The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • The General Assembly: Recasting the global system

    The General Assembly: Recasting the global system

    War may not be the answer but it never seems to be out of the question

    Last week, world leaders gathered at the United Nations General Assembly, delivering speeches laden with platitudes and mostly devoid of deeper substance. Yet some real work, reflecting the establishment of a boundary against unilateral Western militarism in the Middle East, was done. Although it does not herald regional placidity, this boundary will likely prove condign. Confrontational fault lines in the Middle East are too numerous, too jagged, and run too deeply for a more roseate prognosis. This boundary is the child of vague strategy and ad-hoc, tactical opportunity. Those who constructed it may not even fully comprehend the significance of what they have done. This unawareness does not diminish what was accomplished.

    In 1928, diplomats from the major powers signed the auspicious Kellogg-Briand pact thereby denouncing war in international affairs. It was a quixotic artifice, out of touch with reality and giving false hope to the naïve and ignorant. As such it was dangerous. Reliance on its false promise blinded some nations from dealing with the gathering problems facing the global system. Within dozen years, the lustrous pact was revealed to be fool’s gold. The very signatories of that dainty instrument of peace plunged the world into mankind’s most lethal belligerency. Seven decades after World War II, we still live in world shaped and scarred by the destruction it unleashed. When mighty nations declare war, we can rest assured the declaration and will be implemented with fierce integrity. But it remains an uncertain thing when nations proclaim peace.

    While “peace in our time” has not been grasped today, the boundary now drawn is more appropriate than the contrived chemical weapons “red line” America tried to impose on Syria. This new colourless and invisible geopolitical boundary does not bring peace; but it may halt gestation of wider conflict in this pivotal region. As such, it represents a stride toward progress in a world and region sorely needing forward movement.

    Ironically, the leader most responsible for this small push could not attend the proceedings. The reason for his nonappearance was excusable and inviolate: He is dead. Many people missed the extinguished Libyan despot Muammar Gaddafi and the weird bemusement generated by his flambouyant presence and incontinent, nigh indecipherable pronouncements. While the man was absent, his ghost walked the halls, influencing deliberations more than the actual man ever had. In death, Gaddafi proved to be more of an important statesman yielding more influence than all his exertions and meddling did while he lived.

    On Libya, America and its NATO allies bamboozled the weaker, informal countervailing international grouping headed by Russia and China. America and its friends painted Gaddafi as a despot intent on massacring his people, particularly those in Benghazi. Gaddafi was indeed a despot. However, the claim of impending massacre was a lie to justify a decision made years ago to remove the man from power because he had defied the West too many times in too many ways.

    Neither in word nor deed did Gaddafi embrace a strategy of genocide. The authentic transcript of his announcement on Benghazi reads that he promised no harm to the innocent and unarmed but to vanquish those fighting against him. While this may not be the height of high society etiquette, this is the language of civil war, any civil war. The man did not go beyond the pale. When amassing against Benghazi, he remained true to his strategy by leaving his foes an eastern route to depart the city and escape into Egypt. A man bent on mayhem would not have left the opening. He employed this pragmatic strategy, because he wanted to win the war and not simply kill people for killing’s sake.

    The man was brutal and more than capable of killing those whom he had no cause to kill. However, in the several towns recaptured from the retreating rebels, he did not commit wanton massacre. If he did not do so while advancing toward Benghazi there was no reason to do so in taking Benghazi. The assertion of genocide against him was simply a pretext to prevent the victory he had nearly in hand. Had the West not started its bombing campaign, he would have reclaimed control of the Benghazi and the dwindling areas under rebel control within weeks. He would have appeared at the General Assembly in full regalia. Instead, he can only attend as the ghost of a despot past.

    During the Libyan crisis, Russia and China went somnambulant. They had no direct strategic interests in Libya. For them, Gaddafi himself was an outlier, too vain and erratic to befriend or treat as a serious statesman. The Bedouin committed an obvious strategic gaffe that would have lethal consequence for him. Poised against the underbelly of NATO and separated from it only by the easily-crossed Mediterranean, he had cultivated no allies or protectors among the larger nations. He was a weak but loud, lone wolf. When the pack of larger wolves turned on him, he became a rabbit with nowhere to turn. He was devoured.

    Only after his demise did Russia understand it had been outflanked. By agreeing to the Security Council resolution against Libya, Russia allowed the UN to become the cleat of American martial ambitions against a designated foe in the Middle East. Not only did this help lay waste to Libya, it enhanced America’s strategic profile while reducing Russia’s to that of a secondary, hesitant player. There is nothing like a blunder to jar one’s memory.

    Awakening to the blunder into which it stumbled, Russia recalled that America had long fostered designs against Libya, Syria, Iraq and Iran. With Iraq and Libya down the maw, Russia realised the shoe would soon drop on Syria or Iran. It was adamant not to allow America to repeat in either nation what it had accomplished with Libya. America gave away the element of surprise by showing its true colours in Libya.

    Not only Russia but much of the rest of the non-western world and many in the west became concerned about American military overreaching. Instead of learning constructive lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan, America seemed to have learnt a most cynical one. In Iraq and Afghanistan, America and its friends gave the pretense of nation building. In Libya, they would dispense with the superfluous ware. All they were interested in was regime destruction. What would follow concerned them not at all. America’s new policy had jettisoned the pretense of post-war nation building. America would now destroy the foe then leave the supine nation and its people to fend for themselves against the unleashed jackals of war.

    An indiscriminate, somewhat careless juggernaut intent on decimating nations it deems to be foreign monsters and demons should scare the rest of the world. In the crisis regarding Syria, that fright became apparent. Russia had to make a stand or be relegated to the sidelines while the Middle East was being reshaped in a manner that would impair Russian interests in that region and into Central Asia, Russia’s traditional sphere of influence. The Clinton Administration engaged in strategic overreach when expanding NATO to Russia’s doorstep in the 1990s. Obama’s Administration committed a similar encroachment by trying to steer the Syrian crisis in a way that would snatch Russia’s lone Arab ally and an importation warm-water naval installation from it.

    Learning from its Libyan miscue, Russia would incite already smoldering global opinion against another American armed misadventure. Russia stood firm, using its Security Council veto to thwart American military designs by denying those designs international legitimacy. Then showing its diplomatic flexibility Russia opportunistically exploited America’s indecisive statesmanship in the face of widespread global and domestic opposition to direct intervention in the Syrian civil war. Russia maneuvered its more powerful opponent toward a diplomatic solution on chemical weapons that removed the rationale for an American incursion in Syria. By Friday, the diplomatic agreement was approved by the Security Council. The agreement left Syria at war but moved the world a step away from enflaming the conflagration into something that might assume a much wider dimension.

    In the imperfect world of power politics, halting the march to broader war is often the only victory possible. Here, Russia got what it wanted. Its client Assad remains on seat, if uneasily. America is disappointed but not wholly. Assad remains in such a weakened, preoccupied state that he can’t help Hezbollah strengthen its foot hold in Lebanon or snipe at Israel. In fact, Hezbollah is now too busy helping Assad retain office to do much else.

    Israeli policy in the Syrian war has always been to weaken Assad but not depose him in fear hat radicals might fill the vacuum. Thus, Israel is pleased with the turn of events. As long as Israel believes its strategic interests are satisfied, America will not be too sad.

