The Nation Newspaper

Category: Ropo Sekoni

  • Loot, recovery, and re-use

    Loot, recovery, and re-use

    For example, it is still not clear how much of what was recovered from the Abacha loot had been used wisely or how much had been sucked up by new looters of old loot

    With so much to hear in the news about how much cash and other assets have been recovered from Nigeria’s thieves of state, it cannot but be tempting to join the debate from the perspective of development journalism on how to use whatever is taken back from looters.

    It is too soon to guess how much money would come to the country’s common purse, particularly since the federal government is not certain about how much exactly has been recovered so far. But it is not premature to start thinking about how best to use whatever is recovered while counting what comes in from week to week. For example, only a few days ago, the Minister of Transportation claimed in London that the government had recovered N3.4 trillion in cash and assets so far while his Information and Culture counterpart reported that only N78 billion and $3 million dollars had been recovered outside non-cash assets but that $9 billion has been blocked while pursuing final release of such funds in court. The Minister of Information added that what has been retrieved from looters so far cannot affect the country’s development in any noticeable way, as what is in so far is not enough to pay 50% of the federal government’s monthly wage bill of N165 billion, not to talk of the debt of N2 trillion owed to contractors presumably from past governments.

    Given the religious attachment of President Buhari to fighting corruption to death before corruption itself kills the country, it is expected that more funds will roll in as the fight against corruption heats up. In addition, given the fact that for decades Nigeria was a poster child for political and bureaucratic corruption, Nigerians and their international friends must be confident that more money and assets will be sighted and liberated from the clutches of roguish political and bureaucratic leaders. More patient observers are likely to invoke the Yoruba proverbial: Emi niimomaajeori, iwoni o maajeiru, kogbodosiwajueran pipa (I will eat the head and you will take the tail of the game must not come before the game is caught). But past experience with loot recovery in the country suggests otherwise. For example, it is still not clear how much of what was recovered from the Abacha loot had been used wisely or how much had been sucked up by new looters of old loot.

    Therefore, the recent pact signed in Abuja between the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General and the British Minister of State for Immigration on conditions for Britain to release the loot in Britain is in order. On the British side, the United Kingdom would release loot in its custody only if the Nigerian government pledged to spend the money judiciously. On the Nigerian side, the Justice Minister was remarkably forthcoming in his response: “Today, we are determined to change the narrative, regardless of who is involved. I want to assure the international community that all funds recovered within and outside Nigeria would be judiciously utilised for projects that will benefit the poorest segment of the Nigerian society as well as enable us support reform in the justice sector.…The position of the law in Nigeria today is that all funds recovered should be paid directly into the Consolidated Revenue Account. Unfortunately, that has not always been the case under the previous administration.”

    The focus of today’s column is on the first part of the two areas the Justice Minister prefers to apply money stolen from all Nigerians by past leaders. It is not too soon to cry out loud and clear that using recovered loot to pay for judicial reform is not a wise way to spend the trillions that citizens expect will come back to the public treasury at the end of the protracted fight against corruption. More importantly, spending such money on reforming the judiciary is not as citizen-oriented as the minister’s first choice of line of expenditure: “projects that will benefit the poorest segment of the Nigerian society.” The need for judicial reform is an urgent one that ought not be made to wait for recovery of loot. If anything, waiting for loot before reforming a judicial system that is perceived by many citizens as too compromised is more likely to frustrate the executive’s current spirited effort to recover stolen funds.

    The Justice Minister’s suggestion on spending recovered funds on “projects that will benefit the poorest of Nigerians” ought to be encouraged. And such projects should be ones that are concrete and tangible and whose impact are measurable and verifiable.  Such projects are not hard to identify. One way to use funds accruing from loot recovery is to energize the electricity sector. One way to do this is for the federal government to engage in a public private partnership with producers of megawatts of electricity, to save citizens from what has almost become a jinx: fluctuation between 2,500 megawatts in the dry season and 4,000 megawatts in the rainy season. Even in the last few weeks that electricity supply has improved in the country, it has been mostly in areas with pre-paid meters. This improvement is perfunctory as it affects just about 1% of the population with pre-paid meters, even three years after privatisation of the energy sector.

    Another way to spend the windfall from loot is to put more funds into overhauling the antiquated transmission system, which has been seeing some positive changes from intervention from the new government, according to reliable media experts close to the government. To this this better, a PPP that engages in building new capacity for transmission will benefit the poor and the middle-class alike. A related way to use recovered stolen funds transparently and cost-effectively is to invest it in a PPP project with reputable solar panel builders who are willing to establish their factories in Nigeria. This will make solar panels less expensive and will put the country in a good stead to increase its energy mix and set the country up for benefit from renewable energy technology. It will also increase non-grid or off-grid energy provision and consumption.

    In addition, revenue from anti-corruption fight can also be invested in provision of water in major cities in the six geo-political zones. For too long, poor people who cannot afford to construct boreholes have been living without potable water. In most cases such people have been drinking unsafe water at the risk of the health of their young ones in particular. If potable water supply to citizens has to be in the form of a PPP, it will achieve two things: stop the current method of selling untreated water to citizens in the country’s large cities and stop the proliferation of boreholes with dangerous seismic consequences that country’s visionless leaders in the past had ignored.

    Finally, while keeping recovered cash in interest-yielding accounts, all non-cash assets ought to be sold immediately to prevent depreciation and to avoid having them re-looted by future governments that may not have the vision of President Buhari about nurturing a corruption-free polity. With the ferocious way corruption has been fighting back with the hope of convincing victims of past brigandage that the current economic hardships are caused by a government saddled with cleaning the mess it inherited, it is not inconceivable that a new government can come back to the country in the future, to return to the era of impunity, to the extent of finding reasons to give unsold physical property recovered from looters back to their looters, all in the name of a new politics of reconciliation.

  • Kerry’s visit: culture or security?

    Kerry’s visit: culture or security?

    What would have been the role of CAN and other Christian groups in a meeting in which the theme of Kerry’s public speech was about peace, stability, and religious tolerance? 

    One consensus among anthropologists and sociologists is that culture infuses everything that humans do, regardless of what part of the planet they reside. In other words, everyone carries some cultural assumptions in whatever he/she does all the time. Even people with multiple cultures, especially those raised in multiple cultural settings,feel compelled select assumptions that resonate with each of the cultures he/she has to negotiate from time to time and from context to context. From this perspective, it should not be surprising that many Nigerian groups, in particular the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) read some aspects of Nigerian culture(s) into the recent visit of John Kerry, the American Secretary of State to Abuja and Sokoto. Soon after the narrative initiated by CAN broke, it understandably went viral on the internet and grew in perception and misperception from one citizen journalist to the other.

    Had Kerry listened to the multitude of African studies experts in his country before leaving home, he would have some idea of the complexity of the culture of visiting and greeting in Nigera. He would have been told that visiting and greeting are close to a vocation. Politicians of all stripes stream in and out of the homes of presidents, governors, and newly appointed political officers to greet such people. Even former presidents find excuses for not visiting incumbent president or governor of their states as much as they should. Wives and husbands living in the house take pages of newspapers or television time to greet each other for all sorts of reason and even non-human entities such as corporations send their top men and women to visit and greet people in important positions. Individuals and groups that had complained about Kerry’s failure to greet them are members of this African country’s culture of visiting and greeting.

    The main grouse of critics of Kerry’s visit is that he visited Sokoto to see the Sultan who doubles as the supreme monarch of Sokoto and leader of Nigerian Muslim community. Angrily, the Forum for United Nigerians Against Divisive Elements (FUNADE) asked if Kerry was invited by the Sultan and accused Kerry of stoking the ember of de-secularisation of Nigerian polity and Islamisation of the society. Some of Kerry’s critics asked him to convince them about his sectarian neutrality, particularly why he had failed to discuss the matter of killing of Christians by Muslims and of farmers by Fulani herdsmen while also telling him to stop interfering in Nigeria’s internal affairs.

