The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • Punishing and preventing corruption

    Punishing and preventing corruption

    The current system that feeds states and local governments with monthly allocations is not only unsustainable; it also promotes corruption, just as keeping so much money with the central government that has very little direct responsibility to citizens and communities encourages corrupt behaviour on the part of morally weak individuals in public service.

    From all appearances since his emergence as president, General Buhari has kept to his promise to fight corruption. It is already part of the nation’s urban folklore that he and the EFCC chairman cried when they first saw mountains of data pointing at corrupt acts in various sectors of the polity. Understandably, President Buhari does not seem to have enough time or space to get corrupt individuals punished, largely on account of the ubiquitous nature of venality in the preceding administration of President Jonathan. It is, therefore, not fair to accuse him of not talking about how to institutionalise ethicality in governance and socialise the population into a culture of honesty in public service.

    Given the frequency and magnitude of corrupt acts unearthed so far, nobody can blame the Buhari administration for not announcing already details of its vision and mission about how to create a governance and public culture that is devoid of venality. Many citizens who thought that Transparency International was being racist or anti-African for ranking Nigeria one of the most corrupt counties in the world for several years must, after hearing of the various types and levels of corrupt acts only in the last six years, now feel ashamed. So must those who criticise masters of ceremonies who spice party talks with tales of corruption in the country have realised that reality can be more unbelievable than fiction. The reality, as reflected in media reports, is that too many of those who get to the corridor of power as political appointees and as administrators in the nation’s public service are morbidly corrupt.

    It will be no exaggeration for anyone to think that it is mainly kleptomaniacs, those who steal compulsively or pathologically, that are more prominent in public service than those who are honest. How else is an average citizen to view the news of heinous crimes of stealing that cut across the public sector, from the executive to the legislature and the judiciary? In other climes, the frequency and magnitude of stealing by political appointees and public servants would have called for intervention of psychiatrists. When an individual in charge of managing an office chooses to steal the funds for managing such office in order to buy outlandish luxury items, as many of those already accused of looting the treasury have done, it should be difficult for non-psychiatrists not to feel that stealing must be in the DNA of such individuals.

    When a former senior civil servant friend of mine remarked with noticeable seriousness in his voice and on his face that should Buhari choose to detect and punish every act of corruption in the public service he would not have time for anything else, most of us within earshot felt depressed about the quality of people who get into public service as politicians and professionals. More importantly, I also believe that President Buhari must not only worry about the corrupt people of today; he must give attention in his initiatives on corruption to preventing the grooming of new thieves of state as politicians or civil servants.

    Pundits have already started showing the way toward grooming a new breed for public service. The government has been asked to pay attention to moral education in the country. President Buhari is being asked by many commentators to overhaul the curriculum with the aim of emphasising moral education than hitherto. What has been left out of suggestions for a new culture of probity in public service is the subscription of many parents and teachers to the culture of corruption and impunity. Parents who are corrupt and also show their children and wards evidence of proceeds of their corrupt acts are not in any good position to raise morally respectable children. Teachers who ask for various forms of bribe from parents of their students or from the students can only be examples of teachers not needed for the new curriculum, until such teachers are re-educated. One thing that is reassuring about ‘Ethical Revolution,’ to borrow a phrase beloved by NPN politicians of old, is that Nigeria has not always been like this. There used to be a time even here in Lagos in the early 1960s when newspaper vendors could leave their newspapers in the open to allow them run after moving cars without any fear that buyers would fail to drop money for the number of papers they took.

    As human beings, children can, more than adults, be re-oriented to know and accept that stealing is not good, regardless of the religious sensibility of such children and their parents. Punishing dishonest adults can also serve as a great deterrent to young people. The president’s men must give more thought to promoting moral values among children in particular and adults in general. It is a sociological fact (that may not be as Hobbesian at it may sound) that rules and punishment for violation of rules keep many people out of crime. According to a Yoruba proverb, “Gbogbo eniyan ni ole bi ile baa da,” meaning human beings are likely to steal if there are no rules and rule enforcers. In other words, an atmosphere of impunity encourages venality. The growth in the culture of impunity in public life in the last sixteen years or more must have induced the recklessness of thieves in public service, to the extent that the most recurrent topic among citizens today is corruption of men and women in power.

    One area of intervention that is not being emphasised in the media is institutional re-engineering. If so much moral decay has been exposed within six months of the Buhari regime and only in relation to the federal government, the national embarrassment would be much more pronounced if EFCC also becomes active about investigating corruption in states and local governments of the country. Apart from Lagos or perhaps Abuja, media presence in the states and local governments, like the presence of anti-corruption agencies, is negligible. There is no reason to believe that the Nigerians in the public service of the states and local governments are morally superior to those in the federal service. Given the fact that over 50% of the nation’s earnings is kept with the federal government, it is likely that more funds may be stolen at this level of government than in others. But should EFCC searchlight be beamed at the subnational levels of government, there is no chance that the embarrassing acts of senseless looting of nation’s resources will be any less than what we read about every day in the media.

    It is, therefore, imperative for the Buhari government to pay special attention to the structure of government in the country. The current system that feeds states and local governments with monthly allocations is not only unsustainable; it also promotes corruption, just as keeping so much money with the central government that has very little direct responsibility to citizens and communities encourages corrupt behaviour on the part of morally weak individuals in public service. The history of a federal system in which the constituent parts live almost solely (except Lagos State) on transfers from the central government is too obvious to be rehashed here. It came into being during the military era when the dominant philosophy of government was over centralisation and subordination of federating units and at a time when those in power believed in the omnipresence and omnipotence of revenue from petroleum. Creating mini/local governments and running them with regular allocations from a central purse limited the imagination or creativity of most governors and LG chairmen. This military policy also directly or indirectly encouraged corruption and lack of accountability at the subnational level, just as it did at the central level. The result of funding governance from rent collection now stares all of us regrettably in the face.

    Returning the culture of self-reliance and accountability to every level of government is one way of discouraging corruption. The current system of sustaining states and local governments with funds from non-renewable minerals– whether liquid or solid– needs to be reviewed as President Buhari gets to his promise to “entrench true federalism and the federalist spirit in the constitution.”

  • Thinking and Connecting

    Thinking and Connecting

    As a people, we are not only unpatriotic; we are also very thoughtless.

    I tell you, man, this country is full of contradictions. Here we are, a deeply unhappy set of people living in a happy land. We are among the poorest countries living with a small number of those who got stupendously rich on stolen funds. We are said to be a brilliant people who make incredibly stupid policies. We have cars and technologies and buildings cast in the latest architectural designs, yet the larger population live in hovels. We have the world’s highest number of churches and mosques yet we are the most godless people on earth. The question is, why are we so blessed?

    There is a rumour going the rounds that Nigeria’s (stolen) money is at the heart of many international banks’ and cities’ projects the world over. In short, it is rumoured that Nigerians have taken government’s funds and have sort of scattered and sowed them into various world projects, not on behalf of the people but on their own sweet behalf, yet her citizens are living in penury. Now, there are people calling for a conference on the state of the nation’s economy.

    The question is, who are the people we are going to call to that conference? Are they going to be the same old politicians and old soldiers who ran the country aground? And where are we going to dump the reports? I imagine the stores in Aso Villa are full to overflowing already with such reports. The so-called national conference reports are somewhere there gathering dust. The ex-president’s cronies came, ate and left, and nothing happened.

    Since that conference, many things have been happening in the country. News reports keep telling us how people are being killed for debts of less than N2,000. They tell us how female teenagers are running away from home and willingly agreeing to be used as baby-producing factories. They tell us how fathers and mothers are willingly selling their children for a bit of cash. Just last week, the news reported how a father sold his son for N250,000.

