage for the media. They have to build in training programmes, awards and grants into their advocacy plans which some journalists still do not take as seriously as they should.

    Some NGOs have been accused of using media publications and broadcasts to get grants which are not utilised for the purpose they are meant. While it may be true that some NGOs may not be as honest and committed to the causes they claim to be advocating, what cannot be denied is that stories about their areas of focus are matters that deserve as much coverage as they can get in the interest of their target audience or the general public.

    The NGOs may be the advocates of the causes they promote, but journalists must also see beyond writing ‘their stories’. Journalists should regard their stories as ‘our own stories’. As members of the public, journalists can benefit from the outcome of the campaigns directly or indirectly. This fact was apparent at a media discussion forum on reporting about cancer in Nigeria I participated in sometime ago. It turned out that virtually every journalist at the meeting had either had a direct or indirect experience about cancer-related treatment.

    A health correspondent told a pathetic story of how her mother died of cancer due to lack of adequate care while another recalled that her mother could have been saved if she had been diagnosed earlier when she sought treatment. I remember a senior journalist bursting into tears in Kaduna some years ago after listening to a testimony of a lawyer living with HIV. “I regret that my sister died a cheap death when she tested HIV positive. If only I had known that people who test positive to HIV can still live with it and achieve their professional goals like the lawyer speaking to us, I would not have allowed my sister to return to the village to die,” the journalist lamented.

    If the NGOs succeed in getting the government or authorities concerned through media reporting to provide adequate facilities for treatment of any disease for example, they can get the credit along with others working on the issue. Journalists should not feel used for a cause which they, their relatives and other members of the public can benefit from. The stories journalists write and broadcast for advocacy groups are not only their stories, but also our own stories as well. We can choose to focus on the issues NGOs are advocating and not their organisations. What is more important is that the public good is served through their stories and our stories.

    My advice to NGOs and other organisations that need the support of the media has, however, been that media coverage should not be taken for granted. There are many competing reports for publication with limited space to contend with.

    There is a lot involved in deciding what gets published and it should not always be assumed that journalists are not supportive of some campaigns when the reports are not published.

    What is required is a synergy of mutual understanding and not mutual distrust which still plays out in many instances.

    • Excerpts from my new book, The journalist you ought to be
  • We are not in a short recession, Mr. President; we are in a serial recession that is close to a depression (1)

    We are not in a short recession, Mr. President; we are in a serial recession that is close to a depression (1)

    The programmes I have outlined will revive the economy, restore the value of the naira and drive hunger from our land.  President Buhari, Independence Day Speech, October 1, 2016

    Let me start by admitting that for a long time before the President’s Independence Day speech last week, I had been experiencing some concern, some discomfiture that most commentators have been saying that we are now in a recession that began with the official devaluation of the naira when the truth is that what we are going through not only started long before the devaluation of the national currency but has indeed been going on for so long that it is much closer to a depression than a recession..But having made this observation, I must nevertheless emphasize that it was the president’s speech that finally convinced me that I had to write about the matter. This is because both in the title that most newspapers and newsmagazines gave the speech –Nigeria’s Economic Recession Is Real But Would (sic) Not Last – and in the analysis of the crisis and the “solutions” proffered by Buhari, it was obvious that the President really had a shortrecession in mind, with depression absolutely nowhere in sight in his thoughts and projections.

    As a matter of fact, this is clearly reflected in the sentence that I have excerpted from the president’s speech for the epigraph for this piece, a sentence which indisputably shows that because he thinks we are in a short recession that began with the catastrophic fall in the value of the naira, Buhari expects a quick fix for the severe shortfalls that the national economy and the good people of Nigeria are going through right now.Typically, a recession does not last long. Compared with an economic depression, it is like going through a brief ailment that lasts for a couple of weeks in comparison with suffering a long, life threatening illness. No, Mr. President, economically we are not suffering a bit of a cold that requires no more than a cold and/or cough mixture; we are in the grip of a serious pandemic that will require procedures and medications adequate to the nature of the serious nature of the illness – precisely because we are in a serial recession whose repeated occurrenceover the last two to three decades indicates that we are always on the brink of an economic depression.

