The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

Money does not answer all things

Worst than poverty is the abundance of money coupled with the lack of wisdom for the good use of it.

It is more advantageous that you understand a dangerous thing than have that thing understand you. It is a far wiser thing to comprehend a saying than to memorize it.

While attending various church services, I have witnessed something curious. Seeking to cajole their congregations toward placing liberal offerings in the collection plate, pastors have favorite Biblical passages they tend to recite. On many occasions, I have heard men of the cloth quote a portion of Ecclesiastes 10:19 – “money answereth all things.”

I flinch when I hear the phrase used in this way. Although well intentioned, these clerics turn the passage into something it is not. Perhaps lending themselves over to the economic poverty of our times, they commit themselves to an impoverished interpretation of that phrase. So focused on getting the generous offering, they distort the core of the very message they should preach and undercut the morality of the Gospel they profess to love and project. As such, they make the words say the exact opposite of what was intended. It is a gamble to focus on a portion of one sentence. One runs the risk of using the quoted notion outside its apt context. The risk is doubled when committed against a text like Ecclesiastes that is in some parts poetic, other parts sardonic.

If they would but read the oft-quoted line in proper context, those who cite it to spur collections would feel ashamed. The phrase is part of a passage when the writer extols august leadership then takes hard aim at its narrow, venal opposite:

“17. Blessed art thou, O land, when the king is the son of nobles, and thy princes eat in due season, for strength and not for drunkenness.

18. By much slothfulness the building decayeth: and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through.

19. A feast is made for laughter, and the wine maketh merry; but money answereth all things.”

The phrase about money does not emanate from the description of the wise leader. It is one affixed to the foolhardy. The good leader acts with temperance and restraint; their conduct is geared toward high purpose. But the foolish leader is a glutton of all things and guardian of none. The building or nation is left unattended and allowed to decay. They do nothing save cosset themselves. While everything falters, they feast and are made merry by it. To them, nothing appears to be wrong. They feel they can toss money at every problem and everyone and all shall be well. Thus, the statement that “money answereth all things” is not intended as a statement of sage advice. It is meant as ridicule. Only, the slothful and wrong believe such a thing.

How else could it be? How could money truly answer all things yet also the love of it be the source of evil? If money were the comprehensive answer, then the love of it would be in all ways beneficial. Loving the true answer could never be wrong let alone stoop to being the fount of all wrong. Yet, since money is not the genuine answer, the love of it can author great evil. If you seek evidence of this, look no further than Nigeria’s just concluded election and the quality of its outgoing administration.

The past administration exhibited the type of behavior against which this passage cautions. For years, problems mounted. Inattention and errant policy afforded that which is malignant to become its own wide manufacture. Insecurity and violence increased. Economic inequality grew. Corruption enshrined itself as a national institution. The poor seemed to become mute and inundated by grinding poverty.

Oil prices were high during this period. Money came and it went. Yet, the life of the average person did not feel its presence. Far from answering all things, money could not even answer how it was spent and where did so much of it go.

Those who had money soon came to have too much of it. They feasted and feted amidst famine. Because all was fine with them, they believed all was fine throughout. They need not worry about anything. Whatever was to come, they held the purse string. They had enough money to toss at any problem. For them, there was no tomorrow, because money answered all things. It would keep the party going and keep their party in power.

The election came. The administration and the party behind it sensed a problem. They had grown unpopular. In an electoral democracy, that would seem to be a grave problem. For them, it seemed but a nuisance. They would toss money at the election and make it theirs through cunning purchase. The funds that should have been used to build the nation would now be released to buy it. This cynical but attractive strategy would be deployed with rigor. After all, money answereth all things.

Cataracts of money poured into the body politic. Not one national institution was insulated from the blandishment of vast liquidity. Many people fell to the inducement. For those whose wont is to sell their soul, they could at least be proud that they did so at an inflated price. However, something uplifting happened during this wholesale attempt to commerce in the souls of the people and the destiny of the nation. Lean as their pocketbooks were, the bulk of the people stood against the wash and flow of misdirected currency.

The people had enough of not having enough and this fed them with desperate bravery. Fueled by such courage, they voted for their better futures and for greater nation instead of succumbing to present and visible blandishment. The manipulators thought that the daily lack the people faced would make them susceptible to money. The truth is that the impoverished state of affairs and the perceptible implosion of the nation made the people reject the vulgar tender. Money would not be allowed to purchase their ransom. They would barter their votes but only for a chance at a democratic and just political economy. Money power had bankrupted itself. A large-scale miracle had taken place in a land that seemingly had been overrun by greed and misery.

In the end, President Buhari won the election but the people had won even more. The humble and modest people withstood the silted convergence of greedy ambition, money, and might. They reclaimed the sovereignty of their will over those who pretend to rule but not govern them. They rejected being defined as people who could be purchased as if a cheapened commodity. From the bowels of collective despair, they summoned the strength and faith to call forth democracy. Despite all the unfairness they had seen and suffered, they arose to hold claim to a better-lit day rather than surrender to the dark belief that things could get no better than they now are. They believed in something better and stronger than money: that the best of the human spirit is stronger than the worst of it.

Because of this, they won for this nation a strong reprieve. They won obtained a chance strengthen the foundation, repair the roof, buttress the walls and, most importantly, anneal the national spirit. These things money cannot buy.

Money is but a tool and not the answer. If an answer, it would tell us how to use it wisely. On this key matter, money is deadly silent. In the hands of a good builder, money can finance the construction of a fine home. In the hands of wrong and destructive, money will destabilize and ruin the good neighborhood. Money helps when in the right hand but also hinders when in the wrong.

A new day in a new Nigeria is here. Its coming was neither by purchase or mortgage. Nigerians owe nothing to anyone save God and themselves for this chance.

Do not squander this chance that Providence has kindly placed in the hollow of your hand. This election has shown you the limits of Money Power. You have placed it below the collective good and justice where it belongs. Do not forget this lesson lest it emerge once again as a false and misleading god. To believe that money answereth all things is to turn it into a god. Those of who believe in God must realize that only God answereth all things. Everything else is incomplete and uncertain. The past administration believed in this primacy of money. It led them to serial mistakes in policy and, ultimately, to electoral defeat. This nation must not go that way again.

Nigeria, make the most of the future now before you. Let those in power govern for the public’s best cause and never lord over the nation they are meant to serve. Let it be that the welfare and good of the people becomes the vocabulary of leadership. Having so recently traversed the great divide between errant rule and responsive democracy, Nigeria now holds forth the torch of human progress. Keep that torch high that it might shine in every heart and home that is Nigerian. Keep that torch high that it may light the way for the rest of the Black race. Keep that torch high to show all the world that we have just begun to make the contributions to mankind that destiny calls for Nigeria to achieve. May God Bless this land!

