The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tunji Adegboyega

  • Maximum wahala

    Only people from outer space would not have seen the present imbroglio between Nigerian workers as represented by their unions, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), and the Federal Government, coming. The truth of the matter is that Labour has left undone those things it ought to have done and has almost always done those things it should not have done. I have said it several times on this page that it would profit Nigerian workers more to fight for good governance than to be asking for unrealistic minimum wage whenever the issue comes to the front burner of national discourse. If we have had good governance, our currency which exchanged for two Naira to one Pound Sterling in 1973 would not be exchanging for N450 to one Pound today. This would naturally have negated the urge for the steep rise in minimum wage whenever we remember that salaries must be reviewed..

    It is not that salary reviews are alien to Nigeria. Indeed, its history predates the country’s political independence in 1960, and several commissions had been set up, including the Hunt Commission (1934), Bridges Committee of Enquiry (1941) and the Public Service Review Commission (Udoji Report) (1974), with a view to evolving an enduring pay structure and incomes policy in the country.

    This time around, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, on Thursday, gave an insight into what it would cost the Federal Government to implement the new wage on Labour’s terms –  a whopping N580billion more annually. The minister has said it point blank: “There is no problem with disagreement in the labour system, we can sometimes disagree to later agree, on the national minimum wage, it will translate to an additional N580billion if government agrees to the consequential adjustment labour is proposing.

    “Government cannot afford that kind of money now, besides, the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari is more interested in the lowest cadre of workers which are those on grade level 1 step 1 and level 6 step 1, these are the ones who the N30,000 will have greater impact on.”

    If you ask me though, when we juxtapose the N580billion against what our National Assembly (NASS) members alone earn in the year, it is not much for the hundreds of thousands of workers that would benefit from the pay rise. I will return to this shortly.

    Before then, however, is labour aware of the need to tie salaries and wages to productivity? I doubt if many people in this country think along that line. And we are not thinking along that line because we have steady flow if income from the oil-rich Niger Delta where everyone runs to at the end of every month for cash. If state governments are to pay their workers based on their internally generated revenue (IGR), how many of them will in true conscience agree to pay N30,000 minimum wage? How many of them can afford it?

    Read Also: Kwara workers yet to receive N18,000 minimum wage – NLC

    Another issue is Labour’s reluctance to accept the reality of retrenchment when wages have to be reviewed upwards. Ngige gave that as condition to meet the workers’ demand. What some of us would want to see is a situation where Labour would take on the governments with facts and figures, instead of singing solidarity songs and embarking on road shows across the country and at the end achieve nothing. Agreed, minimum wage is just the benchmark below which employers of labour cannot go. But then, what says workers in Kogi or Adamawa must earn the same minimum wage as those in Lagos, or Port Harcourt, or Kano? Are states equally endowed? You may say the state governments were well represented on the panel to review the wages; much of what happened was political agreement. Apparently, the N30,000 was ‘agreed‘ to by many state governments because elections were approaching when the negotiations were going on. And not many state governments could afford the wrath of Labour then. Now is time to face reality. It is either workers are retrenched or we return to the era when salaries would be paid in arrears, or paid according to what each state government earns.

    Again, nothing I have said should be misconstrued to mean support for the Federal Government’s position; or that there is no profligacy in government. Far from it. Indeed, one area we should take seriously, as I said earlier, is the humongous pay that our NASS members take home. It is sickening, ungodly and inhuman for anyone to be taking home such money and yet be telling workers and other less fortunate Nigerians that there is no money to meet their own demands. What are our NASS members doing that other lawmakers are not doing in other parts of the world? What entitles them to such outrageous pay, which several people have said to be the highest in any civilised part of the world? Parliamentarians in Britain and the United States go about in public transport, including trains and buses. They live in moderate apartments. But our own NASS members want the best of exotic cars; they want very expensive apartments which they can also buy at rock-bottom prices after their stint in the National Assembly. What special contributions are today’s NASS members making to legislation that their predecessors did not do far better on part time basis?

    For me, this is one place for Labour to begin the crusade against bad governance. A government fighting corruption should be sensitised (if it cannot see the need itself) to the fact that this NASS members’ pay is intolerable and it is corruption by some other means. What annoys me is that, when you challenge them on this score, they simply tell you to beam the searchlight also on the executive arm of government. Yet, we have an idea of what these categories of public officials should get monthly given what is recommended by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC).

    Labour leaders would do well to realise that their proposed strike might not be total because the government has been able to satisfy the lowest cadres in the public service, that is those on Levels 1 to 6, step 1. Tell me, how those ones would be interested in strike when their interest has been taken care of. This might be a deliberate attempt to break the ranks of the workers, or it was just a coincidence because government’s intention is to reduce the gap in the wages of the different categories of workers. At any rate, I do not know what exactly the Labour leaders want; are they saying they want the same percentage rise for every worker as it has been done to those on Levels 1 to Six? That cannot work. Oftentimes too, salary adjustments are done to reduce the gap between the lowest and highest paid workers. Not to talk of now that the government said we cannot afford it.

    Let workers embark on strike in some states till thy kingdom come, nothing would come out of it. In the first place, elections are far away and many of our political leaders only do good when elections are approaching. So, whatever you want to get from them make sure you get it when elections are approaching, or forget it. Once the elections are over, the people that you saw before elections without filling any forms you would now have to wait in their offices (if you are lucky to get that far) only to be told after sitting for hours that you should come back some other time. What we cannot lose sight of is the fact that some of the state governments, the way things are, cannot pay the new wage the way Labour is demanding from the Federal Government. And if they must pay, something must give. And that something is that some of Labour’s members would lose their jobs.

    Let no one get me wrong. I am not saying there is anything inherently bad in asking for minimum wage increase. Or that Nigerian workers should still be earning N18,000 minimum wage which, by today’s standard, is hopelessly inadequate. No. That, indeed, is the standard practice all over the world: workers’ wages are usually reviewed or adjusted periodically in many countries, to reflect inflationary trends and ensure that workers’ take home pay can really take them home. In many countries, wages are reviewed every five years.

    Be that as it may, as Ngige noted, it is in everybody’s interest for the government and Labour to agree on a meaningful review for those on Levels 7 to 14, and 15 -17. But Labour would do well to align with non-governmental organisations like the Socio-Economic Right And Accountability Project (SERAP), which has been championing the democratic cause and the need for transparency and accountability in government. I have always said it; and I repeat it, that governments would always find it convenient to grant minimum wage than want Labour getting seriously involved in asking for good governance. It is just that this time around, Labour seems to be asking for too much for the Federal Government not to grumble. We need no soothsayer to tell us that some state governments would soon join it to grumble aloud.

  • 11 months without light, courtesy Ikeja Electric

    Come October 29, it would be one year (less about three weeks) since I have been without public power supply, courtesy of Ikeja Electric (IE). Indeed, I am preparing to celebrate the first anniversary later next month, because, in our kind of country, that is a feat. I have been supplying my own electricity for about eight hours a day without any hitch; three hours in the afternoon and five at night. It is no doubt expensive, but it is worth it; especially for one who has a point to prove.  I had earlier reported when I was denied power supply for seven months, from October 2018 to June 1, 2019. The matter had gone to the NERC Forum and even beyond. When hope appeared to be in sight, then another impediment!

