The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tunji Adegboyega

  • UTME made easy

    About a month after the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) was held nationwide, not much is being mentioned about the examination. This is unlike in the past when, weeks to the examination, people’s adrenalin would rise, all because their wards or children wanted to sit for UTME. Preparations for the examination was so chaotic that the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) which conducts it would be in the news even weeks after, and for the negative reasons.

    I recollect a personal experience when my son sat for the UTME in 2103. His centre was supposed to be the Sam Ethnan Air force Base, Ikeja, Lagos. I took him there pretty early; and that time being the peakof the Boko Haram insurgency, only the candidates were allowed to enter the premises after their papers had been checked at the gate. Candidates and others who had no business there were promptly turned back. I waited outside the gate for some time after my son was cleared and allowed into the premises, and when I had thought it was safe to leave, I returned home. My son too was rest assured he was in the right place only to be told alongside some other candidates about two hours later that they had been moved to Maryland Comprehensive High School in Maryland area of Lagos. The boy left the air force base for the new centre after losing a lot of time. He had barely 45 minutes to write the examinations which those of them who came late were allowed to write because the fault was not theirs but in the shoddy arrangement for the examination. It was a miracle that he was still able to meet the cut-off point for the examination. The rest is now history.

    This year, however, not many people knew when the examination was held, apart from those directly concerned. The reason is because of the way and manner the examination was conducted this time around. Without doubt, the organisation of this year’s UTME is far better than that of last year. There were minor hitches here and there in last year’s examination; but even at that, it was far better than previous years’.

    The noticeable improvement this time should be expected. One factor that cannot be discounted in this regard is the doggedness of Prof Ishaq Oloyede, JAMB registrar, to improve on what he met on ground and make the examination comparable to other examinations in other countries.

    He came up with the idea of mock UTME, which is beneficial to the candidates as well as the board. While the mock examination aids candidates who are sitting for the examination for the first time to know what the examination looks like, it also prepares the board for the examination proper by making it identify areas of shortcomings so it could tackle them before the examination day.

    In addition, the board, under Prof Oloyede came up with the idea of saddling some eminent Nigerians from the media, the academia, civil society organisations, etc. with the responsibility of finding out how things are going in all the centres nationwide during the examination, with a view to knowing where there were challenges so that such could be addressed immediately where possible; and where it was not possible, their reports would be a useful guide in the conduct of subsequent examinations.

    The monitors were to report on things like network issues, security, stipends for those operating the computer based test (CBT) centres, etc. Obviously, this has contributed immensely to the vast improvement noticed in this year’s UTME.

    But technology played a great role in the success story of this year’s UTME, whether at the level of payment for the examination, registration or even the conduct of the examination proper. The board was able to monitor and identify a particular computer system used by every candidate during the examination. It is therefore not surprising that some candidates’ results are still being withheld (still undergoing screening) due to reports of infractions committed during the examination. Apparently some of them must have violated one regulation or the other. While those who are found to be innocent will eventually have their results released, those in contravention of rules prohibiting items like wrist watches, pens/biros, mobile phones or similar electronic devices, calculators or similar devices, USB, CD, hard discs or similar storage devices, books or any reading/writing materials, cameras, recorders, microphones, ear pieces, ink/pen readers, smart lens, smart rings/jewellery, smart buttons as well as Bluetooth devices from the CBT centres may have their results cancelled.

    Indeed, one could see a determined effort on the part of the board to ensure the integrity of the examination. So, candidates who had determined to cheat through one means or the other, including those whose parents were ready to buy results with mouth-watering amounts must have met their match in a determined JAMB not to make that easy for them, which is good for the examination. What all of these has done is to reduce cases of widespread examination malpractices, examination questions leakages, admission racketeering and many more untoward activities that had characterised JAMB operations in the past.

    It goes without saying that the deployment of technology made some arrests possible during the registration exercise for erring CBT owners who refused to comply with the stipulated registration guidelines. Some of them were also arrested due to various infractions committed during the examination. In addition, the board has decided to blacklist any CBT centre that is below the stipulated standard in the conduct of its 2019 UTME. As if this was not enough, it also ensured that it was possible to monitor the conduct of the examination in all CBT centres from its headquarters in Abuja through the help of closed circuit television (CCTV).

    But the transformation at JAMB was not a coincidence; it was the result of deliberate effort of Prof Oloyede. Since no one can change a decadent system without encountering challenges, especially from those benefitting from the decadence of the past, Prof Oloyede should be saluted for his steadfastness in the face of all odds, both from within and outside of the board.

    He is barely 20 months old as JAMB registrar, having been appointed in August 2016. But then, what he has achieved makes it look as if he has been there for long. The point is that he hit the ground running. His other appointments must have given him the desired exposure that he needed to turn things around at JAMB. As a former vice-chancellor of the University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Kwara State; President of the Association of African Universities (AAU); member boards of the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) and the International Association of Universities (IAU), Prof Oloyede is imbued with the wherewithal to bring about the desired change at JAMB. But it is not all about experience and exposure. If many Nigerians at the helm of affairs in many other places bring their wealth of experience and exposure to bear on their positions, this country will be far better than it is today.

    So, beyond the exposure and experience is the determination to make a difference. This determination to make a difference is what makes Prof Oloyede to stand out. It explains the saving of the phenomenal N8billion that he returned to government coffers in one year alone, precipitating, even if unintended, the government’s decision to probe past leadership of JAMB and other government agencies to find out how they had been spending public funds. The determination to succeed is also behind Prof Oloyede’s anti-corruption war at the board, which has exposed the underbelly of the system. What all these tell us is that things can be done well in this country as in other places. What is required is the resolve on the part of the managers to make things happen.

    But the beauty of it all is that Prof Oloyede cannot do it alone; that is why he always acknowledges the contributions of members of the staff of JAMB, particularly those who have bought into his change agenda in the place. Oloyede only happens to be the driver; the servant-leader if you like.

    This year’s UTME might not have been entirely faultless; but it is commendable at least to the extent that it was an improvement on past examinations. Of course, it can always get better.

  • PDP’s crocodile tears

    It would appear that many Nigerians that had reacted to the so-called apology by Prince Uche Secondus, chairman of the former ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), concentrated so much on the aspect of restitution, I would rather beg to differ. If Secondus tendered anything at the public discourse on contemporary politics and governance in Nigeria, organised by the party in Abuja on Monday, with the theme: “Nation Building: Resetting the agenda,” it was not an apology but an apology in reverse. After carefully reading the news reports, it occurred to me that it was not much of an apology but more of a scathing criticism of the Muhammadu Buhari administration.

    While I am not saying the administration has lived up to the expectations of Nigerians, it does not lie in the mouth of the PDP to pontificate on that, having presided over Nigeria’s affairs for 16 years, now better described as the years of the locust, and posting the unenviable record that has impoverished this country. Even what the former president, Goodluck Jonathan, who was in Sierra Leone to monitor the presidential election run-off when Secondus was tendering the so-called apology said showed the former ruling party did not meet to agree on the apology. As Secondus was ‘apologising’, the former president was busy lamenting what he sees as smear campaign against him by the Buhari administration. If Dr Jonathan sees the criticism of his person or government as an attempt to “impugn” his name as he claimed, then, what is Secondus apologising for? So, the former president expected the Buhari administration or Nigerians to be singing his praise or what?

    We acknowledge his conceding defeat after the polls, and that is part of what has qualified him to be in Sierra Leone as election monitor. But that is not to say we would not continue to remember how his government led us to this sorry pass. Clearly, if the PDP had held a family meeting before Secondus’ ‘apology’, they should have reasoned that nothing should be allowed to taint that apology if really it was an apology from the bottom of the hearts of its chieftains who ruined the country’s economy and consequently the future of millions of Nigerians.

    Unless it was the media that abridged Secondus’ statements, and rather emphasised the other aspects of his speech at the event, then we can see through the deceit in the so-called apology. Hear him: “I am the very first to admit that our party, the Peoples Democratic Party of Nigeria, made many mistakes. Consequently, we were roundly sanctioned by Nigerians occasioning our loss at the polls in 2015.

    “Let me seize this opportunity to apologise to Nigerians unequivocally for the several shortcomings of our party in the near and far past. It was all part of an evolution process without which there can be no maturity.”