(08060340825 sms only)

May 31, 2015
Star-studded federal and state governments

With the principled and determined President Muhammadu Buhari elected in March and sworn in last Friday, there is hope that the problems confronting Nigeria would meet more than their match. The president will be assisted by his second-in-command, Yemi Osinbajo, a law professor with enormous experience in government. Their expected synergy is anticipated to give hope for sound and deep-rooted democratic practices and institutions, which are sorely needed in Africa, in addition to a research-oriented and knowledge-driven party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), giving the system the needed push. If the president manages, as expected, to assemble a great and brilliant team, governance, democracy and development will benefit from the unquantifiable spinoffs of a successful election.

More than the great expectations at the federal level, the outcome of the polls in the states and the quality and vibrancy of the men thrown up by the elections give even greater hope of a much brighter tomorrow and firmer democratic practices. Nigerians will be busy paying attention to the men and women turning things around at the federal level. But they will be even busier watching and engaging the men and women turning things around in the states, for it is not only the President Buhari government that is believed to be star-studded. Unlike the last four years when just a few states made deep impression on the public, many more state governments are expected to shine bright and strong. They deserve serious attention.

Lagos will sustain and consolidate its great developmental strides, considering how fortunate the state has been in voting the same party into office thrice. The general benefits of continuity, not to say the continuing implementation of a developmental master plan, will ensure the new state government will hit the ground running, as indeed the last governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola did. Ogun and Oyo are also enjoying the good fortune of continuity, as the two governors have been awarded a second term in office. Ogun in particular has dreamt great dreams. It is expected to get the chance to execute lofty projects that will make the state compete with Lagos.

Adamawa may not have elected the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Nuhu Ribadu, former boss of EFCC, a man widely considered a moderniser, but the state will nonetheless cause a stir nationally with Governor Bindow Jibrilla. Even more telling, the solid democrat and brilliant young barrister, Aminu Tambuwal, former Speaker, House of Representatives, will cause more than a stir. He will bring Sokoto State squarely to the national domain, where he, more than his state, belongs. He will get a lot of attention, partly because his leadership skills will make him dare mighty things. Consider also the case of Kaduna State where the activist and impatient builder and moderniser, Nasir el-Rufai, will be holding court. If he can manage to put a lid on his fiery temper and bridle his tongue, he is expected to do wonders.

Then there is also Rochas Okorocha of Imo, who despite his sometimes casual resort to flights of fancy, has carved a niche for himself as a builder. Because of his ambition to climb higher to the national level after governorship service, he is expected to use his second term for great legacy projects, as someone who has a reputation for challenging himself, and using himself as a benchmark. Katsina’s Aminu Masari will very likely draw a lot of attention. As Speaker of the House of Representatives, he showed grit and principles in the face of executive interferences. His understanding of democracy and his preparedness to sacrifice everything for it will make him one leader to watch, not only in his state, but also nationally before too long.

The states, it is turning out, will be an incubus for future national leaders and developmental giants. They give hope that democracy will be well nurtured and protected, and the economy and the people well nourished. If anything, the quality of men in the states suggests that democracy may be here to stay. With a federal government shining brightly, and states showing off their lustre, it seems indeed very promising that Nigeria may be preparing to take its place as a continental leader after all.

May 31, 2015
Our season of forgiveness?

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” — John 1:9
“Allah pardon you! Why did you excuse them until it was clear to you which of them were telling the truth and until you knew the liars?” – Surat At-Tawba, 43
“But if anyone repents after his wrongdoing and puts things right, Allah will turn towards him” – Surat Al-Maida, 39

If a politically literate person were visiting Nigeria for the first time in the last three or more weeks, he or she would have thought that the country was under the decree of a Truth and Reconciliation commission. In truth, what has been going since General Buhari (now President Buhari won the 2015 presidential election) is that many of the country’s political office holders from the president down to governors have been asking for forgiveness from fellow Nigerians for whatever they did or did not do while in office. And the calls for forgiveness were made without anyone plucking the courage to identify anything that each of them believed he had done wrong.

From their pedigrees, each of those calling for forgiveness for themselves or groups they identify with emotionally appears to be Muslim or Christian. As the quotations overleaf indicate, each of the two major globe-wide religions insists that truth about mistakes made must precede plea for forgiveness. In Catholicism in particular, nobody asks for forgiveness until he or she has given full disclosure in a confession ritual of what he or she had done wrong. The worry about the avalanche of calls for forgiveness by departing political office holders is that none of them has been able to put a finger on what wrong decisions must have been made. Some of the political leaders in their valedictory ceremonies even felt emboldened to leave blueprints to be implemented for those succeeding them, regardless of the fact that their regime was replaced on account of its governance style.

The trail of demand for forgiveness was blazed by the outgoing President himself. He and his wife pleaded with Nigerians to pardon them for whatever they must have done in the discharge of their official duties to offend anyone. As if it was not good enough that President Jonathan had graciously accepted electoral defeat and, in the process, according to General Buhari changed the course of Nigeria’s history, the outgoing president expressed fear of being ‘persecuted’ along with his aides and pleaded that should anyone desire to probe his administration, that person should not forget such other leaders as Yakubu Gowon, ShehuShagari, Ibrahim Babangida, Ernest Shonekan, AbdusalamAbubakar, and Olusegun Obasanjo. This was an indirect way of saying that if all these former leaders had been forgiven so far for whatever they did or failed to do, his plea for forgiveness has no reason to fall on deaf ears, as opening the Pandora box would be too risky for the country’s stability.

Even the outgoing Vice President,Namadi Sambo, did not want to be left out of the ceremony of asking for forgiveness from citizens. He and his wife also spoke passionately about how they believed that they must have offended some people in the way they performed their duties. Similarly at the state level, many governors do not want to be left out of the ritual of calling for forgiveness. For example, the outgoing governor of Benue State is the most vocal of such governors. In his own case, Gabriel Suswan was specific about those whose forgiveness he needs. It is his civil servants and the lapse he has acknowledged is his inability to pay the state’s civil servants their salaries for months. And his reason for this is the nation-wide economic challenges facing Nigeria as a whole. Despite this challenge, he was able to donate some vehicles for his successor, to ease transportation during the period of transition. Some would wonder why Suswan would need to apologize for problems beyond his control. But Governor EmmanuelUduaghan of Delta State is the most specific about who needs to forgive him. He is calling on the accountant-general of his state not to abandon him on the eve of his departure from office and not to fail to tell him whatever lapse he (Uduaghan) might have made, a more subtle way to ask for forgiveness.

While in the context of Nigeria, calls by outgoing political office holders for forgiveness and understanding at the end of their tenure is not totally unexpected. It should be expected that those looking forward to come back to power in 2019 would need to be in good terms with most of their supporters on their way to what they see as going on sabbatical from political office. Correspondingly, those who do not share the optimism of their party leaders about 2019 may need to talk right while they wait for the next job or contract. It is the call for forgiveness for Boko Haram by senior political, cultural, judicial, and military leaders that sounds rather unusual.