    Yes, we are gradually reaching the point where return will be impossible. Early in this year, poor Oyelowo Ajanaku was said to have been stabbed to death by his wife Yewande in one of Nigeria’s cities due to one pressure or the other. And this one was reported because it involved some high-profile people. Do you know the many such related cases that are not being reported because the personalities involved are not high-profile? I tell you, the Nigerian situation is beginning to get to us.

    To say that the Nigerian economy is in trouble is an understatement. I am scared about it, and I am not even an economist. I think the real economists would tell us to be more scared, if they dared. I am not sure though that many of them would fly the kite of a round-table discussion on the subject just yet. I think we should first look at our management profile and tackle a few issues. Let us tackle the root cause of our problems first before applying the plaster. It will do well to get somewhere with this fight against corruption before we pile on the salutary measures.

    Practically all Nigerians agree that the nation’s jugular has been gripped by the cold and merciless hands of corruption. The national, state and local area executive/legislative arms, large corporations, small and medium scale enterprises, etc., are all grappling with corruption. It has got so bad now that even owners of little shops and kiosks are complaining that their sales/front-desk persons are corrupt! Those ones have now learnt to inflate the price of the goods or services in their charge, give the owner the advertised price of the good or service and pocket the difference.

    In short, every Nigerian you meet now is just waiting for their chance to be corrupt. Whenever they have been placed in a position to choose between their grasping hands and the country, they have patriotically chosen to satisfy their grasping hands. This column has stated it again and again that this country’s problems can be traced to two things only: FAILURE TO THINK AND FAILURE TO TRULY CONNECT WITH THE COUNTRY. As a people, we are not only unpatriotic, we are also very thoughtless.

    Failure to think is not the result of the breakdown of the thinking faculty. After all, you think, therefore you are. I truly believe that our thinking faculty as a nation is truly intact; what has broken down is our failure to focus our thoughts on the things that matter. I have reported on these pages again and again what Golda Meir, a one-time prime minister of Israel, was reported to have said once regarding African leaders but I will report it again. She said that African leaders have no vision for their continent. All they are interested in is consumerism and displaying their egos to their neighbours’ envies. The prime minister effectively told us that African leaders cannot think deeply enough to conceive ways of bringing their countries out of poverty.

    Just imagine her country, Israel, having the kind of leadership that is common to Africa. That country would have been annihilated long ago by any of the myriads of her enemies surrounding her. So now, what Nigeria lacks in the form of external threats, she has thoughtfully provided in her own citizens. Good news: Nigeria is threatened by her own citizens.

     I am always full of wonderments. Have you noticed that nearly, if not all, the people who have pilfered from government coffers and stashed their hauls abroad still live in the country? I don’t know what for, but I keep wondering: is it so that they can see the effects of what they have pilfered on the rest of the country? Or is it to see if there is any fat chance that they can get more to nibble? I don’t know, but there they are, still hanging around and talking into microphones.

    Really, I am not too optimistic that much can come out of any conference right now until these nibblers are good and properly fixed. They are still in leadership. They are wiser than the rest of us in the matter of contriving wily ways of beating the system. They are close enough to the presidency to get policies changed in their favour and at the expense of the country. Who is to say that as soon as a solution is got to end the nation’s economic woes, these nibblers would not immediately begin to dig up ways of working contrary to the rest of us, eh?

     I honestly do not have much faith in the present crop of politicians, whatever party they may belong to, to bring out any lasting solution to the nation’s socio-economic woes or any other

    woes for that matter. Most of them are too self-absorbed to really be interested in lifting up the country. As it is, the whole country seems to be tensely still, as if waiting for something to happen to give the signal to some action or the other. This is not a feeling that calling an economic conference can cure. There is much more wrong with the country than a failing economy.

    This is a feeling that calls for something more profound; something akin to deep thinking on the part of every Nigerian of thought. This is a time that calls on every Nigerian to become a philosopher king and queen for choosing an economic, housing or health policy and sticking to it no matter what, banning non-essential imports, actively promoting Nigerian manufactured goods, relaxing import tariffs on raw materials, encouraging the people to seek knowledge and information, etc. In short, the time has come for us all to connect to the country by thinking deeply about her. Happy thinking day or week.

  • As the naira duels onto death(1) (How to regrow a shattered nation)

    As the naira duels onto death(1) (How to regrow a shattered nation)

    Baron von Clausewitz, the great German military historian and philosopher of war, had noted that war was the continuation of politics by other means. Had he lived in our brave new world of modern technology where you don’t actually need to put troops on the battle ground to subdue an enemy, he would have learnt that economic contention among nations is the continuation of political warfare by other means. Economics is the brutal game of market domination that human societies engage in to maintain political control.

    In this war of all against all, there are nations like Nigeria that are singularly unlucky in the sense that they also boast of enemies within in addition to external adversity. As this column once noted, Nigeria is crawling with enemy nationals who are bent on bringing the nation to heel either economically or religiously if they fail to bend the political configuration to their will or whim.

    A nation is particularly vulnerable to economic brutalization if a significant section of the populace or fractions of the political elite query the basis of its political foundation or reject the socio-economic architecture on which the authority and legitimacy of the state is anchored. Such barely veiled hostility often eventuates in an armed critique of the state which leads to an outright destruction of the economy or in creative sabotage and more covert forms of aggression which take their toll on the economy. For any nation, internal peace is the first precondition for internal prosperity.

    This past week, Nigerians watched helplessly as their national currency and supreme symbol of sovereignty, the naira, engaged in a duel unto death with the world’s major currencies. It was an unequal struggle; a futile and ultimately senseless contention. It was like watching a puny paperweight enter into the boxing ring with a primed heavyweight at the zenith of agonistic exertions. It was like watching one’s own economic funeral.

    The national currency was taking a cruel pounding. The apocalyptic meltdown of the naira, long predicted, appeared finally on the way. An eerie disorientation seems to have descended on the entire nation. There was a feeling of utter despair and despondency. Anybody who was in Nigeria this past week would know what is it to be suddenly caught in the equivalent of an economic tsunami.

    Helplessness and fright seized the nation particularly since no one appeared to be in charge. There was no economic communiqué; no bulletin of strategic efforts to reassure a dazedand distraught citizenry. Beyond President Buhari’s stout and patriotic refusal to devalue the naira which was made on a foreign soil, there was nothing else to hold on to, and even this in itself was not nearly enough.

    While Buhari’s compassion for the poor and the Nigerian masses is not in doubt, it is also becoming obvious that seventeen years after the termination of military rule, successive Nigerian rulers often treat the citizens as if they are errant children of some paternalistic ruler who is often bemused or exasperated by their demands for accountability and transparency. In the face of a crippled economy and rising tension, this demand for open government is going to be a flashpoint of confrontation in the coming months.

    While the British pound sterling appeared to have completely disappeared from open bidding, the naira suffered sharp and significant losses against the rampart and relentless dollar. By midweek, one dollar was rumoured to have been exchanging for four hundred naira. It was the worst moment for the national currency since independence.

    By Wednesday morning, Nigeria’s legendary luck seemed to be on a fortuitous rampage once again. The naira seemed to have miraculously rallied against the dollar. Word went round that the naira had firmed up at about two hundred and fifty to the single dollar. There were smiles of relief. Hitherto obdurate and obstinate banks were calling on customers to renegotiate abandoned forex demands. Suddenly, the Basic Travelling Allowance which had long kicked the dust became available again, or so it seemed.

    But it was all a cruel hoax. What is not available is simply not available and cannot be conjured by any fiscal humpty dumpty. By Thursday, the naira was exchanging for three hundred and fifty naira to the dollar and the downward spiral seemed set to continue. Never in the history of the nation has the national currency been subject to such steep gyrations in the pit of fiscal hell; such wild fluctuations of fortune. It was as if Nigeria of the seventies was another country entirely.

