The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

Constitutional amendment and its ominous signs

The way out is to accept the inevitability of constitutional conference

Lawmakers who are in the process of tinkering with a constitution that citizens prefer to replace are already warning citizens that there may be no significant amendment of the 1999 constitution at the end of the ongoing effort by the National Assembly to forestall a constitutional conference.

The recent warnings expressed by the Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Federal Capital Territory foreshadow serious difficulties on the part of the national assembly to get whatever amendments they suggest through the state assemblies. Senator Smart Adeyemi’s observation: “We cannot amend the Constitution without getting two-thirds of the state assemblies concurring with us. And the governors are also saying that they don’t want the autonomy of local governments,” suggests that there may be more problems to stall the amendment exercise than just the preference of governors.

It is true that governors’ opposition to removal of immunity clause, creation of states, and autonomy to state legislatures and local governments should be worrisome, not only to legislators in charge of the amendment process but also to citizens at large. But it is necessary to avoid what may amount to bashing of governors. It is necessary to know if removal of immunity is to apply to governors alone. If the president is allowed to enjoy immunity while in office, it stands to reason for governors that are equally elected by citizens to enjoy the same privilege. Creation of states is not an intrinsic part of constitution amendment. If there is anything that should be done in respect of state creation, it should be just to amend the process of creating states. If anything, state creation appears to be a distraction. There is no reason for lawmakers to be in a hurry to create states.

It is also important for federal lawmakers to listen to governors’ and state legislators’ views on autonomy for local government. It is wrong to assume that the issue of autonomy for local governments is an easy one to settle, simply because military dictators had identified local government as the third tier of government. The relationship between state and local government is a core element of the principle of federalism that is supposed to be settled by a people’s constitution, a move that the national assembly has resisted on the ground that the country’s sovereignty has been vested in the federal legislature.

The 1999 Constitution captures the vision of military dictators and not necessarily those of the federating units on the issue of autonomy of local government. And lawmakers should recognize this, instead of taking the autonomy of local government as a given. It was the three regions that were later broken into 36 states that agreed to become independent of Great Britain in 1960. Similarly, the issue of local government as third tier was not part of the republican constitution of 1963. It is therefore wrong to give any sacrosanct status to the principle of local government as third tier. This aspect of the constitution needs to be taken as part of the constitutional change that legislators hope to achieve. In other words, there is no good reason for lawmakers to view the autonomy of local government as a No-Go area for governors and citizens to challenge. The only no-go area in the 1999 Constitution should be the territorial unity of Nigeria.

A more troubling aspect of Senator Adeyemi’s fears is that the ongoing amendment may be deadlocked by opposition from more than one-third of the country’s state assemblies. Evidence already abounds that this may happen. Governors of 18 northern states, apart from the governor of Plateau State, have stated clearly their opposition to creation of state or community police. If the 18 northern governors are able to influence their state assemblies on this matter, any amendment in respect of creating multiple police systems will be killed by 50% of the country’s governors. Just as it is already evident in the open opposition of northern governors to the Petroleum Industry Bill, no recommended amendment can pass without the support of at least 24 states. And there can be no 24 states to support amendments unless at least seven of the states from the north so agree, even if all the states in the south endorse such amendments.

The preference of organisations and citizens for sovereign national conference or constitutional conference grew out of the foresight that some members of the national assembly are just recognizing, after the fact. The 1999 Constitution, particularly its provisions for changing any aspect of the constitution are filled with obstacle courses that cannot be overcome unless more than half of the northern states are ready to play ball. Northern leaders and northern sociocultural organizations have not failed to let the rest of the nation know their views on restoring true federalism. On several occasions, Arewa Consultative Forum had warned that there is nothing wrong with the current constitution and that the Forum is opposed to creation of states. It should not surprise anyone if, at the end of the current amendment process, less than two-thirds of state assemblies ratify any or all of the amendments, thus throwing the country back to provisions of a constitution imposed by military dictators in 1999.

Fingering governors as forces that can scuttle the amendment process may not provide the total picture of problems that can militate against the ongoing constitutional amendment. Governors are protecting the advantages given to them in the current constitution in the same way in which Northern governors in particular and the ACF are protecting the advantages they perceive the 1999 Constitution bestows on their part of the country. To ignore this fact is to knowingly play the Ostrich. The way out of a stalemate is not to demonise governors or blackmail them into accepting specific provisions that affect their interest; it is to accept the inevitability of a constitutional conference that will be able to establish new ground rules that are different from the obstacle courses erected in the 1999 Constitution against any effort to amend it in favour of returning the country to the path of true or functional and sustainable federalism. This may be the only way to avoid repeating what happened to the amendments suggested to the current constitution during the presidency of General Olusegun Obasanjo.

December 30, 2012
CHINUA ACHEBE The one who asked painful questions

Professor Chinua Achebe’s life and career reflect the growth and development of Nigeria itself. Son of first-generation Christian converts, he grew up at the very crossroads of cultural change, when the novelty of western culture crystallised into a desirable way of life. As one of the brightest minds of his generation, he was at the core of that critical mass of intelligent and enlightened Nigerians who made observers so confident in the country’s prospects as an African superpower.

And he certainly lived up to those lofty expectations. His Things Fall Apart, published in 1958, is widely accepted as the most influential African novel ever written: its delineation of the complex interactions between indigenous and foreign cultures has rarely been bettered. His reputation was cemented with the subsequent publication of novels like No Longer at Ease, Arrow of God, A Man of the People and Anthills of the Savannah, as well as several thoughtful essays which sought to explain his understanding of Africa and its culture.

Given Achebe’s primary identity as an author, it is perhaps fitting that it is a book which has made him one of The Nation’s Men of the Year. There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra, his memoir of the Nigerian Civil War, has stirred controversy, inflamed passions and whipped up sentiment to a degree unheard of in Nigerian writing.

Like the book itself, Achebe’s choice of title is provocative. “There Was a Country” raises obvious questions.Was there a country? What animated it, gave it life and form? If “There Was a Country” in the past, “Is There a Country” now? What kind of country is it, particularly compared to the country that “was”?

