By Tunji Adegboyega

 

Trust Nigerian public officials, they are never in short supply of admirable acronyms for most of their actions, policies and projects. When I saw ‘SEA’ in President Muhammadu Buhari’s New Year message, I had to put a call through to a colleague to find out if the Buhari government ever used such concept. He said no. Then it dawned on me that someone had just discovered that concept to be fitting of what the government had declared, ab initio, as its core manifesto. The government has always told us that security, economy and anti-corruption (SEA) would be the central plank of its policies and programmes. I congratulate whoever ‘invented’ the concept even as I wish that it does not end up in its idiomatic sense.

One of the reasons why some of the gains made on food production under the Buhari administration paled into insignificance eventually is the government’s seeming aloofness to the issue of herdsmen’s criminal tendencies when the issue reared its ugly head shortly after the Buhari government came on board. Rather than tackle the issue squarely as a potential security threat that it was, we began arguments on why people should profile them as Fulani herdsmen or simply herdsmen. At a point, the government even began to react to the insinuation made in some quarters that the herdsmen’s crisis was the worst ever in the country’s history, apparently because they are conscious that one of their own is now in charge; that was after the government failed to order a crackdown on those of them exhibiting criminal tendencies.

So, in a sense, if some of the little gains made by the administration are being eroded, the government is the architect of its own (mis)fortune. Not a few people were baffled that the Federal Government handled the herdsmen’s matter with kid gloves initially, with the president taking eternity before even condemning the criminals. That was after many Nigerians had cried themselves hoarse, asking him to at least say something on the matter.

Now, the security problem has not only become hydra-headed, it has apparently overwhelmed the government and its security agencies. Farmers in some parts of the country can no longer go to their farms without someone paying bandits money to let them farm in peace. When that free funds stop, the bandits abduct or kill the farmers on the farms. If that is not happening, Boko Haram terrorists would be dealing their own blows, with lots of lives and limbs already lost and properties damaged. So, as the Federal Government is pumping hard-earned resources into the agricultural sector through the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Anchor Borrowers Scheme and other initiatives on the one hand, it is throwing the resources into a bottomless pit with its tepid or cavalier approach to the damning security question, on the other. Or, how else do you describe a situation where the president could only bemoan his fate after admitting that he has given the security agencies all they needed to tackle the menace?

Yet, if President Buhari must be reminded, Nigerians voted for him not just because they thought he would fight corruption but also because they thought he would have a better handle on the lingering insecurity in the land that defined the latter part of the Goodluck Jonathan years, at least as an army general. On both scores, as in many other areas, they have been proved wrong and are disappointed.

Needless to say that the economy is still down. Electricity supply still requires more attention. It is true the government has done a lot to improve power supply, including the promise of some six million prepaid meters, the fact of the matter is that the possibility of the electricity distribution companies (DisCos) selling a substantial part of the government’s meters is high. It is doubtful if there is a check and balance system to prevent such abuse, especially as the companies are simultaneously selling their own meters to electricity consumers. This is the kind of thing that happens when policies are products of fire brigade approach. The free meter thing would have made better sense if it had come earlier and the DisCos do not have the opportunity of selling meters to consumers.

On anti-corruption, although some of the things that happened last a long time ago have happened under the administration, with some big fishes jailed for corrupt practices, the president and the ruling party have a lot of convincing to do that the recent defections to the party are not a ploy by most of those concerned to avoid facing corruption charges. In other words, that those defecting are not seeing the ruling party as a refuge to cover their corrupt tracts. It is curious that people would be defecting to the ruling party even shortly after the #EndSARS nationwide protests which, in a sense, represented a true reflection of Nigerians’ score card on the government and the ruling party.

Although President Buhari spoke glowingly about our teeming youths: “2020 indeed came with a lot of challenges ranging from security and economic issues across the regions to understandable protests that were mainly led by our youths and served notice to the demand for police reforms and accountability. This government heard, this government listened and this government is committed to fulfilling the five demands of our youths, fully understanding that we all wish well for Nigeria”, the point is that the youths not only clamoured for police reforms, they also want good governance. If our youths are doing well, whether at home or abroad, it is not because of any special thing that the government has done to make them excel, it is more of personal and or individual efforts. Indeed, it is often in spite of the government.

At any rate, it is not by mere words of mouth that sincerity of purpose is expressed by government. Anyone can do that. But a government that is proud of the achievements of youths and wants to encourage them would invest heavily in education. It is the failure of the northern political elite to educate their teeming youths that begot the insecurity in the region which the country is now spending huge resources that would have been otherwise spent to provide infrastructure for all other Nigerians to fix. While the northern feudal oligarchy sent their own children to choice schools abroad, they pushed the children of the poor to local alfas under the guise of teaching them Quaranic education. If truly that was the culture, how come that culture was good only for the children of the poor? And, if indeed such practice used to be good in the past as some of my friends who understand the culture sometimes tell me when we are discussing the issue, what did they (the elite) do when the almajirai system was progressively becoming dysfunctional?

President Buhari must significantly raise education budget beyond the present low levels. If this is not done, it is only a matter of time for what is happening in the north to be replicated in other parts of the country. For political leaders who have ears to hear, #EndSARS was enough to tell them this. Children that are deprived of training (read education) will always make life unbearable for the rest of the country at the slightest opportunity. We heard stories of political leaders kneeling down or prostrating for #EndSARS protesters to spare their properties or at least their lives. But what they need to rend is not their clothes (prostrating or kneeling); it is their hearts they need to rend; repent of the obscene privileges they awarded themselves when those who elected them are in squalor.

Of course President Buhari did not forget, as usual, to remind Nigerians the circumstances under which his government came in as if they needed to be reminded: “Nevertheless, I call upon all Nigerians to carefully recall the circumstances of our coming to office, the facts on the ground and the resources at our disposal since 2015 with the accomplishments of this administration.” But what has this got to do with lopsided appointments favouring people from a particular part of the country where the president hails from? What has this got to do with obstinate refusal to change security personnel who are not delivering on target despite being provided all they required to succeed?