    Indeed, it may well be. Having smelt blood, the IMF started calling for the massive devaluation of the naira. It is a text book shibboleth straight out of the con book of monetarist economics and utterly lacking in society-specific rigour. The IMF has learnt nothing and forgotten nothing. In the brutal game of economic domination, any non-Western country that listens to the economic subterfuge of the IMF and other accessories of western economic and political hegemony has willingly obtained a suicide pill.

    It is instructive to note that while the western powers have been urging China to revalue its national currency to bring it at par or at parlousness with international economic imperatives, the Chinese authorities actually went ahead to devalue theYuan renminbi. By dint of hard work, foresight, hyper-nationalism and prudence, the Chinese hold all the aces whereas a profligate and promiscuous nation like Nigeria holds none at all.

    It is indicative of the grim fiscal calculus even among economic allies that America is asking Britain not to contemplate leaving the EU while the Americans would never contemplate joining a comparable union on their own continent. America needs an EU-compliant Britain as a buffer against the hordes from the European backwaters. Let them tarry first in good old Britain, the island of state compassion. As big and spacious as it is, America encourages immigration only if the immigrant is ready to work and lift himself by the bootstraps without eyeing state largesse.

    On the other hand, Britain, the wise and wily survivalist, is strategically ambivalent about the bogus confederation of unequal states that is the EU. The British authorities have noted that the Welfare state is not designed for mass-migration because the whole tradition is based on the ethics of work and thrift without the prospects of immediate gratification. It is not for Balkan no-hopers looking to latch on to the apron strings of a nanny state.

    Britain has also faulted the wisdom or desirability of foisting a unified currency like the Euro on countries with different national cultures and economies. It is a recipe for economic disaster the like of which has hobbled mainland European continent in the last decade. Even the Greeks, bearers of Hellenic Civilization and descendants of Alexander who went all the way to Asia, are shouting that their country should not be turned to a “warehouse of souls” and haven of choice for migrants stranded by choice.

    Having been ringside spectators in their own economic funeral this past week, Nigerians must now know what it means to be at the receiving ends of the punitive game of economic domination that nations play. The weak and the meek will not inherit the earth or its abundant resources. If they do temporarily, they will fritter them away or be forced to surrender them by superior economic forces.

    This is not a new game in town. It has been happening ever since man emerged as homo economicus. The original impetus for a protective state came principally out of the need to protect and guard the fruits of human labour and rudimentary entrepreneurial endeavour. Those who are historically minded will now recognize Lord Lugard’s infamous “Dual Mandate”—obtained without any duality—and the sudden appearance of Commodore Matthew Perry’s frigate on Japanese shores as acts of bullying and economic aggression by stronger states against weaker nations. By the same token, the Boxers’ rebellion in China was not a sartorial uprising but an instance of fierce resistance against economic bullying by the dominant imperial power of the age.

    As we have hinted above, the economic destruction of Nigeria rests on both external and internal factors and forces. The combination of external forces and enemy nationals can be very devastating indeed. Externally, the international conspiracy to bring the oil bonanza to an end is too well known to delay us here. But it was good while it lasted. At least it gave the world the countervailing economic centre of Dubai and its glittering emporium.

    But this is small beer compared to the modern hell-hole of Nigeria in all its seething homophobic aggravations. Oil has ruined Nigeria. While the immediate internal cause of the economic meltdown of the nation and the run on the naira is the wholesale looting of the economy by the last administration in perhaps the most criminal and treasonable example of state larceny ever witnessed on the benighted continent, there other equally pressing factors.

    The first is the existence of anunproductive and unimaginative political elite that has not progressed beyond the hunter-gatherer phase of human existence. The consequence of this is the reliance on oil and a monocultural economy which made it impossible to grow other productive sectors of the economy. Second, the activities of enemy nationals who engage in covert economic sabotage or who actively take up arms against the nation such as we have seen in the Boko Haramwar or the resurgence of pipeline vandalization in the Niger Delta.

    To all this, we must add the hilarious incompetence of the Central Bank of Nigeria which rather than add the value of intellectual sophistication and conceptual rigour to the macro-management of our economy often hands out humongous donations from our national till when it is not funnelling scarce foreign exchange to Bureau De Change on a weekly basis. This is then shared out among smugglers and other crooks who import second hand goods which thus killsoff the urge to produce what we must consume. With such enemy nationals, a nation does not require much external adversity to come unstuck.

    The conclusion we have been avoiding must now be pressed into service. Nigerians are collectively in denial, unable to confront ourselves with the hard evidence. The truth must now be told if only because of its invigorating and liberating tonic. The truth is that as it is at the moment, Nigeria is broke and broken; economically defeated, politically vanquished as a result of structural debility and has only survived being militarily defeated by a rag tag religious insurgency by the skin of the teeth.

    Being in denial will not set us free. Nigeria at the moment resembles a land that has suffered a saturation bombardment in addition to carpet bombing. The moral, political, economic and spiritual devastation reminds one of Hiroshima after the nuclear holocaust of the Second World War.

    When a people are this roundly defeated, devastated and deflated, they need to go back to the drawing board and to first principles. The change Nigeria requires is both internal and external. This nation will not be cleansed of corruption and graft until we have internally purged ourselves and reordered or reengineered the Nigerian psyche. Apart from leading the war against corruption, President Buhari should also be at the vanguard of a campaign for a wholesale ethical reorientation of Nigerians and the fashioning of a new national ethos that will drive development and democracy.

    Whether the retired general has the temperament or the wherewithal for this Herculean project remains to be seen. Modern contention among nations has shifted largely to the market place and one can now see why in certain countries economic sabotage is treated as grand treason punishable by death. If the retired general from Daura fails to confront the political, economic and intellectual debris of a collapsed nation, the fear is that he will be setting the template for a routine dissolution of whatever remains or for the emergence of an even more radically ruthless and uncompromising ruler in the long run. Next week, we bring thoughts about how to regrow a shattered nation.

     

  • Wither Jonathan’s intervention fund to Universities: Did it survive the elections?

    Wither Jonathan’s intervention fund to Universities: Did it survive the elections?

    Wike, it claims, “diverted  resources from the TETFUND and swindled  the Universal Basic Education Fund of massive amounts of money in addition to diverting huge sums from the Ministry of Education budgets in four years while he served as the minister of state for education and later as acting Minister of Education”.

    “The immediate effect of effectively implementing the above recommendations will be a single official foreign exchange market with all players (buyers, sellers, dealers, government) adhering to the same set of rules and regulations. The parallel market would die a natural death, and there will be an efficient pricing mechanism with a single exchange rate. This in turn will lead to an effective and efficient management of our foreign exchange reserves, and will enhance the attraction of foreign exchange into the system from other sources. Putting the tax and incentive mechanism in place will have the combined effect of encouraging supply and penalising the frivolous use of our scarce foreign exchange. This also creates a new source of revenue for the government, and acts as a check on those who would normally cheat on import-duty payments. The economic impact will be appreciation or depreciation, but not a devaluation of the value of the naira. Any attempt to devalue the currency for the time being would amount to treating an ailment without a proper diagnosis. In fact, many of these issues have been with us for over 35 years. They are not going away until we take a firm stance towards rendering the underground foreign exchange market insignificant and irrelevant” – An absolutely miniscule part of Femi Pedro’s wide-ranging suggestions in his article:  “Buhari And The Solution To The Currency Quagmire”.

    I suggest that the article be immediately brought to the attention of President Buhari who Nigerians know has the needed political will to rescue the economy.

