The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • Of our ‘dumbing-down’ culture (1)

    Of our ‘dumbing-down’ culture (1)

    Citizens need to get angry to insist that governments do the right thing

    Any of us in this country, particularly in the Lagos area are surprised at the reaction of employers and employees of Okada Mass Transit System to the Lagos State traffic law. Why should anyone be surprised that okada businessmen and some of the respectable citizens that have to rely on this mode of transport are up in arms against a law that is designed to bring sanity to vehicular movement in a city that can pass as the most clogged urban space in the universe?

    Why should anyone be amazed at the amount of noise by politics-for-the sake-of-power-and-privilege-only advocates calling for fire and brimstones on the governor of Lagos State duly elected by citizens to facilitate development in the state? The ubiquity of low taste and absence of long-term planning on the part of most of the middleclass men that have managed the country should be enough to disabuse the minds of okadaphiles of the belief that okada transport system is necessary or inevitable.

    The story of okada and of many other aspects of our country’s banalisation of important aspects of modern life is similar to that of a physically-challenged person being criticised by a casual critic. The casual critic said to the physically-challenged that the load on his head was not properly placed. The man in return admonished the critic to look down (instead of up at the load on his head) for the root of the problem. The root of the noise against the good people of the Lagos State House of Assembly and Governor Fashola who made and signed the recent traffic law is an outcome of decades of Nigeria’s trivialization of values that drive and sustain modernity elsewhere.

    Okada did not just spring up at a time when there was no government. It is one of the regrettable legacies of military dictatorship. Like the current constitution that emptied the country of its federal values, okada came into being under the nose of military dictators. In most countries with forward-looking rulers – military or civilian—okada as a mode of mass transit would have been prevented through right policies and legislations from surfacing in the first instance. The care-free attitude of military rulers when okada transportation emerged and of succeeding governments until Abuja and Port Harcourt blazed the trail of legislating against okada is still at work in other areas of our national life. The recent effort by the government of Lagos State to push the lever of transformation from primitivism to modernity is expected to be resisted not only by okada transporters but also by opportunistic politicians and even honest professionals who are not conversant with the historic duty of the middle class in modern times.

    The role of the middle class since the Renaissance and more especially since the Industrial Revolution is to work to improve the quality of life of the individual and of the society through establishment of standards and practices that are capable of refining the life of the citizenry. Since governance moved from feudal lords to members of the middle class, standards have improved generally at the hands of middle-class men and women in government and society. Such time-honoured middle-class values as commitment to personal security and safety; promoting intersection between individual’s success and the success of society as a whole; and acceptance by government of responsibility to provide transportation and communication infrastructures have been overlooked or ignored by government and cultural leaders in our country for too long, until a few governments recently started to take the risk of restoring some of these values. The scapegoating of Lagos State government for taking bold and brave steps to restore order to the transportation sector in the state is understandable. It is the result of decades of dumbing down of values that are central to sustaining modern life.

    Why would people who grow up not having safe roads to travel within and between towns in most states of the union not feel bad that Lagos State is trying to move the country’s most populous city from chaos to order? Why would citizens with no regular access to train or bus feel uncomfortable about okada mode of transportation? Why would citizens that migrate from villages without any trace of modern means of livelihood and living not feel angry that okada is being demonized in Lagos, the city that they have come to see as an anything-goes city that belongs to nobody?

    Why would citizens who migrate from villages where governments have no interest in how they get to their farms and places of work not feel scandalized that Lagos State feels obliged to regulate a chaotic transport system in the city? Why would citizens who travel on unsafe roads in 14-seater buses named Federal Government Assisted Mass Transit System not feel out of sort in a Lagos that says okada transporters must do their business in a way that is safe for majority of the citizens and residents of Lagos? People who have been degraded over the years cannot but feel cheated that any government in the country, particularly in what they think is a free-for-all state, certainly need help and re-education to grow out of the cultural inferiority they have been thrown into over the years.

    But the way out of the problem created by okada business is not to look for reasons to justify keeping okada as an acceptable mode of transporting citizens across the state. Okada should not have happened in the first place, but it is never too late or too risky to put an end to an unsafe business for citizens at large. Lagos State Government should be congratulated for embarking on a national project that is long overdue for remediation. If legislating against indiscriminate use of okada makes citizens angry, it may not be a bad thing at the end of the day. Citizens need to get sufficiently incensed to pluck the courage to insist that federal and state governments across the country should do the right thing: provide proper infrastructure for proper mass transportation. It is senseless to expect any responsible state government to feel good about an inherited policy to move over 17 million people by okada. Citizens need to be angered to the point that they are ready to tell their governments to do the right thing: provide transportation and communication infrastructure to encourage entrepreneurs to put more buses and taxis on the roads, to convey citizens in a dignified and safe manner.

    That Keke Marwa or Keke NAPEP is used in India or okada is used in Benin Republic is not a sufficient reason to rely on this mode of transportation in Nigeria. Trains, buses, and taxis are used in most countries of the world to transport citizens. Civilisation or modernisation is about copying good practices, not bad ones. Encouraging okada as a mode of transporting the masses in one of the most populous cities in the world is an illustration of a culture and government that have lost the will to protect citizens.

    To be continued next week.

  • Politics and impolitics

    Politics and impolitics

    The Ondo state election has come and gone. It is time to clear the gore on the political battle field. Snooper congratulates the declared winner, Dr Olusegun Rahman Mimiko. It was a tough and hard won victory. There were many fronts and many proxy battles. It was a close run thing. Snooper has never seen Mimiko so rattled and frazzled in his political life. Statistically, it was the political equivalent of a dead heat. But it is a good thing that the ACN has decided to put the election behind it. Democracy is about simple majority, and you cannot win all the time. It is time to retool and refocus.

