The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • Kogi will seal its fate on Saturday one way or the other

    Kogi will seal its fate on Saturday one way or the other

    In six days, Kogi State will banish its vacillations and vote for one of the two leading candidates in the governorship election. The choice is between Governor Idris Wada, who is rounding up his first term, and former governor Abubakar Audu. One was a pilot, and the other a banker and accountant. The first a commoner, so to say, and the second a prince as a matter of fact. In stark ways, the two candidates are different, but for the electorate, the difference between them is blurred, and the choice difficult and foreboding. If they vote Governor Wada, whom his supporters describe as friendly, sensitive and easygoing, they will have voted continuity, conservatism and extreme mediocrity in line with his four-year record. But if they cast their ballots for Prince Audu, whom his opponents dismiss as uncouth, proud and abrasive, his antecedents as a rough-hewn and impatient moderniser show they will be voting for radical change and rapid infrastructural transformation.

    The choice facing Kogi is indeed inelegant. They are in short being called upon to vote with their heads or with their hearts, to buy a house for its bold and brilliant painting or for its structural integrity; to determine whether they prefer the scaffold or the building, or beauty instead of character. Left to most Kogites, they would have preferred either a Wada with the transformative proclivity of an Audu, or an Audu with the gentle manners of the accommodating and forgetful Wada. Instead, they will pick one with all his warts, and they will groan and squirm in making that choice. But needs must when the devil drives. On Saturday, barring last minute changes and shuffles, a majority of Kogites will half vote All Progressives Congress (APC) and half vote Prince Audu, the former because they are accustomed to casting their lot with the ruling party in Abuja, and the latter because their instincts tell them only the prince can rouse the state from its somnolence and retardation. In both cases, Prince Audu will be the winner.

    In the view of a significant number of Kogi voters, Governor Wada has demonstrated how terribly limited his range is: in imagination, scope of projects, and vision. He may not have disquieted the state with insensitive and dismissive comments, nor lathered it with the haughty grandstanding common with proud and impatient rulers, but in four detached years, he has almost moulded the state into a sepulchral pit of dry ideological bones, broken inner city roads and highways, and moribund factories. If he is to be rewarded with another four years, as he and his supporters have campaigned, it will not be because he had done well, but because Kogites had suspended reason. In short, the chances of reelecting the frequently amnesiac and absentee Governor Wada are not half as bright as the chances of electing a boisterous Prince Audu. For though the prince has not often talked peaceably with the people, he had outpaced all his successors in the practical art of governance and projects execution.

    In their campaigns round the state, the APC ticket of Prince Audu and Abiodun Faleke has made tremendous impact in mobilising the electorate. More Kogites have defected to the APC than have crossed over to the lines of Governor Wada’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The one-way movements have made sense. A few months ago, the contest was billed to be a close one. But fortuitously for Prince Audu, the seemingly dithering APC in Abuja has managed to assemble a cabinet that appears capable of inspiring the nation. The Buhari stock has never really gone down nationally, let alone in Kogi State which gave him a thunderous approbation in the March presidential poll. Now, that stock is high and on the rise, just days before the Kogi poll. Whether in Kogi East, West or Central, it is now more than ever likely that voters will speak with one voice; but if not with one voice, then with dissenting voices rendered in whispers — barely audible, barely significant.

    In the substantial rally the APC held last week in Okene, Kogi Central, a senatorial district previously thought to be either non-committal or outrightly opposed to the APC, the crowd surprisingly warmed up to the piddling soapbox histrionics of campaigning APC leaders. Other than perhaps the animated bombast of Edo governor Adams Oshiomhole, no one had the rhetorical fluidity or charisma to rouse the people into a frenzy. President Muhammadu Buhari is being pressured to bow to the nonsensical argument by PDP politicians to dissociate himself from the Prince Audu campaign on account of the EFCC case against the challenger. It is expected that the president will resist that strange and indefensible pressure not to be in Lokoja, Kogi State for the final rally. He will know that if he doesn’t go to Lokoja, he will be sending the inadvertent message he is contemptuous of his party’s choice, and that the PDP can as well have the state — as if the president can guarantee the rectitude of past and present PDP governors in the state. Given his cult following in Kogi, should the president campaign for Prince Audu, it will probably trigger a walkover for the APC. But whether the president makes a campaign appearance in Kogi or not, the outcome of the election is not in doubt. Governor Wada has not done anything to deserve to win; and Prince Audu has mercifully not said anything to deserve to lose.

    Moreover, throughout his time in office, Prince Audu’s government received less than N20bn from federal allocation, with which he founded a university and a polytechnic, and built a modern commissioners’ quarters, new and vital road arteries, Confluence Hotel, and many other significant projects. On the contrary, the two PDP governors of Kogi collected over N500bn in about 12 years and ended up grounding the state with nothing substantial to show for the money. Given the massive defections from the PDP, it appears the message has gone out loud and clear that the state’s PDP governors were an unmitigated disaster. Instead of a narrow victory, the APC is more likely to achieve a rout on Saturday, despite fears the PDP is rumoured to be buying voter cards and may be planning to use violence to disrupt polling, just as it imprudently wanted to use the bailout money — N50bn, the highest in the country — to sway votes.

  • On any given day …

    Your typical newspaper gives a picture of Nigerians scrambling madly in search of millions, billions or trillions to steal from the government FOR NO GOOD REASON. We will soon move to quadrillions, just you wait.