    ASUU – the association of Nigerian university teachers – has fought truly momentous battles whose scars litter literally everywhere – from grave yards to exiles: from ruptured families to promising lives that got immolated at mid season. Battles against truly demonic, anti-intellectual Heads of State posing as friends of the intellect and adorning their rule with some of the glittering lights of the academic elite nor can I ever forget the peremptory expurgation of the teachers and their families from their homes by our youngest ever Head of State. If anything surprises me about this principled, long suffering association, it is the fact that none of its executive leadership, which always bear the brunt of its many struggles, has deemed it fit to commission that its titanic struggles be etched in a book for history. That struggle was at a time demonised by a truly demagogic bureaucracy as a fight for increase in salaries to buy fridges – a wicked parody of ‘fringe benefits’ which resonated very badly with a largely illiterate Nigerian population. Happily, this turned out a Pyrrhic victory for the regime when ASUU changed tactics and concentrated its struggles, not on benefits, fringe or not, but on the either non-existing, or thoroughly, degraded infrastructure in our institutions of higher learning, when research grants tapped out and sciences were being taught like literature and you could see a First Class graduate of Chemistry who had never seen a spectrophotometer. These went on for  many agonising decades, most of them during absolutely brutal and murderous military regimes, but the struggle which saw the federal government capturing state universities amongst universities to be assisted in infrastructural procurement and general amelioration of their facilities, must hold a special place for ASUU. It deserves to be celebrated not only by its members but it must equally be chalked up as one of the greatest achievements of the President Goodluck Jonathan administration, a truly commendable act which was easily explained off by the president himself not only being a PhD degree holder but a former university lecturer.

    What followed in the universities were more books in the libraries, generous research grants, increased attendance at learned conferences and a phenomenal increase in ICT procurement in addition to glittering campuses dotted with beautiful new buildings.

    Unfortunately,  that is where the good news ended, giving way to a still ongoing orgy of harassment and gnashing of teeth; of threats of foreclosure of collaterals by banks, where they have not yet sold them off, as well as a horde of supplier creditors making life an absolute hell for the university contractors who built those eye popping structures who remain unpaid for upwards of 15 -18 months after the universities have taken over the projects, commissioned them at great and grand events and have since put them to use. Unfortunately, the universities are almost completely helpless in pushing the payments; a fact which is sure to make many of their projects suffer in future as contractors would like to insist on better payment terms or deliberately pad their quotes. Many of the contractors are, today, languishing in heavy indebtedness with collateral consequences to their state of health.

    Before deciding to write this piece, I made some discreet inquiries and two things emerged: one hopeless, the other not so helpless. The first was that a large portion of the fund most probably suffered the fate of the 2.4 billion dollars earmarked for arms procurement but for which a former National Security Adviser is now standing trial. According to this source, both the presidential campaign, and a particular governorship campaign would not have been half as colourful without the intervention fund being thoroughly misapplied -apologies Admiral Augustus Aikhomu of blessed memory. I was told severally that if this is true, it would not be the former president’s fault if associates, indeed his appointees, decided to help in funding his campaign. Concerning the then Minister of Education, my attention was drawn to what was described as a yet un-rebutted allegation against Governor Wike by The Peoples Coalition Against Corruption, an anti-graft group, which has urged the federal government and anti-corruption agencies to investigate him. According to the group in a statement signed by Peter Iloagbeze, the governor is accused of massive theft spanning five years. Wike, it claims, “diverted  resources from the TETFUND and swindled  the Universal Basic Education Fund of massive amounts of money in addition to diverting huge sums from the Ministry of Education budgets in four years while he served as the minister of state for education and later as acting Minister of Education”. For both the anti-corruption war, but more for Governor Wike’s integrity, it is my considered view that the anti-corruption agencies should investigate these serious allegations. It is, however, apposite to add that my inquiries further revealed that while contractors hired by TETFUND had been paid, those to be paid directly through the intervention fund, which was warehoused directly at the ministry, remain unpaid.

    The information which should, however, bring smiles to the contractors’ faces, particularly in a government being driven by the CHANGE mantra, is the one to the effect that the money is not lost after all. Rather, I was told, the money was placed in an escrow account at the CBN.  It is hoped that this is the true position of things.  I also learnt, authoritatively, that the Ministry of Education has, in fact, conducted appropriate inspection tours of the various projects which, in any case, would not have been accepted, commissioned and put into use by the universities, if they were in any way substandard.

    All that remains to be done now, one would hope, is for the Hon. Minister for Education to ensure that everything is done to end the contractors’ misery by effecting their payments without any further delay. It should be one more reason for them, and Nigerians, in general, to thank God for both the CHANGE and the Change Agent.

  • Time to look inward

    Time to look inward

    Whether for education, medical care or what
    have you, let’s think Nigeria

    Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) reversal of the earlier decision of the Bankers Committee which had met in Abuja and decided to place restrictions on allocation of foreign exchange for school fees abroad and medical tourism is only postponing the doomsday. If, as the Bankers Committee said we commit about 15 percent of our forex to serve these two purposes, then there is danger ahead because the country is unlikely to be in a position to afford that forever as things are.

    As a matter of fact, to underscore the urgency and seriousness attached to the matter, some of those who had lost hope of getting forex allocation for their children abroad started receiving alerts from their banks, asking them to turn in their papers after the CBN’s decision. I agree though that it would be unfair to deny those already abroad the opportunity of finishing their programmes; but those thinking of joining them should begin to think twice because, if things continue like this with our forex situation, a time might come when the country would find it difficult to meet such obligations. Even if things get better with the country’s finances, it is still not good to continue on the present destructive path which only guarantees jobs for people abroad at the expense of Nigerians at home.

    What I am saying is that, our current quagmire should nudge us into reviewing the way we do some things. Whether as individual Nigerians, or as governments, or as a country, it is time to change from this foreign dependence on virtually anything imaginable. Nigerians should start rethinking this idea that everything Nigerian is bad; or that everything foreign is good.

    Please get me right; it is not that studying abroad is inherently bad, or that it is something novel. Even in those days when the premier university in the country, the University College, Ibadan, now University of Ibadan, and a few of the first generation universities around were still in good shape, turning out quality graduates, some Nigerians were still going abroad to study. But what we have today is a complete departure from what obtained then. Many of those studying abroad now are there either for status symbol or because they could not find space in the local universities. With standard perennially falling in many of the local universities, parents who can afford it prefer sending their children abroad to study, instead of staying in overcrowded lecture theatres where some half-baked teachers would also stuff into their brains what they are not paid to stuff there. Or, where for the better part of the academic year, the schools would remain shut due to one industrial crisis or the other.

    There is no doubt that the existing universities in the country are inadequate to cater to the admission needs of the multitude of candidates seeking admission into the universities annually. With about two million candidates scrambling for admission into the about 128 universities (public and private) around with a total capacity of about 550,000, it becomes imperative that many may be called, but only a few can be chosen. Since this has become an annual thing, what we always end up having is a ballooning of the figure of those who cannot find admission in a particular year added to the following year’s list. It was partly in an effort to fill this yawning gap that some institutions established private universities, to at least reduce the number of qualified youths that cannot find space in the public universities. Still, hundreds of thousands are left in the lurch. The implication is that more and more people would naturally look elsewhere for university education. This cannot be a crime.

    But studying abroad does not come cheap; it comes at humongous costs that, unfortunately, the nation is going to find difficult to afford, especially at this point in time. Nigerian students abroad are said to be costing the country about N1.6trillion per annum. Ghana alone gets N160 billion of the funds, while Nigerians spend over N80 billion on education in the United Kingdom. According to Vanguard, “… In 2014, about 75,000 Nigerians were said to be studying in Ghana, paying about US$1 billion annually as tuition fees and upkeep, as against the annual budget of US$751 million for all federal universities. The amount was about 70 per cent of the total allocation in 2008 to all federal universities. In 2011, there were 17,585 Nigerians studying in UK universities, about 1,000 more than the 16,680 registered in the 2009/10 academic session, making Nigeria’s student population the third largest from non-European Union countries, trailing 39,090 recorded for India and 67,325 for China, according to statistics provided by UK Council for International Student Affairs”.

