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Category: Ropo Sekoni

U.S.-Africa summit: beyond the fanfare

On the African side, no amount of money from the United States will bring development to most African countries if the right thing is not done at the right time

Just about a week ago, a momentous event took place in Washington. President Barack Obama invited African leaders (short of a few sit-tight dictators out of many on the continent) to discuss with him and his staff the opportunities waiting to be tapped in relation to increasing trade and investment between the United States and Africa. The event was filled with pomp and ceremony. Now that African leaders have returned to their base, it is advisable that both sides of the summit—the U.S. and Africa—come to terms with why trade and investment has been abysmally low, compared to what the situation is between China and Africa.

Though the United States did not participate in colonisation of Africa (despite the special relationship between Washington and Monrovia since President Monroe settled some enslaved Africans in Monrovia), America has largely followed the model established by the two major countries that colonised Africa: Britain and France, with respect to stimulating trade and investment between the U.S. and Africa in the years following the decade of decolonisation in the 1960s.

Instead of taking the business risk of trading with and investing in African countries, it imitated Britain and France in taking the model of giving aid to Africa. It, like Britain and France and later Portugal, got into the tradition of giving aid to cover all manners of issues in the continent: population control, food and nutrition, partial democratisation, etc. Most of these efforts first went to African governments during the era of big governments and government doing business and later to non-governmental organisations. Giving aid to Africa instead of trading with the continent has not worked, according to someone who should know, World Bank loan expert in Africa, Robert Calderisi in his book, The Trouble with Africa: Why Foreign Aid Isn’t Working (2006). It is noteworthy that the United States has finally come to terms with the fears of Calderisi.

It is also good news that the United States has chosen to take notice of China’s aggressive trade and investment in Africa. Pledging to respond positively to what President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden consider encouraging stories from Africa: good growth rate, a very young population, and promise of consolidation of democracy in many countries on the continent, the Obama administration has reasons to shift from the tradition of aid to trade in Africa. While a summit with the theme: “Investing in the Next Generation” shows optimism on the part of the United States, there is need for realistic thinking that separates the promise of commitment to democracy and the rule of law by many African leaders for the reality on the ground in many parts of the continent.

Without doubt, both sides have more home work to do after the elaborate celebration of good intentions in Washington. On the African side, no amount of money from the United States will bring development to most African countries if the right thing is not done at the right time. Proper infrastructure (good roads, regular supply of electricity, functioning rail transportation, and reliable aviation sector for moving goods and services) is a sine qua non if the over $14 billion dollars in investment for the continent is to lead to any progress. Africa had received much more than this in aid over the years, without having anything to show for it. $14 billion dollars looks like a lot of money, but in reality, it is not much for a continent of Africa’s size and population, more so, if it ends up being thrown into an environment of chaotic transportation, lack of security for citizens and foreigners, mounting corruption fuelled by a culture of impunity.

In addition, no amount of investment dollar by itself can bring progress if African governments are not committed and prepared to make themselves to be seen to be genuinely committed to sustaining democracy, particularly free, fair, and transparent elections in non-threatening atmosphere. The problem of poor record of rule of law and independent judiciary in many African countries cannot be divorced from lack of free and fair elections and readiness of elected officials to respect the sovereignty of the people. It is such commitment to the culture of transparency, accountability, and respect of the citizenry that makes political leaders in functioning democracies to aspire to provide good governance.

When government leaders rig themselves directly or indirectly into office, they are not likely to support or encourage independent judiciary and the rule of law. Committing to reforming the way business is done in many African countries without reforming the way elections are conducted may not be enough for creating an enabling environment for good use of new or additional investment from the United States. Generally, businesses are about making profit. American business in Africa will not be an exception, and there may be no profit for such business in an atmosphere of corruption, insecurity, and political instability.

On the American side, there is a need for investors to influence their government to separate the grain from the chaff, with respect to African leaders promising in the most mendacious of tongues good governance and free and fair election. Just as Calderisi has said in his book referred to earlier, the United States must insist on proper internationally-supervised elections in many of the countries that are basically in transition to democracy. Countries that are not ready to play by the rules should be de-listed from the group of countries to receive foreign investment. African leaders that have no respect for their citizens are more likely to waste such investments as they will be unable to empower their citizens to become consumers of goods and services.

The United States needs to pay attention to the kind of subtle racism that has prevented it from recognizing the need to trade with Africa over the years well ahead of China, despite the fact that many of the African countries speak the same language as the United States. But the U.S. must avoid copying the China model of trading with any country regardless of human rights record and level of commitment of its leaders to genuine democracy.

The just concluded summit and the commitment on both sides to increase trade and investment for mutual benefit must give the United States and Africa an opportunity to pay new attention to Africans in Diaspora in the United States. There are thousands of Africans with good American education and training and with rich experience of the culture of rule of law and understanding of American business practices that can be used to add value to the new business between the two blocks. Africans in Diaspora have the added advantage of bi-cultural fluency that is needed to understand the nuances of business practice in both continents.

In short, America and Africa need to pay attention to President Obama’s statement: “Our message to those who would derail the democratic process is clear and unequivocal: the United States will not stand by when actors threaten legitimately elected government or manipulate the fairness and integrity of democratic processes….” (U.S. Strategy toward Sub-Saharan Africa) and to President Jonathan’s assurance that the era of election manipulation is over and his assurance to African Diaspora: “We will continue to engage your services and expertise when we can.”

August 17, 2014
Leyin Ibo: the day after election in Yorubaland

Yoruba people react to the organisation of elections in three basic ways: spontaneous celebration, immediate contestation and delayed reaction

Our new season of elections calls for an examination of the Yoruba worldview vis-à-vis election and the various attitudes shown by Yoruba citizens after elections. Local and international election observers with interest in consolidation of democracy in Nigeria will benefit from exposure to what election means to the average Yoruba man or woman. Such understanding will be useful not only for the purpose of evaluating specific elections but for the purpose of gauging or predicting what can happen in Yorubaland (and by extension in other parts of Nigeria) as the region struggles, along with others in the country, to build the culture of democracy, particularly electoral democracy.

The verb Dibo (to vote) and the noun Ibo or Idibo(voting or election) are borrowed from Yoruba metaphysics, particularly Ifa, where dibo means choosing between alternatives or selecting among options. The Ifa priest is the organiser of Ibo. He or she is expected to be transparent in conducting idibo. The priest is not allowed to rig the process. When the divining chain is thrown to indicate which option concerns the divinee, whatever side that shows must be announced to the divinee, regardless of whether it is a good sign or a bad omen. When the divinee looks worried or shows any doubt after a choice has been indicated, the diviner throws his or her chain again and again to confirm the position of things. Once the same side of the divining chain comes up, the diviner makes his pronouncement, having satisfied himself or herself that the right thing has been done.

It was the Ifa model of voting that influenced the choice of words to match voting when the colonial master introduced election. Yoruba people over decades of voting have always viewed their votes as important and the process of voting significant to the choice they make during elections. Reinforced by the Yoruba notion of simultaneous existence of good and evil and the right of the individual to prefer good over evil, every Yoruba recognises the consequence of whatever choice he/she makes. The Yoruba carries the spiritual value attached to Ibo in Yoruba metaphysics to voting in the secular realm, as he or she sees choosing between ideological orientations of political parties as seminal to the organisation of modern secular societies.