It is disheartening, even if expected, that nowhere in the president’s message was the word ‘restructuring’ mentioned. The point has to be restated that the present unitary system of government foisted on us by military adventurists in governance is no longer sustainable. It is not in anybody or any region’s interest. We must return to the pre-military era where every region had the opportunity of developing at its own pace. Then, there was healthy competition among the regions. Not anymore. A situation where everybody now looks to the centre for sustenance is killing creativity and encouraging idleness. Why do you have to think or work when you can go cap-in-hand somewhere every month to collect money made from  resources in a certain region of the country? It is wishful thinking for anyone to assume that such a system will be there forever.

So, these are the issues. I did not see much in that presidential address to inspire hope. There is little to suggest that things will be done differently by the Buhari government, going by what we can now refer to as its antecedents, at least since 2015 when it took over.

Yet, the best tribute we can give to “…our brothers and sisters who didn’t make it into this New Year” for their souls to truly rest in perfect peace is for the president to change his style of leadership. It is neither a wish nor a prediction: More Nigerians can only go to their untimely graves if the current tempo of governance, especially at the federal level, is sustained. There is the urgent need for the president to rejig his cabinet. Even governments that are doing fairly well still find reason to inject fresh blood into the system. President Buhari cannot say that he understands the challenges Nigerians are facing and give them hope only by promising to tackle those challenges. They have heard that several times before, with nothing changing.

While it is true that 2020 was a trying year for millions of people globally, especially with the coronavirus pandemic, the point is that our own country has had its own leadership deficit long before COVID-19. So, it is unfair to blame our woes on coronavirus alone.

President Buhari must faithfully implement his government’s SEA agenda if the country is to be lifted out of the deep blue sea which it is presently in.

Tunji Adegboyega

 

At last, the prying eyes of our states’ chief executives have finally sighted our pension funds sitting majestically and peacefully in bank vaults. And, in line with their insatiable quest for funds, and more funds, they are now looking in that direction for financial succour, having exhausted the usual avenue of bailout by the Federal Government. This is not unexpected. Rather than teach the state governments how to catch fish, or at least give them an enabling environment to fend for themselves, the central government has been pampering them with all manner of bailouts such that many state governments have little motivation to look inwards for money. Unfortunately, the Federal Government itself is now in need of bailout and is no longer in a position to pamper its generally spoilt brats.

So, like the drowning man that is ready to cling to anything for survival, the governors are now seeking financial solace in the pension funds, ostensibly to fix infrastructure. Apparently, one of their own, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, who also doubles as chairman of the National Economic Council ad hoc Committee on Leveraging Portion of Accumulated Pension Funds for investment in the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) opened their eyes to this fruit which the fervent prayers of the hapless contributors had kept hidden from them all this while. Reports say the governors had endorsed two proposals to borrow about N17trn from two sources, including the pension funds, after a briefing by el-Rufai about two weeks ago.

We should thank God for the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) which had, in a public letter, asked President Muhammadu Bahari to stop the governors in their tracks. SERAP had, in the letter dated December 5 and signed by its deputy director, Kolawole Oluwadare, said: “Allowing the governors to borrow from pension funds would be detrimental to the interest of the beneficiaries of the funds, especially given the vulnerability of pension funds to corruption in Nigeria and the transparency and accountability deficits in several states.”

SERAP is not through yet: “It is patently unjust and contrary to the letter and spirit of the Nigerian Constitution 1999 (as amended), the Pension Reform Act, and the country’s international anti-corruption and human rights obligations for the Federal Government and state governors to repeatedly target pension funds as an escape route from years of corruption and mismanagement in ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).”

Ordinarily, this submission by SERAP should have nailed the coffin of that proposal. There can’t be a superior argument, not even the one of providing infrastructure that the governors touted as reason for the loan. But because of the peculiar nature of our people, particularly the politicians, they are not likely to beat a retreat. They are likely to keep banging the door until it gives way. Before long, some of the governors that are managing to pay the new minimum wage will begin to default, citing lack of money as excuse, just to force the hands of Organised Labour to support their quest.

This is where the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) must wade in heavily into this matter. Mercifully, NLC president Ayuba Wabba has warned that  ”Pension money is the retirement savings of workers. It can’t be borrowed, you must go through the bank, and in this case, you must go through the Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) and their guidelines; even the guidelines they want to play down, but to the glory of God, the board of PenCom has been constituted.

Wabba added: “I stand here to represent all of you. We’re not going to agree; less than five per cent of the states are keying into the contributory pension…The bulk of the money is from Federal Government workers and private-sector workers. So how do you want to borrow from where you haven’t sown?

“It is not free money and let me sound a bit of warning. Any day that we hear the pension fund, our money has been borrowed, I’ll declare a protest, and everybody is going to be on the streets to protect our hard-earned money.” the NLC president stated.

Wabba said it all: “The money belongs to workers. We contribute that money so that when we retire, we can have something for retirement.” Nigerian workers who contributed this money are not politicians. They don’t collect constituency allowance, they are not entitled to free mouthwatering pension unlike governors and their deputies and others who are benefitting from the largesse. So, the little they hope to lean on when it is night and they can no longer work, a saving they painstakingly made in spite of the stifling environment in which they live, should not be given to governors as loans. Many of our political elites, including governors, do not know money’s tribal marks. They are reckless with public funds. Even the blind can see this.

Given what we know, many of the state governments will not utilise the loans well in a way to enable them repay. It is simply not in their character to spend wisely. As a matter of fact, their desire for pension funds reminds me of the joke that one of my friends used to crack: that a man who eats stockfish without picking his teeth can never be trusted to repay a debt (eni to je panla ti o ta’yin, to ba je gbese, ko ni san!) Many of the state governments fit perfectly into this picture.