    Wait a minute; let me cut you a slice of the typical Nigerian day. I bet you thought I was going to say ‘cake’. Thief, you! Just read through the news in any country and you will put your hand on the pulse of the country. So, when you read stuff like ‘Prime Minister arrested for $2m bribe’; ‘Former President jailed for diverting the equivalent of $5m of state fund to his party’; ‘Minister arraigned for diverting state tractor to his farm’; and so on, you just shake your head, click your tongue and wonder, ‘what is this world coming to that people insist on being so sane?!’ Come to my country; you’ll do a different tongue clicking.

    The Nigerian newspaper screams something else. Today, for instance, I read the following in one newspaper only: ‘N292m found in a retired permanent secretary’s account’. While trying to digest that improbable sum, I saw a greater one: ‘N18.7bn of teachers’ salaries paid into unknown account’. By this time, my head was shaking most vigorously from left to right in incredulity, until I read further: ‘Woman pays tithe of over N60m on stolen money’. Laughable, but I moved on: ‘Stolen baby sold for N1m.’ To use a well-worn cliché: the mind boggles and somersaults. On any given day, the Nigerian newspaper comes with a very dense mix of the improbable, the incredible and the laughable. Your typical newspaper gives a picture of Nigerians scrambling madly in search of millions, billions or trillions to steal from the government FOR NO GOOD REASON. We will soon move to quadrillions, just you wait.

    I have come to the unsavoury conclusion though that it is becoming dangerous to read newspapers in Nigeria. Soon, they will have to carry warnings, like cigarette packs, on their front page: READERS ARE LIABLE TO DIE YOUNG BECAUSE OF HUGE, UNSAVOURY AMOUNTS OF MONEY DROPPING ON THEIR HEADS FROM THE PAGES! So, get your safety helmets ready.

    I once listened to a preacher who intoned: listen, don’t let anything stop you from doing whatever you want to do because the greatest song has not been written; the greatest invention has not been made; the greatest person has not been born; the greatest story has not been told; …’ If you permit my analogous comparison, we can translate this to mean that the greatest tale of embezzlement in Nigeria has not been told. Indeed, I am guessing we will be needing those helmets real soon.

    I have often asked myself why it is that on any given day, the news is not good in Nigeria. Don’t get me wrong – there is bad news, and then there is bad news. Bad news is when trailers plying flyovers drop heavy containers on unsuspecting cars plying routes below them. Bad news is when a family is killed by the fumes of generators left on overnight because of power failure, or in fires from candles left to burn through the night, and so on. The real bad news is when monies meant to fix all these problems are reported to be ‘Missing in Action’. That signals the loss of hope that other unfortunate cars and families will not follow soon.

    So, I say, I have asked myself this ‘why’ question. Why has your typical Nigerian lost his/her sense of fear and shock? Well, I have listened to a few answers and I am not altogether too satisfied. Some people have said that Nigerians as a people have no fear of God. True, but surely someone who takes a tithe of tens of millions of Naira to the church must have some fear. S/he fears God so much that s/he feels if s/he does not give God His own share, s/he might not get to use that stolen fund for anything good. I also told you the story of someone who stole money, bought a generator set and gave it to his church. Surely that is fear of God. You don’t think so? All right; what will you make of someone who embezzled a lot of money and took the whole lot to his pastor to hide for him and the pastor promptly poisoned him? No fear there? Mmnn! What is this fear then? Never mind.

    Some have put our fearlessness in embezzlement tricks to the lack of a good police force in the country that should apprehend and jail thieves to discourage others. Perhaps; but you will surely agree that the number of crooks in the country, going by newspaper reports of these mysterious disappearances, is far outstripping the coppers in our midst, both in number and agility. In other words, were we to put one policeman to a crook, the coppers would be heavily outnumbered and outpaced. Why? We don’t have too many coppers, I understand; and they also refuse to grow, both in number and agility. Unfortunately, I also believe that nearly every working Nigerian has now come to feel it is his bounden duty and inheritance to rob the state or his/her employer blind and there would be no consequences because s/he can outrun the police. All s/he needs to do is invoke his/her ethnic or religious card.

    But I have another theory. I want to think there is one more bastion of hope that can help keep us on the straight and narrow, like: the community newspaper. You know what that is, don’t you? It’s that newspaper that is published for the consumption of a local community to herald everybody’s demeanour. A community newspaper keeps a tab on everyone to let the citizens know how many times Mama Rere sneezed in the market; where exactly Baba Lolo’s bicycle broke down on the way to the farm; why Mama Joko’s tirade split the community apart… More importantly, community newspapers help us to know the exact sentiments of the rural and presently excluded majority of Nigerians towards their political representatives, political leaders and other oppressors.

    There is no doubt that one of the most important factors responsible for this sad state we find ourselves is the fact that the city imbues us with this cloak of anonymity. In the urban world where most of us now work, the real people who can take our stories from our ancestors ten times removed are not there. So, most of our misdemeanours are left to the anonymous larger society to judge; well, and the police too. But, like most of us have cried in frustration, where are the blessed police?

    Seriously though, a community newspaper does a lot more than that. It keeps people informed at the lowest level of national existence. As Jefferson or some other wise one once said, wisdom can only come from many mouths; and it is only when people are given information that they can come up with their own opinions. With first hand information instead of fifth hand, they can then put their real power to some real use: put their representatives on guard, make their leaders sit up and talk from a position of knowledge. They would then use their power to build the nation.