Should foreigners in particular find the attitude of the Yoruba to election unique, the reason is located in the worldview of the Yoruba that includes the imperative of the individual to always have the freedom to choose his/her path in life. The response of the average Yoruba voter to election is determined by his view about the credibility of the electoral process. Yoruba people react to the organisation of elections in three basic ways: spontaneous celebration after the result of voting is seen to reflect the choice voters believe they have made; immediate contestation or protest against an election they presume to have been rigged; and delayed reaction to an election they also perceive to have been rigged. All of these three patterns of response on the day after an election have been witnessed in the region since the emergence of voting for political parties in the country.

On the day after an election that a majority of Yoruba voters believe to reflect their choice, there is generally a spontaneous outburst of joy and conspicuous display of approbation. Voters do not wait for election candidates to organise victory parties for them; they organise and pay for their own soiree. On such a day, voters buy drinks for each other and even owners of bars give out palm-wine or beer to customers free, to show that they are happy about the congruence between the votes they cast and the result released by the umpire. It is only when elections are rigged that the candidates pay for celebration, to give the appearance of voters’ acceptance of manipulated results. This happened in the six Yoruba states in 1999, in Lagos State in 2003, 2007, and 2011, for example.

When an election is perceived by the majority of voters to have been manipulated through announcement of false figures for candidates favoured by the umpire or his or her sponsor, the average voter who believes he or she has been cheated may get on the streets to demonstrate against the umpire and his principal. This had happened several times in the region’s history. For example, in 1965, Yoruba voters started serious anti-rigging protests after the election to the Western House of Assembly. The same thing happened when Chief AdekunleAjasin’s election in Ondo State was rigged in favour of Chief Akin Omoboriowo in 1983.

Occasionally, the Yoruba choose the model of delayed reaction on the day after an election. A majority of the voters remain in their houses without showing any emotions. They do not even countenance individuals whose political parties celebrate a victory majority of voters believe to be false. Such voters wait for the most opportune time to react to a rigged election. This happened after the 1964 federal elections when the Nigerian National Democratic Party claimed to have won 870,833 votes while 494,730 votes were recorded for the Action Group. The outburst in the so-called “Wild Wild West” in 1965 in response to the rigging of the election of that year included the airing of pent-up anger against the 1964 election. The absence of an electrifying and self-financed celebration by voters at the end of the recent election in Ekiti State is another form of delayed or repressed response. Time will tell what percentage of Ekiti voters were happy with the results of the last gubernatorial election in that state.

The Yoruba value of plurality of perspective allows the average voter in the region to respect the principle of multiparty democracy. This principle also allows individuals to choose which of the parties is closest to his/her expectations in and from life. This explains why there are Yoruba people in all political parties. In the Yoruba region, twins belong to different or opposing political parties, the same way they may choose to belong to different religions. Siblings are happy with each other regardless of the parties or religions they espouse. But when an election leads to “giving the son of Oba to Osun” (transferring the victory of candidate A to candidate B) friendship ends and tension emerges even among family members.

What the average Yoruba voter abhors is rigging citizens’ right to choose the party of their preference to govern them. Whenever Yoruba voters feel cheated by the umpire or the organiser of an election, the chance of a threat to peace and progress in the region increases. Local and foreign election observers who are interested in survival of democracy in Nigeria need to get introduced to the anthropology or sociology of voting in different parts of Nigeria, more so now that the African continent is getting ready to qualify for increased trade and investment with the United States of America. Election observers, like African political leaders, need to take to heart Barack Obama’s statement: “Our message to those who would derail the democratic process is clear and unequivocal: the U.S. will not stand by when actors threaten legitimately elected government or manipulate the fairness and integrity of democratic process….”

August 10, 2014
Decoding Chibok monetisation narratives

Nigerian politicians and their aides use president and presidency as synonyms when it suits them and as antonyms when they prefer

The Premium Times first broke the news of 100 million naira gift to the mothers of kidnapped Chibok girls. In the first story on this initiative on the part of the presidency, a representative of one arm of government – the legislature – confirmed that he was at the meeting of selected Chibok mothers at which envelopes (probably brown ones in a country where brown is the colour code for corruption) were distributed to participants at the important meeting that came months after it should have, had the president not been otherwise too busy fighting other aspects of the Boko Haram menace. But the presidency has been quick to deny that any envelopes were distributed at the end of the meeting and that no money (let alone 100 million naira) was given to anybody. The two men behind branding and re-branding of the president: Doyin Okupe and Reuben Abati quickly came to throw light on the story before the president’s political enemies blow it out of proportion. Doyin Okupe characterised the story about the president giving money to Chibok delegates “as absolute falsehood that is unknown to the president.”

One has to be a critical reader to make sense of anything said by or about politicians in our country, especially in relation to money. It is not just a Jonathan presidency’s problem; it has been with us for some time. When some money was found in Barkin Zuwo’s official residence at the end of the second republic, nobody in the country knew exactly how much was found in the politician’s house until Barkin Zuwo himself cried out to tell the nation that the money in his house was much more than what was reported, adding courageously that nothing was illegal about finding government’s money in government’s house.

Much later in the country’s political life, General Sani Abacha called traditional rulers to have a meeting with him when he was preparing to transform from a military dictator to a civilian ruler. Abacha and his advisers felt that he needed to meet with traditional rulers to persuade traditional rulers to talk to their subjects (in a supposed republic) about the need to accept Abacha’s metamorphosis. At the end of the meeting, there was a news report to the effect that envelopes exchanged hands with handshakes. Many people at the meeting and those who were not in any way near the venue of the meeting denied that anything of the sort happened. It took the Osemawe of Ondo Kingdom then, the late Itiade Adekolurejo, to announce to the media that he was given a big brown envelope containing naira notes and that he was not the only person to receive such gift at the end of the meeting.

Now that we are in an ethos of monetisation, it is not clear why anybody would deny that his principal gave money to less privileged citizens. After all, monetisation, a concept popularised during the presidency of Obasanjo, had acquired multiple meanings since its outing by the Obasanjo presidency. In its formal sense, it means giving money to cover job-related benefits that the government or any employer is contractually under obligation to give to employees. In its popular usage, Nigerians have come to see monetisation as a literal word to serve as synonym for its metaphoric version: stomach infrastructure. Chibok mothers who have complained about not getting enough or anything out of the largesse supposedly distributed by the presidency have no reason to feel ashamed for crying out loud about being cheated. Such mothers, despite their remoteness from Abuja, must have heard of the folklore of ‘money losing weight’ from one government agency to another. The folklore in the past was that even statutory allocations lost weight between Abuja and state capitals.

What is surprising about the country’s latest monetisation narrative is that the presidency appears afraid of being linked to monetisation in this instance. Abati’s variant of the story is that the president would not offer anybody bribe. His status forbids that? The presidential media aide also added that there was no time for anybody to distribute envelopes at the end of the meeting and that no envelopes were distributed during the meeting while the president was in attendance. Those who admire the president are likely to accept the presidency’s statement hook, line, and sinker. But those who do not are likely to wonder how long it would have taken to pass out envelopes to participants at meetings. But whether Chibok mothers and girls were gifted money at the meeting should not be a matter to encourage anyone to cast aspersion on the president’s character. It is safer for the peace and unity of our country to assume that our president would not do a thing like that. If he had wanted to do such a thing, he would not have waited for 100 days or the coming of young Malala to do that.