We see prodigality all around us, especially among the political class. While they are shouting paucity of funds to the general public, we see evidence of money not being their own problem but how to spend it.

Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) governor, Godwin Emefiele, had cause to admonish Nigerians about two weeks ago of the need to cut their desire for imported products. This is because of the drag that this constitutes to the fortunes of our currency. Emefiele knows many of those responsible for this unsavoury development. He knows that state governments are part of the problem. For example, how many of them buy cars assembled in Nigeria? Our National Assembly lawmakers find it insulting to ride in locally assembled vehicles. Yet all of them are complaining alongside the rest of us that the Naira is weak as if we do not know that it is the king’s goats in our midst that are responsible for the weak currency. Also, some experts have canvassed a heavy reduction in the number of political aides appointed by some state governments. All of these constitute a drain on their lean resources. The way many governors spend money, there is no guarantee that they won’t spend the loans on such non-regenerative things as paying the salaries and emoluments of these political jobbers.

Now, after enjoying all of these goodies while in office (a thing our politicians do for life once in, since they have been recycling themselves over the years), they still want to covet the sweat of ordinary Nigerians in pension funds, something that cannot be repaid long after they have exited office, or even long after they would have bid the world farewell.

The truth of the matter is that state governments know what to do when really pressed for funds. As it is, the financial quagmire has not hit them hard enough; when it does, they will do the rightful to break free from the legal chains binding their fate inextricably to the central government. Hardly is there a state without mineral resources in Nigeria. Unfortunately, rather than allow these to be used for the benefit of the states, the Federal Government is sitting pretty on them through some anachronistic legal provisions that bar the state governments from exploiting the resources. Apart from crude oil, the Federal Government is not paying much attention to the resources in the states, such that in some instances, it is individuals that have taken over the resources for their personal advantage, with both the federal and state governments looking the other way. Yet, the governors have all the clout to dramatically change things. They know what they do whenever they want something from Abuja. They had just returned from one such visits where they discussed insecurity with the President.

Many of them have their state houses of assembly in their pockets such that securing the required two-thirds majority in at least two-thirds of all the state houses of assembly nationwide for such fundamental change of the constitution to grant them access to their resources should not be a problem. If they had kickstarted these processes all these years, they would have gone far even if they have not achieved the aim. But they prefer going cap in hand for handouts and bailouts, to putting their own resources in their care. They now want to take loans, not from the banks but from people’s hard-earned savings for the proverbial rainy day.

That governors who are not contributing to the pension scheme also want to partake from the loan shows the lack of moral conscience in some of our leaders. Only people with moral conscience can restrain themselves from reaping where they did not sow, which further strengthens the argument not to let the governors have access to the pension funds.

Nothing that I have said should be taken to mean that investing pension funds is a bad idea. Nor is taking of loans inherently bad. As a matter of fact, investing pension funds is the way to go if it is to yield much for the beneficiaries. But, just as in many other investments, no good investor opens his eyes wide open to take undue risks. Likewise, loans are also worth supporting when we can vouch for those to manage them. Otherwise, it is bad market that should be shot down as its idea is being mooted. That is the lesson, at least, according to Nigeria. We do not have the structures to compel governors to spend responsibly. No doubt there are stringent rules on how pension funds can be given as loans, but no one can guarantee anything in our kind of environment where governors and politicians generally are Lord of the Manor in their respective fiefdoms and the structures to compel them to spend responsibly are either weak or non-existent.

The truth of the matter is that anybody can run any organisation if there is limitless access to funds, including loans. It is the ability to squeeze bread out of stone that makes the difference between creative leaders and run-of-the mill ones. What the times call for are leaders who can think out of the box and not routine ones who want the easy way out of every challenge.

We cannot give people’s pension to governors as things stand, even if we know that not all of them are carefree spenders. But the problem is that a state being run by a prudent governor today may fall into the hands of a prodigal son in the next election and vice versa. What happens if people’s life savings get trapped in the hands of the prodigal sons?

By Tunji Adegboyega

Asking President Muhammadu Buhari to act on the growing insecurity in the land is analogous to asking couples not to forget their conjugal obligations. Yet, we may need to do this because security of lives and property is the major function of any government. And the Buhari government has scored an abysmally low mark in this all-important aspect. Indeed, that the sanctity of life no longer has meaning in the country is exemplified by the gruesome murder of 43 farmers by the Shekau-led militant Islamist group, Boko Haram, in Zabarmari village, Jere Local Government Area of Borno State on November 28. Thirty-five more decomposing bodies were discovered on November 30, bringing the casualties to 83. The faction also claimed responsibility for an attack that killed 22 farmers last month.

Governor Babagana Zulum who by now must have been weary of receiving condolence missions said the state residents are faced with desperate choices. “In one side, they stay at home they may be killed by hunger and starvation; on the other, they go out to their farmlands and risk getting killed by the insurgents,” he said. President Buhari described the gruesome killings as “insane”. This is what we already know. Or, how else would one have reacted to human beings slitting the throats of fellow humans just to avenge the arrest of one terrorist and his being handed over to the security agencies? But presidential spokesman Garba Shehu rubbed salt on the injury when he blamed the farmers for not getting clearance from the military before venturing to their farms.

Perhaps it did not occur to him that this was an indictment, sort of, of their government’s war against the bandits. Was it farmers who should seek clearance from the military before going to farm, or the military should give 24-hour cover to people engaged in farming, if only to avert food crisis? It is this serial goofs, especially in recent times by officials of the Federal Government, that began to give meaning to the impetus of spiritual dimension to explain the turn of events in the Buhari presidency offered by someone with whom I was discussing the country’s pitiable state last week Monday.