Many powerful leaders from the North and a few from the Southwest who attended a conference organized by Professor Ibrahim Gambari’s Savannah Centre for Diplomacy, Democracy, and Development (SCDDD) rose from a conference in Abuja with a communique that called on the new President to grant general amnesty to the men who had killed thousands of innocent Nigerians in churches, mosques, markets, and motor parks. It is hard to miss the voices at the conference: the country’s leading international diplomat, Gambari, former Chief Justice of the federation, Mohammed Uwais, one-time secretary to the federal government under President UmaruYar’Adua, BabaganaKingibe, the outgoing National Security Adviser, Colonel Sambo Dasuki, retired MajorGeneral Ishola Williams, and many other individuals with name recognition in the country.

All of these are known patriots. It is thus hard to ignore whatever they say in respect of an organization that had almost torn the country apart. No doubt, the call of these gentlemen for forgiveness is different from those of those vacating power in that the call from SCDDD sounds altruistic. However, it is amazing that such calls are coming at a time when nobody seems to be sure what the motive and agenda of the faces behind Boko Haram are. It is also not clear how much study or research those pleading for immediate amnesty for Boko Haram members have conducted on the terrorist group and its activities. Most Nigerians need to know if Boko Haram members have qualified in their killing and maiming of innocent Nigerians for the status of political criminals.

There was a time President Jonathan used to harp on the fact that Boko Haram was designed to make him fail as president by making the country ungovernable for him. Not many people believed him. Many thought he was looking for excuses for not wanting to leave office. Others countered by saying that Boko Haram came about because of decades of underdevelopment in the North. Is Boko Haram now being considered by the SCDDD as being similar to Niger Delta militants who carried guns in order to press home their demands for economic justice or what they call their own share of petroleum money? Is the Savannah Centre convinced that underdevelopment in the North had created a sufficient condition for what Dr. Junaid Mohammed rightly called crime against humanity? Is it not a little hasty to ask the new president to grant wholesale pardon to an organization that had pushed Nigeria into hiring mercenaries from South Africa and begging other countries to fund neighboring countries to assist Nigeria to fight? Is a terrorist group that has publicly affiliated with ISIS one to be given unsolicited amnesty?

Just like departing political office holders asking for personal forgiveness, so would organizations like the Savannah Centre need to engage in truth finding before pleading for acts of forgiveness. It is always better when full disclosure necessitates or justifies forgiveness than when pardon is offered before the causes and effects of wrongdoing are identified.

May 31, 2015
The light artist of Lalakukulala

Darkness can be very enthralling and enticing. Despite the permanent darkness, despite the soot and grime and the noxious fumes from Third rate generators from Taiwan, Baba Lekki, the great sage, was in a gloriously upbeat mood. He had taken on a new role as a lightless artist which amounted to helping people manage the transition back to the tenth century and teaching them how to do without electricity. He had even formed a band that he called the Dark City Brothers. The huge queue suggested that he was not doing badly.

As soon as I sat down, he burst into a famous Christian song of praise. Of course, it was a savage parody rendered with satanic glee.

E se ibi tati bere, baba

E se ibi te bawa de

Adupe O Jesu ibi t’enko wa lo.

Then it was time for business. An elegant woman speaking Queen’s English came forward. “Sir, there has been no light in my area for a month. The generator packed up five days ago. The food in the freezer is beginning to go bad”, she lamented.

“Spread the food in front of the house in the night”, the guru urged.

“What? What if rats and snakes eat the soup?” the woman asked in alarm.

“Then you kill the rats and snakes and add them to the soup”, the sage replied poker-faced.

“In the night? What if I’m bitten by snakes?” the woman screamed.

“Then you are added to the soup, period. O d’obe ni yen. Cobra no dey chop corn, na di thing we dey chop corn naim cobra dey chop” , the guru said and dismissed the woman.

Then another woman stepped forward, rather gingerly having witnessed the previous encounter. “Oga no light no business oo”, she began on a plaintive note.

“Which kind business you dey do?”, the great man asked.

“I be ashewo for Agege”, she replied with a bashful smile.

“Take your customers outside and get on with it”, the guru replied without looking up.

“What? Make dem comot dem blokos and fire me just like dat?” the woman shouted as she stormed off, “Oga, abi you no well?”

But the most hilarious encounter was between the guru and a self-important man who arrived with a retinue of aides, red cap, feather fan and all what not.

“Chief, kontri don pafuka, generator no dey work again, the meat dey smell, even the alligator my wife come bring from Abakaliki come dey rot well well for freezer”, he lamented with a hint of self-pity and self-indulgence.

“Which technology came first, electricity or generator?” the guru asked calmly.

“Which kind foolish question be dat one? Wetin concern dat kind grammar with dead meat?” the chief raved.

“Answer my question”, the guru snapped.

“ Biko, this one be real onyeosi ooo, real were man, anoya proper. I just come waste my time with this yeye ngbati crook”, the man fumed as he fled with his hangers-on cursing.

May 31, 2015
Buhari: Four matters arising

President Muhammadu Buhari started on a good note after his swearing in on Friday with his well thought out inaugural speech. Here is my take on four of the major issues he raised in the address.

I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody

Considering the divisive nature of the presidential campaign and the animosity generated by the outcome, especially the part of supporters, President Buhari needs to assure Nigerians that he would serve as President for all Nigerians and not the candidate of any party.

Much as he cannot completely ignore his party and those who played major roles in his election, the interest of the country has to be more paramount in taking decisions and implementing his policies. Those who did not vote for him as he rightly noted contributed to making our democratic culture truly competitive, strong and definitive and should not be denied whatever they are entitled to.

He should not allow himself to become prisoner of any group; political, religious and ethnic in the discharge of his duties. Those who think they own him will not be dissuaded by this statement; it is left to him to prove that he is a man of his own conviction based on the national interest of the country.

We can fix our problems

The problems confronting the country at this point in our history are indeed enormous but not insurmountable if the new government has the political will to do what is needed.

Issues of insecurity, corruption, power shortage, unemployment and many more require urgent attention which Buhari has promised to tackle headlong. The problems are the outcome of years of maladministration which requires the right policy direction to fix them.

Nigerians are expectant of a major change in the administration of the country through the fixing of the problems. President Buhari and his team cannot afford not to live up to the expectations of the people.

We have both human and material resources which should be appropriately deployed. The right and capable persons should be given appointments instead of appointments based on political considerations only.

