The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

Osun: Two years on

One of the major characteristics defining Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State is his style of ‘government unusual’. For instance, he does not believe in being addressed as ‘His Excellency’, a thing many governors cherish as if they were born with it. This ‘government unusual‘ has almost made the governor ‘Mr. Controversy’. But one thing that cannot be taken away from Aregbesola is the fact that he is pulling his weight in terms of governance and delivery of democratic dividend to the people of Osun. In a little over two years, he has started leaving imprints that would be difficult to wipe off from the history of the hitherto beleaguered state. When we consider what Osun went through in the 90 months that Olagunsoye Oyinlola was governor, we would see clearly that a lot has happened in the state in the last two years.

It is when people do not have a clear idea of what to do that they spend eternity planning. Conscious of the fact that he has only four years (at least in the first instance) to convince the people of the state that they did not make a mistake at the polls, Aregbesola hit the ground running. In line with his campaign promise to take away from the streets idle able-bodied young men and women, he introduced the safety net programme called OYES (Osun Youth Empowerment Scheme) within 100 days of his assumption of office. With it, at least 20,000 of the idle youths were taken away from the streets on a monthly stipend of N10,000 each. With it, about N200million is being injected into the grassroots economy monthly. This might look so small in many big cities of the country, but it is a lot in a predominantly civil servants’ state like Osun.

It is even fascinating that Aregbesola is not thinking in terms of Osun alone concerning this programme. Indeed, he has calculated how much it would cost the Federal Government should it decide to set up such a scheme. According to his projections, about 740,000 direct jobs can be created at the federal level, and another 3.7million indirect jobs. This would imply the injection of about N7.4billion into the grassroots economy. Of course following the Osun pattern, about 1.48million uniforms would be sewn for the participants, with about six million yards of cloths to be produced by the textile industry.

A beautiful aspect of the OYES is the fact that it penetrates virtually every strata of the educational order, from the illiterate cleaner to the roadside mechanic, as well as the graduates who may have to use the scheme as a transition camp. The scheme provides for exit strategy apparently in recognition of its limitations that it cannot serve as permanent employment for everybody, particularly the skilled persons.

The way Aregbesola is going about the business of governance gives him away as a man who really understands the issues and is determined to address them. You see in him a man pregnant with ideas and this shows in most of his projects and policies. For instance, in education, the state operates the elementary school, middle school and the high school, without necessarily affecting the 6-3-3-4 education system of the Federal Government. The elementary school caters for children from age six to nine, and they are basically neighbourhood schools in which the pupils do not travel beyond 100 to 500 metres from where their mothers are. All the pupils in the elementary school are given lunch to help them develop mentally and physically for learning.

For the high schools, the government is working on the provision of 150,000 computer tablets (Opon imo) for the students and their teachers, in realisation of the importance of information technology to learning. The idea is to make education more attractive by storing in the computers dedicated books, lesson notes, and past examination papers for school certificate and even the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) examinations. If the project works, it would be the first of its kind, at least in this part of the world.

Aregbesola’s ingenuity in developing the local economy also deserves mention. Apparently, the governor is not impressed with the reference to the state as a ‘civil servants state’. The implication is that it is a poor state. Most of the policies of the administration are therefore geared towards reversing this impression. Empowering the people, as far as the government is concerned, is key. We have seen this in the OYES; it also manifests in the government’s decision to harmonise the uniforms of all its pupils and students such that the uniforms are procured and sewn centrally, thus creating jobs for the manufacturers and the local tailors, among other artisans in the chain.

In spite of all these, there is a shortcoming; Governor Aregbesola can do with less controversy. Yes, he may have his point in some of the cases, but the most important thing is that he would be assessed at the end of his first four years, not by the number of controversies he ignited or survived, but by the tangible things he has been able to do for Osun people. As much as possible, major policy decisions must be subjected to rigorous debate so that seemingly good policy initiatives do not end up in acrimony. And, from experience, such debate does not have to be done by in-house people alone for obvious reasons, but by people who have nothing to lose by saying it as it is, irrespective of whether it is sweet or bitter music to the governor’s ears.

All said, you would see the passion of a man who loves Nigeria and wants it to work in the Osun governor. Apart from, say, the projections he has made on a national scale for the OYES (just in case the Federal Government is interested), select editors who met with him in Lagos last Sunday, in the hope of dwelling essentially on his activities in his state in the last two years ended spending more time analysing Nigeria and trying to proffer solutions to some of the national challenges. These included the attack on the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Bayero and the deployment of Nigerian troops to Mali. For instance, he believes the Boko Haram crisis is, by and large, a national problem that should not be left for the northern governors alone to handle, and that the problem would abate if the idle youths that are serving as foot soldiers for the sect are gainfully engaged.

Considering what the state government has been able to do in two years, the question naturally arises as to how the government is getting money for the projects. The free lunch for pupils alone is estimated to cost the state about N3billion annually; the government requires about that much for the free uniforms. Yet, it gets between N3.6billion and N4billion from the Federal Government and is only able to rake in about N600million monthly as internally generated revenue. Yet, it has other programmes, including its ambitious agricultural programme as well as massive road construction and reconstruction, maintenance and rehabilitation programmes. There are salaries to pay monthly. Perhaps amidst these competing demands and limited resources the intriguing thing is that the government is not eating up its children’s tomorrow, today. In spite of not inheriting a buoyant treasury, the government does not intend to leave an empty one either. So, it is saving every kobo the state realises as its share of the excess crude account. There is at least N10billion in that account. This is a feat in our kind of country where many governors have become gaming machines, literally swallowing money (and always asking for more) without anything to show for it.

January 27, 2013
Floating corpses and the police

Shortly before dozens of corpses were seen floating on a river in Anambra State on January 19, President Goodluck Jonathan paid the police college in Ikeja, Lagos an impromptu visit. The visit, which rattled the college authorities as much as it disconcerted the august visitor himself, followed a TV report detailing the rot at the police institution. The decay and lack were said to worry the president, who may have ordered a probe. Such an investigation will help to resolve the issues that puzzled the commander-in-chief. But it must be comprehensive enough to cover other police colleges and outfits in the country and its findings must also be made public while appropriate action is taken to punish the guilty in order to correct such situations.

Such an investigation, if conscientiously undertaken, may shed enough light on the decay in the entire police force itself, whose effectiveness continues to be hindered. Our law enforcement agents are not well kitted, equipped or housed? Nor are they adequately remunerated. The force needs retooling.

If these needs are met and the men and officers better inspired and orientated, Nigerians can count on the police to answer when they call. The country will be better for everyone. Not only will lawlessness be curtailed; even those developments that deeply mystify us will be resolved with considerable ease.