It is the presidency that needs to throw more light on this issue. Citizens are already confused about too many things. Some of the women at the meeting have affirmed that they received money ranging from 200,000 to 7,000 naira while others complained of being left out of the Santa Claus rounds. Worse still, a member of the federal House of Representatives, Pobu Bitrus, also a member of the Chibok legislative constituency, confirmed to the media that Chibok mothers received envelopes: “After we met with the presidency,(not necessarily with the president, my emphasis) the parents were given some money in envelopes. That’s all. All other things they are saying about N100 million, I don’t know about that.” Nigerian politicians and their aides use president and presidency as synonyms when it suits them and as antonyms when they prefer. Reporters need to probe the legislator further to confirm which one: the person or the institution, if this story is to be decodable.

The lawmaker was clear about parents receiving envelopes containing money at the end of the meeting. What he was not sure of is how much was involved. How important is the information about the exact amount given to Chibok mothers? In most countries, the issue would not be about how much was given to assist women whose daughters have been in captivity for over 100 days. The point that calls for public scrutiny or discussion is why any envelope was given to parents whose daughters the whole world is trying to help liberate from the claws of terrorists, whilst those whose children had been killed by Boko Haram terrorists have not been compensated in any noticeable way.

Had the presidency decided that the Chibok mothers needed some financial assistance to help tide them over this period of pain and inordinate waiting for their daughters, there would have been nothing illegal about such decision. All that would have been required in other climes would be for the government to take a decision and raise vouchers to cover such expenditures. After that, the envelopes would have been given out in front of the camera. This would have earned the presidency and even the president (regardless of whether he took part in taking such decision) some political mileage among citizens. Individuals who are sensitive to the needs of the parents of the abducted girls must have been assisting the parents in cash or in kind since the innocent girls were abducted. There should be nothing wrong with reinforcing the generosity of individuals with that of the government. All humane governments across the world have ways of assisting citizens in distress, especially when such citizens have no contribution—direct or indirect—to their predicament. Is the presidency afraid of being seen as generous and soft, even when the occasion demands softness, especially after showing hard and raw power in Ekiti last month?

But if the lawmaker who told the nation in a straightforward language that Chibok mothers, who are members of his constituency, were given envelopes by government officials turns out to have created a fictive tale, then there is need for a probe to determine any trace of malice in Honourable Bitrus’ eye-witness assessment of what happened at the end of the meeting between the president and Chibok mothers. Allowing two representatives of the federal government, one from the executive branch and the other from the legislative wing to get away with saying two diametrically opposed things about the same event of significance to the public is dangerous to nurturing a culture of transparency. Certainly, the two sides cannot be right if they choose to hold on to their views of what Chibok mothers received from their hosts a few weeks ago.

August 3, 2014
Transferring Abuja’s governance narrative to Washington

What is innovative about this contract is that all the activities of changing the narrative about governance in Nigeria are to be done from K Street in Washington

With several years of aggressive cultivation of the Nigerian diaspora by the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, it is reasonable for value-added Nigerians in the United States to feel unsettled by the recent announcement in Abuja of a multimillion-dollar contract to a Washington public relations or lobby agency.

The federal government’s decision to hire a Washington-based lobby group to burnish its image from Washington to the rest of the globe must have meant a major loss to local professional public relations firms, lobby agencies, and savvy advocacy groups, the type that have been beating the drum of President Jonathan’s re-election bid, even when the president remains reluctant to announce his entry into the race. For a meagre sum of 275 million naira per annum, Levick Strategic Communications has been hired to lead other subcontractors to assist in promoting “transparency, democracy, and the rule of law throughout Nigeria.” More specifically, Levick is to assist Nigerian government’s efforts to mobilise international support in fighting Boko Haram as part of the greater global war on terror.

What is innovative about this contract is that all the activities of changing the narrative about governance in Nigeria are to be done from K Street in Washington. The public relations game changer for Nigeria is not working just to spread good messages about Nigeria’s governance in the Western hemisphere but also to spread new narratives about governance in the country to citizens at home. From now on, strategising about consolidating and enhancing the culture of democracy in Nigeria will be determined and directed by sophisticated lobbyists in Washington. And this company will also be responsible for conveying messages of Nigeria’s commitment to democracy and the rule of law to all the corners of the world.

Nigerians in diaspora in the United States must wonder what led a government with which the Nigerian Diaspora Association has a robust relationship of cordiality to jump over them to give such a juicy contract to foreigners. Public communication professionals among them (and they are legion) must marvel why the loss of homeland PR firms in Lagos and Abuja has not been allowed to become the gain of Nigerian public professionals in diaspora. Those Nigerians abroad who are not savvy about the workings of power are likely to feel betrayed or cheated by a federal government that had organised conferences and seminars in Atlanta, New York, Washington, and other U.S. cities on how to create synergy between the country and its diaspora.

On their own part, Nigerians at home must be astonished by this contract, especially the objective of assisting the government to promote transparency, democracy, and the rule of law throughout Nigeria. Is the local media narrative not already doing that and very aggressively too? Without doubt, some segments of the media created and operated solely to do panegyric journalism has done so much of that and very well too. But there are other media houses across the country that are mordantly critical of threats to transparency, democracy, and the rule of law in the country. Similarly, top public relations firms within the country must be puzzled about new pro-democracy narratives that Washington spin doctors have been hired to create and propagate all over the wide world.

With respect to the charge to Levick to assist the federal government’s efforts to find and safely return the abducted Chibok girls, those who observed the activities and pronouncements of Malala during her recent visit to Abuja must wonder why the country would need a special contract to do what Malala had chosen to do pro bono for the country. Malala may not be an image manipulator, she is without doubt the world’s most admired symbol of anti-terrorism. She is more likely to assist the government in this respect at no cost to a government that is already too stretched financially to the point of seeking one billion dollar loan from the international community, even if on Shylockean terms. With her pronouncements during a recent visit to Aso Rock, Malala appears to be in the best of positions to talk to the international community about the readiness of the government in Abuja to find and bring the Chibok girls to safety, more so after the government’s announcement that it knows where the girls are and is only working on the best time to emancipate them from their captors.

It is not clear in media reports when the project to hire K Street’s image makers was conceived. Was it before or after the government discovered where the girls are kept by the terrorists? Given the assurance by the federal government that all its security agencies know the location of the Chibok girls, one part of the project seems to have been accomplished, even before signing the contract with Levick. The second part, bringing the girls home safely, looks less of political advocacy Washington style, than military strategic thinking and attention to tactical details that are needed for the job of liberation of innocent school girls from the den of terrorists. If there is need for special assistance, is it not more reasonable to approach the many countries that have already sent representatives to the country to show their commitment to assist Nigeria in the liberation of the girls and termination of Boko Haram’s terror, especially after the U.S. government has undertaken to train our security forces in strategies and tactics of fighting terrorism?

The federal government may have found one new friend on account of the contract given to Levick. It certainly has lost many friends at home and abroad. It has made it known to the entire world that it does not believe in the professional know-how of thousands of public relations specialists within Nigeria and among its diasporic communities in the western world. It is an irony that at a time the federal government is committed to transformation of the job market to create jobs at home, it is also creating jobs for public relations workers in the United States, a major aid giver to Nigeria on many fronts.

