The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tunji Adegboyega

  • Softly, softly CCT chair Danladi Umar

    Softly, softly CCT chair Danladi Umar

    CCT chair Danladi Umar needs to take a cue from Prof Attahiru Jega’s uncommon patience when dealing with the (then) falling Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) as INEC was collating the result of the presidential election last year. Godsday Orubebe (remember him?) was the man appointed to play the party’s last joker. We saw how hard Orubebe tried to scuttle the exercise in anticipation of getting Jega annoyed, thus creating a stalemate that would have made the announcement of the election result inconclusive. But Jega showed uncommon composure, which over time wore out Orubebe because that was not what he and those who sent him anticipated. It was an exhausted and disappointed Orubebe that was whisked away from the venue before Jega took the microphone and gave him a thorough tongue-lashing. Orubebe might have apologised for his folly, but that would not erase what he did. So, while we take judicial notice of his apology, generations unborn will still get to know that he did what he did.

    In the same vein, those creating the drama that we are seeing in the Dr Bukola Saraki matter know what they are doing. They want the judge (Danladi Umar) to lose his cool so as to make their case that he cannot be fair to Saraki look real; no more, no less. Not many of our lawyers, including some of the very senior ones, are well grounded in the law these days; many are experts in technicalities rather than substantive innocence or guilt. So, when it seems technicalities are no longer selling, they are like fish out of water. We know where Saraki’s supporters are coming from and where they are going. They won’t mind going for the leg having missed the ball. We have heard what they are saying, even though they have not uttered a word.

    As Chinua Achebe once said, “an old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb”.

    So, softly, softly, Justice Umar!

     

  • The Synagogue trial

    The Synagogue trial

    This is a good development because we must find out
    why the church building collapsed, killing 116 persons

    It takes exceptional courage to drag a mega church like The Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) to court in our kind of environment where those in authority adore men of God even though their hearts are far from God Himself. So, the fact that the Lagos State government took the courage to sue the church over the killing of about 116 persons in its guest house that collapsed on September 12, 2014, most of them foreigners, offers a refreshing relief to what obtained in the past. This is not rejoicing that a religious organisation, and a big one at that, is being dragged to court but because that is the right thing to do. The truth is that some of our celebrated pastors believe they are above the law and that they can do and undo without suffering any consequences. The point must be made that this is not true and that no one is above the law; which is what the Lagos State government has done by dragging SCOAN to court. Governor Akinwunmi Ambode must be commended for taking over the matter where his predecessor stopped. It would send the right signal to others that might want to toe the same path, irrespective of their creed or status.

    But the beauty of it all is that both parties are taking advantage of the only option available – the courts- to resolve the matter. Indeed, the state government’s reaction is the latest in the series of actions that had trailed the unfortunate incident. Synagogue, led by Prophet Temitope Joshua, had dragged the state government to court last year, to challenge the verdict of the Coroner’s court that investigated the matter. Its argument was that the “Coroner’s Court of Lagos State, Alimosho District,” which presided over the matter and delivered the verdict is unknown to the Coroner’s Court of Lagos State. It also said that the court exceeded its statutory jurisdiction by concluding that structural failure due to the combination of design and detailing errors caused the collapse of the six-storey building.

    The court had specifically ordered that the church be investigated and prosecuted for not possessing the necessary building permit and that its two engineers should be tried for criminal negligence. Thereafter, Pastor TB Joshua and his church filed a fundamental human rights enforcement suit before a Federal High Court, Lagos, seeking an order of certiorari quashing the verdict of the coroner’s court presided over by Magistrate Komolafe Oyetade. Joined as defendants in the suit were the Coroner, Magistrate Oyetade, the state’s attorney-general and commissioner for justice, the state commissioner of police and Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria, COREN. Unfortunately, the Federal High Court dismissed the suit meant to stop the arrest and prosecution of the church and the engineers.  It was after this that the Lagos State Government late last year instituted a 111-count criminal charge against the Trustees of the church and the two engineers.

    Whichever way the suit goes, the important thing for public policy is that the state government has demonstrated that it could take upon any individual or institution, no matter the status of such in the society. For far too long, we have had a situation where state governments, and sometimes even the Federal Government shy away from confronting powerful persons and institutions when they err. This is why some of the religious institutions see themselves as sacred cows or untouchables. Some of them would not even allow government agencies enter their premises to assess commercial ventures that they are operating in addition to the churches. Some would not want to pay any form of charges on their premises. One wonders where they got that example from because even Jesus Christ paid tax and enjoined Christians to “give unto Caesar whet is Caesar’s”. Yet, the state governments would simply look the other way because they do not want to offend the men of God.