    Aren’t all the demands being made on Kerry recurrent features of the country’s political culture?  For example, CAN complained that Kerry by visiting only the Sultan in a country evenly divided between Christians and Muslims came to endorse the Sultan’s view of the Nigerian State as a multi-religious state in contradistinction to the nation’s Constitution on the secularity of the Nigerian State. The distinction being made by CAN between secularity of the Nigerian state and the multi-religiosity of the Nigerian society cannot be faulted easily. But what worried CAN and FUNADE is what seems to be Kerry’s acceptance (demonstrated in his visit to the leader of the Islamic community in Nigeria) of the Sultan’s view of Nigeria as something akin to a theocratic state of the Islamic variant.

    Given the political, especially diplomatic culture of most Western countries, Kerry must have consulted his country’s cultural officers and former ambassadors about the nuances of Nigeria’s culture(s) before coming, but even after such consultation, it must have been clear to Kerry’s team that an essentially security-related trip to Nigeria should not require worrying about who to visit or whisper to about security problems facing the country from Boko Haram terrorism. There should be nothing wrong in Kerry’s visit to justify his castigation, more so if his visit, as indicated in his objectives for coming to Nigeria, pertains to discussing with relevant ‘stakeholders’ the following: counterterrorism efforts, the Nigerian economy, fight against corruption, and human rights issues. Should Kerry’s talking points have been principally about military and economic intelligence, the American Secretary of State should have been given the benefit of the doubt to take as much caution as he needed in choosing who to talk to or with on any of the issues on his plate.

    Intelligence, especially since the end of the Cold War, has been what International Relations experts call the most potent soft power in a fast-globalising ethos of the 21st century. Intelligence cooperation is something that is acceptable in relations with other countries, especially friendly ones like the United States and Nigeria. Intelligence is not only about early warning to friendly nations about threats to their cherished values, it is also a major event-shaping mechanism. This view of intelligence was well captured by Gerald Templer when he defined intelligence as “ not an end in itself but an essential aid to policy-making and military planning and should ideally provide timely warning of events which we would wish to anticipate as intelligence background for policy decisions.” Almost incontrovertibly, in our current post-Westphalian context of sovereignty, intelligence is no longer solely about security of rulers and states in territorial terms but also of shoring up sovereignty through protection of human beings and their human rights. What if Kerry had come with intelligence relevant to how to fight Boko Haram and corruption more successfully than we have done so far, would it be wise to expect Kerry to turn a highly coded message that should have been whispered to just a few ears into an auditorium or stadium announcement?

    Furthermore, the insistence of Kerry not to address the media after the meeting with President Buhari and the non-inclusion of journalists in the room in which the American top diplomat exchanged ideas with the president provide decipherable codes about the need for confidentiality that should not be divulged to the public until the message had been properly apprehended by Kerry’s hosts, receivers of the message he brought from President Obama. Isn’t it conceivable that Kerry’s visit to the Sultan and northern governors must have included sharing properly fire-walled information with the head of the Islamic community and 16 Muslim governors about Boko Haram, given the fact that Boko Haram is largely confined to the North East, one-third of the North and also of the Nigerian Islamic community? What would have been the role of CAN and other Christian groups in a meeting in which the theme of Kerry’s public speech was about peace, stability, and religious tolerance? (emphasis added). Should it not have been obvious to Kerry and Obama that Nigeria’s Christendom is noticeably sensitive to religious plurality and also tolerant about other religions, particularly Islam by co-existing in a country that is a member of Organisation of Islamic community (OIC)?

    The caustic response by CAN to Kerry’s visit to the Sultan, the leader of the nation’s Islamic community, does not reflect the confidence characteristic of Nigerian Christendom since the evolution of Nigeria as a nation-state and certainly not of the tolerance of other faiths in the country.If anything, criticisms of Kerry’s by spokespersons for CAN could have been read as insecurity or paranoia that usually arises from inferiority complex. To many Christians that are not in political leadership of CAN and other Christian groups, it is obvious that the Sultan of Sokoto is much more of a ‘stakeholder’ than CAN leaders or any of the other Obas, Obongs, and Obis in the South of the country on matters sensitive to fighting Boko Haram, a terrorist group affiliated with some form of Islam.

    The need to know is undoubtedly an indispensable aspect of democracy, but most times, it is the need to understand that is important to leaders when they need to share intelligence across national borders. As Boko Haram’s terrorism has proved, religion of any kind is at risk if there is no peace. Critics of Kerry’s visit should have just wished him a safe trip back home for coming to discuss issues that are germane to Nigeria’s security and economic survival with the President and other ‘stakeholders’ in establishment and sustenance of peace in a country that has been hobbled by Boko Haram’s radical Islamism, extremism, and terrorism.

  • Our overdose of corruption & unity rhetoric (2)

    But unity lost its prime of place in the nation’s political discourse once the war was over, giving way to return of corruption to the polity as excuse for each new coup maker

    Last week’s piece focused on Corruption rhetoric, thus leaving space for today’s column to discuss the country’s Unity rhetoric.

    Historically, unity as the core of security or of political discourse did not become prominent until the mid-1960s. Before that time, harping on unity as the challenge facing Nigeria’s development became popular among politicians during the trial of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, particularly in the mouths of those who preferred a one-party system for Nigeria. After Awolowo was sent to jail, the ruling group continued to plead for unity while the aggrieved people of Western Nigeria continued to demand for justice, particularly after the rigging of the parliamentary elections in the region.

    Between the first and second coup, the ruling group (then General Aguiyi-Ironsi) brought the spectre of unity back to the nation’s political and media space, principally through his Unification Decree that turned the four regions into provinces and national governance to a command system manned by an overlord surrounded by prefects in the clusters of provinces. With the success of the second coup, regionalism quickly replaced unity as a mantra. And not surprisingly, unity as an end became strident again during the civil war and the slogan “to keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done.” But unity lost its prime of place in the nation’s political discourse once the war was over, giving way to return of corruption to the polity as excuse for each new coup maker. For most of the years of military dictatorship, there was no reason for political constructivists to worry about unity as a means of ‘securitisation,’ that is, an attempt to construct through ‘Speech Acts’ an issue as an existential threat to a group or nation, or a norm whose challenge can compromise group or national security.

    But once some sections of Nigeria called for re-structuring or restoration of federalism in the wake of annulment of MKO Abiola’s election, the rhetoric of imperative of national unity returned to the political sphere to crowd out the call for structural and social justice. Even the transition to democracy programme was constructed as an attempt to reunify the country, hence, the decision by military men in charge of transition to civil rule to make a member of Abiola’s native community the presidential candidate of the party that attracted most of the military generals, just as Shonekan, from the same community with Abiola, was recruited as Interim President after the annulment of Abiola’s election.

    Yet Obasanjo’s election as president did not end the eternal search for unity. Under Obasanjo, political discourse tilted more in the direction of geopolitics. And the most popular speech acts from the presidency re-branding of the country’s external image and unity, with emphasis on the threat that lack of unity could have on the country’s development and international image. To sustain Unity discourse in the media, Obasanjo convened a conference on political reform to look for how to keep the country united, apart from a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. But all references to the conference died out soon after its sittings in Abuja. Similarly, the Jonathan era revitalised the unity discourse, first to counter the threats from Boko Haram and later to mobilise citizens for electoral support. Another national dialogue was called, and like Obasanjo’s conference, the recommendations were archived shortly after they were delivered ceremoniously to Jonathan, leaving self-respecting delegates to justify their time at the conference by insisting, after Jonathan’s departure, for implementation of recommendations of the conference.

    At the time of the 2015 election that unseated Jonathan, politicians in all parties did not act as if there was any threat to the country’s unity, apart from the Boko Haram menace in the Northeast. The party that won the election came to power not on the theme of unity but on the manifesto of change. The party campaigned noticeably on the theme of structural, political, economic, and social justice, which many citizens considered to be a recognition by potential rulers of the solidity of the country’s territorial and political unity. Voters, especially in the Southwest also believed that APC’s promise of change was (and is still) not at variance with the call for true federalism, which the presidential candidate and the party at large endorsed with the promise to “Initiate action to amend our Constitution with a view to devolving powers, duties and responsibilities to states and local governments in order to entrench true Federalism and the Federal spirit.”

