The Nation Newspaper

Category: Ropo Sekoni

  • Senate’s constitution: Are we all frogs in temperate water?

    If anything, most citizens perceive themselves as being dropped into hot water by those they have elected into office and thus feel compelled to jump out before they are killed.

    We tend not to seek or embrace meaningful change except in response to a manifest crisis that carries immediate and direct adverse consequences. The geneses of our latest cyclical crises prove that tendency. The distorted incentives of our financial industry, the latest generation of market bubbles, and our fiscal irresponsibility in the public sector each constitutes an example of the boiling frog phenomenon—a metaphorical reference to the asserted fact that a frog dropped into a pot of boiling water will immediately leap from it, but that that same frog, dropped into a pot of temperate water that is then gradually heated may perceive the mounting heat but will fail to respond to the magnitude of the mounting danger and ultimately will suffocate and will be boiled to death. The frog is us. Indeed, our very cleverness at rationalizing the irrational and denying manifest risks in our midst arguably makes this the age of the boiling frog.—Joseph Ferguson in Transparent Government: What it means and how you can make it happen.

    Ferguson’s stretch of the analogy of boiled frog to everybody may be too much for Nigerians, particularly when one remembers periodic resistance by many civil society organisations of venality, recklessness, and deception of many segments of the country’s elite. But it is no exaggeration that most of the country’s institutions, many political office holders, and their fulltime supporters in uniform or mufti for the past few decades have acted like the boiled frog described in the quotation from Ferguson above.

    The 8th Senate is one of the institutions that can be compared to the boiled dog. It has been mired in controversy since its birth. Some of its leaders are also facing a perjury charge in a court that is having huge problems to sit regularly enough to reach a judicial decision. Many senators have even prevented the senate from sitting promptly and regularly because such leaders find it more dutiful to accompany their colleague on trial for perjury to court, in the name of Nigerian Senate’s espirit de corps. In addition, some of the leaders of the 8th senate are also about to face allegation of forgery. And their colleagues in the country’s hallowed factory of laws are shouting foul at the executive branch, threatening to withdraw the support many senators in the opposition party in particular had generously bestowed on the president in his attempt to fight corruption.

    It is in the midst of these happenings that some senators have had time to propose amendments to the 1999 Constitution, the union’s Basic Laws that were crafted in the middle of the night by departing military dictators and unearthed after the first post-military constitution in 1999 as a fait accompli for the polity.Nobody who cares to observe the deception in the preamble of the constitution about all Nigerians gathering to weave the laws that are to guard and guide the life of Nigeria as a union would worry about the enthusiasm of the 8th senate to rush into amending a constitution perceived by many as not having the consent of the people.

    But true to a Yoruba saying: “there is no good way to prepare Ebolo(a deep-green vegetable with distinctive smell) that will get rid of its strong smell,” many in the 8th senate have, despite all efforts to get a new governance culture, embarked on the wrong cause: using their position of authority, not to champion any form of ennoblement but to push an agenda of self-enrichment at the expense of 70% of citizenswho live in grinding poverty. The current senate is making every effort to improve its conditions of service and work by granting leaders of the Senate and House immunity from investigation and prosecution while they are in office. As if this was not enough, another amendment is to build into the nation’s budget handsome pension benefits for the same set of leaders, for having taken great sacrifice of abandoning their jobs and business to spend their precious time to create laws for the progress of the country.

    Like the frog dropped into temperate water, the 8th senate must have been impervious to the risks of having the courage and lack of wisdom to incense citizens whose humanity must have been diminished by destitution in a country that should have been overflowing with milk and honey. Senators asking for immunity and pension benefits act as if the Nigeria of 2016 is the same that made it possible for previous elected wielders of executive and legislative power to do as they liked, in advancing their self-enrichment and protection from the nation’s laws. Fortunately, the immediate resistance by civil society groups and citizen journalists on the social media of attempts to reshape the constitution to boost senators’ power and enlarge their purse even after they cease to be useful to citizens illustrates that not all Nigerians are frogs dropped into temperate water. If anything, most citizens perceive themselves as being dropped into hot water by those they have elected into office and thus feel compelled to jump out before they are killed.

    To leave the realm of metaphor or analogy aside, in denotative language the attempt by the senate to put principal officers of federal and state legislatures on life-long pension earnings, regardless of how long they serve as lawmakers and in disregard of the country’s financial health and without consideration of the country’s superannuation policies, ought to embarrass and incense all patriotic citizens. There are many reasons why rational senators should not have thought of amending the constitution to give their leaders pension and immunity at a time of near economic emergency in the country.

    One reason is lawmakers’ refusal to be influenced by the hard facts of the nation’s financial crunch. It is no longer news that governments at all levels in the country are facing deep economic and financial crisis as a result of collapsing price of oil and unbridled stealing of public revenue garnered during the years of plenty in the petroleum sector. It is unpatriotic for lawmakers to ignore failure of 27 state governments to pay salaries of workers, including salaries of workers on minimum wage of N18,000 per months. On record, Nigerian lawmakers are the most highly paid lawmakers on the globe. They obtain, among other perquisites, wardrobe allowance; housekeeper’s allowance, driver’s allowance, furniture furniture, and even constituency allowance to perform executive functions while working part-time on legislative duties for which they were elected.

    Secondly, questions that are given critical consideration in better organised polities seem to have been ignored by lawmakers using the platform of amending the constitution to pass more funds to their leaders beyond their service years. Before such decisions are made in other places, the following questions are asked and answered: What is the total worth of the economy and how do recommended policies on pension income for lawmakers reflect the volume of the economy and the size of the nation’s wealth?  How does the wage and pension policy relate to current wage and pension policies of the country? Senators have acted as if the age of manna or awuff is still with us. It is understandable that when they decided to contest for their positions, oil revenue was abundant enough to make the adventurous take a loan to fight for election as a lawmaker.

    With respect to immunity to president and deputy president of each of the two legislative houses, why are senators trying to fix what has not broken? Every legislator is equal to the other. There is no reason to give senators, regardless of the offices their colleagues put them in, special protection from investigation and prosecution while serving as lawmaker. Parliamentary immunity, that protects lawmakers for whatever they say while in parliament, is enough for the job at hand. If the intention is for senators to have the privilege of leaders of the executive branch, the senators pushing for immunity may be reading the mood of the electorate wrong: Nigerians are likely to vote against presidential immunity, if senators make provision for a referendum on such matters. The first rule in nature is to have a sense of self-preservation. Senators are acting as if they have no regard for this rule by pushing for more benefits during the country’s lean years. This is the most appropriate time for the legislature to cooperate with the executive to bring back the years of plenty, before thinking of asking for more perks.

  • June 12 Plus

     Many others see June 12 as a fitting time to repeat the demand for restructuring while others would rather not be bothered for calling for the kind of change that restructuring entails

    A well-deserved ritualisation of June 12 took place last Sunday. As usual, this year’s ritual of remembrance of the period of loss as a device to engineer reform went well in most of the Southwest states, leading to public holidays in some states, street marches in others, calls for  symbolic and substantive compensation in others, and reinforcement of twenty-three-year old call for true federalism in others. Today’s piece, ‘June 12 Plus’ is to remind readers of what the June 12 struggle failed to achieve and the new thorns thrown on the road opened by June 12 to re-federalisation and full democratisation of Nigeria.

    Historically, the June 12 struggle had three goals: restoration of MKO Abiola’s presidential mandate given to him by the fairest and freest election in the country’s history; de-militarisation of the country’s polity; and return of federal system of governance to the country. After the death of Abacha and later of Abiola in circumstances that continue to raise questions till today, the struggle lost its first goal. The second goal was partially won at the time General Olusegun Obasanjo became president at the end of General Abdusalami’s transition to democracy in 1999. But Obasanjo’s presidential election was not guided by any visible constitution to let citizens and candidates know what they were bargaining for. And the third goal, re-federalisation of the polity, had been hanging in the air ever since. Even after four post-military presidential elections, Nigeria is still saddled with a constitution crafted behind closed doors by military rulers.