    Progress was also made on Iran. A change of leadership can be more than fortuitous. At the right moment, it can be historic. A congenial and pragmatic President Rouhani has replaced the abrasive Ahmadinajed. This change opens the door to negotiations between Iran and America. During his maiden General Assembly speech, Rouhani spoke of peace and dialogue where Ahmadinajed would have stressed the perfidy of America and Israel. Rouhani also stated Iran has not aggressed another nation in centuries; more importantly, he affirmed Iran’s long established policy that it has no intentions to seek nuclear weapons. Its nuclear programme is but for peaceful uses. Thus far, the truth holds more to his side than his accusers’.

    Despite the dire apocalyptic statements from Western foes, Iran has not breached the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Under the treaty, Iran has the legal right to do what it has done and more. In effect, the West seeks to curb Iran’s legal right to maximize its peaceful nuclear programme as contemplated under the NPT out of subjective fear that Iran may develop a nuclear weapon at some point in the future. Thus far, Iran has abided the letter of the NPT. The West is breaching the NPT by giving it a more restrictive interpretation with regard to Iran.

    Iranian construction of a nuclear weapon would be illegal and destabilising. It should not be allowed. However, preventing the nation’s legal right to develop a peaceful nuclear programme is also illegal and destabilising because it makes Iran suspect that it is line for the “Iraqi or Libyan treatment” from the West. This discrimination against Iran is the outcrop of the storming of the American embassy in Tehran and the ensuing hostage crisis 34 years ago. As with Cuba, American policy toward Iran is built less on reason and more on the coagulated hatred generated by the pent-up desire to avenge rare defeat.

    Stung by world reaction to its aborted Syrian bombing caper, America seeks to behave with more circumspection at least temporarily. The confluence of a new Iranian President and transient American contrition presents a small window of opportunity through which peace may enter before the usual builders of war place brick and mortar before the narrowing aperture. Friday’s 15-minute telephone call between the American and Iranian president symbolises the promise of peace. However, both men will have to exercise a combination of vision and stubborn courage to overcome their respective hardliners and their chants of war. Until then, peace will be a will-o-the-wisp; easy and wide is the boulevard to war and breakage; strait and difficult to traverse is the way of peace.

    The most bellicose UNGA speech was delivered by Israeli PM Netanyahu who claimed Iran was hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons and vowed that he was hell bent on stopping this acquisition. He spoke like a man possessed yet petrified. Thus he spoke of the uncertainty of Iranian nuclear weaponry as if it were a biblical certainty. Pounding fists for war, Netanyahu eschewed dialogue and left no room for compromise. His speech was but one word short of a declaration of war. As he descended the podium upon ending his diatribe, one had the uneasy sense of having listened to someone intent on becoming the avenging angel of nothing and thus the most dangerous man on the planet.

    Sadly, the world’s most dangerous spot did not warrant a sigh from assembled leaders. Chemical weapons in Syria claimed hundreds. Possible Iran’s nuclear weaponry lies somewhere in the uncertain future. Today, lurks a nuclear disaster that will surely kill thousands and stain our planet for generations to come. However, no mention was made of this grave danger because it does not behoove the global elite to inform you what their avarice has brought.

    Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant is the most dangerous place on earth. A person may enter an active war zone and survive by luck, guile or skill. However, should you enter Fukushima without protective gear, you will surely die. If only a localised danger, Fukushima would be sufficiently tragic. The more ominous thing is that Fukushima is slowly moving everybody’s way.

    Fukushima is the prime example of free market terrorism. The plant has been a global threat for two years. However, neither the Japanese government nor any other government has been wise enough to sound the alarm much less intervene to arrest the situation from further slippage. Governments all sat idly waiting for the private company, TEPCO, to clean the mess. However, containing the threat is a complex and costly endeavour beyond the reach and pocketbook of any single company. To handle this properly, the company would have to go into financial ruin. Thus, TEPCO has dealt with this on the cheap and on the fly. Now the world may suffer irreparable harm.

    At Fukushima unit 4, 1300 nuclear fuel rods are in precarious position inside a weakened structure. The rods have to be removed before the rickety building collapses. The rods are capable of releasing into the atmosphere and ocean 15,000 times the radiation unleashed by the atomic bomb at Hiroshima. The plant also houses tanks filled with tons of irradiated water. The tanks now leak toxins in the ground and sea. These toxins will effect life on earth for thousands years. The unhappy paradox is that TEPCO has to continue to pour water over these rods lest their rising heat cause a disastrous meltdown. Yet the more water used, the more irradiated water seeps into the ocean. The trade-off is we exchange a fast–developing global disaster for a slower-moving one but disaster is certain if things are left as they are.

    All this seems distant now. But the oceans essentially are one vast pool. Water in the Pacific eventually comes to the Atlantic. It may take years. For radioactive toxins with a shelf life measured in thousands of years, a few years means little. In parts of Japan, levels of radioactive toxicity in certain foods exceeded the maximum. A cynical bureaucratic fix was applied to solve the problem. They merely raised the maximum permissible level. What was dangerous on Monday became allowable by Tuesday. Recent toxicity measurements of rain in parts of California show levels multiple times above the safety limits. Toxicity of fish on America’s pacific coast has climbed in almost geometric progression. Some experts warn that by next year the harvest of the vast fisheries off America’s Northwest coast will be unsafe for human consumption. All of this is due to the relatively minor problem of incessant leakage of tons of tainted water into the ocean. Should the 1300 fuel rods in unit 4 proceed to melt down, releasing a stream of radioactive particles into the atmosphere, the resultant catastrophe will make Chernobyl look as inconsequential as a baby dropping his milk bottle.

    That leaders of the global powers focus so much attention on whether Iran may acquire a nuclear weapon in the dimly-lit future is fine but in a way it seems misplaced when there is an accidental atomic bomb on the loose already. Chances are that the worse case will not happen. However, the worse case is not just a bad dream. While not a probability it remains a distinct possibility. Every day that bomb is left to fester without proper attention, is a day we inch closer to an incident that changes the history of this planet. Instead of fighting over divisive things that can wait, world leaders should do a better job uniting to resolve an accidental but serious threat to all of us. The chance, thus far, has been left fallow.

    Unless governments pool expertise and resources to resolve this common threat, the hand of Providence might be all saving us from our failure to realise mortal danger is not limited to wartime use of nuclear weapons. Danger can also arise due to the improvident marriage of the nuclear negligence joined to the love of corporate profit. The world be aware!

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  • Such losses, such needless losses

    What gets me more is the fact that we seem to even think that it is all right to be lackadaisical about human life in this Nigeria

    This is not meant to be funny but when someone greeted me on Thursday in the Yoruba fashion ‘A ma ku ti Agagu’, I immediately asked, half-joking, ‘What happened to him? Did the poor fellow rise and die again?’ That was when I learnt about the plane crash involving so many people and I thought, not again! How many crashes must we endure in one year? What is just so wrong with us in this country?

    Many theories have been flying around since the crash of the plane carrying the corpse of the late governor of Ondo State, Olusegun Agagu, but I am not dealing with them here. Instead, I shall just be expressing my general sorrow over what we all have come to take for granted: the lackadaisical attitude to life in this country. Actually, what gets me more is the fact that we seem to even think that it is all right to be lackadaisical about human life in this Nigeria. Come, people, why, oh why, is human life so cheap and so cheaply held in this country?

    In this year alone, there have been at least three notable air crashes. There are more we don’t get told about. Unfortunately, with the predilection of the governing class for private jets now, our skies are even less safe. True, there are air crashes all over the world, but those ones occur in spite of all the factors to prevent them. In other words, when they occur, they do so outside of everyone’s hands. In Nigeria, however, the reverse is the case: crashes occur in operators’ hands. The wonder is that any plane flown in this land comes down safely at all. It just makes you want to weep when you think about the reasons.