    Truth is, Nigerian governments have over the decades been afraid to put information in the hands of the people because those ones would see through them straight off; the government, that is, not the truth. Unfortunately, we are today witnesses to that deliberate failure in the rise of militancy. I don’t think Nigeria should wait till the entire country is engulfed in flames before it retraces its steps. The only security any country has is to put information in the hands of everyone in the community and teach people to use it wisely. Then we can all make news better, and read better news, on any given day.

  • Thank you all

    Thank you all

    But for fear of being reprimanded by one of my lecturers in those days who banned us from using the expression ‘words are not enough to express my gratitude’, I would have said just that in appreciation of the uncommon show of affection and support to me by our friends and relations during the burial of my father, Special Apostle Gabriel Adeshina Adegboyega on October 10.

    I am particularly grateful to Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC); Minister of Solid Mineral Resources, Dr Kayode Fayemi, who ‘threatened’ to be there and ‘carried out the threat’. I am also grateful to Chief Ajibola Ogunshola, former Chairman, Punch Nigeria Ltd; Mr Tunji Bello, Secretary to the Lagos State Government;  Professors Adebayo Williams, Tunji Dare, Ropo Sekoni, Moses Makinde; Ambassador Dapo Fafowora; Mr Bolaji Sanusi, Managing Director, Lagos State Signage and Advertisement Agency (LASAA);  Mr Victor Ifijeh, Managing Director, The Nation Newspaper; Mr Ade Odunewu, Executive Director, Finance and Administration; Editor (Daily) Mr Gbenga Omotoso; Chairman, Editorial Board, Mr Sam Omatseye; Mr Kayode Komolafe, Deputy Managing Director THISDAY Newspaper;  Mr Louis Odion, former Commissioner for Information, Edo State; Mr Waheed Odusile, President, Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) and Mr Chuddy Oduenyi.

    I am also grateful to our General Editor, Mr Adekunle Ade-Adeleye; General Manager, Corporate Services, Mr Soji Omotunde; Group Sports Editor, Ade Ojeikere; Chief  Internal Auditor, Mr  Sunday Adeleke; Editorial Page Editor, Mr Sanya Oni; editorial board members –  Olakunle Abimbola, Femi Macaulay and his wife; Mr Steve Osuji; Mr Segun Ayobolu, Editor-at-Large, and Mrs Christiana Babalola, former Commissioner for Women Affairs, Oyo State; Mr Wale Adeeyo, and Mr Akin Ogungbe, Chief Executive Officer, IDCL.

    To the Chairman, CSS Bookshops Ltd/Bookshop House Ltd, Ven Segun Agbetuyi; former Chairman of Spring Bank and Ogboye of Oke Ona, Chief Eddy Amosu; Omogbadero of Owu, Prince Laja Omofade; Asiwaju of Awori Land, Senator Ayo Otegbola; Director, Sterling Publishers PVT, India Vikas Ghai; Archbishop, Ibadan Province of The African Church, J.O.O Abbe;  as well as Olumuyiwa Aduroja, SAN, I also say a big thank you. Others included The Nation’s Legal Admin. and Personnel Manager, Mrs Folake Adeoye and her husband; Executive Secretary, Newspaper Proprietors Association of  Nigeria, Mr Feyi Smith; barristers Gabriel Amalu, Paschal Madu, Rev and Mrs E.O. Ogungbe as well as members of Ivory League and their wives.

    Special thanks also to the Chairman, Emmanuel District of the Cherubim and Seraphim Movement Church, Special Apostle/Pastor S.O. Ewulo; the teams from C and S Movement Church, Olorunsogo District; C and S Movement Church, Ilasamaja Branch; C and S Movement Church, Aba Efun Quarters; (Ife/Iwo District, Ibadan); C and S Movement Church, Oke- Afa,  C and S Movement Church,  Challenge Branch, Ibadan;  C and S Unification Campus Fellowship, Yabatech Chapter, as well as Mafoluku Landlords Association and others too numerous to mention. Above all, I am grateful to the Almighty God who gave us good weather throughout the three-day event.

  • At Large, at large at last!

    At Large, at large at last!

    Finally, death, that necessary end, came for versatile sports editor, Abimbola Akinloye, on October 13. I was on leave, trying to recover from the shock of my father’s death when death sneaked in and took Akinloye away. I cannot remember when exactly we met at The Punch. But I remember he was the sports editor there for some years and he maintained a weekly column that he called ‘At Large’, which was a must read for sports fans then. Soft-spoken, easy going, Akinloye could hardly hurt a fly. I can count the number of times he was ever angry. Yet, he was diligent at his work.

    After my exit from Punch, I lost touch with him until a few years back when he resurfaced in this paper, after a chance meeting with our group sports editor, Ade Ojeikere. They had useful discussions and Abimbola thereafter began a weekly column with us. It took some time for me to notice because (I must confess) I am not a sports enthusiast. When I eventually got to know he was writing for us, I tried reaching him on phone and succeeded on at least one occasion that I can remember. We spoke at length, compared notes and promised that we would be communicating frequently thereafter. That never came to be.

    For one, Akinloye, even in the best of times in those days at The Punch, was not an extrovert. But things had even degenerated further about two decades later, as he had almost become a recluse as a result of (what I was told was) a terrible sickness. For this ageless sports editor, we lost touch again, at least as far as communicating with each other was concerned. I just came to the office about three weeks ago to check on one or two persons (as I had been on leave since October 1) only to be told that Akinloye had died.  It sounded incredible initially but I was devastated when I confirmed it was true. Akinloye has since been buried, but I owe him this short tribute.

    Incredible,  At Large is finally at large; never to be seen again.