    It was not a perfect election. But you cannot blame a river for being sluggish in midstream without looking at its source. As the late Dr Abel Goubadia famously noted, it is impossible to have a perfect election in a country where there is no proper record of birth and death; where there is no proper identification of citizens; where there is no valid census; and where public utility bills smack of elaborate forgery and outlandish fiction.

    Whether we like Attahiru Jega or not, the national outfit he leads is also a victim of systemic dysfunction. In the circumstances, one should congratulate Jega and his team for making the best of an impossible situation. It will be grossly partisan and unfair to dismiss the efforts the nation has made to heave away from the electoral chaos of the immediate past.

    In retrospect, the ACN made some strategic and tactical blunders. It allowed itself to be tricked into fighting the wrong battle and probably with the wrong choice of offensive weapons. It was unwise to have allowed the struggle to have been framed or perceived by the public as a contest of political titans. The Yoruba love their political heroes. But they also have profound empathy for the proverbial underdog.

    Better still, then, the heroic underdog. Once Mimiko was allowed to wear the garb of the heroic underdog fighting off the armada from Lagos and fictional imperialists and conquistadors from the metropole, the ACN had its back to the wall. By so doing, he was able to rally the sub-ethnic brotherhood. And by so allowing, the ACN was hoisted on the petard of its most potent weapon.

    There is a subtle dynamics to this politics of identity which goes to the heart of Yoruba character and which is deserving of more scholarly scrutiny. The Yoruba are Republican monarchists if ever there is such a contradiction or paradoxical formulation. They love their kings for the order and stability they bring to society. But they turn swiftly against them once they become overbearing and overreaching.

    For over 300 years, the Yoruba people have been engaged in a war of will and wits with their kings, sometimes reining them in and sometimes deposing or decapitating them. In the same breast, conservative and radical tendencies cohabit and coexist. When the ACN, spearheaded by the then Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu , were embroiled in political warfare with the PDP and the federal might as implacably represented by General Obasanjo, the Yoruba people supported them as heroic underdogs.

    They like the message of hope and redemption they brought. But when they believed they could sniff another hegemony in the making, they gave them an electoral black eye. Only political illiterates would construe this reversal of electoral fortunes as the swan song or the beginning of the end for ACN.

    Political dominance is not a football match to be won and lost overnight. Once the right lessons have been learnt and the right conclusion drawn, the ACN retains the balance of power in the old region. This is even more so in so far as the issues of a misbegotten federalism and a lop-sided structure remain on the top burner.

    This is why the post-election hysteria and alleluia, the shrill denunciation and unremitting demonisation of individuals, remain unhelpful. Rather than a solid analysis of the way forward, what has been on display is vindictive vitriol and crass defamation. Probably unknown to their vendors, these hate-surfeit castigations say more about the character and psychological state of their purveyors than the object of their hatred and fearful loathing.

    But if one can understand the caterwauling of the unenlightened, the ranting of those who have taken up permanent combat position on the social media and their fellow internet interns and internees of cyber caves, what can one say about otherwise respectable intellectuals who also indulge in the habit of fanning the embers of hatred and hostility?

    Surely if their aim is to capture power or to dislodge the ACN party from its regional stronghold, they must know that it takes more than surly diatribe and spiritual grandstanding to found an authentic party. It takes clarity of vision, psychological stamina, organisational discipline and a certain generosity of spirit which conduces to the surrender of self and ego to the collective self-interest.

    No one is saying that either the ACN or its leadership is a collection of saints. There are no saints in politics. In contemporary Nigeria, that will be the shortest suicide note in history. It was not for nothing that Charles de Gaulle described certain exceptional historical figures as “sacred monsters” Yet as we have noted, some of the current imperfections of party formations in Nigeria are traceable to the provenance of the Fourth Republic in military autocracy.

    In 1998 at the onset of party campaigns, General Obasanjo famously transported loyal delegates to the Jos Convention of the PDP all the way from Abeokuta in a sealed train. Appropriately, the wily military strategist bivouacked his democratic troops outside the tin city from whence he established contacts with the forward units of storm troopers already engaged in preliminary skirmishes.

    In a classic textbook military operation, the original founders and owners of the party were muscled out. They fled one by one and sometimes two by two. In an even more historic riposte, Alhaji Umaru Shinkafi, upon noticing that the retired senior military officers with whom he had founded the original APP were rapidly absconding, famously asked them whether their new “posting” was out. It was the beginning and end of the PDP as a truly democratic party. Till date, Shinkafi himself remains in a political sanatorium.

    It was these “shock and awe” tactics that the old Afenifere and the AD succumbed to. After mopping up stragglers from his party, the general turned his friendly bearish hug to the AD/Afenifere and the APP. Neither survived. In order not to court summary extinction, the ACN appears to have understudied and mastered the battle order of the PDP while perfecting its own grand initiative.

    In the process, it was almost inevitable that ascendant party in Yoruba land would pick the same virus that has infected its much loathed bete noire. The symptoms include militarisation, monetisation, regimentation, the use of camouflage and deception and the tight leash on party internal democratic procedure in order to ward off infiltration and mole-planting. Ironically, it was the last two that would prove fatal to the party’s aspiration in Ondo. As internal and external pressures for genuine democracy grow, as the PDP is forced by failure to relax its vice-like grip on the nation, the other parties will also find themselves forcibly democratising and liberalising their internal procedures.

    Once again, and in as much as one regrets the political demise of revered elders, it is the old Afenifere that appears set to become the principal casualty of the unfurling dynamics. Perhaps this is just as well since there is time for everything. You cannot continue to invoke the name and sacred memory of a man in whose political ideals you know longer believe in. It is not what you say that matters, but what you do and are seen and perceived to be doing. Politics is too serious a business to be left in the hands of clergy men and retired bishops.

    Unable to grasp and comprehend the strange irrational dynamics of new political developments, fighting a new war with old weapons, the Afenifere has in the last decade been outsmarted twice from opposite ends of the political spectrum. First by Obasanjo and the PDP which infiltrated and destroyed their party, and then by the better-organised and better focused ACN that stole their ideological thunder.