    First, there is the anti-public stance of successive federal governments. Public services in this country went into a long coma a long time ago. They were not brain dead, just in severe and several states of coma: transport system (road, air, rail and sea), energy, water, city planning, and now universities, etc. Everything was indeed comatose. Next to that is the lack of will and interest, not to mention self interest of the governing class. But we have been talking endlessly about this.

    However, rather than attempt to raise these public service sectors up from their several graves by yelling at them, ‘Come forth!’ in the fashion of our Lord, this government prefers to see to their burial. Our railways and their problems were handed over to the one man in this country who has enough trucks and trailers to replace all the rail carriages in the kingdom, Dangote, as well as the Chinese, the world’s next suspected colonisers. Now, what do you make of that? It sounds a little to me like asking Tom the cat to babysit a sick Jerry the mouse. If you don’t know who these characters are, please ask the child sitting closest to you. No, don’t shout; I said ‘closest’ to you.

    Now, the government wants to do the same thing with our public universities. Not only has it refused to listen to ASUU and honour its own agreement with that group, the government has given so many licences for private universities there is no counting them. You cannot drive along any Nigerian road for more than five kilometres before you see a ‘Proposed Site’ signboard naming one university or the other – some with very strange names indeed. It gives you the distinct impression that the licenses were given before the names or the locations are ready. Clearly, a floodgate of licences has been opened and the veritable deluge requires the intervention of Noah. (Sniff, sniff). I think I smell a drowning in the offing. Interesting, considering this is a country that would not give a licence to anyone to operate a primary school without the Ministry of Education coming to inspect the buildings to be sure it has light, water, enough colours and air for the pupils to breathe. By killing the public universities, the government will now give room to private universities to murder the children in the name of educating them. Someday, we really should talk some more about this.

    The most galling and appalling of the wastage of public utilities is the fact that the national air carrier was dismantled and given over to barracudas. We all know barracudas, don’t we – those things out just to devour flesh. Well, that’s your present airline operators, because flesh they are devouring. Yes, the airways have been handed over to ignoramuses who have not the faintest idea of how an airplane works other than the fact that it makes a lot of noise when it flies. So what do they do? Order the oldest looking, retired and tired, maintenance-resistant airplanes going for a song from abroad to build their ‘fleet’. With the fleet in place, the greater ignoramus of a government readily grants them the licence to convey Nigeria’s precious souls to and fro in them, with disastrous consequences.

    Naturally, these consequences are weighty. There are governments in the world sustained on the proceeds from public services. Obviously, Nigeria is not one of them. Such governments not only effectively control and monitor what goes on in the sectors, they ensure that the people are not unduly taken advantage of. In Nigeria, private anything: road transporters, universities, etc., regularly fix fees that are out of this world, and the government looks the other way. Presently, airline operators regularly don’t just fix fees as they like, they regularly kill people. And the government still looks the other way.

    This is not how to privatise. Privatisation does not mean that the government washes its hands off the affairs of a particular sector. Privatisation, as I understand it, is building a unit to a near perfect state and giving it out to someone else run while keeping a wary eye on it. The government owes the people the duty of looking out for them, not to sell the public sectors off to the cronies of officers to rip the people off. Right now, the people are being ripped off by unconscionable barracudas who are not businessmen but killers. Now, when you undertake a simple road journey, you literally have to hand your will over to the driver. And to take a plane in country is to literally hold your soul in your hands, hand it over to your maker while muttering all the way, ‘into your hands…’

    Many of those Nigerians who flew the Associated Airline last Thursday literally handed their souls to their maker, and I am pretty sure it was not out of choice. I feel for them and their families. I feel angrier at a Nigeria that daily hands over the lives of its citizens to barracudas who have no will, no interest, no training in making such lives safe. The consequence is a catalogue of such losses, such needless losses you won’t believe. These things ought not to be so, considering; the story can be different, if only we would make it so.

  • Jonathan’s national conference: time to re-engineer Nigeria?

    Jonathan’s national conference: time to re-engineer Nigeria?

    The 2015 election is not as important as getting the country’s architecture of governance right

    Today’s column comes with sincere apologies to my readers who must be expecting to read the fifth instalment of the piece on Education and Democracy: training the future generation. The long-awaited countenancing of citizens’ strident calls for sovereign national conference or constitutional conference by President Jonathan has created a more urgent topic for today. My readers in the last four years already know that the issue of re-structuring or restoring federalism in the country is a pet subject of mine, about which I had written ad nauseam in the last four years. Before the matter gets cold, I feel compelled to add my voice to efforts to address some of the confusion already created by the suddenness of President Jonathan’s conversion to the cause of a national conference as a means of solving problems militating against the country’s peace and development.

    Unsurprisingly, President Jonathan’s sudden announcement of his acknowledgement that a national conference is imperative to making Nigeria’s unity sustainable has created doubt, anxiety, and joy for various segments of the polity. But the question of the moment should be more about the message than the messenger. Already, citizens are asking where President Jonathan has been in the last four years, during which he has assured Nigerians that there is nothing wrong with the country’s constitution and that what is needed to move the country forward is a good measure of patriotism on the part of the citizens. Taking this position amounts to worrying unduly about the messenger at the expense of the message. Such Pauline conversion as the nation witnessed a few days ago when the president gave the country an unexpected Independence Anniversary gift may have more advantages than disadvantages in the long run.

    Another focus on the messenger is the subtle reference to the president’s choice of chairman for the committee to work out modalities for holding the conference. There are worries that President Jonathan has appointed Dr. Femi Okurounmu, a Yoruba public intellectual and politician who has been calling without let for a sovereign national conference for almost twenty years. Bloggers are already raising issues with the sense in making a committed Yoruba federalist to lead the group to plan a conference that may not have the last say, because it is not given the status of a sovereign national conference.

    Some bloggers are even saying that Jonathan’s picking the chair of his proposed national conference from one of several Yoruba socio-cultural groups smacks of a divide and rule approach on the president’s part. Even if there is any merit in the claim that Jonathan’s choice of chair from a group that has been openly supportive of his political agenda for the job of creating a roadmap for a national conference that hundreds of self-determination groups have been demanding for over a decade, whatever fear this may engender is not enough to counter the significance of the message: acceptance to hold a national conference to discuss the future of Nigeria.

    Some pundits are even saying that Jonathan’s choice of Okurounmu is designed to push Yoruba voters to Jonathan’s side in 2015, as an expression of Yoruba gratitude to him for agreeing to do what Obasanjo had failed to do with sincerity. It is important for such bloggers to note that a national conference to discuss ways of strengthening the country’s federalism and unity is not any more beneficial to the Yoruba than it is to the Igbo, Ijaw, Edo, Urhobo, Bachama,Idoma, Hausa,Tiv, etc. Moreover, restoration of federalism is not enough to move the Yoruba in any political direction. What can do that is the manifesto of political parties contesting for Yoruba votes. Committed federalists from the Yoruba region need not be bothered that Jonathan may seek to use his support of the call for NC for political advantage. Most politicians would do so, but success depends more on the needs of voters. Jonathan has not even accepted what the Yoruba have been asking for: sovereign national conference. Thus, the Yoruba have no reason to show him any more gratitude than other nationalities.