    Since the Synagogue incident happened, one issue that has always been raised is that the church did not obtain the relevant permits before adding another three floors to the existing three, which eventually collapsed. I am not aware there is anywhere the church contradicted this. Rather than do that, we have had emotions running riot as if that would bring back the dead, or as if it is the answer to the question of impunity that was alleged. Indeed, rather than address the issue, the church has been laying claim to a certain aircraft that hovered over the building before it finally collapsed, claiming that it was the jet that bombed the building or brought it down through controlled demolition. Where the church was not citing any of these excuses for the tragedy, its lawyers had busied themselves filing multiple applications to stay proceedings in the matter. Mercifully, the Lagos State government has repeatedly insisted that the collapse must be tried, making it imperative for the government to institute the 111-count criminal charge against the Trustees of the church and the two engineers.

    It is important we get to the bottom of the Synagogue tragedy. A situation where 116 persons died from a building that collapsed is too grievous to be swept under the carpet. As I said, how the matter ends in court is not necessarily the issue; even how long it takes for us to get to the end is not important. What is paramount is that we should not pretend that nothing happened in this kind of tragedy. Its international dimension makes it the more compelling for us to see the matter to its logical conclusion. Who did what has to be established and blame and punishment apportioned as appropriate to serve as deterrent to others.

     

  • Saraki: end of a gambit

    Saraki: end of a gambit

    Not our dream Number Three Citizen 

    Senate President Bukola Saraki is fast becoming the proverbial tortoise of our time; with his name mentioned in every story ignoble, and his hand suspected to be too deep into the cookie jar. Right now, the country’s number three citizen has a date with the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), where he is to defend himself against allegations of false declaration of assets and fraud, having failed in his bid to nullify the trial, ostensibly on grounds that it was a breach of his fundamental human rights. Fundamental human rights my foot! Saraki had no basis going to the Federal High Court which ruled against him on Friday without even going to the merit of the case in the first place, since the Court of Appeal had already decided before Saraki’s voyage to the Federal High Court that he should face his trial at the CCT. One wonders why the court could not fine him for wasting its valuable time.

    Obviously, Dr Saraki has forgotten that times are changing. That was the same way many personalities in the country in the past evaded trial for crimes they committed, by using subterfuge and technicalities to frustrate the legal system, albeit with the active connivance of some people in the judiciary. Saraki could have had his way in the past, even if it meant the courts giving conflicting orders. Our big people don’t mind pulling down the roof over everybody’s head just to evade sanctions for their iniquitous ways. This is one of the very few countries where people will spend years in court arguing preliminary issues while the substantive matter is left to linger. This is one of the few countries where people will waste the court’s time arguing about technicalities instead of pleading guilty or not, to allow the court proceed from there. For God’s sake, how does appearance before the CCT, duly established by law to try Saraki’s kind of crime, amount to infringement of his fundamental human rights? The way our personalities lay claim to fundamental human rights, one is tempted to think it is their exclusive preserve because hardly do you see an ordinary citizen talk about such rights when arraigned.

    While we await Saraki’s speedy trial at the CCT, it is pertinent to mention that this is just one of the many troubles he has to contend with. As if to add salt to his injury, the Panama Papers scandal broke, right in the midst of the mess the number three citizen has put himself. This is one thing that tells me his time is up and his colleagues who probably have ‘obtained’ and are shamelessly rooting for him come rain come shine had better have a rethink, lest they be caught on the wrong side of the divide. I believe Saraki is merely bidding time as senate president because we had a similar experience in President Goodluck Jonathan’s time when his then Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah, was enmeshed in the bullet-proof car scandal. At about the same time, a Ghanaian minister who was only dreaming of having one million dollars in her account was fired for not coming against such dream, at a time Dr Jonathan was still thinking about what to do to Oduah. She was eventually forced out of the cabinet after public pressure.

    According to the Panama Papers’ report, Saraki’s family has at least four assets tucked away in secret offshore territories, which the senate president did not declare to the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) as required by Nigerian laws, especially since he was said to have bought one of the property for three million pounds when he was Kwara State governor. These are damning allegations that must have compounded Dr Saraki’s woes, coming especially at this point in time.