    Now, it is an elementary principle in the science of economics that though there are similarities and continuities between them, a recession is very different from a depression. As a matter of fact, the two terms would not have been invented and applied to describe different phenomena by economic theoristsif there were no great, perhaps profound distinctions between the terms. In a short series of two essays that begins in this column this week, I wish to discuss this issue with particular focus on its implications both for state or governmental policy and the expectations and hopes of Nigerians in their tens of millions across the length and breadth of the land. So, for starters, let us briefly deal with the differences between a recession and a depression, together with the issue of why it is very important not to either willfully or unknowingly confuse one with the other.

    Before getting to the issue itself, a note of caution. I am by profession not an economist; I am a literary critic and cultural theorist. However, for nearly half a century now, I have been deeply interested in the science of economics, especially in its more progressive and/or”philosophical” traditions (Adam Smith; Karl Marx; John Maynard Keynes; Obafemi Awolowo; Julius Nyerere; Paul Krugman; Eskor Toyo) as distinct from its more conservative, neoclassical and “econometric” currents (Milton Friedman and the Chicago School; Ragnar Frisch; Bruce Hansen; and our own Charles Soludo). This in effect means that while I will not avoid conventional or even neoclassical economic considerations in this piece, my focus will be more on the public good in relation to the driving ideologies and effects of economic activities, far beyond their reflection in narrow professional disputes among economists. In other words, just as it is often said politics is too important to leave to politicians and law is too important to leave to lawyers, I say here that the economies of our nation and our planetary community are far too important to leave to economists. At any rate, our discussion of recession(s) and depression(s) as economic phenomena will be very brief, the main point being essentially to address the central issue of this discussion which is that we are not in a short recession as the President and his (economic) advisers obviously think, to go by his Independence Day speech last week.

    To give a concrete illustration of the essential difference between a recession and a depression, permit me to draw an instructive analogy from the field of medicine. Thus, just as physicians of the homeostatic school of medicine believe that the body, the organs and the tissues all naturally tend towards health and wellness anddisease is an aberration, an abnormality that the body always quickly tries to “heal”, so do most traditional or conventional economists believe that expansion and growth represent the normal state of affairs in economic activities while most “slowdowns” or recessions are brief and tend to be more rare than frequent. Indeed, some economists go so far as to define recession as being characterized by a period of negative economic growth for no more than two consecutive quarters! Unemployment rises, industrial production falls, real GDP adjusted for inflation decreases, incomes stagnate or fall especially with regard to their purchasing power in wholesale and retail sales and government borrowing increases. These are the typical features of a recession. If they all seem like frightening things, mercifully they tend not to last for too long in a recession. If they last for too long and moreover get worse, then you have a depression, the mother of all recessions. Please always remember, dear reader, that most traditional or conventional economists believe that, as in life itself, expansion and growth constitute the normal or even “natural” state of economic activities and recession is an abnormality that doesn’t or shouldn’t last too long.

    But now think, compatriot: when hasevery single one of these phenomena not been happening in our national economy and on a more or less continuous basis for a long time now? When has unemployment not been high and in double digits? (In a recession, unemployment is supposed to be in single digits; it is in a depression that it falls into double digits). When has industrial output not been in continuous decline in our country in the last three decades? When has our governments, federal and state, not been borrowing from both internal and external creditors even when the world price of oil was relatively high? Did the rise in unemployment in our country begin with the official devaluation of the naira? Hasn’t the value of the naira in relation to the convertible currencies of the world been falling, falling and falling for a long time now, only to assume its present catastrophic and spectral scale with the devaluation?

    To put concrete, human faces to these questions, I cannot remember a time in the last two decades when I have not been overwhelmed by relatives, friends, acquaintances and neighbors with the CV’s of their university-educated daughters and sons who have been on the job market for years and years after their graduation. In my neighborhood at Oke-Bola, Ibadan, I can’t remember a time when there haven’t been scores upon scores of youths with absolutely no prospects of gainful employment now and in the future. And I have lost count of the number of years when most of the factories at the Oluyole Industrial Estate, the main manufacturing corridor in Ibadan, all closed down and laid off their employees. Every time that I drive through the area, I shake my head in great sadness and bewilderment. Is this not a profile, compatriot, that is applicable to virtually all neighborhoods in the country, both urban and rural? And yet the President and his economic advisers and speech writers talk of a short recession that began only recently and will not last long! Any thinking, concerned and caring Nigerian who for one second believes the President and his advisers ought to have his or her mental and emotional state checked!