    Apart from these quotes, the other aspects of his speech dwelt more on scathing criticisms of the Buhari administration. What readily came to my mind was that the PDP only wants to take advantage of Nigerians in next year’s elections once again. Personally, I do not blame Secondus; it is because the Buhari government has not been able to do the rightful with the PDP stalwarts, many of whom, I repeat, should be cooling their heels in jail. The ex-convicts among them who should be covering their faces in shame even turned up for the event and got red carpet reception for coming back home to the nest of robbers, which tells us how shame is in short supply in the former ruling party.

    Now, let’s try to analyse Secondus’ statements: “The PDP has embarked on a rescue mission, and together we will salvage this nation back from the grip of the incompetent All Progressives Congress, APC.”  If what the PDP has left as legacy in 16 years was its best, then with what is it going to salvage the nation? PDP should first salvage itself. Can a leopard change its spot? As a colleague said, the party’s stalwarts are too well fed – protruding bellies, rosy cheeks – to play the role of opposition. That is why they have been wobbling and fumbling like a baby trying to put on his shoes all by himself in their attempts to wear the opposition shoes. You can’t compare them with people who had been in the trenches for the better part of their lives as opposition spokesmen. How can a party that had the opportunity of ruling the country in 16 years but frittered it now be talking of salvaging it? A proverb in my place says you have to look at what the person promising to give you a cloth is wearing before knowing whether to believe him or not.

    But Secondus, who is no longer comfortable with his party’s second position, is not done yet: “Three years down the line and about 12 months to the next general elections, what is the state of our country? All gains have been clearly eroded through an acute lack of understanding of the intricacies of governing a complex state as Nigeria.” Hen? Did I hear Secondus right? What gains have been clearly eroded? Can PDP be talking about gains, when they had crude selling at some of the highest prices in the better part of their time, yet could not boast of any meaningful development?  Secondus should not make me open my mouth o, because if I do, this country would burn! He was even at a point talking about voting in the PDP next year because the party has experience. If he should be told, Nigeria does not need the kind of experience that PDP has. In this case, such experience is an added disadvantage.

    If this is the way PDP feels like apologising for the grievous harm its members did this country, then they should pocket their apology. For the party’s apology to be meaningful, it must come from its heart of hearts. That is to say; those who stole should first make restitution by returning what they stole to the country’s coffers. When Secondus said “our currency has been recklessly devalued from N199 in 2015 to nearly N500 a dollar before it came down to about N365 only due to an increase in oil prices and not any significant thing done by this government,”, he was only being economical with the truth. When PDP chieftains, their ministers, wives, etc. were stealing dollars and President Jonathan was alerted then, what did he say? Did he not shrug it off by saying if they ever stole that much, America would know? Was the then president, instead of fighting corruption, not busy drawing a line between stealing and corruption? At any rate, where did the party get the dollars the then president was allegedly distributing on the eve of the 2015 elections? Was it not Nigeria’s money, if true? Are these not the contributory factors responsible for our weak naira?

    Haba Secondus! APC may not have met the expectations of Nigerians so far; but that is not to say PDP is the next thing to look forward to for salvation. Nigerians are not the proverbial drowning man that would not mind clinging even to a serpent for help. At any rate, was Secondus not a part of the team that led us to this mess?

    But if the PDP is truly penitent, its leading lights, including some of its past chairmen, must be ready to prostrate at the Eagle Square in Abuja and Tafawa Balewa Square in Lagos, as well as in the other geopolitical zones and remain in that position until Nigerians tell them to get up. No good father will deceive his children. So, as Papa that Deceived Pikin, the PDP elders must be ready to dance naked in market places in the country’s six geopolitical zones. They and their children committed the crimes for which millions of Nigerians are now suffering.

    Eni bi’mo oran lon’pon. (Will someone help me translate this?)

  • My case against Ikeja Electric

    It is not in my character in over three decades of journalism practice to launch a direct attack on any entity for personal reasons. I got close to this (I guess sometime in 2001 or 2002) when the then National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) came up with a 50 percent rebate for debtors that were willing to pay 50 percent of what they owed.

    I was roped into that category, no thanks to their ‘crazy bills’. However, instead of taking advantage of the rebate to pay a debt I never owed, I wrote a letter of protest to them and machinery was set in motion to ascertain the veracity of my claim. To cut a long story short, they sent some of their staff to my place without notice on about two or three occasions and after writing their reports, they discovered that NEPA was the one owing me and gave me a credit balance.

    About 10 years later, I was a victim of yet another round of estimated billing, a thing I was told the NEPA staff did then either to punish people that were not playing ball or those who would always pay whatever they were asked to pay without asking questions. Depending on my mood,  I could fall under either category.

    I crave my readers’ indulgence to reproduce excerpts of the two emails I sent to the Ikeja Electric last year, none of which was replied. Both were addressed to the Undertaking Manager in Agege.

    1). “Dear Sir,

    INEXPLICABLE BILLING (METER NO. 0785125058737 (Account Number 0100536807 and old Account No. 078101167601)

    It is with a heavy heart that I wrote this protest note in the fervent hope that it would be given the desired attention by your organisation. I had forwarded a similar protest to your former chief executive but did not have a reply until his exit.

    Although this issue dates back to 2012, I had thought it would have been gone with the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), under which impunity and arbitrary billing reigned supreme.

    As you would have seen in some of my 2012 bills (which I hope to present if the need arises), my ‘current’ bill as at March 2012 was N4,389.30. This dropped to N1,206.50 by June of the same year. Three months later, this again jumped to N11,311.50. (Interestingly, it remained almost at that level till about November last year (2016, about four good years) when an enumerator came to assess our electricity consumption). Mind you, this was irrespective of whether there was electricity supply or not.

    Indeed, I remember two instances when we did not have electricity for 21 consecutive days in the dark days of the PHCN; and another when our lights did not blink once in nine days; yet, the bills remained constant at N11,000+ or close to it …

    As a responsible citizen, I am ready to pay for the electricity consumed in my house. But I detest the situation where I am being harassed based on rule of thumb billing. The result of that abnormal and irrational system is the accumulation of the huge debt that my bill now carries despite the fact I always paid an average of N5,000 monthly then for the darkness that PHCN supplied. Obviously, the N6,000+ that I refused to pay is what has now grown in the six years to the N300,000+.

    …Mercifully, when the enumerator visited our house, I was around and I had a chat with him. He promised to ensure that the right thing was done. I never believed any good thing would come out of the chat since I have been used to that in the past, the only thing was that the PHCN people hardly disconnected our light because of my bill because they knew what the problem was. However, I was proved wrong. My bill, ever since the enumerator came, just like most other people’s bills in the area, has hardly exceeded N5,000+ per month. The present billing system may still not be the best; at least it seems a better reflection of the electricity consumed in the area. The ultimate, though, is for all electricity consumers to have their individual meters. I recall February 2017 when we had to pay about N2,000; there was total blackout for about two consecutive weeks. In the past, the N11,000 would have been constant. You will agree with me that this is not only unfair; it is ungodly to expect any right-thinking person to pay such bill. It should have no place under the present dispensation.

    My point is that yes, my bill may carry a debt of N300,000 plus, it was the result of the rip-off of the past, especially against the backdrop of the fact that I was always paying about N5,000 monthly then, even when electricity was not supplied for weeks. No one who works hard for his money would be dropping N11,000 in the coffers of an electricity firm that billed customers by rule of thumb. If there are proper records, I should be having some refund from Ikeja Electric (as offshoot of PHCN). I am not asking for that, but the company should also do well to look at issues such as this on a case-by-case basis rather than insisting that customers pay for what they did not consume simply because that is what is in the record. Some of these records are simply as questionable, doubtful, dubious and unreliable as they can be, at least against the background of the afore-mentioned case.

    Thank you in anticipation of your favourable response to my complaint.”

    2). Dear Sir,

    AGAIN, INEXPLICABLE BILLING (METER NO. 0785125058737 (Account Number 0100536807 and old Account No. 078101167601)

    You would recall that I sent a letter to you in respect of the above, specifically on June 8, 2017.