Achebe’s book revisits a crucial aspect of Nigerian history in an attempt to understand what happened, why it happened, and what its consequences are. What distinguishes his effort from others is the depth of feeling and the courage he brings to the topic. Ever since the last shot was fired, there has been a conspiracy of silence on all sides, a determined attempt to forget that the conflict ever happened. It was first seen in the pious mantra of “No Victor, No Vanquished” peddled by the Gowon administration and was entrenched in the complacent attitudes that quickly developed in reaction to it.

In a country where it is far more profitable to ignore the past, There Was a Countryhas dragged Nigeria, kicking and screaming, back to a history it would prefer to forget. The ensuing debate, raucous and unmannerly though it has been, has compelled Nigerians to look more intensively at themselves than before. In a country where questions of justice and equity are often subordinated to the “turn-by-turn” ethos of Nigeria’s cake-sharing political process, Achebe’s book has compelled a new focus on fundamentals. The questions Nigerians now ask themselves are as terrible as they are necessary: To what extent did ethnic animosity and private ambition turn an avoidable conflict into an inevitable war? What does genocide mean? What is a war crime? How did the conflict affect the country and its people?

While much of the discussion has degenerated into a heated argument over the actions of specific personalities and ethnicities, the book’s main thesis is incontrovertible: the fallout of Nigeria’s Civil War cannot be glossed over, or forgotten, or ignored, or wished away, or put aside. It is simply too significant to a coherent understanding of how Nigeria is, who Nigerians are, and what they can be. The war speaks to the country’s skewed structure and the tensions that characterize relationships between its constituent ethnic groups. The manner in which it was prosecuted carries harsh lessons about the dire consequences of political and military overreach. Its lingering after-effects carry grim portents for Nigeria’s future stability.

The simple truth is that no nation can overlook a conflict that resulted in between one and three million deaths, most of whom were non-combatants. The very enormity of the tragedy cries out for attention: far too many innocents on all sides died for their deaths to be in vain. If the Americans and the Spanish are looking into the causes and courses of older civil conflicts, there can be no reason why Nigeria should not do it. Hard truths will be told; guilt and innocence, culpability and exculpation, victory and defeat could become so intertwined as to be indistinguishable from one another. But the country will have made progress in the vital task of understanding itself, and will thus be the better for it.

For asking hitherto-unanswered questions, for uttering the supposedly unmentionable, for demanding that Nigeria live up to its own noble ideals, Chinua Achebe is The Nation’s Third Runner-Up for Man of the Year, 2012

December 30, 2012
The horrible year 2012 (3)

Speaking the other day at the year- end Christmas Carol Service in Ado-Ekiti, Dr Kayode Fayemi, the Ekiti State governor, gave it all to God. It couldn’t have been otherwise. Looking back at what difference the good Lord has used his hands to make in the life of his people, as a function of the lean funds at his disposal, whether from federal allocations, IGR or even the bond, he could only have given it to the Almighty God.

Our job in this concluding part is pretty simple. It is to take a cursory look at the South-West where there obviously has been demonstrable leadership in governance culminating in a quantum of verifiable, measurable and sustainable multi-sectoral development.

But I must quickly enter a caveat.

I am from that part of the country and for the reasons I stated in part 2 of this trilogy, I am one of the many Nigerians who have given up on travelling, especially, for pleasure. I now neither fly locally – the young, brilliant co-pilot we lost to impunity in that crashed naval helicopter will always be in my memory. I knew Yemi as a toddler and my very distraught family is very close to both his parents and the wife’s. So much for travels within Nigeria, even though my decision predates that unfortunate incident. It arose out of the stinking failure of those who ruled us for 8 straight years to improve on our road infrastructure even after burning N300 billion voted for that purpose. As a result of our decrepit road infrastructure, coupled with the other well known demons: accidents, armed robbers, kidnappers and evil police men, I also no longer venture by road beyond the South West. Forgive me then if, as we read in newspapers, some things are happening in places like Akwa Ibom, Rivers or Cross River where, besides the A C N states, there is some modicum of good governance. I am, therefore, unable to talk categorically on happenings in these states because I testify only to that which I see.

On the contrary, however,, I have travelled widely in the South-West since the current governors took over the Augean stable left everywhere by the then departing PDP governors. .

The A C N governors, without exception, are inheritors of a tradition of good governance having been weaned on the Awo heritage of transparency and accountability, effectiveness, efficiency, responsiveness, consensus, empathy and equity. Of course, being Yoruba, those PDP governors were also inheritors of these Awo traits but their place on the political spectrum was such that they meant nothing. Otherwise, show me one single example of their social welfare programmes comparable to Fayemi’s twin programmes for the elderly and the new one on orphans or to that of Aregbesola on the elderly not to mention the multi-pronged Erelu Fayemi EDF’s initiatives on women, the girl child and the youth of Ekiti in general.

You obviously cannot give what you do not have.

The starting point for the governors had been the recognition that the West, being an economic block, has to develop on the basis of regional integration which was certain to be both viable and cost-effective in infrastructure procurement, industrialisation, commerce and agriculture in particular. This is an economic development paradigm that was never once mentioned, even in passing, during the PDP’s six-year stranglehold on the region. The synergy thus created has helped tremendously in bonding within political leadership in the geo-political zone to the advantage of the citizenry. Today, you see many development efforts being replicated all over with minor local variations as a precursor to major partnerships in the areas of power, transportation systems, especially roads and railways, education, industrialisation and agriculture, areas on which comprehensive studies are presently on-going.

Concerning education which was completely in the doldrums at the inception of their administration, both Fayemi and Aregbesola took about the same route in trying to re-invent this critical sector. Where Ogbeni preferred to have a direct stakeholders conference, Dr Fayemi empanelled a technical committee of experts whose recommendations formed the basis of the resolutions at the subsequent stakeholders conference which have, in turn, underpinned his government’s education policy.

Arising from these efforts, both governments have invested huge amounts of money on e-education and had spared no effort in empowering both students and teachers in programmes which are destined to facilitate the emergence of a strong knowledge-based economy in the region in the very near future. Where Fayemi had given students and teachers solar powered laptops, Aregbesola had equipped students and teachers with computer tablets with appropriate subjects already imputed.