    Ikeja Electric threw my area in Pleasure, Lagos, into darkness. We have been having issues with the distribution company (DisC0)  since June 30 when we were disconnected from the transformer. Three months have thus passed since this darkness imposed by Ikeja Electric. The aim is to let the electricity consumers in the area put pressure on Ikeja Electric’s debtors to pay before the area would be reconnected. I won’t say much on this too till the first anniversary of my personal experience with this DisCo later in October by God’s grace. Suffice it to say the affected residents have mapped out their own response to this callousness. Protest has been staged and will still be staged. A court action is not ruled out, if I heard them right.

    Meanwhile, my fans should start preparing their congratulatory adverts for me on the occasion of the first anniversary of the ‘Do It Yourself (DIY)’ foisted on me by Ikeja Electric!

  • A judiciary in chains

     

    Kwame Nkrumah it was who said political independence without economic independence is useless. Of course, this is a truism, whatever the context. No one can claim to be free when someone else is in charge of economic power. This is why the alarm by the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Tanko Muhammad, that the judiciary is under financial bondage, should worry Nigerians who know the importance of an unfettered judiciary, particularly in a democracy.

    The CJN was speaking in Abuja at the special court session marking the beginning of the 2019/2020 legal year of the Supreme Court, and the inauguration of 38 Senior Advocates of Nigeria. The CJN said the judiciary might be independent in conducting cases brought before it but the independence had been lost to the lack of financial freedom. He likened the situation  to a cow that is tied firmly to a tree. How can such cow graze freely? According to him, “If you say that I am independent, but in a way, whether I like it or not, I have to go cap in hand asking for funds to run my office, then I have completely lost my independence. It is like saying a cow is free to graze about in the meadow but at the same time, tying it firmly to a tree. Where is the freedom?”

    But the CJN somehow contradicted himself when he made reference to the cases decided by the Supreme Court which he said were delivered without fear or favour. He said the Supreme Court is “the busiest and most hardworking” apex court in the world, and is “totally independent in the way we conduct our affairs, especially in our judgments”. He added, “We don’t pander to anybody’s whims and caprices. If there is any deity to be feared, it is the Almighty God. We will never be subservient to anybody, no matter his position in the society.” We all know that this cannot be, given the picture earlier painted by Justice Muhammad himself, alleging that the judiciary is starved financially. Or, is the Supreme court not a part of the judiciary?

    Indeed, the CJN’s other words on marble at the same occasion say it all:  “Be that as it may, when we assess the judiciary from the financial perspective, how free can we say we are? The annual budget of the judiciary is still a far cry from what it ought to be. The figure is either stagnated for a long period or it goes on a progressive decline.”A judiciary whose officials are not well paid cannot be said to be financially independent. Hear Muhammad, “I make bold to say that the salaries of judicial officers in Nigeria are still far from an ideal package to take home. Effort should be made by relevant authorities to increase the salaries and also work out measures to improve the welfare packages of judicial officers, especially after retirement.”

    No matter the efforts by the CJN to paint a not-too-bad picture of the situation, probably because he is a public official; he has driven the point home enough. Our judiciary is in dire need of financial independence. The point that is often lost on the two other arms of government – the executive and the legislature- is that the judiciary is the third arm and should not be seen as a mere footnote. The doctrine of separation of powers which gave birth to the three arms did not envisage a situation where one would be subservient to the other. Indeed, it was in the bid to ensure that this does not happen, and that there are checks and balances in the democratic process that the doctrine itself came to light. The judiciary it is that adjudicates between individuals, between individuals and governments, corporate entities and individuals and government versus government. It is referred to as the last hope of the common man. Where the judiciary is not free financially, any other freedom it might lay claim to is useless.

    The judiciary’s role is made more complex in our clime where the courts, rather than the ballot, are the last resort for the settlement of election matters. Democracy is the government of the people by the people for the people. This presupposes that it is the people who decide who should rule them at election periods. Unfortunately, it is not so in our environment where many politicians believe you should first commit electoral infractions and get power, and then go to the court to defend your illegality. This attitude has lingered apparently because they are hardly taught any lesson. Even when they were caught on video running away with ballot boxes, or when they are recorded thumb-printing multiple ballot papers  contrary to the ‘one man, one vote’ mantra, nothing happens by way of sanctions. We have too many sacred cows in the polity irrespective of the political party in power. The fact that such sacred cows who commit electoral offences or crimes are not arrested, or even when arrested, are not prosecuted to the logical conclusion has continued to embolden many others to commit such offences or crimes.

    So, it is to the courts that electoral cases are taken for resolution. Many governorship and other election cases have only recently been decided, with the courts upturning only a few. Right now, the presidential election that President Muhammadu Buhari was declared winner of is still being challenged in court, with the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) taking the matter to the Supreme Court.  In this kind of scenario, the judiciary has to be financially independent to be able to deliver justice appropriately. But where the judiciary has to go cap in hand to the executive arm for funds, it is likely to dance to the tune of the executive because, as they say, “he who pays the piper dictates the tune.”

    The struggle for financial freedom for the judiciary is not one for the judicial officers alone. It is a collective responsibility because it is our collective right as Nigerians that some people who have been privileged to occupy top political positions are abridging. In a country where legislators mindlessly arrogate to themselves emoluments beyond the ones envisaged by law, and all we do is bark and keep quiet after some time, and yet our judicial officers are starved of funds, we are bound to have the kind of challenge we are having with the judiciary. If the judiciary is not financially independent, if judges are poorly paid, then how do we expect that judgments would not be hawked for the highest bidder to pick?

  • Sanwo-Olu, ise ya (2)

    The commissioners have to hit the ground running

    I ndeed, what I would expect the new government to do is to look at the areas where the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway, for example, needs reworking. One is talking of places like the Ikeja Bus Stop, Iyana Ipaja Bus Stop, Pleasure Bus Stop and Ile-Epo axis which are too narrow and motorists therefore experience hold-ups there on a daily basis. This should not be happening on what is supposed to be an expressway. So, the Sanwo-Olu government may have to invite experts to advise it on what should be done to make traffic flow in these areas. It must be ready to do the needful, no matter what it would take. Even if some buildings may still have to give way; so be it. What I would plead with the state government to do is to generously compensate the owners of such structures so that they would not regret releasing their inheritance for the public good.  Definitely, the road cannot remain as it is now if the money spent on it is to yield fruits, and to make the road an expressway properly so-called.

    Indeed, those uncompleted projects: Airport Road, the Pen Cinema flyover and the BRT corridor on the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway should be completed before the government starts any new projects, to worm its way into the hearts of Lagosians living in that axis and those who may have cause to pass through those roads; and they are quite many. As I said before, there was no reason why those roads could not have been done in phases. Even if the government was in a haste to lift that axis; it should have been gradual; first complete one and then flag off the next, possibly the same day. There are no escape routes for the multitude living in that axis, with the simultaneous construction in those three places. Once you are stranded, you have no choice but stay put where you are as the alternatives routes you might want to use are also under construction. Matters are worsened whenever it rains, leaving commuters stranded at bus stops and transport fares skyrocketing, in some cases by as much as 300%. Cash-strapped Lagosians (like other rational human beings) who have to part with so much for transportation when their income is fixed cannot understand the ‘parable of the tribal marks’ by Lagos Traffic Radio in this situation.

    One needs to be this explicit on roads so as to guard the administration so it does not repeat the same mistake. A government might have the best of intentions, but execution and even timing may end up messing up the otherwise good idea.