    This is a scandal that has, in less than two weeks (it broke on April 3, 2016) already left casualties in some other countries. Iceland’s Prime Minister Sigmumdur Gunnlaugsson, resigned his office barely two days after the scandal broke. Yet, his wife was the one directly involved; not himself, and he was not under any obligation to declare his wife’s assets. The man simply collapsed under the weight of public opinion. “He (Gunnlaugsson) told us to believe in Iceland,” Sigmundur Halldorsson, a 49-year-old Reykjavik-born Web developer, said by telephone. “But at the same time he decided Iceland wasn’t a very good place to keep his money.” Can you smell the ‘Nigerian flavour’ in this statement?

    Like Gunnlaugsson, there is no evidence yet to prove that British Prime Minister David Cameron has broken any British law. He said he had declared the properties bequeathed to him by his father and that he had duly paid taxes on them. Still, he has had to make four explanations in five days, just to convince his people of his innocence in the scandal. Also, Spain’s industry minister José Manuel Soria who resigned on Friday became the latest casualty of the Panama Papers data leak. Indeed, Soria resigned both his parliamentary seat and his post as minister of industry, energy and tourism in the country’s caretaker government. He also quit his role as regional president of the ruling centre-right Popular party in the Canary Islands, which he represented in parliament. Spain’s acting finance minister, Cristóbal Montoro, drove the message vividly home at a press conference several hours after Mr Soria’s resignation: “No one who’s operated in tax havens can be in the government”. Soria was himself remorseful; he said he had taken his decision to quit “considering the obvious damage that this situation is causing the government of Spain, the Popular party, my fellow activists and voters”. This was after what he termed “the lack of precise information about events that occurred more than 20 years ago”. In Dr Jonathan’s era, it would have been dismissed as a mere ‘family affair’!

    Is it not paradoxically shameful that it is about this time that Saraki’s ‘loyalists’ are digging in; looking for ways to subvert our legal process?  It is only in Nigeria that those named are too big and powerful for the government to squeal about.  It is just unfortunate that people cannot see when the time is up. There must be a purpose why the Panama Papers’ scandal broke at this point in time, and the senate president and his co-travellers would do well to begin to see the handwriting on the wall. Even if Saraki is the proverbial cat with nine lives; he must have exhausted all the lives by now, given the enormity of the scandals surrounding him and his name, now and ever before. The world may be about to see the inglorious end of a political dream, if not by legal means but by the sheer weight of the (im) moral burden. We cannot afford to carry on with a number three citizen with the kind of moral luggage that Dr Saraki logs. If this is the kind of senate we have, there is nothing wrong in asking Nigerians to troop to the place to flush out those who are buying and selling there. It is shameful. They should not get away with the satanic intension to amend either the CCB or the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) laws. We should give them the Iceland treatment if they insist on having their way.

    Dr Saraki’s antecedents are not particularly ennobling to make us comfortable with him as our number three citizen. Even the way he became senate president, to use Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s expression, had ‘K-leg’, with the intrigues and accompanying acrimony in the party that produced him. The police are even raising issues with the senate rules that produced him as senate president. It is becoming clear that those who backed him to the senate presidency had their mission; and that mission is anti-people as we are beginning to see, given their attempt to pull wool over the face of Nigerians with their mad rush to amend the two critical laws that could see their principal get justice fast; when all else had failed. This is desperation writ large; and that has defined Dr Saraki’s political ambition all these years. The brazen manner he and his co-travellers are going about it tells us that shame was out of stock when many of them were preparing to come to the world.

  • Fuel and light

    Fuel and light

    These are nuts Buhari must crack

    “Waaater, lightii, foooodu, houseee, wetin do them; you mean you no know? I go tell you …” That was the legendary Fela Anikulapo-Kuti in one of his albums in (I guess) the 80s. The thing wey do dem when Fela sang that song still dey do them today. That is whay I laugh whenever they say the National Council of State wants to meet to deliberate on (to use their expression) “how to move Nigeria forward”. Were they not the same people that brought us to our sorry pass? But, can Buhari make the difference? Can he make Fela reverse himself in his grave? Time will tell.

    But, if ever there is a time Nigeria should not be having the problem of fuel and light, it is now. The weather is rather harsh. Unfortunately, Nigerians have been living  without light and fuel, with the supply of  the latter becoming so unpredictable, especially in the last two months. In those days, food, water and shelter were classified as man’s basic needs.