    Surprisingly, seventeen years of elected governments have not alleviated the problems that arose from June 12. On the contrary, the period of post-military rule has aggravated the unsolved problems left behind after Abiola’s death and the transition to civil rule that followed it. Interestingly, the narrative of re-federalisation had not died even 23 years after annulment of Abiola’s election, but its retelling has been hobbled by confusion arising from several quarters. NADECO at home and abroad suffered some gradual haemorrhaging since some of its members came to political power in the Yoruba region. Only a few of the governors/lawmakers elected since 1999 and a few NADECO leaders remained vocal in calling for re-federalisation, either in terms of fiscal federalism or true federalism.

    The frustration in the course of realising the goal of re-federalisation has taken many forms. NADECO became war weary after the death of Abiola and the promise of return to democratic rule by the Abdulsalami Abubakar government. Others found selling re-federalisation to politicians as a stratagem to mobilise for electoral support by politicians of their liking to be fashionable and profitable. Some found creation of mushroom organisations as vehicles for calling for federalism stimulating and rewarding as a means of staying politically and socially relevant in their communities. Many others see June 12 as a fitting time to repeat the demand for restructuring while others would rather not be bothered for calling for the kind of change that restructuring entails.

    Ironically, a former chieftain of NADECO-abroad, now leader of the All Progressives Congress, opened a hydrant on the fire of re-federalisation a few days before this year’s June 12 anniversary when he announced that federalism is not a priority of the new administration. Many who voted for a New Nigeria in 2015 are already feeling confused by the pronouncement of the chairman of APC and President Buhari’s media assistant who characterised the call for federalism as a distraction from the ruling party’s priorities. But the following statement in the highlights of APC manifesto: 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, does not suggest that an item in the highlights of the party’s manifesto is not a priority item. From information available to the electorate, the manifesto of APC emphasises re-federalisation or reforming the existing largely unitary system through amendment of the 1999 Constitution. If the spirit to do what was promised is no longer there, it is important for the party to say so. And I believe doing so should go beyond an ex-tempore assessment of Buhari administration’s priorities by the ruling party’s chairman.

    More than two decades after NADECO’s struggles for democracy for universal and cultural democracy, Nigeria is still largely at the same point that it was after the election of the first post-military government of Obasanjo. The partial de-militarisation achieved through election of Obasanjo as a civilian and of subsequent civilian presidents and lawmakers remains as limited as it was in 1999. The constitution that presents a unitary system as a federal one is still intact. And the largest chunk of the nation’s revenue is still going to the central government that has no direct constituents to service while states and local governments that house and provide direct service to citizens receive much less than the central government. The imbalance between subnational and national governance is even getting worse as the golden eggs of petroleum start decreasing. States are now leaving on bailouts and loans, instead of being empowered constitutionally to produce what they consume, all in an effort to sustain the old system of fragmented states that have to be nurtured as subordinates rather than coordinates of the central government.

    ‘June-twelvers’ who have remained committed to the ideals and goals of June 12 deserve to be congratulated for not becoming despondent after another two decades of a constitution that is afraid to come to terms with the demands of managing a culturally diverse country. Since 1966, Nigeria has been trying to find its way to the map of modern development. Rather, it has been moving from one crisis to the other, a situation that had made nonsense of the lives of millions of people who had died while waiting for justice and progress and of the chances of many others still alive to have a good life in a country whose progress is undermined politically and economically by its flawed structure. There is, however, danger in allowing the government spawned by a party popularly known as A New Party for a New Nigeria for the purpose of Building a New Nigeria which we voted for massively in 2015 to be derailed by what looks like right wing interpretation of the platform presented by General Buhari in 2015.

    In addition, ‘June-twelvers’ and others genuinely committed to bringing federalism back to the country should not be contented with gathering every year to remember the injustice of the past. Remembering Abiola and June 12 must include working towards realisation of the missed goals of the NADECO struggle, not just through gathering of motley associations, but through a return to a cohesive organisation to revive the struggle for true federalism. At present, there must be in the Yoruba region alone hundreds of groups working towards restructuring with very little communication or cooperation among them. If truly, the Yoruba desire a return to the federal system, they need to know that a calendrical ritual of remembrance of a period of democratic loss may not be enough to galvanise the rest of the country to accept the inevitability of change through re-federalisation. For example, it is important to recognise that true federalism cannot come from the obsession of alumni of Jonathan’s national dialogue with recommendations of the conference that Jonathan himself was reluctant to implement. Believers in the demands of the June 12 struggle, especially in full de-militarisation of the polity and restoration of federalism through a people’s constitution need to remember the old saying: There are no shortcuts to any place worth going. Confusing recommendations of Jonathan’s conference with restructuring that Nigerians have been calling for since the 1990s is akin to preferring to find a shortcut to taking time to identify a place worth going.

  • Public education and the future of Yoruba civilisation (2)

    Public education and the future of Yoruba civilisation (2)

    Citizens of Oyo State, the state that received the birthing of Nigeria’s first public education system, needs to interact with other states in Nigeria and outside, to borrow ideas about how to sustain public education qua public education

    Such arrangements [Liberia’s plan to subcontract provision of public education to private companies] are a blatant violation of Liberia’s international obligations under the right to education, and have no justification under Liberia’s constitution.…This also contradicts political commitments made by Liberia and the international community to the fourth UN Sustainable Development Goal which is on education and related targets…Provision of public education of good quality is a core function of the State. Abandoning this to the commercial benefit of a private company constitutes a gross violation of the right to education…It is ironic that Liberia does not have resources to meet its core obligations to provide a free primary education to every child, but it can find huge sums of money to subcontract a private company to do so on its behalf…These sums could be much better spent on improving the existing system of public education and supporting the educational needs of the poor and marginalized…Before any partnership is entered into, the Government of Liberia must first put into place legislation and policies on public private partnerships in education, which among other things, protect every child’s right to education…There also needs to be an independent body or institution established to receive complaints of potential violations of the right to education that might result from this development.—Kinshore Singh, UN’s Special Rapporteur on the right to education.

    I have opened today’s piece with a longish quotation from Kinshore Singh’s reaction to Liberia’s (first in Africa) plan to outsource public schools to private contractors, to suggest that what Oyo State is planning to do is not new, even though avoidable and unnecessary. The proposal by Oyo State which has been generously endorsed by leading monarchs in the state is similar to Liberia’s plan which UNESCO has found unacceptable on account of contravening United Nations’ recommendations on public education.

    The news that labour union members were absent from the Consultative Forum at which leading Yoruba monarchs expressed support for Oyo State’s plan to outsource public education to private entities is unfortunate. Labour as a major civil society group should have been present, regardless of perceived irritation, at every minute of the meeting of stakeholders to educate the audience about the role of government in the provision of public education in every country of the world—capitalist, socialist, and communist. Strike has its significance, but dialogue within stakeholders is crucial for intelligent conversation on matters that affect the destiny of citizens. And labour unions are indispensable organizations to such dialogues. It is, however, instructive that the consultative forum has been turned into an ongoing one, to allow for all voices to be heard on this important matter. And labour unions should return to the meeting to enrich discussion on the legality, constitutionality, and morality of the plan to hire contractors to manage public schools at a time there is no force majeure that cripples the civil service in the state and its local governments.

    The first piece last Sunday claimed that Oyo State government is asking the wrong question about how to improve performance of public schools or that decision to contract out management of selected public schools to profit seekers is creating a solution for problems that have not been properly identified. Just as Singh had observed in respect of Liberia’s model for Oyo State, a better option for solving the problem of management of schools in Liberia (and also in Oyo State) is for such governments to ‘approach UNESCO in the short run for technical assistance and capacity building, instead of entering into partnerships with for-profit management companies.