Indeed, after several attempts at trying to find out how Nigerians have come to this sorry pass, it becomes somewhat difficult not to see some sense in the fellow’s argument. It is the kind of thing that happens when all else had failed. And, as we all know, religion is not just the opium of the  people, it is also the opium of many of our leaders. Many of them have had cause to ask us to pray our way out at critical junctures of our nation’s history, even if their hearts are far from God.

As we all know, the talk of the town where two or three are gathered in the country today is the state of the Nigerian nation. We are barely 19 days to Christmas and 26 days to another year. Yet, all the tell-tale signs that usually herald the coming of these events are conspicuously missing. The Christmas lights, the Christmas songs, the hustle and bustle that are usually noticed in the markets in this season are yet to surface. This is a year that rams, goats, turkeys and all will give glory to God because of the economic adversity which would make it impossible for many Nigerians to make effective demands for them, to celebrate the end of year festivities. Even fowls can seize the opportunity to defecate in pots because many of them are not likely to rest in this their usual resting place (the pots) this year because of the economy that is not responding to stimuli.

As a matter of fact, the butt of jokes all over is that this year, many people who cannot kill rams to celebrate the festive season should kill fowls and those who cannot afford to kill fowls should ‘kill’ fish. Yet, those who cannot afford to ‘kill’ fish should buy fish that had been killed and frozen, popularly called Oku Eko (referring to imported frozen fish, some of which have this not-too-funny appearance of staring at visitors even in death (Tejumalejo). Virtually the living standard of millions of Nigerians has fallen drastically such that almost everyone would drop several steps backwards from where they were last year and the year before. We can only imagine the extent of deprivation and trauma on the part of Nigerians if we add the growing insecurity to all of these.

The person who took my mind to the religious dimension on the Buhari administration said he had been consistent that Nigerians should not expect much from the administration. As a matter of fact, he said he always had heated arguments with Buhari’s supporters in the build-up to the 2015 election. But he said he would have been happy if the government had rubbished his prognosis by performing because that would have meant better life for millions of Nigerians, including himself.

He then likened President Buhari’s case to that of the Iaraelites who insisted on Samuel giving them a king, without asking whether that was God’s plan for them. They eventually got the king, since they kept pestering the prophet for one, but the aftermath was not palatable. In the same vein, he said thrice had Candidate Buhari contested for the presidency; and thrice had he missed it, despite securing millions of votes that could not translate to the presidency because of constitutional stipulations of spread and geo-political balance. At a point, the then General Buhari wept, ostensibly over Nigeria’s problems, but shortly after losing the presidential election in 2011, swearing that never again would he contest for the presidency. At another, he threatened that blood would flow if he was again out-rigged. When God saw the level of desperation, He caved in, the fellow said. Presidency Buhari wanted; presidency he got. But first, He allowed the then President Goodluck Jonathan’s government to make corruption a way of life, perhaps as never witnessed in Nigeria’s history, thus paving the way for the then General Buhari to win the election, having been assisted with oxygen that gave life to his millions of otherwise ineffectual votes. More than five years in power, this is where we are as a nation. Tongues are now wagging that General Buhari would have been regarded as the best president Nigeria never had if he had not returned to the country’s seat of power that he earlier left in 1985. This, evidently, is not a good epitaph; it is scary indeed. Scary because the prayer of most people is that their end should be more glorious than their beginning.

This is why I am once again appealing to the president and his government to change gear. That Nigeria is not working is very clear to us all and I want to believe the point has been well taken even by the government’s spokespersons. At least none of them is pouncing on critics as they were doing before. None of them is telling us again that we are the largest producer of rice in West Africa or wherever, when the price of the staple has tripled in the last two or three years. Some of the country’s former leaders criticising the government might have their own flaws, but what is important is their message, which should be distilled from their person. As a matter of fact, this should be the right attitude to criticisms. Moreover, you don’t know the information at the disposal of such former leaders. The former leaders-turned-critics know that should the unexpected happen, they too are not likely to escape unscathed. Imagine the scenario if the #EndSARS protests had escalated beyond where it got to? So, a sitting government that has an adversarial disposition to such people might be shooting itself in the foot.

More than five years after, no one is interested in what Jonathan’s government did as excuse for the way we are any longer. This is much more so when we see the present government’s policies and raise the alarm early enough that the policies would not go far only for government to insist that is the way it would go.

We cannot be going in circles on a matter as crucial as security. The same Chief of Army Staff, Lt-Gen. Tukur Buratai, who had been assuring us that Boko Haram would soon fade away has just released a new album, that it would take us about 20 years to wipe out the sect. For how long would we continue to shift the goal post in the middle of the game? When are we going to put an end to this fast-growing terrorism industry?

When things are not working in government, the cabinets are reshuffled. But it would appear President Buhari has sworn not to rejig his cabinet despite massive criticisms of non-performance, including on the part of his security chiefs. No one takes delight in seeing people lose their jobs. But it gets to a point when that becomes inevitable, at least in the larger society’s interest. President Buhari has himself said he has given his service chiefs all they require to fight the insurgency that has dogged the country in the last decade or so. I can understand his reluctance to change his service chiefs if his Muslim conscience convinced him that he had not done the needful to make them deliver value for the money Nigeria has committed to the insurgency war. But if he had done the needful as a general, and what we have is the present result, then the president needs a general cabinet reshuffle. We cannot keep saying Boko Haram has been degraded only for it to be claiming lives at the rate it is, as if those lives were mere statistics.

The situation in the country now is such that everybody that matters is now an expert in the art of commiserating with victims’ families. Indeed, the number of people giving excellent graveside orations keeps multiplying because, as soon as one chapter of such opportunity closes, we wait for the next that is surely lurking somewhere and we are cocksure would come to pass sooner than later. Like some of my friends would say, this is bad at all at all.