    Of course there are Nigerian students in other places, with the United States of America and Canada as the most popular choices, and also Central and Eastern Europe, where the tuition fees and living costs are low.

    What has become the lot of the country’s educational sector is, also, sadly the same with the health sector, as indeed with every sector of the economy. When in December 1983 the military struck and put an end to the Second Republic, part of the reasons cited for the coup was the state of our hospitals, which were then described as ‘mere consulting clinics’. In spite of the billions of petro-dollars the country has made over the years, even since then, things have only worsened in the sector. There are fewer consultants in the hospitals today as many of them have left our shores for greener pastures abroad.

    The experience with medical tourism is such that there is virtually no ailment that our rich do not take abroad for treatment, from radiculopathy to cancer, to knee injury. Even when they want to indulge themselves, they travel out for tummy tuck. As with education, medical tourism comes with its own cost. According to the Chief Executive Officer of Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority, Uche Orji, about 30,000 Nigerians spend $1 billion on medical tourism annually. Apart from the UK, USA, Germany, France that many of our elites go for treatment, many Nigerians also find places like India useful for certain ailments, all of which represent a drain on our foreign exchange. Although $1billion may look conservative as what Nigerians spend on medical tourism, but when added to the N1.6trillion that the country spends on its students abroad, then we can appreciate what the Bankers Committee was talking about. This is about two-thirds of this year’s budget.

    We can go on and on citing examples and quoting statistics but this would not help our situation. It is only the uninitiated that would want this state of affairs to continue. Collectively, therefore, we must do something to change the situation so that something will not do us. The government must show the way.  It should go beyond the usual lip service but take practical measures to get our schools and hospitals working. This may take some years; but we must start immediately to make the difference. With better standards in our educational institutions and hospitals, some Nigerians would begin to see the light and the need to stay at home to study, even as some others would also not feel that they would end up in the morgue after attending our public hospitals. The government can even ban public officials from seeking medical treatment abroad for ailments that can be treated at home for a start. Of course the private citizens who can afford it could still be allowed but that would be for some time. Eventually when people develop confidence in the system, more and more Nigerians would embrace our schools and hospitals.

    Ultimately, however, a change of attitude is what is required to achieve the aim of conserving foreign exchange for the country. Without this, all the hopes on diversification of the economy would amount to naught. Even if we make all the foreign exchange after diversifying the economy and the new nouveau riche still continue in the old ways of their predecessors by not checking their insatiable appetite for foreign goods, or by extending the frontiers, say, by making marrying of whites abroad their own new fad, we would still end up in square one again. A change of attitude has become inevitable. We have got to the point where we must ask, as Tokunbo Martins, CBN’s Director, Banking Supervision, asked during the Bankers Committee meeting in Abuja: “If you think about it, the pressure on forex now – from school fees abroad – is significant. At what point should we begin to look inwards? The pressure on medicals is significant. At what point should we begin to look inwards?”

    I ask too, at what point? At what point?

  • Fed Govt and the ‘sacked’ vice chancellors

    Fed Govt and the ‘sacked’ vice chancellors

    While the furore surrounding the 2016 federal budget was yet to abate, another perhaps more embarrassing one flared about two weeks ago with the report of the removal of 13 federal university (including the National Open University) vice chancellors. The Federal Ministry of Education’s statement announcing the removal, however, said nothing about sack. All the statement did was to announce President Muhamau Buhari’s approval of the appointment of the new 13 university helmsmen. “The President, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces  and Visitor to all federal universities, President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, has approved the appointment of new vice chancellors for the 12 under-listed Federal Universities and the National Open University of Nigeria with effect from Friday, February 12, 2016,” the statement said tersely. But because the tenure of four of the VCs was yet to end, it was generally assumed that the 13 university administrators had been sacked. This news was compounded by the federal government’s prior dissolution of the 13 universities’ Governing Councils, the body statutorily empowered to initiate the appointment or sacking of vice chancellors. Immediately after appointing the new VCs, the Education ministry appeared poised to announce the constitution of the 13 Governing Councils. The statement was silent over why the four VCs whose tenure had not yet ended were also replaced.

    Shortly after news of the peremptory changes in the 13 universities was published, a number of civil society organisations and other stakeholders condemned the Education ministry for taking that precipitate step. About nine of the vice chancellors, they argued, had already handed over to successors who would preside over their universities in acting capacity from February 15. The critics also condemned what they described as the parochialism of the ministry which appointed many of the new VCs from one university. According to them, “(The minister) appointed six professors from one university, Bayero University, Kano, and he posted them to different tertiary institutions. Not only that, he also appointed two professors from Katsina State, bringing the total to eight friends from just two states in the North.” In their earlier statement, the civil society groups had indicated that four of the new VCs came from Bayero University. A few days later, perhaps after crosschecking their facts, they raised the figure to six. The Education ministry, however, responded last week that the changes would not be reversed.

    It must be assumed that the Ministry of Education did not lie about the appointments being approved by the president. If this is so, it is doubly embarrassing. First, the Education ministry probably has a legal department that should have advised against the method embarked upon by the ministry to effect changes in the universities. But even if there was no legal department, there is hardly any graduate in Nigeria who is ignorant of the procedure involved in selecting vice chancellors. The ministry was completely and embarrassingly negligent in carrying out this rather simple task. Why the haste? Second, assuming the Education ministry did not know what to do, the visitor to the universities, to whom the process of appointing vice chancellors is not strange, should have taken caution. The presidency cannot also claim to be ignorant of the processes. Indeed, after botching the computation and presentation of the 2016 federal budget, the presidency should have been generally more careful about its subsequent actions, policies and processes.

    Neither the presidency nor the Education ministry has offered cogent reasons for the abridgement of the process of appointing VCs. If it is assumed they made a mistake, they would be accused of incompetence or confusion. But if it is assumed they knew what they were doing, knew the laws, and yet acted in the manner they did, then it would be concluded that impunity is the government’s administrative leitmotif. The position the Buhari presidency has found itself, after the budget embarrassment, is not flattering at all. The civil society groups tried to lessen the damage to the president by suggesting that the ministry was derelict in its responsibility of advising and guiding him on the right steps to take in appointing new university administrators. This is a hard sell. Both the presidency and the ministry are to blame for this misstep. Indeed, all the facts point to the conclusion that the Education ministry knowingly and mischievously effected the changes, and the presidency was inexplicably careless. But in their intervention last week, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) indicated that the 12 universities founded by the Jonathan government were not backed by law, implying that fundamentally, no law was breached when both the VCs and the Governing Councils were sacked. However, the government would have demonstrated good faith if they first enacted the law, then emplaced the Councils, and then proceeded to activate the appointments of the VCs. In effect, regardless of the ASUU explanation, the Education ministry still acted mala fide.

    While it is not clear yet how many of the VCs came from Bayero University and what their states of origin are — whether four as the protesting groups first said, or six as they later announced — there is indication that some top ministry officials do not seem to have the expansiveness needed to function at the federal level and, additionally, the instinctive appreciation of the characteristics of a complex, multi-layered society like Nigeria. How could they make that kind of mistake, or hope to get away with it? Henceforth, every appointment they make will be examined with a fine toothcomb for ethnic and religious diversity and compliance. It is all the more dismal that even in its response, the Education ministry has said nothing about the disproportionate number of new VCs from Bayero University. Could they be unaware of the implication, or of the poor image for the ministry which that skewed appointment elicits?