    The problem facing education in the Yoruba region is much larger and more challenging than finding professionals to manage public schools. There is still memory of a tradition of public school management that had gone into decline in the decades of fantasstic corruption made possible by huge flow of revenue from petroleum and emergence of many venal men and women in uniform and mufti that had ruled Nigeria for the past four decades. But the public service, especially the civil service that created public school system in the region that included Oyo can be revived, once the region returns to the economy of production from the economy of inordinate consumption in which the region had been mired for several decades. In other words, the challenge of managing schools should be the least worrisome of the problems provision of high performing public school system faces.

    Apart from the problem of decades of consumption that had diminished creative governance in our country, challenges have also arisen from the politics of centralism that made easy and fun-filled governance possible through distribution of oil money across mini-states and from the resultant diminishment of the powers of states and local governments in the organization, periodic review of education systems, including curriculum reforms, quality of instruction, learning environment, etc. In most countries, management of primary and secondary schools is the function of local governments. USA and Germany are handy examples of this model. In addition, the old system of political oversight over school management by principal stakeholders, such as parents and children, needs to be reactivated once Oyo and other states opt for a return to productive culture, away from the parasitic culture of consumption thrown up by military dictators and civilian rulers in the name of search for unity through even development when oil revenue was robust.

    One thing that has become incontrovertible in the 21st century is the universal recognition of the centrality of an educated and trained population for nations’ progress. It is because of universal recognition of the role of quality and equity in provision of state-funded primary and secondary education, regardless of citizens’ socio-economic level, that the UN chose to create Millennium Goals to guide developing countries towards a better future. This must be the cause of the insistence by the United Nations that under-developed or developing countries need to imitate advanced countries in accepting the importance of equal access of their citizens to state-funded schools that provide learning that can make the undeveloped parts of the world become competitive in the development of science, technology, and innovative knowledge, the levers of progress.

    Moving management of public schools away from the public service also has its serious implications. If the public service system is incapable of carrying out its functions, is the best option to relieve it of such functions and make it a house of freeloaders or salary earners on sinecure appointments? PPP, the new buzzword in our country, is good for activities that can bring revenue. Public education all over the world is seen as service to citizens and not revenue generating agencies, like airports, roads, railway lines. America’s popular saying: “If ain’t broke don’t fix it” is applicable to the hyping about privatizing management of public schools. What appears broken in respect of public education is ideology, policy, and commitment to creating and sustaining modern and conducive public schools.

    Citizens of Oyo State, the state that received the birthing of Nigeria’s first public education system, needs to interact with other states in Nigeria and outside, to borrow ideas about how to sustain public education qua public education. A public school that is transferred to private managers is no longer a public school but a profit-making venture for such managers. The noise about the innovativeness of hiring professionals outside the civil service system to manage schools as the best way to improve achievement of public schools sounds more like karounwi or sheer symbolic acts. Oyo and other Yoruba states cannot afford to take any step that can adversely affect the access of citizens to state schools. If the problem is failure of management at the hands of public servants, let us reform the civil service. If it is a problem of funding public schools effectively, let us introduce education tax. Awolowo did this in his time. He even started Western Nigeria Lottery to generate funds for education. Many states in the USA now use lottery revenue to enhance funding of public schools. The consultative forum should be directed at the real problems: crisis in the philosophy, design, and provision of public education that can improve the competitiveness of Oyo State within and outside Nigeria. We may be avoidably distracting citizens or overheating the polity by insisting that transferring public schools to contractors is the only way out of the problems facing education.

  • Public education and the future of Yoruba civilisation (1)

    In order to attain to the goals of economic freedom and prosperity, Nigeria must do certain things as a matter of urgency and priority. It must provide free education (at all levels) and free health facilities for the masses of its citizens.Nigeria should be a secular State … As far as possible, there should be separation of activities between the States on the one hand, and religious bodies on the other.—Obafemi AwolowoThoughts on the Nigerian Constitution
    I rejoice with the biological Obafemi Awolowo family on the 60th anniversary of free education which is today. I also rejoice with ourselves, political offspring of the sage. His vision of quality education and development is the driving force of our government…Governments that seek immortality in the hearts of the people must pattern their policies after Awolowo as we are doing in Oyo State.—AbiolaAjimobi at the 60th anniversary of free education in Western Nigeria.

    Regardless of whatever recommendations come out of the ongoing consultative forum on Oyo State’s attempt to initiate ‘marketization’ of public education, citizens should insist on referendum before the current policy on education is denatured through transfer of public schools to contractors

    The states in Nigeria have certainly been experiencing difficulties in paying their bills since the decline in the price of oil. No further evidence is needed for this than the fact that several states have failed in paying their workers’ salaries in the last six months. The governor of Oyo State recently committed 100% of its federal allocation to payment of workers’ salaries, a sign of problems in meeting other demands in the public service sector.

    Whether a final decision has been taken by the Oyo State government to gradually transfer public schools to contractors or the government is just consulting with stakeholders in respect of the future of public education, it is palpably wrong for the state to advertise for buyers or partners in the state’s provision of public education. And it will also be wrong for any state in Nigeria in general and in the Yoruba region in particular to want to end the tradition of public education, regardless of the size of allocations from federation account or the inefficiency of the current civil service to provide education as it is done in successful countries. For the avoidance of doubt, Oyo State is largely functioning as a self-appointed scapegoat for other Yoruba states that had been nursing programmes of two public school systems: model/mega for the privileged and another set for the underprivileged. Therefore, whatever is wrong with Oyo State’s choice of action in respect of public school applies to other Yoruba states that had established semi-public or semi-private model schools or that are planning to do so.

    Education is a constant driver of the two core elements in Yoruba culture: tolerance and commitment to egalitarianism. In the modern era, Chief Obafemi Awolowo reinforced the Yoruba value of tolerance and egalitarianism through the policy of free public education.In the mid-1950s, Chief Awolowo’s Action Group initiated free primary education scheme by cooperating with pre-existing missionary schoolsto offer free education to citizens of the region. Mission schools then were treated more or less as grants-aided schools. Later in the late 1970s, Awolowo’s Unity Party of Nigeria embarked on a full-fledged public school system through government takeover of primary and secondary faith-based schools.

    The belief in the ideology that government’s primary responsibility is the welfare of citizens drove the consistency in the commitment of governments under Awolowo’s political parties to provision of public education, to the extent that even after Chief Awolowo and Chief Akintola had parted ways, Chief Akintola still kept to the policy of free education in the region while he was a member of a national party that did not believe in universal primary education.Even during and shortly after the civil war when Nigeria was not very liquid, Generals Adeyinka Adebayo and OluwoleRotimi, governors of the region at that time did everything to sustain provision of free public education in the region. The purpose of this longish return to history of policy on education is to remind those currently governing the region that whatever advantage that must have come to the Yoruba today happened because of two interventions: ideology of social welfare by past rulers under thick and thin in the years before petroleum revenue and the acceptance of that philosophy of governance by civil servants.

    Therefore, convening a special consultative forum to discuss attempts to sell or rent public schools to private business or transfer management of public schools to contractors is an unimaginative way to address the myriad problems facing public education in the region. Regardless of whatever recommendations come out of the ongoing consultative forum on Oyo State’s attempt to initiate ‘marketization’ of public education, citizens should insist on referendum before the current policy on education is denatured through transfer of public schools to contractors.

    The desire to improve the quality of education given to citizens in Oyo State is an excellent gesture, but the way to achieve qualitative education in Oyo or any other states in Nigeria is not for the state to abandon its own responsibility in providing equal opportunity of access of citizens to public schools that provide the same service to all students. Private schools are already providing an alternative to public education at a cost that excludes majority of the population. By attempting to transfer or share ownership of schools with the business sector, Oyo State is putting at risk the access of its citizens to education, as there is no business in Nigeria—secular or spiritual—that is likely to go into any enterprise without expecting profit. Before the advent of public primary and secondary schools in the Yoruba region, the so-called faith-driven schools—Christian or Islamic—did not provide free education. It was the denial of access to citizens without adequate resources to pay tuition charged in such schools that made the Action Group under Awolowo to initiate free primary education. It is, therefore, naïve to expect that making secondary education a PPP venture is going to improve quality without frustrating access.  Improving quality of education and providing access to such education are not necessarily mutually exclusive. What is Oyo State likely to gain by selling 30 secondary schools out of over 600 in the state to the private sector? And what are the criteria behind selection of the 31 schools to be passed to contractors?