    But soon after President Buhari came to power, the country’s political expectations got worse: Indigenous People of Biafra in the Southeast and Niger Delta Avengers in the South-south emerged with many demands, thus increasing the challenges for the new government. The new situation brought the mantra of unity back to the centre of the country’s political space. The irony that developed from this situation is that those thinking for the ruling group quickly included demand for re-federalisation in the basket of challenges facing the country’s unity. The need for a securitisation move quickly pushed the ruling party to move aside from its electoral promise of returning federalism to the polity and economy, on the excuse that unity and the economy now matter more than anything else.

    For too long, ruling groups’ harping on unity as a speech act to demonise calls for new political thinking toward a more conducive architecture of governance has been used to eclipse the dire need for new ideas. It is counterproductive for the new government to confuse demand for federalism with call for disintegration of the country. The likelihood that a serious attempt at re-structuring can douse the demand for a new country for Biafrans must not be dismissed, just as serious dialogues on re-federalisation can silence the guns and bombs of groups avenging Jonathan’s loss of the 2015 election, and even tame the drivers of Boko Haram within the country. In addition, it is not logical to view restructuring as a veiled form of secession. People who want to secede do not need to ask for a national dialogue on imperative of reinventing the nation’s governance culture. Even those dangling the sword of secession may just be seeking attention. People who are irrevocably committed to leaving any country do not usually ask for divorce; they simply take it unilaterally and face the consequence.

    Leaders in all political parties need to come to terms with the reality before the country: the imperative of diversification and decentralisation of the polity and economy. The on-and-off recourse to unity as an end in the last 60 years and as a means of making calls for restructuring sound like avoidable distraction or diversion seems to be wearing off in terms of significance. Citizens are seeing it as a bogey to create fear for lovers of fundamental change that can facilitate other desirable changes to the polity, economy, and by implication enhancement of positive unity and positive peace. Any unity that needs to be mystified as ours has been on-and-off since independence has the tendency to make search for national unity an eternal and only task while emphasis should be on protection of freedom of thought and action by citizens in all regions or cultures in the multi-ethnic nation-state to participate in production of the common good in an atmosphere of mutual cooperation devoid of any trace of dominance of one group by another.

    Architecture of governance, like nation’s constitutions, is a product of the mutual constitution of human agents and the structure it spawns from time to time. As a human construction, political and economic arrangements are subject to change at all times. Any attempt to make unity an end rather than a means cannot but constitute an overdose for citizens who expect more from their country than recurrent verbiage about unity as the be-all-and-end all of political organisation of conscious and achievement-oriented human beings who want to live a modern purposive life.

    • Concluded

  • Our overdose of corruption &unity rhetoric 1

    Should principal officers in the House apply the stick on Jibrin, they would, without intending to do so, be moving the fight against corruption from actual battle to a rhetorical one.

    Two words have dominated Nigeria’s media and political space for decades. The two words are corruption and unity and they have stayed with the country since independence. Apart from unity being ubiquitous in national political discourse since independence, it is also one word that every Yoruba-Nigerian who cares to read or listen to broadcast news has to confront on a daily basis. Of course, over drumming of both words has always had negative effects on perception of Nigerians internationally. Corruption seems to refer to actions that can be verified while unity most often serves more like a weapon in a psychological and ideological war, propagated periodically by members of the elite class, especially its political wing. The focus today will be on corruption

    At the beginning, it was believed that corruption was just an excuse for demonising politicians not favoured by the group in power. When the Forster Sutton Commission was set up to look into the affairs of the Continental Bank towards the end of colonialism, many people thought it was designed to embarrass Dr.Azikiwe, just as the Coker Commission of Inquiry was perceived as a way to call Chief Awolowo a bad name in order to hang him, for refusing to jump on the bandwagon of a one-party system, preferred then by the group in power immediately after independence. It was not until the first coup of 1966 that corruption became a major war to fight, particularly when some of the coup planners claimed that they struck because they wanted to end a corrupt government. Those who unseated General Gowon also cited corruption as a social or political cancer they wanted to excise from the body politic of the Nigerian State. The post-coup policy of fighting corruption descended not on military rulers but more on civil servants, and the rest is history. Even when a coup to remove a major warrior against corruption, General Mohammed Buhari in 1984 occurred, the two reasons given for the coup included fighting corruption anew. Again, when the first victory of an opposition party against a ruling political party self-destined to rule uninterrupted for 65 years happened, it did so on the strength of fighting corruption.

    Of the two problems that President Buhari had focused on since he came to power, it fighting Boko Haram terrorism and fighting corruption are the two that come to most people’s mind, largely because of the aggressiveness with which he has been doing the fight. Honestly, nobody can deny the commitment of President Buhari to use all resources at his disposal to identify and prosecute men and women who have taken advantage of their political or bureaucratic positions to steal public funds. But if the fight against corruption is not to be partially won to the extent of making the fight against corruption a permanent item on the agenda of governance of the country, the ongoing controversy about budget padding should not be allowed to go without proper investigation. It is not surprising that a National Assembly that has become famous or notorious for always invoking herd instinct orespirit de corps is already organising its principal officers to scapegoat Jibrin, the newly arrived whistleblower in the House. The most respectable way to bring the matter of allegation of budget padding to proper closure is to allow law enforcement agencies to do a proper investigation of the claims of Jibrin, who has himself acknowledged his own role in this sordid matter.

    As things are, our democracy seems organised for the elite, rather than to solve the problems of the masses. There is no better institution that illustrates at this perception at the moment than the National Assembly. Senate leaders were quick to identify with their principal officers facing trial to the extent that they felt at ease to shut down the senate in order to follow their leading members to court. There is no evidence that they would not return to this herd mentality when courts resume sitting on the matters before them. House members are now invoking the herd instinct in respect of Jibrin’s allegations that budget padding has been an integral part of the House since he became a legislator. It is dangerous to allow the House to silence Jibrin for exposing what looks like an unsavoury aspect of the parliamentary culture of our lawmakers.

    All legislators are equal, having been elected by their respective constituencies to represent their people. For a group of officers in the House to want to take sides in the matter by attempting to take disciplinary actions against Jibrin, it is important for citizens and lawmakers to note that it is not just Jibrin that is being embarrassed, members of his constituency in Kano who sent him to the House to represent them have to be given an incontrovertible evidence thatJibrin had committed a crime for which he must be suspended from the duty his constituents sent him to do. House rules should not be superior to the country’s rules, which expect proper investigation before prosecution, and proper prosecution before punishment. Constituents not only in Kano but all over the country are eager to know what actually happened in the legislatures in respect of how the budget proposal was handled. No legislator, officer or no officer, should panic about investigation or do anything to prejudice investigation by taking a position that one of the parties, particularly the whistleblower has behaved in a way to embarrass the House. In other presidential systems, the House would have set up a bi-partisan investigation before the matter festered to this level. Having become a matter of interest to the public at large, it should be left to proper impartial investigators to handle.

    In the last one year that President Buhari has been fighting corruption, observant citizens have no difficulty to know that corruption has been fighting back on many fronts. It is still fighting back as surreptitiously as it could. What legislators, particularly principal officers in the House should not push is to do anything that can make citizens see the House as hiding behind one finger: Speaker Dogara in this instance. In fact, the Speaker should discourage any attempt by leaders of the House to do anything to indicate that Jibrin has exposed and embarrassed the House and its members. Doing this may water down the authority of the House after this matter is brought to a closure. It may even paint the House more negative internationally as one legislature that would rather shut up its member for drawing attention to corruption in the legislature, rather than allow for full hearing on matters that concern not just lawmakers but the citizenry at large.