    Now in a political development that will put their political twilight in acute jeopardy, they are set, bound and trussed, to deliver themselves as political hostages to the same reactionary forces they have heroically battled all their life. Snooper is personally aware that not all the old men are in tune with the retrogressive antics of their old comrades. But they cannot break ranks publicly.

    God forbid, if any of these great men were to answer the last call at this moment, will it be governor Mimiko’s lot to serve as the solitary pall bearer? Mimiko himself is too wily and wary a politician to serve as lone chief mourner in turbulent and adversarial circumstances. This is the major danger of the Masada complex, of fighting to the last man. There will be no one left to serve as a mourner.

    If it is not impudent and impolitic to advise our political patriarchs, the way forward is not to further alienate the ACN and its leadership. With five core Yoruba states under its control, ACN looms large in the old region. Politics of bitterness and hatred only compound and aggravate errors of judgement. The Afenifere grandees should seek out leading luminaries in the old region who still admire them but who also have leverage with the ACN leadership to broker a truce between them and their estranged younger comrades. As the late Chief S.O Gbadamosi famously rued at Ile-Ife during the June !2 crisis, what will they tell the late sage when they finally meet up?

  • Flying to conclusion

    ( Okon delivers his magisterial verdict)

    Snooper sympathises and commiserates with our avid aviator and flying governor of Taraba state, Danbaba Suntai, as he is swapped up in a German hospital battling life-threatening injuries. It was reported that Suntai’s personally piloted light aircraft crashed about 38 miles to Yola Airport on the Yola-Numan Road hours after departing his native Taraba state from a private airstrip.

    They are grave questions bordering on state and national security to ask when a serving governor is perpetually prone to taking personally to the sky. It is said that after pumping billions of naira in an unviable airport, Suntai summarily abandoned this project only to build for himself an airstrip near his village of Suntai. In obedience to good taste and compassion, we will leave further questions until the grounded governor fully recovers. From a remote distance, Suntai looks like a decent and urbane fellow who can be fruitfully engaged.

    Still from a purely human angle, snooper cannot hold back a grudging admiration for Danbaba Suntai’s pluck and courage. There is something to be said for any individual who has conquered humanity’s natural fear of dizzying heights and the starry stratosphere. For those who have been bitten by the bug, next to the fear of flying is the fear of not flying.

    Those who have heard or read about the exploits of Antoine De Saint-Exupery, the great French aviator, will know what we mean. The dapper and Bohemian Frenchman practically lived in the skies and died there. Remarkable poet, writer and philosopher, Saint-Exupery flew several solo missions for war and peace in his rudimentary, ill-equipped planes until he met a watery end off the coast of North Africa.

    And those who have read Charles Lindbergh’s remarkable memoir, Hour of Gold; Hour of Lead, will know what it means for a solitary individual to engage the demons of the skies without adequate provision or reliable aeronautical data. Lindbergh was the first human to fly solo across the Atlantic from America to Europe.

    It has been noted that Danbaba Suntai’s first love was flying. Even though he secured admission to that famous aeronautical institution in Florida, he was cheated out of contention by sheer financial adversity. He trained as a pharmacist instead. But even as an elected governor, the chap from Suntai never forgot his first love. Obviously by private arrangement, he sought and secured admission to the Aviation School in Zaria where he was trained to become a pilot.

    But in a piece of delectable irony, Snooper had been thinking that the controversy as to whether Suntai was a trained pilot was thus resolved when an angry listener to Gbenga Aruleba’s morning programme on AIT shot back to claim that what the governor went through was a “crash programme.”

    It was at this juncture that the inevitable Okon crashed into his master’s bedroom.

    “Oga dem don say dem governor dem give am crash programme.” the mad boy sneered.

    “So, what is your own there?” snooper demanded angrily.

    “No be say dem train am to crash be dat? Abi na Okon’s head no correct again?” the crazy boy shot back and was promptly expelled from the room.

    It all reminds one of a story from the famous Readers’ Digest. Locked into the blue and eerie skies, a trainee paratrooper once asked his trainer what would happen should the parachute refuse to open. The gruff old warrior took a look at the frightened fellow and then shot back. “That, my boy, is what they call jumping to conclusion!” We must hope and pray that His Excellency has not flown to conclusion.

  • “This is madness”——Mohammed Shuwa

    Dear readers, those were the exact words of the late General Mohammed Shuwa upon landing in the country on the morning of February 19, 1976 only to discover that General Murtala Mohammed, his Kano compatriot and head of state, had been assassinated in an abortive military uprising. Although a most senior and respected general, Shuwa had loyally elected to serve under Mohammed as a member of the Federal Executive Council.

    Today, 36 years after, the country seems to be under the spell of a worse madness. On Friday, this pious and quiet general was reportedly gunned down by Boko Haram insurgents in Maiduguri. If a man could survive the civil war as one of its top commanders only to succumb to a violent sect, something is definitely going on. An endgame is unfolding in the north which could spell terminal disaster for the entire country.

    General Shuwa was by all accounts a first class officer, a first rate gentleman and a very humane and compassionate man. May his gentle and noble soul rest in peace.

  • Of private planes, police copters, air ambulances and fire engines

    Why is it that governance in this country is being done by people who are more interested in standing in front of the mirror and asking each morning: ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest and most vain of them all?’

    Today, I want to honour all my readers. I thank you all indeed for your interest and perseverance in reading this column, whether the messages have been accessible to you or not. Your patronage has proved that you are made of sterner stuff than I am. I acknowledge all the messages that have encouraged me, not so much because the writers like what I am doing but because they believe in the philosophy that says it is better to let a child destroy its toys than destroy the house. This translates to the fact that they think it is better to let me write each week than to let me go around stealing.