    The Education ministry will struggle to correct these twin errors of impunity and parochialism. Whether they will be successful or not remains to be seen. And because the ministry’s statement suggested the president’s endorsement, the Buhari government will also find it difficult to completely absolve itself of blame. Sadly, rather than make progress in ethnic and religious relations, the divisions and schisms in the polity are either widening or worse, hardening. The Olusegun Obasanjo presidency between 1999 and 2007 achieved some success in spreading appointments across the country and deepening ethnic amity. His immediate successor, the late Umaru Yar’Adua, was unfortunately accused of handing the country over to a Katsina cabal, despite his own seeming personal cosmopolitanism. The Goodluck Jonathan government did not fare better than his predecessor. He was also, with some justification, accused of the worst forms of parochialism as he subjected the country to his acolytes from the South-South and Southeast.

    If the Buhari presidency is to avoid the pitfalls that unnerved and humiliated his predecessors, he will need to take more forceful and proactive steps in demolishing the barriers that have divided Nigerians for decades. The Education ministry’s missteps in the appointment of vice chancellors are an indication of the vestigial problems the country must consciously and bravely grapple with, but which the Buhari government has so far paid scant attention to. The rule of law and adherence to due process should not be a source of controversy at all. Nigerian officials must internalise these fine administrative attributes. Had the Senate done its work in screening ministers as intensively and comprehensively as the situation demands, many closet extremists and ethnocentric officials would be weeded out. It is time political leaders exhibited the consciousness that conduce to the running of a just and egalitarian society. Those who can’t shape up could choose to remain ethnic and religious champions, far from the multicultural arena both the people of Nigeria and the constitution envisage.

    Not only must the Minister of Education address the controversial appointments, explaining convincingly why he bypassed due process, he must take firm steps to redress the skewness of the appointments and restore confidence in his ability and capacity to promote and nurture fairness. He owes the country an explanation. If he will not address the matter, the Buhari presidency, which was quoted as having approved the postings, should step in and remedy the situation in order not to be accused of complicity in what is obviously an embarrassing and unforced error. The problems in the education sector are too gargantuan to be subjected to silly mistakes.

  • PDP gets lifeline, but prefers to drown

    PDP gets lifeline, but prefers to drown

    |Two Sundays ago, this column described the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) judicial triumphs in the governorship election petitions in the oil-rich states of Akwa Ibom, Rivers and Akwa Ibom as a lifeline to the opposition. It still is, for even the All Progressives Congress (APC), which mourned its judicial defeat in the three states, also thinks so. Buoyed by the victory, and catching a whiff of the tantalising but chimerical possibility of regaining electoral dominance over Nigeria in 2019, the opposition party shockingly decided to appoint former Borno State governor, Ali Modu Sheriff, as the new chairman of the party. He replaced Adamu Mu’azu who relinquished the post last year May before his tenure ended. When Senator Sheriff was appointed chairman, the PDP governors who plotted his emergence cleverly refused to indicate whether it was in acting capacity or not. They left an open cheque for everyone, hoping that if the Sheriff chairmanship kite they flew drew timid flak rather than create the storm they feared, a transmutation to permanent chairmanship could be contrived.

    But Senator Sheriff is today one of Nigeria’s most controversial politicians. His unremarkable record as governor pales in comparison with his entanglement in the Boko Haram crisis. He is said to be very wealthy, which made him start out as a kingmaker in Borno politics. Soon after, he seized the throne himself, and since then has never looked back. During his two terms as governor, the Boko Haram phenomenon took root, a fact that made many commentators to attribute the emergence of the terrorist group to either his direct or indirect influence and manipulation. He denies the accusations and points out that even his family members, not to talk of himself, are not immune to Boko Haram attacks. The disfavour Senator Sheriff has found himself in many parts of the country, especially in the North, has risen in direct proportion to the sanguinary severity of the terror attacks that have virtually flattened the Northeast and drained the country of its energy and resources.

    To, therefore, make Senator Sheriff chairman of a party battling to find its way back to office in many states and Aso Villa in particular seems to be flying in the face of reason. As many of his critics have said, it does not matter whether it can be proved that he knows a thing or two about Boko Haram’s emergence and operations; what matters is public perception, and that perception is bitterly, adversarially and implacably held. If the PDP hopes to make any serious impression in the 2019 polls, critics suggest, the party will have to rid itself of any encumbrances, no matter how little. The party is now entrenched in 13 states, and has the added advantage of controlling the four oil-rich states of Delta, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa and Rivers. It now has the wherewithal to consolidate its hold on those states, the stomach to dare mighty things, whether just for the heck of it or as a measure of its defiance of the Buhari presidency, and the strategic ambition to project power and expand territorially.

    More importantly, given the confusion in the APC, its shambolic handling of the economy, and its inability to convince the public its democratic credentials are deep and unassailable, some Nigerians were beginning to hope that a viable PDP could, despite its obnoxious antecedents, yet serve as a veritable and viable opposition to help entrench democracy in Nigeria. If that hope is not to prove elusive, the PDP must see the Sheriff chairmanship as nothing but an interregnum in line with the consensus finally reached last week among the party’s principal organs and leaders. It is unlikely he will leave in March, as the party’s former ministers have advocated. He will stay on and organise the party’s convention in May, other things being equal; but he is unlikely to retain the chairmanship seat beyond that date.

    Senator Sheriff is, however, not the only or major problem facing the party and militating against its drive for renewal and restoration. Most of the party’s leaders have been indicted in the ongoing corruption probes. As the troubles of Olisa Metuh, the party’s spokesman, and Uche Secondus, the former acting chairman, have shown, the party needs to make a clean sweep of its discredited leadership in order to avoid distractions in the herculean task of facing up to the ruling party. More, they desperately need brilliant, courageous and visionary leaders to direct the affairs of the party. Senator Sheriff, had he not been encumbered by the Boko Haram crisis, would have satisfied a part of the requirements for leading the party. He is rambunctious, does not shirk a fight, has money and a winning mentality, and is bold, courageous and iconoclastic. After all, he and former Kano governor Ibrahim Shekarau were responsible for unhorsing President Buhari from the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) some years back. The governors who supported Senator Sheriff probably saw in him the only battering ram capable of checkmating the APC in the years ahead. But as the controversies surrounding his interim chairmanship have also indicated, the PDP may be barking up the wrong tree.

    Those who predict the collapse of the PDP are unduly hasty. Every lover of democracy must in fact hope the party will surmount its troubles in order to help check the APC’s feisty and sometimes amateurish handling of political power. The ruling party does not really have internal opposition, nor does it appear to brook any. If it had an economic programme before assuming office, it has shown no indication it remembers where the blueprint was kept. More and more, the ruling party gives the impression it was thrust into public office before it was ready to carry the huge burden of managing a country during an emergency. If the PDP can utilise the lifeline afforded it by recent judicial triumphs, and avoid drowning itself in the bilge water of murky politics inspired by third-rate politicians like Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State, it may make a few more gains in 2019, even if the ultimate electoral prize should prove elusive.

     

     

  • Lagos keeps working

    Lagos keeps working

    One popular slogan of former Enugu State Governor Chimaroke Nnamani’s administration was, Enugu is working, to God be the glory. The slogan was meant to drum it into the ears of everyone, in the state and outside, who cares to listen that the government was living up to the expectations of the people.

    Long after his tenure, the citizens of the states are in a better position to say if the state really worked then or not.

    However, if there is a state the citizens and residents should count themselves lucky, going by the accomplishments of successive civilian governors since the return to civil rule, it should be Lagos.

    From the tenure of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, to that of Raji Fashola and now Akinwunmi Ambode, so much has been accomplished in the state in terms of social and economic development.