Take the floating corpses case on a river in Amansea, Anambra. Few things can rival that incident in mystery. Residents of the community near Awka, the state capital, “woke up”, to borrow a favourite local media phrase, to discover dead bodies floating on their river. In other words, when they woke up the previous day and went to the river, they saw no such thing travelling downstream.

And there the mystery began. For it was not just one corpse or two or three. One report said over 15, which is horrifying enough. Another took the tally to 30, yet another to 40. One even said there were over 50 bodies sighted on Amansea river. There are concerns, too, that there may be more bodies held down by underwater structures and were yet to bob up to the surface. There is another problem. The river, the villagers’ only source of water, is polluted.

Troubled as Amansea residents are, they have no clue as to the identities of the corpses. They are not at war with any of their neighbours. Nobody is missing in their community. So whose bodies were seen on their river? Who killed those people? Why? Where? When?

The traditional ruler is just as distressed as the state governor Peter Obi who quickly returned from his overseas trip to tackle the matter. The police authorities in Anambra are also mystified, as are their counterparts in Enugu State whose people on both sides of their common border are at peace with one another. They say they will investigate.

That is one nasty thing about mystery. It sometimes accompanies tragedies and when it does, worsens the problem and makes it hurt more. Imagine a tragic death accompanied by the fact that the corpse is not seen. The bereaved mourn the departed but are even more troubled by the fact that they cannot bury their dead. Such a situation leaves the bereaved with eternal questions. The mystery never ends.

Anambra people and Nigerians in general are in a similar situation as we await the result of police investigations. We know we have lost people but we do not know who we lost yet or how many. We suspect that those people may have died in terrible circumstances but we have no assurances. We know we are not happy about the situation but we also know we are even more confused than sad. Mystery deepens a loss. The police should sort all that out.

There is another major concern. One report initially listed the police as among those without a clue as to how to evacuate the dead. The police, local governments, ministry of health as well as the Anambra State Emergency Management Agency were said not to have facilities needed to evacuate the corpses.

That is a big problem. Our police should be equipped for such eventualities. Their effectiveness demands it.

Another account said when the police recovered the bodies from the water, a mass grave was quickly dug and the corpses buried there. Such a thing as autopsy was not heard, according to the report. That is even a bigger concern. Without an autopsy, that is, if it is not in their plans, how can any credible investigation be undertaken in the matter?

Jonathan’s reported interest in probing the rot in police colleges should be extended to help the law enforcement agency perform better.

The rot in the police, as in many other public institutions in the country, did not start during his tenure. But if he can correct the anomalies that preceded him, he will be remembered as the commander-in-chief that made history.

January 27, 2013
A stillness on the potomac

Like most events feverishly expected and anticipated, it turned out to be something of a dismal anticlimax. The second and final Obama inauguration has come and gone, and the world has quickly recovered its breath to face squarely the pressing problems of human existence. Even the inaugural ball was said to have been undersubscribed and the crowd scantier and less lustily cheering, unlike the surging, near-hysterical humanity of four years earlier.

Unlike the scenes of wild jubilation and the tears of joy from historic Black personages four years earlier, the second coming of Obama has been a tame and less frenzied affair, marked by a polite rectitude and sober reticence even on the part of the victors. A stillness was evident on the Potomac. An arctic chill subsequently descended on the nation hugging and enveloping it with bearish resolve. There were icicles drooping from the outer armaments of the world’s principal palisade of power .

But this was not a damp squib, as they say. In a sense, then, both the stillness on the Potomac and the arctic chill that descended on the nation were profoundly symbolic of a fundamental tectonic shift of power equations or what is known as a historic rupture of political praxis between the old American order and the new realities unfolding before our very eyes.

With a demographic reconfiguration weighted heavily in favour of suppressed groups and marginalised minorities, America may be going through a fundamental re-invention. A tree does not begin to bear fruits the same day and it may take a while for the political dividends of these great geological irruptions to manifest. Before our very eyes and like a huge snake, America is casting off its mammoth slough in a symbolic ritual of renewal and regeneration .

Whatever else happens, the Obama presidency will be seen as a forerunner of great changes in the American society. If the atmosphere was tame and muted, it is because the changes are real and irreversible. If there were no triumphalist hoopla and ululation, it is because the triumph this time was chilling in all its awesome finality. As such, Obama’s second coming was more like a consolidation and coronation rather than a mere inauguration.

Like a heavyweight contest, somebody has been beaten big time and even the victor is stunned by the scope and magnitude of the victory into a humble reverence for the forward looking society that made this possible. Had this been some Third World jungle dominated by brutal and mentally unstable despots, the odds would have been stacked against Barack Obama. The victor could have been summarily impounded, subjected to humiliation, ritual torture and eventually put to death.

As this column once noted, the audacity of hope is predicated on the hope of audacity that there will be a level playing ground and that a society will adhere to its own stated rules. To be sure, a trigger happy rightwing loony from the lunatic fringes of American society may yet end the party. But that is precisely why such felons emerge from the margins and fringes of society rather than its mainstream. Obama’s ascendancy is a tribute to a society which, whatever its manifest imperfections, is willing to adhere to its own stated rules and principles in the conduct of human affairs.

In most human societies, it is only when electoral battles are close that there is room for manipulation and gerrymandering. It is an unstated rule of boxing that to dethrone a reigning heavyweight champion, you must not only beat him but beat him silly. The Republicans have taken a bad beat, as they say. On Monday night, they had slunk away from Washington. It was the silence of wolves that had turned into lambs.

It is a pointer to the scale and scope of Obama’s victory and its extirpating possibilities as well as the nature of the unfolding political reconfiguration of American society that a blue-eyed Republican princeling could openly whine that Obama was trying to annihilate the Republican Party. Forty years ago such a cry of abject humiliation and victimhood would have been unthinkable, not to talk of coming from the Capitol of capital fellows. The Grand Old Party has been put through the meat grinder.

In a cynical summation of developing politics, it has been suggested that it was not from any groundswell of generosity and altruism that Vice President Biden quickly reached for a Latino judge to swear him in. It was perhaps the first warning shots in the 2016 presidential campaigns. The savvy and streetsmart Biden is too mentally alert to miss the political symbolism of the whole ritual. Welcome to the new majority of suppressed minorities.

In the event, Obama’s second inaugural speech was a classic instance of a mopping up operation. The man of the moment himself was a figure of dazzling oxymoron. Perfectly coiled like a factory assembled cobra, mysteriously focused and exuding superior self-control, Obama is man as the ultimate political machine and mathematically engineered perfection. If you are looking for what makes this son of an African immigrant and a mother of Nordic extraction tick, you will never find it. A child of destiny, Obama is also a centrally controlled canal of conflicts, contradictions and contraries.