    I also acknowledge all the messages that have not been so encouraging, some even downright insulting. I have nothing but great respect for their taste in writing. I mean, a woman who takes herself and her money to the market cannot be argued against. Whose business is it if she brings home shit? Some readers have complained that my points have a habit of hiding beneath their words; why can’t I write straight? Please be patient with me, the problem springs from a personality disorder. You see, I find that I cannot walk straight.

    I have nothing in particular in mind to write about this week, so I have just allowed my mind to roam around on its own. And roam it has done. First, it alighted ponderously on the injustices of life. Why, for instance, should holidays be given and withdrawn? Why should the government give a holiday on Thursday and withdraw it on Monday? What is the meaning of declaring only two days of holidays for the nation? What are the remaining days for: work? I ask you, is that fair?

    Then my mind went to the recent events in the country, particularly the recent crash of a governor’s ‘private plane’ and it did some somersaults, my mind that is, not the plane. How on earth is a governor able to afford a ‘private plane’? Is his state able to afford a modern, 21st century transportation or electricity system or housing or water or hospital or living standard or any standard for its citizens? What roils the mind is that you can’t just decide to go and greet your friend with those things. Where will you pack it, your friend’s bicycle shed? And then rumour has it that there are many other governors on the waiting list for these winged animals, waiting to buy them that is, and maybe fly them and crash them. What is just wrong with us in this country that robs us of all thoughtfulness? I hear one of them powerful government people bought one of those planes, and, not having too many places to go with it, had to leave the thing hanging around all day many days in its hangar, attracting very hefty daily parking fees, of course, and increasing our fuel consumption. Now, I have to struggle for fuel with their stupid planes.

    Obviously, not enough has been done to discourage governors from acquiring properties for the state and registering them in their own personal names. Too many states are doing it. It is unheard of that state structures are made and left to rot while governors feast and gorge themselves to death on public treasures. For example, while governors are having private planes, the police do not have helicopters to fight and chase after criminals; while governors are having private planes, there are no road or air ambulances to transport critically sick patients or victims of crashes (like that governor!) to hospitals quick and fast (sorry, forgot, no hospitals); while governors are having private planes, there are no working fire engines to fight fires in many states (sorry, no ready water sources); while governors are having private planes, I have to ride my jalopy on pot-hole ridden roads … you know, I could really turn this into a song if you don’t stop me. Ok. I’ll stop myself. But why is it that governance in this country is being done by people who are more interested in standing in front of the mirror and asking each morning: ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest and most vain of them all?’ Ah, my mind does travel, does it not? Wait yet.

    Next, my mind flitted to the weather. These days, you hardly know where you are with the weather. First, it blows hot you can almost use the tap water for tea, then so cold you need a candle under your teacup to keep it warm before you are through sipping it. Then it blows hot again you don’t know whether to remove your scalp to get some air into your brains, then so cold again you’re warming your hands on the boiling ring. Now, it gets so warm you’re beginning to think your skin is expendable, then… It has got to the point now you don’t know what temperature you want your tea: hot, so you can blow it cool, or cool, so you can blow it hot. The situation is much like the story of some European policemen on the trails of a wanted criminal. By the time they found him, he was frozen stiff in a snow storm. Yes, it was their man all right, but no, they no longer wanted him.

    The weather seems to have settled on a mild, warm undecidedness, has it not? I think a little dryness is even appearing in the distance, you know, the kind that ushers in the festive period. Ah, Christmas! When I wrinkled my little nose at the air, smelling nothing but body odour, I thought I caught a whiff of some dryness too. I thought I could even spy a little star in the distance, but a little voice in my head said that could be the economy making me see stars. Anyway, there is no doubt about it, it is time to bring out the lights cause the seasons, they are a-changing! This time, I do not want to be unprepared. In the last festive season, I was a little unprepared cause there had been this rumour that it had been cancelled so when it came, it caught me napping, like the foolish virgins. I also don’t want to be like the clueless individual who said ‘Its Christmas? Nobody told me’.

    That’s right, my mind has been roving; it even went over the economy. What with fuel shortage and all, prices are through the roof. Now, all I can do is rant and wish for the day I will be able to disdain a food item because of the high price and proudly display my own alternative: a farm. I also look forward to the day I will be able to disdain our petroleum product because it is inaccessible (large crowd around the pump) and expensive (don’t think anyone knows how much it is per litre now) and proudly display my own alternative: my bicycle (fresh air and exercise besides). I say, I look forward to the day I will be able to disdain the Nigerian government and proudly present my own alternative: an island of my own. Wait, I think my mind is roving too far. See you soon, weather permitting.

  • Fighting corruption in an unserious, horrendously corrupt country

    Nigeria now holds the record of the country with the highest number of private jets in Africa

    In the article, Nigeria: Corruption is thy name, 1 July, 2012, I wrote as follows: ‘Under this government corruption mushrooms by the day and the national assembly daily compounds it with disclosures of worse instances of corruption like we see in every of its probes, the Power and oil subsidy probes being the worst cases. Nigeria is daily being ripped apart by its elected officials, by party men and their over pampered children that it will not be a surprise if we woke up one day soon to learn that the country has, in fact, been auctioned by these predators and all we see is a government clue-lessly wringing its hands’, totally unable to confront the very phenomenon that ensured its victory at the polls in the first instance’’. Corruption in Nigeria is not only endemic, it is systemic. It has become the very oxygen on which the country survives. Election campaigns are run mostly on sleaze money and, at the Federal level where you could spend a million times the amount you need to succeed at state elections, appointment to key offices of state is determined by who gave the highest. An appointee’s immediate concern in office, therefore, is to make tenfold or more, the amount of money he ploughed in, even though originally from proceeds of corruption.

    Nigerians shouted hurray when in ’99, Obasanjo’s very first bill was an anti-corruption bill but only the uninitiated could have been taken in by that joke knowing full well that the President had come out of Abacha’s dungeon broke and broken but yet ran a campaign which was not cheap by Nigerian standards. Money had come from sources known and unknown and a retired general and friend of the candidate, must have committed so much money to the project that he had no qualms in declaring publicly he would have to go on exile should Obasanjo lose the election.