    Still on the roads, the traffic lights in many places are no longer working. Again, let me use the ones on Fatai Atere Way as example. The ones at the Cappa end are so faint that motorists may not even notice whether they are working or not. Yet, there are many traffic wardens, Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) personnel, etc. at the junction, waiting to pounce on motorists who ignore the traffic lights or could not see whether they have passed them to go or stay. In many places, the amber lights no longer work; with the implication that motorists get trapped between the red and green lights. The traffic lights at the Alfa Nla end of Old Ipaja Road in Agege have almost the same problem. There are many all over the place. The police and other state government officials should be able to pass appropriate messages on the state of these lights and other road infrastructure to the appropriate authorities for immediate action instead of being ever eager to arrest people for disobeying them. To my joy, the gulfs at the Old Ipaja Road/Alfa Nla junction have been patched, but then, there are other places on the Old Ipaja Road requiring attention. As a matter of fact, some of the areas said to have been fixed in the last few weeks have gone bad again, including portions of the same Old Ipaja Road. This means the job was shoddily done.  The Sanwo-Olu government must be able to address these little details that matter. This is one problem with Nigeria, and Lagos, as a mega city should show good example. We have always said that maintenance culture is the bane of public administration in the country; it is sadly so in Lagos as well, particularly in recent times.

    The state government should not forget to fix the inner roads that were damaged in the course of construction, particularly on the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway axis. These include Ajiboye Crescent, for instance, where the drainage, particularly towards the Arigbanla Junction, needs total reconstruction. Dit to the culvert in the place which was improved upon recently but the road around it is bad and needs to be fixed. The Jaspand Hotel area of Sholabomi Williams Crescent linking the estate with the expressway, as well as its other end beside the NNPC petrol station after Pleasure Bus Stop, also need rehabilitation. These roads and others, including even the Old Ota Road were subjected to intense pressure by motorists looking for alternative routes due to the construction works on the expressway. It is by fixing them that the residents there can feel well compensated for the troubles they went through in the course of the construction.

    There are many other roads that need urgent attention. Here, one is talking of the major road that links Ten Acres with the main road from Jakande Estate in Isolo. I do not know why successive state governments have not deemed it fit to touch this road, despite the fact that the place, though a new development site, is fast growing, and despite the fact that the government has been tending to various inner roads over the years. May be this is because of the heavy investment the government made on the dual carriageway from Jakande Estate to the Ikotun end which traverses the area. There is also Legacy Road which does not reflect its name because the only legacy there is the fact that it is not motorable. Its residents have abandoned it for other alternative routes in the area, which are only a shade better. Then, Marakaz Road in Agege. It does not seem there is anyone in charge here as the road has remained in a terrible state in spite of the fact that there is a new government in the state.

    There is also the security question. Lagos has been relatively safe due to security measures put in place, and heavily supported by the state security trust fund, a good initiative of the Fashola administration. This should be well supported by the government, even as the private sector should continue to invest in it as part of their corporate social responsibility. It is in their own interest and in the interest of the larger society because businesses can only thrive in an atmosphere of peace and security. But there is one area of security that should interest the new administration. This is the influx of youths, particularly from a particular part of the country, into the state. The government should be worried because most of these people have no visible means of livelihood. Many of them just jump on commercial motorcycles as soon as they arrive the city. I had argued in my column about four months ago that southwest states have to be watchful of the activities of these youths, especially with reports that they are being transported down south in droves. We have our own security challenges that we are battling, so no one should compound them for us in the name of one Nigeria. The kind of trouble that these youths are capable of is beyond our ken in this part of the country. So, governors of the southwest have to work in concert to address this new challenge. They should not delude themselves because even the elite that fertilised the eggs that bred these hapless youths can no longer contain them. It is a case of the chicken coming home to roost. It is hoped that the new security architecture the southwest governors have put in place in the region will curtail the activities of the criminally-minded of these youths.

    Then, about two years ago or so, the state government conceived of the idea of having an independent (?) power scheme (I think) with the pilot project at Alimosho. What has happened to the project? I was at the forum where the matter was discussed about three years ago and almost everyone present was upbeat about it. The icing on the cake was that there would be power supply 24/7, except that it would be slightly more expensive than what the electricity distribution companies (DisCos) charge. Artisans were well represented at the forum and they all expressed their desire to see the scheme take off despite the higher cost. They know how much they spend to fuel their generators. Those who presented the idea to the forum appeared to know their onions because they broke down their explanations such that even the illiterates among the lot understood what the idea was all about.

    Without prejudice to whatever the DisCos are doing or might say, the point is that we are not yet there when power supply is the issue and I think we need to break some of these monopolies if we must get there. The idea is not necessarily to kill any DisCo but to let them have competitors that will put them on their toes. If we can achieve this, the better for all, including the DisCos too. Lagos cannot remain a mega city with epileptic power supply. Its place as economic destination of choice cannot be guaranteed without uninterrupted power supply. The Sanwo-Olu administration might have to dust the files on this project and see what the problems are with a view to solving them in the interest of Lagosians.

    Governor Sanwo-Olu should not underestimate what party faithful can do so it does not experience any banana peel. But that is not to say he should throw the state treasury open to the indolent who want to get money without doing anything. But those willing to earn a living should be compensated for their efforts and when given jobs, they must execute them satisfactorily.

    The Sanwo-Olu government should bear in mind that Lagosians, like many other Nigerians generally, are minimalists. Their expectations from government are not many. Give them good roads; power to run their businesses; let them have access to fairly good life, etc. and they begin to clap for you. Indeed, any government that Nigerians would not clap for cannot be clapped for in any other part of the world.

    Of course one cannot exhaust what needs to be done in Lagos in any single article. Other people are also going to make their suggestions to help the government chart the way forward.

    May the Sanwo-Olu administration live to the billing of His Excellency’s name. Once again, I wish the government a successful tenure.

    (CONCLUDED).

  • Sanwo-Olu, ise ya (1)

    The government has to hit the ground running

    I am compelled to repeat my column for May 26 and June 2, 2019, three days before the swearing in of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State, and four days after, respectively, with minor adjustments. The governor was yet to name his commissioners when the two series were published. However, now that the commissioners have since assumed duties, it is my hope that they would find the articles useful. Roads are being repaired yes, but there is need for more speed because of the level of damage done before the new government took off. It is my hope that the commissioners would find these articles and others’ useful as they map out their strategies to make Lagos State truly excel.

    GOVERNOR Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State assumed duty on May 29, after  Governor Akinwunmi Ambode bowed out, upon completion of his four-year term. I do not envy the new governor. There is a lot to do. Therefore, he has to hit the ground running. Governance has taken the back seat in the state recently, apparently as a result of the frosty relationship between the former governor and his party, which led to his losing the privilege of running for second term. Yes, privilege because it has now become clear that second term is not automatic; not even in Lagos which has been in the hands of the progressives since the return to civil rule on May 29, 1999, and where second term had until now been taken for granted, so to say. Party dynamics have rewritten the narrative and incumbents can be checkmated right at the party level, even before general elections. That was probably where Ambode missed it. I guessed that was why he said he had learnt his lesson. He thought the votes were on the streets; but he forgot that the party must first push you forward before the votes on the streets can be yours for the asking.

    Anyway, that is now history.

    Even in normal situations, an elected official becomes lame duck a few months to the end of his tenure. With Ambode being the first governor in the state not to have that privilege of second term since 1999, the lame duck era set in pretty earlier. So many things have gone haywire since the party primaries last year. Nothing seems to be working again, with many people, particularly commercial motorcycle riders, plying any route of their choice, in flagrant disregard of the law banning their operations on some roads in the state. What is more? They ride against traffic with impunity these days even as they have appropriated the BRT corridors under construction to themselves.