The misunderstood TDNA in Ekiti was one of the key recommendations of the stakeholders conference at which the highly regarded Professor Sam Aluko, of blessed memory, presided. The body had resolved that teachers must be tested to ascertain their areas of weakness in order to enable the state develop appropriate remedial training programmes. But no thanks to the political opposition and deliberate misunderstanding by some unionists, what had become routine in many other states of the federation was completely demonised.

Of all the states in the federation, Lagos State, whose governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, his A C N colleagues affectionately call their class captain, stands out. It is an exemplar and could only have been an A C N state.

It is not by any means the richest state in the country as what it receives as federal allocation pails into insignificance compared to what some oil bearing states get. It’s IGR, about which many are inordinately jealous, is the product of ingenuity; dispute that, and go double or triple your state’s IGR.

The Tinubu government, precursor of all A C N governments in the South-West, laid solid examples. It was, for instance, the first to initiate, even ahead of the federal government, an Independent Power Project. The state has towered over and above other states in infrastructure, and procurement of transportation facilities -roads, waterways, and now, rail. Governor Fashola has demonstrated so much all-round competence he has become a source of embarrassment to the Jonathan administration which now strenuously stands in its way of sourcing additional development funds even when it has the capacity to borrow much more.

At a time the country’s entire road infrastructure has more than collapsed, each South-West state is aggressively improving its road infrastructure. For instance in Ekiti, many of the road contracts awarded by the Fayemi administration were commissioned during his second year anniversary. Township roads in Ado-Ekiti together with the massive on-going works on the Ado-Ifaki road, have turned the entire state capital to a huge construction site. Writing recently on what he saw in Ekiti, Tunde Fagbenle, the highly regarded Punch columnist, wrote as follows: ‘For hours and hours, we drove with our mouths drooping in amazement at what we saw. The renewal of the urbanity of Ado-Ekiti as the state capital was clearly evident, arterial roads that have been half-hardheartedly begun in preceding governments have been widened and dualised with street lights installed all along the median. As old roads are being reconstructed and re-tarred to high stands, new ones are surfacing everywhere…’

One can only conclude by saying that operating under a highly focussed, people- loving political party, the ACN, with leaders -Bisi Akande, Bola Tinubu, Segun Osoba and Niyi Adebayo, who had themselves served the region to the best of their abilities, – South-West governors have demonstrated, beyond doubt, that with single-minded commitment and determination, horrors can be wiped off the faces of Nigerians.

And without a doubt, their best is yet to come.

Here is wishing my worthy readers Merry Xmas and a blessed New Year.

CONCLUDED

December 30, 2012
My ‘Man of the Year’? Let ‘subsidy fraud’ please step forward!

No doubt, it merits the gold

Two things are common when a year is about to end: the first is the New Year resolution/s that many people make and the second, which is customary, especially with the media, is the ‘Man of the Year’ concept. For instance, TIME magazine has just chosen President Barack Obama as its ‘Man of the Year’ for 2012. While the propriety or otherwise of the choice is still being debated, the fact is that the magazine has made its preference public; people are bound to agree or disagree with it. The same way some people might disagree with my choice of ‘subsidy fraud’ as ‘Man of the Year’. Again, that is my choice and I am perfectly entitled to it. There is no democracy about this. And if there is, it is in the freedom of everyone else to also freely choose theirs.

I guess this is the first time in over two decades of my maintaining columns that I would be choosing a ‘Man of the Year’. Obviously, my decision was informed by the reality that subsidy fraud has simply refused to disappear from the front-burner of national discourse in the country since January when it became a burning national issue. Of course Nigerians had been talking about fuel subsidy since the military years. We have also had subsidy protests since then; but none compared with the reaction of Nigerians to the issue last January, when sustained riots made the government to reduce, rather than completely remove, the so-called subsidy it claims to be paying on petrol.

No doubt the country occupies a conspicuous position among the most corrupt nations; so, one could have asked, ‘why not write on corruption generally’? But corruption has now become a nebulous concept in Nigeria. ‘Corruption the Great’ has now begotten children, grand-children, great-children, etc. in Nigeria and one does not even know what its genealogy looks like here anymore. It is such a serious matter that even elementary school pupils can write volumes on. And, if ever Mother Corruption dies in the country, and there is such a bitter struggle to succeed it (because there are so many competent offspring to take its place), subsidy fraud will surely be a frontrunner.

What I am saying in effect is that it is better to be specific when talking about corruption in Nigeria. Which brand or leg of it are you talking about? Is it pension fraud? Is it corruption by way of inflation of contracts, etc? Hence, I decided to narrow today’s write-up to the fuel subsidy fraud and I hope it is eminently qualified to be so acclaimed. We started the outgoing year with fuel subsidy riots and up till now, we are yet to get out of it. Yes, the riots appear over, whether temporarily or permanently, we do not know yet because we do not know what other surprise the government might want to spring on subsidy. As a matter of fact, subsidy fraud seems to be acquiring a life of its own, and is also giving birth to all kinds of offspring, including acrimonies, court cases, unending probe panels, etc.

A few weeks ago, the Federal Government asked the National Assembly to appropriate another N161.6billion to enable it meet up with the expected subsidy claims for the year. The government had estimated about N888.1billion for this but just realised that the amount would not be enough. Already, both houses have consented, meaning that by year-end, we must have spent about N1.3trilion on fuel subsidy since no one returns any ‘change’ to government in the country.

Fuel subsidy has come with all sorts of things, from allegations of a certain company that is allegedly not registered but got N2.7billion from subsidy funds without supplying a litre of fuel. We were inundated with government’s worries emanating from stern warning on the alleged company, but where is the matter today? There is the ‘if you Ubah me, I Maduka you’ issue now before some courts at home and abroad. Fuel subsidy has also brought out the ingenuity in a private citizen usurping the role, as it were, of the security agencies by way of ‘sting operation’. The bee actually stung as the lawmaker involved finally stepped down from the exalted office of chairman of the committee involved. We have also been treated to free video allegedly showing who was offering, or who was taking bribe, or both.