But contradictions are there to be exploited. Only a weak person allows contradictions and conflicts to deny or delay him. George Patton, America’s most famous tank commander and military hero, told youthful soldiers just before the commencement of the Battle of the Bulge. “If you are fired upon, advance!”. A famous French Marshal in the First World War also noted that since his flanks were collapsing, he had no alternative than to begin advancing.

Obama’s second inaugural address spoke to the fundamental ideals underpinning America as a new type of nation and a new type of society. In the process, he spoke for a new America of orgiastic possibilities. By quoting the founding fathers’ most famous line against extant realities without ever saying so, Obama was fashioning out a subtle instrument of surrender after dramatic victory in the political battlefield.

“We hold this truth to be self-evident, that all men are created equal… and with inalienable rights”, the founding fathers of America famously thundered and with the moral certitude of Old Testament prophets. But if this truth was self-evident , why was it not so self-evident even in their own conduct? If the truth was self-evident why has it taken almost four hundred years after a civil war, decades of protests and series of social convulsions to get a Black person to the White House?

It simply means that in the roiling conduct of human affairs, what is self-evident may not be so self-evident. The evidence has to be thrown and thrust into the face of the most obdurate and obtuse. Forty years ago, it would have been unthinkable for a man with the middle name of Hussein and the “un-American” sounding patronym of Obama to amount to anything of significance in American society, let alone to have become a two-term president. But there we are at the moment.

In order to understand and appreciate the scope and scale of Barack Obama’s electoral achievement we need to further wind back the historic clock. Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was the son of a Palestinian- Jordanian immigrant father. Like Obama’s father, Bishara, Sirhan’s father, suddenly returned home angry and frustrated by the inequities of American society, leaving his son a roiling cauldron of resentments and seething malice. In 1968, Sirhan shot Robert Kennedy, dramatically halting the political advance of the great American liberal even as he halted his own chances in American society.

So when we hail and appreciate America, it is not as if one is unmindful of its imperfections as a human society. There is as yet no perfect human society and there may never be one. Even the old organic societies that we rhapsodize were not so organic. These are just ideological cudgels for beating the present into submission. As Terry Eagleton famously noted, one sure thing about the organic society is that it is always gone.

If there is no perfect human society, there is something to be said for a nation with a capacity for endless re-invention and ceaseless self-surpassing. This capacity for self-renewal and dramatic rejuvenation is for this writer the basis of what is known as American exceptionalism. America was not created as a martial empire. America was created as a land of dreamers and visionary intellectuals. While most nations are frigid and frozen in time and possibilities, America takes bold efforts to correct its mistakes of the past and present.

In the end, it is important for human societies to have dreams so that human societies do not become a nightmare. It is these visionary dreams that nudge humanity to higher telos. They constitute the benchmark by which a society is ultimately judged against perennial digressions and convenient diversions. In order to achieve the possible a society must set for itself impossible dreams. This is the secret of all successful societies.

But it is a self-evident truth from the Roman and Greek empires, the Andalusian Islamic renaissance, the Lockean and Hobbesian philosophic revolution in England, the French Revolution, the revolutionary intellectual decapitation of the old order in Germany, the American Declaration of Independence, to later-day wonders like Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore and the emerging miracles of Latin America that a nation requires an intellectual master class to furnish it with dreams and to front for these dreams. Without these visionary bulwarks, it is easy for a nation to become a mere toy in the hands of unhinged tyrants and unlettered despots.

For now, not even the most jaundiced would deny that America has earned its spurs as a beacon of hope for a brave new world. There is still plenty of work to do, but it is morning yet on creation day. Presently, the stillness on the Potomac will reveal a brilliant thaw in the affairs of humanity and the cold blizzards of winter will soon retreat as the warm winds of Spring prevail. It was a glorious week to be in America.

January 27, 2013
And a glorious passage in Benin

While we are still on the subject of death and its icy mischief, it is meet to report the glorious passage of the beloved mother of our friends, the late Madam Wuraola Eniye Alonge, relic of High Chief Joshua Alonge, the late industrialist and giant entrepreneur. She was laid to rest in Benin at the weekend after a Service of Songs on Thursday at St Peters Anglican Church, Lagos street.

As we pray for mama’s blissful repose, here is wishing Chief Femi and Yemisi Akinrinade, Eunice Obaro, Ayo Alonge, Imaden Eze-Iyamu and Arese Alonge the strength to bear the loss of their mother-in –law and mother respectively. As mama joins her ancestors in eternal rest, here is wishing the living long life and more fruitful endeavours.

It is obvious that it has been a celebration of life rather than mournful sorrowing. When snooper put a call through to Benin city on Thursday from faraway New York, it was obvious that Chief Femi Akinrinade, our look alike twin brother, was in high spirit and fine fettle. “Bros”, snooper began with his usual opening gambit for reluctant veterans. “Tani bros e, you this stupid upcountry boy?” the chief from the Yakoyo interior shot back. Snooper may be a country bumpkin, but it was not long ago when our man confided in snooper that as a youth he used to be sent from Yakoyo all the way to Ita Akogun in Ile-Ife to buy dele, a village delicacy, by the stern, no-nonsense father of all generals, the late Chief Akinrinade himself. May they all rest in peace.

January 27, 2013
The old man and the governors

Prominent Ijaw leader and former Minister of Information, Chief Edwin Clark, revels in his unofficial role as President Goodluck Jonathan’s godfather. On several occasions when critics had his godson on the ropes, his pugnacious intervention served to stiffen the backbone of the man who, not too long ago, described himself as the world’s most criticised president.

Well into his 80s, the old man is not your average meddlesome interloper. Indeed, anyone who tracked his role in the emergence of the current occupant of Aso Villa will find much evidence suggesting that he and Jonathan sing from the same hymn book.

Back in 2011 when the zoning palaver threatened to tear the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) apart, Clark led a delegation of South-South leaders to reason with Northern power brokers led by former Finance Minister and one-time presidential aspirant, Adamu Ciroma. His trouble-shooting expedition received short shrift from the embittered leaders, but his cause will ultimately prevail after former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s challenge collapsed on convention night.

Clark is still at the wars – taking on everyone from former President Olusegun Obasanjo to the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF). His latest no-holds barred attack on those he blames for making life difficult for Jonathan, is a reminiscence of the recent attack on Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, by the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godsday Orubebe.

These days nobody has a nice thing to say about Obasanjo so there’s nothing novel about another volley of invectives spat in the direction of Baba. I would suggest though that Clark was not so ferocious in denouncing the former president’s so-called crimes against party democracy when he was in the vanguard of those fighting for Jonathan’s enthronement back in 2011.

I am more interested in the Ijaw leader’s vituperations against the NGF, because in the past I had been quite critical of the forum – likening it to some sort of secret society. Clark, rightly, has accused the governors of demanding at the centre what they would not tolerate at state level.