I am ready to listen to grievances of my fellow Nigerians

If there is any section of the country that should feel a sense of personal loss in the defeat of former President Goodluck Jonathan, it is the Niger Delta where he hails from. There were initial fears that the militants from the area who are worried about the end of the amnesty programme in December may return to the creeks and engage in ‘economic sabotage’ like they have done in the past.

Promising to listen to their grievances and invest heavily in on-going projects and programmes areas is a good way to indicate that he has not taken them for granted and would be open to suggestions on how to address the problems in the area.

We cannot claim to have defeated Boko Haram without rescuing Chibok girls and other hostages

The battle against Boko Haram is far from being over despite the recent successes recorded by the Nigerian military forces. For all we know they may have retreated to launch back in a more devastating way. What is needed is that they are totally subdued like Buhari stated with the rescue of the girls and other hostages. Being a soldier himself, Buhari should know better on how to fight this kind of war.

If relocating the command and control centre of the military onslaught to Maiduguri will ensure total victory so be it.

May 31, 2015
Congratulations, Mr. President, but just where are you going to start from?

At your first coming, you ruled by decrees; you cannot do that now, much as you will be tempted. You must now find ways of persuading people about the rightness of your action and how beneficial it will be for them to swallow the bitter pill you are about to shove down their throat

I don’t know if you have noticed this trend but these days, there seems to be a great deal of emphasis on the dancing put up by brides and grooms at wedding receptions. It is such a serious competition between bride and groom that no one is in any doubt that some rehearsals have gone into it. Just imagine this scenario; while preparations are on, the young ones are busy practicing their dancing steps!

A friend confided that once, when she attended a wedding, she found herself watching the bride’s exhilarated dancing and she could not help shed tears for her. My friend said she cried because she was sure that the couple had no idea of the bitter experiences waiting for them in the new marriage. Rather an extreme view, don’t you think?

Nevertheless, one cannot help but be distrustful of the euphoria greeting the coming of the new leader of Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari. Nearly every corner you go to now, there are cheering notes in the air and congratulatory songs on the lips on account of THE RETURN OF GMB, a man we all turned down in 2011, as the 5th president of Nigeria.

I guess many things are responsible for this euphoria. They say if one does not try two things, he/she cannot really tell which is better. I think that is the philosophy behind all competitions: sports, cooking, marriage, etc. It is useless for a man to stand atop a hill, thump his chest and declare that he is the best husband the world has ever seen. I think he would need to pit his skills against other husbands who would be miffed enough to challenge him. Ditto for a woman, or indeed, a president.

I am sorry, dear reader, that I could not join you at Abuja to cheer in the new president. Even if I could, I suspect that I would not have been a good compliment of that cheering crowd. The surveillance camera might have caught me standing in one corner bawling out, like my friend, in great pity for the man. You see, I would have convinced myself that this man does not quite know what he is letting himself in for. How on earth is he going to fix Nigeria? Indeed, where will he start from?

As we said here last week, the economic pot of the country has been scraped burnt right down to the bottom, either by accident or design. The only reason that Nigeria still appears to be standing is that the government is the major employer of labour; the private sector has since been consigned to the back burner. Therefore, the government can afford to borrow from internal and external sources to pay salaries, something the private sector cannot do. This thus means that we as a nation are living beyond our means.

On account of the fact that the private sector has been disabled and most of the work force loaded onto the government, it means that there is no real productivity on which the economy can rest on in the country. This is the result of the country’s tolerance of the years of the locusts, when we all watched on as the devourers, who began to drift in from the Obasanjo era and swarmed in large droves in the Jonathan era, gorge themselves into stupors. The economy is now bedraggled, tottering around in tatters, and looking for real-time, real-life productivity, not playing-to-the-gallery claims of productivity. Would the new president start from there?

Perhaps, he will start from the rather intractable energy problem which has allowed some unconscionable individuals to grip the nation’s throat. I hear all kinds of things now. I hear there is a conspiracy between generator makers and retailers and gas vandals to keep the nation in perpetual darkness. This means that should the new president turn his attention to the energy sector, he would have to break this vice ring. God help him. I am also waiting to say God bless him should he succeed.

Or, would he start from the oily problem we have on our hands? The country desperately needs to recover from the slump in oil prices, and at the same time reexamine our consumption of the stuff, and how it is we are not putting our money where our mouth is; i.e., we are importing what we are consuming. I think he wants to examine our refinery records and just who it is that has been planted to throw spanners into the machines as soon as they get going to make those refineries stop working. It’s sabotage; I say it is sir, and the new president might want to take up arms against the foes there. But he would need ten heads to do that because nine of them will be cut off and hopefully, they’ll run out of steam before the tenth is completely off.

Then there is the problem of the voracious appetite of the national assembly. The upper level of the country has been used to living beyond the means of the country. I think they think it is their divine duty or something. This will not do; it cannot stand. How this will be achieved is the job of The Persuaders. You never heard of them? Oh my! It’s that group of people who go around with special briefcases. They will politely tell these people that less than 0.000000000000000000001 per cent of the country’s population cannot keep eating up 25 per cent of the gross income in the name of lawmaking. For the sake of our national health, The Persuaders must be brought in to work their mathematical magic of deductions and inductions and wisdom based on convincing evidences. By the time they are through, we won’t have this problem again. Oh yes, it can be done. Now that the oil business is not as lucrative as before, we must look our empty treasury squarely in the eye and deal with it.

Congratulations, Mr. President. I am happy for you for one reason: you achieved your ambition to return in triumph a second time to govern this troublesome country. I am sure there is no need to tell you that the Nigeria of your first coming is nothing like the Nigeria of this your second coming. Things are different. For one thing, literacy is slightly higher. This means that there are now more people who can read, write and give stupid comments on things they are completely ignorant about.

At your first coming, you ruled by decrees; you cannot do that now, much as you will be tempted I’m sure. You must now find ways of persuading people about the rightness of your action and how beneficial it will be for them to swallow the bitter pill you are about to shove down their throat. This means you have to talk, smile at, laugh and cry with the people, especially when they are hurting, like now.

More importantly, as president of the country, you must realise you are the father, mother, brother, sister, uncle and aunt of the nation made up of tall and short members, black and light-skinned, Christians, Muslims, animists, fire, stone and sun worshippers, traders, soldiers, teachers, children, adults, thieves, rogues, robbers, murderers, and all sundry things. You must learn how to treat all equally, fairly and justly. I assure you that your coming is not accidental; it is ordained. This means you will be held responsible. Good luck. No, that’s gone now; all the best.

May 31, 2015
Education as Buhari’s priority

Two days ago, Spectrum Broadcasting Company celebrated the tenth anniversary of its flagship, Hot FM, Abuja, one of the most popular radio stations in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, and in the country; its proprietor and host of the event, the delectable Senator Chris Anyawu, herself once a popular broadcaster, said in her welcome speech that her station is among the top three in the country.