    Even as I am still awaiting the reply to that, I got another shocker when I received my May 2017 electricity bill last week …

    It would interest you to note that throughout May, those of us in the above-mentioned area (and maybe others sharing transformer with us) did not have electricity supply for about 25 consecutive days. Naturally, this should reflect on our bills; unfortunately, it did not, as I was still slammed N5,325.00 for (energy charges!), about the usual amount that I have been charged monthly in the last few months. As I stated in my earlier letter, it was this kind of practice that made my bill to accumulate to about N300,000+ in about six years, as I only paid about half of the N11,000+ I was usually charged monthly …

    Indeed, this is the grouse of many Nigerians: that one cap fits all billing system is unsustainable. Whatever method used in determining the kind of bill that would make consumers pay for electricity that was not supplied for more than three quarters of the month is unjustifiable and unfair.

    I believe, strongly as many Nigerians do, that Ikeja Electric would have been more concerned than us if we do not have electricity supply for this long period, if prepaid meters are provided customers. This is so because they would realise that the meters would not be running and, ipso facto, nothing will be coming to their coffers for as long as such a situation persisted  …

    Indeed, it is this estimated billing that has made many Nigerians resentful of tariff increase. The implication of approving tariff increase where customers are not metered appropriately is that people like us whose light did not blink for 25 consecutive days would still be forced to pay the percentage increase based on the unreliable billing method …

    Thank you sir.”

    Having sent these two mails, albeit in quick succession (one on June 8, 2017 and the other on June 23, 2017), I felt I deserved a response. It is either Ikeja Electric agreed with me or it disagreed, stating reasons for whatever position it adopted. That, I think, is the essence of giving out their email address, so as to get in touch with the company and get a faster response. Interestingly, Ikeja Electric acknowledged receipt of the mails. Why it did not feel they deserved a dignifying reply, I do not know.

    But, when instead of having replies to your mails, what you see are the company’s staff going about with ladders to disconnect customers’ (including those of us who wrote to them and never got a reply) light, then, something is wrong somewhere. They did the same thing last Wednesday and that was when I said enough was enough. Ikeja Electric should stop this undue harassment over a debt I never owed. It is only in Nigeria that marketers of an electricity firm would tell their customers they (marketers) have financial targets to meet. When I asked them in return whether they do not have productivity targets, they simply crawled back to their shells; they had no answer.

    When I received acknowledgements of the two mails I sent the same day, I thought it was a new dawn in terms of customer relations in our power sector. But over nine months after getting the acknowledgement of receipt of the mails, no one has responded to me soon, as I was assured in the mails. Mum has remained the word from Ikeja Electric.

    The NEPA mentality is still very much with our power sector operators.I recall when delegates of the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED) paid this newspaper a visit last year and I told them my plight, one of them merely retorted that I had to pay at least a part of that debt. What debt, if I may ask? Then, on Thursday, one of the elders in our area who went to the Ikeja Electric office in Agege over the disconnection returned with the expected news that we have to pay at least 20 percent of the estimated bills before talking of having prepaid meters! In other words, this is the official mentality in the power sector.

    Anyway, I have only decided to do this friendly fire as the first in the series of steps I have lined up to fight this cause. As the late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti sang, ‘according to complaint, complaint must get answer’. I need an answer to the posers raised in my mails. When I get that, I will then know what next to do. Nigeria must be the only country where people are forced to pay for what they did not buy. In my part of the country, that is forbidden. Our brethren will tell you it is not their portion in Jesus’ name!

    So, it is not my portion either.

  • Alternative Meter Providers

    It is not for fun that I am always excited whenever there is any new development in the country’s power sector. My ardent fans know why. I will however repeat myself for the benefit of those who are not familiar with my column. I love commenting on the power sector because I have been a serial victim of almost anything that is wrong with the sector, particularly with regards to estimated billing. It is my passion for the sector that made me return to it two weeks ago when I wrote on the proposed 3,000MW Lagos State power project, on March 4.

    At the risk of repeating myself, I have always said that we cannot get any sustainable improvement in the power sector if we continue with the present template. Nothing has happened to vitiate that position. Somehow, we have to tinker with the extant template; somehow, something must give; which is what the Lagos power project represents because it is a paradigm shift of sort. One can only imagine what the situation would have been if we have had similar projects replicated across the country.

    But one of the most fascinating developments, for me, is the new regulation in the sector which allows other firms, other than the distribution companies (DISCOs),  to provide meters to power consumers. The issue of giving prepaid meters to consumers has remained as contentious as ever, despite the privatisation of the sector; which should not be. Billing is an important component of the power mix. All over the world, power consumers pay for what they consume only. Not so in Nigeria, where some people sit in the comfort zones of their offices and allocate figures that catch their fancy as bills that they expect consumers to pay. In some instances, the refusal of consumers to pay these crazy bills has led to a situation where the unpaid parts of the bills accumulated to hundreds of thousands over the years, which, tragically, the DISCOs keep carrying in their books as debts owed by power consumers.

    Of course, many Nigerians lived grudgingly with this abnormality for years under the defunct National Electric Power Authority (NEPA), and the immediate past Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) apparently because both were public entities.

    But they heaved a sigh of relief when the sector was eventually privatised in 2013, hoping that the days of crazy or estimated bills were over. Alas, they were wrong! It has continued and there seems a deliberate effort on the part of the DISCOs not to want to let go of the old order. Apparently, it pays them because it allows them to get revenue that they never earned. How could people buy power distribution firms without understanding the place of accurate billing because, if they understand its importance, they would not have been comfortable to continue giving bills based on estimates for more than four years! A major danger in this I have always pointed out were occasions when we never had power supply in my area for about three weeks (sometimes six weeks the light never blinked), yet we were given the same amount as estimated bills for the uninterrupted darkness!

    If the DISCOs were serious about providing meters, they would have gone farther than they have done in deploying same, despite the harsh business environment in the country, which is not peculiar to the power sector, anyway. As a matter of fact, I learnt at least one of them is doing very well in this regard. I won’t mention its name so it does not sound like one is promoting it or trying to de-market others. Well, some people may argue that it is because the area that DISCO is covering is small. If this is true, then, the ones managing areas that are too big for them should shed weight. There should be a way to dance around this. But the impression that comes across is that of DISCOs that want to continue getting rent instead of revenue; hence, they have been foot-dragging on the issue of prepaid meters. Instead of creatively looking for ways to solve the meter problem, they have been offering excuses as to why it is not an easy route to take.The same way they give excuses as to why power supply cannot be better than it is unless and until things are done their own way, which means, at the expense of hapless power consumers.

    I have nothing against the DISCOs. In fact, I make bold to say that they will see me as an indispensable and reliable ally whenever they are ready to do business the way it should be done. Unlike millions of other voiceless Nigerians, I cannot afford to be silent when people managing an important aspect of our lives are not only not doing it right, but they seem not ready to want reforms that can change the course of events in the sector for better.

    It is on this note that I congratulate the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) for the new regulation which has (as it were) effectively stripped the DISCOs of the sole responsibility of providing meters. This responsibility is now to be shared with the Meter Asset Providers (MAPs). NERC’s Commissioner, Legal, Licensing and Compliance, Dafe Akpeneye, disclosed the new regulation at the 25th Monthly Power Sector Meeting in Abuja. He said NERC saw the unavailability of meters as a very serious concern and therefore met with all the stakeholders with a view to charting the way forward. “We all arrived at the same answer that we have to do something different. We can no longer leave this very important obligation to the distribution companies alone; other players have to come into this space. So, we went about creating the NERC Meter Asset Provider Regulation, 2018…”

    This is good music that will resonate well with power consumers. But it may not with the DISCOs. Yet, they have little choice in the matter unless they want to incur the wrath of their customers, especially since they have been unable to solve the prepaid meter riddle in the last four years. What Nigerians look forward to is cooperation among all the stakeholders to make the new arrangement work. With this regulation, power consumers now have the choice of whether to obtain meters from the MAPs or do self-financing with the DISCOs. I commend the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola,  for the successful negotiation of the out-of-court settlement in a meter contract awarded since 2003 which lasted till last year, to actualise the MAPs regulation. Apart from facilitating meter deployment to power consumers and attracting investment in the sector, MAPs will also provide jobs for Nigerians. If the government can sustain the momentum of some of these policies, I can see things turning around in the power sector faster than can be imagined.