    In addition, history has shown all over the world that the best way to provide a secular education in a country housing multiple faiths is to make provision of education the responsibility of government. While every citizen should always be free to have and express his or her own religious belief, selling public schools to missionaries puts secular education at a great risk. Thrivingin a modern society requires that citizens are not subjected to religious indoctrination or radicalization in the course of receiving education for the purpose of living in a modern society. Transferring control of public schools to propagators of any religious belief is tantamount to returning to the primitive or pre-modern system of tying learning to specific religious faiths.

    The decision to start transferring ownership of schools to private business unveils doubt on the part of political leaders of their role in modern governance.The claim by Oyo State’s spokesman that the objective of the state is to transfer public schools to expert managers for the purpose of providing qualitative education is puerile in the context ofa state that had run public school system for more than half a century. Does this policy suggest the government’s commitment to run two parallel public school systems: oneby contractors with capacity to provide qualitative educationin collaboration with the government and another set owned solely by government but without capacity to provide qualitative education?

    The problems facing education in Oyo and other states in the 21st century cannot be reduced to managerialism. To say that the government is not competent enough to manage public schools is in fact an indictment of government itself. With the ongoing dialogue in Ibadan on how to manage public schools,Oyo State is asking the wrong questions about how to provide qualitative education or creating a solution to a problem that has not been identified.

    • To be continued

     

  • Being wary about improvement in oil price

    Being wary about improvement in oil price

    Residences can make do with solar energy if the government is willing to provide the right support

    The world is going to have to continue using fossil fuels, whether they like it or not. Oil and gas will still provide about 60% of the world’s energy demands by 2040, even if countries adopt climate change proposals agreed in Paris.—Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil.
    This Agreement, in enhancing the implementation of the Convention, including its objective, aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change, in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty, including holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2C or 3.6F above pre-industrial levels.—Article 2 of Paris Climate Agreement.
    We have therefore decided to turn the disaster that we inherited into a blessing by diversifying our economy away from the mono-product of oil, leveraging on agriculture, solid minerals as well as culture and tourism among others.—Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information

    Regular readers of this column would remember that three or four years ago, this column carried a four-piece article titled, Petroleum and the Future of Nigeria. Lovers of the easy life created by huge flows of revenue from petroleum wrote to call the author a Cassandra, someone whose ideas about anything or trend analysis should be automatically discountenanced. Now that the price of oil is going up again, it is necessary to warn our political leaders and civil servants who may be victims of short-termism not to do or say anything to suggest dilution of the rhetoric and praxis of diversification that has formed the core of President Buhari’sChange Agenda.

     It is for this reason that I provide the three quotations in italics overleaf. The first one by Tillerson is to encourage those who see petroleum or fossil fuel as synonymous with easy money to remain steadfast in their belief in the concept of oil as money spinner at least until 2040. The second is about the worry of about 134 countries that fossil energy may take life away from our planet if humans do not industrialize in an environmentally responsible manner that can sustain life on our planet. The third by the minister of information is a re-statementof commitment by the Buhari administration to govern Nigeria as if there is no oil in its picture.

    Despite the optimism of Tillerson, the picture of the future of petroleum and other forms of fossil fuel may not be as buoyant as the Tillersons of this world believe. Environmentally responsible leaders of nations are struggling to promote the ascendance of renewable energy and the chances that advances in science and technology can shift attention away from fossil energy are high enough to make serious national leaders more cautious about how they grow their economy. It is instructive that when shale oil emerged a few years ago, the government driven by petroleum under President Jonathan and the PDP belittled development of shale oil by saying that United States of America’s becoming a petroleum exporting country could not adversely affect their sale of petroleum to new customers. Before our very eyes, more petrol than the market could absorbcame to the market,  and the rest is now history. Nigeria’s leaders in the government of change cannot afford to play the Ostrich this time, particularly with the demand for controlling the rise of greenhouse gases and the promotion by advanced countries of renewable energy. We cannot afford to be caught napping again.

    It is reassuring that President Buhari has not wavered in emphasizing the character of Nigeria’s new economy that is to be driven by agriculture and solid minerals. It is also important to accept that what happened to petroleum can also happen to solid minerals later. Hence, the reliance on solid minerals should not be viewed for the long-term as the magic wand to neutralize all of Nigeria’s ills. As for the long-term, emphasis should be on nudging the country in the direction of food security through agriculture and self-reliance in terms of other items consumed by our people should be seen principally through manufacturing. Agriculture in all forms and manufacturing are energy-intensive activities that require constant supply of electricity. The issue of electricity should not be on the second page of the priority lists of the Buhari presidency. No major achievement is likely to be possible in the area of agriculture and solid minerals mining without reliable electricity.

    If our country is to make any impact in the areas being pushed as the core of the federal government’s agenda: agriculture, solid minerals, and tourism, the government has to review its policy on provision of power. It is not surprising that President Buhari had said that the policy on privatization of the power sector will not be reversed. On the basis of the experience of Nigerians with privatization of telecommunication of services in the era of Obasanjo, they are likely to find Buhari’s decision to allow privatization of this crucial sector acceptable. But the way the sector has been handled by its new owners calls for immediate attention from the new administration.

    Apart from the controversy over increase in electricity tariff, the sector has been characterized by underachievement since it has been privatized, to the extent that citizens still refer to electricity suppliers: GENCOS and DISCOS as NEPA, the agency that transformed electricity supply in the country into a trope for inefficiency. As ever, under the new owners of this sector, distributable megawatts have been going up and down from 5,000 to 2,500 and the excuses or reasons have remained the same: no gas to power the turbines, low water in the dams, or too much water in the dams. In addition, even what appears to the average citizen as a simple matter— installation of pre-paid meters in the residential units across the country—has appeared unachievable. Excuses have been about inefficiency of imported pre-paid versus locally produced meters. Now that there is no foreign exchange to import meters, DISCOS should be urged to push for improvement of local pre-paid meters, so as to assure consumers that there is no ulterior motive behind Discos’ inability to supply pre-paid meters.

    It is also encouraging that the minister of power has assured citizens that the government plans to commence soon a special initiative on use of solar energy. This is an area that should receive intense attention from the federal government for several reasons. The solar power technology is advancing phenomenally, to the extent that energy-rich countries such as the United States of America and South Africa have added provision of solar power to the list of their own equivalent ofGencos and Discos. Secondly, we need to be able to leave the inadequate megawatts produced at present to agriculture, mining, manufacturing, and tourism, the sectors that can create jobs for our youth. Residences can make do with solar energy if the government is willing to provide the right support.

    In all the top ten countries in production and use of solar power: Germany, China, Japan, U.S., Spain, Australia, France, Belgium, Italy, UK, and India, the governments provide support for development of solar energy industry and for use of solar power. Such support to users include subsidy and rebates. There is a need to give ourGencos and Discos competition by licensing private solar power company(ies). We started a Center for Solar Energy at Nsukka about 40 years ago, the same time we started a Nuclear energy center at the University of Ife. The governments need to think further now about the need for the country to take advantage of its states with high sun irradiation levels. This effort should not be just to source for cheap solar panels for individuals or approach countries to donate megawatts of solar energy to agencies, but to license solar energy companies for provision of off-grid electricity, to compete with existing fossil fuel energy producersacross the country. Since there are essentially rudimentary energy producers in the country at present, there is no need to worry about big lobby to frustrate a new solar power initiative. Grid electricity companies will be relieved to distribute whatever is available on their system to farmers and manufacturers.