It should not surprise anyone if the federal government chooses to hire another lobby group to work on the message of dis-alienating competent Nigerian public relations men and women at home and abroad that its offer of contract to Levick’s Strategic Communications for millions of dollars per annum had insulted and alienated. This should be the time for the government to go into its archives to remind itself of the methods used by late Dora Akunyuli to re-brand Nigeria during the presidency of UmaruYar’Adua.

July 27, 2014
Jonathan’s confab and the paradox of petroleum

Nobody told the president that Nigeria’s challenge is not its diversity but petroleum in the womb of some parts of the country

Pablo Picasso’s maxim: “Every positive value has its price in negative terms… the genius of Einstein leads to Hiroshima” applies in an unmistakable way to Nigeria’s petroleum. There is no other object or action that explains Nigeria’s swing from unity to division than the existence of petroleum in the country put together about 72 years before the first exploitation of the black gold in the country. And nowhere is this pendulum more visible than in the design and implementation of President Jonathan’s idea of a national conference to cap the end of his first tenure as substantive president.

Jonathan’s political opponents and some of his genuine political supporters said that a national conference was the wrong thing to convene towards the end of his tenure, whether he plans to renew his tenure or not. In the style of Cassandra, opposition parties called the conference a waste of resources and time and a diversionary move to tilt the citizens’ political gaze away from the crucial issues at hand. Apart from general condemnation of the conference, none of Jonathan’s opponents paid attention to specific aspects of the country’s experience that were likely to bring the national conference to a laughable end.

Nobody warned Jonathan and his supporters about one product that simultaneously has the capacity to pull together and push apart the diverse groupings in Nigeria. Nothing in the narratives of caution regarding the conference referred to the one product that stands for blessing at the same time that it represents a curse for the nation. Nobody warned Jonathan and his advisers about a national conference to re-launch Nigeria about the country’s peculiar status as a country that has, since the civil war, been organised to see petroleum as the country’s life support. Nobody told the president that Nigeria’s challenge is not its diversity but petroleum in the womb of some parts of the country that has the power to seize the minds of most of its leaders.

Delegates at the Jonathan conference were able to deliberate enthusiastically and come to conclusions when they considered peripheral issues: national anthem, immunity clause, local-governments in relation to the states that house them, creation of states, etc. But when the matter that touched the soul of Nigeria: revenue allocation came up, the delegates went into the mode of mfecane, the scattering of the tribes. All the regions (apart from some delegates in the Southwest shooting for regionalism or nothing) saw its survival as interminably tied to revenue from petroleum resources and descended into verbal war that compelled the conference to shut down, in order to avoid giving the impression of ending in a fiasco and thus proving opponents of the conference right and supporters wrong.

It is too soon to classify the conference’s failure as total or partial. The final draft report scheduled for ratification on the fourth of August is likely to provide ample opportunities for public affairs commentators to grade the failure or success of the conference as a whole. It is instructive that the final decision of the conference to take the following matters beyond the ken of the 50 wise men is similar to what their counterparts in the Obasanjo conference of 2005 did. Justice Kutigi says in his final submission: Having critically examined the issues in contention, Conference recognises the need to a) review the percentage of revenue allocation to states producing oil and other resources; b) reconstruct and rehabilitate areas affected by insurgency and internal conflict; c) diversify the Nigerian economy by first tracking the development of the solid minerals sectors….Taking decisions on these matters require some technical details and consideration….The federal government should set up a technical committee to determine the appropriate percentage on the three issues and advise government appropriately.” Similarly, the National Political Reform Conference of Obasanjo ended on the recommendation to the federal government to establish an Expert Commission to make detailed and final positions on revenue allocation, after the conference was unable to take any firm position on the recommendation of 17% allocation to petroleum producing communities.

Commentators have started to react to the decision to push the matter of revenue allocation to the same federal government that assembled some of the country’s most powerful men and women to serve as conference delegates. Although some of the delegates were in various ways part of the governments that eroded the revenue allocation upon which the country went into an independent federation, many of the delegates did not have such baggage. Some of the delegates were even leading figures in the anti-military and pro-democracy movements that catalysed the two post-military governments that had convened national conference since 1999. It is also uncharitable to conclude that most delegates selected by the president’s men went to the conference for the handsome allowances.

A more fruitful way to enrich the country’s constitutional discourse is to stop paying a lot of attention to effects or symptoms of the country’s problems at the expense of the causes of such challenges. It is those who were over sanguine about the conference at the beginning that would feel disappointed by the failure of the conference to deal with the issue of a just and fair revenue allocation to states that are homes to exploitation of non-renewable resources, the exploitation of which destroys the eco-system of such communities and the livelihood of their population. It is also necessary to recognise that the president’s selection of delegates has left no room for them to consult with their communities. The president’s decision to handpick delegates must have left citizens out of the debate and deliberations on the conference floor.

In addition, significant constraints were put in the way of the delegates. First, they were told to take the unity of the country as a given. If writing a constitution is finding ways to negotiate how to create or sustain a country that citizens believe would bring peace and a sense of belonging to all citizens, it is wrong for the conference to have been be told to refrain from debating the indivisibility or indissolubility of the country, regardless of the relevance of outcomes of deliberations at the conference. Delegates should have been elected by their communities and be given the chance to determine on the basis of feelings of representatives (if they were representatives) of federating units what is likely to make the country indivisible. Second, the conference was asked to base any decision on consensus, barring which they must have 75% of the delegates to approve any decision. This was later negotiated down to 70% of votes, still very difficult to attain in most democracies of the world. Third, delegates were given an encyclopediclist of items—relevant and irrelevant—to establishing basic rules for a country. There were more questions about statecraft than about identifying rules and forms of government capable of sustaining a multiethnic federation. Fourth, the recommendations of the conference were designed to be made without enabling legislation to empower citizens to have any input in the process through a referendum.

Furthermore, delegates did not have the kind of relationship capable of enabling citizens to know how much citizens believe petroleum defines the country’s presence and future. Most of the delegates, especially the 50 wise ones had gotten used to the belief that the country’s life force is the petroleum in the Niger Delta. Some believe that if Nigeria remains in its present form of collecting royalty from petroleum and doling some of the proceeds to states, territorial unity of the country would have been assured. Others also feel that funds from the country’s largest revenue earner should be allocated to their sections to solve all problems, if peace is to be ensured.

As pessimistic as it may sound, Nigeria is not likely to experience proper federalism until its leaders from the various communities are able to say No to social welfare funds oozing from the womb of the Niger Delta region.Moreover, because delegates were not elected, they did not have the benefit of knowing the kind of Nigeria that citizens want.With a referendum, people from various communities would be in the best of positions to determine the indivisibility of Nigeria without any prodding from those benefiting from Nigeria as it is presently constituted.

July 20, 2014
As Kongi grows riper

Soyinka consistently writes and acts in a way to show that he does not separate the words he uses from the actions he takes with respect to accountable governance

It was Pablo Picasso that once said that a person grows riper rather than older. As the world celebrates Wole Soyinka’s 80th birthday for different reasons, all of which pertain to the sterling contributions he had made to human civilisation in general principally through his literary genius, some readers of this column have emailed to find out what I think Professor Soyinka means to the average Nigerian, as distinct from the impact he has made on the intelligentsia through his high art. There is no better way to answer this query than to summarise the significance of the acts of secular humanism of Nigeria’s 80-year-old Nobel laureate to the project of transforming post-colonial Africa in general and Nigeria in particular, from a world of fear and failure to one of faith in freedom and justice for all.