    In the context of all I have been saying in this essay, it might be profitable to ask why no one has ever said that we are either in a depression or close to it. I think there are two reasons that are closely linked for this. First, we have not yet seen the worst or the most frightening things associated with economic depressions. What things, what phenomena are these? Well, things like a total collapse of the banking system that induces a run on the banks as millions of people line up to take as much as they can from their accounts before it is too late. Things like a national currency whose value is little better than toilet paper. Things like wholesalers and retailers hoarding foodstuffs and other essential commodities while waiting for prices to rise again. And things like the disappearance of “payday” as deliverance day because pay packets no longer serve any valuable purpose. The far more dramatic phenomena are the mass suicides of men and women completely overwhelmed by the hardships they and their families have to endure. There are countries on our continent and other parts of the developing world undergoing most of these phenomena that have not (yet) declared that they are in the grip of an economic depression. If that is the case, why would a country like Nigeria that still has oil wealth coming into its coffers declare that it is in or close to a depression?

    And of course, there is that oil wealth itself. It is considerably down because of the fall in the world price of crude petroleum and the shortages in production caused by destruction of facilities by the Niger Delta militants. But it is still flowing into our national coffers in magnitudes that make it possible to stave off a full-blown slide into economic depression, even though our recessions have been so long that they abstractly and formally qualify for being declared a depression. Meanwhile, please note, compatriot, that Buhari could have made things easier for himself and his administration by stating, quite truthfully, that since the recession did not start with his coming to power, it will take time to tackle the challenges. He and his advisers didn’t take this path apparently because they believe, like all administrations before them, that with oil wealth, you can spend, or more appropriately “buy”, your way out of any recession or depression. This extremely naïve and dangerous thinking has its roots in a national economy in which nearly everything is imported. In next week’s continuation of the series, we shall start with this simplistic assumption that reflation through access to oil wealth is what will keep our economy afloat and in the President’s own words, “drive hunger from our land”.

    • Biodun Jeyifo bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • How will APC avert the Otedola syndrome in the Ondo guber election?

    If these APC dramatists deserve their positions in the party hierarchy would they be working assiduously towards its immolation?  

    Having  last week counselled  against  the sale of  national assets  as a way of getting out of recession, I was this week going to advise President Buhari to, instead,  go after those the late legal luminary, Tunji Braithwaite, called  ’rats and mosquitoes’, in his highly principled  political escapades of the 2nd Republic. I was going to draw the president’s attention to the patriotic struggles of Hon (Dr) Abdulmumin Jibrin, on the massive thievery going on in the National Assembly. I was going to plead with the president to immediately stop this shame of a nation and compel immediate payback with interest because if the allegation is correct, their senate counterparts must have collected double. And to the citizens of Kiru/Bebeji, I was going to suggest they immediately head to court to ask Dogara to show cause as to why the interests of a highly compromised arm of government should supersede theirs’. That way, they can help stop Dogara’s creeping autocracy to which members have unexplainably consented to. It is a shame that what, by now, should have become a mass movement still remains a solitary, one man battle.

     I digress.

     I am yet to be convinced that the Ondo State APC primaries are, anywhere, near what the Dr. Kayode Fayemi-led   27-member APC National Convention Committee faced in 2014. Yet we saw him stamp on that exercise, his well-known perspicacity, and incandescent integrity, which ran right down the committee and enabled the fledgling party emerge from a very sensitive assignment, smelling like a thousand roses. So what went wrong with the party of change in Ondo state? Do the party leaders know they are playing dangerous games, and working real hard towards a rehash of the famed ‘Otedola syndrome’? Have they forgotten how titanic the recent Edo governorship election turned and that it was won almost solely on Governor Adams Oshiomhole’s performance which is not the case in Ondo State where the party is in opposition? If these APC dramatists deserve their positions in the party hierarchy would they be working assiduously towards its immolation?  With the all-pervading cry of hunger, do they know the party’s current rating amongst Nigerians?

     I honestly believe that the party’s failure to put a Board of Trustees in place is beginning to hurt seriously.

    APC, as the Ondo debacle has shown, lacks competent management hands and I think this is due, largely, to fears of insecurity on the part of the  chairman, Chief  Odigie Oyegun, a man, albeit, of incontrovertible integrity. He has apparently permitted himself to be cowed, if not browbeaten, by one of the contesting caucuses and can no longer be a lodestar for truth and fairness. He has chosen loyalty to the perspective which most guarantees his office rather than be loyal to the party. That is why, for him, five can be greater than six. And this is only a repeat of his weird position in the Kogi debacle where he served as a foot soldier for hegemonic interests. A leadership like his, so afraid of standing by the truth, can only lead the party into a cul de sac.