    But man’s needs have transcended these basic three. In modern times, fuel and light have also assumed importance. Indeed, in many countries, they are taken for granted. But they have, unfortunately, become issues in a place like Nigeria due to lack of planning, lack of foresight on the part of successive governments, and corruption, especially in high places. All these have been compounded by the docility of Nigerians who have come to accept their fate in the hands of these irresponsible governments with philosophical equanimity.

    One particular aspect of the fuel crisis that is disturbing is seeing Nigerians carry generators, sometimes on their heads to filling stations. A caller on Lagos Traffic Radio made a vital point on Thursday during discussion on the ongoing fuel crisis. He asked if the person who banned sale of petrol in jerry cans has generator that uses petrol. It was a rhetorical (even if instructive) question that I am sure he himself did not expect the presenter of the programme to answer. But the point was well made because banning sale of petrol in jerry cans is not necessarily the issue. Without doubt, many of those buying petrol in jerry cans do so in order to resell at cut-throat prices just a few metres away from the filling station where they bought it.

    But many too do so in order to be able to power their generators at home or in their various offices or shops. Now, can we quantify the losses of artisans and people in offices who have been denied both electricity from the national grid and still cannot use their generators because government has banned sale of petrol in jerry cans (even when they are ready to buy the fuel at exorbitant prices)?

    We have not even talked about people who require petrol for their generators for relaxation, and more importantly to power their fans, to cushion the harsh effects of the hot weather. In a typical tropical climate like ours, it is no luxury for someone to make arrangement for his private electricity supply for such purposes when public power supply is unreliable. So, after a hectic day’s job, one would still get home to experience the frustration of not being able to power one’s generator because government has banned sale of petrol in jerry cans. It may not be the intention of the government to punish Nigerians by this ban. Unfortunately, that is what it has turned out to be, and that is why I said Nigerians are docile. In some other places, such frustration is enough to make people troop to the streets. Government that has failed in its minimum responsibility of providing fuel has now turned round to impose the maximum punishment on hapless people whose only misfortune is their inability to have good governance all these years. You need to be at the filling stations to hear uncomplimentary comments from people who keep vigil there to buy petrol.

    Rather than ban outright sale of petrol in jerry cans, what the government should do is limit the quantity of petrol any individual can buy in jerry cans, at least to make room for some of the other purposes I highlighted. It is not everyone that buys petrol in jerry can that wants to resell. Indeed, petrol attendants know those who buy and resell, and many of them would not hesitate to sell as many jerry cans for those people as they want because they know they would make a lot of money from them. I witnessed one such experience at the Mobil filling station near Pleasure Bus Stop on the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway on Friday. After waiting to buy fuel from about 5.30 a.m. to past 12 in the afternoon, they did not start selling until around 9.00 a.m. They said they had to wait for their chairman who probably was still snoring at the time many of us had left our beds for his filling station. When they eventually started to sell petrol, they focused on people who came with as many as seven jerry cans of about 25 litres in their car boots and back seats!  This was after an ‘alfa’ (I did not know whether he was their employee) had announced to us all on their behalf that they would not sell fuel in jerry cans! This naturally led to self-induced chaos that made them stop selling fuel. I left the place frustrated after waiting in vain on queues that hardly moved.

    Moreover, rather than ban sale of petrol in jerry cans, why can’t security agents arrest those who buy and resell at the black market since they do that in the open, if the idea is to discourage the practice, rather than make everyone pay for the sins of an insignificant few?

    Yes, the argument that it is dangerous to have fuel in jerry cans is valid, but even when there is no fuel scarcity, people have always bought petrol in jerry cans because they must power their generators either at home or to run their businesses. The best way the government can show concern for the sanctity of lives in the country is by creatively and systematically thinking out of the box to solve the problems of power and energy. No one in his right senses would buy petrol in the black market if there is fuel at the filling stations. It is an eye sore seeing Nigerians carry generators to filling stations on their heads or on ‘okada’ ; indeed, it is a national shame and embarrassment that this is the situation in a major oil producing country.

    However, let nothing I have said be misconstrued as blaming the Muhammadu Buhari administration for the mess in the energy and power sectors. Just as I am not in league with especially the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members who are asking the government to perform instead of fishing for excuses in the erstwhile ruling PDP. It is not their fault; that is the kind of thing you see in a country where values have gone to the dogs. Many of these people in a place like China would have been rotting away in their graves. The lucky ones among them would be eating dry beans and maize in the prison by now!