    The fight against corruption must not be made to look like a fight restricted to corruption during the presidency of Goodluck Jonathan. From revelations so far, there is no doubt that political and bureaucratic corruption had a field day from efforts to hide the true picture of President UmaruYar’Adua’s health and passing to the end of Jonathan’s acting and substantive presidency in May 2015. The anti-corruption fight is likely to be given additional integrity if leaders in the executive and the legislative branches of government act transparently on the allegations and counter-allegations between former chairman of the Appropriation Committee and the Speaker. At this point, the matter requires intervention from a neutral investigator and objective investigation. And that is what all parties involved or concerned should allow to happen in a verifiably transparent manner.Should principal officers in the House apply the stick on Jibrin, they would, without intending to do so, be moving the fight against corruption from actual battle to a rhetorical one.

    • To be continued
  • Politics of padding and evasion

    Politics of padding and evasion

    Nobody from the legislative to the executive should be afraid of investigation of the issues raised by Jibrin who acknowledged his own participation in the act of padding

    If Nigerians were not the optimists they are, their country would have been raped to death by the venal and brazen men and a few women that find their way to political office in all forms and at all levels. When citizens are not being entertained by news of bureaucratic corruption, they are being embarrassed by reports of the tricks of budget making. If they are not being confused by the inordinate adjournment of cases of corruption involving top politicians and bureaucrats, they are being confounded by reports of display of omniscience by their leading lawmakers, to the extent that words imbued with value are emptied of the wholesomeness the word signifies.

    Although there are many “top lawyers’ in the National Assembly according to the Speaker, fortunately, there are other professionals: doctors, engineers, accountants, academics, all of whose disciplines do not allow them to see human actions as value-free, the way Speaker Dogara spoke of law in relation to allegation of padding after his recent visit to President Buhari. There may be a clear line between legality and morality, in most democracies in the Anglophone world in which there are more lawyers in their legislatures than we have in Nigeria, politicians are still expected to act in a way that shows that they have value for morality in public affairs.

    Still in the Anglophone world to which Nigeria was drafted by colonialism, to pad is a value-laden word. In communication in particular, padding means to add unwholesome, undesirable, superfluous, misleading matter to a material. Even the Webster dictionary has not outgrown the definition that to pad is a word that kicks against indiscipline: “to expand or increase with needless, misleading, or fraudulent matter.” So, padding of budget is not the opposite of what a backbencher in the Commons once warned fellow British MPs against, “rubber stamping tablets of stone handed down by the executive of the day.” It is legitimate for legislators to engage in pork barrel politics, as it is done in many other democracies. But in doing so, lawmakers are supposed to engage in lobbying fellow legislators and the executive to site projects in their constituencies, not for personal interest but for community growth and verifiable public good. Pork barrel politics does not include arranging for special constituency allowance to be managed by lawmakers; nor does it allow lawmakers engaged in scrutinising budget to insert their own pork barrel projects directly in the budget. This has to be settled with the executive before the budget is presented to the legislature before all representatives of the people.

    Padding may not be illegal in Nigerian jurisprudence, but it is offensive all the same.  A lawyer friend of mine told me that if a budget document sent by the president to the national assembly for approval benefited from added materials in the open during plenary session of the house and the added material got approved by the whole house after such open debate, such may not be a crime. However, any padding that takes place in camera or when many lawmakers are not within earshot, is not just unwholesome but patently criminal. The criminality of such addition is larger than uttering and forgery, it may also be treasonable, as it misrepresents the will of parliament, by presenting materials unknown to parliament as originating from parliament.

    However, it is too soon for anybody to talk about criminality in respect of allegations of padding until a thorough investigation is conducted to determine the sequence of events from President Buhari’s submission of the 2015 budget to the National Assembly to the point that the approved copy of the parliament was sent to the Clerk of the House and the final copy delivered to the president as approved copy from the House. The two documents that require rigorous scrutiny are the copy of the document sent to the clerk immediately after the approval and the copy of the budget that finally got to the president. It may not be just the lawmakers that Jibrin had described as agents of padding along with himself that need to be investigated, the bureaucracy of the house should be investigated, just as it was in the case of forgery of the Rules of the Senate. But attempts by top members of the ruling party to settle the matter as internal affairs of the party are not helpful in promoting politics of change. Nobody from the legislative to the executive should be afraid of investigation of the issues raised by Jibrin who acknowledged his own participation in the act of padding. Probing the allegations do not amount to attempts by the executive to intimidate the legislature; it may very well turn out to strengthen the legislature, once the facts of Jibrin’s allegations are laid bare for all to see.

    After thorough investigation by the police, EFCC, or ICPC, the allegations much touted by Jibrin may become just serve as an exercise of purification for all concerned, especially if nothing criminal is not established. The Yoruba saying: enitikoba se nnkanitofikiiboju wo ehinkule, (those who have not done anything that sparks suspicion need not look beyond their shoulders) is apt to assure those resisting investigation to remain calm, if they have nothing to feel uncomfortable about. What threatens to offend moral sensibility of citizens is the sudden polarization of the House into pro and anti-Dogara groups, especially claims by hundreds of legislators that Jibrin’s allegations are politically motivated. This kind of herd instinct by House members sounds similar to the response of senators to charges of perjury and forgery against the Senate President when senators gladly shut down the senate in order to accompany their president to court and the stridency of claims by senators loyal to Saraki and Ekweremadu that any allegation against the two is tantamount to an indictment of the senate as an institution. These are matters that should be of urgent concern to the new engineers of state from status quo to change.

    Sensitive and sensible citizens ought to get worried about the legislative culture of the country even in the post-Jonathan presidency that had been perceived as the epicenter of venality in governance. It is unfortunate that every time since beginning of this administration the fighters of corruption act right, something happens in the legislature to suggest that its principal members prefer to gravitate to the left on the moral spectrum. This development should worry patriotic or change-loving citizens. Worse still, public discourse is being reduced by the day to 9th grade level, especially by legislators who are eager to spin the narrative of executive persecution of the second branch of government anytime the former moves to invoke the principle of ethics and public morality, particularly in respect of members of the National Assembly.

    The Speaker has already announced that no institution has a right to probe the House because it has not done anything beyond its power to tinker with the budget: tinkering with the budget. In the last one year, citizens have been psychologically assaulted by incessant news of individual and institutional corruption, particularly during the preceding administration. Now that Jibrin has alerted the nation about acts of budget padding under the new administration and persons Jibrin has accused of padding have said unequivocally that there was no such thing, investigating the claims of accuser and accused will help reduce citizens’ anxiety, even if all the probe can achieve is to establish the innocence of those fingered in Jibrin’s claims. Doing this will go a long way to remove the perception (or misperception?) outside the houses of power—legislative and executive—that the country’s political leaders see governing Nigeria essentially as an enterprise to profit from, rather than as a service to perform in the interest of public good.

  • As we adjust to a ‘post-petroleum’ reality

    As we adjust to a ‘post-petroleum’ reality

    More positively, others see the Okorocha Formula or Plan as an opportunity to create a big group of farmers from the pool of part-time civil servants released to serve themselves legitimately for two days a week

    One of the most visionary statements made by President Buhari since his coming to power recently is “we should plan our life as if we do not have petroleum.” It seems that his federal government has made efforts within its ken and competence to steer the country in direction of living outside the frame of a petroleum-driven polity and economy by insisting on revitalized agriculture, and exploitation of solid minerals, in addition to fighting corruption and creating a security system that can protect life and property. What the Buhari government has not addressed frontally and fully is whether it makes sense to do all these without weaning the country, particularly its elite, of the habit of overfeeding that petroleum stimulated especially in the era of dictatorship. But this is not the focus of today’s column.