     

    Understanding Okorocha 

     

    Okorocha

    There must be something special about Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State. That is why some of his programmes and policies have always been subjects of controversies. I think the governor came into the limelight of criticism when he decided to give civil servants in the state 18 days holiday in December to celebrate the Christmas/New Year. People, including those who do not understand the cultural milieu behind such a novel gesture picked holes in the holiday. They said it was a recipe for laziness. Yet, the average Igbo person does not joke with that period. That is a time the whole of the southeast bubbles, with people who have gone to the cities returning home to give back to their local communities part of what they brought from the cities. So, what is wrong in formalising such holiday?

    Then, in 2016 when the governor came up with what obviously was a pragmatic attempt to reduce the pains of civil servants in the state by making Thursdays and Fridays farming days (work-free) to allow them farm to supplement their meager and irregular wages; some people pooh holed the measure. Even some of his colleagues who did nothing beyond lamenting that Abuja had nothing in the feeding bottle to feed them with joined the bandwagon of critics lampooning the highly cerebral governor. They did not see the advantages inherent in the new policy.

    Again, still drawing from his reservoir of knowledge, Governor Okorocha embarked on the erection of statues all over the state. Envious of this cardinal programme of the governor’s administration, perhaps the first of its kind anywhere in the world, the critics went to town again, criticising these otherwise innocent erections.

    One thing I like about Gov Okorocha is that he has never allowed these good-for-nothing, arm-chair critics to discourage him. He has since created a Ministry of Happiness headed by his own sister. That, too, did not go without a fierce fight with critics. The current bile is Governor Okorocha’s scheming to have his son-in-law succeed him as governor. Haba, why can’t some people credit the governor with some intelligence or common sense? If they were in the governor’s shoes, who would they have anointed as their successor? How best can you show appreciation to someone who stood by you through thick and thin; in sickness and in health; the pillar of your erections, other than by doing what Governor Okorocha wants to do for his son-in-law? That is the only way by which the erections can be consolidated in order to move the state forwarding forward (to quote a former southeast governor)!

    I have seen Governor Okorocha struggling to justify this position. He doesn’t need all that stress. Only the deep can communicate with the deep.

  • After Dapchi, where next?

    After Dapchi, where next?

    No one can say for sure we have seen the last of such abductions 

    The headline of this piece might sound somewhat hopeless, but it is apt in that it depicts the way we are as a nation. Many Nigerians now see government as a huge joke because ours is a country where history keeps repeating itself. There is no other way to put it in a country where things follow a regular and predictable pattern. Those who have since lost hope in government here would not be surprised about the abduction of about 110 girls in Dapchi, Yobe State, on February 19. This was despite the assurances by the military and the government that never again would we witness such in the country. What has happened has  merely confirmed the position of some people that when government (any government at all) in the country tells you good morning, never believe until you have opened your window blinds and confirmed that it is indeed not good night.

    After the experience of the about 276 schoolgirls abducted from Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok on the night of April 14-15, 2014, by a group of Boko Haram militants, we had thought that we would never have a repeat of such in any of our schools. As of today, some of the girls are yet to be found while the lives of some of those that have returned had been reconfigured by their captors. Some of them returned as baby-mothers, having been ushered into motherhood to take on responsibilities for which they were least prepared.

    But, even as we continue to agonise over the fate of the remaining Chibok girls still in captivity, the nation was woken up by news of yet the abduction of another group of schoolgirls, this time in Dapchi.

    Apparently Dapchi came into being because we love to celebrate too soon. We dance ourselves lame when the actual dance is yet to come. Before the Dapchi abductions, our military kept talking about a decimated Boko Haram. The way they were talking about it, it was as if Boko Haram was on the verge of extinction. As a matter of fact, this newspaper was about cautioning the military again against this mindset when we were told that over a hundred schoolgirls had been abducted again. Things have not been the same since then. It would appear the Dapchi incident has somewhat humbled our military. At least we are no longer hearing stories of how they had pursued Boko Haram to their Sambisa Forest haven, their tails between their legs.

    This is not to deny the military the modest gains they have recorded in the anti-Boko Haram war. They have tried and should indeed be commended for their efforts. But they should leave the commendation to Nigerians instead of doing it themselves. The point being made is that we need to be cautious and modest even in victory. It would seem our soldiers forgot that the terrorists they are fighting are not fighting conventional warfare. When you fight such people, you expect the worst. It is a situation where to them (terrorists) even foul is fair; they have no rules of engagement. That explains why Boko Haram would not mind to rubbish whatever claim the military might be making about castrating it with the surprise attacks in which six lives are lost today, and 10 tomorrow, and four the day after. The people whose relations were killed in such attacks are the ones who feel it most; to the others, we might see them as mere statistics and be happy that ONLY two people or four or even 10 persons were killed as against the past when scores would have been killed whenever or wherever Boko Haram struck.

    But the military is not alone in this self-glorification. President Muhammadu Buhari, the commander-in-chief, lest we forget, did about the same thing a few months after he was sworn in, when, in reference to the marginal improvement in power supply in the country then alluded to his tough posture (or body language) as the reason for the improvement. In such a situation, his political detractors (and he sure has many) would not mind to demystify him at all cost. This is what is playing out; with the president himself now acknowledging that he knows he has lost steam because of old age.

    There are a few things President Buhari can gamble with. The abduction of the Dapchi girls does not fall under that heading for the simple reason that the taming of Boko Haram has remained his administration’s flagship achievement. Even the world must be wondering how such a huge number of girls could have been kidnapped again in one fell swoop. And then the buck-passing between the military and the police as to which of them was lax, thus making the abductions easy. According to reports, the abductors did not even know the location of the girls’ school as they had to depend on the locals for direction. Then, the abductors came barely a week after soldiers who had all the while been maintaining security in the town left, claiming that they handed over to the police before leaving; a claim the police have since denied.

    One should be curious here, knowing that this was not the first time such a military withdrawal would cause problem in Yobe State. According to the governor, Ibrahim Gaidam: “Let me be quoted anywhere, the military must take blame for the attack on Dapchi. The same thing happened in 2013 when the military suddenly removed troops guarding the town (Buni-Yadi) and a week later Boko Haram went there to attack the town and the secondary school there killing 29 students.”

    So, who is to blame for the Dapchi abductions? To date, 18 days after the incident, no one is answering any charges and no one is known to be under any investigation to unravel what really happened. Did the soldiers actually hand over to the police? If they did, where is the evidence? Or, was the handing over verbal? It is hard to believe that our soldiers who could not condone lateness to school by secondary school students could be that sloppy in handling such a sensitive matter of grave national security. In normal climes, some people would by now be explaining their roles in the unfortunate incident.

    But President Buhari has to put his military and intelligence chiefs under intense pressure to bring back those girls and reunite them with their parents or guardians. Time is of the essence. Those young girls cannot be trusted in the hands of those holding them. One can only imagine what they could have been doing with and to those girls whose only crime is that they craved knowledge despite all the odds stacked against them, in a particularly chauvinistic society that sees little or no need to educate the girl-child. The Chibok and Dapchi abductions are a serious blow to the education of the girl-child in the northern region, already bogged down by high illiteracy rate.

    What has happened to the money meant for providing security in the troubled northeastern region? Governor Gaidam said his state alone had spent about N12b on security-related issues. But one wonders what the money was spent on if basic things like surveillance cameras could not be provided, especially in girls’ schools that are so vulnerable to attacks by Boko Haram insurgents. This, though, is not a question for Governor Gaidam alone; it is for the Federal Government as well because even the international community gave us a lot of assistance when the Chibok girls were abducted, to enable us fortify some of these schools and make abductions unattractive.

    Where has all the money gone into? If over 100 human beings could be taken away and more than two weeks after, we are still clueless as to where they could be, then a lot is wrong with us as a nation. Where is the place of security? Where is intelligence in all of these? I’m afraid the Buhari government has a lot to do. And it should do something before the world concludes that our nation is no longer a ‘going concern’ but one that is adrift and irredeemably lost.

     

  • Lagos’ power project

    Lagos’ power project

    Waiting expectantly for an ambitious scheme that will transform the state but also compound its population

    Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State would have opened a brand new chapter in the annals of governance in the state if he succeeds in seeing to fruition his government’s Embedded Power Project. Although it would not be the first in the state’s history, it is an ambitious project that would impact massively on power supply. The state House of Assembly gave its consent to the project on January 29 when it passed the Lagos State Electric Power Reform Bill while Governor Ambode signed the bill, alongside six other bills, on February 8, to become laws. The idea of the power project is to generate electricity 24 hours daily for Lagosians towards improving the state’s economy and night life which many people who were born in Lagos or stayed for about two decades in the state would readily agree has fast disappeared.