    What Chief Oyegun’s dilatory leadership would ensure is a ruling party in a permanent flux, completely drained of  trust  amongst  its leading lights; a situation which is guaranteed to spread to the state chapters, making it no better than today’s soul-less PDP. I will be surprised if that is what Chief Oyegun’s would like to be remembered for. Or why will a party chairman be willing to be used to cut a national leader of the party to size? I did not ask this question out of ignorance of the prevailing undercurrents. I have written copiously on these pages, pleading with the protagonists, who I know all read this column, to sheathe the sword. To Asiwaju, who I know had given a leg and an arm for his junior subalterns, who I also know reciprocated with unblemished loyalty, I suggested he invite them to resolve all the issues. I know that concerning the APC formation, Asiwaju, unarguably, led the way, but these gentlemen were not far behind. They put in massive effort which included convincing their colleagues on the Nigerian Governors Forum, particularly those Madam Patience had declared persona non grata. I pleaded with Asiwaju, in two or three articles on this column to invite them, scold them, if necessary, but apologise for attempting to deny them  their just rewards,  convinced that they will,  in turn, like the Omoluabi’s I know them to be, accept and come to appreciate him  the more. Failure to do that allowed the proverbial broken wall to fester; a situation which total strangers have now taken advantage of , to trouble the House of Oodua.              As I mentioned in my forthcoming book: SIMPLY A CITIZEN JOURNALIST, which final editing I completed in Houston, Texas, a few months ago, I have always prayed the good Lord to lead our leaders aright. Or why does the Yoruba historically take one step forward and immediately go ten backwards?

    Had Asiwaju called in those he, unfortunately, wronged amongst his ardent lieutenants, we all won’t be in this mess which has spread to nearly all APC state chapters in the Southwest.

    But better late than never. A way out must be found because things can get far worse. This, after all, is the first time the Yoruba nation is having any say at the federal level unlike other parts of  the country  that have severally prospered by that very fact. Asiwaju must make the move for reconciliation: ‘nitori pe, agba ti o binu, l’omo npo jojo’.

     And now to the critical Ondo State matter.

    Owing to Chief Oyegun’s mistake, the party lost the chance to have the most equitable solution to the crisis, that is, a repeat primary election. But the party must now look beyond that. The exit of Chief Olushola Oke, a stranger to the progressive cause, should make reconciliation easier if the contending individuals/caucuses really mean well for the party. I warned not too long ago on these pages that you can only take Governor Mimiko for granted at your own peril. This becomes more crystal clear when you remember that the president will never permit the use of state power to rig elections.

    The fissures in this crisis are so deep, and variegated, that party elders, under the lead of the president, and leader of the party himself, must be involved in its resolution. It is totally unacceptable that the party, represented by its chairman, could be adjudged, even remotely, to be involved in trying to undermine any of its national leaders, and that, in his primary constituency. The president must therefore plead with Asiwaju to see this as one more sacrifice on behalf of the party. For Asiwaju, and the aggrieved contestants, it must be peace with honour because that is about the only condition that will stop their supporters from voting for opposition candidates. This should be taken as an opportunity to settle the party’s most troubling problems and, both the president and the party, must not hesitate to make concessions to Asiwaju, especially with respect to federal appointments. It should not take a leg and an arm to achieve this given the calibre of personalities suggested for the reconciliation effort.

    And for Asiwaju, he must appreciate the critical need of winning this election and having Ondo State back in the progressive camp. With Lagos State now a member of the Oodua Investment Group, resource-rich Ondo State must join the dominant political perspective in the region so as to jump start the wonderful work Dipo Famakinwa and co have been doing towards southwest regional economic integration. A lot was achieved in this regard between 2010-14 but much more can be done. Asiwaju must consider this far more important than whatever personal inconveniences this crisis may have cost him. After all, how long ago was it that Rotimi was his main man in the state? He should accept that these things happen and that it is the fate of statesmen to take the higher ground. He must forgive and forget.

    May good counsel prevail, as failure to reach a rapprochement could very well see APC snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

    God forbid.