    May his gentle soul rest in perfect peace.

     

  • Baba Lekki dabbles in political astrology

    Day after President Buhari announced his much anticipated cabinet; Baba Lekki buried himself deep in sand at Sand grouse market. With his blistered legs sticking out of the mass of white sand, the old rebel was quite a sight. Many concluded that he was probably a holy savant having an out of body experience. It was here that Okon caught up with him on the third day.  The impish clown eyed the glum-faced mystic with cynical glee.

    “Baba, how far and how market? How many fools you don fool?” the crazy boy crowed.

    “Okon, this is not the time for illiterates and ogberi like you”, the old man snapped.

    “Baba no vex oo, but how dis dem Buhari cabinet? He be like if say dem  Yoruba juju dey work dis time”, the mad boy sniggered.

    “You see”, the old man began with a scholarly frown, “there is a critical misalignment of astral signals between some nominees and portfolios. I see a cabinet shake up very soon”.

    “Baba, all that na gbarogudu grammar. Alignment na vulcaniser work. You mean say portfolio no get portmanteau and portmanteau no get portfolio? “ the mad boy yelled.

    “Okon, na portmanteau no contain portfolio, but he get as he be”, the old man snorted.

    “Baba, in dat case make dem Buhari man name dem Okon minister without portmanteau. When my mama run comot with dem Ibo man, he come leave him portmanteau. I fit go carry dat one from dem Itigidi village”, the crazy boy hollered.

    “Okon, na dat one dem Soyinka man dey call ope  ra wonyonsi”, the old man retorted.

    It was at this point that the old man vanished without a trace as some jubilating urchins approached.

     

  • Aliko Dangote at Harvard: the question I wanted to, but did not ask him (2)

    Aliko Dangote at Harvard: the question I wanted to, but did not ask him (2)

    In continuation of the series that began in this column last week, the first order of business is of course to correct the glaring error that I made in giving the figure of 80 billion dollars as Forbes’s estimate of the net worth of Aliko Dangote. The correct figure that I meant to write was 18 billion dollars; how my fingers typed 80 instead of 18, I do not know, especially as no billionaire in the world has reached the figure of 80 billion as his or her net worth. Perhaps my fingers were being preternaturally ‘prophetic’ in an unconscious prediction that Dangote will one day make it to 80 billion dollars. The only thing that militates against the likelihood of my fingers acting as the unconscious medium of such a ‘prediction’ is the fact that for me health is wealth. In other words, I am asking the reader to please read the superabundance that my fingers mistakenly typed for Dangote’s wealth as a wish for his health!

    And indeed, no slogan is more appropriate for the things that I wish to reflect upon in this continuing piece in the series than the well known adage, “health is wealth”. This is because if it is the case that no woman or man can dispute the wisdom undergirding this adage of “health is wealth”, the reverse – wealth is health – is far from being unquestionably true. This becomes even more so when the wealth of the nation is appraised in terms of the health of the nation: overwhelmingly in our country in the last five decades or so, the wealth of our nation has been a relentless generator of the ill-health of nation. This is as true of the specific topic of this series – the collusion of our economic elites with our political rulers in investing billions of dollars in electricity generation and distribution to little or no avail – as it is true of the massive privatization of national assets, public utilities and collective resources in areas as diverse as air transportation and civil aviation; public sanitation and waste management; road construction and maintenance; health services through private hospitals and clinics; mobile telecom services; education at all levels from the primary to the tertiary; and even the collection of taxes for some of our governments by private firms. And with regard to the specific topic of this series, let us not forget that if responsibility for power generation still largely remains with the state, power distribution has in large part been privatized.

    My main focus in this series is on how our business moguls can come to the realization that as much as they have been collusive with “government’” in being part of the problem of the transformation of the wealth of the nation to the ill-health of the nation, they may yet play a role in being part of the solution. But before moving to this center of gravity of my reflections in this series, I would like to make one final comment on this alleged role of our business elites as part of a problem that is often solely ascribed to “government”, to the state.

    It is tempting to describe the nefarious symbiosis between, on the one hand, our political rulers and, on the other hand, our business elites as crony capitalism. But the matter is far worse than that. Crony capitalism exists in every region and nearly every nation in the world, with perhaps the exception of Cuba. As bad as it is, crony capitalism does not typically treat consumers and citizens with the combination of greed, cheating and extremely inferior services with which the alliance of “government” and business elites treats Nigerians in general and the poor masses in particular. In my view, it is perhaps nearer the truth to use the analogy between the real economy and the shadow economy to describe our political rulers as the real government and our business moguls as the shadow government. In contemporary capitalism of the advanced economies of the world, in many respects the shadow economy has become more central, more determining than the real economy. So it is with the “shadow government” in our country. In other words, what the “real government” does to the people through corruption, arrogance of power and mediocrity of services rendered the “shadow government” of business elites does on a more grandiose scale through their total disregard for consumer rights. Indeed, the Nigerian consumer, the Nigerian people are so unprotected from the kind of services provided by our “shadow government” that even the business elites themselves have to run for cover from the services they provide to their fellow countrymen and women. For education, they send their children abroad; for “real” health services they go to India, Europe and America; for safety of travel within and outside the country they buy private jets.