    Today’s column is about efforts embarked upon by states to avoid going into receivership and what else the federal government can do to assist political leaders in most of the states to stay afloat economically and politically. With about 28 states owing arrears of salaries, pensions, and on remittances to pension funds, state governors no longer look as buoyant as they used to and the body language of many of them suggests lack of enthusiasm and even fear of the people they are supposedly governing. After receiving one bailout and then sharing N90 billion loan facility from the central government, the situation of states vis-a-vis regular and prompt payment of workers’ salaries has not improved to a point to make governors visibly less apprehensive of their constituents. Many of them are trying their hands on what they see as creative financial management in the midst of fiscal and financial adversity.

    One such effort is negotiation with workers and labour unions to prevail on civil servants to accept 50% of their regular salaries until the situation improves for such states. For example, Osun, Nasarawa, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom, and Imo are some of the states making efforts to avoid denialism and to frontally deal with an uneasy situation. Imo appears to be the most radical in its approach to a problem of underfunding that may go on for a long time, unless a miracle occurs by way of sudden phenomenal rise in price of petroleum.

    For example, Imo has proposed a part-time civil service that will allow public servants to work three out of the normal five days a week while lawmakers will remain fulltime legislators. Workers running this schedule are to be on about 60-70% of their normal salaries and benefits. Of course, critics of the Okorocha government are already pooh-poohing this proposal. It is being suggested that the proposal confirms the folk belief that there is nothing that civil servants do to advance the interests of citizens. Such critics say a civil service that has not succeeded sixty years after independence to provide electricity, potable water, good roads, security of life and property, proper sewage system for over 150 million of its citizens, etc might as well go on leave for ever until the country returns to another era of plenty from oil or solid minerals. Pro-labour pundits are reading riot acts to Okorocha for setting aside the state’s labour contract with civil servants while others are saying this is better than other options, such as mass retrenchment, early retirement with modest or no gratuity, or continuation of irregular payment of salaries that puts families, especially vulnerable children at risk physically and mentally. More cynically, some online commentators are applauding Okorocha for this proposal, which will allow civil servants to do legally and legitimately what they have always done at the expense of delivery of public good: buying and selling of new and used goods inside or in front of their offices. More positively, others see the Okorocha Formula or Plan as an opportunity to create a big group of farmers from the pool of part-time civil servants released to serve themselves legitimately for two days a week.

    Furthermore, with states realising that the options of bailout and loan from the federal government may not occur again, most states that have ignored their UBE funds for years are returning to this with a new plea: President Buhari to prevail on the National Assembly to waive the requirement of providing counterpart funding for release of UBE funds. But states need to be more forthcoming on this matter. Are they going to use the money for purposes other than they are meant for? Can states that could not provide 50% counterpart funding in the years of plenty suddenly pluck the discipline to use the fund for the purpose of improving basic education? Reducing counterpart funding to 10% and insisting on transparent accounting should be generous enough.

    These two proposals by majority of the states raise some important issues about the country’s federal system. If proper care is not taken, state governors may be nudging the Buhari government in the direction of more unitarism than they are willing to acknowledge. A system that ideally should have been about shared governance and shared sovereignty may soon become a worse form of superordinate/subordinate relationship between national and subnational governments than it is now. The signs are not there for a quick fix to the problem of a weak economy that has come upon the nation via loss of revenue from petroleum and a legacy of poor political and economic planning and hitherto uncontrollable venality of those in government. Solid minerals and even agriculture are not likely to change the funding situation for another year and petroleum price may even get worse. It will be difficult for the federal government to take loans from China and the World Bank to be doling out to states as loans, bailout, or special funds to pay salaries and provide security votes to governors.

    Yet, both federal and state governments must recognize the danger in having millions of citizens going to bed hungry every night, given what happened in Tunisia a few years back. It is, therefore, significant that President Buhari has re-committed its government to fighting waste, in order to leave more funds for important national and subnational needs, in addition to fighting corruption with all vigour and recovering money from thieves of state.In terms of cutting cost, the decision to decrease the number of embassies abroad is not a bad idea. But deeper reflection has to go into deciding which Nigerian embassies should be closed. Just as the Oba of Ilawe (a seasoned diplomat himself) has aptly observed, it is not strategically right to close the country’s embassy in the Cameroon. Cameroon is perhaps the most strategically important country to us in the Central African region, for obvious reasons: a huge Nigerian diaspora in that country; a country that citizens in Cross River have concern about since the loss of Bakassi to that country; and a country with a long border that adjoins many Nigerian states. It is also not right to close the embassy in Brazil.

    Brazil is a country with a large Nigerian diaspora: precolonial and postcolonial. With majority of over 75 million Brazilians who trace their origin to Nigeria; a history of Brazilian returnees making substantial contribution to Nigeria’s modernization, particularly in Lagos, and as South America’s leading economy and perhaps most technologically advanced society in the region; Brazil is not a country that should not have Nigeria’s diplomatic presence. If there is any country that has similarities with Nigeria in terms of vegetation, cash and food crops farming, Brazil is one such country that can provide models for our new agricultural revolution. Brazil is also one country that can be of help to Nigeria in its bid to be a tourist center. Brazil is a successful tourist nation in the tropics and one with a huge population of potential visitors to Nigeria to cement existing relationship between the peoples of both countries. Brazil, like Sudan, has very close ties to Nigeria that we should continue to nurture with diplomatic presence.

    Undoubtedly, Nigeria needs to do more than juggling, such as states wanting to turn UBE funds to unconditional transfer and federal government’s needing to close some embassies to cut cost and the culture of waste that had hobbled the country for decades. The word that many people hate to hear: Restructuring may not be as odious as it sounds, if those who believe that the country’s past is better than what it can become and those who believe that a country, particularly a democratic one must be willing to re-invent itself agree to do proper cost and benefit analysis of restructuring, economically and politically.

  • Restructuring: pontifications, excuses, and a way forward

    But pro- and anti-restructuring regional spokespersons need to mobilise and consult those they claim to represent before presenting positions on their behalf

    Rhetoric in support and against restructuring or return to true federalism has become rife in the country’s political space. The stridency of the rhetoric is almost as strong as it was between the annulment of MKO Abiola’s presidential mandate and the death of General Sani Abacha. There is virtually no day that newspapers don’t carry news on this topic, an illustration of the growing importance of federalism to various interest groups and of opposition to federalism to others. Restructuring has become a new formula for dividing the country ideologically, just one year after a national election that majority expected to unite the country in preparation for a change-making president.

    Restructuring is not new to Nigeria. The Midwest region resulted from restructuring just as the 12 states created under General Gowon. Chief Obafemi Awolowo made federalism an abiding part of the country’s political conversation for decades between the 1950s and the 1980s. Sovereign national conference for the purpose of restructuring came into public conversation at the instance of late human and civil rights lawyer, Alao Aka-Bashorun in the late 1980s. The concept got popularised by the Movement for National Reformation at the instance of such figures as Anthony Enahoro, Cornelius Adebayo, Baba Omojola, etc. And Afenifere as the nucleus of NADECO became a major populariser of demand for restructuring during the struggle against Sani Abacha’s usurpation of the mandate given by majority of Nigerians to MKO Abiola. The concept became part of the national and international campaign of NADECO against the rule of terror that Abacha adopted to sustain himself in power and to coerce the country to accept his self-transformation from military dictator to civilian president.

    Recent calls by Afenifere for restructuring is therefore in character even though details of the organisation’s demand may be debatable. The recent characterisation by Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) of Afenifere as agent of diversion from more pressing national problems on account of renewing calls for restructuring smacks of a deliberate attempt to underminethe constitutional rights of citizens to express themselves in a democracy and pooh-pooh expression of political desires of citizens. The highlight of Arewa’s communique: “ Nigeria now faces more serious security challenges, social and economic problems, such as the destruction of oil pipelines by the Niger Delta militants, Boko Haram insurgency, youth restiveness, drop in oil revenue, unnecessary killing and kidnapping etc that require everyone’s input, rather than diverting the attention and resources of government on an issue that could be tackled by our democratic structure” illustrates an attempt to call a dog a bad name in order to hang it.