    The first beneficiaries of the project are those in places like Ikeja, Ajah and Lekki while it would be extended to other parts of the state over time. Although the target is to generate about 3,000MW, the project will start with 1,000MW and gradually move up to the 3,000MW.

    Without doubt, this is sweet music in that it is an ambitious project designed to free the state from the unsteady and unreliable power supply from the National Grid, which has been more of a curse than a blessing. One thing is clear, unless we want to continue deceiving ourselves, the present power supply arrangement in the country, in spite of the privatisation of the sector, cannot take us anywhere. Many people who had thought the privatisation would bring about improved power supply must have been disappointed at the way things have turned out, more than four years down the line. It was either those who bought the distribution companies in particular did not do their due diligence well, or they just thought they would continue to exploit Nigerians through dubious electricity bills that they could not explain how they came about, just like their precursors; the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) and the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).

    In the first place, the National Grid is senselessly risky; given the aphorism that one should not keep one’s eggs in one basket. But the soldiers who seized power and imposed a unitary system of government came with their one-cap-fits-all, not only in the power sector, but in other sectors as well. Before then, every region in the country was developing at its own pace and there was a healthy competition among them. The soldiers reversed all that, and this is at the root of the clamour for a return to (true) federalism today. Many sections of the country have seen the reality that one cap can never fit all; even God who created us did not design things that way. That is why we have people with big heads even as we have those with miniature heads.

    Lagos State saw the return to democratic rule in 1999 as a good opportunity to launch its own electricity project and free itself from the shackles of the ineffectual National Grid. That was why the state government, under the leadership of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu sponsored an Independent Power Project handled by a U.S. company, Enron. The project was expected to provide additional 270 megawatts of electricity for Lagos. The then NEPA, quite expectedly, raised issues over the project but the worst obstacle came from the then President Olusegun Obasanjo. The rest is now history. Suffice it to say that the opposition to the project led to its ability to deliver only 90MW, a drop in the ocean.

    We can only imagine the damage this has done to the economy of Lagos in particular and the nation as a whole. Lagos is not only the country’s commercial hub; it is also its industrial capital. It is therefore not surprising that the state alone consumes about 40 percent of the electricity generated in the country. If, therefore, we have been complaining about perennial epileptic power supply, Lagos must have suffered the most.

    Power is pivotal to everything we do. We need it to run our industries, to power our electrical and electronic equipment both for comfort and relaxation. In a typical tropical climate like ours, we need power to keep our fans and air-conditioners working so that we can sleep well. Although things have been made easier for countries like ours, with all manner of rechargeable items, we still need power to charge those equipment when there is power supply so they can be useful to us when light goes off.

    The other day, the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) gladly embraced the 2,000MW stranded power that the distribution companies (DISCOs) cannot absorb because it will save a lot of money for them; it means they will have to spend less on diesel to power their generators. It is on record that some industries and companies have since cut themselves off from the National Grid while some permanently switch over to generators whenever they want to start production. Many of the industrial giants that had left the country, like Michelin and Dunlop, had their plants here in Lagos. Their unceremonious exit meant thousands of direct job losses and even more by way of indirect redundancies.

    It is heartwarming that consumers of the embedded power will only pay for what they use. This is a major attraction in that the question of appropriate billing is one of the main issues Nigerians have with the DISCOs that are not willing to provide prepaid meters because of the rent they make from estimated billing. There will be no room for any ambiguous charges.

    The Lagos State government must however have a Plan B to fall back on should the DISCOs bring in their present business model into the embedded power project. One is here talking about the government ultimately having plans for its own distribution lines/wires instead of relying on the DISCOs. I know this, apart from being expensive will also be cumbersome, but it may be worth it after all. The state government, no doubt has a good intention but this can easily be frustrated by the DISCOs if they see that it is denying them revenue at least in those areas to be served by the project. They may choose to be blind to the larger picture.

    The state government must put in place the reliable machineries it promised for efficiency and sustainable electricity supply through the embedded power project. In order not to run into the same problem of inability to distribute the power that will be provided, the  government must ensure that the distribution network in Lagos is upgraded and improved upon. New wires and cables should be provided where necessary and even distribution transformers changed because many of them are old and outdated.

    It is however good that the project will be private sector driven. But then, we have seen from the privatisation of some government entities that privatisation alone will not necessarily guarantee efficiency. Therefore, the state government will still have to ensure that its officials who will monitor and regulate the project do their job in the best interest of the people and the investors. There should be no compromises. One is happy that the government is not striving to protect the interest of power consumers alone, but that of the investors as well. Hence, its provision in the law to handle any power theft issue. Anyone that is caught will be jailed or heavily fined. This will put investors’ minds at rest that their investments will not go down the drain.

    But, then, the number of people that will want to engage in power theft will be few because many Nigerians will readily pay once they are sure they are paying only for the power they consume rather than paying bills concocted by some officials in the comfort of their air-conditioned offices. This is the main reason many people are reluctant to pay electricity bills. They cannot vouch for the integrity, fairness and accuracy of the so-called bills. The government has come out to say that customers will slightly pay higher for it, I do not think this will be a major problem. I was at a power summit at Dopemu, Lagos, sometime last year and I saw a lot of artisans giving their blessing to the power project that was supposed to have started at the Alimosho Local Government Area sometime in 2016. I do not know whether it is this same project  that has now been reworked. But the artisans readily agreed that they were ready to pay, especially with the 24/7 power supply attraction. They compared it with what they are losing either by not working because there is no power supply, or by working on generators. This, however, should not mean that the investors should exploit this to charge arbitrarily. Yes, they are here to make profit; yet, they should not exploit the situation by overcharging consumers and start arguing that it has to be so because electricity is more expensive in Benin Republic or Niger, as some people are arguing with fuel.

    One can only hope that the state government is gearing up for the other side of this development that has the potential of compounding the state’s population, especially in a country where many state governments have simply gone to bed, and their indigenes rushing to the ‘city’ in search of the proverbial greener pastures that they could not get back in the ‘village’.

    I cannot wait to see Lagos returning to its glorious past, when as children; we used to play on the streets, not knowing the difference between night and day, until our parents would call us that it was bedtime.

  • And Queendaline died

    And Queendaline died

    What killed the poor girl who died after being asked to frog march for coming late to school?

    Stories like the one I am writing on today make me sad. Indeed, when I read such reports in the newspapers or watch them on television, I often shut my eyes and pretend that what I am reading or watching is not true but some fiction from Fantasy Island. This is because it is simply incredible that a man, perhaps one who has his own children, will ask another person’s child to frog march in the name of serving punishment and the child would die thereafter!

    This may sound incredible but it happened at Army Day Secondary School, Obinze, Owerri, Imo State, upper week Thursday. According to the report, Queendaline Ekezie, a 15-year-old Junior Secondary School (JSS)3 student and one of her friends, Delight Aguocha, a JSS 2 pupil of the same school, had come late to school that fateful day and were asked to frog-march as punishment by two soldiers. Aguocha tells the story: “On that day, we had set out at 7am. We waited for a motorcycle to take us to school till it was 8am. When we became frustrated, we decided to board a commercial cab. But the driver did not leave the motor park until the car was filled with passengers.

    “When we got to school at 9am, we met three sets of late comers on the ground. Two soldiers were asking each set to do frog march to a particular distance after which they picked their bags and entered their classes.

    “When it was our turn, we were about reaching the finishing line when they said we were not doing it right and we should start again. After we repeated it, we went to pick our school bags, but one of the soldiers said he was still not satisfied.

    “I completed the punishment the third time and I picked my bag and left. I suddenly discovered that my friend was not with me. When I returned to the place, I saw her crying. She started vomiting the food she ate that morning. She was saying, ‘my back, my chest.’ The soldiers were just staring at us.”

    This last sentence is particularly instructive. So the soldiers could not even tell when the person they were punishing was exhausted and needed attention? Even when the victim was crying and saying ‘my back, my chest’, was that not enough for the soldiers to apply the brakes? That it even took the intervention of a teacher and the principal to take the pupil to the Army Hospital when they saw how she was behaving tells a lot about the humanity in the soldiers. How can someone ask a 15-year-old  to frog march until she could no longer walk?