These are not all: we have also seen the subsidy fraud producing allegations and counter-allegations of bribery and what have you. The same subsidy mess has produced even further mess by way of people on subsidy probe panel getting plum appointments into government’s opaque oil firm, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). While one became a member of the board of directors, the other became director of finance! Yet, we are being told daily of government’s sincerity about getting to the root of the subsidy scam. Tell me; in which civilised clime could such a thing have been possible? Indeed, we have seen a lot in the last 11 months on subsidy fraud, but the supervising minister has remained on her seat like the Rock of Gibraltar, unmovable and unshaken, leading to speculations that she is not an ordinary woman, but one with nine lives.

The way things are, Nigeria’s subsidy regime has remained a jigsaw puzzle. That partly explains why it has refused to leave the centre-stage of public discourse. But one thing that flows from all the probes into the subsidy fraud is the fact that Nigeria has been ripped off. From the parliamentary probe into subsidy, to the Aig-Imoukhuede’s, down to the Ribadu panel, it was clear that Nigeria has been swindled through and through, with subsidy as conduit. The reports may be different in terms of what they alleged had been stolen, but they confirm widespread fears that some fuel marketers got paid for fuel they never imported, or that was sold abroad. One parliamentary probe said about $6.8 billion must have been lost to subsidy fraud over three years. Of course it is a racket involving even government officials and agencies because the importers could not have done the deals all alone; as they say, it takes two to tango.

The fact that not much is happening by way of punishing the culprits, particularly those in government, has naturally led to fears that part of the stolen subsidy money was spent on last year’s elections. The implication, if this is true (it is yet to be convincingly explained otherwise, though), is that any attempt to retrieve our money might be another wild goose chase. We may never be able to get to the bottom of the matter, at least not in the lifetime of the Jonathan presidency. We will be lucky if we get an insignificant fraction of it back. Are you still asking why?

December 23, 2012
The Christmas that got away

Yes, indeed, Christmas can get away, folks, aided and abetted by the government through its bad economic policies

What with the recent events in this country resulting in the loss of some of our valued nationals through the crash of an aircraft, the mood is really not very bright right now for celebrating. The thing about the seasons, however, is that they will come and go, come rain or shine. So indeed, the rains and the shines do come in spite of all that man may have lost. It is up to the living to carry on the business of forging a way through this dark vale that Nigerians have found themselves in. The problem though is the tendency of the same fellow Nigerians to add more darkness to the existing darkness by choosing to display wickedness over love towards others through bombings, kidnapping, killing, embezzling, etc. As if our dark skins were not enough, we must draw veils of blackness over our hearts and minds just to make life more difficult for our fellow countrymen. Perhaps the reason is that instead of red blood cells running through our veins, we have … you guessed it.

This season, I determined to show that only red blood cells flow within my veins. I would behave like a human being and display more generosity of spirit towards others, in spite of myself or them. I would begin by celebrating Christmas. So, as soon as I could hear carol notes belting into the air from the taped voices of well-fed carollers, I determined to bring some Christmas cheer into the house by getting a good Christmas tree and some lights to make the house look less like Ebenezer Scrooge’s shanty. The first tree I saw appeared friendly enough. It should be, I grumpily thought, considering it was made of synthetic rubber and had been set permanently at the friendly mode so that even the renegade Christian should want to put one up in a conspicuous corner of his/her house. The price put on it actually went through the roof but I managed to rummage through my purse and came up with the sum. I was determined to be generous to the seller.

I also wanted to extend some real peace and goodwill to all this season, so I set out with the will to obtain the biggest turkey or at least something close to it. Before I got to the chicken stall, however, I was given a live one. I did the humane thing: I took it for a drive through the town. Don’t get me wrong: I have eaten a chicken or two in my life time; but the ones I eat are not usually my friends. This one became my friend the minute I held him. Now, how was I going to eat him? I mean, you don’t do that kind of thing to a friend, just not the ton.

I took the chicken for a drive through the town because I thought that would convince both of us of the inherent dangers in our friendship. The poor thing squirmed and squeaked continuously either in fright or discomfort. I took it to be discomfort, since the air coming in through the windows was quite, quite hot. So I went a step further in the business of being humane: I turned on the air conditioner for it out of the generosity of my heart. Ah! I thought the chicken should appreciate the gesture but I don’t think he quite understood it enough as the clucking went on at varied decibel levels. At the first opportunity, I disposed of it out of generosity to myself and the peace of my ears. That was when I found myself in a real quandary. It never occurred to me that I was letting Christmas get away.

My standard joke at the approach of any festival is to enjoin my friends to please ensure the safety of their offerings such as chickens, rams, turkeys, etc., so that when it comes time to extend their hands of friendship and love to me, there would be no excuses. The joke is that the excuses still come in various hues and colours, and they go something like: yea well, I remembered you but you see I had more visitors than I prepared for; or the blessed thing got away in spite of the day and night vigils of the army of young and eager guardians in my neighbourhood; or, and best of them all, the chicken, ram or turkey was a bit reluctant to die so we had pity on it and let it go! No problem, I say to them, Christmas is around the corner when I hope to also extend the same generosity of spirit to my own sacrificial offering.

The quandary now was getting a less expensive, less friendly chicken to offer as a sacrifice in celebration of the season. Perhaps I should just offer a variety of excuses too. I could go, so sorry but the chicken I got did not get home with me. No, that sounds lame. How about, sorry but the turkey was a little too expensive, staggered too drunkenly and cackled insults at passers-by. No, that would make me sound drunkenly too. So, why don’t I just settle down to the age-old, traditional, well-worn and well known excuse? The turkey bolted when it saw the knife; I mean, who would not believe that?!

Once, a man had purchased and tied up a cow to slaughter at his daughter’s wedding ceremony. However, while no one was looking, the clever cow managed to chew through the cord used to tie it and bolted. The father of the bride, already harassed by the economic burden of his daughter’s wedding, immediately bolted after it shouting, along with neighbours and friends, ‘catch it for me, catch that cow for me, that’s my daughter’s wedding! That’s my daughter’s wedding going!’ Yes indeed, the cow got away but the man thought it was the fault of his neighbours who did not run hard enough.