    Obasanjo had himself succeeded an administration which holds the record of depleting the country’s foreign reserve the most and, if evidence given at the Oputa panel by a one-time Abacha security chief were to be believed and acted upon, there will at least be one more person in Nigerian prisons today. Nor can Nigerians easily forget the 12.4 billion dollar oil scam of the Babangida era. This is to say corruption has come a long way in Nigeria.

    But if elements within the Nigerian military have so unabashedly dealt with the country , their civilian counterparts have taken corruption to higher levels because those who should have dealt with them are themselves products of corruption. So unremitting has been the unbridled looting by political office holders since ’99, that Nigeria, a thoroughly wretched country with most of its citizens surviving on nothing more than a dollar a day, now holds the record as the country with the highest number of private jets in Africa. From the church, to the podium, from bank vaults to even direct budgetary allocations which are now routinely padded by both the National Assembly and its state counterparts, unexplainable tithes that pastors encourage with copious biblical quotations, continue to swell the number of private jets in a blighted country like Nigeria.

    I laughed to my heart’s content this past week when I read the President promising that there will be no sacred cows in his government’s handling of the latest scam about to be made public from the Ribadu committee. Nigerians should ask Jonathan where he got his new voice and verve. What happened to past scams -Halliburton, Siemens etc – concerning which foreign countries have already jailed their citizens who were mere fringe accomplices? Or could it be that he has now forsaken his 2015 presidential ambition for which cause corruption and corrupt elements have to be romanced rather than punished? Or from which sources would the outlandishly expensive 2011 campaign which effortlessly dwarfed the U.S super pacs be replicated in 2015? Since corruption breeds corruption, Nigerians were not surprised that children of the political high and mighty and their business partners dominated the list of those who ate the nation raw through the fake oil subsidies which shot up more than tenfold what was budgeted for the current financial year. So what exactly will now make the President fight corruption seriously?

    Nor can anything be more nauseating than the thoroughly embarrassing manner the highly compromised Nigerian judiciary has continued to collude with former governors and several politicians standing charges of corruption in courts all over the country needlessly vitiating and rendering useless, all the efforts by the anti-corruption agencies even now that it appears they are no longer deployed after political opponents as was the case during the Obasanjo administration. Mrs Waziri, a former EFCC Chairman, literally shouted herself hoarse bemoaning the role the courts played in the trial of those hauled before them. It actually got so bad Dr Odili, one time River’s state governor, has now for over 5 years, been shielded from court trials even when the charges against him are extremely weighty.

    While corruption in Nigeria used to be essentially within the Police and the old NEPA today, the mother of all corruption is to be found in the NNPC which NEITI Chairman, Professor Assisi Asobie, confirmed as lacking in transparency and due process, and Pension Funds. In the case of the latter, the Chairman of the committee charged with auditing it recently reported that a minimum of N300 Million is stolen weekly from the Police pension fund whilst, not too long ago, sums running into billions of naira were discovered in the homes of government officials. So humongous has corruption become in Nigeria that the outside world has taken notice.

    Recently, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation which established the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership with a $5 million initial payment and a $200,000 annual payment for life to African presidents who deliver security, health, education and economic development to their nations, and publishes the Ibrahim Index of African Governance ranking the performance of all 53 African countries released its 2012 results.

    . For the first time since its inception, Nigeria was ranked amongst its lowest 10 sharing that oddity with African countries that have been declared serially as failed states, among them Eritrea, Zimbabwe, Chad and Equatorial Guinea, a country generally known as the most corrupt country in the world. That is where the largest and, unarguably, the most corrupt political rally in Africa. has taken a country as blessed as Nigeria.

    In the utmost hope that the consciences of these predators, these dealers inappropriately called leaders, can still be pricked, let me conclude this week’s article by recalling .Opeyemi Agbaje’s dirge on the consequences of corruption in Nigeria. Wrote Agbaje recently: ‘‘Corruption means that at least 100 million Nigerians live on less than a dollar per day; it means that thousands of infants die before their first birthday due to poverty. It means that life expectancy for the average adult Nigerian is less than 50 years; that millions of destinies are ruined as lack of educational facilities ensures that individuals who have the intellectual potential to be university professors end up only as primary school teachers! I am convinced that corruption has reached a stage at which, if not drastically curtailed, it will destroy Nigeria’.

    You can only pity these fools who stock most of their loot in faraway countries where , should they die suddenly, it is uncertain if members of their family can access it.

  • The teacher in Governor Wamakko

    The teacher in Governor Wamakko

    His Excellency should not have flogged the PHCN officials

    Governor Aliyu Wamakko of Sokoto State reportedly flogged the business manager of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) Gwiwa Business Unit, Sokoto State, Moses Osigwe, an engineer, on October 20, for failing to supply electricity to his community, Wamako. That, naturally has brought him into opprobrium in the eyes of many Nigerians. The Acting Managing Director of Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company (KEDC), a subsidiary of the PHCN, Mohammed Adamu, told the story better: “On Saturday, 20th October, 2012, an unusual and unfortunate event took place which was beyond our comprehension. On the said date, our business manager, Gwiwa Business Unit, Sokoto State, Moses Osigwe, was invited by the Executive Governor of the state, Aliyu Magatarkada Wamakko to his personal residence, over the issue of lack of power supply to his hometown, Wamakko, as a result of a failed 2.5MVA transformer. He accused our staff of deliberately denying his community, Wamakko, of power supply. As the business manager was trying to explain to him, the governor just brought out a horse whip (popularly known as bulala in Hausa language) and lashed him to a pulp”.