    My mission, however, is to let the government know the enormity of the energy and power conundrums. Light and fuel have become to us today what food, water and shelter were in the past. Even the GSM phones to some people are indispensable such that if they forget them at home, they are uncomfortable until they are able to lay their hands on them again. The seeming intractability of the crisis is something that many Nigerians do not find funny. That explains why some of them are beginning to ask, and so early in the day, whether they made the right choice during the last general elections. This is a statement induced by frustration and it is quite natural. It is intolerable that the power system would collapse twice in less than two weeks. If the Buhari government discovers that it was bequeathed a ‘one chance’ power sector, it should do away with it. The solution, as many of us have always argued, is not necessarily about raising tariffs. The government would also do well to realise that neither the scorching heat nor the sleeplessness occasioned by vigil-keeping at petrol stations is a friend of the body. And it should resolve that never again would such a thing repeat itself. No explanations would do, because there is no explanation that can sufficiently comfort the child whose mother was killed by a wolf.

  • Unruly newspaper agents

    Unruly newspaper agents

    Time to cut them to size

    For about four days in the past week, newspaper houses, specifically The Nation, The Punch, Vanguard and The Sun had running battles with newspaper agents in Kakawa and Ikeja (Lagos), and Abuja, who in the height of ignorance did not know that where their own freedom to accept or not to accept newspapers to sell stops, the newspapers’ own begins. The agents refused to accept the newspapers and went to the ridiculous extent of beating up some sales representatives. They even confiscated copies of some newspapers. I have nothing against their decision to reject the newspapers if they feel their interest has not been well taken care of; but to go as far as beating up sales representatives or confiscating newspapers was definitely going out of bounds.

    The bone of contention is how much the agents should get with the increase in the cover prices of daily newspapers from N150.00 to N200.00, and weekend titles from N200.00 to N250.00. When the newspaper houses increased the cover price of their products, of course they took the agents into consideration.  They (agents) used to collect N50.00 per copy sold when the daily titles sold for N150.00 and N60.00 for the weekend titles then sold at N200. However, with the increase in price, they are now insisting on N70 commission per copy for the daily, and N87.50 for the weekend papers. Well, they can insist on anything, provided they do it within the ambits of the law. But to get violent and insist that it is  their will or nothing is definitely illegal.

    A letter written by the Lagos Island Zone of the Newspapers and Magazines Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NDAN) speaks volumes about their reasoning. It says, inter alia: “Contrary to this N130 and N162.50 please do not bring your products to our zones with effect from 28th March 2016”. What do they mean by “our zone”?  Although the letter is from just a chapter of the association, it could be assumed to be the average reasoning by the members, especially considering that the Lagos Island branch is supposed to be an elite branch. It must be stressed though that many agents in other places did not join the illegal action despite the invitation extended to them to do so.

    To the extent that no production process is complete until whatever is produced gets to the consumer, newspaper agents are crucial to the delivery of newspapers to the readers.  But that is in this part of the world. There is nothing like newspaper agents in many other countries; yet, newspapers still get to readers. Even here in Nigeria, The Punch fought them (newspaper agents) to a standstill a few years ago. Today, the newspaper is the better for it. What this tells us is that newspaper agents, just like any other group of persons or organisations, are not indispensable in the chain. Newspapers can therefore do without them when they want to be dysfunctional in their operations. It seems we have got to that bridge and we must cross it now.

    It is pertinent to mention that the newspapers increased their cover price due to the prevailing economic situation in the country with a very heavy heart, mindful of the economic hardship Nigerians are already going through. But matters were worsened by the falling exchange rate which saw the price of the most vital material in the industry, newsprint, skyrocket from about N180,000 per ton in December, last year, to about N320,000 in January. Prices of other essentials like ink, plates, etc have also jumped up, making it inevitable for the newspapers to raise their cover price to meet production costs as well as stay afloat. It was against this backdrop that the newspaper houses raised their cover price. This should be understandable in a country where even fruits and groundnut sellers increase the prices of their products simply because ‘dalla don cos’ (dollar is now costly).

    Regrettably, agents who incur little or no cost in newspaper business beyond the small offices that they rent are trying to dictate what newspaper houses should pay them as commission. In some cases, they do not even pay for the space which some state governments (e.g. Lagos) graciously gave to them simply on account of the attachment of their job to media houses, not in their personal recognition.  These are people who do not know how much newsprint cost, they have no idea of how much ink cost; they invest no kobo in printing press or pre-press machines which runs into millions of Naira. We know how many millions we spend to buy and maintain high capacity generators in our offices nationwide to make our papers available to readers on time. We know how much we spend on diesel monthly. We know how much we spend on freight; we know how much we pay as salaries; we know how much we spend maintaining three locations where we do simultaneous printing. Let these agents tell the world their investment in the business to now warrant dictating to newspaper houses how much commission they want to get.