    Furthermore, some bloggers are already insinuating that President Jonathan’s backing of a national conference this late in his presidency is designed to steal the thunder of opposition parties, particularly the APC that has included devolution and establishment of state police in its eight-point manifesto. If this is so, it is not unusual for politicians. Many of the leaders of the APC in Western Nigeria are, like Okurounmu, unapologetic believers in the concept of fiscal federalism and re-structuring. Even the current interim chair of APC, Chief Adebisi Akande, wrote a book on the imperative of re-structuring the country during his tenure as governor of Osun State. If anything, the conference should give ample opportunities to all opposition parties that are committed to federalism to build cases for devolution of power from the centre to the federating units.

    The claim that calling for NC so close to the 2015 presidential election may be self-serving for the president is also overblown. In fact, the timing may be an advantage for all concerned. The 2015 election is not as important as getting the country’s architecture of governance right. We have had four presidential elections since 1999, yet the country’s problems have festered with each election, not only because of the quality of political leaders but principally because of a flawed political structure. It is better to solve the problem of a designed-to-fail structure once and for all, before going into another election. And twelve months should be adequate for doing this. For example, the United States of America wrote its constitution within four months at the Philadelphia Convention, to which Oronto Douglas has likened the conference that is to be prepared by Senator Okurounmu.

    It should not matter to genuine federalists what Jonathan or any particular political or cultural group closely connected with establishment of the conference may set out to gain for sponsoring a much awaited national conference. What matters most is what Nigeria as a whole can gain from a heart-to-heart talk among the country’s nationalities that should be called to discuss how to make Nigeria work for all its federating units. The re-design of the country since 1966 into a unitary model of governance by military autocracies has hobbled the country for almost half a century. So much damage has been done to the quality of life of its citizens for too long that nobody should worry about the messenger at this time. The genie is out of the bottle. It is the turn of federalists to ensure that all voices about how to achieve functional federalism and sustainable democracy in our multiethnic state-nation are put on the conference table for the world to see.

    Several beneficiaries from the status quo have already started to make the job of the planning committee difficult by calling for a conference of representatives of professional associations. If such a conference is organised, it will certainly not be the conference that most Nigerians desire. Doctors, lawyers, journalists, accountants, academics, plumbers and drivers do not constitute the federating units. It is the nationalities to which such professionals belong that can logically be referred to as the country’s federating units. If each nationality chooses to send only professionals to represent them at the conference, so be it.

    But by any stretch of imagination, professionals are not synonymous with nationalities. Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, or Ijaw professionals, like their politicians, are subsets of the nationalities that produce them. When the British came to fight for land and sign treaties that preceded the creation of Nigeria, they did not sign such treaties with professionals; they signed them with obas, obongs, emirs, and chiefs—faces of specific nationalities. Dr. Okurounmu should resist being drawn into a class war or conflict in planning a conference that is billed to address citizens’ grievances about the way Nigeria has been reo-organised since 1966. Nigeria is not a country of professionals; it is a country constituted by nationalities: Edo, Fulani, Hausa, Idoma, Igbo, Ijaw, Igala, Ebira,Itshekiri, Urhobo, Isoko, Angas, Kanuri, Yoruba, etc.

  • APC: Power is never served a la carte

    APC: Power is never served a la carte

    President Jonathan looks to me a much more desperate politician than erstwhile President Obasanjo

    Power is never served a la carte’, is a regular refrain of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, former Lagos State governor, and now one of the leading lights of the opposition party, the All Progressives Congress. He should know. He has bruises to show for his many battles against power, i.e entrenched impunity in our country which, like corruption, fights back very ferociously in aid of the status quo of power without responsibility, except to self.  This once led former President Olusegun Obasanjo to make one of his most important statements ever when, at a PDP congress, he said the party existed, or was at best, cohered only by patronage or the expectation of it.  Both the PDP and the incumbent president have shown beyond any doubt that they will brook no opposition nor concede any quarters to the opposition in the titanic 2015 battle. As far as they are concerned, going by what they do and what we hear their militant supporters say, nothing is sacrosanct; not individuals, not the very existence of Nigeria as a united country. Therefore, as you read this, a sitting governor has no Aide de camp, no chief security officer and the Nigeria Police can look askance, like the governor’s security is no longer a concern of theirs even as certified militants bay for his blood. All this because of an alleged ambition they won’t even let him declare. Nor are their members of only a few months back, but now of the New PDP, fairing any better.

    Consisting of seven governors and a number of leading members of the PDP –they have not defected – they must now, like governor Amaechi, no longer sleep. Indeed, if the PDP has its way, not only Baraje and Oyinlola, but also Obasanjo and Atiku will be behind bars while plans are hatched as to how to truly, and manifestly, humble those seven governors who have the temerity to call attention to the Tukur-led crippling political repression in their party.

    I have gone all this length to properly situate what humongous battle lies ahead of those wanting this county to take its rightful place in the comity of nations and not be seen simply as the domicile of corruption and ineptitude because, even with all the make-belief, President Jonathan looks to me a much more desperate politician than erstwhile President Obasanjo. It must be said, in mitigation though, that while he does not look personally desperate he is simply incapable of reining in those who want him to literally commit murder for the sake of 2015.

    Without a doubt, the most at risk are leaders of the APC and, ipso facto, the party itself. A little history will help but space will not allow details.

    For just being considered stubborn and vociferous, a PDP president decreed  that the licence of Orji Uzor Kalu’s Slot Airline be  withdrawn and hundreds of his employers thrown into the unemployment market just as Tinubu, for the same alleged offence, had billions of naira due Lagos State local governments withheld. The minute Buba Marwa was touted as the ANPP presidential candidate, and becoming rather threatening to the Third Term project, it was  time for the EFCC to move against him and get him detained him for weeks in December 2005, on allegations of laundering money for General Abacha.

    On Thursday, 7 September 2006, the Senate heard that an Administrative Panel set up by President Obasanjo had found Atiku guilty of utilising funds in the account of the Petroleum Development Trust Fund for personal use while it said nothing of same funds being used to buy a car for a female acquaintance of the president. All that for opposing the Third Term agenda even if some spurious reasons of an American report were to be given later. In similar circumstances, Freedom Radio was shut down, Africa Independent Television (AIT) was serially embarrassed and intimidated and its transmission equipment near the National Assembly was destroyed because it ran the Senate hearings.

    All these again to forewarn leaders of the APC that they must remain focused amidst intimidation of all types. Lies and all manners of concoctions will be levelled against them individually but they must, for the sake of Nigeria, brace up and be men of principles. It will not only be scare-mongering but bribes will be offered too, in a carrot and stick, double-pronged attack. A good example is what happened to Hon Nairu Dantiye of the ANPP during the Third Term campaigns.  On rejecting his own N50m, he was freshly offered one million dollars in cash, at night on Thursday, 11 May, 2006 , at a hotel in Abuja.  As he told Punch in an interview published on Monday, 15 May, 2006: ‘My price shot up like crude oil about three days ago. It increased from N50m naira to one million dollars’.  But the failure of the offerer to guarantee that he would live long enough to enjoy the loot, which was his counter offer, vitiated the deal. Even oil blocks were offered. This presidency may not be averse to any of these ploys to ensure Jonathan returns in 2015. APC leaders must, therefore, have honourable Alhaji Dantiye at the back of their minds when their own temptations come.

    And one has already come in the latter-day readiness of President Jonathan to approve the convocation of a National Conference. As usual, this is already trending on the wide web and I have had my say too. Below are some of the comments I have already offered.