Although I have many other things I would have liked to say about Kongi in this column on this special occasion of his 80th birthday, despite my belief that he does not really like being talked about in any tone that is reminiscent of praise poetry. But I will focus today’s piece on the simplest and yet profound of the three requests I received from my readers: “how has Prof Soyinka made his high-brow literature and living relevant to the experience of the masses of our people?”

Soyinka has consistently in the past 60 years made his writings and his actions speak to the experience of the masses, not only in Nigeria or Africa, but all over the world. On account of space, we will focus on how he has made efforts to improve the dignity of the average person. But first, his literature—now referring just to his fiction, drama, and poetry— is not all high-brow. There is nothing elitist in The Trials of Brother Jero, The Lion and the Jewel, The Swamp Dwellers, From Zia with Love, and King Baabu, to name a few.Of course, there are many others written in less accessible language than those mentioned above: Madmen and Specialists, A Dance of the Forests, The Road, Death and the King’s Horseman. But every piece in his corpus responds to the complexity of the subject or idea at issue. As various communities across the globe celebrate Kongi for what they see as the Nobel laureate’s contribution to their understanding of life, let us focus here on how his writings and actions have addressed the masses of our people.

Starting philosophically as he does from the principle that every person deserves that his or her human dignity is enhanced in private and in public at all times, he promotes one recurrent theme in all his writings: the non-negotiability of the freedom of every individual and the need to join or lead in the resistance of any form of injustice that threatens individual freedom and dignity. Of course, Soyinka consistently writes and acts in a way to show that he does not separate the words he uses from the actions he takes with respect to accountable governance. Even long before becoming an international celebrity, he is on record as intervening in a bold way to challenge election rigging in Western Nigeria in the mid-sixties. By disabling announcement of a radio message from a government with democratic deficit and enabling one that calls for honesty in electoral democracy, Soyinka acted out in Ibadan a theme that has become second nature in all his writings and speeches: recognition of a contest between power and freedom as an abiding aspect of the human society and the duty of the man or woman of conscience to be on the side of freedom and against any form of power that threatens freedom.

It is the preoccupation with freedom and justice that was evident in the activities of Soyinka during the civil war. For visiting the Biafran leader, Odumegwu Ojuku, and for writing to call for a cease fire, he was incarcerated for 27 months, after which he went into his first exile. His famous quote in The Man Died, one of two literary products that resulted from months of total confinement: “The Man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny” captures what Soyinka sees as one of the central goals of the human intellect.He puts the same principle differently when he says that “the greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.”

During Soyinka’s second exile at the instance of Gen Abacha’s rule of terror and after Soyinka had been sentenced to death for treason in absentia by Abacha, a highly-placed female chairman of a federal bank was sent from Nigeria through its embassy in Washington to meet some of us in the NALICON-NADECO-Abroad group. After a mendacious assessment of efforts by Yoruba in diaspora “in support of Egbon Abiola’s presidential mandate,” the honey-voiced woman asked if we could help to assist her to meet Prof. Soyinka and General Akinrinade. We acted as if we did not know her pedigree and that if there was any of the three of us in the room who should have direct access to Soyinka that she should be the person. We asked her why anyone would want to talk to Soyinka on behalf of a government that had already sentenced him to death, she replied: “Forget about death sentence that is neither here nor there. Prof. Soyinka’s criticism of government is distracting the leader from governing properly.” We reminded her of the most famous quote from The Man Died. Of course, she had not read the book, and the rest is history.

Still on the Abacha-induced exile, Soyinka put his money where his mouth was during the NALICON-NADECO struggle. He himself would not acknowledge this in his own writings, as it would smack of self-celebration. But not only did he use his social capital in different parts of the world to source for funds to keep the secretariat and activities going, he also donated resources from earnings from his writings and speeches to the pro-democracy movement. I still recall one day when he was going over some layman’s accounting that I took to him at the Washington airport on his way to Europe. He flipped through the papers and ran his eyes from left to right of each page and vice versa. He looked up at me and said, “RS, I cannot see anything for wine or hospitality in your account.” I looked straight into his eyes and said “Prof, there was no hospitality done.” He smiled and said that it is not that wine itself is a bad thing but these are hard times that almost make drinking wine too much luxury and assured me that there would be plenty of time for wine. I insisted that he should order for one bottle for us to share before his flight, considering my long trip from Pennsylvania to Washington. He laughed, ordered what was asked for and told me to go and file the financial report with the Department of Justice, as required by law. The point of this digression is that it was not only words and actions that Soyinka gave to the cause of justice and freedom, he also gave his own resources, thus illustrating the principle in another statement by him: “I think that if one believed absolutely in any cause, then one must have the confidence, the self-certainty, to go through with that particular course of action.”

Most of our local politicians also, like the informal ambassador plenipotentiary of Abacha referred to earlier, fail to take advantage of Soyinka’s writings and speeches that are not designed for intellectual elites. Otherwise, the many meetings about what position the Yoruba should take to Jonathan’s national conference would have been unnecessary, if Yoruba delegates had paid attention to a speech Soyinka gave to South-South Economic Summit:

“Let each regional grouping with compatible ideas of the ultimate mission—the future of the humanity for which they are responsible—begin to call the shots, and relegate the centre to its rightful dimensions in any functioning federated democracy…. Each regional grouping should by its policies, declare an uncompromising developmental autonomy—I repeat Autonomy—leaving the centre only with its competence provenance—foreign policy, national security, and inter-state affairs—including peace advocacy but minus its propensity for inflicting heart seizure on productive human concourse.”

This column wishes Kongi, the man who believes that no government or individuals should create fear for another human being at any time and for any reason diminish the freedom of each person, more happy years of ripening.

July 13, 2014
Policy implementation gone haywire

Those who make policies and recommend implementation methods need to find out what the best practices are elsewhere

Like many other countries, Nigerian political leaders must have made many good policies. So must they have constructed bad policies in their efforts to govern the country effectively. Compared to many countries of its size in other continents (such as Indonesia and Brazil) and to smaller countries within its immediate region (such as Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire), the implementation of several of Nigeria’s policies leaves much to be desired.

On many fronts, policy implementation in the country is replete with confusion and practices capable of demeaning citizens. But there is no other sector where confusion reigns appears greater than in the transportation sector, particularly travelling out and into the country. Nigerians who happen to see the way immigration and customs services are delivered in other countries cannot but wonder if Nigeria has no respect for its own citizens.

Most Nigerians (outside members of the power enclave who have the privilege to bypass formalities at the airport) needing to use the airport to travel out are subjected to indignities at the hands of security personnel. For example, in front of every airline departure desk is a long desk on which travellers’ boxes are opened in front of other travellers. Women’s and men’s under wears are exposed to other travellers at the instance of anti-drug officers. Anti-drug men and customs officers run their hands through boxes of travellers, with the purpose of making sure travellers are not carrying drugs abroad. Bag owners whose underpants are turned into objects of spectacle for people unknown to them have learnt how to look on with embarrassment and with the hope that the officers would bring the invasion of their privacy to an end in good time.