  • Special status for Lagos

    Special status for Lagos

    But for dirty politicking, this is obvious

    But for our kind of politics, there is no reason why people making a case for special status for Lagos should sweat before their prayer is answered. Unfortunately, our society has not yet developed to the point where superior arguments would trounce mundane and partisan considerations. Senator Oluremi Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) representing Lagos Central Senatorial District brought the matter to the front burner of national discourse again on Wednesday at the senate through a bill, titled “A bill for an act to make provisions for Federal Grants to Lagos State in recognition of its strategic socio-economic significance and other connected purposes”. The bill was read for the second time when other senators, particularly those from the north, south-south and south east overwhelmingly voted against it”.

    The bill sought one per cent of federally generated revenue as special grant for Lagos State because of the state’s former capital’s socio-economic significance. According to Senator Tinubu, “Lagos is of a strategic, social, economic significance as the commercial nerve-centre of Nigeria. Today, Lagos serves as the commercial capital of Nigeria and its major nerve-centre. The strategic importance of Lagos is inherent in several sectors of the economy. Available statistics indicate that six out of 10 international passengers arrive in Lagos, while eight out of 10 depart from Lagos. This shows that Lagos is the window through which visitors travel in and out of Nigeria.”

    The case could not have been better or more passionately argued. According to her, the state is beset by a number of socio-economic challenges due to its being the country’s former federal capital.  The percentage quoted by Senator Tinubu is for international passengers alone; the statistics of other Nigerians travelling into Lagos, with many of them not returning to wherever they came from, is equally astounding.

    Incidentally, Senator Tinubu’s bill would be the second such attempt at seeking special attention for Lagos, at least in this dispensation. Regrettably, both attempts failed. The bill was first presented to the upper chamber in the 7th Senate, but the lawmakers rejected it at the committee stage. The then Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu-led Senate Ad-hoc Committee on Constitution Review on June 5, 2013, ruled out special status for Lagos. It said in its report: “On special status for Lagos, while the committee appreciates the peculiar needs and challenges of Lagos, it is our considered opinion that according such special status should be a matter of political decision, which should be kept out of the Constitution.”

    One wonders what this is supposed to mean. If you agree that Lagos has “peculiar needs and challenges”, why leave the matter to the whims and caprices of political leaders in the country, most of whom lack the maturity for the high offices they occupy? They reduce everything to politics and see issues from narrow parochial perspective. We can see evidence of this from the statement of Senator Gershom Bassey, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Cross River South, who said he would only support the bill if such attention is granted Calabar, the first capital of Nigeria.

    I have nothing against lawmakers making passionate case for their constituencies. But when we begin to consider apple with oranges, we run into problems.  I won’t be categorical or committal on whether the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) be given the same status as Lagos as Senator Philip Tanimu Aduda, PDP, FCT, wants before supporting Senator Tinubu’s bill. “I will support it (bill) on one condition, that what will be given to Lagos State should be given to other states like the FCT. Some special allocations should be given to FCT. The FCT is over-stretched and government needs to intervene. In the FCT, we have riverine areas.” We need to look at the record, what was the situation like when Lagos was federal capital?

    But it would appear that Senator Bassey feels those making a case for special status for Lagos are doing so simply because it is the former federal capital. I am sure he knows better; that that is not the plank of their argument. The main plank of their argument is the pressure that Lagos is bearing as a result of its being the former federal capital.

    The point is; the population of Lagos keeps increasing daily, with many of those coming into the place not returning. Even if only for those transiting, the figure is huge. The population of Calabar is put at about 371,022 (2006 census). The population of the whole Cross River State is 3.738million (also 2006 census). On the other hand, the population of Lagos, even at the contentious 2006 estimate, is about eight million; the state government argues that it is more than 16 million, which is more like it, given the number of people the government provides for by way of infrastructure, which is overstretched. Some people may dispute this for whatever reason, but it cannot be denied that the state caters for the teeming number of people leaving various parts of the country for the ‘city’. This imposes a lot of strain on infrastructural facilities in Lagos.  Even many of our representatives and senators find Lagos irresistible as they abandon their dull life in Abuja for the alluring Lagos city life at weekends and during major public holidays.