    Meanwhile, they return as unsold copies of newspapers that they could not sell on a daily basis. So, what risk is involved in their operations? It is also common knowledge that some of them engage in unwholesome practices with some equally unscrupulous sales representatives in the newspaper houses who supply stolen copies of newspapers to the agents at rock-bottom prices and both of them share the illicit profit. What this does is to deny the newspapers of legitimate earnings because the official copies delivered to the agents are eventually returned as unsold.

    In these circumstances, one should expect the professional bodies in the industry, the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) and the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN) to speak up against the tyranny of the newspaper agents and indeed cut them to size. The agents in Lagos who were invited by the Commissioner of Police Ajani Fatai Owoseni, following a petition by three of the newspapers said they wanted to discuss with the NPAN. Since when has that started? Was it the NPAN that had been dealing with them all these years? Where else in the world do newspaper agents seek to have audience with newspaper proprietors?

    Obviously, the chronic poverty in the industry, arising from its gross under-capitalisation is at work here. Indeed, this was what made N9million look like gold to the newspapers which quickly pocketed the money offered by the Jonathan administration for the military assault on the newspapers in the tail-end of that government, only to return it when they realised it was forbidden fruit. Yet, those of them doing well make more than N9million daily. Also, it is this under-capitalisation that has led some journalists to have two caps: on the one hand they are journalists, and, on the other, they are portfolio investors. Then there is also the problem of NPAN itself which, to me, looks more like an amalgam of strange bedfellows. It is curious that the association has not uttered a word for the four or so days the agents’ imbroglio with the newspapers lasted. It is more than curious that mum has been the word from the same NPAN that went into negotiation with government and got a paltry N9million for the heavy losses some of its members incurred during the raid on newspapers by soldiers. The unity in the association manifests more in its diversity; with the centripetal tendencies usually caving in to the centrifugal contradictions in critical moments as this.  It is probably only in the newspaper industry that you find proprietors silent when this kind of problem arises. It simply tells that the unity in the association is suspect.

    This is why, with or without NPAN, the affected newspapers should take their destiny in their hands. The Punch did not seek the support of NPAN when it fought the agents; if it did, it would not have achieved the success it did achieve then. Those who confiscated newspapers simply on account of this disagreement with newspaper houses must be made to pay for their illegality. Will Coca-Cola or Dangote Cement distributors tell those companies how much commission they must give them (distributors)? If the answer is no, then, newspaper agents have no business dictating to newspapers how much they should sell the products that they invested billions to produce. If they think the deal is no longer good for them, they should do what Coca-Cola or Dangote Cement distributors would do – look for something else to do.

     

  • A minister’s gospel truth

    A minister’s gospel truth

    Kachikwu says we should give him two months to expect fuel always; let’s oblige him to fulfill all righteousness

    For once, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) spoke the truth in a long time on the lingering fuel scarcity. But it almost immediately lost the credit through its denial of what is obvious. The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources who doubles as the corporation’s managing director, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, declared, rather categorically, that Nigerians may have to live with persistent fuel scarcity till May or thereabout. This is a radical departure from the lies and, at best, half truths that we have been hearing about the fuel situation. Although before now, discerning Nigerians have always known that there is more to the fuel scarcity that won’t just go away, than meets the eye, there is nothing as good as hearing the real reason from the man that should know and that knows; and who is also competent to speak on the issue. These are different matters altogether.

    One may not know and still be expected to speak as if he knows. There is a problem, here. Again, one may know (the truth) but may not be competent to say it as it is when he has not got the green light to say it, either expressly or through his master’s body language. Here, too, there is a problem. But there is nothing as good as hearing it undiluted from the one who should know and who actually knows and at the same time is in a position to speak on it. Succinctly put, there is nothing as good as hearing it from the horse’s mouth.

    Dr Kachikwu spoke on Wednesday after a closed-door meeting between President Muhammadu Buhari and the National President of Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Igwe Achese, and President of Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), Comrade Olabode Francis Johnson, at the Presidential Villa. The minister said part of the problem is that the NNPC had moved from a 50 per cent importer of products to basically a 100 per cent importer. He said it was quite a huge feat that the country even had the current amount of the product at the filling stations.