    But that appears to be only a part of the story. A report in another daily that gave what looked like a fuller account of the situation said the governor, having been worried that his people did not have light, decided to invite a PHCN official and find out what was required to make his people have light. According to that report, he was told about N17million would be needed to purchase a new transformer, cables, and other items that were necessary for the installation, an amount the governor promptly approved. It was when there was no improvement after all these that he invited the business manager and two others – Isyaku Daura, Officer 2 (Electrical) and Nuruddeen Mohammed, Staff 1 (Lines) to his office to find out from them why his people still did not have light. When the business manager could not give a satisfactory answer, the governor became annoyed and flogged him.

    If the report is true that the governor actually gave N17million to ensure that the people in his town have light, without doubt, he has every reason to be pained. This is especially so that electricity supply to many parts of the country improved in the past few months. At any rate, that is what many state governments do these days to ensure that PHCN delivers electricity to as many people as possible in their states. But there are other questions begging for answers. Is the blackout peculiar to the people of Wamakko town or is it state-wide? If it is state-wide, why the special attention to Wamakko?

    Without doubt, the governor should be sufficiently concerned about the welfare of citizens of his state. He should doubly feel sad that after providing what he was told was required to supply his community light (that is assuming that this was a correct version of the story), light remained elusive. But this is what millions of Nigerians experience daily in the hands of the PHCN. Although its top shots always insist that communities do not have to contribute money towards the repairs or replacement of its transformers or other equipment, the fact is that many communities still go ahead to contribute money towards the same purpose so that their cases could be promptly attended to.

    In some instances, they are, whilst in many others, the problems persist in spite of the involuntary contributions electricity consumers make to have electricity. Unfortunately, no receipts are issued for these monies because, apparently, they must have gone into private pockets since the organisation insists it does not take such monies from individuals. And, in the absence of receipts, it is difficult to prove that such monies changed hands. Again, where it can be proved, not many people would want to go public that they parted with the money because of the implications.

    May be Governor Wamakko has been hearing about such cases and could never have imagined that he could be a victim, at least not whilst he is governor. So, it is as well another case of the rich also cry. And it is good for the system because part of our problem is that those in leadership positions hardly understand the pains of the governed because they do not have first-hand experience of the pains.

    All said, however, though I do not like the attitude of many PHCN staff to their jobs, and I am sure many Nigerians are on the same page with me on this, (as a matter of fact, many of them would say serves them (PHCN) staff right), the fact remains that the governor should have controlled his anger. He ought not have embarked on self-help as he did. This is the only reason I am supporting the electricity workers in the zone who have asked the governor to tender an unreserved apology to the three PHCN staff assaulted within seven days, and also to pay compensation to them. It is sad that the governor did not tender the apology within the seven days not to talk of compensating the PHCN staff.

    It is actions like this that make many people to be clamouring for the abrogation of the immunity clause from our constitution. One gets the impression that the governor is still not convinced that he did any wrong by flogging the PHCN staff and then handing them over to his security details to ‘perfect’ what he had started.

    In the interest of the exalted position of governor that he occupies, Governor Wamakko should apologise for his actions. A situation where the electricity workers in the zone would put everybody in darkness just because of what His Excellency has done is not good enough. When that happens, many people who never knew about the incident would get to know because news travels fast and far in these days of information technology. And most people will usually side with the underdog, in this case, the PHCN staff.

    As I said earlier, it is painful to pay for a service that is not delivered; but then, there are some actions that one would not expect certain persons to do, one of such is for a governor to flog a public official. Did it not occur to the governor that things might have gone awry during the flogging if Mr Osigwe had engaged in a scuffle with him? We thank God however that this did not happen just as well that His Excellency was not sufficiently provoked to repeat the Amakiri episode. Amakiri was a journalist who was flogged and his hair shaved on the orders of former military governor of Rivers State, retired Cdr. Alfred Diete-Spiff in 1975.

    Obviously, Governor Wamakko allowed the teacher in him to prevail (the governor was once a teacher). But that was wrong. Provocative as the case might seem, the governor should have allowed the governor in him, rather than the teacher, to prevail. It is teachers, particularly those of old that do not spare the rod so as not to spoil the child. The governor should have spared the rod.

  • Boko Haram’s curious peace offer

    Boko Haram’s curious peace offer

    Last week, the Islamic sect, Boko Haram, unexpectedly proposed dialogue with the Goodluck Jonathan government wearied by years of uprising in the Northeast. The structure and terms of the dialogue, which the sect expects could lead to a truce and possibly peace, are truly bewildering. But the offer comes at a time of increasing turmoil in that region and amidst fears the violence could still spill over to other parts of the country and even beyond. The sect says it is prepared to give dialogue a chance if the government in turn shows some sincerity in negotiating an end to the violence that has undermined governance in that region since 2009.

    Interestingly, the terms of the Boko Haram offer are neither complex nor controversial. Speaking in a telephone conference with journalists in Maiduguri, the deputy leader of the sect, Abu Mohammed Ibn Abdulazeez, says the sect wants the government to arrest and prosecute the former governor of Borno State, Ali Modu Sherrif, with whom it has a long-standing axe to grind, compensate the sect for its losses, rebuild Mosques destroyed in the 2009 uprising led by the former leader, Mohammed Yusuf, release all arrested sect members, rehabilitate displaced wives and children of members, and ensure that the dialogue take place in Saudi Arabia. It is not the business of the sect what the government hopes to do for Boko Haram victims whose lives and businesses have been shattered. But as difficult as these terms seem, it is unlikely they would be impossible to surmount.

    What is in fact difficult is the structure of the dialogue. The sect has asked for what is unprecedented in the annals of peace talks, a request the federal government in its first reaction has not appeared to give deep thoughts to. The sect takes the unusual step of listing the names of those who should represent the government in the talks, and also supplying the names of those who should represent the sect. In other words, the sect does not really expect the government to have a say over who should represent the country, and definitely no say whatsoever over who should represent the sect. As a chronicler of modern history, Palladium cannot recall one instance in which those who levy war against the state have such total control over peace terms and structures. Though the sect was gracious enough to list only five names to represent it, it magnanimously conceded six names to the government side. But it retains control in its entirety over who should sit at the negotiating table. Such temerity.