Just as that cow got away, Christmas can indeed get away, aided and abetted by the government (through its bad economic policies), individuals (who cannot stand the clucking or cackles of their sacrificial offerings) or neighbours who refuse to run fast enough to catch one’s escaped and convicted chickens. Whatever the cause of Christmas attempting to escape from your clutches this year, you must fight it, even if it means shouting after it. That may not do you much good though, any more than it did our father of the bride in the story above, but at least your friends will know enough not to sit down and be expecting a miracle of the loaves and fishes from you as if you were Jesus.

Yes, Jesus did do a lot while he was here on earth, didn’t he? This is why we must celebrate the season doing what he did: display an uncommon generosity of spirit. We must go around giving and forgiving; living and letting live; and above all, loving all men and women. Oh you!, you know what I mean. Out of the generosity of my heart, I gave an air-conditioned ride to a chicken; what have you done to help someone this season?

Friends, things must change. Nigerians and Nigerian leaders must now earnestly begin to appreciate the lesson that what matters in the long run is not how many houses an individual manages to build or how much money he/she manages to stash away in Swiss banks or Cayman Island banks or how much money he/she leaves behind for loving and loveless relatives to fight over, but the simple acts of generosity that one leaves behind. In the long run, as one person put it, what matters is the generosity of spirit that one has displayed in one’s lifetime. Have a beautiful time this Christmas!

December 23, 2012
Foundation for a great nation

Strong institutional structure will prevent our constant embarrassments

A nation is like a house. It needs a strong foundation to stand. Lay a weak foundation and wait for the result. When the wind blows you will be embarrassed. If it is a whirlwind or a storm, you might find the eastern wing or the western half blown away. For all you care, the north side or southern part of your house might be detached. The entire structure, for that matter, could even come crashing down. At best, you are condemned to perpetual patch-work.

It is an uncomfortable situation with a sinking feeling.

Every now and again, this otherwise great nation, with a lot to intimidate the world, faces such situations. Only a strong institutional foundation will save us the embarrassments and frustrations those situations bring.

Let us consider a few recent incidents. Even as Nigerians mourned former National Security Adviser Gen Andrew Azazi, erstwhile Kaduna State Governor Patrick Yakowa and four other Nigerians who died in penultimate weekend helicopter crash in Bayelsa State, the Presidency is said to be uncomfortable with the position of the state governors. The issue appears simple. President Goodluck Jonathan ordered a probe of the crash. But the governors, who lost one of their own, do not want to sit back and wait for the report; they would rather send an investigator of their own to participate in the investigations either directly or as an observer.

The Presidency is feeling slighted, reasoning, according to reports, that the governors’ position amounts to lack of confidence in the probe. The Presidency is understandably embarrassed. For what good is its decision if state governors, crucial as they are, have nothing but scorn for it. But it is not just the Jonathan administration that is embarrassed; the entire country is equally humiliated. In a matter like this, the Jonathan Presidency and the state executives should sing a common tune. After all, the issue is the probe of a tragic death and a national loss.

Still, we can all understand the governors’ gripe. For so long, probes have yielded little or nothing, much to the chagrin of every Nigerian. Our tragedies and disasters are often probed, but we have gained nothing from them because their results are shielded from the public. There is a sense of double tragedy because on the one hand there is profound grief from the disasters, and on the other, much-needed cash is mobilised to fund the investigations. No one can say how many billions or trillions we have lost to probes.

For decades, we have not laid a good foundation or set a standard in resolving our tragedies through probes. The disenchantment of the governors and embarrassment of the Presidency are a direct fall-out of that profound national error.

Before the Bayelsa crash, a school Principal Rev Olufunke Oladeojobi of Ajuwon Senior High School in Ogun State was reported to have conducted a virginity test on some 10 pupils of the institution. The examination was said to have been conducted on the floor of Rev Oladeojobi’s office, with a guest nurse in action and a number of in-house staff observing the proceedings. Outsiders would probably have missed the event but for the bleeding incident reported by one of the tested pupils. That reportedly sent parents rushing to Ajuwon Senior, and the Principal to a panel of police questioners. Oladeojobi denied testing the girls, according to one report, but admitted doing so in another, saying the exam was “to help them”. Everyone is horrified. The doctors say she dared to do what even medical personnel are not allowed to contemplate. Lawyers say the test is “actionable”, meaning she can be sued. The Ogun State government has justifiably suspended her pending the conclusion of investigations (that word again).

A good foundation would have prevented all that. Standards jealously protected will keep a school principal, whether a Reverend or a senior atheist, from contemplating such a horrible, criminal act, let alone executing it.

Last week, it was also reported that Nigeria has a critical shortfall of 144,000 health workers. Professor Boluwaji Fajemilehin of the Department of Nursing Science, College of Medicine, University of Lagos, said World Health Organisation (WHO) identified the country as lacking that crucial number of health workers.

Six years ago, according to the report, WHO said any country with fewer than 2.3 doctors, nurses, and midwives per 1,000 people was in danger of facing a critical shortage of health workers. Now with a deficit of 144,000 personnel in our health facilities, Nigeria is the seventh highest among 57 countries facing such crisis in our health sector.

That is instructive. We have not yet set a foundation for our health sector. That explains why the few health workers we can find are easily irritated at patients’ inquiry. Quarrels ensue often. Queues are insufferably long at the hospitals. Midwives dispense insults, even slaps, in the labour room. Such unprofessional conduct may not derive from natural traits but from numerical shortfall at the workplace. It explains why we the rich fly away to foreign hospitals.

It is clear. There are no foundations. Can we begin to lay them now?

December 23, 2012
America’s petroleum and Nigeria’s future (2)

The years of less revenue from fossil energy will strengthen the territorial unity of Nigeria

Last week’s conclusion asserts that America’s entry into the international petroleum market as a gas and petroleum exporter (as distinct from its many decades of being an importer) will force Nigerian political leaders and citizens to accept the end of miracles as the solution to national economic and social problems. In other words, the existence in the future of what does not exist now or of what exists now and may not exist in the future in the petroleum market will push trustees or guardians of Nigeria’s politics to accept that the best route to national development is an economic culture that encourages citizens to engage in production, the way it was all over Nigeria until 1966.