    And when they eventually got to the hospital she was given an injection and put on drip, according to Aguocha, “she started vomiting bold. Blood was spurting out of her nostrils, mouth and ears.” Apparently, she had been given more punishment than her body could take. Her entire body chemistry had apparently been badly altered.

    I do not know any part of the world where parents pray to bury their children. It is such a sad thing, but that is the lot of Hyginius and Applonia Ekezie, Queendaline’s distraught parents, perhaps courtesy of soldiers who did not know where punishment stops and cruelty takes over. While the mother was too distraught to speak with the reporter who sought her comments on the matter, the father simply fainted out of shock when he heard the news. Many things must have been going on in the minds of the parents. Where do they start from? Yes, they have five of them, with Queendaline being the second born; still, they had invested a lot on her to bring her to where she was before her life was brutally terminated while serving punishment for coming late to school.  Here, one is not talking about money; what of parental love, the affection and fond memories they had shared?

    Her brother, Okechukwu, must have spoken out of the spur of the moment, by asking that she be buried and the family be compensated. There is no compensation that is adequate for the loss of a child. As one of her sisters said, she had high hope of becoming a lawyer so she can fight for human rights; this had been dashed. She died a victim of human right abuse before she could grow into her dream.  The big question now is: Is the soldier satisfied now that Queendaline is dead?

    The military authorities have to take another look at the criteria for selecting soldiers who administer punishment on pupils without putting the institution into unnecessary embarrassment. Now, they have had to visit the parents of the victim; and they are likely to pay more visits over time because it is not easy to lose a child.

    Parents really must be worried about this development. When they send their children to school, it is for the children to acquire education so that they can fend for themselves in today’s extremely competitive world. No parent would send his or her child to school to be killed in the course of serving corporal punishment.

    Perhaps we also have to be interested in what actually happened at the Army Hospital where Queendaline was rushed to. Her sister, Immaculate, a Senior Secondary School 3 pupil in the school alleged that her sister was not given adequate medical attention and that this contributed to her death. She said: “I was called around 10.00 a.m. that she was in the hospital. They didn’t put her on oxygen and the drip had stopped flowing. When I saw her, she was vomiting blood and shouting. She suddenly became still and the nurse asked us to leave. They announced that she was dead.” Could anything else be more pathetic? Apparently, the victim’s relations would not believe that their little girl that bade them goodbye when leaving for school would never return alive; that she would be in the mortuary hours after. Even the sister that was called around 10.00 a.m. and told that her sister had been hospitalised would think she was dreaming when told she had finally died.

    We need to beam the searchlight on the hospital too because it is an open secret that many hospitals in the country today are worse than what the Buhari/Idiagbon junta referred to as ‘consulting clinics’ in 1983. Without doubt, our military hospitals used to parade some of the best of medical personnel and equipment. But that was then. No one can be too sure of anything again anywhere in the country today in view of the pervasive dearth of values across board. Since the military is part and parcel of the Nigerian society, it is possible the cankerworm of inefficiency, incompetence, corruption, etc that has eaten deep into the fabric of the nation has taken its toll too on the military. We cannot rule this out, given that in the very recent past, some of our generals converted military votes to personal use. Who knows the other funds meant to equip the military hospitals and buy military hardware, etc. that is still in private hands?

    So, we need to know whether Queendaline had the best medical attention possible. What with the claim by her sister that at a point, her drip was not flowing again and stuff like that? What kind of message are we passing to the children when they see their friends and colleagues killed in the process of serving punishment? Nothing must happen to Queendaline’s sister or her friend because, as the innocent children that they are, they have told the story as they saw it; which may not be palatable to the school or the military authorities.

    I appreciate the need for students to be punctual to school, particularly in a military school with their stringent rules and regulations; but what I cannot comprehend is why the wages of lateness should be death. We can and indeed should be having fewer such stories that touch the heart only if we punish those responsible for them. In fact, do we need them at all? If such a thing had happened in the civilised world, no one would attempt to cover up. To attempt that would attract opprobrium from the populace. It would feature on CNN, Aljazeera, BBC and be feasted upon by their most influential newspapers until they get to the root of the matter.

    I have seen the reaction of the Imo State government on the matter. It says it is investigating it. Well, I only hope it is not the usual government’s way of letting such issues fade away with time. But I seize this opportunity to appeal to all Nigerians with conscience to let us all keep it in the front burner of national discourse. Those of us who see such incidents (in terms of the number affected) as mere statistics or something that is far away should be careful because we do not know whose turn it would be next.  The Ekezie family now knows such a thing could be so close by. They know theirs is an irreparable loss; and only God can console them.

  • Shoddy prosecution

    Shoddy prosecution

     EFCC must work on this even though it cannot explain the whole gamut of its losing cases in courts  

    In spite of the fact that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has won some corruption cases, many Nigerians are baffled more by the many cases it has lost due to lack of diligent prosecution. As a matter of fact, the question on the lips of many is: how many high-profile convictions has the commission secured? To the extent that the EFCC has not succeeded in putting behind bars any of the very important thieves that we all know (in fact they know themselves, too), who are still parading our streets free, in some cases displaying their ill-gotten wealth to our chagrin, the commission is not doing much in its mission of sanitising the public space. That, at least, is the view of many Nigerians.

    More often, this inability to secure conviction of the big thieves has been blamed on incompetent prosecution. Although this cannot totally explain the phenomenon, at the same time it cannot be dismissed with a wave of the hand. As we all know, the judiciary itself is bedevilled by so many problems which make securing convictions of high-profile criminals much more difficult. But then, it is expected that the commission would play its part well such that Nigerians would see where, actually, the problem lies. Unfortunately, this is not usually the case.

    The threat, on Monday, by Justice Sherifat Solebo of an Ikeja High Court, Lagos, handling some of the cases of alleged corruption reechoed the need for more professionalism on the part of EFCC’s prosecutors. Justice Solebo had threatened to strike out cases brought before her by the commission for want of diligent prosecution. She said she was tired of repeated excuses by the prosecution team on its failure to arraign suspects. Instead of doing that, they keep seeking for long adjournments. Again, on Monday when the court registrar read the charge in one of the cases, FG vs Olayinka Sanni and Oyebode Atoyebi, the EFCC counsel, Samuel Daji and Mrs Giwa told the court that the suspects who were on administrative bail had jumped bail.

    An apparently angry Solebo said: “I have written to the EFCC chairman, Magu, on the inability of its officials to execute and prosecute the corruption cases it filed before this court”. She added: “And with effect from this week, all corruption cases handled by the EFCC that have been dragging this honourable court behind would be struck out as a result of want of diligent prosecution”.

    One can understand her frustration. She was withdrawn from her regular court to the special court established to facilitate the trials of corruption cases. Where the prosecution begins to mess up the trials due to incompetence or whatever, then, the purpose of setting up the special courts has been defeated. If the judge carries out her threat to strike out such cases, what is the fate of the anti-corruption war? Already, another judge in the same judicial division, Justice O.A. Williams, for the same reason, struck out a corruption case in ID/0722/17 cited as FRN vs  Nkeodi Godwin, Tunde Jabita, Akai Egwungwu, Albert Blessing, Charles Okebamama and Chester Ukandu. Who is the loser? Obviously the country is, because the accused were freed not necessarily because they were innocent but because the prosecution could not prove its case against them beyond reasonable doubts.

    Lest we forget, it was in the bid to facilitate court trials that the Goodluck Jonathan administration introduced the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) in May 2015. Also, the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Walter Onnoghen, in September, last year, during the conferment of Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN) on 29 senior lawyers in Abuja announced the plan to set up an Anti-corruption Cases Trial Monitoring Committee as part of his judicial reforms, to ensure that both the trial and appellate courts handling corruption and financial cases key into the renewed efforts of ridding the country of corruption.

    And Nigeria has a surfeit of corruption cases. This is one reason why it is difficult to fault Transparency International’s (TI) ranking of the country as one of the most corrupt nations in the world. The average Nigerian knows this to be true. It is only that successive governments have always played the ostrich. Even the Jonathan government rejected the country’s ranking, arguing that its efforts at fighting corruption were not given due recognition in the assessment!