By Tunji Adegboyega

I know our country is blessed with many prophets: genuine ones, fakes, those who do permutations and pass them to the rest of us as prophecies, etc. I am none of the above. So, when I said I saw the Okada menace coming, I am not speaking in the context of any of the stated categories. I am only talking in the context of an observer, having seen the lawlessness that defined the Okada business in Lagos in recent times, particularly since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and, worse still, since the #EndSARS protests.

It is as if the Okada riders in the state saw the protest as licence for people to live and behave as they like. They converted the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) routes to Okada routes; intensified their disregard for one-way regulation, ignore traffic lights with greater impunity. In short, they’ve turned themselves into the law in Lagos, which has graciously allowed them to operate at all.

I said graciously because in the states where many of these law breakers came from, Okada is banned. When that happened, they did not complain. They did not riot or protest that riding Okada anyhow is part of their fundamental human right. They simply took the next bus or train to Lagos with their Okada and began business.

Lagos is not complaining. Because Lagos saw the need for the business, it allows them. It gave them a list of roads they could not ply and allow them to operate on others. But the law breaker that many of them are, they defy all attempts to make them do the business responsibly.

Since no government properly so called would allow a state of anomie, clashes were imminent between the Lagos State government agencies enforcing the law on Okada and the recalcitrant riders.

That explained the recent clashes between them and the state government enforcers of the Okada law on Tuesday at the Amuwo- Odofin area p, and on Ikeja Along Bus Stop (Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway), on Wednesday.

But Lagos State government should not be deterred by these incidents. It has to consider the possibility of using technology to tame them. The government should return to the drawing board to review its strategy. For sure, what is at the back of most of the riders involved in the illegality is that they could make the state government bow to their irresponsible road culture. This should never be allowed, otherwise, the government would have lost the basis for its existence. A mega city cannot make the low standards of some miscreants the new normal on the roads.

Where necessary, the government should review the penalties against such attitude to make them stiffer and make scapegoats of some of these riders. Any of them who manhandles any state agent in the course of their official duties should be brought to book and the punishment widely publicised to deter people who may want to toe a similar path. The same applies to those people who burn public property. We will continue to witness such until perpetrators are served their deserved comeuppance publicly.

The point is; these riders have been having it so easy on the illegal routes that they plied in the crisis period, making brisk business, and cannot imagine that the honeymoon should be over just like that. But the state government cannot bow to their base standards. Otherwise we would all be in trouble.

 Tunji Adegboyega

 

It is with a heavy heart that I have to return to the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) barely two weeks after commenting on the force. I have no choice but to return to the issue because it is clear ours is a taught-nothing, learnt-nothing nation. Given what we witnessed during the #EndSARS protest last month, with some of the scars going to remain indelible in the lives of many Nigerians, it is disheartening that some people will still be proposing a paltry N11 billion as capital expenditure for the police in the 2021 budget, out of the proposed N13.89 trn budget. This was the highlight of the budget defence session the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr Mohammed Adamu, had with the House of Representatives Committee on Police Affairs penultimate week. Expectedly, the IGP made it clear that this amount was insufficient if we expect the police to effectively fight crime. “The Nigeria Police Force (NPF) as the primary security agency in charge of national security is being challenged by the enormous financial challenges”, the police boss said. It was a good thing that the committee chair, Bello Kumo, agreed with the inspector-general. Even in normal times, N11 billion is inadequate for the capital projects of the police. Not to talk of this special year that so many police stations were destroyed, their vehicles and barracks burnt, in addition to the supreme sacrifice that some of them paid in the course of service to the fatherland. If this could be the situation this difficult year, we can only imagine what the situation had been like these past years, leading to where we are today with regard to internal security.

Yet, it is the same people who are appropriating inadequate money to the police that would first use their connection to amass the few policemen to protect themselves and their families, leaving the rest of us to our own devices. The other day, the Inspector-General of Police had to withdraw policemen attached to privileged Nigerians. As at 2018, about 150,000 of the less than 400,000 policemen in the country were engaged in such duties, leaving the remaining to secure about 200 million Nigerians. Is this not the height of greed, insensitivity and lack of concern for the vast majority of the people?

This is the same mentality that has left our hospitals perpetually grounded; it is the same mentality that has crippled our educational system (that is if whatever is left of it can be called system). Our rich have abandoned the rest of us to our fate in the decrepit hospitals while they seek medical help abroad, oftentimes at our collective expense. It is the same spirit that makes the political elite care less about overcrowding in our universities: their own children are studying abroad, perhaps with money stolen from our national till because the take-home pay of many of them as we know it cannot pay for such service.(  Much of the corruption in the country is facilitated by the inadequate provision to virtually all sectors of the economy. There is no sector where Nigeria meets internationally prescribed standards; from health to education, security, to what have you. While the government pinches the purse when allocating resources to the sectors, it leaves a lot of money that it cannot keep track of in the hands of unscrupulous public officials who use all manner of subterfuge to siphon the ‘excess’ funds for their personal interest. It is also the reason some elected politicians are able to get salaries that are out of this world in a very poor country, or the reason some of them think they should be better rewarded after political service which was supposed to be about selfless service, than civil servants who served meritoriously for decades.

The Federal Government must be able to adequately fund the NPF, especially since it has not been bold to face the reality that the federal police is not financed by it alone. Indeed, some state governments may be spending more than the Federal Government on the policemen in their states. Take Lagos for example, the state did not deserve what it got when the #EndSARS protests were hijacked by hoodlums, given the massive support it has been giving the Nigeria Police Force, be it in terms of motivation, logistics, and what have you. The state government deliberately set up a security trust fund which the private sector and even individuals bought into. This explains the relative calm the state has been experiencing in the past. Yet, the state could not derive the benefit of this huge investment when it mattered most, resulting in the senseless destruction of public and private properties, as well as loss of valuable lives. Now, the state government has estimated that about N1 trn would be required to fix what has been destroyed in the state.