It is important for the country’s economic planners to replace platitudes with policies that can meaningfully diversify the country’s economy, without allowing current inflow of petrodollars to distract them from going back to the fundamental law of culture: no distribution before production. Since General Gowon was reported as saying that money was not Nigeria’s problems in the 1970s, Nigeria has been preoccupied with distribution without production. This is why it has not been able for the country to invest in infrastructure that can fuel development: energy, rail, road, water, etc. Nigeria has been dependent on the 57% of revenue from oil that accrued from oil sale for several decades. This culture of Sadaka, Awuufu, or Saraa (free loading) is best captured by the name of one of the country’s foremost agencies, Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, most graphically in the emphasis on assembling and making ready for use that mobilisation suggests.

If after 50 years of underdevelopment of the country’s infrastructure despite decades of oil boom, America’s entry into the petroleum and gas market as exporter reduces Nigeria’s revenue from oil and gas, Nigeria may enter a critical phase that will call for new thinking on the part of leaders and citizens. Many things that have been taken for granted since 1966 will call for review, especially the country’s political structure.

Once the flow of funds to the central government declines (as surely it will once the percentage of oil and gas it can sell to other countries goes down), existing states will attempt to become development centers, rather than distribution centers that they have been since military dictators initiated the culture of creating states and sustaining them with funds from the federation account. The existing 36 states and 774 local governments will certainly have difficulties meeting their monthly bills: salaries to civil servants and other sectors of public service in particular. Retrenchment or downsizing the public sector will become imperative at the beginning for most states. But leaders that are unlucky to be in office when revenue decline occurs will have to adopt the maxim: necessity is the mother of invention. Otherwise, they may be chased out of office by angry citizens, the way it happened in many Arab countries a few years back. They will have to move from the ingrained culture of profligacy and corruption made possible by cheap oil money to providing infrastructure and support for a productive private sector.

The sudden shift of attention from the federal government as the dispenser of funds to states and local governments to states and local governments as laboratories and factories for production will renew calls for restoration of functional federalism. No state will be prepared to pass gains from the sweat of its citizens to the federal government to share among states and local governments in the name of even development. States and local governments will have to compete with each other, just as they will also cooperate with each other in their effort to respond to the new development challenges to be thrown by decline in oil revenue.

States that are currently calling for people’s constitution, restructuring of the polity, and devolution of power will be more aggressive in their demands, more so when the easy monthly or quarterly allocation from the federation account ceases to be useful to sustain the appearance of governance and government that most states have enjoyed since 1966. As each state struggles to produce what its citizens consume, it will need to have full supervisory power over its economy and polity.

The mantra that only the federal police can keep Nigeria united will be challenged more forcefully by states that require efficient and dedicated police to enforce laws and sustain public order. States will resist the usual practice of collecting VAT and fees for driving license and vehicle registration for the federal government to share among states on the basis of land mass and population estimate. States with ports will aggressively ask for compensation for port facilities in their states, rather than beg for special financial support or special status from the federal government. For example, the demand on the federal government to give Lagos a special status that will require additional funds from the federal government will be replaced by demands for a percentage of revenue from use of Lagos ports. Other states with port facilities, such as Delta, Cross River, and Rivers, will make similar demands for revenue sharing with the federal government from port revenue.

Regionalism or regional integration will become a common model of development across the country once the easy flow of revenue from petroleum and gas ceases or reduces considerably in the years beyond 2020. The current competition among states on exhibitionism in the use of public funds will give way to cooperation in design and execution of projects that can advance development in contiguous states. The reality of scarce resources that may result from revenue decline from the federation account funded largely from proceeds from oil and gas will stimulate the culture of prudence in states that do not want to go bankrupt. Citizens whose taxes become the largest source of revenue for the government will demand an end to low-class self-promotion of political leaders and their family in newspaper adverts at the expense of public funds.

The sections of the country that have sworn not to allow the country’s post-military federal government to devolve power to states will become more realistic about the imperative of restructuring, once the oil and gas revenue that has been lubricating the country’s chain of unity goes south. Such leaders will have no choice but to accept that it is only parasite without a sense of self-preservation that will depend on an emaciated host. Such states will loosen their grip on the federation and cooperate with those calling for true federalism, not out of altruistic interest but out of the need to have control over their own hard-earned resources in the years beyond today’s bountiful harvest from oil and gas.

However, the years of less revenue from fossil energy will strengthen the territorial unity of Nigeria. No state or region of the country (not even the Niger Delta) will feel strong enough to want to opt out of Nigeria. A country that has since 1966 seen itself as one united by oil will start to see itself as needing to stay together in order to grow out of poverty. But the country’s unity will cease to be nominal or symbolic; it will be one with a purpose. The country will morph into a site for what Ben Nwabueze calls ‘diversity in unity’.

December 23, 2012
An avoidable tragedy

Once again, Nigeria has been thrown into deep mourning. All over the land, the grief is so palpable that you could almost touch it. How can one single society which is not officially at war endure so much trauma and tragedies ever unfolding at a fast and furious pace? Are we not in denial when we say we are not at war? When is a war? As psychologists would attest, the undeclared war is the most deadly, the most lethal because it leaves citizens psychologically unprepared and very vulnerable indeed.

We raise these posers this morning because disaster seems to have become Nigeria’s default setting. Like sadistic robots our rulers deliver pious homilies at every tragedy and then move on to await the next. And truly in the manner of a society that worships a different god each new day, each new day brings a new tragedy. This is the land of three hundred and sixty five tragedies a year. The year opened with the avoidable tragedy of the removal of a phantom subsidy. It matured into the avoidable tragedy of the DANA air crash. Now, it is ending with the tragedy of a naval helicopter crash. Why do we waste ourselves so much?

In such circumstances, talking about Annus Horribilis is a misnomer, an instance of misplaced optimism and an anodyne of the socially and economically besieged. An Annus Horribilis occurs when you have a bad year within a fairly good run. But you cannot be talking about Annus Horribilis when you have been sentenced to perpetual unhappiness. What you have in Nigeria is not Annus Horribilis but Homo Horribilis.