    But how else do we know that ours is a pathetically corrupt nation? Lagos alone has over 500 cases of financial crimes pending in its courts. The good news is that the bulk of these have been assigned to the Special Offences Courts in the state.  But there is a limit to which these special courts can perform magic. Here, we must take cognisance of the admonition by Monday Ubani, vice president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) that “creation of special courts with no adequate facilities, infrastructure, welfare packages; supervision, monitoring and reforms in areas that deserve it will be a colossal waste of time and resources”.

    It is clear that shoddy prosecution of cases is not the only reason the EFCC loses cases in courts. Olisa Agbakoba too gave some insight: “Poor prosecutions, weak financial resources and increased animosity towards judges are some of the reasons the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is losing many corruption cases in courts.” As a former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA). Mr Agbakoba sure knew what he was talking about when he dissected the issue last year. We have seen from Agbakoba et al that a lot of factors must be addressed before we can wage a successful anti-corruption war.

    Let’s listen more to Agbakoba: “How come the EFCC has poor charges that lawyers are able to get injunctions against them? How come the agency goes to the wrong courts many times for prosecution? They are the ones strengthening the lawyers and allowing them to get injunctions because of poor prosecution. So, they prepare their cases terribly badly. In fact, if you see a typical EFCC charge, you will almost weep. I don’t know who gave them the idea that their charges must be in hundreds. You just need one or two charges to make it easy.

    Agbakoba continued: “When cases go wrong, they start shouting, not knowing the cases are badly framed, poorly investigated and badly prosecuted. That’s why cases are thrown out and we shout lawyers and judges.”

    There is also the bad blood created by the EFCC’s breaking into the homes of some judges in the dead of night in 2016 to arrest and search their homes. Agbakoba said this naturally created a gulf between the commission and the judges. “The rule of laws dictates you don’t denigrate an institution in order to win a battle. You don’t have to go in the middle of the night to break into their residences. You know these guys. You can arrest them or even invite them. They can’t run because you know them well. Going after them in that way splits the Bar like I am against it and we now forget the issues to discuss how. The problem is the EFCC thinks it is above the laws, which is not true. That is why the anti-corruption war is not going well and needs to be corrected.”

    He went on: “That is very wrong because you are not fighting with the rule of law yet you want the rule of law to assist you deal with looters. It is not going to work. The judges will be against you. They have their discretions to rule on your cases. You cannot force them to convict any person. You must bring the accused before them and if you have already antagonised the judges, how do you want to get prosecutions? They won’t be sympathetic to you because the judges also have their challenges.”

    In addition, corruption cases are some of the most expensive cases to prosecute. So, the Federal Government must be ready to put its money where its mouth is. If it is truly desirous of fighting corruption,’ it must be ready to fund the war. In this regard, Nigeria’s super-thieves are miles ahead of the government on how to evade justice after committing atrocities. They, in collusion with some senior lawyers and corrupt judges continue to waste time on interlocutory injunctions, leaving the substantive matters unattended to, sometimes for years. When the rich thieves have reached the end of the road with such subterfuge, they now bundle their super-rich accused (colleague) to court dressed like a corpse for wake-keep. It is at that juncture that they (super thieves) claim to be having cancer, hypertension, etc, in search of public sympathy, as if they are oblivious of the fact that some people have died because of the public funds they stole that could have been used to equip our hospitals, improve agriculture, and so on, to prolong the lives of fellow citizens.

    In summary, as Babatunde Fashanu (SAN), noted, “the creation of special courts can only aid the speedy dispensation of cases in those offences, it does not guarantee conviction and punishment of persons charged before those courts. The rest of the work lies with the investigating and prosecuting agencies who need to up their efficiency and ensure thorough investigation of cases before being charged to court to scale the bar laid down by law”. I am sure the idea of the special courts is not just for speedy dispensation of cases but speedy and fair trials for the accused. Therefore, it is necessary to look into the totality of these points so that the special courts would not end up a big disappointment like the ACJA.

  • The Cleaner Lagos Initiative

    The Cleaner Lagos Initiative

    Refuse collection has always been an issue in the country. So, if it is becoming one in Lagos in recent times, it is understandably so. For a state that caters to the needs of about 18 million people, and still counting, with those arriving the state daily in search of greener pastures far outstripping those who leave, planning becomes a herculean task. There is no state in the country that has this type of challenge. As a matter of fact, most of those who come to Lagos do so to avoid the inconducive atmosphere in their respective places. The state is not only battling with the challenge of refuse disposal, it is doing so in almost all other sectors, including transportation, housing, medical care, and what have you.

    But one thing that has been going for Lagos, especially in the last 18 years, is that it has been blessed with leaders with foresight who have been leaving indelible footprints in the sands of time with their superlative performance as a result of their pragmatic approaches to governance. And Lagosians have been the better for it. The incumbent governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, has been making Lagos a huge construction site, in line with that tradition.

    Characteristically, I always use personal experience as example most of the times that I write about the epileptic power supply in the country. I will do likewise with regard to refuse collection, with particular reference to my area. There is no doubt that the Private Sector Participation (PSP) operators started well. But it is also unassailable that, over time, their services deteriorated, and many Lagosians can testify to this. As a matter of fact, when they started, they always had an exercise book that their clients signed as proof that they had come to pack refuse, I think fortnightly then. But what I noticed, and which, as a journalist I pointed out to those of them serving my place then was that it was only a question of time (probably about three months) for the exercise books to become shreds. The cover was the first to give way. With that, it became impossible to keep track of the regularity or otherwise of the refuse collectors.

    There is no system that is perfect. Indeed, it is in the process of implementation that some lapses begin to show face and are corrected. One should give some credit to the people formulating some of these policies; they might have thought (in the cited instance) that using exercise books for record-keeping purposes was good enough; but it turned out not to be. Also, a preliminary observation I have made concerning the new arrangement is that the new dust bins being provided seem too small for the quantum of refuse generated in many homes in the state. They can’t do even if those collecting refuse come once a week.

    One of the problems with the immediate past arrangement was monitoring. It did not seem that the operators were closely monitored. That was why it took the outcry over their ‘crazy’ bills by many Lagosians for government to be aware of the fact that they were not regular in refuse collection. To be fair, some of them did the job fairly well to earn the commendations of the people they served. But many were more of absentee refuse collectors. Yet, they did not reflect this in their bills. On occasions when we confronted them in 2016 and even last year on why they were not coming regularly, sometimes they would tell you their vehicles broke down. At some other times, they would also tell you they had to wait for days at Olusosun to discharge the refuse, and so on. Yet, their bills never reflected all those occasions that they offered excuses in place of service. Proper monitoring would have ensured that Lagosians paid only for the number of times the refuse collectors came.

    The other problem is that many of the vehicles used to collect garbage were themselves fit for the dunghill. I once told the Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) boss who visited our office some years ago (a lady, if my memory is not failing me), that many of these vehicles were themselves ‘junk candidates’, to use my exact words! That explained why they often broke down in the middle of the road. It also explained why they decorated the roads with half of the refuse that they carried before getting to the dumpsite.

    It was out of frustration that we wrote the Orile Agege Local Council Development Area (LCDA) when the PSP operator in our area made it to paste a seal-up notice on our gate sometime in June, last year. We said in the letter that under no circumstance should PSP operators behave like the power sector where the operators charge and insist that consumers must pay even when they did not supply electricity. As a matter of fact, we went to the local government to meet the officer in charge (a lady) who linked us on phone with the owner or main operator of the PSP serving my area with whom we engaged in a shouting match as he insisted that his men were prompt in collecting refuse in the area. Indeed, the way he spoke, it was as if his men did not miss any of the days they were supposed to come, which was humanly impossible. We told him pointedly that if he had been monitoring his men very well, rather than relying on reports that they fed him with, he would have seen that they did not come more than six to eight times in 2016; yet, they brought bills for the whole year.

    I guess this is why the people now collecting refuse in the area in Agege (Solabomi Williams Crescent, formerly Olusegun Oshinkanlu Estate) have blacklisted our house as they refused to pick our garbage when about two weeks ago they came to the area. We were not the only one who had the seal-up notice pasted on our gate quite alright; but we appeared the only one that took up the matter with the LCDA. Only God knows how many houses are suffering from this type of divide-and-rule tactic. People in private business should not ride on the back of government to collect money for jobs not done.