    All the problems catalogued by Arewa in the quotation above must have adverse effect on the country. But it is surprising that Arewa has not given these problems the critical thinking they deserve. Is it not conceivable that all the problems graphically described by Arewa, apart from the fall in oil revenue, can also be perceived by others as being caused by the existence of a flawed structure of governance in the country, especiallydestruction of conducive relations between national and subnational governments and communities?How illogical is it to see as diversionary efforts to critique a system of funding 36 states and 774 local governments from revenue from one single commodity whose price is determined beyond our shores?   Is there any evidence that devolving more power and functions including fiscal federalism or autonomy to subnational governments cannot solve many of the problems currently facing the country?

    Nigerians have been distracted for too long from coming to terms with what they perceive as negative outcomes of gradual de-federalisation of the country, via creation of fears about the Nigerian by State by one section or their supporters in power from time to time.  For example, Unity as a mantra was deployed to induce political crisis in Western Nigeria immediately after independence. Awolowo’s decision to remain in opposition in the belief that a strong opposition is crucial to survival and consolidation of democracy became a problem for those who thought the best way for the country to be properly united was to create a one-party state. Later, threat to national unity by General Aguiyi-Ironsi’s decree to turn the country into a unitary system from the federal system that defined the country at independencebecame another mantra that became irrelevant shortly after the second coup. Fighting corruption provided a basis for the third coup, and many others that happened on and off between 1975 and 1998. All this time, very little time or energy was left for planning for sustainable national development, as efforts to critique the structure of governance was overshadowed by problems identified by rulers as urgent national problems.

    Furthermore, after the exit of military rule in 1999, words like unity and burnishing of the country’s image internationally came back to silence calls for re-federalisation.  Non-negotiability of the nation’s unity and diversification of the economy nationwide are the latest mantras being pushed by ACF and kindred groups to crowd out calls for consideration of the nation’s political structure. Arewa’s directive on how to solve Nigeria’s problems and its call on Afenifere and other groups to remain silent until Arewa perceives the country ready to hear other voices exudes political intolerance that is not acceptable in a multicultural society and polity. It is too late in the evolution of the country for any group to blackmail others and pose or act as landlord by viewing others as tenants. Arewa’s recent bullying of Afenifere seems like an excuse for stopping others from addressing issues that can ameliorate what they perceive as diminishing their chances to make life and living better for themselves and their children. Directing Afenifere to pass its demands to the legislature is also failing to recognise the fact that a constitution that did not originate from citizens and without their consent may be an aspect of the project of restructuring.

    Nothing in today’s piece should be construed as supporting Afenifere’s call for restructuring entirely. The organisation’s fixation on Jonathan and recommendations of the conference he convened on the eve of the last presidential election raises doubt about the goal of the organisation and others like it in other parts of the country. Assuming that Afenifere is speaking for the Yoruba rather than for its members, is it accurate to insist that the federal system that the Yoruba want is synonymous with recommendations from the 2014 national dialogue arrived at by delegates handpicked by Jonathan? Essentially, Afenifere and Arewa are groups of self-appointed leaders or spokesmen for their own sections of the country, and their views pro and con of restructuring should not be seen to go beyond claims and demands that have not been presented to citizens for whom they claim to speak.

    While calling for restructuring of the Nigerian polity can be presented in the vocabulary of overt or covert partisanship, strategies and activities that can gain traction among citizens, especially in the Yoruba region will have to be at best bi-partisan or supra-partisan, in the fashion of a movement in which members see re-federalisation as an ideological goal that must be achieved before proper political and economic development can be achieved in the country. Some template for turning restructuring into a people’s demand in the Yoruba region was created three years ago under the aegis of the Yoruba Assembly convened in Ibadan by retired Lt-General Alani Akinrinade. The project of establishing a supra-partisan Yoruba Constitutional Convention that ensued from the Assembly is still waiting today for endorsement of Afenifere and kindred organisations. There may be no genuine restructuring without a negotiated constitution. At present, Nigeria has a constitution imposed on it by military dictators and designed to make far-reaching amendments of such constitution impossible to accomplish. Consequently, proponents and opponents of re-federalisation should note that creating a de-militarised constitution that enjoys the consent of citizens is part of the campaign for restructuring.

    Arewa should note that, apart from Afenifere’s fixation on Jonathan’s conference recommendations, Afenifere and other groups calling for restructuring have not done anything to derogate from President Buhari’s promise to: Initiate action to amend our Constitution with a view to devolving powers, duties and responsibilities to states and local governments in order to entrench true Federalism and the Federal spirit. But pro- and anti-restructuring regional spokespersons need to mobilise and consult those they claim to represent before presenting positions on their behalf.

  • On President Buhari’s fight against waste in government

    On President Buhari’s fight against waste in government

    The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission should be re-invented to do proper cost benefit analysis before allocating funds to politicians and civil servants, if waste is to be curtailed and equality and social justice are to be achieved

    Just a few days ago, President Buhari reaffirmed his commitment to fighting not just corruption but waste in government. Given the alarming nature of cases of political and bureaucratic corruption, it is understandable that the presidency, the media, and even the citizenry seem to have focused more on corruption than waste control. Yet wasteful spending of the common wealth of the country is believed by many to have the capacity to raise eyebrows of the average citizen, if as much information about the disproportionate share of the nation’s resources passed to political appointees and public servants has been available to citizens as the volume of information about graft.

    Waste as attempts to squander or use resources carelessly has been a part of our country’s governance culture for a long time. It just got worse with time as more resources accrued to the nation’s treasury from sale of petroleum. Generally, knowledge of waste in government and by government officials—policymakers and civil servants—falls into two types: one is open to the general society through government policies and the other is popularised in the informal media in the fashion of urban folklore. However, both types have basis in the reality of what accrues to politicians and public servants in every state of the federation. The first type is illustrated by periodic acknowledgement by governments since 1966 of existence of ghost workers in government employment while the second is captured in urban stories about what is generally hidden from the public, such as conjectures about the income of lawmakers.

    Variants of the first type is as old as colonialism in the country. In the days before independence, persons serving in the colonial service from the United Kingdom took all sorts of allowances that included Bush or Inconvenience allowance for leaving their country or leaving Lagos or the provincial headquarters in which they served for short assignments in other towns and villages. Expatriates in colonial government even earned more money than their Nigerian counterparts doing similar jobs. The policy about gratuity in addition to pension started during the colonial era as a way to thank members of the Civilising Mission that came to serve the natives.

    Our own leaders at independence adopted and eventually added to such benefits, having been convinced that they were the new white masters over their people and thus deserved special privileges. British colonialists were not under any obligation, as they were at home, to do proper cost and benefit analysis of any policy they made in respect of their compensation. It was assumed that leaving the comfort of Britain to work among the natives carried a lot of risk and hazards for which they must be properly compensated. This was the formation of the Nigerian political and public service elite, a special group of citizens that had to be pampered disproportionately for the work they do, regardless of the cost-effectiveness of such benefits.

    I still remember when I started as a young clerk in the Federal Office of Statistics in Obalende in 1963 and had to be transferred later to the Ibadan office in Mokola. I was asked by the accounts officer in Lagos to list what I needed to carry to Ibadan on the train. I told the man, “just my box.” He laughed and said that to compute my entitlements profitably I should have a few things.When I received my allowance for my train ride to Ibadan, I was awarded money for bicycle, boxes, and many other things I cannot remember now. Counting the money in the envelope, I looked puzzled and the man in the cash office reminded me that that was the benefit of going to school to qualify for such jobs.  Elite or those being prepared for that status had to dress differently from other people in the country; they had to eat more extravagantly than them as illustrated by serving undergraduates then a quarter of chicken on Sundays when an entire family had to make do with one chicken. Grooming the elite in Nigeria after independence was on the model of the expatriate coloniser. The post-colonial elite was organised and nurtured till this day to illustrate exploitation of the many by the few.