  • Is fuel subsidy ideologically inevitable?

    But the hard question that needs to be asked and answered by radical social and economic thinkers is whether fuel subsidy is the best way to assist the poor in our country.

    This piece first appeared last year when public conversation on oil subsidy and citizens’ welfare was as deafening as what obtains today

    Ade Alabi was sick in a village near Ibadan during the first fuel scarcity this year. His neighbour had a car and was willing to take Ade to the nearest primary health centre. Unfortunately for Ade, the raging fuel scarcity at the time prevented his neighbour from having petrol to buy, even though he was ready to pay the prohibitive price of N150 per litre charged by Black Market sellers of petrol in the village.  All efforts to take Ade to the hospital on his own Okada proved futile. There was no rubber hose to transfer petrol from Ade’s Okada into the car of his neighbour. Even though Ade had a brother who could ride Okada, his brother was just as big as Ade. It was not possible to have both brothers on the Okada with a third person to prop Ade up on the machine. While the entire village was thinking about how to get Ade to the hospital, the poor man slumped and died, leaving behind a wife and three children.

    The story above illustrates the danger (to the poor in particular) inherent in the insistence of self-defined socialist ideologues (in and outside the trade unions) on the religiosity of keeping fuel subsidy on account of protecting the poor and workers from avoidable exploitation by a government that is hardly capitalist but palpably thievish.

    Many cases are being made in the traditional press and the social media in support of cancelation of fuel subsidy in the country. Some pundits base their position on evidence of corruption in the handling of the subsidy scheme, citing examples of revelation of irregularities in various reports of committees established to probe the country’s subsidy scheme. Examples of financial irregularity are drawn from Farouk Lawan Committee’s Probe in 2012. This report claims that N232 billion on subsidy was paid to marketers for PMS in 2011 for fuel that was not supplied. The same committee also established that, contrary to the claims of marketers that 60 million litres was imported for each day in 2011, only 31 million litres per day was accounted for.

    Some commentators focus on the Nuhu Ribadu Probe in 2012 to argue for cessation of subsidy on the ground of lack of transparency. They draw attention to the report that NNPC deducted subsidy-related expenses before payment to the Federation Account in 2011. This group argues that NEITI’s audits from 1999 to 2011 also confirmed that NNPC deducted a total of N1.40 trillion for subsidy. Similarly, the Presidential Committee on Verification and Reconciliation of Fuel Subsidy (2012) is cited by anti-subsidy commentators to illustrate that 197 subsidy transactions worth N229 billion were illegitimate and that actual expenditure on subsidy was higher in the same year than appropriated sums for fuel subsidy.

    Economic thinkers of the free market persuasion also argue that natural resources are finite and attract largely time-limited revenues, more so if such resources are sold in the international market where the exporting country has no control over price stability. This group posits that it is not rational for any government to prefer fuel subsidy for citizens across the social spectrum to promoting sustained inclusive economic development through investments that can have multiplier effects on sustainable empowerment schemes for the underprivileged. This group calls for an end to fuel subsidy which its spokespersons believe to be a non-sustainable way of allocating natural resource revenues.

    On the other hand, trade union leaders and self-defined advocates of the poor argue passionately in favour of continuing with fuel subsidy. The trade union’s claim includes the need to view fuel subsidy as a non-negotiable poverty-alleviating policy. This school of thought calls on government to accept the need to make every Nigerian enjoy the fruits of a natural resource that under a unitary system of government is viewed to belong to the entire country, regardless of the damage the exploitation of such natural resource does to the economy and ecology of the communities in which such resources are located.

    Another line of thinking within this group is that underpaid workers, poor,and unemployed citizens need fuel subsidy to mitigate the knock-on effect of their poverty. The same group also argues that it is unfair for the federal government to stop fuel subsidy until the government is able to create the type of transportation infrastructure that exists in more developed countries, where fuel subsidy is discouraged as a policy. They add that the government must repair existing refineries and construct more to bring the price of refined petrol for domestic consumption down to the point of making fuel subsidy unnecessary. The Jonathan government accepted the thinking of labour leaders by creating another bureaucracy, Sure-P, to pacify workers and labour leaders, after agreeing to peg the price of petrol at N97 per litre. Just like the subsidy scheme itself, it did not take a long time for Sure-P to become another trick to occlude financial mismanagement by the country’s venalpolitical elite.

    The position of trade union leaders and believers in social democracy appears unassailable. In a country where there are not many social assistance programmes for citizens at the bottom of the economic ladder, there should be nothing wrong with calls for special assistance to the unemployed and underpaid workers. In terms of fine ideological thinking, trade union leaders and their social democratic supporters are making respectable arguments. But the hard question that needs to be asked and answered by radical social and economic thinkers is whether fuel subsidy is the best way to assist the poor in our country.

    Despite the social democratic credentials of this author for over half a century, I do not believe that there are no better ways to assist the poor than the current fuel subsidy that is as enmeshed in the culture of political and bureaucratic corruption as it can ever be in any human space. In a country in which political parties do not openly embrace any noticeable form of social democracy, just as in countries such as Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden and Norway, where social democracy is a fact of life, there are hundreds of ways to assist the poor without having to attempt to pay some of the cost of fuel for them. In these social democratic systems, the line between the middle-class or middle-income and low-income groups is made clear when policies of social assistance are being crafted. It is not so in the case of Nigeria’s fuel subsidy scheme, which allows upper-middle class professionals to enjoy fuel subsidy that should have been reserved for the underprivileged.

    The argument that fuel subsidy in Nigeria is to protect the poor is spurious. Out of the 145 vehicles per 1,000 citizens in Nigeria, 85 of them are cars belonging to middle-class members of the society. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is the car-owning middle-class citizens that benefit largely from fuel subsidy. If indeed fuel subsidy assists the low-income and the unemployed, it is not to the extent that it benefits the middle-class. Definitely, there are better ways to assist the poor and the under-paid.

    For example, the federal government can use the money spent on fuel subsidy to pay for such services as free education, free meals for school children, free health for the poor, social welfare checks for the poor, and free adult education for the poor. In addition, poor citizens can be given social welfare support that they can use to pay for market price of petrol. Furthermore, trade unions can insist that the existing refineries be sold to workers for one dollar each so that workers’ cooperatives can manage the refineries. The federal government can put the matter of removal of subsidy to a referendum to determine what majority of citizens want, as opposed to what paid representatives of labour prefer. Without doubt, if Ade Alabi, referred to at the beginning of this piece and his relations had been given a chance to vote Yes or No in a referendum on removal of fuel subsidy, all of them would have voted Yes, in hopes that the Ade Alabis of Nigeria can be taken to the hospital before it is too late.

    President Buhari and his team should pluck the courage to address this albatross around the neck of the nation.  They should take time to conduct rigorous research on the number of citizens who are poor and thus need social assistance. Even if such people need to get more than N5,000 a month, the federal government should plan to assist such people, so as to free the country from the chains of fuel subsidy barons in and outside government. In addition to initiating many direct social assistance programmes for the poor, the federal government should use the money from the federation account (currently used to pay subsidy charges) to assist the poor in ways that those assisted can use the social assistance funds to solve the problems most important to them.

  • Searching for lasting solution to Nigeria’s economic problems (2)

    The thesis is that most of the problems in the economy, politics, education, culture, and public morality are more of effects of unimaginative distortion of the country’s pre-military design of the country’s politics and economy

    The first part of this piece last Sunday gave a historical summary of how Nigeria migrated between 1960 and 1999 from dual federalism to ‘hegemonial federalism’ recently inherited by the Buhari civilian presidency. The core of the column last week is that military dictators in control of the country since 1966, particularly those in power during the phenomenal rise in revenue from petroleum, believed that throwing petroleum dollars at the architecture of the country’s governance was the best thing to do, to keep Nigeria eternally united or indivisible, regardless of whether the result of such new structure improved the welfare of citizens in the 36 largely unviable states created to survive on petroleum funds.