The venue of the celebration was the recently constructed Nigeria Airforce Conference Centre and Suites, an architectural beauty and one of the most modern buildings in Abuja.

The top highlight of the event was the Special Awards to four prominent Nigerians – the Senate President, David Mark, for stabilising the Senate leadership after eight years of a scandalously high turnover of five presidents; Kano State Governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso for his exceptional service delivery in his state; Dr Oby Ezekwesili, for leading an enduring campaign for the rescue of Chibok Girls held in captivity by Boko Haram for over a year now; and the Nigerian Armed Forces for their gallantry, sacrifice and courage in the face of great odds in combating Boko Haram. The second highlight was a two-topic symposium, the first on “The Change Nigerians Expect” and the other, a panel discussion on how the media can foster that change.

Professor Pat Utomi, formerly of the Lagos Business School, and Ezekwesili, one of the awardees, spoke on the first topic, while AIT’s Raymond Dokpesi, represented by Odion Bello, one of his top managers, presented the paper for the panel discussion on the second topic. Femi Adesina, the Managing Director of Sun and president of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, and Bello who read Dokpesi’s paper, discussed it, moderated by this reporter. There were three interesting interventions from the audience by Senators Anthony Manzo, Adekola Babalola and Adegbenga Kaka, mostly on media’s role in bringing about the changes Nigerians expect from President-elect Muhammadu Buhari.

The chairman of the occasion, Professor Jerry Gana, our first minister of Information in the current 16-year old Republic, spoke at length in his opening remarks but he did not disappoint as a celebrated orator. Neither did the Master of Ceremony, Andy Gabriel, a former broadcaster with Radio Nigeria, Kaduna, who ensured the event proceeded at a brisk, time-saving pace.

Of all the speeches and remarks at the event, however, the most profound for me was Ezekwesili’s. If Nigeria wants to get out of its current mess, occasioned mainly by its over-reliance on oil, she said in effect, its governments must begin to invest massively in education. Like Utomi who spoke before her – each of them for roughly ten minutes as they were allotted – she was characteristically eloquent, albeit not as eloquent as our professor whose characterisation of Nigeria’s politics as one “by politicians, of politicians and for politicians,” – obviously drawing from American President Abraham Lincoln’s famous definition of democracy as government by the people, of the people and for the people – should clinch gold as a sound-bite for its wit and accuracy anywhere, anytime.

However, Ezekwesili made up for Utomi’s slightly superior eloquence by talking at some length about how to bring about the change, instead of merely dwelling, as Utomi did, on the things that needed changing.

In talking about education as the main weapon of change, Ezekwesili, who once served as education minister, reminded me of an article in the New York Times of March 10, 2012 by Thomas Friedman, one of its columnists and thrice winner of the Pulitzer Prize as a reporter. It’s an article I have had cause to refer to on these pages a few times before but which still bears referring to every now and again for its relevance to our situation.

Titled “Pass the Book. Hold the Oil,” the article drew attention to the report of a programme in 2012 conducted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Paris-based 34-member rich-country club, of the link between the performance of 15-year olds across 65 countries in Maths, Science and reading comprehension, on the one hand, and the natural endowment of those countries, on the other. The programme was called PISA, Programme for International Student Assessment.

Its report showed that, overall, the pupils of countries with little or no natural endowment like oil and other minerals, performed better than the pupils of countries with plenty natural resources. The report also showed that the exceptions to this pattern, notably Canada, Australia and Norway which had plenty of natural resources, had established deliberate policies of saving and investing earnings from their natural resources instead of consuming them.

“Oil and PISA,” Friedman concluded in his article, “don’t mix.”

Nigeria, as a naturally well-endowed country, especially with oil, the world’s primary source of energy, has for decades obviously been suffering from the so-called “Dutch Disease” whereby over-dependence on export of natural resources for public revenue leads to a soaring of the value of a country’s currency, which, in turn, leads to the collapse of its domestic manufacturing, as cheap imports flood in and exports become too expensive. The good thing about the OECD’s PISA report, however, was that this disease is not necessarily inevitable, as Canada, Australia and Norway showed.

Ezekwesili did not have time to expand on how Nigeria should go about investing in the education of its human resources but it was apparent from her talk that what she had in mind was a much more serious and sensible approach than the clearly politically motivated building of almajiri schools and of new universities that are little more than glorified secondary schools which was pursued by the out-going Jonathan administration.

However, whatever approach Ezekwesili had in mind, it is bound to beg the question of how to raise the money to invest in the nation’s human capital for a country like ours who’s leaders as a class have stolen the country blind and squandered so much of the revenues from our natural resources.

One short answer, of course, is to fight corruption, a fight which the in-coming Buhari administration says is one of its top priorities. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done, as we all know too well. Even then we can make a start by sanitising our contract system whereby it seems the cost of any contract in Nigeria is invariably the highest in the world.

Take, for example, the cost at which the 30-kilometer highway from central Abuja to Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport was constructed several years ago. Or even the new four-kilometer runway of the airport itself. The highway was constructed at a cost of about N7 billion per kilometre. Some experts say it should never have cost more than a small fraction of that, frills and all.

The runway was initially awarded at N60 billion. This was so ridiculously high that the boss of Julius Berger, the awardee, told a hearing of the Senate the figure contained an “arithmetical error” after which it was reduced to N42 billion. Even then some experts say it could have been built for N16 billion and yet guarantee sufficient returns to the company’s owners to last a lifetime.

The quality of JB’s constructions may meet, indeed beat, world standards, but their prices seem to typify the country’s contract system in their lack of cost-effectiveness by the same world standards.

There are, to be sure, no quick fixes for education. But there is no alternative to investing in it massively and efficiently if we want to end our over-dependence on oil, an over-dependence which has clearly landed us in the economic mess we are in, which, in turn, has made the lives of ordinary Nigerians nasty, brutish and generally shorter than they were before we discovered oil.

However, if there are no quick fixes for education, surely there are quick ways to find the money to invest in the sector, such quick ways as raising the efficiency of our contract systems to global best practices.

Because education takes long to fix, the sooner we begin fixing it in earnest the better our chances of ending our over-dependence on oil sooner than later. For, as Andreas Schleicher, who oversaw the PISA exams for the OECD said, “Knowledge and skills have become the global currency of 21st-century economies, but there is no central bank that prints this currency. Everyone has to decide on their own how much they will print.”

Re: The Eighth Senate rollercoaster (May 13)

Sir,

Zoning is not synonymous with mediocrity. In my view the PDP was right in popularising it. We tend to have forgotten the situation that gave birth to it 16 years ago. Every region of this country can boast of people with demonstrated personal integrity and commitment to public service.

Gbemiga Ogunleye +2348054235291.

Sir,

I totally agree with your position that (Senator George) Akume is the best choice for the post, given the massive support GMB enjoyed from the middle-belt despite the anti-Islam campaign by the PDP.