He said: “The governors’ forum is now acting as an opposition party to the Federal Government. It deliberately breaches with impunity, the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Constitution of the PDP, without any challenges. The Forum has now become a threat to the peace and stability of Nigeria. Most of the governors today are more dictatorial than the then military governors.”

Ignoring the hyperbole, any fair observer will admit that while most governors would like a say in who becomes national chairman of the ruling party, they would not tolerate such impertinence were some local government chairmen to band together and insist on making input into who becomes state chairman of the party.

So, a lot of the observations of Clark are spot on. However, the only reason the chief is moaning so loudly is because his godson is on the receiving end. Try as he might he has not been able to impose his will on the PDP as Obasanjo did. Much of that is down to the make up the two men. Whereas one was willing to ride roughshod over the party – deploying the apparatus of state to achieve his goals, the incumbent would rather tiptoe around obstacles. He would rather deploy homilies where an Obasanjo would have set off Scud missiles.

But that is not the whole story. If the governors have become more formidable and better organised as a pressure group, it is down to the lessons they learnt from the Obasanjo years. Back them they also tended to band together. People forget that at the 2003 nominating convention, a good number of them were actually backing Atiku. Obasanjo and his late wife, Stella, virtually had to go on bended knees to secure their support. Of course, he never forgave them for the humiliation of making him beg.

Today, Clark would like us to believe that the NGF is this new-fangled monstrosity that is a clear and present danger to our democracy. Closer examination will, however, show that the behemoth has a soft underbelly.

They can be a powerful bloc when they agree, but they are as powerless as a congregation of strange bedfellows when their interests diverge along regional, ethnic or monetary lines.

To confirm this you only need to look at their disarray over issues like revenue sharing and state police. On the former, suddenly you had a sub-bloc – the Northern Governors Forum – taking the position that the Niger-Delta states were cornering an unfair share of our commonwealth. That divergence of opinion is also evident over the contentious Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB).

Not surprisingly, the governors of the South-South states find the aforementioned positions of their northern colleagues, to put it mildly, insulting.

But where it comes to more parochial matters like who controls party positions and certain political offices, a certain amity descends upon what, in reality, is a fairly fractious organisation.

My main area of disagreement with Clark, though, is that I no longer believe that the NGF – no matter how powerful it is made out to be – is such a bad thing after all. The Ijaw leader says the governors have turned themselves into the real opposition to the government at the centre. What he does not want to accept is that in every big political party there will be all manner of tendencies each fighting for control of the soul of the organisation.

More importantly, democracy is about checks and balances. Obasanjo was often accused of running an imperial presidency where the legislative and judicial branches became appendages of the executive. Under him we saw that the awesome powers of an executive president could be deployed towards the most unsavoury of ends.

Such is the way things are stacked the even the weakest of men could be transformed into a Machiavellian monster by the powers of the office. In our practice of American-style democracy the legislative branch, and to some extent the judiciary, have failed woefully in providing the brakes upon a rampaging president.

It helps that in an environment such as ours that there are several power centers and no office holder – no matter how eminent –begins to delude himself into thinking that the sun rises and sets on his desk.

The power and influence of the NGF is a reasonable check and balance against any potentially overbearing occupant of Aso Rock. Better still, it forces all the leading players in our political space to reappraise the virtues of compromise in addressing all political issues – no matter how contentious.

Rather than foaming at the mouth with rage and calling the governors names, what Clark and others who are discomfited by the influence of the NGF should do is seek ways of working with the National Assembly during constitution review process to cut the governors down to size at state level.

January 27, 2013
A most beguiling centenary

“The SGF is lucky to be working for the equally mystifying and sometimes opaque Jonathan. If he had the tough luck of working for someone else of exceptional administrative and ideological competence, his arguments, which can’t persuade a college boy of average ability, should earn him a brusque dismissal from the cabinet. And not just dismissal, but with a caveat attached to his ample frame warning future governments never to patronise his soaring gifts for rodomontade or indulge his mystical genius for inaccuracies. For a man so apparently incapable of the most elementary syllogism is only gifted in one thing and one thing only: purveying historical fallacies with style and flourish”

Given the avidness with which the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, is promoting Nigeria’s centenary, his office may have played a major role in conceiving the warped project. It is of course baffling that the office of the SGF seems joyously preoccupied with the project. But whether we are baffled or not, it is expected that Anyim will drive the project stubbornly to the very end, and after that, as is usual with everything Nigerian, he will forget such a project ever existed. In 2010, former Information minister, Professor Dora Akunyili, excitedly promoted what she and other government officials labelled Nigeria’s Golden Jubilee. After so much hue and cry of such grand scale as to be capable of shifting the earth from its orbit, the project ended expensively and anticlimactically with nothing to show for it but an awful taste in the mouth. We were not better materially, our opinion of our country did not improve a jot, and we made no special effort, real or pretentious, to rededicate ourselves to the Nigerian project. So much for the jubilee.

Somehow, for a centenary project of such manifold falsity, indeed elevated to the level of magical unrealism by Anyim and his helpers, we seem to be preparing for another bout of misdirected energy, for a misdirected objective, and by a misdirected organ of government. Nobody remembers when this genie left the bottle, but it obviously predated President Goodluck Jonathan’s visit to Trinidad and Tobago last year. That Caribbean country’s leaders had invited the Nigerian president to join them in celebrating their Emancipation Day anniversary. In a reciprocal gesture, Jonathan took the opportunity to invite the Trinidadian prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, to Nigeria’s celebration of 100 years of the amalgamation of Southern and Northern protectorates by Sir Frederick Lugard. Nigerians were aghast to hear that of all the memorable things in our history, the government felt the most appropriate to celebrate was amalgamation, which, like the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 partitioning Africa among colonising powers, was a humiliating part of our history in which we had no say whatsoever, and which aborted or stultified our political evolution, stymied the quest for nationhood, and almost irreparably damaged our self-esteem.

Whatever psychological satisfaction anyone may derive from amalgamation, it will be intellectually dishonest to assume that this Lugardian fait accompli is not deserving of both analysis and probable revision. Like an alloy with different linear expansivity, amalgamation probably created the template for the dissonance that has undermined and distorted, not reinforced, the efforts to achieve Nigerian unity. If anything, therefore, any appreciation of amalgamation, which by the way was opposed by the political elite in Lagos at the time, ought sensibly to be directed towards designing a national project for its critical examination, not its uncritical acceptance, let alone its celebration. For the same reason that it would be counter-productive to celebrate slavery instead of its abolition, and colonialism instead of independence, it makes little sense to celebrate amalgamation, as if that in itself constitutes a historical or political virtue.