    If indeed it is true that the dialogue offer is really coming from the Boko Haram leadership, it is likely the Jonathan government will give the sect some attention. My private doubts, however, are that the sect merely wishes to needle the government with carrots that are far from anyone’s reach, and taunt it with an offer the sect knows will be rejected offhand. I have never supported dialogue between the government and terrorists, in particular because of the nature of the Boko Haram war against the people of Nigeria. Though Abdulazeez is now attempting to dissociate the sect from much of the violence that has brought the northern parts of the country to heel, claiming that criminal and political Boko Haram were behind some of the violence, it is a fact that the sect itself had in the past claimed responsibility for bombing places of worship and remorselessly indicated its proselytising mission to subject about a half of the country to Sharia rule.

    However, I acknowledge that the poignancy of my suggestion that the sect be defeated, both because of its incendiary objectives and its cruel and divisive methods, has been considerably blunted by the scorched-earth methods deployed by the Joint Task Force (JTF) in fighting the insurgency in the region. This column had in recent months drawn attention to the complaints by Borno Elders against the indiscriminate use of force by security agents and the extra-judicial killings that have become a part of the war against the sect. As the latest Amnesty International (AI) report on the crisis shows, the Nigerian government’s unorthodox approach to pacifying the region has led to massive human rights violations. But rather than investigate the Borno Elders’ and Amnesty’s claims, the government has appeared to connive at the unlawful means employed by the JTF in tackling the crisis.

    The sect is probably right to say that much of the violence taking place in the Northeast is inspired by forces outside the control of the original Boko Haram. Having set the genie loose, however, the sect’s leaders have proved unable to rein in the renegades who carry out killings in the name of the sect. This ubiquitousness of the sect and its look-alikes, apart from weakening their control, may also have partly convinced the sect’s original leaders that in the end both their goals and the control they so earnestly desire to exercise may even prove difficult to sustain in the long run. The fact is that violence in the region is spiralling out of the control of any group, whether of the real Boko Haram or of the fake Boko Haram, including out of the hands of those who are suspected to be the sponsors of the sect. And as much as the people would have loved to cooperate with the JTF to help end the menace, the security agencies have themselves virtually completely alienated the local populace by their hostile and spiteful methods.

    The Boko Haram offer may be curious and dishonest, but it is even more unlikely that they sought the approval of those whose names they have haughtily put forward to represent the government side in the negotiations. Gen Muhhamadu Buhari would of course not agree to by pigeonholed by the sect, for he is smart enough to know that whatever he undertakes in the search for peace would be misconstrued and even used against him both now and in the future. Already, his party, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), has spurned the mediatory offer to the general to be a part of the negotiating team. He is unlikely to accept the offer even if it came from the government itself.

    Though I have long advocated that the sect be defeated, I do not see that prospect happening anytime soon. The reason is that the security agencies have alienated the local populace, carried out extra-judicial killings, and generally fought the terrorists with unremitting brutishness. The crisis will naturally continue to spiral. Worse, there is a high possibility that the government’s repressive tactics will gradually turn the hearts of the people towards Boko Haram, especially if the sect cleans up its act, fights those it describes as criminal and political Boko Haram, and shows more consideration to the local populace and sensitivity to their plight. To prevent this from happening, the military authorities must urgently reorganise the fighting forces in the region, insist that officers adhere scrupulously to the rules of engagement, and openly punish every infraction by undisciplined soldiers.

    Given some of the recent high-profile killings in the Northeast, many of which were carried out by unknown gunmen, I believe the saddened elders and people of the region would welcome and back concrete and sensible initiatives to bring the violence to an end. The killing of the distinguished civil war general, Muhammadu Shuwa, is a case in point. The government must not think it has all the time in the world, or that the longer the war goes on the more likely the sect would run out of steam. The fear in some quarters is that the longer the war, the higher the chance that one careless killing, whether normal or extra-judicial, or whether inspired by government security agencies or Boko Haram itself, could push the country over the cliff.

    Boko Haram has made its own suggestions, as dishonest as the sect may seem. Let the government, which has so far proved incompetent in fighting the menace or finding a way out, also come up with its own initiative to bring the insurgency to an end, re-establish peace, more importantly enthrone justice, which it appears incapable of, and begin the process of rebuilding the blighted Northeast and extirpating the reasons that provoked the rebellion in the first instance. Certainly, we do not have all the time in the world.

  • Ribadu committee, oil politics and test of leadership

    In unseemly disagreement broke out on Friday among members of the Petroleum Revenue Special Task Force as the committee chairman Mallam Nuhu Ribadu submitted the final report to the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, and President Goodluck Jonathan. The disagreement, which took place at the Presidential Villa, was triggered by two committee members, Mr Stephen Oronsaye and Ben Oti, who both tried to rubbish the report by describing it as one-sided, hasty and full of inaccuracies. But Ribadu and other committee members stood their ground and described the two dissenters as compromised board members of the NNPC who absented themselves from the committee’s meetings since the special panel was constituted in February.

    The substance of the quarrel was that the report was too harsh in its conclusion that Petroleum ministers since 2008, including Alison-Madueke, gave out seven discretionary oil licences, and cannot account for the $183m (N28.73bn) signature bonuses which the government should have received. The report also contained even harsher verdicts on the unprofitable way Nigeria’s oil and gas resources have been managed over the years. Though the president tried to assuage passion by calling on the dissenters to prepare a minority report, and the Petroleum minister also indicated she was neutral in the whole affair, it was clear to everyone that the disagreement suggested that far worse scandal lurks in the Petroleum ministry. In fact, Ribadu was so peeved by both the scale of indiscretions in the management of the oil industry and the attempts to cover them up that he took the unusual step of telling the public that aspects of the report leaked by Reuters to the world last week were emphatically no misrepresentation at all.