    Asked specifically when the fuel queues will disappear, Kachikwu said, “One of the trainings I did not receive is that of a magician, but I am working very hard to ensure some of these issues go away … We are going to put a new model to enable us to increase the pace and actually get majors as part of the crew of those to bring in more products so that the NNPC will sort of go back on the capacity of what it used to do and the majors will take over the balance of importation. I think if we do that, although I don’t want to put a time frame, but I will expect that over the next two months, we should see quite frankly a complete elimination of this (fuel queues).”

    The truth of the matter is that, for decades, NNPC spokespersons have usually fallen short of telling us the truth about the situation whenever we experience gruelling fuel scarcity. They regale us with how there is sufficient product to go round but for some marketers who are sabotaging the government’s efforts. They tell us how tankers of fuel are being diverted or smuggled out to neighbouring countries.  Even recently when the current fuel scarcity refused to go away and the trade unions in the oil industry said we should be prepared to live with the scarcity till March-end, the corporation’s reaction was to inundate us with the number of cargoes that were either waiting  at the ports loaded with petroleum products, etc., as if that was the answer to the scarcity, or as if the unions did not know what they were saying. It is not that sometimes, marketers do not play funny, their activities alone cannot account for the scarcity.

    Anyway, we now know better. If the unions had said we should expect a regular supply of petroleum products from month-end, the man who should know has come to clarify that we even have to wait longer for this to happen. NNPC’s spokespersons would do better if they do not try to amend the truth as they usually do  in crisis situations.

    By implication, what the minister is saying is that, if we’ve stopped taking our mats to banks to siddon or sleep pending when the tellers would attend to us, we should not throw away those mats yet because we might still need them in our filling stations, at least for the next two months in the first instance; that is ceteris paribus. This is neither to incite nor to indict anyone; it is just the grim truth that we must face after the colossal damage done to the country’s economy, the oil sector inclusive. I guess this is what the NNPC thought was embarrassing, hence, its attempt to do what it knows how to do best, by saying their boss was misinterpreted. I wonder why the corporation’s spokespersons, like the leopard, would never change their spots. They seem to forget that, as Pinoy Rap Radio says, “Tell a lie once and all your truths will become questionable.” They should even attempt to tell the truth once. When debunking the stories in the media on what the minister said, the corporation, unlike the minister, did not put a time frame to when the fuel queues will disappear. Rather, it talked of some weeks from now. What does this mean, compared to the minister’s assertion that “…I will expect that over the next two months, we should see quite frankly a complete elimination of this (fuel queues)”?

     Dr Kachikwu however touched a vital point which would be the second such points he would be touching since the administration came on board in May, last year. He spoke about strategic reserve. It is unfortunate that Nigeria has not given this a serious consideration for years. Towards this end, whatever is produced in the country’s  refineries will not be sold but kept in strategic reserves because, as he noted, the major problem is that there is no reserve anytime there is a gap in supply. I cannot remember since when I have been hearing about America’s oil reserves. Anyway, it is better late than never. This is a good idea because to do otherwise would continue to expose the country to the vagaries of the international oil market. We don’t have to start sneezing immediately  there is a slight challenge in the international oil market.

    The second major point that the minister made has to do with local refineries. Until early this month, the government appeared to have kept mum on this issue to the extent that one would not be wrong to say it seemed comfy with importation. “We are working with JV partners who can come into the refinery area; we have advertised recently for co-located refineries, asking for people to come and co-locate brand new refineries, coupled into our refinery premises and they can share pipelines and tankages.

    “We are working hard to see if we can complete the refineries we are trying to do with JV partners within the next 12 to 18 months. For the co-located refineries which are the new ones, we are targeting to see that we are able to complete those over a period of two to three years. If we do that, we will have excess capacity of refined products and we’ll begin to look at export market.”

    Naturally, Labour unions and manufacturers are agitated that two months is too long a time to make Nigerians stop spending eternity at filling stations. To an extent, they have a point. Those who have been bearing the brunt of the epileptic fuel supply, particularly since January when the present round began, have every cause to complain. It is unfortunate that Nigerians, whose country is a major crude oil producer, have to suffer this type of anguish. But the oil sector is not the only place where we, like the children of bad and irresponsible meat sellers, are forced to be grateful for having bones to eat.