    My first was a poser to some mails: Must you really put any stock by this Greek gift? Don’t you by any means remember the SAP debates? Didn’t IBB get his required time to plan the never, never transition programme? What about Yar Adua’s Uwais Committee on Electoral Reforms? Where did it lead to? Were this a year ago, when President Jonathan still had PDP intact, I just might have given this a thought. But today, in my view, it is nothing more than a well calculated diversion and one must give it to the Jonathan ‘2015 Think Tank’. The choice of Senator Okunrounmu as Chairman was, for me, the clincher’.

    Critics of my position wrote back and I replied: Please let’s do a reality check, beginning from the basics; the president can only be doing this if he believes it will help him electorally in 2015. Then the following. 1. The Southwest has been most vociferous about a Sovereign National conference and one of its prime demands is fiscal federalism. Let us assume Okunrounmu is dexterous enough to get this. Will it make the Southwest – now with APC governments and most likely to field a strong presidential candidate – prefer Jonathan, as happened in 2011?   2. I believe also, that we can safely assume that the majority of northerners will detest fiscal federalism. Will that decision therefore hurt or help the president in 2015?  In my view, this will serve no more than good photo ops and beautiful newspaper headlines

    An avalanche of views, even a possible agenda for the conference, then came in and I wrote back as follows:  Even on this podium we already have suggestions as to people wanting representatives on the basis of the 774 Local Government Areas, who, of course, must, in their words, not be politicians. Very fine by me. Now you allude to the Southwest Integration effort. Assuming that this were acceptable to everybody in that zone, marshalling it will then bog down the All Progressives Congress and thereby achieve what I personally consider one of the main targets of this ploy – diversion. Of course, the president has already succeeded by diverting attention to the talk show as you are no longer going to hear of such things as the president’s  ‘cluelessness’,  as was previously the case. And how do you approve decisions of a conference which is not sovereign and where the north already has much more than half the numbers in the National Assembly? Why is the president allowing it now with all the raging challenges he faces?  Also, has he decreed the National Assembly out of existence, since he once said it can’t happen as long as that body was in place?

    I concluded my contribution as follows and tried to respond to views that this should, indeed, be an opportunity for ‘pastors’, not politicians, to straighten the cause  of our country:

    I can’t remember how nice it is to be led by the nose.

    Fortunately, even if out of self interest, those politicians we want exempted this time around, are at their best when the government is out to send them on a frolic. I guess they would rather err on the side of caution. They are most unlikely to fall for this presidential trick.

    Enough history, then, for APC leaders.

  • 49 ways to love a woman

    I am not sure why you chose to read this article. If you are a regular reader of this column, you probably didn’t because you wanted to know the 49 ways to love a woman I would write about.

    For others, if you were attracted by the headline, it is understandable. Loving a woman is a serious issue that one has to keep learning how to — depending on the kind of woman you are in a relationship with.

    At a stage in a man’s life, he is under pressure to get a woman to marry. Choosing one to settle with   “for better for worse” can be tough and sometimes a gamble.

    There is a Yoruba saying that marriage for a man and woman is like buying a product from a night market. You will need to get home to know how good what you have bought under the cover of darkness is.

    This analogy may not be completely true of marriage but it somehow captures the reality of how men and women turn out to be different from what they were before marriage.

    I really wish I could write 49 ways to love a woman based on my over twenty years of marriage but I am not sure I can. I know a few though and they are the ones I will mention in this piece.

    Over the years I have learnt that one sure way to love a woman is to know her very well to know how to express your love. If you don’t, you may easily get frustrated trying to love her in a particular way she doesn’t appreciate.

    You must know what she likes from what she does not and work together on how to have a harmonious relationship based on your own likes and dislikes. Love is about compromise and not insisting on having your way all the time.

    Love is not science. It could be as simple as complimenting your woman about her looks. Don’t wait to be asked if you didn’t notice the new hairdo she has on or the dress she is wearing for the first time.

    Some women are known to have gotten involved in extra-marital affairs with men who compliment them often while their husbands choose not to see anything good in them.

    It could also be as complicated as meeting her various emotional and physical needs which she may not want to ask for but expects you to know and do something about.

    Learn to say ‘I love you’ when you should, instead of assuming she knows you love her. What women hear you say about them matters a lot.  There is no better way to show you love a woman than to openly declare it as often as you can as against being ‘old school’ or over spiritual.

    Some of the pieces of advice I have given are easier said than done. I am not sure how good a lover man I have been myself but I can give myself a pass mark.

    The person to rate me should be my darling wife, Ronke, whose this piece is dedicated to on her 49th birthday today. The 49 in the headline is not about how good I am about love matters, it is a tribute to the woman who has taught me many things about how to love a woman. Happy birthday Ronkusbaby!

  • Independence and an air crash

    Independence and an air crash

    When will we be free from such disasters? Whither true Independence?

    This certainly is not the best of times for our beleaguered country. I had thought I was going to explain why I did not mention a word (in my last week’s column) about the country’s 53rd Independence anniversary held last Tuesday, today. I will still do that anyway, after which I would also say one or two things about the last air crash in the country which occurred on October 3.

    Our country is one where more often than not, bad or ugly things keep recurring. Indeed, we can count on our finger tips the positive developments we have had even in the last five years whereas we can mention a litany of problems that the country has been wallowing in for decades, without recourse to any reference material. As a matter of fact, the dilemma I had when I was thinking of whether to write on the then impending Independence anniversary in my column last week or comment on the ‘One man, one term brouhaha’ that I eventually settled for, was if there was anything new to say by way of positive developments, even since October 1, last year, when we observed the last Independence anniversary.

    I thought and thought, but could not find much to talk about. It was not as if the tenure controversy too was particularly new or refreshing; it was just a case of one having to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea. I mean it was more or less a case of head or tale, you lose. It is that bad. I was not proved wrong when I saw what the media were awash with on Tuesday; it was the same sad tales, except from government officials who keep deluding themselves that the country has been making some progress. Is it about electricity supply on which we have sunk, not billions of naira but billions of dollars without much result?

    Or, is it about education, whether at the primary or tertiary level, that is comatose? Is it about healthcare that we can commend the government, when doctors are on strike as we speak, joining university teachers in their own strike which is now over three months old.

    Now, when some of the people in government want to spoil your day, they tell you the problems did not start with President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration. Apparently they are the only ones who understand themselves and what they are saying because, as far as the rest of us are concerned, what we know is that there has been only one ruling party in the country since our return to civil rule on May 29, 1999, and that is the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). And we do not know the difference between the present government and that of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who handed over to the late Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua. As far as we are concerned, Nigeria has been in the hands of the PDP for more than 14 years, with the changing never changing. And if it is changing at all, it is for the worst. From the ruling party it has been promises galore of El Dorado, a thing that even the greatest fool in the country knows will take eternity to materialise for as long as the country remains in the hands of the rudderless party.

    And, as if to demonstrate that the country is truly rudderless, a plane bearing the remains of former Governor of Ondo State, Dr Olusegun Agagu lost its bearing and crashed barely a minute after take-off from the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos for Akure, the Ondo State capital, where an elaborate farewell programme had been prepared for him, barely 48 hours after our 53rd Independence anniversary.

    Many people have said Dr Agagu, was a good man. If the comments had been coming only after his death, I would have dismissed them as a product of our culture which forbids talking ill of the dead. But I have heard those comments about him long before his demise, which somewhat confounds me as to what a person like him was doing in the PDP. Some members of the party are probably realising this fact and this might explain the intractable crisis in the fold. No matter how hard a goat tries, once it has settled for a dog as its best friend, chances are the goat will also find faeces aromatic and tantalising.