    Street lights are no longer functioning in many places. And where they are, they are only partially so. Let me use the ones on Fatai Atere Way, Matori, Lagos, as example. I make bold to say that those lights worked last about two years ago. As a matter of fact, I ran a campaign on this page for weeks in 2017, trying to draw attention of the state government and officials in charge to the problem. It was like no one in government was reading the newspaper; or that they just could not be bothered that that was enough a problem to lose sleep over. Indeed, I drew the attention of two of the commissioners to the problem, alongside the state of Fatai Atere Road which never knew the kind of neglect it suffered, in the last eight to nine years. It was after a long time that the road was only partially and reluctantly fixed. Even then, the quality of the repair was such that several portions were bad again shortly after the so-called repairs, even before the next cycle of rains. As at Friday when this piece was being concluded, only about 10 or so street lights on Fatai Atere Way were on. This is even an improvement as many of them had been bad for over 24 months.

    Yet, I remember that the state government launched the Light Up Lagos project with fanfare.  Part of the aim was to make the state unsafe for marauders who take advantage of darkness to perpetrate evil, and there is enough proof that their activities have been significantly curtailed, even in a place like Oshodi which was notorious for all kinds of crimes before the advent of the street lights. The other reason for initiating the project was to beautify the streets. Fatai Atere is only used as metaphor for this problem. There are several other places where the street lights need attention. I remember the state government even gave some helplines for Lagosians to call in case  there is problem with any of the lights. What I am trying to say is that maintenance culture that is lacking generally in the country is also a problem in Lagos. It should not be.

    The Sanwo-Olu government also has to pay particular attention to the several manholes that are death traps on Lagos roads. You cannot drive with your two eyes closed on many Lagos roads as a result of these manholes. Again, let me start with the one on Fatai Atere Way, where this newspaper is situated, after all, “charity”, they say, “begins at home”. This one on Fatai Atere by Ladipo Junction has been there, as they say, ‘since time immemorial’! There is another one at Mulero Bus Stop on the old Ipaja Road, inward Agege that has been partially blocked with garbage by some concerned citizens. There is also another one at one of the major junctions between Atan Cemetery and Herbert Macaulay Way in Yaba, Lagos mainland. I bumped into this particular one in December, last year, and had a burst tyre instantly despite the fact I was not speeding. The hole on the road had some sharp wires that punctured my tyre. It was there right in the middle of the road. There are countless others that I cannot mention, including the ones on Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway at the Airport Road junction which are sometimes blocked with tyres and sometimes open. I guess it is because we have not cultivated the habit of dragging government to court for negligence that we have these many manholes all over the place. Some of them are life-threatening. So, the government has to take care of all these little details that matter in governance.

    There is also this question that has been agitating my mind and I have had cause to discuss it with some of the state’s officials. And that is the question of inner roads. Without doubt, successive administrations in the state have made it a point of duty to list the inner roads they intend to repair or construct and they have remained relatively faithful in this regard every year. But then, given the sheer number of such roads in the state, it would appear the number selected for repair or construction is hardly enough in any given year. So, the impression has always been that not much is happening in this regard. I have therefore had cause to ask some of the state government’s officials if it is not possible just to grade some of these roads if there aren’t enough resources to tar all of them, and provide good drainage to allow for free flow of water. This would at least save motorists and even pedestrians some trauma of dancing ‘Palongo’ on the roads. It would also relieve residents of agonising whenever they want to go out or whenever they are returning from outing.

    Moreover, if resources are limited because of the contending forces for them due to the huge population of the state, would it not have been better for the Ambode administration, for instance, to face just two of the three major projects it concentrated in one axis of the state, and spend the money on the third on inner roads? I had asked one of the state government officials as soon as it was announced that the state government was going to create BRT corridor on the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway; construct flyover at Pen Cinema as well as expand the Airport Road, if they ever had an executive session where the implications of the simultaneous construction works were thrashed out because I knew it would come with a lot of pains that even those that were meant to enjoy the projects would not find amusing.

    I cannot remember what the response of the official was. But my fear soon turned out to be prophetic when Lagosians began to reject the usual answer that Lagos Traffic Radio (I sympathise with my colleagues in the station who were always on the defensive during those moments, trying to defend their employer) was giving to those who were asking if Lagosians must ‘die before they live’ (to paraphrase one caller on a Saturday night that I too would not forget because I spent more than four hours from my place in Agege to the office, a distance of about 15 kilometres). The presenter said tribal marks are incised in pains but they become objects of beauty when they heal. In other words, Lagosians should bear with the government because they would have cause to smile after the pains! That was a palliative many listeners were not happy to hear on this particular night. Anyway, it is hoped that the Sanwo-Olu administration would quickly complete these projects before people start wondering what the hell is happening again. Some are even saying the new government may not want to complete them; especially if they are not part of its own agenda for Lagosians. This would be suicidal. But I do not see this happening because it just would not make sense.

     

    (TO BE CONTINUED).

  • Understanding UTME scores

     

    How do you feel when your child who did not sit for an examination comes home to report that he or she was given 71 in the said examination? Bewildered? Of course yes. This might sound incredible, but it could be true. To the lay man, this is a wonder and a misnomer but, to experts in score standardisation, there is nothing unusual here because it is possible by the ‘transformation’ process that raw marks go through in a mass examination like the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).  Examinations (or tests) can be classified into two based on the frame of reference for interpreting scores for the test. These are criterion-referenced and norm-referenced examination (or test).

    In the UTME, candidates sit for three subjects relevant to their programmes of study, in addition to Use of English, which is compulsory. Because of the sheer number of candidates who sit for the examination, norm-referenced standardised test is used. This compares a candidate’s performance with those of other candidates who have taken the same examination.

    Criterion-referenced examination is not suitable for the purpose here where vacancies are limited. The reason being that candidates may all attain the set criteria, just as they may all fail to attain it. Moreover, all subjects do not carry the same weight, so, the transformation is done at the subject level. Therefore, the scores first have to be ‘transformed’ before the true score can be arrived at in an examination which multitudes sat for.

    This writer was himself ignorant in this matter until he attended the “Retreat for Experts on Measurement and Evaluation with Other Relevant Disciplines on Score Standardisation and Reporting” organised by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), at the Sheraton Hotel, Abuja, from August 15 to 18, 2019. Until then, he had, like many other people out there, thought that if a candidate scored 200 in the UTME, that mark connotes the actual score of that candidate as reported over the 400 obtainable marks in the exam. But, his horizon, like many other people not conversant with what is known as the ‘transformation process’ that exam scores go through, was widened at the retreat.

    Perhaps the best way to explain the ‘riddle’ is to illustrate with an example given at the forum: If a man has $200, 200 Pounds Sterling and N200, how much is he worth in all? To get the answer, we first have to convert the amounts into one currency, say Naira. It would be wrong to simply say the man is worth 600. Six hundred what – dollars, Pound Sterling or Naira? If you like, you can say we first have to determine the currency that we want to use as base currency before ‘transforming’ (converting) the currencies into that base currency. It is only after that that we can aggregate the sum and now say with some precision the exact amount that the man is worth. As pointed out earlier, subjects do not carry the same weight (mark), the same way the currencies do not carry the same weight.