The centenary project shows why the Jonathan cabinet has not been rated among the most cerebral the nation has ever had. Indeed, it is probably the least reflective, the least responsive, the least patriotic, the least disciplined, and the least studious and scientific. This government’s understanding of the grand ideas of democracy, national unity, and social reforms oscillates between the jaded and the whimsical, and between the unforgivably perverse and the uncritically amateurish. It considers all opposition to its ideas, policies and projects as playing politics. Whether it is criticism of its ineffective handling of the Boko Haram revolt, or the renaming of the University of Lagos, or even the fuel subsidy removal controversy, among other things, the Jonathan government sees the opposition as playing politics every step of the way. It does not see criticism as a second opportunity to reflect on the issues of the day. Burdened by such paranoia, it is little wonder that Anyim has been junketing between Abuja and Lagos selling a project the Jonathan government had no business conceiving in the first place.

In concrete terms, hereunder, according to some newspaper accounts, are Anyim’s three major elements undergirding the centenary project:

1) The initiation of legacy projects such as the erection of a new City Gate in Abuja; Centenary City also in Abuja that will attract investments of about $15 billion from the private sector and generate over 15,000 jobs; a unity square in every state capital; medical diagnostic centres in each of the six geo-political zones of the country; ICT centres in all the universities that are yet to have one; a modern library in a university in each of the zones; police crime laboratories, one in each of the zones; building and renovation of sports facilities in each of the federal universities as well as renovation, naming or renaming of colonial sites in the country; renovation/upgrade of the National War Museum in Umuahia, Colonial History museums in Lokoja and Aba, the National Museum inside the Old Residency in Calabar and establishment of a dialysis centre in each of the zones.

2) Pursuant to 1 above, Anyim told the media that the projects – more like hoodwink – would be private sector-driven. Said he in the typically fuzzy language Nigerian governments have become adepts at using: “Being a private sector-driven project, government will not put any money into it. It is also not a concession arrangement since government will outsource the project to a company that has secured land allocation in accordance with FCT land swap programme.” He adds that the legacy city will “provide strongest social, political and economic tool for securing foreign investment, promoting positive international attention and indeed signalling a new national economic awakening.”

3) Anyim was also quoted as adding: “At our age and experience as a people, we know that there is no country like Nigeria… If we cannot celebrate Nigeria, then it means that we are not proud of Nigeria….We must use the occasion of our centenary celebration to affirm to ourselves that Nigeria is not an accident. Indeed, in the words of Lord Lugard on the occasion of the amalgamation, ‘Nigeria is the product of a long and mature consideration.’ We must celebrate because our unity is the common symbol of our collective existence that has put the nation on the path of development and potential global ascendancy. We must celebrate because without Nigeria, we will not have the largest and most vibrant parliament in Africa, in tandem with other maturing political institutions with deep and rich traditions. We must celebrate because if not Nigeria, we would not be the largest black nation and the seventh most populous nation in the world. We must celebrate Nigeria because if we cannot underscore the essence and advantages of our unity, it means we plan to promote disintegration.”

Now, let us consider briefly some of the facetious and exaggerated remarks of the SGF. First, it is not clear how the Jonathan government hopes its arm-twisting tactics could compel the private sector to embrace what may be to them superfluous projects. Apart from making annoying guesswork about the number of people to be employed in the legacy projects, is it not even more vexatious that projects which the government should routinely be engaged in, sans any celebration, have been herded into the so-called legacy projects? Do we need a celebration of the amalgamation to build new cities, establish forensic labs, IT centres and industries?

Second, Anyim muttered under his breath that the government would only spend money to cater for that component of the legacy projects that concerned it. And what, may we ask, are those ghostly components that cannot be clearly spelt out, and what amount of money do they hope to spend without sounding like the Aviation minister, Stella Oduah, on the new national carrier? Indeed, item 2 is an infernal lie through and through. With the disreputable manner the government runs the affairs of the country, and having become a captive of vested interests and money power, the private sector has become coterminous with the public sector. There is no line separating the two. Worse, Anyim absentmindedly adds that the legacy city will become a tool for “attracting foreign investment, promoting positive international attention and indeed signalling a new national economic awakening.” Readers should ignore this vexatious untruth. How much foreign investment have they attracted in the past two decades, and especially in the past few years with the rising level of insecurity? As for positive international attention, it is, as the media often say, a figment of his imagination. What is more, to suggest that the legacy city will signal economic reawakening is an abuse of language and a calculated attempt to cruelly mislead the people.

Third, while, for Anyim, the legacy projects in item 1 above serve as incentives to coax approval from us, item 3, with its strange reasoning and absolute non sequitur, is supposed to serve as justification. How on earth could a top official of a government presiding over the affairs of more than 160m people, many of them intelligent, suggest that celebrating Nigeria is an indication of pride in the country? Absolute nonsense. Unchecked by his own indefensible exaggerations, Anyim proceeds rather absurdly to quote Lugard who described Nigeria as the product of “a long and mature consideration.” In what way was amalgamation well thought out, especially by a man who deprecated the ‘natives’? Was it in the sense of administrative expediency for the British and their economically exploitative tendency? Or was it a carefully considered amalgamation of cultures, religions, political development stages, and social predilections of the peoples of the Southern and Northern protectorates? Let Anyim answer that, if he can.

Then, finally, and still under item 3, consider this unremitting Anyim trifle: “We must celebrate because without Nigeria, we will not have the largest and most vibrant parliament in Africa, in tandem with other maturing political institutions with deep and rich traditions.” Is Anyim really speaking about Nigeria or some other chimera of his boyish phantasy? Then, this one also: “We must celebrate because if not Nigeria, we would not be the largest black nation and the seventh most populous nation in the world.” When, in Anyim’s meaningless theology, did big or size become a virtue in itself? And then the most outlandish reasoning ever: “We must celebrate Nigeria because if we cannot underscore the essence and advantages of our unity, it means we plan to promote disintegration.” In other words, centenary celebration, an indirect celebration of Lugard, underscores unity, and those not persuaded by the gibberish plan to promote disintegration. Grrrr!

The SGF is lucky to be working for the equally mystifying and sometimes opaque Jonathan. If he had the tough luck of working for someone else of exceptional administrative and ideological competence, his arguments, which can’t persuade a college boy of average ability, should earn him a brusque dismissal from the cabinet. And not just dismissal, but with a caveat attached to his ample frame warning future governments never to patronise his soaring gifts for rodomontade or indulge his mystical genius for inaccuracies. For a man so apparently incapable of the most elementary syllogism is only gifted in one thing and one thing only: purveying historical fallacies with style and flourish.

January 27, 2013
Wars without end… Victims without end…

What is with men and wars, I’ll never know, but records show that over ninety per cent of wars in this world have been initiated and executed by men. No, no, I am not starting an argument, just stating a fact. Just think, in the lifetime of any given male, the chances that he would initiate or help to execute a war is close to fifty per cent. Imagine that! I know that when they were little, my children initiated many wars against each other, mostly over nothing, but that doesn’t even count. The fighting gene nevertheless appears to run true and deep in all men.