    If the profile I have given above of the “shadow government” constituted by our business elites gives the impression that I am of the opinion that nothing good, nothing patriotic, nothing decent and genuinely altruistic can be expected from all our business elites without exception, let me quickly state that this is in fact not the case. Just as I have not given up on the “real government” run by our political elites so have I not given up on the “shadow government” run by our business elites. To think otherwise is to have a rather low and cynical view of human nature. Human nature is not static; it is not unchanging, especially in relation to the collective institutional challenges for cooperation, peace, justice and survival that we face as a nation. This view holds true as much for rich men and women as it does for the poor and the wretched of the earth even if, quite often, the wealthy and the powerful in our country think and act as if what applies to human nature in general does not apply to them at all.

    This seemingly counterintuitive view that some or a segment of our business elites can be part of the solution to our problems and crises was in fact strengthened by some particular comments that Aliko Dangote made during his lecture at Harvard on October 29, 2015. I may be wrong, but I very much doubt that he or any of our business moguls make these sorts of statements at home to their fellow Nigerians. Let me add here that since some of these statements were given in the context of an unwritten speech that was delivered without reference to any notes, it may very well be that Dangote was in fact speaking straight from the heart. At any rate, let me inform the reader at this point that Dangote made these particular observations at moments in his speech when he was at his most relaxed, witty and engagingly unselfconscious. What were these observations?

    First, as an acknowledgement that businessmen and women are always deeply involved with government, Dangote stated that he in particular and many other businessmen in general had to be very careful during the era of military rule not to be perceived by the soldiers as an actual or potential financier of coups. To my astonishment, Dangote added that nearly every coup was financed by a businessman. At any rate, the main point in this particular observation is that he, Aliko Dangote, had stayed away, both in principle and in practice, from the “business” of coup-making during the military era. Second, was Dangote’s sharp observation that corruption is so deep, so antithetical to the possibility of our country’s transformation into a developed modern economy that it is far more deadly than the Boko Haram insurgency for our collective survival.

    The third of these observations or assertions by Dangote at his lecture of October 29 was on the surface more mundane. To me, however, it was the most revealing: he stated that though he was one of the handful of Nigerians who succeeded in obtaining licensing from the government to launch a corporation for GSM or mobile telecom services, he was so uninterested in that line of business that he was quite happy to sell off his license so he would not be tempted to get into the fraternity of MTN, Glo, Starcomms, Etisalat and the other mobile telecom providers in Nigeria. I must add here that I was surprised by the figure that Dangote gave for the sale of his license, this being 250 million which, I am certain, was in dollars, not in naira. However, against my wonderment that one could make a cool 250 million dollars without having produced anything at all, I squared off the significance of Dangote’s self-avowed decision to stay focused on industrial manufacturing of goods in the real economy. As a matter of fact, it was on the basis of this self-declared determination to be a producing industrialist rather than an idle-rich GSM provider that Dangote pitched his remarks in his lecture on his determination to be completely self-dependent in electricity supply for his industries.

    If the connection of these musings about Dangote’s lecture at Harvard to the issue of the solution to the crises of incomplete and imperfect electrification in our country and our continent is not (yet) clear, let me now spell it out unambiguously. I don’t know if it was intentional on his part but to me, the drift of Dangote’s lecture was a separation of his brand or mode of industrial and entrepreneurial activities from the more common and much better known tribe of “emergency” contractors, businessmen and operators. This separation is not exclusive or personal to Aliko Dangote; rather, it is historic and every country or region of the world that has successfully or substantially erected industrial production at the base of its economic production has had to go through it. Sadly or tragically, the distinction between real producers and “emergency” contractors and businessmen and women in our country seems either nowhere in sight or is indeed non-existent.

    Every modern amenity, utility or infrastructure in colonial Nigeria was put in place primarily and sometimes exclusively on the basis of how the particular amenity, utility or infrastructure prepared the groundwork for the industrial or commercial exploitation of the country, its peoples and its resources. This is the root of what at the end of last week’s column I described as the separation of industry from life in our country and our part of the world. To take only the case of electrification here, within cities in particular and the whole country in general, only those segments of the population and areas of the country crucial for the commercial exploitation of the land and its resources enjoyed electrification. This pattern of placing “industry” over “life” has not only persisted in post- and neocolonial Nigeria, it has worsened immeasurably. In next week’s concluding piece in the series, we shall explore Dangote’s implicit separation of “real” from “emergency” producers as a basis for both overcoming the separation of “industry” from “life” and rapidly and successfully making incomplete and imperfect electrification a thing of the past.

     

    Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • Surplus ministers and Saraki’s senatorial vanguard

    Surplus ministers and Saraki’s senatorial vanguard

    As proof that President Buhari has not quite made up his mind how his cabinet would look, he has indicated that some of them would not be given portfolios, but would in a manner of speaking sit down and look while others worked. He should be embarrassed by his thoughts on the matter. Before assuming office and after, he had enough time to think the matter through. He didn’t. Now, he is foisting the tentativeness that gnaws him on the rest of the country. Has he thought of sponsoring a constitutional amendment to tackle that impediment? And if he has not, has he thought of the political implication for himself and his party in respect of states that will be assigned redundant ministers? The mere thought of it rankles.

    While President Buhari was fiddling with his ministerial list, the incorrigible Senator Saraki has persisted in making an ass of his fellow senators, about 40 of whom were reported to have again heedlessly accompanied him last week to the Code of Conduct Tribunal in solidarity. The senators, most of whom are parents, are taking Nigerians and their long-suffering families for granted. If their moral compass is so cracked that their judgement is impaired, shouldn’t they keep their errantry and shamelessness to themselves in their desecrated chamber and with their pained families? They insist Senator Saraki is being persecuted. This is sentimental drivel. If he is, let that fact come out transparently during the trial.