    I rejoice that the unseemly exchange happened before newsmen and in the presence of the president. As Ribadu hoped in his remarks during the presentation of the panel’s report, let us all believe that the government will have the courage to tackle the rot in the oil industry and rejigger its modus operandi. I am, however, privately pessimistic. Were it to be any other civilized country, the former oil ministers to whom the Ribadu report pointed the finger of guilt would be preparing their briefs to defend their integrity, and the current minister would be preparing to step aside.

    The open disagreement in the Council Chambers on Friday is also a testimony to the consistency of Ribadu himself. I once described the former EFCC chairman as too much in haste, too ambitious, and his judgement sometimes questionable, even wondering whether he could ever be a level-headed president were he to assume that office. But there is no question that he is a patriot and is unalterably committed to the stability and progress of his country. I was worried early in the year, when he was appointed to handle that special assignment, that the probe exercise was government’s gimmick to buy time over its fuel price hike misadventure, and to exploit the credibility of Ribadu. It is a relief that the former EFCC boss has acquitted himself well, though he sometimes finds it hard to disguise his inquisitorial tendency.

    Since his first public appointment, Ribadu has repeatedly given indication that he has the character of true leadership. It is not just honesty that fails most Nigerians when they face grave and impossible tests; what often fails them is the courage to look power in the face and say and do what is right. No matter how much the Jonathan president wants to dither over this report, I rate Ribadu’s performance as exemplary, and recommend his fearlessness and patriotism to aspiring leaders.

  • How crucial is state creation?

    Our legislators should amend the constitution in the direction of returning functional federalism to the polity

    Creation of new states is back on the front burner of the roster of the country’s lawmakers. Senior members of the National Assembly have been falling over each other to encourage petitions for new states, even after the latest count puts applications for new states at over 30. It appears that a business-as-usual approach to the 1999 Constitution may miss the point about the country’s economic realities vis-à-vis state creation.

    The National Assembly’s focus on creation of states is not in terms of changing constitutional provisions for state creation. From the Senate President’s recent of promise of state to some communities, it is clear that the Assembly is preoccupied with creating additional states. The country has had 36 states for over twelve years. The song by most states about lack of funds for development must make citizens curious about the enthusiasm of lawmakers to create state as part of the process of amending the constitution. To use the argument of bringing governments close or closer to the governed as a reason for adding to the current 36 states is to deliberately ignore the facts on the ground.

    When the first twelve states were created during the civil war, Nigerians were assured that doing so would bring governments to the door step of the people. Each time new states were added to the twelve until General Abacha pushed the number to its present 36 states, Nigerians were told by petitioners for new states that the primary motive was to bring the government closer to the grassroots. This promise is yet to be fulfilled in most of the states. Apart from creation of bloated bureaucracy in each state, nothing significant has happened to most of the states created since 1975.

    Residents of 36 states created from the original 4 regions still migrate in droves to Lagos in search of livelihood. Nothing illustrates the absence of economic viability in most of the existing states than ceaseless flow of migrants to become okada riders in Lagos. Of course, all the states had succeeded in creating a class of provincial politicians and rulers that have become wealthy in the last forty years of state multiplication. But creating a few wealthy rulers, civil servants, traditional rulers, and political jobbers is not enough reason for new states that are not economically viable, like most of the others created in the past.

    What is driving the petition for new states may not be, as some legislators have suggested, the assumption that some communities in multiethnic states feel dominated and marginalized to the extent that they need to ask for new states in which they can realize their ethnic aspirations and identities. It may also not be for the reason of bringing government closer to the people, as this should have been achieved through 774 local governments.

    There is no urgent reason for creation of new states. If our legislators need something to do, they should take a critical look at the constitution with a view to amending it in the direction of returning functional federalism to the polity, economy, and society. Adding to the existing 36 or 37 states shows that those clamouring for states and legislators that are goading them are just interested in free money from oil revenue. Creating additional states will still not remove the desire for politics of identity in a country with over 250 ethnic groups. There is a need for a more imaginative way to manage the country’s cultural diversity than creating states to gulp the meager resources that come to the federation account from petroleum and gas, at the expense of citizens living in the endangered environment of oil exploitation.

    If bringing government close to the grassroots is a value to be defended, then communities now calling for new states should be calling for new local governments. But Nigeria at present has more local governments than most countries on earth. With 774 local governments, there is still no evidence that the governments do enough for people at the grassroots to feel their presence. Some states are known to donate, in the name of poverty alleviation, okada to their citizens to take to Lagos for livelihood. What should inspire our lawmakers is not the principle of bringing governments closer to the people, because the goal post is likely to be shifted by petitioners for new states. What is direly needed is some measure of legislative creativity that will make existing 36 states and 774 local governments work in and for the interest of citizens. Constitutional reinforcement of a regional approach to development and diversity management promises more than further fragmentation of existing states into sultanates.

    How does one justify creating new states that will increase recurrent expenditure across the country at the expense of capital expenditure in a country where executive and legislative leaders claim that the country does not have adequate resources to provide regular electricity, create and maintain essential infrastructure, and provide functional education to citizens? What lawmakers need to do is to work towards amendment of the section on creation of new states. Communities that want to become states within existing states should first be made to conduct referendum within such communities before submitting petitions to the national assembly for consideration. Encouraging applications for new states, as provided in the current constitution, from a handful of self-appointed leaders or traditional rulers has the capacity to nurture frivolity. What can be more frivolous than the request for tens of new states in a country that already has 36 states and 774 local governments, most of which cannot carry out their statutory functions?

    The list of issues that the National Assembly wants selected citizens to consider in one-day of public hearing across the 36 states portends lack of seriousness on the part of those working on constitutional amendment. The most cited complaint about the 1999 Constitution is over concentration of powers and functions at the centre and the need for power devolution to the states. Creation of state appears to be a distraction from the real problem: returning a federal constitution to the country.