Most worrisome, however, is the fact that somehow, the fighting genes running loose in men are now being transfused into women and other things. Women, knowing no better and no different, proudly don the togas of war, supposedly for love and country and head out, leaving behind tearful babies, crying children and baffled husbands. Tch, tch. If those women only knew the truth – that they have been infected by the blood running in men’s veins – they would know better where to direct their heaving chests of indignation. All together, mankind has become like a couple of pigeons which seems to do nothing but flap their wings in real antagonism towards each other three mornings a week behind my fence. What the bone of contention is exactly, no one can tell, but all we seem to get from them are their emotions all flapped up.

Actually, nothing excuses mankind’s behaviour which seems to stem from the belief that only the fisticuffs can settle any and all matters. This is why we now have community, civil, international, cyber, psychological and, most worrisome of all, domestic wars. And with the match of science, those simple fisticuffs have been translated into the rat-ta-tat-at-tat of machine guns or the booms of cannons aimed at other human beings just like them. I don’t know about you but anytime I have stumbled across TV programmes depicting war scenes, I have been struck by one question: to what purpose?

Just recently, I read the story of a soldier who was shot at the war front but instead of falling and dying quickly, he got caught on the barbed wire that separated the two sides in the war. The war continued around him however with shots from the guns but now punctuated by his own groans of pain as he slowly bled. His own friends could not come to his rescue for fear of being hit. Finally, a soldier from the side which had hit him in the first place could stand the groans no longer so he put down his gun and ran towards the dying man. Both sides, seeming to realise what he was going to do, ceased firing at each other and watched him in disbelief as he gently disentangled the wounded man and carried him across to the enemy line and gave him to his friends. As he turned to go back to his side of the war, he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was the commanding officer of the enemy troop who removed a bravery medal from his own uniform and pinned it on the rescuer and saluted. Both sides then waited for him to run back to his side before they resumed their insane game.

Today, the world remembers the millions and millions of victims of the World War 2 Holocaust but we are expanding it here to include all victims of the insane thing called war all over the world. Sources say that presently, there are one hundred and forty-six wars being fought and from these, over one thousand people are dying yearly. This gives us a very frightening picture indeed considering that it shows a considerable build-up of victims of war who are mostly women, children and the aged. The worst part is that these victims, and the wounded and dead soldiers, have no clear understanding of what caused the war in the first place.

So, who declares a war and why? As a member of the human race, and a national of a country located somewhere on this planet, I think I have the right to know. Who the deuce feels he is obliged to declare a war where he does not often go to fight but only the young and able-bodied men (and now women) are obliged to go and be killed? I ask this because our lives, planet, children, and whether or not we wake up tomorrow depend on the answer. I believe that, and you can check this out, whoever declares a war must have a very little brain indeed, even tinier than mine, and he would be the kind of person that cannot even get along with his neighbour. Just watch out, next time someone declares a war around you, first interview his neighbour.

There is a line that says that ‘Love has no religion, only God’. I don’t know exactly what that means but I can extrapolate that humans can choose the Christian, Muslim, Animist, Atheist, or the Love religion. Clearly, most people have not been choosing the Love religion because all wars in history have been started by someone from the other religions. This is quite different from the poster that reads ‘Make Love, not War.’ Again, I don’t know what that means either but I would guess that it still borders on what choices we make.

I honestly don’t know what war-mongers are really after: plunder, fame or power. Whatever it is, I think we should all accept right now that none of that stays if built on the sacrificed blood of innocent men and women. One can get better plunder by raiding a rat’s hide-out. They are the only creatures I know who gather what they don’t need. Fame can come from a variety of other activities. Try calling the press to witness as you jump down from a ten-story building unto a bed of hot coals and sharp nails. I tell you, you will be toasted at every gathering in the country for years without end. And power? Why, have you tried to imagine a king testing his power by standing without his aides in the path of a herd of rampaging elephants? Again, should that king survive, he will be toasted for ever as a very powerful man indeed. That takes me to a second line I found: ‘We should realise that we have not been put here to rule the world – God does’. Anyone who feels compelled to test that theory is free to because my third line has the answer for them: ‘Those who thought they did had to leave it’.

Most people agree that wars have never solved any problem; they are only indulgences for old men looking for their manhood. They do not consider that wars without end only create victims without end. They also do not consider that the only things that wars leave behind are victims who do not even understand why they are being called on to be victims. They are helpless against the insatiate appetites of men to seek and create drama everywhere. This column commiserates with all victims of war today; they are the ones who have to deal with, and pick up pieces of lives shattered by, the insanity of war.

The long and short of it is that wars are not good; let us stop them. Only God himself can put out the flame of domestic wars, but we can try our best with the rest. Those do nothing but point to the failure of human intelligence. Nothing succeeds as much as good governance, fairness and justice. A good mixture of those elements can give us a world without wars, Amen.

January 27, 2013
Obama’s avoidance of Nigeria: Scare or signal?

Today’s article first appeared in July 2009 during the second year of Obama’s first term and his visit to West Africa. The beginning of his second term is a good time to remind all stakeholders in Project Nigeria and other African countries struggling to remain democratic about outstanding issues that need the attention of patriotic Nigerians and sincere friends of Nigeria.

Image makers at the presidency are already at work to deflect attention from the shame inherent in the decision of President Obama to visit Ghana while ignoring Nigeria. A few days ago, agents in the image making and national re-branding units initiated a discussion in the media regarding new problems facing foreign leaders’ visit to Nigeria. In a response to the unsubstantiated view that the Niger Delta crisis scares foreign leaders from coming to Nigeria, President Yar’Adua said that no foreign leader had told him that he or she is afraid of coming to Nigeria because of the violence in the Niger Delta and other parts of the country.

President Obama’s choice of Ghana as the country to visit in the West African sub-region must have been informed by factors other than the battle for the soul of Nigeria between militants and security forces. For the avoidance of doubt, President Obama’s choice of Ghana over Nigeria could not have been made out of fear about security in Nigeria. American presidents before him had visited more violent-prone countries of the world. President Obama had even visited Iraq, a country that has become synonymous with violence in the last few years. His visit to Ghana and not Nigeria could not have been based solely on the readiness of Ghana to invite him. Even if Nigeria had invited him, the chances are high that he would have said NO THANKS.

If anything, the decision of Obama to ignore Nigeria in his visit to West Africa is capable of depressing or irritating Nigerians who have been under the impression that Nigeria is the giant of Africa, simply because it has one of the three largest economies on the continent. Obama must have decided to ignore Nigeria’s re-branding jingles by choosing to visit the moral giant in West Africa, the Republic of Ghana. But Nigerians who believe that a self-respecting individual should think twice before visiting a neighbour whose house has become a toxic space in the neighbourhood should have no problems with the decision of the United States to send its president to Accra and not Abuja on a visit designed to discuss with one of United States’ trusted partners in sub-Saharan Africa “the critical role that governance and civil society play in promoting lasting development.”