    Senator Saraki has done his utmost to avoid trial because he has many demons pursuing him. He should boldly take his punishment like a man, respect the laws of the land, and face trial like the courageous politician he insists he is.

  • Clark: from extravagant somersault to extraordinary recantation

    Clark: from extravagant somersault to extraordinary recantation

    Nigeria’s depressing and often humiliating politics is occasionally enlivened by letter wars of an exceedingly high quality, if not in style, then at least in vitriol. The recent war between Edwin Clark, an octogenarian Ijaw leader and former Information minister, and Reuben Abati, ex-president Goodluck Konathan’s spokesman, is no exception. The letter wars are indulged in by a few select braves, men who are loth to let the enemy have the last word. Nigerians were used to ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, the common denominator in many of these wars, squaring up with both Wole Soyinka, Nobel laureate, and Audu Ogbeh, former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chairman. Now the audience will have to accommodate Chief Clark and Dr Abati among the sanguinary host of wounding, open letters. Professor Soyinka is used to letter wars, and does not shirk lexical battles. So, too, are Chief Obasanjo and Chief Clark. Chief Ogbeh has proved himself a man with strong chin and firm knees. Did Dr Abati take counsel before plunging into this maelstrom?

    In early October, Chief Clark drew the first blood when he accused Dr Jonathan of lacking the political will to fight corruption. That weakness, he charged, allowed those around the former president to feather their nests and ultimately doom his presidency. Of all the things he had to say about the former president, none was as wounding as depicting Dr Jonathan as weak, a charge the public will remember the former president battled unsuccessfully throughout his presidency to dispel. At one time, he had exploded in frustration that the public was attempting to mould him into a Pharaoh or a Nebuchadnezzar. Dr Jonathan may, for tactical reasons, be reticent since he left office, he, however, does not lack defenders. One of them, Dr Abati, rose stoutly in the ex-president’s defence less than two weeks after Chief Clark released his toxic statement.

    Dr Abati virtually poured scorn on all that Chief Clark had to say, almost calling him a hypocrite, and wildly punning one of the Ijaw leader’s luxuriant, haunting statements, to wit, that when Dr Jonathan was president, he was Chief Clark’s son. Entitled ‘Clark the father; Jonathan the son,’ Dr Abati proceeded to take Chief Clark’s statement apart, piece by piece. Cut to the quick, and never one to let bad enough alone, Chief Clark issued a lengthy rebuttal of what he described as Dr Abati’s tendentious statements. The former spokesman, roared Chief Clark, was disloyal and incompetent, and was one of those who contributed to the former president’s defeat. Worse, said Chief Clark, Reuben Abati never really believed in Dr Jonathan, considering the vitriolic phrases he used as a columnist with the Guardian to denounce the former president.

    Hear Chief Clark in all his unpleasant directness: “Dr. Reuben Abati has risen to the defence of his last employer too late. He owes the former President apologies for his (Reuben Abati) failure to perform while in office. I should not be used as a scapegoat. I love Goodluck Jonathan and Goodluck Jonathan loves me… I do not recall any favourable remark made by Abati all those years when he was the chairman of the Editorial Board [of the Guardian] and syndicated columnist about the former president, His Excellency, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and the First Lady Dame Patience Jonathan. If I recall correctly, they were always the butt of ridicule by Dr. Reuben Abati. In fact, he became so notorious and fearless a critic of former President Jonathan and his wife in the Guardian Newspaper that I had to draw the attention of my cousin the proprietor of the Guardian newspaper to his excesses. These vitriolic attacks on former President Jonathan and his wife only stopped when he was appointed the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity by the former president.”

    The innuendoes are unmistakable. Perhaps, Dr Abati will find it fitting to respond to the impugner. And just so that everyone will know how contemptuously journalists are regarded in Nigeria, Chief Clark threw in this hard bone for media professionals to chew. Said he gratuitously: “My advice that a publicity committee made up of eminent journalists be put in place in Aso Rock and that media proprietors and senior journalists should be invited to Aso Rock were jettisoned by Abati because of what I suppose is his covetousness, particularly when many journalists and media houses always complained to me that he was not carrying them along.” It may never be known who the offended journalists and media houses are. But far be it from this column to describe Chief Clark as a liar. Was it clear enough that the Ijaw leader was asking Dr Abati to enthrone a regime of financial inducement and settlement? But was it not also clear that many occupants of the office of the president’s spokesperson had complained bitterly of the insatiability of top journalists and media houses who view Aso Villa as a gravy train? Perhaps Dr Abati will also address this matter in his rejoinder. It would be a shame if Chief Clark should have the last word, especially in view of his damaging assertions and poetic inelegance.

    Chief Clark did not end his furious and indignant reply until he had penned a panegyric on the man he first described in early October as weak. Said he of Dr Jonathan: “He tarred more roads than any of his predecessors; he turned agriculture to agro-business, a multibillion dollar business; he built the Almajiri schools in the Northern parts of this country. He established new federal universities across this nation; he allowed for free speech across this nation, and did not mind when he was criticised or, even, abused. People were not arbitrarily locked up in jail or prison, as he truly respected the rule of law… He brought transparency into the electoral process – when people could vote and the votes actually openly counted without violence. Today he stands as the first African president to concede an election to an opponent, even before the final counts,” and on and on, ad infinitum. It is not certain, however, that this fulsome, contrived and deliberate expiation atoned for the damaging description of early October. Chief Clark should have let bad enough alone.