Yet in their unique way, each of these tragedies showcases our inability to evolve into a true nation or a truly modern society for that matter. If the fuel subsidy palaver highlighted the collapse of social capital and the binding bond between the governed and the governing, the Dana crash pinpointed the ravages of the cannibal capitalism that we have imbibed and reconfirmed the nation as the carnage capital of social cannibalism. The helicopter crash is a telling testimony of our continuing inability to come up with the bureaucratic and institutional rationality that underpins modern governance.

It is a pity that General Owoye Azazi had to go down in that chariot of fire. Despite his controversial exit as the National Security Adviser, the four-star general remained one of the most decorated officers of the Nigerian military, having been DMI, GOC,Chief of Army Staff, Chief of Defence Staff and crowning all this with his appointment as National Security Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan. It was probably the first time an Intelligence officer had shone so brightly in the firmament of the Nigerian military. General Aliyu Gusau who achieved almost the same professional distinctions was never a four-star general.

The death of Patrick Yakowa is a political tragedy of catastrophic proportions. An accomplished bureaucrat and administrator from a minority group in the politically volatile Kaduna State, there was ample evidence that he had managed to douse the tension and calm things down a bit. Those who should know insist that Yakowa took it hard that he was considered a “stranger” when it came to higher office by those he had mingled and gone to school with, but there is no evidence that he ever allowed this to affect his political judgement.

Given the conspiracy theories flying around and the opening salvo of his youthful successor against those who have treated him with disrespect and discourtesy while he was a :”spare tire”, one must hope that the old demons of ethnic mayhem are not revived in that combustible region. The unfolding political scenario in Kaduna State requires utmost tact and caution.

But if we mourn the tragic death of illustrious Nigerians, we must also mourn the tragic departure of the less illustrious, particularly those gallant naval officers who were cut down in their prime, particularly in the course of official duty to their fatherland. Nobody knows what Navy Captain Daba and Navy Lieutenant Adeyemi Sowole could have gone on to become. In an emotive outburst published in this paper on Friday, Pa Sowole accused the naval establishment of arrant insensitivity. This is a case of acute bereavement that ought to be better managed

The crash itself raises so many posers. The federal authorities must come up with the answers to these posers. Since when has it become the official norm for a naval helicopter to be turned into an air-taxi for ferrying VIPs to the funeral of a government functionary? Surely, this is not the norm in civilised nations. It is no use saying that this has always been the practice. What is wrong is wrong. In any case, a government has to be taken by its self-declared mission and not every post-military administration has promised Nigerians a transformation. If this is transformation, Nigerians will be happy with transmogrification.

The real tragedy of our era is the inability of the Nigerian political elite to realise that they hurt themselves even more when they refuse to abide by the accepted and civilised procedures of doing things. It is not for fun that certain political standards and the administration of justice are maintained with impersonal rigour in developed countries. If you do not secure the realm with justice, injustice will make the realm insecure for you too. The mounting spate of insecurity in the land, the rise of high-profile kidnapping, the horrendous casualties suffered by elites in avoidable tragedies all speak to an elite that cannot save itself not to talk of saving the nation.

In such circumstances, the general theoretical question can now be broached. Is there an elite conspiracy against democratic rule in this country? The attitude of many members of the ruling class does not reflect the mental conditioning of those who are committed to the general principles of democracy both as a short term prospect or as a long term project. Yet without such mental conditioning, we can never build durable institutions, and without durable institutions we can never sustain democracy. It is an appalling prospect for nation and society.

The international community must be watching Nigeria with a degree of sympathy-fatigue. The cost of maintaining a deficient democracy is becoming truly prohibitive in terms of human toll and economic wastage. But given the circumstances the alternatives are just too scary to contemplate. If only a fraction of the money being stolen on a daily basis is ploughed into the development of an arterial network of roads, there would have been no need for a helicopter shuttle to become the preferred mode of elite transportation in the mangrove swamps. Primitive accumulation often leads to the accumulation of primitive terror.

December 23, 2012
The horrible year 2012 (2)

We sowed the wind long ago and now, the whirlwind is here with a vengeance

As captured in part 1, this trilogy which commenced with an analysis of the horrible events that shaped Nigeria in 2012, will today interrogate the roads, which if taken would have, most probably, turned things around significantly. When a newspaper columnist who, like yours truly, has not personally been tested in higher public office, sets out to interrogate issues of this nature, even apportioning blames here and there, all he is saying is that with the benefit of hindsight, some actions, other than those taken, would have redounded better to the country’s well-being and that the polity should have been a lot better than what it is today. We need not delay ourselves here by again enumerating things like insecurity, terror, corruption or the all-pervading fear in the land as some of the demons voraciously tearing at the very heart of Nigerians during the year. They have been too much of an everyday danger to forget, even momentarily. They have become so real they cumulatively succeeded in changing those things we have, for a very long time, come to regard as our unalterable lifestyles. For some, to now travel by air or by road has become a real problem. One now has to put his/her house in order, not knowing whether that journey would be the last since other real life-threatening demons are alive and kicking; waiting there in the wings: accidents, armed robbers –an army General was killed by some Hausa-Fulani urchins few kilometres to Lagos – and the fear of the ubiquitous kidnapper is real and present. Our already overwhelmed security people look on helpless, except where the kidnapped is the father or mother of a serving minister. That the spouse of the kidnapped is a former envoy, or legislator, now counts for nothing.

Plato’s theory of the Philosopher king, formulated in the REPUBLIC, in which formal laws would have been unnecessary because of the presumed rationality and virtue of the ruler, has been shown for what it is – a mere wishful thinking – since no man is God.