+2348123341481.

Sir,

Don’t you think it would be unfair on the part of APC’s leadership to sideline PDP defectors in the sharing of positions after APC’s electoral victory? CPC has the President-elect and ACN the vice president-elect. It remains ANPP and PDP that have not been ‘compensated’. I am sure the victory may have been a mirage without their support. In summation, I believe Dr Bukola Saraki should be supported to become the senate president as PDP’s share, and am happy that, according to your testimony, he is competent.

Adewuyi Adegbite +2347013065440.

Sir,

You are not fair to the Northeast. They produced the second highest votes for APC after Northwest. Why always Northcentral? Is Northeast not part of Nigeria?

+2348069663902.

May 27, 2015
The Autumn of the Young Patriarch

By this time next week, the Goodluck Jonathan presidency would have become history. And what a history this has been! As the whole country, in phenomenal darkness, wearily inches its way towards the excruciating finale, there is cause for sober reflection. Never in the history of this country have things been this terrible. We have finally arrived at the bottom of the terrible pit of hell. It is a sad commentary on the greatest conglomeration of Black souls anywhere in the world.

There is good luck and there is good luck. As the good old Greeks would have put it, call no man lucky until he has carried his luck to his grave. Like a Shakespearean play, life is full of strange twists and even more remarkable turns. The very combination of lucky circumstances that has propelled the formerly shoeless boy from Otueke to the pinnacle of electoral fortunes in his country has also made him the first sitting Nigerian ruler to be electorally dismissed. It doesn’t get more Delphic.

But the Jonathan story is still unfolding. As the youngest patriarch among the paleontology of under-achieving paterfamilias, Jonathan may yet surprise us as a statesman where he has disappointed as a political practitioner. It may well be that Jonathan is more temperamentally suited to the elevated art of statesmanship than the dark science of political magic.

Nevertheless, we must return an interim verdict on the Jonathan years, and it is as damning in its dismal details as it is as disagreeable and even disgraceful in its essence. Never in the history of Nigeria has there been a more divisive and polarizing president. Never has such incompetence combined with cluelessness and such in your face impunity coupled with sheer vindictive malice. Jonathan leaves behind a country that is so badly distorted politically, economically and spiritually that it will amount to a wry understatement to conclude that the country is in the grip of a deep systemic rot. It is much worse.

But however much we rail at him, however much we excoriate him in anger and deep disappointment, we are also railing at and excoriating ourselves. Jonathan is the ultimate product of a deeply disfigured polity and a luckless pawn at that. At any point in time, a ruler is the sum total of the strengths and weaknesses of the polity that throws him up and an accurate reflection of the forces at play and the balance of power. A system which allows a few privileged military officers to annul the electoral will of a whole country and which permits some demented autocrats to impose their political choice on the nation is bound to throw up a Jonathan as the end product of political infamy.

So here we are at the very nadir of our political and economic fortunes. The good news is that hubris has finally met its match in a resurgence of national will and a reawakening of national consciousness. Perhaps we had to get to this gate of hell in order to come back to our senses. Nothing concentrates the collective mind of a nation more than the thought of imminent extinction. The very idea of God’s own people or God’s own nation is one of the pious and energizing myths of national creation. Nations are not products of divine proclamations but products of human will and self-surpassing exertions.

By early 2012 and at the time of the petroleum subsidy hoax which has now returned in all its horrifying dimensions to see off Jonathan, it was clear to all discerning folks that Nigeria had a problem ruler on its laps. By that time, this column had a full measure of its man, describing Jonathan as a boy-emperor handed a toy rigged with explosives. It is perhaps owing to this nation’s legendary luck and the close attention of the international community that Jonathan was prevented from detonating himself and the nation along.

Those who fought valiantly on the streets and in smoke-filled rooms of endless strategizing to rescue him and the nation from the clutches of an overreaching cabal became Jonathan’s sworn enemies. As he came under the spell and political sorcery of tribal hegemonists and clueless power neophytes, Jonathan began playing the ethnic and religious card in such a derisive and abysmal manner that the pan-Nigerian coalition on which he rode to power gave way completely, leaving him at the mercy of infantile thugs and some senile political delinquents.

From then on, it was one constitutional infraction after another; one act of daring impunity after another; one assault on the institutional integrity of the country’s judicial and legislative foundation after another. At a point, it seems as if Jonathan derives a sadistic pleasure in cocking a snook at the country’s old power establishment and the relish of the psychologically tormented in imposing disorder on fragile order. Like a chap who killed his parents and asked the court to set him free on the grounds that he was an orphan, the chutzpah was quite breathtaking in its brazen audacity.

Yet it was all clear where it was leading. A rising power formation is one thing but a power bloc is another. Jonathan’s ethnic group might have been the ascendant power formation but it had not yet solidified and cohered into a durable power bloc. Power blocs are made of sterner stuff.

In a multi-ethnic post-colonial nation with multiplicities of countervailing and mutually cancelling power centres, it takes intricate networking, durable bridge-building and exemplary wheeling and dealing to cobble together a dominant power bloc. You cannot serially insult and humiliate a people publicly only to turn round when elections were approaching with bales of dollar to bribe their renegade leaders. Jonathan has been taught an elementary lesson in power politics.

Even after allowances might have been made for defects of character and personality, it is only the remarkable structural disfigurement of the country that can explain how Jonathan became president in the first instance and why he became such a horrendous presidential disaster with such damning disclaimers even from the normally diplomatic international community.

Standing logic and rationality on their head, Jonathan’s rabid partisans have been hollering that by conceding defeat at the time he did, he has snatched eternal victory from the jaws of bitter defeat. The question to ask is whether he had any real choice in the matter. The morphine of power addiction often wears off in the wake of imminent self-destruction. The eternal catch22 logic suggests that one’s concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers real and immediate is the process of a rational mind. Lucidity intervenes in the face of political morbidity.

In the nearest future, we will know what really happened. As a means of easing off hapless and heedless African rulers who are about to detonate their country, the international community normally offers political sweeteners. In the heat of the battle for Monrovia, the illiterate and abject Samuel Doe was rumoured to have been promised a prestigious American fellowship. Valentine Strasser, a former disc jockey in Freetown who became head of state through the instrumentality of military brigandage, was given a scholarship to study in one of Britain’s leading universities.

Strasser accepted while Doe demurred only to be brutally dispatched shortly thereafter. But at the last check, Strasser was living in a hovel outside Freetown with his mother. Sierra Leoneans do not even want to be reminded of the period, not to talk remembering or honouring him as a former head of state.

Statesmanship is not a title or honour to be bequeathed. It is earned. Exemplary leadership is not a function of an isolated instance of grace and common sense but the cumulative hulk of good and noble deeds accruing over a period. Judging by the havoc and mayhem he has wreaked on the country in the last six years, it is clear that Jonathan is neither a statesman nor an exemplary leader.