Customs men and women are also at hand to ‘x-ray’ boxes to ensure that boxes do not contain food items that are needed by Nigerians here at home. Such officers are quick to tell travellers to go and obtain certificates to export such limited food items, ignoring traveller’s explanations that the food is for personal consumption by them and their family members waiting at the other end for them. Nigerians in the Diaspora are not believed by customs officers to have as much right as their homeland counterparts to eat Nigerian food. Little do Nigerian customs officers with enthusiasm to ensure that substandard food do not leave Nigerian shores know that such foreign countries have more sophisticated methods of filtering food items that enter their own space.

Travellers often wonder aloud why the country’s anti-drug police would not use sophisticated methods, like their counterparts in other parts of the world, to x-ray travellers’ boxes. Machines detect illegal drugs faster than police men can do by running their hands through women’s used underpants in boxes. Moreover, machines are not likely to mistake regular white powder for cocaine, as it happened not too long ago with respect to some Nigerian musician. Having a situation in which anti-drug enforcement officers run their hands through travellers’ boxes is also fraught with avoidable danger, especially the danger of agents working for politicians to drop illegal objects in the box of travellers belonging to opposition political parties. Drug detection is something that should be removed from human subjectivity. This must be why other countries invest in such machines and in training dogs to sniff illegal drugs.

The story is not different for Nigerians coming back into the country. The first point of embarrassment is that travellers see how connected Nigerians and even foreigners are aided by men and women in uniform to avoid getting on the lines for holders of Nigerian passports and of other passports. When confronted about this by bold travellers, immigration officers are quick to reply that such persons have been pre-cleared, whatever that means. I found myself playing such a role recently and got punished indirectly for such audacity. After giving my passport to two uniformed officers sitting feet apart from each other, I was still stopped by the man whose attention I had drawn to persons going past immigration desk without submitting their passports to immigration officers. On my way to the luggage claim section, the stern-looking immigration officer I had asked questions earlier stopped me. He asked for my passport and I told him I had gone through clearance. He retorted that it was his job to confirm that this had been done. He took the passport and looked through every page before handing it over to me.

Even after travellers collect their luggage and are apparently cleared by customs, they are still stopped on the way out by persons without any appearance to identify them as security personnel. The task in this case is usually to match the tag on the luggage with the copy given to the traveller at the point of departure. Shouldn’t this have been done before clearing customs, if it has to be done at all? A logical way to do this is to confirm that anyone claiming a piece of luggage is the authentic owner at the point that he or she removes the luggage from the luggage conveyor. Just a few days ago, a new mother coming from abroad was stopped after having been cleared by customs. The grand-mother pushing the new baby’s carrier was asked to present the claim tag for the carrier. She was told that there was no such tag, as the carrier was not checked in but carried into the plane with the baby in it. The ‘luggage officer’ (for want of better way to designate such workers) insisted that the carrier should have been tagged, but the grand-mother was not a push-over, she told the man to call in the airline’s representative.

There is nothing wrong with the government having policies that prevent persons entering the country illegally, taking illegal drugs out of the country, or exporting food in commercial quantity without obtaining export certification. But the ways such policies are implemented show lack of imagination and sensitivity to citizens who need travel-related services. For example, the practice of putting names of infants on passports of their mothers can no longer be used by new mothers who delivered their babies abroad. Nigerian embassies no longer provide such services, and most of the time, they do not regularly have passport booklets. Consequently, new mothers have to obtain the passport of the country of birth of their new children and then ask for Nigerian visa to bring their new infants home.

Those who make policies and recommend implementation methods need to find out what the best practices are elsewhere. Implementing a good policy in a bad way that dehumanises citizens makes nonsense of the good intentions of such policies.

July 6, 2014
Our republic, of monarchs?

Why should members of the ruling party at the centre or any other party for that matter be upset about who is chosen as emir in Kano?

Nigeria is a country where contradictions thrive or triumph, without anyone needing to be seen to do anything untoward. Our country carries the nomenclature of a federal republic. Yet, its federating units can make laws without the power to enforce them. This contradiction is justified by those in charge of statecraft on the ground that this is the only way to keep the multiethnic country’s unity indissoluble. Some two decades ago, the country was called a secular republic until its citizens woke up one day to find out that its military dictator had registered it in the Organisation of Islamic States (OIC). It is now being characterised as a multi-religious country even though it is still officially a member of OIC and a section of the country is killing to force other religions to submit to Sharia. Most recent in our rulers’ bizarre actions is the increased attention being given and sought for monarchs of various names: Emirs, Obas, Obis, Obongs, etc. A few days ago, the death of the former Emir of Kano, Ado Bayero, a man of peace and of enviable inter-ethnic and inter-religious relations during his reign, has been made to increase the country’s insecurity by republican rulers scheming to take advantage of the trappings of monarchy.

As if the insecurity created by Boko Haram and its insistence that Nigeria must cease to be a secular state but a theocracy run by Islamic clerics functioning as kings or emirs is not enough, several political rulers seem preoccupied with adding another source of insecurity to the one that the international community believes has become too enormous for the country’s security forces to manage. As if the seizure of over 200 innocent schoolgirls is not enough to make politicians of all stripes reflect about the incapacity of the proverbial African Big Men to govern properly in a modern democratic context, those in charge of governance choose to be entangled with raising the adrenalin level of the entire country by turning what should have been an entirely local affair of Kano city into a nation-wide drama of the absurd: death of an emir; nomination of a successor; threats to arrest the emir designate before investiture; threats by street urchins to vandalize the emir’s palace; virtual relocation or incarceration of the new emir in the governor’s guest house, etc.

If Nigeria were truly a republic, no mention would have been made in the public sphere of any manner of monarchy— of the turban popular in Northern Nigeria or of the beaded hats popular in Southern Nigeria. If Nigeria were really a republic, no head of state would call for special roles for traditional rulers in constitutional governance. If delegates at the ongoing national conference believe that Nigeria is a republic, they would not countenance the section of the items handed to them from the presidency for consideration with respect to carving a role for traditional rulers in government and in the constitution. It is clear that everybody that has a role to play in governance believes that the constitution he or she has sworn to uphold is full of lies that must be nurtured, without appearing to do so.

How else is any lay observer of public affairs to respond to reports that the riots in Kano since the succession of Ado Bayero by Lamido Sanusi— both of the Ibrahim Dabo ruling family in Kano for centuries— are reasons for heated rhetorical fight between rival political parties? Why should members of the ruling party at the centre or any other party for that matter be upset about who is chosen as emir in Kano? Aren’t the four kingmakers required to submit the final list of nominees to the governor of the state in which Kano is situated? Did the kingmakers disagree with the announcement of Lamido Sanusi when the governor announced his name as the new Emir of Kano? On whose behalf are the urchins on the streets demonstrating and what are they demonstrating against? Do these protesters no longer believe in the age-old selection process? If they do not, do they then have a right to expect that their preferred candidate would be nominated at the end of a process they do not find credible? What has been happening in Kano in the last few days illustrates that once a leadership group harbours and nurtures irreconcilable contradictions in the constitution and governance process of their country, citizens, particularly those with little education and the type that are easily indoctrinated and recruited to serve as suicide bombers are easy targets to be recruited to protest against the choice of kingmakers.