    This is why one finds the reason adduced by Senator Aliyu Wamakko, APC, Sokoto North, who also kicked against the bill, curious. He said the timing was wrong and that we cannot be asking that Lagos be given more cash at a time other states are struggling to pay salaries, especially as Lagos is the richest state in the country. By his logic (or illogic), that would make other states poorer and Lagos richer. Need the senator be reminded that the huge population of Lagos is a function of many factors? One of these is that it is the failure of most other states to govern responsibly that has necessitated the rush to Lagos en masse from most other parts of the country in search of greener pasture. Lagos does not have to be this congested if most other states had done the rightful.

    The point is; Lagos deserves more than its current federal allocation. Look at the Value Added Tax (VAT), for instance. The bulk of the tax comes from Lagos. Yet, Lagos does not have the benefit of equivalent returns. Senator Olusola Adeyeye, APC, Osun Central made a good point that Lagos deserves commensurate returns from the VAT proceeds. If 13 per cent is good for oil-producing communities, why not same for VAT? “By the same token, whatever you get from VAT, a certain percentage should belong to that community. We have among us a governor, who made a law that banned the consumption of alcohol. That’s what the people want. I supported it. He has the right to make the law. However, if my own people consume alcohol and pay VAT on it, he should not take a penny of what my people have for VAT on alcohol. “In Lagos, all of us are paying tax. And all of these VAT is taken to Abuja. What we need to do is to say whatever is good for the goose is good for the gander. If it is 13 percent for Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers for oil, let it also be 13 percent to Lagos for the VAT paid there’’, Senator Adeyeye said. This makes eminent sense. Indeed, if we go by the elementary principle of taxation, 13 per cent may even be small in this instance, given that a cardinal principle of taxation is that a reasonable part of the tax must be enjoyed by people in the area from where it came.

     All said, Senator Tinubu might have lost the case for now, but we should not be deterred. Mercifully, the loss was not due to superior argument but to the usual primordial sentiments. Whoever thought Senator Adeyeye’s reference to the FCT as “a pampered and spoilt child” was the reason why the bill failed does not know the undercurrents in this matter; the high-wire politics involved. That could have angered some senators; but it is not enough to make the senate reject an otherwise good bill. Our senate should not be throwing the baby away with the bath water over flimsy excuses. They did so the other time when the then President Olusegun Obasanjo was seeking ‘third term’: they threw away constitution amendment because of their aversion to ‘third term’. They have done it again with Senator Tinubu’s bill. A mature senate would always know how to separate Genesis from Exodus, (apologies to one of my former lecturers).

  • Life is only a Smile away!

    It’s so sad that our existence has been made to be so dependent on our economy so no one sees anyone else in human value but in earning value. This is why we no longer give free smiles to each other. How well we relate to anyone else depends on how financially valuable they are to us.

    Get a life! This is the lesson that many of us missed while we were in school – primary, secondary, varsity, or post-varsity; school of skills acquisition or even school of hard knocks. The ‘courses’ we took in all these interventions emphasised only how to ‘do’ things for money, ‘make’ things for money, ‘multiply’ things for money but never how to use our skills, training or money to ‘get a life’. Too often, it’s life that gets to us rather.

          Oh yes, it is obvious that life is getting to many of us now. If you don’t believe me, just look at the many faces that surround you. More and more, laughter is becoming a scarce commodity, and smiling faces are now endangered species. Most faces you meet these days are either drawn, long, haggard or hopeless; and you don’t know whether to clean, shorten, straighten or lie to them to give some hope. No need, you tell yourself, the federal government is already doing that, lying to them, that is.

          Let’s see now, when the dollar started to slide to N250, the government told us that it was not its doing. It was the black market. Then, it went to N350. Still the government said it was the black market responsible. Now, I hear the dollar has gone to N500 and all our faces have turned black from looking too much at the black market. Is it any wonder that those faces are all crumpled up and one cannot get any laughter from any throat now for love or money?

          It’s all about faces today, reader, and how we need to re-arrange them to suit the economic times we’re in right now. Yes indeed, there are faces for every occasion. The face for this economic recession is not hard to spot. First, the eyes are squinted from gazing too long at the horizon hoping it would herald the good news that three months’ salaries of the ten months owed have been paid. The eyes are in permanent squeeze because, well, the horizon is far.

          Then the nose is all flared up and the nostrils red from sniffing out rumours of payment from every conceivable corner. Many noses have sniffed at corridors of government for news so long that the very floors bear their odours. Many noses have even out-sniffed the police sniffing dogs just to get some news or an inkling of government’s thinking. Are they thinking of paying us today, tomorrow or never? I tell you, many noses are even now scraping the very floors leading to many Governors’ Offices just to get some news. That is how low the governments have brought us in this country. Then you ask us to laugh?