Leaders are therefore not immune to mistakes. What is, however, unforgivable, is a do-nothing leadership when horrors assail the citizenry at will as we have seen time and again in the course of the year. A leadership that shows no discernment, which knows not that infringements of the law should be handsomely punished, therefore merely increases the agony of a people. A leader has to lead by directing intelligently and effectively, or how did Professor Gana put it?One of the many problems Nigerians have had to endure this year has been mostly psychological and has to do with how corruption has simply ballooned. You no longer hear them steal in millions or even billions–though small ones like the pension woman in whose house stolen billions were found still do – they now basically do it in trillions. Listening to the National Assembly Committee on Pensions and Alhaji Maina bandy the many trillions that have been stolen from the pension funds of old people who now queue and die on pension lines had been thoroughly mind bogging. And the presidency looks on, happy and content, telling all that care that it has set up this committee or that since governance has since been concessioned to committees. Then, like Herod, the presidency simply washes off its hands from any responsibility, claiming that Jonathan is not the judiciary. And you begin to wonder whether the buck no longer stops at the president’s table.

The year 2012 has been something of a harvesting time for us as a people. We sowed the wind long ago and now, the whirlwind is here with a vengeance. While we cared less as a people, our rulers – not leaders – in the real sense of the word messed us up beyond repairs. General Obasanjo had left office handing over to persons who possessed none of his dare- devilry and so to deal with the demons he created, and left behind, had since become the problem.

Once his succession plan of self-perpetuation failed, he should have quickly re-ordered things and ensure that transparency became the order of the day, even, if only in the election process. Unfortunately, he elected to make our burden bigger by inflicting on us, as his immediate successor, a man who was ill and had n’t the wherewithal to shoulder the responsibilities of state. Were that limited to Yar Adua, may be, just maybe, we still could have put our house in order. But with President Jonathan’s own vaulting ambition, fuelled by the hate- induced politics of some PDP elders, our problems escalated. Edged on by the movers and shakers of the Southern wing of the PDP, with assurances that the North could do nothing, Jonathan threw his hat into the ring and the consequences have since bedeviled the country. The North, even if not as a conscious design, and by a very small portion of it, has since shown it can do a lot to make life real difficult for the average Nigerian but much more for its ruling class which today can no longer sleep with its two eyes closed. A little known, even beggarly Boko Haram, which was largely a helpmate to some insecure ANPP politicians in the North-East at the time, has since transmuted to a pan-regional, man-consuming terror gang with all the potentials to further transform to a regional army for those who lost power and want power back. Doubt this: look no further than President Jonathan shouting from the roof tops that Boko Haram has infiltrated his government. It has gotten far worse as Christians now go to church in the North, every Sunday, not knowing if they will not meet their maker therein.

And now to the pertinent questions as to roads not taken: Why did it not occur to President Jonathan that he would have had no option to remaining Yar Adua’s loyal deputy for four more years if the late President did not die? Why would the PDP, at both the individual and corporate levels, display such indiscipline that it could so easily jettison its zoning formula? What was it that drove the southern protagonists of Jonathan against their Northern counterparts who rightly believed there was more than a gentleman’s agreement on the issue of rotational presidency? Were a Northerner the president today, would Boko Haram have become this deadly? And, finally, with the reported collaboration between Boko Haram and other international terror organisations, is n’t Nigeria destined to be branded a terrorist country with all the attendant consequences?

Only the unappreciative would say that the South South, off which the country lives, does not deserve the presidency. But what would it have cost it to wait four more years?That faux pas, of Jonathan being pressured into contesting the last presidential election, is the very reason corruption has ballooned in the country. Candidate Jonathan had to outspend a very rich Abubakar Atiku, the ‘candidate’ of the North and a high net worth individual with an equally massive network. Funds subsequently came from sources known and unknown recouping which has seen the Jonathan government giving not a little helping hand to some of those who have subsequently fleeced the country. It is interesting, for instance, to note that before the Ribadu Report was messed up, it was already raking in billions of the monies owed the NNPC but that had to stop when the government panicked. Apparently some sacred cows must have been at work. A less compromised government would have been able to give the fight to those outright rogues who fraudulently claimed billions of naira on vessels that never as much as visited the West African coast, not to talk of bringing fuel to Nigeria. Now they are talking of plea bargaining; a route this government will ultimately support as it cannot bear to see its friends go to jail.

To be concluded; as the final part takes a look at the South-West – the solitary oasis in the country.

December 23, 2012
Did you do your best?

How well did you do in 2012? If you score yourself 100 percent or excellent, the above question is not for you. If you didn’t do too well or you didn’t accomplish the goals you set for yourself at the beginning of the year like me, you need to answer the question.

We all probably have various excuses why things didn’t work out for us and I quite agree that there are lots of factors beyond our control in a country like ours, but we need to sincerely answer these questions: Did you do your best? Did you take advantage of the opportunities you had? Were there not things that you should have done that you left undone?

This column was informed by the December 21 and 22, 2012 devotional reading from Our Daily Manna published by Dr Chris Kwakpovwe in which he recalled the encounter former President Jimmy Carter had with Admiral Hyman Rickover, former head of the U.S Nuclear Navy during an interview for a submarine programme.

“How did you stand in your class at the Naval Academy?” Rickover asked Carter. Believing he had done very well, Carter replied, “Sir, I stood fifty-ninth in a class of 820,” expecting to be congratulated, but he was not.

Instead, Rickover asked the unexpected question: Did you do your best?. A shocked Carter was honest enough to admit that he didn’t always do his best. “Why not?” the Naval Admiral probed further, leaving Carter dumbfounded as he slowly left the interview room.

Fifty-ninth in a class of 820 is a good position but Carter could have done better if he did his best always.

There is indeed a Carter in most of us. We forget that we always have to be at our best to be the best in whatever we do. A preacher once said that the difference between ordinary and extra-ordinary is the extra. Going the extra length with all the required diligence, knowledge, and passion is the attitude we need to succeed. There are, however, times we do all that is required and we don’t succeed, but we have to convince ourselves that we have done all that is required to be done.

Being honest about what we failed to do provides us the opportunity to take necessary steps to accomplish our goals. There is the tendency to always think that somebody else or a government policy is the cause of our failure but if we think deeply we may just find out that we are the cog in our own wheel of progress.

I set a number of goals for myself during this year which I didn’t accomplish. I don’t need any expert to tell me why I failed. I know I didn’t do my best. I know I procrastinated and didn’t act when I should have acted. I talked too much about my dreams and projects instead of acting on them.

For the remaining days of this year, critically review how well you have done and be determined to do better next year guided by the goal of doing your best always.

December 23, 2012