It is instructive that so soon after conceding defeat, Jonathan, like somebody recovering from a benign trance, simply reverted to his default mode of petty malice and vindictive witch hunting, deliberately loading the dice of destabilization against his successor and conqueror through questionable appointments and even more questionable confirmations while abandoning real governance. If General Buhari were to respond in kind, then Nigerians must brace themselves for a stormy session of outlandish revelations ahead.

But after all atonements have been made, let us be ready to forgive the man from Otuoke. A man cannot give what he doesn’t have. He has been plucked from nowhere by the power protocol and thrown into a brutal coliseum that he could barely comprehend. We must now return to the original labours of our founding fathers who were not just politicians but theorists of the state. Given the systemic rot, the promise of good governance emblematized by Mohammadu Buhari may just not be enough. Nigeria needs a new architecture of the state. Let that old debate which was terminated in 1962 now resume in earnest.

May 24, 2015
PDP’s warped opposition

Lamido’s statement that Buhari should not give excuses even before taking power is nonsense

It is easy to dismiss the utterances and actions of some of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stalwarts since the party’s defeat in the last presidential election as products of post-election defeat hallucination. Or, better still, the ranting of some losers. For a political party that has never known the colour of defeat at that level (whether by rigging elections or by actually winning at the polls) since the country’s return to civil rule in 1999, the temptation to think along these lines is pardonable. But that would be oversimplifying the matter.

Although personally, I am not surprised at some of these developments, including the statement credited to Alhaji Sule Lamido, Jigawa State governor, to the effect that president-elect General Muhammadu Buhari should stop fishing for excuses and deliver his electoral promises to Nigerians, irrespective of the state of the economy.

Hear Lamido:”You must fulfill your promises, because there was no condition given on how to do it when you were campaigning for election. Whether the economy is favourable or not, do not give us any excuses. We will not tolerate any excuses. Whatever the APC is, they owe it all to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), because PDP, one way or the other, brought almost all of them into politics. It is about time for them to reflect, because Nigerians will definitely hold them accountable. They must fulfill all their promises.”

The question now is: does this lie in the mouth of people whose political party just ran the country aground? General Yakubu Gowon might have been quoted as saying money was not Nigeria’s problem but how to spend it (whatever the context), it is the Goodluck Jonathan administration that lived that expression. The government spent money and bribed as if both would go out of fashion anytime soon. We are in a dire economic situation today because the PDP has thoroughly mismanaged the country’s resources and its members and their cronies have stolen a substantial part of it.

That is why a major crude oil producer is now bedevilled by acute fuel scarcity. What a valedictory emblem! The impression one gets is that the PDP is populated by people who have no conscience or sense of shame. Apparently, they were in a hurry to come into the world and therefore did not wait for their share of these virtues when they were coming.. If our leaders had conscience or sense of shame, they would not feel comfortable in the comity of civilised and focused leaders. I wonder how Diezani Alison-Madueke, our petroleum minister, felt whenever she attended the meetings of oil producing nations and saw that Nigeria, her country, is the only major crude oil producer that imports fuel. Worse still, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) elected her as its president last November! This was after she lost the bid to become secretary-general of the organisation in 2012. It is either the OPEC job was a way to humour Nigeria or we have infected the organisation with the bug of corruption that has led to an incestuous relationship between most of our fuel importers and the Nigerian government. This is the oily mess they are leaving behind for Buhari to clear.

On the general economic front, the result is as woeful, if not worse. Virtually every sector has been paralysed. Power supply continues to ebb in spite of billions, not of naira but dollars spent on it by the PDP in the last decade alone. Many of our hospitals remain the same ‘consulting clinics’ that Buhari met when he came on New Year’s Eve in 1983 in a coup d’état. Education is in a shambles. Unemployment has worsened since the Jonathan government took over.

So, just what is working in the country? Virtually nothing. It is against this ugly scenario that Lamido wants Buhari to perform magic simply because he made electoral promises. As at the last count, the incoming government had claimed that the Jonathan administration is leaving a legacy of $60 debt for Buhari to inherit. Maybe it is because Lamido did not see this as an issue that he still wants miracles. I must confess too that I did not know this is all the country lost to the Jonathan government’s squandermania and corruption. Whereas when President Jonathan took over, the economy was rosier, the exchange rate was better (around N165 to a dollar now about N200 to one US dollar); oil had sold at relatively steady high price (over $100/barrel) under the Jonathan administration for long; yet his government frittered the money away while his officials and their cronies stole the rest.

One wonders how many of the demands Lamido is making now of Buhari that is inheriting virtually an empty treasury he made from their government which enjoyed the best of times. When Lamido talked about holding the incoming government accountable, does accountability exist in the lexicon of their outgoing government? How many of the PDP’s campaign promises in 2011 had been fulfilled four years after? When Lamido said: “We will not tolerate excuses”, the question that comes into mind is: ‘who are these ‘we ‘? He just reminded one of the Elder Godsday Orubebe ‘show’ when the result of the presidential election result was being collated on March 31. “We will not take this, Nigerians will not take this”? He had said, and many people kept wondering which Nigerians Orubebe was talking about. He had since apologised, though.

Is Lamido feigning ignorance of the fact that we are having fuel crisis now because of the incestuous relationship between their government and a cabal that both enjoyed corruption together and are now afraid that the honeymoon is about to end? I said it a few weeks back that the fuel crisis would last until Buhari is sworn in and beyond because there is no way the marketers who had enjoyed a lot of free money under the decadent system would want to let go easily. They would want to prove that there is no corruption in the subsidy regime and the only way they can do that is resort to cheap blackmail to get the new government to pay them. Since when has the Jonathan government and fuel marketers ever quarrelled or disagreed over subsidy payments? So, why now?

The same principle underscores the darkness in the nation. Power firms that gave N5billion to PDP campaign, are crying of lack of funds to run their business. It is not an accident that both the oil and gas and the power sectors are in this sorry state a few days to Buhari government’s inauguration.

So, the Buhari government has its job cut out for it. The shenanigans that thieves use to delay or escape justice here must be demolished to facilitate court trials. A situation where the fate of thieves and bribe takers who committed crimes in Nigeria is still at preliminary stages in the country’s courts long after their foreign accomplices tried abroad had commenced their jail terms can no longer continue. Indiscipline is sweet and corruption even sweeter. It is true that corruption is not a peculiar Nigerian problem; it is a global problem. But the difference is that those caught in other places get their comeuppance fast while their Nigerian accomplices wine and dine with the people in power even as their case files gather dust in court shelves.