    It must be noted that JAMB has not just started to use the norm-referenced standardised method; the only thing is that it assumed a different dimension during the current JAMB registrar, Prof Ishaq Oloyede’s time because of the numerous measures he has put in place to check examination malpractice, and which those feeding fat on it in the past are now feeling the impact. While some people may genuinely feel concerned that their children who did not sit for an examination were given marks for the exam, the point must be noted that the complaint is getting more strident from people who have been stopped from reaping where they did not sow by Oloyede’s anti-exam fraud measures. Such people have attributed the development, that is candidates being given scores for an examination they did not sit for to incompetent, inefficiency and even corruption, just to discredit JAMB and its examination; and, probably, by extension, cause a change in the board’s leadership.

    Given the impact that his policies have had, particularly on the conduct of the UTME, Oloyede could not have come at a better time than now that there is a government with the ‘change’ mantra in place in the country. You may argue whether the government is fighting the anti-corruption war well or not, but at least we have a government that is putting anti-corruption in the front-burner of national discourse. A time there was when a particular government was accused of never mentioning the word ‘corruption’ for years, despite the level of corruption in the country at that time.

    Oloyede understands the import of the Yoruba proverb that says when you are frying groundnuts for the blind, you should be whistling so the blind man can believe that you are not stealing the groundnuts. After all, if he cannot see, he has ears to hear that you are whistling and knows that someone cannot be whistling and eating groundnuts simultaneously. With many disgruntled elements that have been stopped from their iniquitous ways by Oloyede’s dynamic policies, he needs to go the extra mile to explain the riddle of marks transformation before the noise becomes too strident to ignore. And it may get to that, given that the children of the elite are some of the worst hit by Oloyede’s policies. They are also some of the most notorious for examination frauds, given that they have the means to pay as much as N250,000 that ‘professional examination writers’ charge per candidate for examinations like UTME.

    Indeed, it is against this backdrop that Oloyede felt compelled to gather experts to brainstorm on the way out of such conundrum of candidates being given marks for an examination they did not sit for. In other words, he felt the need to localise the global best practice without necessarily distorting candidates’ performance.  Ten experts in educational measurement and evaluation and other relevant disciplines from different universities in the country rubbed minds on this complaint and eventually proffered a solution on how to adapt the international procedure to our peculiar circumstances . The eggheads are:  Prof. Boniface Nworgu, University of Nigeria, Nsukka; Prof. Christiana Ugodulunwa Alex Ekwueme,  Federal University, Ndufu-Alike;  Prof. Anthony Afemikhe, University of Benin, Benin City; Dr. Christiana Agi, Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi; Prof. Gbenga Adewale, University of Ibadan, Ibadan and Prof. Monday Joshua, University of Calabar, Calabar. Others are: Prof. Adebayo Lawal, University of Ilorin, Ilorin; Prof. Muhammad Yakasai, Bayero University, Kano;  Prof. Abubakar Hamman-Tukur, University of Maiduguri, Maiduguri and Prof. Henry Owolabi, University of Ilorin, Ilorin. They were joined by some JAMB personnel led by Oloyede himself. Others were: Mr. Mufutau A. Bello, Director (Finance and Accounts); Dr. Omokunmi Popoola, Director (Psychometrics); Mr. Fabian Okoro, Director (Information Technology Services); Dr. Halilu Bakori Mohammed, Director (Test Development); Dr. Fabian Benjamin, Head, Public Affairs and Mr. Abdullahi Ashura, Chief Data Processing officer. Others are Mr. Fasasi A. Subair, Assistant Director (SERVICOM); Prof. Bashir Galadanci, IT Expert; Mr. Dami Bamiro, Consultant and Mr. Joseph Olaniran, IT Expert. Prof Nworgu was chairman of the panel while Dr Popoola served as secretary.

    At the end of their deliberations, the experts came up with what could pass for the way forward. “The panel recognized that the current practice of transforming raw scores by JAMB is the acceptable global best practice. However, since this has generated wrong perception from a section of the public, there is the need to respond to this social challenge while still complying with global best practice.”

    Perhaps the most profound aspect of the experts’ report is that differentiating “the reporting of zero scores obtained by candidates that have attempted the questions but scored zero and those that were present for the examination but failed to attempt any question in any or all of the subjects registered for. Consequently, the panel decided that those who attended the examination but failed to attempt any question in any or all of the subjects should have nominal zero score notated with zero asterisked (0*), and that such zero should not be part of the transformation process. However, the zero of candidates that had attempted the questions but failed to get it correctly, as to even score a point, should be part of the transformation process.”

    Apart from satisfying the genuine inquisitiveness of candidates and parents who mean well in their raising questions about candidates getting marks for an exam they did not sit for, this resolution also takes the shine off those who might be lurking in the winds to discredit JAMB and the UTME for selfish reasons.  If really information is power, then this is one good piece of information that JAMB must sustain enlightenment of Nigerians on so that they do not perish for lack of knowledge.

  • Ministers take charge

    Ordinarily, one does not need to tell President Muhammadu Buhari’s ministers who were sworn in on August 21 that time is of the essence; and that they should hit the ground running. In normal climes, the ministers ought to have known that and, in fact, been in firm control of their respective ministries by now. But ours is not a clime where time is of the essence. Otherwise, it would not have taken President Buhari six months (from the date he was worn in) to form his cabinet in his first tenure, despite the fact that his predecessor conceded defeat even as election results were yet to be concluded in 2015. So, for the president to have inaugurated his cabinet in August, this time around, three months after he was sworn in, and in spite of the fact that his reelection is still the subject of litigation, we can say some progress has been made. But that does not make it right; indeed if the truth must be told; it is still not good enough. It therefore should not be the benchmark.

    For an election cycle of four-year duration, three months is too much to sacrifice either  shopping for the right candidates or trying to put round pegs in round holes. This is much more so in a country where there is a gross deficit of everything that can make for progress; a country with unspeakable and incredible decay of infrastructure. Virtually all sectors of the economy are in need of rehabilitation. However, all that is now history. The point that we can now be emphasising is for the ministers to realise that they do not have time to waste.

    While some of the people who made it into the president’s cabinet in the first term were dropped, some others were retained. Of the latter, Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola, the erstwhile Minister of Power, Works and Housing, stands out. Fashola stands out because he was undoubtedly the ‘super minister’ in that cabinet. Each of the three ministries he was overseeing was more than enough to chew. Yet, he was given the onerous responsibility of overseeing the affairs in the three key ministries. At the time President Buhari made the appointment in 2015, I was one of those who commended it and saw it as testimony to what Fashola can do.

    May be like President Buhari, I commended his appointment then because of his antecedents as Governor of Lagos State, a position he left shortly before he was made minister. Fashola, as governor, was a workaholic. He left indelible marks in Lagos, in virtually all the sectors where he was made minister – power, works and housing. But, with hindsight, I have since discovered that, as my people say ‘aponle ni fourman (foreman), ko seni to le se ise eniyan merin’ (there is nothing like four-man (foreman), because no single man can do the work of four men). Fashola did try to make impact in those ministries, but then it would not have been as much as he would have made if he was saddled with less, like his present portfolio. Apart from the human element, he also had to contend with all kinds of challenges, from an uncooperative National Assembly, to powerful interests in the power sector who still wanted to do business in line with the decadent old order.

    That Fashola would return to Buhari’s cabinet was not in doubt. What I knew was that he would not be saddled with as much as he was in the first tenure. The only disappointment and error of judgment on my part was that I had thought he would return to the power ministry, to complete the good works he was doing there. Nonetheless, it is heartwarming that President Buhari too has realised the need to lessen Fashola’s burden by giving the power ministry to someone else. It is needless being a Jack of all trades, master of none. With Fashola now in the works and housing ministry, it should be easier for him to leave indelible marks in the works and housing sectors, the same way he did as governor. Mercifully, he does not have a hostile National Assembly to work with this time around.