    But in times like this, we are usually united by our common humanity. My heart pours out to the relatives of those who died in the crash. I pray that those who have so far survived would experience the miracle that would make their survival permanent. I particularly feel for the family of the undertakers’ undertaker, the M.I.C boss, Chief Tunji Okusanya and his son who both died in the tragedy.

    For now, we have been told the usual story, the Federal Government has ordered a probe of the incident. Of course this followed the usual dirge from the government whenever we experience a thing like this. At the risk of repeating myself, what we require are not these well-written graveside orations but practical steps to make air crash a thing of the past in the country.

    Will there ever be a time when we shall be truly independent? Our Old Citizens always recall with nostalgia the good old days of British rule. To many of them, Independence is meaningless because it has not improved our lives. It is either some people are throwing bombs on October 1 or government is spoiling the occasion by rehashing worn-out speeches of hope that end up bringing hopelessness. When will be out of all these? When? when?

    Meanwhile, I leave you, dear reader, with these words of wisdom from someone I have great regard for. There can’t be a better epitaph in a time like this. “Life often enacts warnings of calamities and tragedies as integral to our living on the stage of time. Our flimsy minds always ignore these signs! We are thus caught in the iron claws of sorrow, pain and despair. But the meaninglessness of our living is that the pretty blue tent above suddenly bears the camouflage of piercing gloom. The soil of the earth ebbs under our feet and its fresh pit swallow us all with brutal greed, one by one. What are we doing here? Life’s vain. In the end, it seems we are mere meals for the worms of the earth! Fear Allah. Do all the good that you can for all you encounter so that you may sap sorrow and blossom in God’s comfort. May Allah preserve the inescapable end of each of us with love, dignity, and His mercy and compassion”.

    I hope our leaders are listening.

  • Economic lessons from France

    Last week, I attended a Positive Economy Forum in Le Harve, France.

    I was invited to be among the about 3000 participants at the LH Forum due to The Nation Newspapers participation in the Impact Journalism Day project initiated by Sparknews observed globally in June this year.

    I and other journalists, however, had time to attend some of the sessions during which various speakers made a good case for a positive economy in the present world which, the organisers noted, seems fraught with dangers of recurring economic crises, high youth unemployment, poverty for many, environmental tensions and extremes of all sorts.

    Instead of the present short-term, individualistic and negative impact on the people and the environment, the promoters of Positive Economy believe that there is need for a new paradigm that is fairer, better balanced and more responsible.

    Among others, the concept proposes the creation of wealth to serve ethical and altruistic values, a long-term vision that takes the future generations into account and a model that includes people, for a real economy.

    By our standard, Europe, America and others are considered developed economies, but the main speakers at the forum are quick to admit that the good old days are over and something urgent should be done to prevent the deterioration of the global economic depression.

    Economics Nobel laureate, Joseph Stiglitz, was very critical of the American economy which he noted is unfortunately the model for some other nations.

    What I found very intriguing about his speech was that though his focus was the USA and European economy, his observations fitted the Nigeria situation perfectly.

    In an attempt to find solutions to the problem with the American economy, he lamented that the same persons who caused the problems are being called to fix it.  He spoke of regulators who didn’t believe in regulation, flawed corporate governance and economic policies and alarming youth employment that can jeopardise the future of the young generation and even those yet to be born.

    Stiglitz maintained that contrary to the claim that the US economy is getting better, it is still in recession.

    While the Gross Domestic Product, GDP, may appear to be growing, the Economist noted that the lot of the average American is getting worse, adding that the economic indicator is no longer sufficient to determine how well a country’s economy is doing.

    “ What we have is a rich country with a majority of the people being poor. A country where the minority control majority of the wealth, “Stiglitz declared, as I tried to reassure myself he was not listening to a review of the Nigerian economy.

    Since he seems his diagnosis is similar to ours, his recommendation should interest the managers of our economy.

    “First and foremost, there is need to regulate the financial sector and restore banks in what they are supposed to do, which is money lending.

    “ We must think in the long term and evolve alternative ways to manage the economy. We must fight the growing inequality and break away from the past.

    “The economic crisis we have is man-made, it is not a tsunami. We have the resources and the knowledge to reverse the dangerous trend and we must seize the opportunity now.”

  • Consider this an Emergency: We need Emergency numbers in this country now!

    Last week, dear reader, I regaled you with accounts of how I attempted to fight a fire with my, err… spittle, repeatedly spat through my screams at a fire. And I’m sure you laughed. Believe me, it was no laughing matter though. Being confronted by water-licking flames, gun-slinging robbers, chest-constricting heart attack, heart failure or heartbreak are never things to laugh at. You can cry, scream, shout for help, even faint, but, sir, you may not laugh. The reason is that when it is happening to you, you never can collect your wits fast enough to act reasonably and safely. This is why you always want the government to step in at that point. It is supposed that, at that point, the government is more reasonable than you are.

    That’s right. When some arrant, undisciplined knave of a fire steps into my sitting room unbidden, I want the government to step in. (Well, if I were an arsonist, I would not invite the government now, would I?). Anyway, if some sacrilegious robber were to be so inconsiderate as to interrupt my sleep, I certainly would want GEJ to step in. After all, I am entitled, under the long arms of the constitution, to a full night’s rest, ain’t I? And God forbid, if an unholy thing – such as a blocked artery from worrying too much about Nigeria or an insufficient housekeeping allowance – were to attack my heart in the middle of the night, I would holler for GEJ! Why? Why ever not? Is he not the cause of everything now – PHCN not working (fact), chickens not laying (fiction), women not giving birth without pain (faction), women not quite getting the style of gele they want (fiction), housekeeping allowance not being sufficient (fact)? Well, is he not responsible for these things?

    It is one thing to holler for the government though; it is another thing for the government to respond to your hollering. No, it isn’t that the government does not want to come; it’s just that many obstacles are standing in its way right now. For one thing, many of its members have these large juicy pieces of uninterrupted chicken thigh between their teeth; so they cannot prise apart the different noises reaching their ears. Are the people praying? Crunch-crunch. Are the people singing the government’s praises? Crunch-crunch-crunch. Are the people crying loudly? Crunch-crunch-crunch. Are the people chattering, gritting or gnashing their teeth? Spit-splat. Now, where were we?

    For quite another thing, the government cannot come to our aid because the mechanisms of people-repair need some serious repairs themselves. How can a sick hospital hope to help a sick person? How can a sick PHCN, scrambled or unscrambled, ever hope to deliver the goods? How can a Nigerian be stopped from being a Nigerian – an organ of disruption, disrepair and destruction?

    More plausibly though, the government cannot come to our aid because it does not get to hear we are in trouble until long after the trouble has come and gone. After all, detectives would not have any work if crimes do not first take place. Yeah, yeah, I hear you; we pay the government so that it would foresee trouble and plug the hole, like. I know that; you know that; but does the government know that? In short, the government, as usual, can get to talk to us whenever it wants to talk to us. Well, there are the billboards telling us to pay our taxes. However, it does not get to hear us when we want to talk to it. There are no billboards addressed to the government from the people saying things like ‘GEJ, No money to pay taxes. Can I get a loan from you?’; or ‘GEJ, Foot hurts; is Aso Rock clinic open?’ or ‘GEJ, stop the country, I’m getting off here’. I imagine such billboards will be torn down hey-pronto by the Men-In-Brown-French-Suits. And there you were thinking they did not exist.