Should it matter if Lamido Sanusi were sympathetic to APC or PDP before his nomination as emir? Is Sanusi as emir not obligated to serve (and appear to do so) as emir to all the people of Kano, regardless of their political affiliations? Is there any evidence that Ado Bayero was a member of any of the political parties before he died? Is the son of Ado Bayero who some political leaders are believed to prefer and had congratulated before announcement of the final nominee a member of PDP? If he were, could the young Bayero have sustained that membership after ascending to the throne of his father? Do emirs have power to change the pattern of votes or the results of votes cast for political parties? Why is it important in this country of ours that the emir of Kano is sympathetic to APC or PDP if elections are guaranteed to be free and fair, and devoid of any form of intimidation by any branch of the security forces? In over sixty years that I had been witnessing elections in the country, there had been no report of an emir or oba going to the polls to vote for any candidate. So, what is the basis of the do-or-die attitude to whomever the people of Kano choose to be their emir?

If traditional rulers are so influential to the extent that citizens cannot vote rationally once they are influenced by traditional rulers in their vicinity, then the time is ripe for the country to review its political structure and form of government. In the days of Lugardian Indirect Rule, traditional rulers in the Northern and Western Regions were powerful, but politicians decided not to allow the British to hand over the regions or the entire country to traditional rulers. This was why the country opted for constitutional governance and later for republican status.

Every day, things happen in our country to suggest that those who rule us are confused people. In one breadth, they want to run a modern republican state. In another, they want to acquire traditional titles to give them the appearance of having some pedigree in traditional rulership. Even in sections of the country that the colonial masters had to create paramount chiefs for lack of traditional rulers, politicians are in the habit of creating titles that entitle them to the regalia of traditional rulers.

In the meantime, the president should further the spirit of unity of purpose he evinced on June 12 to reprimand members of his party who sent congratulatory messages prematurely to the young Bayero. Such party fanatics have embarrassed the president and knowingly or unknowingly added to the country’s security challenges. The security problem that is being brewed in Kano over a function consigned to the Residual list in our pre-republican days shows that the lust for power to exploit the people by our post-colonial politicians is not any different from what made Frederick Lugard introduce the Indirect Rule in Nigeria. Serious-minded citizens need to let our political rulers know they are already too frustrated after three or more years of the violence from Boko Haram to be made to serve as cannon fodder in a fight between pro-monarchy political groups that should have no space in a modern republic.

June 15, 2014
Okonjo-Iweala and governors’ performance: the noise, silence, and wisdom

The assumption that underlies the disclosure on how much these 10 states received last year is that the states may not have done what is required of them

Some of those who are aware that Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has been minister of finance twice within the last fifteen years are likely to marvel at the sudden burst of anti-corruption wisdom that came upon her during her recent visit to Ogun State. At a commencement speech at Babcock University in Ogun State recently, the federal coordinating minister for the economy and substantial minister of finance called on citizens to ask governors in the states what they have been doing with the funds made available to them under the country’s system of feeding-bottle federalism. Others are likely to scream at her for remembering very little and forgetting too much in her call for accountability on the part of those charged with political power and in the process trusted with public funds. Certainly, there is some wisdom, partisanship and evasiveness in her decision to present herself as an anti-corruption radar that captures every nook and corner of the polity.

In a speech calling on governors to account for their allocations from the federation account, the minister thrilled her audience, saying: “Clearly, the federal government cannot do it alone; we need the private sector to work with us and we have reached out to them in transforming Nigeria. But, in addition to that, we should ask ourselves what is the role of the state and local governments in supporting our transformation….A lot of attention is turned on the federal government. So, we also need to ask what our states and local governments do with the resources they get.” Furthermore, she told the nation how much the ten most endowed states received in 2013 from the federation account in order of magnitude: Akwa Ibom 260 billion naira; Rivers 220b; Delta 209b; Bayelsa 173b; Lagos 168b; Kano 140b; Katsina 103b; Oyo 100b; Kaduna97b; and Borno 94b.

The assumption that underlies the disclosure on how much these 10 states received last year is that the states may not have done what is required of them. Some audience members of the minister may even think that the states not mentioned by the minister must have gotten too little for performance watchers like the minister to expect much from them. Either way, such thinking does not address the meat of Okonjo-Iweala’s stance on national transformation from the states up to the centre, which to the minister is now the epicenter of economic transformation.

One point upon which admirers and non-admirers of the minister are likely to congratulate her is Okonjo-Iweala’s enthusiasm to make political leaders at the state and local government levels work for the privileges bestowed upon them. Some months ago at a CNN interview of the minister on the performance of the central government, she was enthusiastic in blaming international communities for encouraging Nigerian politicians. For her to now see that most, if not all, governors are under performing suggests that the minister has bought into the idea that corruption and poor governance are like charity: They begin at home. They may also be like the stench from the kitchen sink that ends in the house. Calling on governors to spend funds allocated to their states on verifiable projects in the state is something to praise the minister for having the energy to do at a time that the rest of the world is pre-occupied with over 200 innocent girls kidnapped and kept incommunicado for over thirty days.

Okonjo-Iweala as a political appointee must have been working for her pay by making transformation the yardstick by which to evaluate governors’ performance in their states. However, she appears to have forgotten to tell Nigerians in what specific aspects the federal government whose economy she coordinates has transformed Nigeria. A commencement speech would not have been in any way inappropriate for her to roll out verifiable statistics of her government’s achievements with respect to transformation. As the minister in charge of coordinating Jonathan/PDP’s transformation agenda, she ought to identify in what ways many of the governors whose states she mentioned have departed from applying the funds allocated to them to transformational projects. One point that the minister missed to explain is why the message of transformation was not passed to the states, especially PDP states that are in the majority by the ruling party.

Given the character of partisan politics in the country, over partisan citizens may accuse anyone that calls APC governors to order as bashing the opposition, but nobody will blame a minister or anybody appointed by the ruling party for calling PDP governors to order when they fail to work in rhythm with the transformation agenda of President Jonathan, particularly after some of such states were reported not too long ago of getting some special allocations from the president and author of the transformation ethic. According to citizens’ reports, many changes have taken place in Rivers, Delta, Akwa Ibom, and Kano in the last four years. As most of the states were PDP states until recent migration of the governors of Kano and Rivers to APC, the minister ought to know if those changes fall within the transformation agenda for which she has cited the federal government as the model for all states to follow.

One point of wisdom in the minister’s graduation speech at Ilishan is captured in her advice to citizens to be critical of their governors, commissioners, and local government leaders if they want improvement in the quality of their lives and not be fixated on the performance of the federal government. It is true that media emphasis has been on the failure of the central government to make any visible use of the over 56% of the nation’s wealth that it expends. The minister has a point in asking that other levels of government that are allocated about 46% of the federation’s funds are also watched as critically as the federal government. The structure of ownership of most media houses can be blamed for the little attention paid to governance at state and local government levels, especially the latter about which citizens hear virtually nothing. State television and radio stations have over the years become amplifiers for statements from governors and their wives, rather than being allowed to serve as barometers for measuring governors’ performance. Local government chairpersons are out of the media’s watchdog radar most of the time. This may be because most so-called national newspapers are stationed in Abuja and Lagos while most subnational governments are afraid to encourage establishment of newspapers to watch their performance.