    Unlike some states with huge federal allocations with not much to show for it over the years,  Lagos has continued to have governors who have clear visions about what is required to make it a model state for others to emulate.

    Notwithstanding that the state has been ruled by governors from the opposition party until now, the past governors have implemented programmes and policies that even the ruling party then could not but acknowledge as examplary.

    True to his slogan, Eko o ni baje, (Lagos will not get bad) Fashola built on Tinibu’s achievements and earned himself recognition as the governor to beat among his colleagues.

    President Muhammed Buhari obviously appointed Fashola as a ‘super minister’ because he wants him to replicate his Lagos magic at the federal level.

    When he initially took over from Fashola, there were concerns that Ambode may not be able to sustain his predecessor’s record, not to talk of surpassing them.

    Ambode has, however, since been doing his best to prove his critics wrong with many projects and new policy direction to his credit. By the way he his fulfilling his election promises, the new governor has, indeed, confirmed his campaign slogan, Eko sese bere ni, which means Lagos has just started.

    If Lagosians think Fashola was an outstanding governor, my understanding of Ambode’s slogan is that, we have not seen anything yet. I take it that he is prepared to take the state to greater heights.

    In the ‘outland’ part of the state I live and drive through daily, Abule Egba/Agege, the governor’s imprint is clearly visible with street lights and road construction completed in record time. A particular road that has remained uncompleted under his two predecessors was completed within weeks.

    Motorists along the Abule Egba junction of the Lagos/Abeokuta road can’t wait to have the overhead bridge which the governor has promised to build.

    I am aware of many other parts of the state which Ambode has spread out his ‘rapid development’ agenda to and hope that in the years ahead, he will do more.

    His huge support for the police to ensure safety is commendable and everything possible must be done to reduce the crime rate in the state.

    Transportation, both on land and waterways, remains a major challenge to crack but the steps already being taken should be improved on.

    The light rail system commenced by Fashola should be one of the priority projects of the Ambode administration to cater for the mass movement of people in the part of Lagos it is meant to serve.

    Many parts of the state are overdue for urban renewal and the governor must not hesitate to take necessary action in line with the mega city status of the state.

    Rural Lagos communities are crying for attention and they deserve to be provided basic amenities.

    Ambode has enough time on his hands to leave Lagos better than he met it. His performance so far suggests that he has what it takes to provide the kind of leadership Lagos deserves.

    He must disappoint those who still think the shoes of his predecessors are too big for him.

     

  • Change, change, change! – top-down and/or bottom-up? (2)

    Change, change, change! – top-down and/or bottom-up? (2)

    We ended last week’s piece in this series with the question as to where the change that most Nigerians at home and abroad are yearning for at the present time will come from if it does not come from the top, from the leaders of the new ruling party, the APC. In resuming the discussion this week with that same question, let me once again admit that that I do recognize that to the APC and many of its allies and supporters at home and abroad, this question may seem premature and unfair, given the fact that Buhari and his administration are yet to clock one year in office. Let me further admit that it has not escaped my reflections on this matter that the enemies of change and progress, especially as they are concentrated in the defeated ruling party, the PDP, might seize on my question for their own utterly recalcitrant purpose of blocking any change for the better that might come from the APC and its leaders.

    With regard to this particular worry, I have a redoubtable response: my dedication to the cause of justice, dignity and security of life for the masses of Nigerians in their tens of millions are so clear that nothing I have ever written, nothing that I will ever write in this column will be found even remotely helpful to the PDP, regardless of how desperate and opportunistic the defeated ruling party is in setting itself against change and progress in our country. Indeed, this is the crucial axis of my reflections in this series and it can be stated in a very succinct question: regardless of who their rulers are, what can and should the masses do for themselves in order to bring about change for the better in the current very bleak, very dire conditions that persist even after the political demise of the PDP? Here is another way of putting this same question: how can the masses seize control of their collective destiny in a period when it seems more and more apparent that the end of their hardship and suffering is nowhere in sight?

    There is an easy, routine and even somewhat predictable answerto this question and it goes thus: if the masses want change, if they want to see deep and meaningful improvements in their political, social and economic conditions, they must act powerfully and decisively as agents of change; they must not leave it to their rulers to fight for change on their behalf. As a corollary to this dictum, there is also the routine idea that to act as agents of change and progress for themselves and their country, the masses must protest, they must march, they must unceasingly hold demonstrations and rallies, each and all of which will have the effect of indicating to the rulers and the whole world that the people are determined to have change and progress, are determined to take matters into their own hands and are not content to let the rulers act for them, no matter how sincere and determined the rulers may seem. Well, this sounds all too true; moreover, it sounds “revolutionary” and seems very appropriate to present circumstances in post-PDP Nigeria.

    But there is aproblem in routinely or mechanistically invoking this unquestionable dictum that the only way that the masses can really and truly assure change for the better in their circumstances is to seize their destiny in their own hands. What is this problem? It is this: the masses do not always step forward to take control of their own destiny; they do not always intervenewhen conditions seem ripe for them to surge forth and seize the day, politically speaking. Moreover, when the masses are complacent when all indications seem favorable for them to act decisively in their collective self-interest, there often arises the tendency of progressive members of the elite to make the grave mistake of blaming the masses for being so submerged in their economic impoverishment and political marginalization that they are content to leave life and death matters of their survival in the hands of their rulers. Insidiously, this often leads, consciously or unconsciously, to blaming the masses for their oppression.Here the dire foreboding in the famous title and lyrics of the late Fela Kuti’s hit song, “Shuffering and Shmiling”come to mind: those that suffer and smile through the terrible conditions of their looted lives are not yet ready for their liberation, for their “morning yet on creation day”, to make an allusion to one of the late Chinua Achebe’s most memorable metaphors for a coming day of deliverance for the oppressed peoples of this world.

    I bear witness to the fact that in the last five to six weeks in this column as I have unceasingly called for the masses of our peoples across the length and breadth of the country to show concretely and decisively that they are watching what is going on in the law courts in Buhari’s war against the looters, this thought has been vigorously present in my mind. In other words, as I have pondered the fact that no mass demonstrations, no citizens’ protests, no rallies of concerned professionals and individuals have takenplace to let the looters and their judicial backers know that the country and the masses are solidly behind Buhari in this war, I have had to tell myself again and again that I should not for one second think or feel that the masses deserve whatever they get from their inaction, their seeming reliance on Buhari to do all thatneeds to be doneto recover the identified loot in all its mind-boggling vastness and to bring the looters to much deserved punitive and corrective justice.Here I must make a confession about a thought that has greatly troubled me. This is nothing other than the suspicion that if I have been able to refrain from blaming the masses for not taking any concrete and decisive actions to lend support to Buhari’s war on corruption, it is perhaps only because I have lived long enough to have known my country and its teeming masses at other times when mass protests, rallies and demonstrations were rife and no ruler was treated like a Messiah the way Muhammadu Buhari is regarded today in his war against corruption and the looters. [For the records, let it be noted here that in his first coming as a military dictator, Buhari was far, far from being robed in the overflowing messianic garb in which the Nigerian public has clothed him in his current war against the looters]

    The foregoing observations and reflections lead to two probabilities for a reinvention of mass movements and actions coming from below to spark the reform-minded projects and policies of rulers in a country like ours in which radical protest movements seem like shades of a barely recoverable legacy from the past. In the first probable scenario, those who have lived long enough to remember and cherish periods and instances when the Nigerian masses took their destiny into their own hands may seek to reinvigorate the slumberous present with exemplary models of self-mobilization and agitation from the past. I am revealing neither a hidden secret nor a closely guarded conspiracy when I assert here that many individuals and organizations of the Nigerian Left are at the present moment engaged in a profound act of soul-searching that involves, as a crucial part of its agenda, the recreation of the feisty but peaceful protest movements of the past. In the second scenario, the probability lies in the completely unprecedented or unheralded creation of spontaneous acts by individuals and groups among the younger generation that come to the realization that they have had enough and that whatever genuine and meaningful change and progress will come depend on their own determined, purposive actions.The capacity of or for human self-renewal, individual and collective, is infinite and it can be found in all the spheres and levels of life. Those who have never seen or even read of mass demonstrations, protests and rallies may one day wake up and decide that they have had enough of looted, wasted lives – and take to the streets, the courts, the chambers of the National Assembly, the fortress of the Presidency in Aso Rock.