    Since the example of structure of compensation for colonial administrators, Nigeria had not had time or reason to rethink and adopt rational cost and benefit approach to compensating its politicians and public servants, particularly those considered to be special by the compensating agency which invariably include those who also receive the prizes of being special citizens. For example, our lawmakers’ access to outlandish benefits that set them apart from others is a bastardisation of the remuneration system inherited from colonialism. How else does one explain wardrobe allowance for men and women in the legislature, special allowance for houses, cooks, drivers, domestic assistants, etc., given the fact that many of such lawmakers did not even have any respectable livelihood before they were selected to contest elections? What makes the job of lawmakers in the NASS any more rigorous than the job of medical doctors in our hospitals? In terms of outcomes, what indicates that the lawmakers add more value to the society than teachers of mathematics in our colleges and universities?

    Extravagant compensation of people in the public service is not only in terms of cash compensation. For example, the new IGP implied in his complaint against his predecessor for vacuuming 24 cars that four cars should have been enough for anyone (meaning retiring IGP) to appropriate as he or she leaves office. Urban folklore is also overflowing with stories of many governors and their deputies being entitled to one two houses built for them after leaving office and three or four cars provided for them periodically free of charge. Even local government chairmen are believed to take with them cars bought for them to use while in office. Urban folklore also tells stories of governors and deputy governors who take with them the furniture provided for them while in office, to tide them over before they receive the new ones for their new homes built for them from public funds. Should anyone be surprised that lawmakers are asking for similar perquisites?

    Even as we speak, former ministers and members of the legislatures who have been paid generous severance benefits, after failing to be re-elected or re-appointed are still going around with three or four police escorts in a country where police-citizen ratio is more than 1 to 1000 citizens. Worse still, even ministers under Obasanjo and under former military dictators are still accompanied by policemen in a country that is not at war. Retired senior civil servants are still receiving free diesel to power their generators as part of non-cash gratuity for donating their talent to the nation.  Many ministers and top civil servants were rumoured to have complained about Buhari’s austerity measure regarding restricting our top men and women in politics and bureaucracy to travelling in business class, instead of the first class that they had been used to. Although all of these may not come under corruption, they are certainly graphic illustrations of a culture of waste that favours the elite while their counterparts in public service not considered special are quickly forgotten after send-off parties.

    Of course, feudalisation of the economy and polity (despite constitutional avowal of equality, equity, and equality to all citizens) through over compensation of political officers and bureaucrats would not have happened if there had been no huge flows of petroleum to make such irrational compensations easy for policy makers. Whatever rents political leaders—military and civilian—were able to collect was always enough to justify policies designed to pamper a few members of the post-colonial feudal class all over the country, for as long as the concept of their special status is made difficult for non-elite members to contest.

    Now that the source of easy funds is dwindling fast, and President Buhari and his party have reaffirmed their commitment to create a just society and reduce poverty, there is no better time for the president to re-commit to bringing waste or squandering of national resources without any consideration for cost-effectiveness, like corruption, under the radar for reform. The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission should be re-invented to do proper cost benefit analysis before allocating funds to politicians and civil servants, if waste is to be curtailed and equality and social justice are to be achieved.

  • Small things that seem to resist change

    It is only intellectual and moral midgets in public authority that can relish ignoring their mistakes, more so when such errors damage the career of innocent citizens

    Despite what some people have called Nigerians’ impatience about change, there are some big things that are being changed almost imperceptibly. For example, names that used to instill fear in the minds of many of the innocent among us are now being picked up by EFCC for investigation and in many cases for detention until such politically ‘oversize’ men and women are able to meet bail conditions. However, many acts of impunity and sloppy management of serious matters are still being condoned or ignored by those in charge of the political machine of change.

    One such avoidable act of impunity is the reported refusal of the Police Service Commission to reverse itself on errors in recent retirement of senior police officers. According to a news report, Femi Ogunbayode, AIG, who was retired for being a senior to the newly appointed Acting Inspector-General, Ibrahim Idris, was in fact a junior of the new IGP. A very disturbing aspect of the news is that a source who pleaded not to be identified had noted that the Police Service Commission refuses to address such egregious error that is capable of demoralising many in the police force and also of scaring citizens in other government employment.

    If this kind of behaviour on the part of any regulatory agency had happened during the era of military dictatorship or even during the regime of impunity that just got replaced through election of a government of change in 2015, most people would not have taken any notice. Such acts would have been regarded as normal in the fashion of ‘business as usual.” Impunity was not strange under military rule and even under civilian regimes that chose to act in the style of military dictators that they succeeded. But, any failure on the part of the Police Service Commission to review the retirement of AIG Ogunbayode can undermine the change agenda. It is true that whoever feels wronged can go to court, but such court process will be a waste of the nation’s resources, just as it will dampen the spirit of voters for change while also embarrassing minders of the machine of change.

    All government agencies are human creations and are thus not expected to be perfect or infallible. But it is a sign of moral irresponsibility for leaders of public agencies to act as if they are omniscient and omnipotent to the point of easily getting away with wanton destruction of innocent citizens. It is a gross misconduct in humane societies for those who have power of oversight over public institutions to disregard the consequence of their mistakes. It is only intellectual and moral midgets in public authority that can relish ignoring their mistakes, more so when such errors damage the career of innocent citizens.

    Generally, individuals and institutions who are used to a culture of impunity often find it difficult to own up to their mistakes. But such failure is an illustration of poor leadership. Good leadership requires that leaders own up to their mistakes and with such choice earn more respect as leaders. A good example is the decision of the British Prime Minister to resign after the BREXIT referendum. David Cameron showed exemplary leadership by accepting responsibility for calling a referendum that appeared to have embarrassed him and his supporters. It is not every mistake by a leader that should lead to resignation. More often than not, just mere acknowledgement of such mistakes and acceptance to undo them is what is expected from good leaders in civilised ethos.

    Another seemingly insignificant aspect of our political culture is the hiring and firing of ghost workers. Recently, spokespersons for federal and state governments have been beating their chests for unearthing and stopping payment of salaries to ghosts as examples of serious effort to cut costs. But Nigerians have been hearing about ghost workers for decades and of efforts by successive governments to kill such ghosts and add their salaries to the nation’s savings. What had never happened and should have happened immediately ghost workers were discovered under the watch of a government under President Buhari of global anti-corruption fame is identification and prosecution of the financial institutions, bank staff, and government officials responsible for paying ghosts. If the federal government is as active as it has been in respect of big corruption cases, there is no reason why the government or any of its agencies should treat stealing of public funds through hiring and paying of ghosts with kid gloves. “Firing’ ghosts from government payrolls is not the best a government can do. Identification and prosecution of creators of ghosts to facilitate stealing of public funds is what is most needed, if the practice of hiring and paying ghost workers is not to recur as it had for the past few decades.

    Still on business-as-usual or casual governance, the recent increase of public holidays for this year’sEid-el-Fitri from the normal two days to three cannot but surprise believers in the government of change. Many years ago, the public holiday for this important religious festival was one day. It grew to two days on account of the case made by military rulers for balance between the two major imported religions: Islam and Christianity. It was argued that the two days for Easter: Good Friday and Easter Monday are Christian holidays and even that Christmas day and Boxing day are also in honour of Christianity. The philosophy in most of the other Islamic countries is to give a full day of rest to Muslims who have fasted for 30 days and thus allow them to celebrate such rest day without job-related encumbrances. Granted that lunar calendar is not fixed, it should have been enough to limit the two-day holiday to Tuesday and Wednesday initially announced by the federal government. Since the real day of festivity is Wednesday worldwide, nothing would have been lost if Nigerian Muslims had been asked to make do with the eve and the day of Eid-el-Fitri. It is an avoidable paradox to ring the bell of economic productivity to the countries of the world and then suddenly relapse into the Manna economy of petroleum that makes commitment to the culture of productive economy un-necessary. Apart from absence of production for three days in the past week, such an extended holiday also has the tendency to overburden celebrators of Eid-el-Fitri. It is too soon to give the world the impression that we are incapable of outgrowing the awuff economy of oil.