          The world is celebrating this year’s Smile Day today but our mouths cannot smile. Most mouths have since moved house. Previously, the African mouth was described as being made of ‘full luscious lips’ and the Caucasian mouth was ‘thin-lipped’. So, it was not rare to find the occasional European who envied the full African lips and got under the knife to make it happen to them. If you don’t believe me, ask the actresses who dot the globe. Ask the cartoonists who attempt to portray our Africanness. Ask yourself.

          I’m telling you that the Nigerian lips that go around bearing this Africanness are no longer describable as ‘full’ or ‘luscious’. No, not no more. You look at the next set of lips close to you. You will find they have since gone from luscious to drained, turned, thinned, pruned, down… Indeed, those lips are anywhere but up – that is the position they should occupy when you smile.

          So, many faces are no longer recognisable now because the economy has turned down. I really don’t know what that means but I have so often heard people talk of economic down-turn. Is it not that it has turned down, like our lips when they are sad?

          Seriously, I find that many of us have formed the habit of tying the shape of our faces to the state of the economy, i.e. our pocket. Have you noticed that when people feel full in the pocket, i.e. when their bank accounts are fat, then they are all smiles and indulgences? However, when the pocket is light and drained, then they are all frowns and sadness. The truism that happiness is just a smile away holds for many of us then. A pocket full of cash is a heart full of happiness, all smiles. A pocket devoid of cash is a heart devoid of smiles, all sad.

          It’s so sad that our existence has been made to be so dependent on our economy so no one sees anyone else in human value but in earning value. This is why we no longer give free smiles to each other. How well we relate to anyone else depends on how financially valuable they are to us. Politicians who have killed and plundered the land are held to be extremely valuable in the family. This is why everyone flocks around them, troops to their houses, strives to be noticed by them, and even prays to be remembered by them… Kidnappers who have gone Plc. Have better value to us than the poor, hard working carpenter. We can call the kidnapper to be chairman at our ceremonies and everyone will nod approval going by his dressing. Trying calling a carpenter…

          In this 21st century, we have developed a very awkward culture indeed which has completely inversed our African culture of other-recognition. This new culture, insanely pivoted and driven by the economic worth of an individual, has in turn driven us mad and wiped the smile off our faces.

         True, our teachers in our primary/secondary schools might have sometimes told us to ‘wipe that smile of your face’ in dour times of trouble-making, but it’s time to bring them back. The smile is the essence of life, the heart of joy and the bringer of a thousand benefits to the body. If you don’t believe me, ask your doctor. Trust me, that smile you’re not giving yourself and others is draining you of life and soul. It’s time to get a life because life is only a Smile away.

  • Nigeria: still ‘Grazing’ half a century after independence

    Mandating cattle farmers to adopt the model of ranching and supporting them with loans from the Agriculture loan facilities is a more rational policy needed.

    The last part of my answer to the avalanche of questions has provided me with the title of today’s column.My use of Grazing will include the literal meaning of driving animals to find food where ever such food is available, the equivalent of hunting and gathering cultural practice. The other sense of the usage will be metaphorical, referring to policies and actions of those in power for the past four decades to produce a political and economic culture that privileges free loading on a nationwide level. This part will play with the idea that since 1975 Nigeria’s governments have been constructed to act like grazing cattle: eating whatever herbage is available at the instance of nature without making adequate sacrifice to add value to nature through properly coordinated productive activities that can reduce reliance on just nature’s blessings to sustain West Africa’s largest market. In other words, in the language of stylistics, we will use Grazing in this column in relation to its denotation as well as its connotation.

    Only last week, the media reported that the federal government had affirmed that there would be no going back on its decision to establish ranches and grazing zones across the country for Fulani herdsmen or nomadic cattle breeders. Breeding cattle for meat or milk in Nigeria, like in any other pre-modern society in the past, had been through moving cattle and goats to anywhere with pasture. What is surprising about the recent news on the decision of the federal government to curtail or end violence between cattle farmers and plant/vegetable farmers is the shallowness in the policy to acquire land as grazing zones for cattle farmers across the federal state of Nigeria. More worrying is the fact that such policy ignores complaints and suggestions by all governments and citizens of several states: Kwara, Kogi, Benue, Plateau, and all the states in the south of the country on how to end destruction of life and property perpetrated by nomadic cattle breeders.