Without doubt, Nigeria is one of the partners of the United States in sub-Saharan Africa. It is just not considered one of the trusted partners. Why would Nigeria, Africa’s biggest supplier of petroleum to the United States, the country with almost half of the population of West Africa, and the country that had lost more lives in the course of peace keeping in Africa, home of the 35th largest economy in the world, and Africa’s largest supplier of brain and brawn manpower to the United States not be considered as one of the trusted partners of the United States? It could not have been for what Nigeria had failed to do on the international arena. President Obama must have avoided Nigeria because of what Nigeria has done to itself or has failed to do for itself.

Nigerians that are unhappy that the giant of Africa has been treated like an ant in relation to Ghana must take heart. It should not be surprising if President and Mrs. Obama had met more Nigerians (than Ghanaians) in the course of their education and their journey to power. Nigerians constitute 20% of all Africans in the United States and close to 25% of Africans that attend American universities, work in hospitals, serve as lawyers, and help even at fast-food restaurants. They also constitute one of the friendliest communities in the Americas. Obama could not have planned his visit to Ghana to embarrass Nigerians. He must have used the avoidance of Nigeria to send a message to the trustees of the country that most things are falling apart.

How many Nigerians would choose Nigeria over Ghana to visit or even do business? Even Nigerians are running away from home to establish business in Ghana and buy homes there. Nigerians themselves prefer to spend their free time in Accra rather than Abuja or Port Harcourt. Ghana is such a preferred country to visit by Nigerians to the extent that there may be more Nigerians than Ghanaians in Accra if President Obama chooses to hold a special summit on democracy in Accra during his visit.

It is true that Ghana is much smaller than Nigeria and not as wealthy as Nigeria. Nigeria would ordinarily have more resources to entertain the Obamas and the people on their entourage than Ghanaians are likely to be able to do. But Ghana has used its meager resources more prudently and more strategically than Nigeria. Even though Ghana got its independence at the same time that two regions out of the three regions in Nigeria got their self-government in 1957, the leaders that God had given Ghana had succeeded in doing better than Nigeria in many respects.

For example, Accra airport, streets, and hotels are more likely to have electricity to carry out all hospitality activities than would have been the case in Abuja or Lagos. Obama and his wife are likely to be harassed by noise pollution from German, Chinese, Indian, and British generators that supply electricity to factories and homes in Nigeria. Their chances of having asthma induced by generator and Okada fumes will be higher in Abuja than in Accra. People in Obama’s motorcades are more likely to see corpses on the roads in Nigeria than they would see in Ghana, if at all. Policemen checking “vehicle particulars” are more likely to create bottlenecks for Obama’s motorcade in Lagos or Abuja than would happen in Accra. There will be more beggars with larger bowls to collect alms in Nigeria than in Ghana. If President Obama had chosen to come to Nigeria instead of Ghana, he would have been subjected to more sound bites about the importance of democracy than he would have experienced in Ghana. But in Ghana, he would see more evidence of democratic governance and sustainable development than in Nigeria.

The beginning of President Obama’s second term is a good moment to remind him that Ghana deserves another visit to congratulate it for serving as West Africa’s poster-child for democracy and good governance. It is also the right time to remind him that it will pay the civilised world better for leaders of the free world to assist Nigeria to actualise its potential, than to ignore it or just re-echo its jingles about democracy and development.

January 27, 2013
Alison-Madueke: A minister and her passion

Vilified and often attacked for being responsible for the rot in the nation’s oil and gas industry, the minister of petroleum resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, has borne everything with strong equanimity and an unwavering determination to deliver the goods. In this report, a look is taken at those areas where the minister has acquitted herself well in the face of daunting challenges and limitations.

While ‘bashing’ public officials seems to be the pastime of Nigeria’s criticising public, only very few public officers have been subjected to attacks, both personal and official, like Diezani Alison-Madueke. While some had said she is the most corrupt minister, some said she is so powerful to the extent that she dictates to the president. She has also been accused of being behind the recent crisis that has bedeviled the oil and gas sector in the last few years. Recently, she was accused of being behind the ugly drama that characterised the submission of the report of the committee set up in the wake of last year’s subsidy protests and headed by former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu. But come to think of it, what have they not accused her of since she joined government? Some members of the committee had openly disagreed with the version of the report being presented to the President. Critics said Diezani and some Presidency officials actually colluded with the ‘disgruntled’ members of the committee to discredit the report so as to protect some friends of the president.

While these and other such debilitating criticisms have been made against the woman, they have not in any way prevented her from recording some modest achievement which even her staunchest critics could not deny her. In fact, observers of the oil and gas sector have singled her and her Aviation counterpart, Stella Oduah, another female minister, as two ministers who are really executing President Jonathan’s transformation agenda

The local content champion…

Determined to ensure that there is greater participation of Nigerians in the oil and gas sector, the minister has been pushing for creating the enabling environment for more Nigerians to come in into the capital intensive but lucrative upstream sector of the petroleum industry. Diezani is said to be so passionate about this that she is more or less a lone soldier pushing the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB. Though the bill has faced a lot of opposition both from politicians and some foreign oil interests, sources said this has not deterred the woman from trudging on. Observers also state no past oil minister has helped local indigenous companies like the current minister who always jumps at any opportunity to help any indigenous company in the sector to succeed.

That the nation may have adequate fuel.

One of the reasons adduced for the rise of oil subsidy thieves and the attendant fleecing of the country that went with it was the fact that the federal government did not have adequate storage facility and even when the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, imported fuel at times, it had to rely on private tank firms to store the commodity. But the minister of petroleum resources seemed to have noticed this when she initiated the refurbishment of the Benin Depot of the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company, PPMC, which was commissioned last week. The facility was first constructed in 1978 and was commissioned the following year. But since 2005, the facility has been dormant due to lack of adequate maintenance. The depot has a combined capacity of over a hundred and twenty thousand litres of petrol, kerosene and auto mobile gas oil. Apart from this, the facility has nine loading arms which make it easy for trailers to come in and take products simultaneously. The depot was meant to serve the evacuation of products from the Warri refinery through a gas pipeline that spans almost ninety kilometres. Speaking at the re-commissioning of the depot, an elated Alison-Madueke said she was delighted that government of President Jonathan was living up to its promise of ensuring adequate fuel supply. “I am delighted that under the administration of Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, the depot has been put back in operation and able to deliver products to the good people of Edo State and its teaming consumers. Also, I am pleased that through the concerted effort of NNPC Management and Staff, under my leadership, we are steadily yielding the desired outcomes.” Not done yet, the minister informed her audience that “the Depot we are re-commissioning today has the capacity to hold 59 million litres of PMS, 32 million litres of DPK, and 28 million litres of AGO. The resumption of commercial activities to this very important facility is a major milestone towards the restoration of steady products supply to Benin and its environs.”