We should stop deceiving ourselves. If we want a new, improved Nigeria Police Force, we must be ready to fund it. A situation where policemen will ask you to send a functional vehicle to fetch them to the scene of crime because their own operational vehicle is down will continue if we keep approving insulting votes for them. Many Nigerians have been asked to buy papers with which the police record their statements at police stations across the country. Many have had to fuel police vehicles just to ensure police presence at the scenes of their travails on time. All of these and worse would still come if we continue to relegate the force which basic responsibility is internal security.

We cannot afford another #EndSARS protest, as President Muhammadu Buhari himself observed. But it is beyond political rhetoric. Part of where to begin is in the budgetary allocation to the police force. As a matter of fact, that is the appropriate starting point for an authentic police reform.

The force needs to train and retrain their officers and men. They need to be ahead of the criminals, especially these days that criminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated. This would require world-class policing tools, motivation etc. All these things, as Shina Peters sang, ‘na ego dey talk’!

Tunji Adegboyega

 

Some of the issues I had in mind when I wrote on October 25 that some of the #EndSARS protesters’ demands did not need much time to address where there is sincerity of purpose were the mind-boggling monthly take-home pay of our National Assembly (NASS) members and stupendous pension and other emoluments for former governors and their deputies, etc. It is therefore heartwarming that Lagos State government has taking the giant step in advancing the frontiers of good governance by making public its decision to abrogate these.

Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu hinted on Tuesday when presenting the 2021 budget estimate to the Lagos State House of Assembly that: “In the light of keeping the costs of governance low and to signal selflessness in public service, we will be sending a draft Executive Bill to the House immediately for the repeal of the Public Office Holder (Payment of Pension Law, 2007), which provides for payment of pension and other entitlements to former governors and their deputies.” He added: “It is our firm belief that with dwindling revenues and the apparent inflationary rates, we need to come up with innovative ways of keeping the cost of governance at a minimum while engineering a spirit of selflessness in public service.”

Under the pension law for the state’s former helmsmen, an ex-governor is entitled to N30 million pension annually, a house in Lagos and Abuja, six brand new cars every three years, medical allowances and treatment in hospital of choice in any part of the world. States paying entitlements to their former chief executives and their deputies include Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Kwara, among others. Only Zamfara State has abolished the pension following a Federal High Court ruling nullifying the pensions nationwide.

Sanwo-Olu deserves commendation for this bold initiative. It is instructive that these entitlements became operational after ‘due process’. And the decision to reverse them through the same channel could not have come at a better time than now, that the demands of the #EndSARS protesters are still fresh in mind. Top government officials, particularly elected representatives, who have been harping on #EndSARS as if the October 2020 movement was only about police brutality had better stop pretending or hiding behind one finger. The youths said it loud and clear that their protest was about the entire gamut of bad governance which appears to be a Nigerian. Indeed, they specifically mentioned that the NASS members should expect their ‘visitation’ after they would have been done with #EndSARS.

These amoral entitlements are part of the products that only bad governance could have begotten in a country with the unenviable record of being the poverty capital of the world. Beyond some of the decisions announced by the Federal Government, the abolition of the pensions for the former governors and their deputies is a practical approach to assuage the protesters. Individuals are going to lose some personal comfort, a reality that many other beneficiaries of such emoluments are not ready to face.

Lagos is a fairly rich state which could have closed its eyes to such entitlements if the governor had wanted to play the ostrich like some of his colleagues and NASS members. Many states (including the ones whose chief executives remember their financially disadvantaged positions only when it comes to spending on the people), that should have been the first to abrogate such pension laws are still holding tight to them. This is the kind of greed that is making people sad and resentful of governments and their officials. The truth of the matter is that many of our political elites are not ready to forgo things having to do with their personal comfort. Rather, they are eager to heap more burden on those who purportedly elected them.

The government’s excuse when, last month it increased electricity tariffs and fuel pump price almost simultaneously, was that it had lost about 40 per cent of its revenue and so had no choice but to take the hard decisions. The government conveniently forgot that many Nigerians lost their jobs as a result of COVID-19 and other challenges, meaning no income for them. Government still has 60 per cent and it  had started taking panicky decisions bordering on further burdening the people. For a government that has been perpetually lamenting that recurrent expenditure is taking a lion’s share of its revenue, one would have expected the Federal Government to be as innovative as Sanwo-Olu in reducing government’s burden in this regard. What, for instance, stops the Federal Government from talking to the leadership of the NASS that their monthly take home pay is no longer sustainable, and find ways of limiting such to what they can proudly show us in their pay slips as the truth and nothing but the truth concerning what they are paid?

Just as I do not see any legislator in Lagos objecting to Sanwo-Olu’s proposal on the ex-governors’ pensions, I also do not think any NASS member would raise objection to that, at least not openly. Executive/legislative rapprochement is good; but it does not mean there won’t be occasional disagreements. As a matter of fact, that is part of the essence of human relationship. The two of them do not have to be on the same page all the time at the people’s expense. If President Muhammadu Buhari wants to be told, what Sanwo-Olu has done is one of the ways that Nigerians expect him to react to issues of bad governance on hand. It is not all about temporary empowerment programmes that cannot sustain a meaningful existence. People want practical action that will convince them that the political elites are ready and willing to sacrifice some of their own comfort in tune with the realities of the country’s economy. President Buhari knows what these NASS emoluments for only 469 Nigerians amount to and what this can do annually for millions of Nigerians amidst the grinding poverty in the land.