     

  • Broken economy and Buhari’s logic

    Broken economy and Buhari’s logic

    Some of President Muhammadu Buhari’s weightiest public policy statements since he assumed the presidency have been made during his foreign visits. The most recent is his controversial statement on the Nigerian economy made shortly before he left New Delhi during his recent official visit to India. He had tersely declared that Nigeria was broke. Between the time he made the controversial statement towards the end of October and when he defended his logic during Senate President Bukola Saraki’s presentation of the list of confirmed ministers to him, he had the opportunity of his economic aides gently nudging him into a better understanding of the use of that technical term ‘broke’ often deployed casually and freely by the uninitiated. As former Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and the Central Bank of Nigeria explained last year when some Nigerians described Nigeria as broke under the Goodluck Jonathan presidency, Nigeria may have serious economic problems, but it was not broke. It still is not, notwithstanding what President Buhari believes and says.

    Indeed, to be fair to the president, all he had said when he was interviewed in New Delhi by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) and the Channels Television was that the last government plundered the economy. He had said: “Where is the money? You must have known that the Federal Government had to help 27 of the 36 states to pay salaries. Nigeria cannot pay salaries. The Federal Government itself had to summon the governor of the Central Bank to see how it would pay salaries not to talk of the agreements we signed with foreign countries, counterpart funding and so on. This country was materially vandalised and morally so and you are in a position to know even more than myself unless you are testing my knowledge whether I know it or not.”

    It was not until his interviewers asked him a leading question that he gave the following startling answer. He had been asked to make a categorical statement on whether Nigeria was broke, and he answered, “Of course, Nigeria is broke.” In her response last October to conclusions that Nigeria was broke, Dr Okonjo-Iweala had argued that Nigeria was still meeting her local and international financial obligations. Despite low revenues and difficulties in paying salaries in some states, it is a little sweeping to suggest that Nigeria is broke. It is even more surprising that when he was cautioned against drawing such conclusions, the president insisted he was merely being truthful, and that in any case, foreign investors always did due diligence on Nigeria before investing. The PDP had feared that by describing Nigeria as broke, the president could scare away investors. For the opposition party, they expected that patriotism would trump economic realities. However, as the president rightly observed, foreign investors knew more about Nigerian economic indicators than Nigerians themselves. But the real issues are in fact muffled. between the PDP’s patriotic glow and the president’s sweeping and indefensible conclusions.

    There is no doubt that the Nigerian economy was terribly mismanaged by the Jonathan government. It is also true that that unsavoury fact can’t be hidden from local and international eyes. But the president is handling and communicating that information alarmingly. He was not elected to whine about the prostrate economy, or to depress Nigerians further as if they do not already feel the pinch. He was elected partly because they thought he understood the depth of the problems, and is able to plan effective countermeasures against the rot and depression, and to communicate upbeat messages about his efforts and his own private optimism in order to drive change and renewal, and mobilise the people behind him. So far, he has sounded very negative, even painting the problem much more than it really is. He has engaged too assiduously and interminably in handwringing. And he has spent more time blaming those responsible and those not even responsible.

    If it is any help, he must recognise that Nigerians feel the problem, perhaps better than he does, and have a fair idea of those responsible for their economic woes. What they want are not sermons about what happened and who did what. What they need now are brilliant, positive and ingenious measures and efforts to drag Nigeria out of the doldrums. What the country needs is synchronisation of fiscal and monetary policies to tackle the menace. Not only is there no synchronisation, there is no effective communication of what is to be done, and worse, no encouragement that once the measures are put in place, soon the country’s troubles would be over or at least ameliorated. President Buhari was elected to make the country look at its situation as not too big to defy remedies. If he wants the people’s cooperation, he must imbue them with hope of a great future. Except this column is mistaken, Nigerians don’t have a sense of what the government plans to do beyond the president’s groans. They understood how US President Barack Obama mustered powerful economic policies to undo the damage of the George W. Bush presidency. What are President Buhari’s plans?

    The economy is in trouble; let the president give the country hope that their common pain will soon be over. Let him reconsider the school feeding programme, for there is little wisdom in what is evidently an agricultural chimera. Put parents in employment and get them paid well, and they will feed their children. Let him also reconsider the welfare payments he is proposing along the lines his party promised, for it surely makes more sense to reflate the economy, give tax breaks to companies on certain conditions, and get more people out of the welfare bracket. For in the end, five thousand naira is really insignificant and will make beneficiaries even more expectant and angry. Give an aged person five thousand naira and they will likely be grateful. A youth will be contemptuous, as attractive as the idea may sound. Overall, let President Buhari think and talk positive, and let him mobilise the people behind him, for a great purpose, for something they understand and can relate to, and for an end that is achievable and dignifying. Enough of the negative ‘realism’ and blame game.

  • Still in Immunity Mode months into a change regime

    Ogunye demonstrated in a jargon-free interpretation that the election of Senators Saraki and Ekweremadu as president and deputy president of Senate was based on forged rules and thus need to be declared null and void, if deliberations under existing leadership of the Senate are to have integrity.

    Democracy is more than a political system; it is also a moral system. It is a political system which is characterized not by particular procedures, such as regular elections of government, but primarily by being based on certain fundamental moral principles. In a genuinely democratic society, the government’s policy must accord with those principles. And, furthermore, all social institutions must also be established and conducted within the same moral framework, which invariably includes equality, freedom, and respect for the rights of the individual.-A. V. Kelly

    By immunity in this piece, I do not mean the formal protection against arrest and prosecution of president, vice president, governor and deputy governor which those who occupy these positions enjoy in our country and which makes leaders of the executive branch of government the most powerful and protected political office holders in the world. I mean the general lack of respect for laws, rules, and conventions among those accorded legal immunity by the constitution and those that are not covered by such protection. In other words, I am using immunity in the sense of an individual’s or group’s belief that he or she can do anything without being answerable to the principle of equality before the law.