    In view of President Buhari’s pledge to review the constitution to create a federal spirit in the country, today’s piece will show how changing the current ‘hegemonial federalism’ to a competitive federalism among federating units may help President Buhari’s objective to improve the country’s federal system. The thesis is that most of the problems in the economy, politics, education, culture, and public morality are more of effects of unimaginative distortion of the country’s pre-military design of the country’s politics and economy. It is important to examine the causes of the current situation, in order to think out of the box about how to prevent making the same mistake in our effort to improve the economy.

    Talking about federalism before independence and after the emergence and exit of military rule is not new in Nigeria and should not need any grand theory to justify in this column. Chief Obafemi Awolowo remains the grand theorist of federalism in the country. He said and wrote repeatedly that a functioning federal system is the best way to keep Nigeria’s multiethnic nation united and sustainably so. He warned that any other model of governance is more likely to bring instability, disharmony and lack of development to the country as a whole, as well as to its parts. Federalism is a system that has produced and sustained many of the world’s most successful economies: United States of America, Canada, Belgium, Brazil, Germany, India, Spain, Switzerland, United Arab Emirate, South Africa, and Ethiopia, for example. And federalism had worked very well for Nigeria in the years before the advent of military rule.

    It is true, as President Buhari had emphasised at the UK Anti-Corruption Summit, that corruption had served as a way of life for decades in Nigeria. It is also true that the magnitude of corruption in the country has damaged the country’s economy, education, politics, and even culture, but it is necessary to look at circumstances or policies that must have created a conducive setting for the rise of venal men and women in politics in the country, in a manner that did not happen until 1966. Undoubtedly, creation under military rule of a political and economic system that promoted profligacy and parasitism must have boosted the courage of corrupt citizens to steal from citizens with relish. Whether it is at the central government or in subnational governments, politicians and administrators have been groomed since the mid-70s to see their job as directors of consumption of petroleum revenue.The desire of military rulers to use rents from petroleum to nurture a parasitic and predatory elite in the states and at the centre created a basic condition for corruption. There is no better way to illustrate this than the popularisation of Security Vote as a governance instrument at all the three levels of government. Where it could not be justified, lawmakers created constituency allowance as their variant of slush funds.

    Under the leadership of those who created states after states to be funded by revenue from petroleum, a longer concurrent list than can be found in any other federal system on the globe became a permanent feature of Nigeria’s federal system. Most of the functions of the regions before 1966 were given to the central government in the name of Concurrent functions, to justify allocating over half of the revenue from petroleum to a layer of government with no citizens to be directly responsible for. And if the central government failed to carry out any of its concurrent functions, frustration of citizens desirous of resisting the distant central government was guaranteed by the fact that it is only the central government that controls all forms of state coercion. In addition, governors at the state level also found (and still do) it easy to spend the funds allocated to them as corporate social welfare payments, requiring not more than a trip from state capitals to the nation’s capital. Consequently, the system that President Buhari promised in his manifesto to change encouraged venality in government at all levels, for the simple reason that no level of government had to work for the funds at its disposal in the decades of oil boom. The philosophy of military dictators who de-federalised the country: ensuring that no part of the country is productive and strong enough to think of leaving the union had held sway for decades and was acceptable to both military and civilian rulers until the sudden collapse of petroleum price.

    The result of all this is that rulers at the three levels of government got inured to looting the funds from awuff or manna from petroleum. State governors, like their counterparts at the centre, used the near absolute power accorded them by the presidential system imposed on the country’s governance system by the same set that turned the country into a federation of unviable states with zeal. So attractive was having a state to govern or one near home for traditional rulers and their praise singers to milk that even six months before the plunge in oil revenue, the country was awash with calls from the country’s “big men” for creation of more states, most of which would have been created at the instance of the central government if consumers of non-renewable fossil fuel had not gotten wiser than our own leaders were able to imagine.

    President Buhari must have seen the obsolescence of the current unitary system when he said in his manifesto that his government would “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.” He also must have seen the lack of wisdom in the existence of 36 bureaucracies being sustained by rents from petroleum or any other mineral  when he pledged in his manifesto to “balance the economy across regions by the creation of 6 new Regional Economic Development Agencies (REDAs) to act as champions of sub-regional competitiveness and put in place a N300bn regional growth fund (average of N50bn in each geo-political region) to be managed by the REDAs, encourage private sector enterprise and support to help places currently reliant on the public sector.”

    As President Buhari embarks on other projects apart from fighting corruption, such as reforming the institutions of government, he also needs to encourage his attorney-general to embark on preparing a bill towards taking a holistic view of the architecture of governance. For example, promising to create six new regional economic development agencies to be driven by grants of N50bn to each geo-political region is akin to reinforcing the current quasi-federal system. Like corruption, creating subnational governments that can respond to the needs of their citizens through fiscal autonomy and transferring most of the functions currently given to the central government should not wait until Buhari’s second term. If there is any institutional reform that is urgent, it is the reform of the current unitary system.

    The president should pass Chief Emeka Anyaoku’s recommendations, made repeatedly in the last few years on how to grow Nigeria’s democracy and development to his attorney-general as background materials for thinking out of the box in order to change a system that has failed citizens over the years. The mindset that re-engineered Nigeria away from federalism cannot solve the problem created by the culture of lethargy and venality spawned by centralism and looking for centrally mobilised funds to continue to do what we have done inefficiently since the 1970s is to add to the shambles that compelled Nigerians to vote for change in 2015.

  • Searching for lasting solution to Nigeria’s economic problems (1)

    The acknowledgment by governors of the possibility that their states may atrophy, if no serious intervention beyond periodic bailouts is put in place, must re-ignite the theme of re-federalisation which appears to have been relegated to the backburner since the emergence of the government of change.

    Only a few days ago, the Governors Forum met with President Buhari to indicate concerns of its members about the growing failure of states to meet their statutory duties: payment of salaries to workers and of pensions to those who had served the states in their productive years before retiring to tend their bodies and minds in their old age. Two things from the proposal of the association of 36 governors across partisan lines is acknowledgment of the negative impact of collapse of oil price on governors’ capacity to sustain their states. Another thing is the request for increase in allocations from the federation account to states. It was reported that the president also told the governors that the federal government also has problems meeting its own responsibilities but he promised to study the governors’ request and make appropriate recommendations to other branches of government. The acknowledgment by governors of the possibility that their states may atrophy, if no serious intervention beyond periodic bailouts is put in place, must re-ignite the theme of re-federalisation which appears to have been relegated to the backburner since the emergence of the government of change.

    The problem of fiscal control of the states by the central government in the 1999 Constitution is imaged most illustratively by the chairman of the Governors Forum: “You will agree with me that states are the landlords. We own the land and the people, therefore, the economy of this country lies in the states. Everything comes from the states- the oil, agricultural produce, mining and people are in the states, while the federal government is in Abuja.” Although this statement was made to support the argument for allocation of more funds from the federation account to the states, it could also have been made directly to call for fiscal and political autonomy to the states, a move that can change the architecture of governance in the country from a house of one puppeteer and 36 puppets to a house of equal siblings or partners committed to the same goal: improvement of the life of citizens wherever they may be in the country.

    As the president’s group studies the governors’ proposal, citizens and pundits will do the country a lot of good by suggesting solutions to the country’s political and economic problems. They should not assume that the manifesto of the party of change will self-propel and all that citizens need to do is to wait for each pledge to be met by the president. Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State also expressed ideas similar to that of the chairman of the Governors Forum at this year’s London School of Economics African summit to suggest that governors are thinking alike about what Nigeria needs to do in the wake of the decline in oil revenue: “If we ask for tax revenue, we in the government will have to deliver something. We need to imbibe fiscal discipline in delivering the public services that our citizens so rightly deserve. This calls for a greater autonomy of state and local governments, which in turn promotes accountability. If we look at Canada for example, its decentralism has played a great part in its growth and success, allowing for maximum provincial authority in the fields of healthcare, education, taxation and social benefits.”