    It is far from my intention in these reflections to be romantic about traditions of radical mass movements and protests. In other words – and to be quite honest about my intentions in this series – though I do have a modicum of nostalgia about the period of my young adulthood that was deeply steeped in radical mass movements and activities, ultimately what concerns me most is what is to be done now as we confront a period in which all the signs are there for a radical reordering of priorities in our society but the leaders of the new ruling party seem wedded to a not-so-distant past of waste, squandermania and confusion.And so it is to the challenge of calmly and rationally building civic-minded activities and projects that can respond effectively to the great yearning for change and progress among our peoples at the present time that I will direct myself in the concluding piece in the series next week. Though I will be using the case of Buhari’s war against the looters in the courts as a sort of focal point in my closing reflections, as we shall see what happens or, conversely, does not happen in that war has much to tell us about what to expect and what to do in other areas of our collective existence as a developing and endlessly misruled nation.

    Biodun Jeyifo                                                                                                         bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • Taxation and dis-alienation of citizens (2)

    Taxation and dis-alienation of citizens (2)

    In particular the decision to call on citizens to take charge of funding governance is tantamount to calling on citizens to rescue their country and its economy from collapse in the wake of low revenue from petroleum and decades-long reckless looting of the nation’s resources.

    There is no room for failure over FIRS’s attainment of its 2016 target of N4.97 trillion to the Federal Government. This is not a joke. We need everybody to do his/her beat to ensure that everybody contributes (sic) to the achievement of the target. The nation will depend on FIRS to fund the budget. We need the money to stabilize the economy. –Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, Finance Minister
    Democracy is founded on the principle that the moral authority of government is derived from the consent of the governed. That consent is not very meaningful, however, unless it is informed. When a government makes decisions in secret, opportunity for corruption increases and accountability to the people decreases. That is why government transparency should be a priority. When official meetings are open to citizens and the press, when government finances are open to public scrutiny, and when laws and the procedures for making them are open to discussion, the actions of government enjoy greater legitimacy.-Jerry Brito

    The first section of this article stated that decades of military rule during the period of oil boom and lack of will by civilian rulers to move beyond military notion of governance distanced the citizenry from government. It argued that the decision by rulers-both military and civilian-to use funds from petroleum as they wanted without having to be accountable to citizens created a conducive condition for corruption at the level of governance and created lack of concern for public accountability on the part of the average citizen who saw government as the business of those in whatever form of power was in vogue from time to time in an ethos of easy revenue from non-renewable fossil energy. The piece concluded that now that the chicken seems to have come to roost in respect of the seeming omnipotence and omnipresence of oil revenue, those saddled with a depleted economy after decades of venality in governance have found solace in asking citizens to pay taxes to fund governance and restore the country’s damaged economy. It ended by stating that payment of tax is larger than citizens’ obligations to government; it should strengthen the culture of accountability while enhancing citizens’ ownership of their government.

    Today’s piece will focus on what government at all levels should do, not only to encourage citizens to pay taxes but also to make them see clearly how their taxes are used for the purpose for which they are meant. It will also make suggestions on how citizens can ensure that they are not taken for granted by those they have chosen to use their taxes on their behalf for national security and physical, social and human development. The overarching thesis for today’s concluding piece is that democracy is larger than choosing leaders at elections; it is about nurturing an open government for the purpose of making citizens have and grow confidence in the process by which they are governed by involving citizens to participate fully in their governance.

    The onus of initiating and sustaining Change or the New Politics promised before the 2015 election by General Mohammed Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) is on both the government and the voters. With relation to the government, it is salutary that it has decided to outgrow the laissez-faire approach to government as an opportunity for those in power to spend revenue without any reference to citizens. In particular the decision to call on citizens to take charge of funding governance is tantamount to calling on citizens to rescue their country and its economy from collapse in the wake of low revenue from petroleum and decades-long reckless looting of the nation’s resources. But let nobody be fooled; the best way to encourage citizens to pay their taxes is to let them see in unmistakable terms that the taxes they pay are used to improve the quality of their life. And the most assured way to make this happen is for those in government-executive, legislative, and judiciary-to be accountable in all they do.

    The old culture of spending without explanation and without involving citizens in discussion of budget projects is not acceptable in an ethos in which citizens fund governance through tax. The old habit on the part of military and civilian rulers that oil money belonged to nobody and could be used as rulers feel has been made obsolete by the new reality thrown up by precipitous fall in the price of oil. There is no better time for those in power under the Government of Change to remember the old saying: “He/she who pays the piper calls the tune.”Political office holders need to realise that citizens need evidence of accountability at every stage of spending their tax money. The example of Lagos State in the last sixteen years of Tinubu, Fashola, and now Ambode with making tax money work for those who made it possible is a model that the federal government in particular should borrow and build on, especially the readiness of the Lagos State government to mix provision of elite and mass goods and services.

    As the federal government goes the way of e-governance, it must seize the opportunity of improving access of citizens to information about the activities of government. Such information should include budget details and how funds are used on projects, apart from aspects of governance that have to be classified for the security of the state. Citizens are not likely to (and should not) tolerate the present situation of continued impunity by those in government. For example, despite the directive by President Buhari that the number of police officers being used as personal guards or Maiguards for members of those designated as Big men and women in the country be stopped or curtailed, there are still hundreds of policemen sitting in front of houses beside drivers of former members of legislature and even of the executive. Former legislators are still driving cars with NASS plate tags almost one year after they had ceased to be lawmakers. Citizens who pay tax to fund governance would prefer that the police are used to provide security for all citizens, and not just for a handful of citizens who happened to have been minister or legislator in the past.

    On the part of citizens, agreeing to pay tax to save the polity and economy should be seen as the return of the public, which had been repressed, ignored, or marginalised for over four decades of free flow of revenue from rent collection by the government. Citizens have to insist on not just executive accountability but also on legislative and judicial accountability.  Citizens should be given opportunity in discussion of salaries and allowances to those in governance at all levels. Full disclosures on federal budgeting, state, and local government budgeting should be high on the menu of government-citizen relations. For too long, citizens have been denied benefits of having local governments through failure of states to conduct regular local government elections and the propensity of governors to hamstring local governments by holding on to statutory allocations to the third tier of government under the guise of managing state/local government joint accounts. Both governments and citizens should listen to and learn from Donald Gordon’s admonition on transparent governance: “Openness, accountability, and honesty define government transparency. In a free society, transparency is government’s obligation to share information with citizens. It is at the heart of how citizens hold their public officials accountable. Governments exist to serve the people. Information on how officials conduct the public business and spend taxpayers’ money must be readily available and easily understood.”

    Citizens must not only remain steadfast in their support to fight corruption; they must also be vigilant to the extent that they can prevent corruption by insisting that they are fully consulted before decisions to spend their tax money are made. The power to take decisions about the polity and economy should not rest in the era of modern democracy on only elected representatives. There is no better time to push the tenets of modern democracy and citizen participation than under an administration that has pledged to uphold high moral and ethical standards in governance.

    – Concluded