    One other practice in the days of ‘business-as-usual’ governance style is the belief that anyone regardless of expertise can serve as public relations make-up artist for the president. At a recent celebration of President Buhari’s appointment of Cross River and Akwa Ibom men and women to federal positions, those who tried to help burnish the image of the president, though with good intentions, chose the wrong packaging for their message. For example, in response to charges of lopsided appointments by the president in the security sector, made prominently at a recent alliance talks between self-characterised leaders of Yoruba and Ijaw nationalities, the Head of Federal Civil Service, Minister of Niger Delta, and Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters dodged the issue in contention. They focused on appointments that are not related to the claim of Ijaw leaders from Bayelsa, Rivers, and Delta at the Eko Hotel meeting about appointment by the president of 14 out of 17 security heads from the North, leaving three to the South. The argument that Nigeria is configured not in terms of North and South but in terms of states only skirts the issue. Such interpretation of the constitution has not put to rest the allegation of lopsided appointments, given the fact that there are only 19 states in the North and 17 in the South. Such intricate matters are better left to professional public relations experts in the presidency.  To have attempted to appeal to those who feel aggrieved that Federal Character principles have not been violated because the appointments were made on merit does not help matters. Is this an admission that the other states not given such appointments lack people of merit? It can be counter-productive to give the impression that the talent to do any type of work in the country is region- or state-specific. It was the need to prevent born-to-rule or born-to-administer syndrome that stimulated the Federal Character principle, at a time that some regions had less trained manpower than others.

  • Democracy and fear mongering

    Democracy and fear mongering

    Instead of seeing separation of powers as mechanisms for checking and balancing the three branches of government in a presidential system, many senators are calling for opposition of powers.

    There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.—Lord Acton

    Like everything else about our country, no institution is guaranteed the stability, most especially under the watch of those charged to nurture it. Even democracy, under the new government of change, is already being turned into a problemat the hands of persons empowered by electoral democracy who, for personal reasons, feel compelled to become fear mongerscommitted to replacing agenda setting with distractions.

    The new army of warriors for democracy in the country via fear stoking has many battalions. One group is of lawmakers not at ease with the executive’s notion of change. Another is a grouping of Christian propagandists from various denominations. And another is a band of ethnic leaders not openly avenging any wrong but just only acting to strengthen a dare-devil enclave of self-proclaimed avengers. As starkly different as these groups are, one thing connects all of them. Each of the groups presents itself as the country’s post-Jonathan patriotic vanguard for democracy and justice. All the groups have a flair to see the intention to destroy democracy on the faces of those who may disagree with the view that venality in government in the last four years is something that should be expunged from the agenda of a government voted for citizens’ hunger for change.

    Top lawmakers in the 8th Senate are already building fears in the minds of citizens about threats to our democracy, largely on account of efforts by the executive to fulfill one of its main functions: law enforcement, crime detection, and prosecution. Although simmering for months since the Buhari’s change agenda started with identification of individuals who, in the words of Chinua Achebe in AMan of the People, had taken too much from the nation’s tilly for the owner not to notice, massive fear mongering broke out when two principal officers in the senate got mentioned in a charge of forgery of rules used to select senate’s principal officers. The struggle to save democracy from the executive branch now appears to be full blown to inspire (or incite?) citizens to take their democratic country back from abusers. Currently, a new battle line has been drawn by senate gladiators to fight what they consider as hidden agenda on the part of the executive to destroy the principle of separation of powers.

    Senators who were initially content with accompanying the senate president to court in a show of solidarity on an earlier charge of false declaration have now thrown all cautions to the wind by proclaiming that the legislative branch would stop cooperating or supporting the president. Some have pledged to suspend approval of the president’s nominees for ambassadorship and other assignments while a few went further to stop supporting the president’s war on corruption. It did not stop there with senators at war. Many top senate officers and their supporters are making strenuous efforts to redefine the concept of separation of powers. To them Locke’s and Montesquieu’s preference for a government with three separate branches to check the power of each other gets a new definition. Instead of seeing separation of powers as mechanisms for checking and balancing the three branches of government in a presidential system, many senators are calling for opposition of powers. What was designed as political effort to achieve public and social order is fast becoming in the hands of some senators as a war to appropriate powers constitutionally reserved for the executive branch. The offence that calls for senators’ decision to frustrate the president from now on is failure on his part to discourage his attorney-general from enforcing the country’s laws, with respect to the integrity of the rules under which some senators obtained authority as principals of the 8th senate. Under the new interpretation of opposition of powers, senators have started to harass the attorney-general with summons to appear before them to explain why he chose to accuse the country’s “co-presidents in the senate” of such ridiculous action as forging any rule.

    As expected, media owners must have been smiling to the banks from revenue generated by sensationalising in the past few days of the war to save democracy from murderous hands of the executive. Citizens who have little training in critical reading must have been scared to death that the country’s democracy is under serious attack. As is often the case with the Nigeria factor of everything around here, rumour about attempted coup d’etat became a popular theme at bus stops and beer parlours. Consequently, leaders of the armed forces felt obliged to re-assure citizens of stability and commitment of the armed forces from top to bottom to abide by the function given to them by the constitution: protect the country’s territorial integrity, citizens from external attacks, and the government elected to govern the country and its people.

    On another front, some Christian leaders are sending text messages to citizens to warn them about the danger in what they see as marginalisation of followers of Jesus by the government of a president who follows Mohammed but rules with a vice president who is a respectable Pentecostal evangelist. With conflicting views of separate Christian leaders, the community of followers of Jesus in the country appears divided at present. Some pastors are giving assurance in the media that they are in support of President Buhari’s war on corruption. Yet another group is warning citizens through text messages and media announcements about imminentArmageddon on account of marginalisation of Christians in federal appointments by Buhari.

    Worse still, even nationalities that are not known for complaining about marginalisation on account of their own exaggerated opinions of their achievements are already in the news as engaging in diplomatic shuttles across regions to negotiate with other nationalities perceived to be fellow victims of marginalisation, without reference to co-members of such nationalities who are outside the cartels for power. Incidentally (or coincidentally?), some of such leaders also accused Jonathan of marginalisation during his administration until President Jonathan then quickly did the needful. For example, when some leaders arranged to meet Jonathan on the matter of marginalisation four years ago, they had on their agenda the percentage of persons from their nationality appointed into juicy MDAs by Jonathan, not direly needed repair of the federal roads on which hundreds of their fellow men and women die prematurely on account of lack of repair. Today’s focus is not on demands of specific nationalities or regions for de-marginalisation.

    It is about deafening distractions from self-appointed warriors for democracy in our country— lawmakers who may have acted to get noticed by warriors against corruption, failed politicians and self-appointed cultural and community leaders aspiring to obtain political power or influence. Citizens need to be helped to know that fighting corruption is not tantamount to corroding democracy.

    There is a short Yoruba folktale that those engaged in distracting attention from the war on corruption can get some wisdom from. It goes thus: Olongo and Tiintiin were close friends in the avian world. Tiintiin travelled out of his town for one year and left his wife in the care of Olongo. When Tiintiin came back home, he noticed that his wife was pregnant and showed his surprise at the development. His wife confessed that she was pregnant for Olongo, listing all the reasons for succumbing to Olongo’s entreaties. Anytime Tiintiin approached Olongo to discuss the state of his wife, Olongo engaged in theatrics of distraction by acting insane. Tiintiin then urged elders to join him in singing to his friend thus: Siwin Olongo, Olongo sinwin, kio to sinwin, o tan oranyinaa o, siwin Olongo,Olongo sinwin (Get mad Olongo for as long as you want, but before you go insane, just let us settle this matter first). Lawmakers with interest in supporting their colleagues, spokespersons for ethnic militant groups, and organisers of marginalised nationalities should just wait for the government branch charged to call to order persons those who had stolen from the country’s treasury, before they all go crazy with the country’s renewed theatre of distractions.