    Even before President Buhari assumed office and became privileged to know the depth of Nigeria’s economic problems arising principally from collapse of oil price and from systematic predation by the locusts that had governed the country for decades, he too sensed that the re-designing of the structure of governance in the country needs immediate attention. One of the core statements in his manifesto illustrates this commitment well: “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.”

    The copious quotes from the ruling group are to establish the recognition on the part of current rulers of the need to re-envision and re-design Nigeria in the direction of unity of purpose, as distinct from the decades-long notion of unity per se. Now that it has taken the relative evaporation of the huge revenue from sale of fossil energy for top members of the executive branch to recognise the need for a new design of the country’s economy, pundits and the public, particularly the non-partisan ones ought to recognise the need to project the call for return to federalism outside the debate about inter-ethnic tensions, such as the conflict between Fulani herdsmen and Agatu, Igbo, or Yoruba farmers. The review of the 1999 Constitution in relation to the architecture of governance is an argument that is independent of what states or ethnic nationalities do or do not do to each other. The problem that the current constitution encapsulates was caused not by the existence of several nationalities in the country, but by the vision of several military dictators and their civilian surrogates in charge of the country since 1966.

    For readers of this column who may be too young to know how Nigeria came to this pass, it is necessary to go back briefly to history. At independence in 1960, Nigeria was a federal system based on three regions. In 1963, it became a ‘republic’ still under a federal constitution. In its ten years of self-rule from 1957 to 1966 and with very little revenue from petroleum, the three regions functioned as equals under a federal constitution and as partners with the central government to create a more conducive environment for citizens to make a living. The competitive federalism that was in play until 1966 made it possible for each region to benefit from comparative advantage thrown up by its vegetation and values. Cotton, groundnut, and cattle production drove the economy of Northern region; palm produce and rubber drove that of Eastern region while cocoa and rubber pushed the economy of Western region. Even after a fourth region, the Midwest (now Edo and Delta States) was carved out of Western region, the four regions were still meeting their responsibilities until the end of the First Republic.

    The first coup and subsequent ones put the management of the country in the hands of soldiers. The civil war fought partially for the control of the petroleum producing areas in the Niger Delta became an excuse in the hands of military rulers for tinkering with the country’s architecture.  The first attempt to shift from the federal system to a unitary one by General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi was resisted by the makers of the second coup. Shortly after the onset of the civil war, many of the foreign countries that supplied Nigeria arms made it clear that they would rather support whichever area had control of the oil. Suddenly, Nigeria was transformed into 12 states under the command of General Yakubu Gowon, who ironically came to power on the need to save the federation from over concentration of power at the centre. Even after creation of 12 states, each state was still big and resourceful enough to fulfil its duties to its citizens. But as military rulers succeeded each other, each dictator wanted to put his stamp on the country. The goal for all the dictators was to make it hard or impossible for any state to be strong enough to want to leave the union. Each subsequent ruler created more states to be funded by the apparently unlimited flow of oil from the womb of the Niger Delta. Many civilians who hoped to benefit from proliferation of states designed to be sustained by revenue from petroleum egged the dictators on. Such civilians were still calling for new states even in late 2015 although they have been relatively quiet since the coming home to roost of the chicken of petroleum. It is, however, salutary that governors are now more aware than before that the states they have governed with relative ease because of oil money are withering faster than ever under their leadership, largely because of structural problems many of them could afford to ignore when petroleum was a reliable goose laying the golden egg.

    • To be continued.

  • Nigeria’s constitution, police, and cattle farming

    One thing that has remained amazing about Nigeria in my adulthood is the country’s readiness to create tension and distraction from the most important job at hand for the country’s political and administrative leaders. If it is not sudden introduction of Sharia jurisprudence to rattle secular governance; it is popularization of militants committed to obtaining some measure of social justice for a few beneficiaries of petroleum amnesty. If it is not Boko Haram forcing the country to spend (or steal in the process) about one-quarter of its annual budget on fighting a few Islamists desirous of a having an Islamic caliphate, it is some inexplicable fixation on the part of government leaders and their pundits on how to manage nomadic cattle ‘farmers.’ One thing that is clear about the ongoing crisis arising from periodic killing of tree, shrub, herb farmers in the central and southern part of the country by cattle farmers from the northern part is the unflagging enthusiasm of leaders and their supporters to chase shadows.

    Fulani nomads have been raising cattle for centuries. As a person raised in colonial Nigeria, I grew up to see Fulani nomads (referred to then as Darandaran(shepherds) in my part of the country) bring cows to our town to be sold and killed for festivals and regular consumption. It was rare in the 1950s to see itinerant cattle farmers go through villages and towns with their cattle without any concern for the health and integrity of their hosts who were plant farmers. Even during the short period of Awolowo’s cattle farming with Erinla/Kete and similar breeds imported from Argentina, nobody saw those animals unless he or she went to the farm settlements to buy eggs or milk. Farmers raising the southern tsetse fly-resistant cattle were fully ‘sedentarized’. But the story changed radically in the last few decades, especially during the military era. Just a few months into the post-military tenure of Obasanjo, General Buhari had to lead a delegation to late Governor Lam Adesina to discuss the problem of fight between Fulani herdsmen and Yoruba farmers.

    It was during the administration of late President UmaruYar’Adua that the federal government threw its weight behind policy discussion about creating cattle grazing zones in different parts of the country to facilitate the work of nomadic cattle farmers. This column joined the debate then and said that such policy was tantamount to preferring in the 21st century a mode of agriculture that was the most pragmatic in the 18th century. This column also cried foul when the 2014 Jonathan Conference recommended creation of cattle grazing zones, calling it a poster boy for retrogressive thinking with respect to agricultural-extension services in a country that should be in a hurry to join the comity of modern nations practicing modern methods of agriculture: ranches and feedlots powered not by grass but by soy, corn, and wheat.

    All of these interventions were before Fulani herdsmen started to carry K-47 to kill, abduct, and even rape tree and vegetable growers, and before it became fashionable for police and even senators to quibble about number of Fulani herdsmen from other West and Central African countries. If the herdsmen had access to corruption funds, one would have argued that the recent killing of Agatu and Igbo farmers must have been stimulated by corrupt leaders who wanted to embarrass President Buhari as a Fulani man. Even if all the herdsmen involved in the recent murders in Benue and Enugu states were foreigners, it would still have been insensitive on their part as Fulani to act in the way they had acted, knowing that it is one of their own that has just been elected to govern the country on the platform of change. But that is a subject for another time. Let us get back to harping on distraction as a strategy to prevent Nigerians from asking the right question about how to sustain a multicultural society.

    This is not to say that those accusing the president of keeping quiet unduly on the volatile matter of Fulani nomads killing Agatu and Igbo farmers or those thanking him for ordering in unequivocal terms that those involved in the recent murders be identified and brought to just are off the cuff. There is also need to avoid focusing on effects at the expense of causes. Why should the police need to feel the heartbeat of the president before preventing Fulani herdsmen from other countries from entering the country with their cattle and guns? There is nothing in the ECOWAS protocols that allows citizens of another country to enter any country with herds of cattle and weapons on their shoulders. Why should the Nigeria police (as federal as it is) need to know how the president feels before stopping Nigerian cattle farmers on the prowl with guns and arrows on their shoulders?

    Furthermore, why should any minister or government leader think that the country should deal with the menace of Fulani nomads for another eighteen months while political leaders search for solutions that are available in most cattle producing countries of the world? Our leaders and pundits must know by now that there is nothing in our constitution that says the federal government should create grazing zones to assist one set of farmers at the expense of another set. Even though agriculture is on the concurrent list, there is still nothing that authorizes the federal government to create policies to help animal husbandry at the expense of those involved in plant and vegetable farming. Our constitution does not even allow the federal government to seize land from states for the purpose of assisting private business of any form. Cattle rearing is carried out by private businessmen and does not qualify for reserved land in states for nomads that raise cattle for their overlords.