    Sadly, reader, we the people cannot express our hurts because there are no emergency numbers to press. Imagine that; a country of over a hundred million people cannot call for any of the formal emergency services at all on the phone. At the moment, the only emergency number that people have is ‘E gba mi o’ (literally ‘Save me’); and the only emergency services come from the neighbours nearest to them with whom they are on talking terms. So God help the trouble maker. It’s the neighbours who have age-old, time-tested remedies that will save on expenses. Fell down on your head from a tall tree? ‘Ah, use my great-grandmother’s back remedy; let me just fetch it from the farm!’ Seized by epilepsy? ‘Ah, my great-great-grandfather used to treat that; he was the greatest medicine man that ever lived. Here, use his black soap; it washes everything away.’ Having a heart attack? ‘Ah, my great-great-great-grandmother…

    There is no denying that our formal social engineering efforts are not only warped, they are incomprehensible to say the least. How is it possible to boast that if there are only three copies of a rare car brand in the world, one or two will be in Nigeria, yet the people cannot summon the police for emergency purposes? I am stumped in this, very stumped. Where the deuce are our priorities? I know, we have these large juicy pieces of uninterrupted chicken thigh between our teeth. That’s one reason. The other has been staring us in the face for so long we no longer notice it: we do not have emergency response units in this country – fire alarms, health problems, police for domestic disturbances caused by insufficient housekeeping allowances, etc.; we have nothing. So, how can we have telephone numbers leading us to nothing?

    Listen as I tell you this story again. Once, a drunken fellow, deep in his cups, took it into his head to climb a tree. Well, he got so high up on both the tree and his ego that all entreaties to him to come down fell on deaf ears till everyone realised the problem. The drunk had climbed the tall tree to the very top from which no mortal could safely come down, let alone a drunken one. The police had to be summoned which in turn called in the fire brigade which in turn called in the ambulance services which in turn brought in the air ambulance services. They all responded within minutes to save a drunken man who was oblivious of all their efforts. Now, that is what is called a society.

    The time has come for you and me to give this government – and all others – a wake-up call to establish emergency numbers. We want emergency numbers that can easily be recalled for use by all so that the government can step in when we feel pain, and also when we are drunk. I understand that the police have emergency numbers which are no different from the normal or abnormal numbers you and I use daily to talk to our friends; you know those 11-digit numbers beginning with 080…., and so on. Now, who on earth ever expects anyone to remember such numbers in emergency situations? Only the government obviously; the rest of us do not.

    THE NCC SHOULD BE COMPELLED TO TWIST THE ARMS OF THE GSM PROVIDERS IN THIS COUNTRY TO GIVE US EMERGENCY NUMBERS THAT ARE FEW AND EASY TO PRESS, EVEN BY CHILDREN. Reports say many children have used those numbers to save the lives of many adults around them. It is time the government began to think of adding value to our lives ON THIS MONKEY ISLAND. GIVING US EMERGENCY NUMBERS IS NOW AN EMERGENCY.

  • Energy policy: Comparing the UK with Nigeria

    Energy policy: Comparing the UK with Nigeria

    If only for the ferocity of Al Shabaab’s man’s inhumanity  to man, as witnessed by the 21, September  horrendous  attack at the  Westgate Shopping Mall in  Kenya – that  heart-rending event,  which should be a wake-up call for mall owners in Nigeria, deserves a pride of place as our topic of interrogation this Sunday.  However, given that life has become generally short and brutish in Nigeria, no thanks to Boko Haram and the unceasing group assassinations in Plateau and Kaduna South, we can very well pay our respects to the victims of the Kenya attack, empathise with their relations and move on with our numbing insecurity, praying that our own number is not yet up.

    My current vacation in the UK coincides with the conferences of the various political parties – both the Liberal Democrats and Labour have had theirs, and that of the Conservative Party is slated for September 29 – 0ctober 2,  and  apart from seeing a bit of the Labour Dem’s, I have watched a live coverage of Labour’s  literally all week and together with what I have seen and read of the  Conservative Carty, I have come to observe a major difference in the politics of developed and so-called developing economies, namely: the fact that  governments  in the former put the people at the centre of their policies, while those in the latter are mostly concerned with selves. I am, in this article, taking Nigeria as archetypical of developing countries and I shall zero in strictly on energy policy in both the U.K and Nigeria. Incidentally, and fortunately, the federal government has complete monopoly over energy in Nigeria. This, I must say, however, has a lot to do with the level of enlightenment in each society and the increased activism of civil societies. For instance, at the party conferences, I saw NGO contributions, especially from women and equality groups, I have never witnessed in Nigeria.

    Ed Milliband’s bombshell on energy at the Labour Conference has clearly shown the fact that in their various ways, the political parties always hoist their policies on what they consider best for the people. Only this way can they win elections.

    According to the party leader, a Labour government, come 2015, ”will freeze gas and electricity prices until the start of 2017. Your bills will not rise. It will benefit millions of families and millions of businesses. It’s time to reset the market. So we will pass legislation in our first year in office to do that and have a regulator that will genuinely be on the customers’ side but also enable the investment we need. The price freeze would save a typical household £120 and an average business £1,800 over the 20-month period and would cost the energy firms an estimated £4.5bn.”

    The Nigerian reader of this article may wish to mentally imagine President  Jonathan  or any of his policy wonks say that of our oil companies and off  goes the billions of campaign funds expected from that sector, come 2015. Of course, you will never see them make that mistake.

    Blindsided by Miliband’s radical stance, Ed Davey, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary quickly replied, PDP-speak, and I quote; ‘everyone wants to help with the cost of rising bills but we need to be sensible. The best way to keep everyone’s bills down is to help people to save energy, ensure fair tariffs and encourage competition’. He would go on, like your typical Diezani Allison-Madueke, to line behind the operators and say: ‘they do not seem to be making excess profits,’ while they now make an average of 105 pounds profit per customer where it was zero per average customer this time last year.

    It is obvious, though, that the Conservative Party is working for the high and mighty in society.

    Given the Lib’s far less possibility of ever forming the government – indeed, Mr Clegg says he is ready to work with either party come 2015, it has a more nuanced energy policy. According to him, ‘Climate change is getting worse and could destroy the British way of life. Our children will suffer most if we don’t act now. He says further: ‘I believe that there is a huge opportunity to get out of this recession by going green, strengthening the economy, creating new jobs and improving the quality of people’s lives and that companies should simplify the complicated tangle of different tariffs, requiring them to charge families less for a basic amount of energy used, to encourage responsible use. We believe there should also be a fair social tariff system for disadvantaged families, smart meters should be rolled out to all households within five years and all of Britain’s homes should be insulated to a decent standard within 10 years.’ Although each of these policy positions has been subjected to withering criticisms, what is obvious is that each party considers the place of the people in its policy formulations unlike what obtains in our country where those in government not only share money meant for increased energy, but also work hand in gloves with those responsible for privatisation to enable them buy our common patrimony for almost nothing.

    And what is the situation in Nigeria?

    Thinking only of those in their class, officials of the Nigerian Energy Commission have increased energy bills from year to year but nothing can be more nauseating than Sam Amadi’s claim that what they have is not an increase but a ‘Multi-Year-Tariff Order’ which provided a 15-year tariff path for the Nigerian electricity industry. He further claimed, irritatingly, that they are only charging for services they provide. But where is the electricity? Has he noticed that in cases where cables are cut from poor homes and carried to their ramshackle offices for weeks, monthly bills still come unerringly, even higher? What type of operators are these?