    Without doubt, Fashola has a lot to do, especially with many federal roads in terribly bad shape. It is heartwarming that work has resumed on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway after the lull occasioned both by lack of cooperation from the last National Assembly, and paucity of funds. Several other roads are also begging for attention all over the country. They have to be fixed. We have got to a stage in our lives when we have to start thinking about whether the government can continue to maintain these roads or we should start paying tolls to use some of them so that the money can be ploughed back into maintaining the roads. The Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) has to be rejuvenated for efficiency. The way things are, it does not seem it has the capacity to oversee all the federal roads, not to talk of keep pace with the maintenance required by them. It is suspect as well whether the agency is sufficiently funded.

    With regard to housing, the works and housing minister has to look for models that the middle income earners at least, can afford. The rich have the wherewithal to own houses anywhere under the sun or in outer planet; so, the minister should concentrate more on those at the lower rungs so they too can have a taste of democratic dividend. They are the ones that take the pains to vote, so, they should be compensated with some of these good things of life.

    Perhaps the minister that all eyes would be on is the new power minister, Saleh Mamman. Although he has a minister of state in the person of Godwin Jedi-Agba to assist him, the two of them would soon discover that they have a yeoman’s task on their hands. As a matter of fact, I do not envy them at all. Theirs is a sector that has known so much corruption that it is even difficult to know how much it had gulped, especially in the eight years of the Olusegun Obasanjo presidency. Various sums, in billions of dollars, have been bandied. Perhaps we would get to know the exact amount Nigeria had spent to procure darkness after the probe panel promised by the government would have finished its assignment.

    Suffice it to say that Mamman, a former assistant director in the Federal Ministry of Works, already has his job cut out for him. He has to move at the speed of light to satisfy Nigerians who have been power-hungry in the past decades. Without doubt, Fashola has made some progress, particularly in ensuring that customers are billed only for what they consume; some of the measures he undertook has also facilitated the issuance of prepaid meters to more electricity consumers, a thing the electric distribution companies (DisCos) do not want because of the easy money that they make through estimated or ‘crazy billing’. While Mamman is to consolidate on some of these gains, he also has to do something about the 2,000 MW of electricity that is said to be wasted because the DisCos cannot absorb it. He has to do more in the area of transmission because even now, the about 6,000 MW that is being generated on the average cannot be transmitted due to weak transmission lines that have outlived their lifespan. Mamman has asked Nigerians to pray for him to succeed. He needs it.

    No amount of space dedicated to power is too much. Power is central to virtually everything we do, whether on the domestic or industrial level. We need power to run our electrical gadgets – blenders, sound systems, television sets, fans and air conditioners, among others. We also need power to make the machines in our industries hum so they could produce some of the basic things we need to make life comfortable. In short, we cannot industrialise or develop without power supply. The lack of this largely explains our perpetual underdevelopment all these years; it is part of the reasons we have remained a potentially great nation since independence. If power is this pivotal to our existence, then successive administrations that neglected this sector for years until things went this awry owe Nigerians explanations. Unfortunately, ours is not a country where public officials are made to account for their stewardship. Even now that the government is planning to investigate why we are still in darkness despite the humongous amounts of money we have pumped into the power sector, some people are crying foul before the commencement of the investigation. Anyway, one can only hope the Buhari government would do this investigation diligently, sans any form of witch-hunting. The people deserve to know what went wrong and where the billions of dollars went into.

    I congratulate the 43 ministers. I have only started with two ministries today, with a view to returning to some of the others sometime in the near future. The point must be made though that President Buhari does not have to wait till eternity before removing any minister that wants to constitute a cog in the wheel of his government’s progress. They should be given specific targets and these should be evaluated periodically with a view to keeping the ministers on their toes. Unlike he did in his first term, when he retained almost all the ministers to the end, things should be different this time. There is no third term for him; because even if he prays for it, God will not grant the request. This is his last opportunity to prove wrong cynics who believe Nigerians have entered ‘one chance’ bus by reelecting him. He should use the opportunity wisely.

  • Ekiti’s name and shame

    In less than two weeks, Ekiti State introduced two major policy measures that deserve commendation. One is the public naming and shaming of convicted sex offenders in the state, as part of measures to curb sexual violence. The other is the ban on the use of English language during traditional events in the state.

    Of the two, I consider the first, which is the one having to do with sexual abuse, as the more important. May be that is because of where I am coming from. I know for sure that the real traditional people might opt for the aspect having to do with Yoruba language.

    If we are not to deceive ourselves, the issue of sexual abuse in the country has reached crisis dimension, given the frequency of occurrence, and the victims, usually minors. Hardly is any news complete these days without stories of some men taking undue advantage of people of the opposite sex. A content analysis of the media will easily point in this direction.

    Sometimes, while choosing topics for editorial comment, we keep asking ourselves if we are not devoting too much time and energy to sexual abuse. But then, one can never say too much of it, if for no other reason but because one does not know who the next victim might be. It is only those who are directly or indirectly affected that know where the shoes pinch; the rest of us see them as mere statistics.

    Just as the scripture tells us, that even God’s judgment would start at the house of God, the first person whose name is to feature in the Ekiti ‘hall of infamy’ opened specifically for sex offenders in the state is a former Anglican priest, Reverend Asateru Gabriel, who was convicted for sexually abusing a seven-year-old girl. Not only is the fact that the first person to be registered is a man of God, he also bears a surname with one of the angels of God, Gabriel. Gabriel’s name means “God is great.” Angel Gabriel was a messenger saddled with the responsibility of delivering several important messages on God’s behalf, including the birth of Jesus Christ.

    A statement by Ekiti State Commissioner for Justice, Mr Wale Fapohunda, said “The Ministry of Justice today began the publication of the names and photographs of convicted sex offenders in the state. We are commencing with a public notice on the status of Reverend Asateru Gabriel, a former Anglican priest who was convicted for the sexual abuse of a seven-year-old girl. The state government is concerned about the frequency of reported cases of sexual violence.

    “It has, therefore, become necessary to put in place proactive measures to halt this trend. These measures include public notification of the status of convicted sex offenders by showing their photographs on Ekiti State Broadcasting Service and announcing their names on radio stations in the state”.

    “Reverend Gabriel is currently serving a five-year prison sentence in Federal Prisons, Ado Ekiti. This publication is in furtherance of the Dr Kayode Fayemi administration’s zero-tolerance policy for all forms of violence against women and children”.

    That is not all. The state government will also paste the photographs of convicted sex offenders in prominent places in their communities as well as their local government headquarters. It would even issue “advisory to the traditional ruler of the sex offender’s community on the status of the offender and uploading the sex offenders’ photograph on the website of the ministry of justice.” And, do such sexual offenders not deserve to have their heads examined in line with the government’s directive?

    As serious as the matter is; only a few government institutions are helping matters where rape or sexual abuse generally is concerned. I have said it on this page before, that this is one reason which deters many rape victims from reporting their harrowing experiences. Apart from the widely known social stigma attached to rape in our clime, some government institutions, like the police and even in some cases, the courts, seem to trivialise the matter.

    Some policemen investigating rape cases would, in the course of their investigation, ask whether the victim was crying or moaning when being raped. In some courts, some counsel ask for the blood stains of the underwear of the victims despite the fact that the crime was committed a long time ago.