    The reasonable thing to do at this point is to look for why it was not necessary for Fulani herdsmen (from Nigeria or Niger/Mali) to bring their cattle from their communities to destroy the farms of other communities in the days before the first military coup d’etat. There is no doubt that the Sahel has been expanding in the last few decades, thus limiting the amount of space available traditional livestock pasture. But it has been possible in the same northern states to embark on irrigation that has enabled significant vegetable farming in okro, tomato, pepper, beans, maize, millet, soybeans, etc., that Fulani herdsmen coming from the far north are not allowed to destroy, because they are also considered to be economic crops that are as profitable to their growers as cattle to their farmers. How would it sound to Fulani cattle owners if people in aquaculture in southern Nigeria starting digging fish ponds in northern communities, particularly in the areas that have accessible groundwater at the expense of those who need the land to grow grass for cattle?

    The way out of this mess is not to temporize on when to start modern animal farming. Canada is a beef exporting country. Yet it is hard for people to see cows running around cities, towns, and vegetable farms in Canada as they do in Nigeria. Our political leaders should realize that modern agriculture has gone beyond creating grazing to encourage nomadic cattle farming. Most countries that export beef, milk, and cheese today, do not have nomads that move across countries with bows and arrows to assist cattle or goats to forage for food. Most modern countries create ranches which employ workers and make such workers members of settled communities. In addition, this is the time to implement policies that can mitigate desert encroachment: afforestation and shift from use of firewood to gas. These are some of the policies that need to be embarked on now, while those responsible for murdering hundreds of farmers in different parts of the country are probed and punished for criminality.

  • The irony of our democracy: deformed elites versus disempowered masses?

    Even though representative democracy almost invariably gives power to the elite, it also expects that such elites are intellectually and morally strong enough not to take advantage of the position delegated to them at elections

    The irony of our democracy: deformed elites versus disempowered masses?It is the irony of democracy that the survival of democratic values—individual dignity, limited government, equality of opportunity, private property, freedom of speech and press, religious tolerance, and due process of law—depends on enlightened elites. The masses respond to the ideas and actions of elites. When elites abandon democratic principles or the masses lose confidence in elites, democracy is in peril.—Thomas R. Dye

    The noise about the attempt of the Senate to amend the CCT and Administration of Criminal Justice Acts seems to be going down after announcement of suspension of the amendment. What should not be allowed to evaporate is the cause and implication of the embarrassing behaviour of senators involved in the suspended amendment for the country’s democracy.

    It is not surprising in a democracy that the attempt by some brazen senators to amend CCT/CCB has drawn conflicting comments from pundits. On the side of pro-amendment senators, commentators have warned against muzzling or muffling senators for carrying out their duty. But on the side of public interest, senators involved in the process of amending a law under which the senate president is being tried have been called bad names that may not be totally undeserved: political elites with no sense of enlightened self-interest and no sense of shame.

    While some senators including the lawmaker who initiated the amendment process have presented their motivation as clean: ensuring that the laws provide fair hearing for all citizens, others have said things that should embarrass the average citizen. One Senator Biodun Olujimi justified the move to amend the laws thus: “If you don’t assist your neighbour when his house is burning, it will extend to yours.” One comment that was propagated fast among the folks, not only because of attempts to amend CCT/CCB laws but also on account of the decision of senate leadership to provide N35 million SUV to each senator is that the Senate has become a ‘One-Chance’ bus system.

    ‘One Chance’ is one of Nigeria’s formulations to describe the country’s moral turpitude. It refers to a bus service run by thieves or robbers who, instead of carrying their passengers to their destinations, rob them after sedating them or often without any sedation and discharge them in an area that may not be familiar to the passengers. Calling the country’s upper legislature ‘one-chance’ is an indirect way of calling the country’s senators morally irresponsible people who set out to defraud the people and act habitually without scruples. Many people would say that such name is too negative to characterise our lawmakers while others may feel that no word is too strong to express their anger against a group of self-serving citizens who are at ease in ignoring their electors’ voice. Self-respecting senators should feel embarrassed that they are being likened by those who elected them one year ago to ‘drive-to-rob transporters.’

    One point that may be missed about the behaviour or misbehaviour of our senators elected on the manifesto of change is the character of our political elite in general. The poor moral show of the senate in particular in the last few weeks has been worse than what citizens experienced under Jonathan’s regime of impunity. Citizens have not over reacted by calling the conduct of most senators churlish, given that most of the senators were elected on the ideology of change and fight against corruption. Young people in particular must have been puzzled that the leaders they elected last year prefer to act in a more juvenile manner than under-age citizens. The readiness with which senators abandon their duties to accompany their leader to court is enough to undermine public trust in the political system. Such brazen show of support of senators for an individual who should be presumed innocent until proven guilty projects such senators as having a deficient sense of public interest. The churlishness exhibited by senators with respect to the trial of Senator Bukola Saraki is made worse by the attempts of the senate to amend the CCB/CCT laws. Despite the claim of altruism, Saraki is too wise not to know that the senators involved in amending the laws are doing so for their own sake. Senator Olujimi has revealed the motivation: ‘preventing the fire in a neighbour’s house from spreading to one’s house.’

    The 8th Senate started its tenure on the note of absence of self-discipline. Despite frantic efforts to the contrary, it became clear to citizens that the rules that supported election of officers of the 8th senate were believed to have been forged. Citizens were told by the media that the police sent a report alleging forgery of rules to the ministry of justice for review. But the ministry of justice claimed that the police did not return the final draft of the report to it, and the matter went into the silent mode ever since. However, most of the officers elected under the questionable rules kept drumming into the ears of the public that it was politicians within the same party who had their own preferred candidates that made a mountain out of the mole hill of the matter.A legislature that is unable to abide by its own rules does not seem to have done anything unrealistic when it embarks on amending laws that do not promote its interest.

    Similarly, senate leadership demonstrated gross insensitivity to public interest when it ordered SUVs for members, despite complaints by citizens that such profligacy at a time the economy is comatose is irrational. This behaviour, like the creation of the Senate rules at the first meeting of the 8th Senate, demonstrates lack of readiness on the part of senators to act like enlightened and morally capable elites. Even though representative democracy almost invariably gives power to the elite, it also expects that such elites are intellectually and morally strong enough not to take advantage of the position delegated to them at elections. That senators are unable to appreciate the complaints of the masses illustrates lack of respect for the culture of democracy.

    If anything, the sudden decision of the senate to suspend the amendment of the laws that they have sworn in the last few days to ‘amend in the interest of the larger public’ shows how vulnerable the powerful senators are. It is instructive that it has taken just a threat from the NLC and a few civil society organisations for the omniscient and omnipotent senators to realise the limit of the power put in their hands by the electorate. It is salutary that the senators have finally capitulated after a farcical show of power. Elites have to govern with sense if democracy is to survive. When they fail to do this, they incense the masses, thus threatening the democratic system needlessly. It would have been disastrous if the once recalcitrant senators had insisted to do as they wished. It takes just one chance to demystify democracy: elites raising the anger of the masses to the point of compelling them to recall senators or even occupy the senate. Nobody should allow this demystification to happen. Public-regarding civil society organisations should be congratulated for standing firm in the last few weeks on the superiority of public interest to personal interest.

    Decades of military dictatorship have influenced the political culture of citizens across the social spectrum. Many top political leaders still act two decades after demilitarisation as if democracy is just a fad, rather than a culture. And as a culture, it needs an elaborate system of socialisation. Such socialisation requires grooming citizens who respect principles and nuances of democratic culture, especially the inevitability of leaders and followers to listen to each other as they deliberate on how to solve common problems. The decades of feudalisation of the polity have to be transcended by both those who seek votes and those who give votes. Citizens have to realise at all times that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.