    To make the policy appear palatable to states that had suffered from intrusion of nomadic cattle rearers, a problem that should not be ignored is not about the nationality of the culprits but about the acts of violence and more importantly about the obsession with the culture of nomadic cattle rearing this late in the history of modernity across the world. Mandating cattle farmers to adopt the model of ranching and supporting them with loans from the Agriculture loan facilities is a more rational policy needed. This will give the country an opportunity to once and for all move its animal farming from primitive to modern systems.

    In addition, policymakers in the ministry of agriculture and elsewhere in governments across the country need not be obsessed with continuing with an antiquated model of animal breeding. Any policy outside supporting ranches through low-interest loan is capable of being misconstrued, especially by states that rely on plant and vegetable farming for their sustenance. One possible reading of policy insistence on acquiring land across the country for Fulani herdsmen is that the federal government is trying to subsidize cattle farmers by acquiring land to give to private businessmen who own cattle and pass them to nomads to raise. The Constitution or the Land Use Act does not permit any government to acquire land from other people to give to those engaged in profit making for themselves, be they cattle or cocoa farmers. Another reading may be that the federal government is looking for land to re-settle herdsmen and in the process change the demographic and cultural character of communities from which has been taken. A third possible reading is that the federal government is unwilling to accept the imperative of modernisation that would allow Nigeria to be competitive in a fast-growing global village. A fourth reading may be that the federal government is spoiling for a fight with states that have cried foul about any policy that encourages cattle grazing across the country at the expense of the lifestyle of non-cattle farmers.

    Anyone visiting Nigeria for the first time and reading about the policy to acquire land from various sections of the country for animal farmers for the purpose of grazing cannot but wonder if Nigeria is being ruled by cattle-owning political elite. But those who live in Nigeria are likely to smile, knowing how similar the insistence on establishing grazing zones (instead of opting for a more productive and less intrusive ranch model) is to the way Nigeria has been governed for decades. Perceptive readers of political, economic, and social behaviour are not likely to be surprised that the federal government feels comfortable about saying that the final solution to the perennial problem of violence and tension between cattle breeders and other farmers is to further make normal a system of animal breeding that is out of place in the modern world.

    Past governments could have enjoyed limiting the country’s development in all sectors by choosing to remain myopic and unconcerned about changes that have made other countries more competitive. But a government of change cannot afford to be beholden to the past and traditions that are more likely to under-develop the country and at the same time cause disharmony among its constituent parts. Myopia and disregard for innovation in many areas have hobbled Nigeria economically and politically for decades. For example, past governments relied generally on an ‘economic policy of grazing’: living off oil rent to the disadvantage of present and future generations.

    For example, had past leaders opted sincerely for the Norwegian model of investing revenue from oil at home and abroad to enable the country respond to the challenge of modern productive economy, Nigeria would not be writhing in pain because of drop in oil price. Similarly, if past leaders had invested oil revenue in energy production like South Africa, the country would have become a major manufacturer of goods that would have given the country a diversified economy before now. Had past leaders modernized and mechanised farming, we would not be calling for agricultural revolution more than 50 years after departure of British colonial masters. Ivory Coast got independence around the same time with Nigeria and does not need to be reading books on modern agriculture today. If past leaders had not been believers in the ‘philosophy of grazing’ by both humans and animals as the easiest way to run a country, Nigeria would have used its huge oil revenue in the past to create a modern infrastructure and would not have needed to run to other countries as a 56-year old country to build roads and rail for moving people and goods. If past governments had not found joy or pleasure in eating up whatever was available, the country’s wealth would have been used for sustainable development, instead of becoming loot in foreign vaults in Switzerland, the United States, United Kingdom, Panama, United Arab Emirate, etc.

    A mindset that is hooked to living in pre-modern mode cannot be competitive in the contemporary world. At a time that South Africa had even started ranching wild animals, Nigeria’s competitiveness in beef and milk production cannot be enhanced by a policy that adopts ranching half-heartedly and sticks to grazing religiously. If we are sincere about agricultural revolution, there is no better time to do away with the culture of animal grazing. Even for peace and stability in the society, it is better to ranch our cattle than to let them loose to graze all over the country at the expense of motorists, and growers of cash crop, fruits and vegetables.