    In a well-researched article in the journal of International Association for Energy Economics, Akin Iwayemi recently showed that Nigerian energy industry is ‘probably one of the most inefficient globally’. This, he says, is most evident in the persistent disequilibrium in the markets for electricity and petroleum products, especially kerosene and diesel.  According to him ‘the dismal energy service provision has adversely affected living standards of the population and exacerbated income and energy poverty in an economy where the majority of the people live on less than $2 a day’. Continuing, he wrote: ‘Yet, though energy and income poor, Nigeria is energy resource rich, ranked, as it is, the sixth largest exporter of crude oil in the world.’  In his view, ‘Nigeria’s persistent energy crisis has weakened the industrialisation  process,  and significantly  undermined the effort to achieve sustained economic growth, increased competitiveness of domestic industries in domestic, regional and  global markets and employment generation’.

    And to imagine that it is for this same resource a harebrained, reconstructed militant now wants to dismember Nigeria, urging President Jonathan to imprison everybody in sight, as if he were the courts.

    The above questions may be out of place now that they say they have privatised the PHCN. So what happens to the fixed bill and the 15-year tariff order? Or was that put in place so they and their friends who they knew would buy the power discos can maximise profit? What should the average Nigerian electricity consumer expect now with regard to the fixed rates?

    Unfortunately, unlike in Britain where campaign funding is regulated and listed companies cannot be found on the list of such donors, the Neighbour to Neighbour of Nigeria have been found to be nothing more than veritable sources of attracting campaign funds from individuals as well as corporate bodies that have benefited maximally from the federal government.

    As long as this immoral practice continues unabated, our institutions and agencies will remain weak and corruption will remain the order of the day. INEC must therefore come up with an Electoral Law that will provide rules which can only be breached at the expense of very serious repercussions to political parties and the conniving individuals.

    This impunity must stop. It weakens government and will continue to see Nigeria sink lower in the comity of nations.

    There just has to be a limit to impunity.

  • The one man, one term brouhaha

    The one man, one term brouhaha

    A ‘shot of power’ is too little to intoxicate. Two or more will do

    It is fast becoming obvious that the wrangling in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is nowhere near solution, going by the recent declaration in the United States by President Goodluck Jonathan that he never signed any pact to the effect that he would not go for a second term. This is at the heart of the PDP crisis, with his opponents, even in the party saying he should not run because of the alleged pact.. Jonathan had, during a media chat last year, declared that he was yet to decide whether or not to contest in 2015. He said his decision on the subject would be made public next year because making a definite pronouncement on the subject then would distract his administration from delivering on its campaign promises. But, is this what is on ground?

    Be that as it may, neither the President nor those who claimed he signed a one-term pact has rested since the Niger State Governor, Dr. Babangida Aliyu, made the allegation early this year. ”I recall that that some of us said given the circumstances of the death of President Yar’Adua, and given the PDP zoning arrangement, it was expected that the North was to produce the President for a given number of years. I recall that at that discussion, it was agreed that Jonathan would serve only one term of four years and we all signed the agreement. Even when Jonathan went to Kampala, in Uganda, he also said he was going to serve a single term …” Aliyu made the revelation during a live broadcast of Guest of the Week, on Kaduna-based FM radio station, Liberty Radio (91.7).

    But one of the things that usually baffle me in this kind of situation is the way the aides of those concerned speak authoritatively as if they were party to the actions in question. Some of President Jonathan’s aides have denied categorically that the president never signed any one term pact with anybody. Unfortunately, not all of them who are now defending him, and vehemently so, as if they were there when the purported agreement was signed or not signed, are competent to speak on the matter. For instance, his spokesman, Dr Reuben Abati, has no ‘locus standi’ in it. As at the time in question, Abati was not yet in government. I guess that was when he still saw the ruling PDP as Papa Deceive Pikin. Today, (since he cannot beat them he has joined them) it is either papa is no longer deceiving pikin or he has joined the party so that they can deceive pikin together.

    The same applies to the Special Adviser to the President on Political Matters, Ahmed Gulak, who has also insisted that there was no time President Jonathan entered into a single-term pact. “Rather than insisting on an agreement that does not exist – since anybody can contest for the highest office in the land, those who are so interested should declare their interest and contest”, he was once quoted to have said. I know these people have a job to do, but I would be comfortable if they had said the President said he never did this or that, instead of speaking authoritatively on a matter they were least competent to speak on. I started pitying people doing such jobs since the time former Governor James Ibori’s corruption saga began and his press secretary denied that his boss was not a thief. We now know better.

    However, the fact is, constitutionally speaking, the President as well as governors are entitled to a second term, provided that is the wish of Nigerians or the citizens of their states; that is to say if they give the incumbents their nod in the election. Therefore, if anything would stand between President Jonathan and his second term ambition; that should not be any group of governors but the collective wish of Nigerians.

    The matter is even made worse by the report that, in the characteristic Nigerian manner, the document that the President allegedly signed with the 23 PDP governors on the pact is now missing. In Nigeria, anything can be missing, without anybody being called to account for it. We were told the other day that the Okigbo report on the $12billion Gulf oil windfall feared to have been squandered by the Babangida regime was missing. That is Nigeria for you. But if the governors would leave such a vital document in the custody of a south south governor (the president’s geo-political zone), and they do not have any other copy, that is their cup of tea. It shows how naïve they were. I only hope this is another dummy they have sold to the Presidency because there is one saving grace that they still have; if they make the document public at any time and convince Nigerians about its authenticity, then, they can compound the President’s problems by claiming that he is unreliable. And who wants an unreliable President? But the G7 Governors should not make their intra-party affair a cause of mayhem in the country.

    If they truly have fallen out of the PDP, they should not behave like the Bamanga Tukur-led PDP that can neither throw the G7 Governors and their supporters away, nor fully accede to their terms for ceasefire. In other words, when Tukur and Co. were told to eat something, they say it is bone, and when told to throw it away, they still claim there is some meat in it. The G7 Governors should be resolute about their plan. Like most other concerned Nigerians, they also have a right to say the President has not done well and therefore cannot be reelected. But this is not by threatening fire and brimstone; otherwise, they would be meeting the President’s forces on the turf that the latter are familiar with; brawn where brain will do.

    My argument is that the governors know what to do legitimately if they want to stop the President from running for second term: they should team up with people with similar objective (that I am sure are in the legion, and still counting) and bring the strategy and tactics as well as the ingenuity the ruling party had been using to ‘win’ elections to the alliance. That is the only way to pull the rug off the feet of the PDP.

    But if anybody thinks the battle to wrest Nigeria from the ruling party will be easy, that person is mistaken. Nigeria’s presidency is, to many Nigerian politicians, like the kingdom of God which suffereth violence and only the violent taketh it by force. This has nothing to do with whether the aspirant had no shoes as a child or whether he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. The fact is that there is so much power in the Presidency just as there is so much money in it. So, how can anyone be talking about one man, one term, when there is so much at stake? Even Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who had been military head of state before he became president did not want to leave after serving the constitutionally approved two terms. The man simply played the deaf when some people asked him to adopt the ‘Mandela option’. Nigerians denied him a third shot at the office that he craved, the same way they denied General Ibrahim Babangida a chance to return to the seat of power to retrieve whatever it was that he forgot there.

    Tell me, if there is nothing in the place, why would most of the people that have ever got there, including our revered General Yakubu Gowon, be shifting handover dates over the flimsiest of excuses? When even those who are not from the part of the country where President Jonathan hails from were not satisfied with just a ‘shot of power’; (like the Eb..ra man, they always wanted more tomflers (tumblers)), how can we expect the president who comes from a place where they drink like fish to be? A shot? No. Only two or more will do, Baba ta ni’se wu? (Who is at home with poverty?) Agreement my foot! One term! One term!