Alluding to the menace pipeline vandalism had become in the country, the wife of the former military governor of old Imo State, Rear Admiral Alison Madueke said it was worrisome “that the menace of pipeline vandalism has now become a national security challenge with the latest example being the incident in Arepo, Ogun State which forced the shut-down of an entire line segment that serves as the gateway for petroleum products supply and distribution of over 60% of national requirement. Furthermore, the cost of products losses and repairs due to vandalism has continued to grow to an alarming level. In addition, the consequential cost of environmental remediation from the resulting spillage associated with vandalism and the loss of lives and properties of innocent Nigerians are unnecessary burdens we should not have to bear as a nation.”

An obviously impressed former Labour leader and incumbent governor of Edo State, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, said he was impressed by the re-commissioning of the depot in Benin, the Edo State capital. He said he was now sure that the trips he usually made to Warri to solicit for the supply of petroleum products to Edo State was no over with the commissioning of the depot.

“The honourable minister has demonstrated that indeed good things can come from the petroleum industry as well as the NNPC. I thank God that I don’t have to make such long walk to Warri again because the Benin depot is back to service,” he said. Another major milestone in the minister’s stewardship was the commissioning of the Oredo Gas Handling Plant last week. Speaking at the event, Alison-Madueke said the facility, its construction and commissioning were an indication that the nation has arrived in the production of gas and allied products.

“It is of interest to note that NPDC is now the major gas supplier to the nation’s domestic market, with a current supply of approximately 400MMscfd and an expected growth to 600MMscfd by year end. Today’s commissioning of the Oredo Early first gas phase, which is currently delivering 65MMscfd to the domestic market clearly demonstrates this growing capability of NPDC to take a leading role in the Federal Government’s quest to rapidly increase gas supply, and it is my hope that by the end of this year, the complete Integrated Gas Handling Facility (IGHF) which will deliver 100MMscfd of lean gas, and about 330 tons of LPG per annum to domestic consumers will have been completed.”

The announcement by PPMC Managing Director, that the Maiduguri Depot will be rehabilitated in the next 60 days is another cheery news for people of that zone. A it will significantly ease the fuel challenge the people of that zone face daily.

Jobs for teeming youths.

As earlier stated, one of the things dear to the heart of the petroleum minister was greater participation of Nigerians in the oil and gas sector. While she has pursued this vigorously, little did critics of the government know that as at today, the participation level of Nigerian-owned companies in the oil and gas sector has moved up to an impressive eighty-seven percent. While this might not mean so much to the man on the street, the fall-out of this is that about thirty thousand jobs have been created out of this. Speaking at a meeting, the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, Diezani said by asking companies to do the ‘right thing’, they have succeeded in getting more and more Nigerians to be involved in the oil and gas industry “just by insisting on using Nigerians in the industry, we have deepened the local supply chain.”

The minister said the jobs were generated in the engineering, fabrication, marine transportation, logistics and exploration and production sub-sectors of the oil and gas industry, and expressed optimism that the job growth would be sustained.

“I have no doubt that more jobs will be created in 2013 and we shall achieve greater localisation of the industry services, manufacturing and fabrication in 2013,” she said.

Alison-Madueke noted that the Nigerian content implementation had increased the level of participation of Nigerians in oil and gas contracts to 87 per cent. “The board has to a large extent achieved consensus in most aspects of Nigerian Content implementation to the extent that there has been no major dispute amongst stakeholders on interpretation of provisions of the Nigerian Content Law.”

Suddenly everything seems to be coming together under her leadership for the good of country. Now there is no denying the fact that she has done quite well; especially in the area of ensuring more local participation in the oil gas industry. Even if critics would never give her the credit.

Affia wrote in from London

January 27, 2013
Fact-checking President Jonathan

One United States-based website I find very interesting is factcheck.org. The site is a nonpartisan, nonprofit “consumer advocate” for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics.

It monitors the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases. The goal of the project is to apply the best practices of journalism and scholarship. It is also to increase public knowledge and understanding.

Considering how our public officers make all kinds of unsubstantiated claims and spread falsehood as facts, it would be nice to have a platform like this to keep them on guard.

Listening to President Goodluck Jonathan during the interview he granted last week to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour and Stephen Cole of Al Jazeera which he has not obliged any Nigerian journalist, I find it difficult to believe some of his claims.

One valid point that cannot be faulted in both interviews is that the Boko Haram insurrection in Nigeria and excesses of this terrorists group in Northern Mali is a threat to not only Nigeria but the whole of the continent.

For this reason, it is understandable while Nigeria should be totally committed to the military intervention in Mali notwithstanding the arguments by those opposed to the government position on the matter.

Responding to the Economist reports that the death toll from Boko Haram attacks in 2012 was 1,099 – double that of 2011, President Jonathan said: “If you look at the last six months, incidents of killing started dropping,” insisting that the government is gaining control.

This claim cannot be true considering the increasing number of people killed almost on daily basis across the country by various terrorists groups who security agent are finding it hard to contain.

Just last week, daring unknown gunmen attacked the Emir of Kano Alhaji Ado Bayero’s convoy, killing four persons apart from about 20 others killed in Borno and Kano. It is even believed that some killings and kidnapping don’t get reported to avoid inflaming the tense situation in the country.

The security agents no doubt are trying hard to combat the terrorist but they really need to show that they are on top of the situation as the federal government is fond of claiming each time the gunmen strike.

President Jonathan in the CNN interview denied suggestions by the U.S. State Department of indiscriminate arrests and killings that have possibly been driving more people into the hands of Boko Haram.

“No security agency arrests anybody just for the love of arrest. We have intelligence that enables us to arrest the people who have to be arrested,” he maintained.

Again, available evidence does not support the President’s assertion. Much as the security agents’ efforts are appreciated, many residents of the troubled areas have been victims of indiscriminate arrests by men of the Joint Military Task Force.

Not only are innocent members of the community arrested, they are molested for offences they have not committed and in some cases girls and women are raped.

Is it true that Nigerians are pleased with the Jonathan’s government’s commitment to improve power? Well, it depends on what part of the country one lives. No doubt that there has been some improvement in power supply but what we have is a far cry from what we need.

Like he did during his first interview with Amanpour, President Jonathan reinstated that improvement of power supply is a priority for his government. ”Before the end of this year, power outages will be reasonably stable in Nigeria,” he stated. One can only hope that the President’s dream will come to pass this time.

January 27, 2013