    I find this issue interesting because of some of the unsavoury developments in Lagos in recent times; particularly with regard to refuse collection. The state government is making efforts to transform it in line with its dream of making it a truly mega city. That is why we have houses being demolished to give way to modernity with new bridges being constructed in deserving parts of the state. The idea is not just to ease traffic and make life meaningful for Lagosians but also to enhance the aesthetics of the environment. All of these investments will be money down the drain if the refuse question is not effectively tackled. And it cannot be effectively tackled until the state government has resolved the issue of incompetent or ‘absentee refuse collectors’ among the PSP operators and, more importantly, what to do with their ‘crazy bills’.

    The way to go is not for people to coerce Lagosians to pay for services not rendered, which is what seems to be playing out, especially as I narrated earlier. For sure, the government itself had issues with many of these operators, which informed its decision to terminate its agreement with them sometime last year, resulting in litigation. As things stand, both parties appear to have settled out of court. But they cannot do this behind the most important stakeholders who wear the shoes and know where they pinch. Perhaps it would be interesting to know the details of the out-of-court settlement. It would also be interesting to know more about the new method put in place to ensure that the operators turn up regularly henceforth because the exercise books that they used in the past cannot do for the reason already stated. It is important for the state government to clear these gray areas because I can foresee a situation where many of those people who are now being denied services because they refused to pay the dubious and questionable bills that they were given in the past could individually go to court over this obviously serious and selective matter.

  • A tale of two generals

    Given the intense dislike of many Nigerians for whatever former President Matthew Aremu Okikiola Olusegun Obasanjo represents, one would have thought that his press statement, last week, on President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration would only at best have attracted perfunctory attention. But no. It is immaterial whether you like or hate Chief Obasanjo; whenever he talks, people still listen. You may quake on the basis of your hatred for his guts and complain till tomorrow that he is one of those who led us to where we are today. Whatever it is, you will still react anyhow or somehow. And I think the old man is enjoying it all. The press statement, titled “The way out: A clarion call for Coalition for Nigeria Movement” released on January 23 became such a hot cake that vendors made brisk business selling bound copies to interested readers. Not even the ‘Letters to my countrymen’ written by Prince Tony Momoh as information minister in those days were so sought after. So, we can see that there are letters and there are letters!

    One person that will not forget Obasanjo in a hurry is former President Goodluck Jonathan and his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Matters got to a head when Chief Obasanjo tore his membership card of the PDP in what not a few saw not just from the physical angle but from what they felt was its metaphysical symbolism. Indeed, many people felt that singular act contributed in no small measure to the defeat of PDP at the polls in 2015. Ipso facto, it is difficult not to appreciate the role that Obasanjo played in bringing about the Buhari presidency. At any rate, both Obasanjo and Buhari are retired generals. What we are told is that fowls don’t eat each other’s intestine. That wise saying has to be reworked in view of this development. But from the look of things, Obasanjo does not appear to be speaking alone. Let’s leave that for another day.

    In the absence of an effective opposition, which is a sine quanon in a democracy, statements like the one written by Obasanjo could fill the vacuum. Whatever the former president said in his press statement should have been the responsibility of an effective opposition. Unfortunately, the PDP that should be tackling the government appears to be on sabbatical. In fact, it is as if the party is itself under a spell or spiritual enchantment due to what it did to the country before power was taken from it in 2015. Or, could it be guilty conscience that is responsible for the former ruling party’s tepid opposition? I asked this question because I am one of the persons who feel that the former ruling party is most unfit to criticise any government due to its own shameful performance, particularly in the Jonathan years.

    To be fair to the Buhari administration, it has recorded some modest achievements as it pointed out in the reply to Obasanjo’s statement. For instance, it cannot be denied that the foreign reserves have risen from $28.6 billion that the government inherited in 2015 to about $40bn today. The government has also succeeded in pushing electricity generation from about 4,700MW that it met on ground to 7,000MW; rice import has reduced drastically in two years, (I do not want to quote government’s figures because some people are challenging that) but it is undeniable that we have more local rice in the country today than we had two years ago. Moreover, the government is feeding about 5.2million primary school pupils free in some 28,249 schools in 19 states. The stock market has just been adjudged as one of the best performing in the world, among others.

    It would appear though that these achievements are obscured by a few but salient issues that Nigerians consider very crucial but which the government appears not to consider so. Nigerians have been complaining about the seeming kid gloves with which herdsmen are being treated despite the atrocities they are perpetrating across the country in the name of grazing. Indeed, this is one reason why the government may not find favour with the people on cattle colony. The air has been so fouled that it is almost late in the day to want to convince anybody that the herdsmen would not seek to extend whatever territories might be designated as their colonies.

    There is also the issue of the anti-corruption war that many see as selective. For instance, former secretary to the government of the federation, Babachir Lawal, is only now being interrogated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), months after he was supposed to have been grilled and prosecuted for the alleged crime over which he lost his plum job. There is also the allegation of cronyism levelled against the president.

    If you ask me though, I disagree with some aspects of the former president’s statement. For instance, I do not agree that President Buhari should retire or dismount “to reflect, refurbish physically and recoup and after appropriate rest, once again, join the stock of Nigerian leaders whose experience, influence, wisdom and outreach can be deployed on the side line for the good of the country…” I want to say without fear of contradiction that one of the major problems that this country faces today is that of still relying on past leaders for direction. As Chief Obasanjo himself noted, one cannot give what he does not have. If these past leaders had what it takes to move this country forward, we would not be where we are today. We had countries like India, Singapore and others that were on the same level with Nigeria in the 1960s and perhaps 1970s. Today, they have become giants in their own rights while Nigeria remains the sleeping “Giant of Africa’ or the ‘potentially great’ country or ‘hope of the black man’ that they have always said it was even before I was born. My prognosis therefore is that if Nigeria is to make progress, we must first sever our umbilical cord from these past leaders and start our lives afresh. We don’t have to punish them for messing up our lives; but we do not need them to move us forward. After all, as the wife of one of them, Patience Jonathan said, ‘there is God o’!

    Isn’t it the height of hypocrisy when you tried to get third term and failed; but you are advising someone not to seek second term? Chief Obasanjo himself was about 70 years when seeking third term and would have been at least 74 years in office as president if this quest had materialised. Buhari would just be about two years older when (or if) he decides to seek second term next year. So, what’s the difference?

    For me, the age and health factors cited by former President Obasanjo as reasons for Buhari to go home and rest came in because of the way the government is being run. Even in the United States, some of the men who occupied the Oval Office had one ailment or the other. These included Andrew Jackson: 1829–1837, who suffered from rotting teeth, chronic headaches, failing eyesight, bleeding in his lungs, internal infection, and pain from two bullet wounds from two separate duels. Then William Taft: 1909–1913 who weighed over 300 pounds at a time. He was obese but lost about 100 pounds through aggressive dieting. Taft’s weight initiated sleep apnea, which disrupted his sleep and caused him to be tired during the day and sometimes sleep through important political meetings. Due to his excess weight, he also had high blood pressure and heart problems.

    There was also Woodrow Wilson: 1913–1921.Along with hypertension, headaches, and double vision, Wilson experienced a series of strokes, which affected his right hand and made him unable to write normally for a year. More strokes rendered him blind in his left eye, paralysing his left side and forcing him into a wheelchair. But he kept his paralysis a secret. However, this, when discovered, prompted the 25th Amendment which allows the vice president to take power upon the president’s death, resignation, or disability. We can go on and on. The takeaway from all these, according to healthline Newsletter, is that “anyone can develop the diseases and illnesses prevalent in our society, from obesity to heart disease, depression to anxiety, and more.”

    Anyway, now that Chief Obasanjo has spoken (we must admit though that he has said nothing new). Some of his observations had been pointed out by many other Nigerians, and severally too on this page.

    What to do?

    Separate the message from the messenger. President Buhari has two options: one, he can compile the criticisms as listed by Obasanjo and others and see which ones require correction and do the rightful. The other option is for the president to ignore these calls for a change of direction and continue listening to the usual praise orchestra that is never in short supply in our government houses. But my candid advice is that the latter option is actually no option.

    There is need for President Buhari to reconsider his style of governance. A few months back, he hinted at the possibility of re-jigging his cabinet. We did not prod him to do that. If this is what is needed to get the government properly focused, then it is getting late in coming. The only thing President Buhari owes those of us who staked our all to back him in 2015 without getting a dime is to silent the likes of Obasanjo and other critics who just want to continue to be relevant after wasting our national assets and our lives when they were in power.