    What comes into my mind when I hear of some of these reactions is whether the policemen or lawyers asking such questions would have done so if the minor raped or abused is their daughter or relation. But we have to commend some state governments, like Lagos, for the efforts they have made in curbing sexual abuse.

    We should be eternally grateful to the many non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that have dedicated their services to the issue. They are the ones helping to bring some of these cases into focus and keeping them at the front burner of national discourse. They have even seen some of the cases to their logical conclusion, with some suspects convicted.

    This explains the position of the vice-chairman, Nigerian Bar Association, Ilesha Branch, Mr Boye Williams, who said he believes “that this will serve as a deterrent to some, because nobody wants their name to be tarnished.” Also, the Gender Rights Associate at the Citizens Gavel, Jennifer Way, said, “The register will curb rape; It is a good one.” We should be eternally grateful to them.

    There are those who might want to see the naming and shaming of Reverend Gabriel as double jeopardy. But, how do we explain that a man of God who should be counselling his congregation on moral chastity, whether in or out of service, was the one caught doing it with a seven-year-old? The truth of the matter is that we like to frown at some punishments as being out of tune with the offence committed. Unfortunately, our sympathy is usually tilted in favour of the criminal or offender.

    Otherwise, what could have brought about the issue of double jeopardy in this kind of matter?  Well, those who so hold are entitled to their opinion. What I know though, is that there is nothing like double jeopardy here at all. If we talk of double jeopardy for the rapist, then how many jeopardies do we know the rape victims suffered? Can we quantify such? Only rape victims are competent to comment on whether the extra punishment such as Ekiti has applied in this instance, and that it intends to be its standard, is too severe.

    Many of the rape victims live with the trauma of their experiences for life. It is because we have taken the issue of rape with levity that many people, including students in secondary schools and higher institutions now have the temerity to gang-rape fellow students or some other unfortunate victims. These are supposed to be role models sent to school to make them useful to themselves and the larger society, and all they do is learn to punish ladies who refused their amorous advances with gang-raping, and even threatening to upload the video for the world to see, should their victim tell the school authorities or the police.

    Sex is supposed to be a thing of pleasure between two consenting adults. Where one of the parties forced his or her way on the other, then consent is no longer there, and that is punishable. It is even worse where the victim is a minor; we have seen accounts of grandpas doing it (or is it attempting to do it) with babies less than one year old! And yet some people are talking of double jeopardy when the punishment is being meted to such offenders.

    This is something that lawyers would even tell you that a man can be accused of raping his wife if the wife does not consent to their having sex, and vice versa. How much more people who do not know themselves from Adam?

    But for the fact that death penalty is fast becoming anachronistic in modern times, and more importantly because of the possibility of miscarriage of justice, I would have advocated death penalty for people who rape minors or, worse still, babies. Perhaps they should be castrated?

  • Are we ready?

    President’s directive on forex for food imports may be counter-productive

    Unassailable. This, at first glance, best describes President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to stop allocation of foreign exchange to food importers. The president had, in a statement released on Tuesday by his spokesman, Garba Shehu, said the directive became imperative to ensure steady improvement in agricultural production and attainment of food security. President Buhari, who was speaking with his party – the All Progressives Congress (APC) governors – that he hosted during the Sallah holiday, said the foreign reserve that will be saved from the no forex-for-food import directive will be used to diversify the economy.

    The tone of his speech reflected how dear the matter is to his heart: “Don’t give a cent to anybody to import food into the country,’’ he said. One can understand where the president is coming from. It is inconceivable for a country that needs every forex it can lay its hands on to spend a hefty $22bn annually on food import. For a country that was doing well in agricultural production before the advent of crude oil as its revenue earner, this is not something to ignore. In the face of ever dwindling and unpredictable revenue from crude oil due to the vagaries of the international oil market system, Nigeria ought to have started to save its hard-earned foreign exchange as early as yesterday.

    So, in a sense, the president is justified to feel sufficiently concerned about the rate at which this scarce forex is being depleted on non-essentials, particularly those items that we should be able to produce at home, including food items.

    But, as I always ask when dealing with a matter like this; is beheading the solution to headache? The answer is definitely no. I appreciate the president’s concern. But then, we cannot just wake up overnight to go in the direction that he envisages on this matter. It is something that we ought to work assiduously towards. This is especially so in view of our porous borders. We cannot forget in a hurry the euphoria that greeted the government’s announcement of its programme for self-sufficiency in rice production about four years ago. There is no doubt that some states, including, as President Buhari noted, Kebbi, Ogun, Lagos, Jigawa, Ebonyi and Kano have since keyed into the Federal Government’s agricultural policy with noticeable returns in rice production. “We have achieved food security, and for physical security, we are not doing badly,’’ the president said.

    It is on this same rice production claims and counter-claims that we need to scrutinise the new directive on food imports.

    What the rice claims and counter-claims tell us is that there is still a lot of work to do to get anything near the government’s dream on rice production. In spite of the huge investments and seemingly huge returns on this staple, we still see more of the imported rice that is supposed to be operating under the same regime of no forex for rice imports in our markets than we see the locally produced ones. Most of the imported rice came through the porous borders. What has changed between then and now to make us feel the new directive will not suffer the same fate? That is, seeing more of these food items coming in through the Seme and other borders even though the government is not allocating forex for their importation. This, for me, is the crux of the matter. I share the president’s belief on the need to curb food imports. I share his aspiration to diversify the economy through agriculture and agro-allied industries. What I disagree with is what I see as the knee-jerk approach to achieve the laudable objective. I know President Buhari is a retired general; but there are certain things that cannot be decreed into or out of existence.

    Of course there is no consensus as to what effects the new directive would have on food prices. While some believe, as the government does, that it would bear good fruits, some others feel it may lead to higher food prices. The other point as to what effect the presidential directive would have on foreign investors who are likely to interpret it as an affront on the independence of the CBN is neither here nor there. A former director of Keystone Bank, Richard Obire, belongs to this school of thought. Hear him: “With the President directing the CBN to stop giving a cent of forex for food imports, investors and businesses will be increasingly concerned about the independence of the country’s central bank. These concerns were already there with the multiple exchange rates regime seen to be driven by the government. This new directive will heighten those concerns”. But I do not know of any country that does not take certain extraordinary measures to deal with some cantankerous issues. To me, however, those who belong to this school of thought so interpret the directive because it was released as a presidential directive. If the president had secretly told the CBN governor and the latter made it public as a CBN policy, would they have felt the way they are feeling now?

    The truth is that, agriculture, even as we speak, is still bedeviled by a lot of problems. One of these is road infrastructure. Many of our roads in the urban centres are an eye sore. Indeed, it is as if governance has been put on hold for some time across board. As former director of Keystone Bank, Richard Obire, noted,” It is not enough to produce food. You need to also have the infrastructure to move the foods to areas of need.”  He added: “I also believe that the forex that would have been used for food import will now go to education, and health sector.”

    Director-General, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Muda Yusuf, listed some other factors hindering agricultural development in the country: “Over the last couple of years, food inflation had been a source of worry. It has consistently been ahead of core inflation. This is a reflection of the productivity challenges in the agricultural sector which has lately been complicated by security challenges across the country and attacks on farming communities. The sector is still largely dependent on smallholder farmers, with little mechanisation and application of technology,” he added.

    All these are critical issues that the government must address rather than relying on barring of food importers from the official forex market because that, alone, cannot solve the problem.