Nigerians believe that many people battling for political offices are doing so for themselves and not necessarily for the people. They believe too that many governors would have stolen enough in office; so, to now legalise what could pass for mere pocket money as pension for them compounds the insult. Paying ex-governors who at best would have served only for eight years bogus entitlements whereas civil servants who toiled for decades literally pass through hell before getting the peanuts called pension they are paid monthly, is ungodly. The civil servants spend eternity on pension queues; sleeping and waking like cock. Many unlucky ones among them have died in the process. Yet, if Nigerians had not complained aloud, some former governors-turned-senators would still have been collecting the stupendous pay in the National Assembly alongside their fat pension.

For most of our political elites, it’s like they have returned to the bamu bamu la yo (we are comfortable) mentality of the First Republic. True, there was massive corruption in the Second Republic. Yet, I cannot recollect the then governors and lawmakers awarding themselves the kind of emoluments that today’s political elites are grabbing. It is simply incredible.

Anyone who was surprised at what happened in this country last month is not a student of history. What should surprise us is that it took this long in coming. We cannot continue to swell the ranks of have-nots in the same country where a few people are living luxuriously, off the common patrimony, and expect to sleep with our two eyes closed. There is no such paradigm anywhere in the world. When a fowl perches on a rope, neither the fowl nor the rope would rest.

Other governors should simply follow Sanwo-Olu’s example. This is one of the positive dividends of the #EndSARS protest. Lives and limbs had been lost in the course of the movement and these should not be in vain.

What we saw last month was only to let those who had always believed that something or anything cannot happen in Nigeria to have a rethink. Hunger or poverty will not bow to religion or ethnicity because they are universal problems in Nigeria as elsewhere in the world where they are prevalent. When I saw the sea of human heads racing towards where they believed COVID-19 palliatives were hidden in one of the northern states (name withheld), I could not believe what I saw were human beings. You could jolly well take them for ants considering their numbers.

I wish those incurable optimists who are still confident this inhuman system will endure what they wish themselves. Such disbelief is not new though; it’s been like that since the days of Noah. All manner of animals made it into Noah’s Ark – goats, lions, cows, elephants, ants and all. Even snails that are reference points for being slow made it to the ark. But man.

However, there is still a window of opportunity for political leaders who do not want to experience what a thief who was running with his loot experienced: the thief was asked to run, he ran; he was asked to drop what he stole and he dropped it. Yet those pursuing him did not relent. Only a greedy fly gets interred with the dead body.

Perhaps Senate President Ahmed Lawan has seen what the others have not seen, hence his warning that government would ignore the #EndSARS protesters’ demands at its own peril. But it is not enough to admonish. As the country’s Number Three citizen, he has a role to play in bringing down the huge overheads that the Federal Government incurs monthly by doing something about their own emoluments in the National Assembly too. Nigerians have been complaining about this for years, the same way they were about the brutality of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) until the latter’s cup was full last month. Lawan should take a step of faith by following Sanwo-Olu’s example.

In quashing the emoluments in Lagos, Sanwo-Olu said it was also about enhancing selflessness in public service. This is what has been missing in leadership positions in Nigeria at various levels, except in a few cases. Many of those in government are actually (in power) for themselves and themselves alone. As I usually say on this matter, we have always had governors and NASS members,  but we’ve never had it so bad that people will legalise unconscionable pay for themselves.

We cannot have good hospitals when our leaders, in or out of office, are allowed, at public expense, to go abroad for medical treatment. Where is the incentive to fix our own hospitals? But if they know that they won’t have access to that once out of office, and as human beings they too can fall sick, they would be forced to do something about our moribund health system. To do otherwise would make their matter akin to that of the fowl excreting in a pot; it is only spoiling its final resting place. This was the point the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, was stressing when he warned public servants against getting used to things they can’t afford on their own, while in office.

In all, my plea is to our political elite to let these reforms come from above because the consequences of coming from below are too grave to be imagined. And there should be no witch-hunting of any innocent #EndSARS protester because unjust demonisation of any of them will also come with repercussions. And we can only know the beginning of such consequences; no one can predict the end.

 

By Tunji Adegboyega

I have always said it in this column that there is virtually nothing new under the sun concerning any topic in this country, and that the same piece written two decades ago on any topic in Nigeria can be repeated today; all that would change are the dates and perhaps the magnitude.

Let’s use the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), the institution that triggered the EndSARS revolts across the country in the better part of this month as example, starting with police recruitment and training.

In January 2013, Channels Television did an award-winning story on the police training college in Ikeja, Lagos. In that documentary, the squalor in our police colleges was vividly driven home, with about 50 trainee policemen sharing one fish head! It’s incredibility made many Nigerians think it was an exaggeration. But Channels used motion pictures to support the story, for the benefit of the doubting Thomases. Some of the trainee policemen were captured bemoaning their plight.

But, instead of the then President Goodluck Jonathan thanking the television station for a job well done, his concern was how Channels could “penetrate” the police college to dig out such mess. In other words, he was not surprised at the Channels’ finding. And if he didn’t know, that documentary should have jolted him to action. That translated to N150 per day per police trainee.

It was not only the meals that the station focused on; it also exposed the untidy halls they were accommodated, the bad toilets  in some of the colleges, which made many of them prefer doing it in the bush to using the toilets. There is a lot more to say on the documentary, but permit me to stop on the meal because that is embarrassing enough.

Most of our leaders behave like the dog that knows how to breastfeed its own but is ever ready to bite others at the slightest opportunity. Did the country’s leaders who approved N50 per meal per police trainee feel that was adequate for a child, not to talk of adults whose crime was that they wanted a job in the Nigeria Police Force? I hear policemen bribe their way all through the processes: to get uniform, to get posted to ‘juicy’ areas like checkpoints, etc. What do we expect from products of such a system?

When you give guns to people that were not trained in a manner that suggests blood flows in their veins, and you look forward to having compassion when they pass out, that would be a miracle if you get it. I said this because we still have some policemen who, in spite of all odds, try to keep their heads while several others are losing theirs. Those are the miracles in the force.