We must have seen through the kind of opposition politics the PDP wants to play. The party wants Buhari to resolve the peculiar mess that it could not solve when there was economic boom in 15 years, even before Buhari takes over, irrespective of the state of the country’s economy. So, Lamido too knows that they have sufficiently messed up the economy that they met hale and hearty?

But it is not their fault; it is because this is Nigeria. In most other places, the ruling party’s stalwarts and their collaborators in government would be behind bars by now. Those who are not would bury their heads in shame. Indeed, in a place like North Korea, as someone said online, they would not have dared what they did in Nigeria. It is because they know that here; there is no consequence for those who ‘get their stealing right’ that the country is at the mercy of thieves. That is the crux of the fuel crisis and the power conundrum that have come to represent the baptism of fire that Buhari would have.

May 24, 2015
Implications of change manifesto (6)

The Buhari administration, and by extension, those of all the governors and local governments of his party, must be subjected to monitoring of implementation of policies at all times

The focus of last Sunday’s column was on the President-elect. Suggestions were made for his consideration as he prepares to assume the mantle of change in a country that had experienced more failure than success in the last few decades. The column reminded the new president that sustaining the integrity of the manifesto of change, upon which majority of Nigerians voted for him and his party, requires conciliatory attitude to those who did not vote for him. It also calls for an ever-present readiness on his part to restore national security, justice, rule of law, development-oriented economy, and an unflagging enthusiasm to fight corruption, the mother of the failure of the Nigerian State in the last four or more decades. Today’s piece, the last in the series on implications of Buhari/APC’s manifesto of change, is on the citizenry.

It is instructive that political pundits and average citizens have started to acknowledge that Buhari/APC’s change manifesto was even before the election in tandem with citizens’ hunger for change, a complementarity that madeBuhari/APC’s victory over Jonathan/PDP seemingly predictable, once the APC primaries picked Buhari as the party’s presidential candidate. While INEC deserves to be commended for taking all risks to make the 2015 elections more free and fair than previous elections, it must be remembered that it is the decision of the people to exercise their sovereignty to choose the leader they prefer that, in the final analysis, gave Buhari and his party the electoral victory and the chance to change the culture of governance in the country in fundamental ways.

The old saying that “citizens get the government they deserve” does not end with the power of citizens as voters to put a candidate or party of their choice in power as and when they feel they need to do so. In other words, citizens’ sovereignty does not terminate with electing a new government; it also includes an abiding obligation on the part of citizens to hold their leaders accountable for their policies and their conduct in office. Resolving to remain active in public life in the post-election era is the best way for citizens to assist the new government to fulfill its promise to bring political, social, and economic change to the polity and society. Any form of complacency on the part of the electorate or any attitude reminiscent of the feeling by voters that “we have done our part by voting them into power” can encourage bad behavior on the part of political leaders in power.

In specific terms, there is much that citizens can do to support the process of change and also to protect the new government as it makes new policies capable of producing change in the polity, economy, and society.General Buhari’s integrity and love of probity in public life has become common knowledge to the extent that citizens believe he is capable of bringing out a rabbit from his hat with respect to most of the problems facing the country. As honest and resolute as he may be, he still needs the patience of citizens as he embarks on his mission of change as from next week.

For change to be meaningful and effective, it is not only the way Nigeria has been governed that has to be changed; so must the sloppy attitude induced in citizens to public life over the years by public officers and civil servants who were deficit in terms of public spiritedness also requires change. Citizens in the workplace and in public space have also for decades been habituated to the culture of nonchalance,personalism, and patronage. Because of uncaring governments over the years, citizens have learnt how to feel unperturbed with conducting themselves as if they are local governments unto to themselves, such that many frown at paying their fair share of taxes on the basis that such revenue is more likely to be stolen by public officials and their bureaucrats. In the context of decline in revenue from petroleum, citizens need to perform enthusiastically their primary duty to government, prompt payment of tax.

However, they need to invoke the principle of he who pays the piper monitors the relevance of the tune by becoming enthusiastic about their other role: engaging public officials and political leaders on issues of national, state, or community interest. The Buhari administration, and by extension, those of all the governors and local governments of his party, must be subjected to monitoring of implementation of policies at all times. It is too risky to stay aloof and wait for another four years to invoke citizen power in a democracy. Individuals and groups should play the role of civil society (putting pressure on their leaders to do right), without necessarily imbibing the careerism and entrepreneurship of what has become in the global periphery professionalization of civil society organizations or what critics in many African countries refer to as NGOISM, belief in the possibility of making a career in and with non-governmental organizations, particularly those that live off external funding.

Despite the absence of triumphalism on the part of General Buhari and some of his party leaders, it is common knowledge that the traditional and social media are overflowing with triumphalist pronouncements. It is, for example, puerile for any group or party leaders to engage in self-celebration about how they won the last election while emphasis should be on how to use the victory to advantage. It is common knowledge that political parties in democracies win elections because citizens vote for them. Party enthusiasts who have to beat their chests for winning should keep such self-celebration in-house. Ordinarily, it should be the losing party that needs to console themselves with stories of how they lost. What supporters need to learn now is how to maintain constant vigilance and support of their party men and women in power as from May 29 while always respecting rights of those with different political views and affiliations who have to play the role of official and informal opposition. The focus should be on change, not on distractions.

In the framework of separation of powers, it is not just the executive at every level of governance that citizens need to watch. They also need to monitor the legislature and the judiciary, to ensure they maintain the independence required of each branch of government. During the decades of military dictatorship, citizens had come to see government only in terms of those who perform executive functions. This mentality was carried into the post-military era to the extent that the legislature at all levels in the last sixteen years was virtually left on its own.

Otherwise, how could lawmakers have been able to get away with giving themselves higher salaries than their counterparts in richer and more advanced countries of the world? How could lawmakers at the federal level get away with adding executive functions to their role in the name of constituency projects that generally got monetized for them? Despite receiving generous constituency allowances, most legislators at the center did not have functioning offices in their constituencies and had no consultative sessions with their constituents. And despite the provision in the constitution for citizens to call their elected representatives in the National Assembly to order, this did not happen in sixteen years. Citizens have to hold their lawmakers accountable by engaging them or protesting against them, if they try to avoid such engagement. No state governor should be allowed to avoid conducting local government elections as and when due, just as no governor should be allowed to tamper with funds earmarked for local governments.

Finally, the absence of work ethics and general lack of discipline on the part of workers during regimes of self-interest need to worry every citizen as the country enters the moment of change. For too long, Nigeria had lived off easy money from petroleum to the point that the average citizen has come to believe in miracles, in the possibility that working hard and well is not a prerequisite for promotion and recognition in public service. Using having a job in government to ask for bribe before providing service to citizens will damage the reputation of the party of change. With the new regime, citizens must insist on restoration of the culture of honest delivery of public service, if they want the ideology of change to improve quality of life for all in our new country.

Concluded

May 24, 2015