    Perhaps President Buhari is already getting nervous about the possibility of the naira not getting as strong as it should be even when we stop importation of fuel, with the advent of Dangote Refinery and other smaller firms that would be refining petrol locally, hopefully, next year. Sometimes I have the same fears because ours is a country where basic economic assumptions that work elsewhere crash. The theory of whatever goes up must come down does not seem to apply to Nigeria. But then, we cannot allow ourselves to be ruled by fear. Rather, the government must address all the problem areas that are making self-sufficiency in food production difficult for us. Key among these is the security challenge that has remained almost intractable over the years. Many farmers have been forced to abandon their farms for fear of being kidnapped or killed by all manner of bandits that are now holding the country to ransom. All of these have to be tacked. It is only then that we can hope to reap fruits from the new presidential directive. Otherwise, the directive could end up being counter-productive.

  • Not yet the revolution

    The François Alexandre Frédéric de La Rochefoucauld, Duke of La Rochefoucauld, a French social reformer, had, in answer to the question asked by King Louis XV1  in the morning after the storming of the Bastille in 1789: “Is it a revolt?”replied: “Non sire, ce n’est pas une révolte, c’est une révolution.” (No sire, it’s not a revolt; it’s a revolution).

    That means there is a wide world of difference between a revolt and a revolution. So, what Omoyele Sowore and his gang of ‘revolutionaries’ said was going to be a revolution when they took to the streets in some major cities of the country on August 6 was nothing near a revolution; I do not even know if it qualifies for a revolt if we see revolt as an attempt to end the authority of a person or body by rebelling, usually violently.

    If there is any word the elite, whether political or business elite detest, it is that 10-letter word ‘revolution’. I have had cause to narrate my experience on this page a few years back when I was member of a committee charged with the responsibility of drawing up a programme for a landmark anniversary of my society in my church of birth. Innocently, we included ‘prayer warfare’ (a spiritual revolution, if we can call it that). I remember that aspect of the programme was shot down immediately it got to the general house, even before we could say ‘Jack Robinson’. I think it was replaced with something like ‘prayer session’, which, to myself and some of the committee members then was meaningless, or at least too soft, in the contest of what we were up against in the church at that time. Pray, what is wrong in having ‘prayer warfare’ in a church programme? Does the scripture itself not say that, as Christians, we are waging wars against powers and principalities?

    If we could have such hurdle in church concerning a concept that is well grounded in the scriptures (at least so we thought), it would appear that Sowore did not reckon with the implication of what he was contemplating when planning his ‘revolution’ in Nigeria.

    Although freedom of protest is one of the packages that come with democracy, the point remains that that freedom, like most other freedoms, is qualified. There is no absolute freedom anywhere in the world. Sowore did not help his cause with his utterances, and, no government properly so-called will open its eyes and allow such unguarded statements go unnoticed. Hear him: “I’m not talking of protest. I’m embarking on revolution. Eighty-five per cent of Nigerians are in support. Don’t tell me about legal implications or what a judge will say.  I don’t care. We must bundle Buhari out of that place.” When a child begins to threaten that when he grows up, he would be using pigeons’ laps as chewing stick, for sure; the pigeons would ensure that such a child never gets old enough to carry out that threat. When you threaten to ‘bundle a sitting president out of office without having the capacity to carry out such threat, you can only succeed in putting yourself in harm’s way. Wherever Sowore got the 85% of Nigerians that he said were behind him!

    Now, if he is to spend the next 45 days in detention, it is probably due to his careless utterances. His utterance reminds me of one of the old plays of Moses Olaiya Adejumo, alias ‘Baba Sala’ who, in the course of the play said he could slap a masquerade, slap a policeman and cap it all by stoning a judge! (Mo le gba eegun leti, ma gbolopa leti, ma tun wa so’ko lu adajo!)  Sowore had not only disrespected the government of the day by that singular statement, he also did not show enough respect for the courts. I haven’t much issue about his disrespect for the government of the day, but to join the judiciary is not something we should condone because he should have known too that that is where the matter would end. He therefore should not have fouled the air with such statement about the courts. Not even the ragtag followers of El-Zakzaky would have been that reckless. In spite of their lack of education, or a limited version of it, they still talk with some modicum of respect for the courts.

    I wonder why anyone should pity someone who said (with his mouth) that he did not care about the legal implications of his action, or what a judge would say. I think Justice Taiwo Taiwo of the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court was even magnanimous in granting the Department of State Services (DSS) 45 days to detain him, as against the 90 days that the secret police asked for. If the judge had acted on impulse, and based on Sowore’s careless talk, he might have been tempted to grant the full prayers of the DSS. But there is nothing to suggest that Sowore would not spend more than 45 days in detention as the judge said the period could be extended if the DSS is unable to conclude its investigations by that time. Although some eminent (and not so eminent lawyers) have criticised Justice Taiwo’s order, the point is that unless it is reversed by a higher court, that, at least for now, is the position of the law.

    The takeaway in all of these is not only for Sowore, it is also for all those who might be contemplating his course of action.

    But nothing I have said should be misconstrued as saying all is well in the country. Many Nigerians are dissatisfied with the present state of affairs, no doubt. Virtually all the problems the present government inherited in 2015 are still there: poor power supply, prostrate economy, intolerably high unemployment, terribly bad federal roads, education is still in a shambles, the health sector is also in bad shape, etc. Even with governments with the unanimity of opinion that they have done fairly well, it still would have been somewhat nervous when someone talked of staging a revolution. This would seem the reason the government itself was unwilling to leave nothing to chance. It would seem the reason the police went all out to stop the planned protest, battering some of the protesters and even arresting journalist whose sin was covering the protest for their respective media. The only good thing was that no life was lost during the protests. Even the government gave itself a pat on the back that the protest flopped.

    That the government had such phobia is understandable. The insecurity in the land is enough cause for worry. Although the activities of Boko Haram appear to have been drastically contained, the country has since been faced by another serious security issue; that of kidnappers. It is as if criminals have since discovered that this pays far more than armed robbery or even insurgency. The rate at which all manner of arms find their way into the country is also baffling.

    That the Muhammadu Buhari government inherited a mess is not in doubt. But whether it has discharged itself creditably in the first four years is debatable. That the government tried to kill an ant with a sledge hammer in its reaction to the protests is also not in doubt. But this can be understood, at least in the context of the prevailing circumstances.

    However, beyond the power of coercion which the Federal Government wields, and which it has successfully used against Sowore, we should not throw the baby away with the bath water. The most rewarding way the government can make nonsense of the ‘revolution now’ protest is to resolve to address the country’s socio-political and economic problems in a way that would bring forth fruitful results. Sowore might not have had the numbers he claimed to have before staging the protest, but the government would be helping him to win more recruits if it does not settle down to vigorously address the challenges plaguing the country, and which have, despite its potential, condemned it to the poverty capital of the world.

    Ordinarily, President Buhari should not be disturbed by a man who polled a miserly 33,953 votes in the last presidential election where the president polled over 15,191,847 votes. President Buhari would be making Sowore a hero if by the time we are to mark his examination scripts in 2023; he has failed to make the desired impact on our lives. Unless President Buhari has realised the enormity of the work that needed to be done, I am afraid, the speed and approach of his first term cannot take him or the country anywhere. He should work towards rendering Sowore and his gang jobless before the next elections.

    For now, Sowore’s #RevolutionNow seems tomorrow’s idea here today. Revolutions are hardly planned. They naturally occur when the time is ripe for them.