Borrowing from the finance minister’s worries about the use of federal allocations at the subnational level, delegates at the national conference may need to look more critically than (most of the conference committees have done so far) at the issue of revenue generation and distribution. It is necessary to change the current system that gives funds to subnational governments from revenue obtained at the expense of the health of citizens in the Niger Delta. States should be made to generate the resources they need through taxation. The current system that creates a parasitic dependence by all levels of government on revenue generated from the Niger Delta ought to be reformed. Allocations from the federation account funded by all the states should be changed to grants that are attached to specific development projects for central and state governments alike. Citizens who create the wealth at the disposal of states under such system will also have more say in how their taxes are used by those who govern them at all levels. Some measure of civic democracy has started to emerge in Lagos State, where taxes bring more funds to the state treasury than allocations from the oil and gas revenue distributed from the federation account.

June 8, 2014
Exploring all options to end Nigeria’s afflictions

Many Nigerians are already displaying naïve patriotism that is blind to the new global governance ethic which enjoins each nation to respect the human rights of its citizens;

It is gratifying that one of the points made by President Jonathan on the occasion of the federal government’s Democracy Day is his commitment “to continue to partner with the civilised world to confront international terrorism and every other challenges with patriotic zeal and determination.” The president is certainly not alone; he must be echoing the determination of many Nigerians that the coming of foreign powers to Nigeria must be put to strategic advantage for the peoples of Nigeria.

Not since 1960 has Nigeria had the blessing or misfortune of serving as host to international powers being referred to in President Jonathan’s speech as partners from the civilised world. In its infancy as a state-nation, Nigeria was even so ‘patriotic’ to the effect that it rejected offer of a Defence Pact from its colonial master, Great Britain. Just about fifty years later, the world’s hegemon, the United States, the creator of Nigeria, the United Kingdom, Britain’s colleague in the scramble for and partition of Africa, France, China that was not a power when Nigeria became independent, are all here to help Nigeria solve its daunting security problems.

Many Nigerians are already displaying naïve patriotism that is blind to the new global governance ethic which enjoins each nation to respect the human rights of its citizens; prevent its citizens from falling into the pit of poverty; and promote citizens’ life, property, and happiness. What such Nigerians are invoking is the spirit of patriotism that was in vogue in the middle of the twentieth century when Nigeria was born. In those days, it did not matter how uncaring or effete a country’s governors were, leaders of other countries had no right to intervene in what was considered religiously as a country’s internal affairs. Nobody at that time ever thought that the world would advance from enclaves of power captured by strongmen through rigged elections or military takeovers to the point when democracy, especially freedom for all, would become the reference point for countries that require respect from the international community.

When formal globalisation as an economic system emerged, several dictators thought it would stop at encouraging trade across nations without insisting on any global ethical framework to make such economic interaction across borders mandatory on member states. But with the coming of UN Millennium Declaration, leaders of all countries in the organisation signed on to a document that enjoins them to accept “a collective responsibility to uphold the principles of human dignity, equality and equity at the global level,” with all member countries accepting the duty to all the world’s people, especially the most vulnerable and, in particular, the children of the world, to whom the future belongs.”

Many Nigerians have started to think aloud about the mess their country is in. Some people are already blaming President Jonathan for throwing the country’s doors open to international powers, saying that he is encouraging the United States that predicted the fall of the country by 2015 to come and do the job of undertakers while others say that the United Kingdom has come principally to protect the interest of those to whom it handed Nigeria in 1960. France’s presence is being interpreted as one to ensure that the colonial project is not dismantled overnight by the United States and China, two countries that did not ‘sacrifice’ to create the colonies that morphed into neo-colonies all over Africa. On the other hand, many Nigerians are castigating Jonathan for waiting too long to ask for help from those who have the wherewithal to help save a country from its own internal afflictions that help sustain its failed-state status and are thus capable of bringing an end to its status as Africa’s largest multinational state. Both groups also claim to be ‘patriotic’ Nigerians. Still, many others are saying that the international powers now in the country to save it from destruction by Boko Haram should be given no more than three months to complete their assignment and leave the country to its ‘patriotic’ owners.

Even though citizens are not privy to the internal workings of Jonathan’s government that encouraged him to finally accept the offer of special assistance from U.S., U.K., France, China, and Israel, it is not unlikely that Jonathan must have re-read the contents of the Millennium Declaration and its demand on heads of state or government to recognise the need to protect vulnerable citizens, such as the 200 Chibok girls kidnapped by the country’s most intolerant and vicious Islamic terrorist sect or hundreds of innocent citizens gunned down or destroyed by bombs in Nyanya, Borno, or Jos. We should leave the assessment of Jonathan’s decision to welcome many of the world’s military powers to the shores of Nigeria to professional historians and pay attention to how the country can take strategic advantage of the presence of these countries at a time that its security appears to be in shambles.

If this country seriously needs to stay together as one, it certainly needs to look beyond nineteenth-century notion of statehood. It needs to recognise that the problem threatening its unity is not just Boko Haram. Without doubt, the violence being perpetrated by Boko Haram makes it the most fiendish of Nigeria’s challenges; however, there are other challenges that are being swept under the mat by those who have benefited (or still benefit) from governance of the country since 1960. With a terrorist group that successfully attacks army barracks with rocket launchers, armoured cars, and keeps hundreds of school girls captivity for over thirty days, it should not surprise genuinely patriotic citizens that the curtain of the play of the Nigeria project is about to close.

Anyone quick to cite the issue of puncturing of Nigeria’s pride to support calls for withdrawal of Western powers from the country’s shores must be overlooking the fact that Nigeria had lost its pride long ago. It is not in any way one of the countries on any of the positive lists of states that are meeting the demands of good governance. While Jonathan may be the leader under whose charge Nigeria deteriorates to an abysmal level, it is honest for all of us to admit that he is not the major author of the myriad problems that threaten the country’s peace and stability. Nigeria’s problems derive from decades of a manipulative political culture that privileges a section of the country over others. The root of Boko Haram and other forms of criminality including compulsive corruption in the country cannot be divorced from a political structure that imposes internal imperialism in the name of national unity or uniformity on a nation-space that requires respect for diversity.

A time that two of the countries that colonised most of Africa and created most of the countries with the continent’s serious political and cultural problems choose to come to Nigeria to chase out Boko Haram and rid the country of the scourge of international terrorism is a good time for the world’s hegemon, the United States, to confer with various vested interest groups recruited to fight terrorism on how to support Africa’s political structures and institutions for the benefit of its citizens, not just its leaders. Getting rid of Boko Haram may not be enough to bring peace, stability, and development to Nigeria. Assisting Nigeria to come to terms with the requirements of sustaining a multiethnic and multi-religious country and thus provide a conducive environment for sustainable democracy and development may, in the long run, be more important than just driving out the violent Islamic sect.

Regardless of the primary reason for Western powers to come to save Nigeria from Boko Haram, being here may be a rare opportunity for genuine friends of Nigeria to give teeth to the UN’s Millennium Declaration on meeting the special needs of Africa: “supporting the consolidation of democracy in Africa and assisting Africans in their struggle for lasting peace, poverty eradication and sustainable development, thereby bringing Africa into the mainstream of the world economy.”

June 1, 2014