Virtually everyone, governments inclusive, agree that maintenance of peace and security is the raison d’eter of governments. Thus, countries have armed forces comprising the navy, air force and the army to combat external aggression, while the police essentially maintain internal peace alongside other para-military organisations. Much premium is placed on security because of the larger consequences for investment, among other factors, as no reasonable investor wants to invest in places that are not secure.

Unfortunately, in spite of the importance of the police, successive Nigerian governments have largely been paying lip service to making them effective. The problems of the police have largely remained the same over the years. Although some efforts are said to have been made toward improving the lot of our policemen by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, most of the ills associated with the police remain: officers and men of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) are still largely ill-motivated, ill-equipped, ill-funded, etc.

And, if you have ever been to police barracks and military barracks, the difference has always been clear. It is like comparing Maroko or Makoko with Ikoyi or Victoria Island, all in Lagos. The better environment in the military barracks couldn’t have been a function of the neatness of the soldiers in all the situations. The funding disparity is clear.

Even in countries where policemen are better equipped and better motivated, we still see criminal tendencies in some of their policemen and officers, as in the case of George Floyd’s ‘I can’t breathe’, in May. Perhaps the difference between those climes and ours is the fact that the system swiftly punishes such criminal acts. But here, we usually see police brutality as routine, unless there is public outcry. Even then, many of the cases are swept under the carpet as soon as the public fury goes down.

It was the urge for better life that led the Nigeria police men to go on strike on February 1, 2002, the first such ever in the country since the force was established in 1930. What the then Olusegun Obasanjo administration did was the usual military mentality: deploy soldiers to what it called sensitive places instead of addressing the issues of deplorable conditions of service and stagnation on a rank for years that the policemen went on strike over. Police affairs minister Steven Akiga said at the time: “The Federal Government wishes to state emphatically that we do not regard the action of the policemen concerned as a strike but mutiny, the implications of which are very grave.” He added that ‘’In recognition of the fact that some policemen have abandoned their duty posts, all sensitive points will be manned by the military. Similarly, all essential escort duties that need to be performed will be handled by the military.’’ The New York Times described the scenario appropriately as ‘a big gamble’. This was barely 32 months after returning to civil rule.

I have since the Second Republic been having this feeling, rightly or wrongly, that the idea of not equipping the police and keeping them permanently demotivated since the years of military rule is probably deliberate.

Be that as it may, Musiliu Smith, the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) at the time of the police strike lost his job for allowing that to happen under his watch. But, has that changed anything? Certainly not. This is why I was not upbeat that the present IGP Mohammed Adamu, must go,  to give the impression that police reform has started in earnest, in line with the demand of the #EndSARS protesters. The president ought to have removed him before now. To the extent that he has not shows that he is still pleased with him and I guess that falls within his prerogative. The truth of the matter is that the problem is beyond the incumbent IGP and would always be beyond even his successors because the problem is systemic.

However, for a country that wants to learn from history, the police strike of 2002 and the #EndSARS protests are enough to learn from to gift us a new, improved police force. The former was initiated by policemen themselves, the ones wearing the shoes and therefore know where they pinch; and the latter by Nigerians who have been at the receiving end of SARS’ (police) brutality. There is no third experience.

Nothing I have said so far should be misconstrued to mean unqualified approval of the ills in the police force. But we need to find out why the same officers and men of the NPF do creditably well during external engagements, as against what we know them to be at home. Could it be as a result of the better motivation during such external outings? Or, could it be that the force authorities themselves deliberately push their best hands forward for external engagements?

Well, whatever we want to say about the Nigeria Police, we should not lose sight of the fact that they live among us; they are Nigerians and can therefore not be immune to what is going on in their environment. If corruption is an issue in the country, we cannot foreclose its possibility in the police force, especially in the kind of atmosphere where the policemen are nurtured. Add that to the advantage of the guns they carry and you will only be deceiving yourself to expect anything different without a paradigm shift in orientation, motivation, training, etc of the policemen.

In essence, what we are reaping by way of police brutality is what we have done or failed to do to beget a better police force. Imagine, as Nigerians down south are calling for the scrapping of SARS, some northern governors say they want the outfit. There are two takeaways from this dichotomy: first is that our policing needs are not exactly the same. And we can understand where they are coming from. As the saying goes, “ a drowning man would not mind clinging to a serpent for help”. The kind of insecurity up north is great that they don’t mind giving up some of their human rights to get secured whereas those of us down south cherish those rights and are not ready to let policemen take them away simply because they want to protect us.

The long and short of my argument is that effective policing is beyond the ken of the Federal Government and the earlier this point is taken, the better. When policemen went on strike in 2002, funding was central to the strike. #EndSARS also came about largely because of neglect of the police which has led some of the officers and men to vent their spleen on hapless civilians that they are supposed to be protecting. The Federal Government police alone cannot ensure internal security. Many state governments at present spend billions annually to sustain the police.

What is required is a thorough overhaul of the NPF. That is a reason I agree with those who do not see the SARS’ replacement, Special Weapons and Tactics Team (SWAT), as solution to its progenitor’s brutality. The swiftness with which it came is the usual Nigerian knee-jerk approach to solving problems. It did not show rigour or robustness of thought.

In the final analysis, just as a country gets the kind of leadership it deserves, so it gets the kind of police it deserves. But the events of the last few days since police stations were attacked in several parts of the country by those who took advantage of the #EndSARS protests have shown the place of the police in the scheme of things. They have been off the streets for only a few days and we are already clamouring for their return. Yet, we have not started to witness the consequences of the arms and ammunition that were looted from the police stations during the attacks.

But, as I have been saying in the last three weeks or so, the answer to the question of our dream police lies in the same concept: good governance that I have been advocating on this page several times in the past. So, seek ye first the good governance (encompassing state police) concept and every other thing, including an efficient and more professional police force, shall be added unto you.