    It is intriguing that despite the fact that majority of Nigerians voted for General Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the belief that the new president and his party would be in a better position to right the wrongs of the past under the regime of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the culture of business as usual is still thriving two months into the Buhari presidency. For example, the recent lucid analysis by Jiti Ogunye of the conduct of lawmakers in the National Assembly, particularly in the Senate illustrates how the culture of immunity and disregard for laws, rules, and conventions reigned on June 9 in the hallowed chambers reserved for regulating the lives of the nation and its citizens through establishment of the ‘Dos and Don’ts’ that in normal situations sustain modern polity and civilisations. Ogunye demonstrated in a jargon-free interpretation that the election of Senators Saraki and Ekweremadu as president and deputy president of Senate was based on forged rules and thus need to be declared null and void, if deliberations under existing leadership of the Senate are to have integrity.

    Even after the police have revealed in their own investigation that the rules cited by the Senate for its conduct on June 9 are products of forgery, senators in support of the outcome of the election still find it comfortable to warn the police and other security agencies against allowing themselves to be used to harass the Senate, senators, or their spouses. Put in other words, the senators are warning the police not to do their work: investigation and detection of crime and presentation of suspected criminals to the court of law for trial. Instead of showing qualms, senators involved in the election of officers in June now show bravado as they threaten law enforcement officials for attempting to perform their lawful duties. This attitude from 48 PDP senators and 35 APC senators signal disaster for change, if the other branches of government – the executive and judiciary – fail to act in defence and protection of the rule of law.

    Stealing of the country’s patrimony, particularly crude oil in the millions still took place until July 3, according to President Buhari’s recent statement. This is an indication that the lawlessness that characterised the last government was still in vogue even after a new president had been sworn-in. The courage of politically connected oil thieves during the last administration to engage in illegal bunkering even months after their principals had vacated power shows how ingrained the culture of impunity has become. What this signals is that there are collaborators in all sectors of the polity, including the nation’s security system who are still ready to work with economic saboteurs even under the nose of an anti-corruption federal government.

    Furthermore, using the media to deceive citizens through blatant lies that were a past-time of the administration in the last four or so years has not abated even two months into the new administration. For example, nobody in the country including those in power can say with certainty the exact location of the $15 million that was smuggled toward the end of Jonathan’s government to South Africa to ‘buy arms’ with which to fight the Boko Haram insurgency. As recent as last week, the South African High Commission was unable to confirm if the money had been returned to Nigeria. The South African envoy’s encouragement on July 23: “So, I advise you to check with the agency from where the money was released for the arms acquisition deal,” implies that the location of the money still remains unknown after several months of claim by the Jonathan administration that the funds had been returned to Nigeria.

    As we write this piece, many citizens are rejoicing that the crisis in the House has been settled with Dogara’s acceptance of the list of APC nominees for offices other than that of the Speaker. People are forgetting fast the issue that the election of House Speaker and Deputy Speaker was conducted outside the framework of the laws that guide such elections in the House. Many of such enthusiasts are saying that we need peace in the House to be able to embark on the crusade of change. How realistic is the optimism that the crusade for positive change can be facilitated by House officers who finally agreed to a compromise after being given a deadline to ‘do the needful’?

    It is not that actions and statements referred to in the paragraphs above had taken place in Nigeria that is a novelty in a country that had for decades become the poster child for political and bureaucratic corruption in the world. What is worrisome is that such unwholesome acts as conducting election in the federal legislature with forged rules; senators’ threatening of the police for planning to enforce the laws of the land; and solidarity messages from supporters of lawmakers purported to have used rules not known to the law smack of a growing tolerance for impunity under the nose of a regime of zero-tolerance for corruption.

    It is not the capacity of President Buhari to fight corruption with sincerity and vigour that is likely to be a problem, given his own strength of character. What is scary is the capacity of a Senate led by leaders elected on the basis of forged rules to constitute a stumbling block to Buhari’s efforts to clean the Augean stables the president has inherited from the preceding administration. A Senate with 83 senators that passed a vote of confidence in someone elected about one month ago and with the temerity to warn the police not to ‘harass’ their members seems to have sufficient numbers to frustrate policies and bills designed by the president and his party to fight corruption. It is not out of place to think that the current senate leadership is in a position, if adequate care is not taken, to disrupt good governance by instigating crisis that can disrupt the change agenda.

    The matter of election of senate leaders must not be left to compromise among party members, more so that police investigation has revealed that the election of such officers took place on the strength of forged Senate Rules. The executive and judiciary must not shirk in their own responsibilities on a matter that has been politically unsettling since June 9. This is the most appropriate time for the Buhari presidency to insist on equality before the law. If indeed there was forgery of Senate rules, those behind such forgery, regardless of their position in the polity and society, should be brought to book immediately.

    Citizens who want their mandate on change to be put to good use need to stand firm and give support to the executive and the judiciary when they act to protect the country’s constitution, especially its commitment to the rule of law, without which democracy cannot deliver good governance. Citizens must not leave protection of the moral system that subtends all viable democratic systems in only the hands of office seeking lawmakers.