    All said, Nigerians should give the minister benefit of the doubt if that would make the difference. Maybe I am of this opinion because I do not expect quick fix to many of the country’s challenges, given the monumental damage done to the economy before the advent of the present government. Matters have been complicated by the lack of foreign exchange occasioned by the fall in crude prices and massive corruption, the stories of which we are hearing without end till date. However, if the government keeps faith with its promise, things should begin to ease in the sector soon, especially if the local refineries are able to produce enough for the strategic reserve. We have lived from hand to mouth for too long, with regard to fuel supply. We need something to fall back on whenever there is crisis in the supply chain.

    My joy in all of these is that we are now having targets to hold the Muhammadu Buhari government accountable to in the oil sector. The government has given itself targets on when fuel queues will end, latest; it has also told us that new refineries are under way and that in about 18 months from now, we would start to feel their impact. This means we are no longer left to grope in the dark. I think this should suffice for now.

  • Averting another Babington Macaulay!

    Averting another Babington Macaulay!

    Lesson we must learn from the abduction of ‘Ikorodu 3’

    But for matters of urgent national importance that have been in the news in the last three weeks or so, I had wanted to comment on the erection of a new fence for Lagos Baptist High School on Ota Road in Agege, Lagos. I have known the school for more than 15 years and I have never liked it. Why? Because the school fence had virtually collapsed, making its students vulnerable to all kinds of negative influences from undesirable elements that are usually taking advantage of the dilapidated fence to gain entry into the school compound.

    But, if more pressing issues had been postponing my comment on the  fence at Lagos Baptist High School in the last two weeks, the abduction of three students at Babington Macaulay Junior Seminary in Ikorodu on February 29 has made it compelling for the piece to come out today. The girls were rescued last Sunday. Indeed, I was in the church when one of the pastors announced that the father of one of the kidnapped girls who had been told of the prayers in the church for the safe rescue of the girls came to say thank you, even before seeing his daughter. Unfortunately, the man had left before the pastor made the announcement. Otherwise, I would have loved to have a chat with him. I must confess though that one of my former neighbours told me last Sunday too that the school is good. But the shortcoming has been the low fence which is not suitable for our kind of environment. I learn low fences are common in Ghana; but we are in Nigeria.

    One of the points that made it easy for me to suspend the write-up on the Lagos Baptist High School fence is because it is not time-bound. In other words, it could come up at any time. Mercifully, the girls’ abduction which also became a national issue has made it imperative because there is a nexus between the two. And that is the role of fence in security. We learnt from media reports that the job of the abductors was made easy as a result of the low fence in the junior seminary. The good thing is that the school authorities have corrected that by raising the fence and have also done a few things to make the school more secure.

    Back to Lagos Baptist High School. The school compound has been used for multi-purpose activities, from the sublime to the most ridiculous. I had cast my vote there at least on two occasions. Indeed, it is home to many polling wards and units during general elections. I also noticed that members of the Christ Apostolic Church, Agbala Itura, which is just opposite the school, park their vehicles there on Sundays when they come for service or any other religious activities. Then, it also plays host to many local footballers in the area that come there to practice. Of course, the school also had its share of social parties holding there until it was banned by the government

    I have nothing against any of these.

    My main problem is with the horde of shady characters that are usually in the school to smoke Indian hemp and probably plan or commit crimes there. Whenever I pass through the school, something always tells me that many students’ lives and future must have been irredeemably ruined as a result of the easy access that these anti-social elements have to the school. Until recently, it was common seeing students of the school, male and female, roaming about the streets during school hours in their uniform. At times, you find it difficult to distinguish them from ‘area boys’, with some of the boys sagging their school trousers or knickers.

    But, about two weeks ago when I was at a filling station near the school, someone that I discussed with there when I saw the new fence being constructed told me that things are now looking up in the place. I am impressed not just by the fact that a government has come to recognise the danger posed to the school and the society by its lack of a good fence, but more importantly, by its quality. Without being unduly sarcastic or sadistic, it is the kind of fence that befits the school, given the menace that its porous nature had constituted in the past  few years. It is now high enough to prevent its being climbed with ease by miscreants who had hitherto seen the place as home, even as it is protected by some iron barriers to deter people that may still want to climb it. The fence is as solid as it should be.  But, I am neither a structural engineer nor a bricklayer; so, that is my layman’s assessment. But, as I was taking pictures at the school yesterday, I heard one of the workers complaining about materials not flowing as expected. I also overheard a passerby telling his colleague that 12 coaches cannot survive serious rainfall. I hope the government would take note of these observations.

    Before now,  I have always asked myself whether education inspectors come to that school at all and whether they ever reported about the need for the government to give the school a befitting fence to protect the students from undue external influences.

    While I commend the Akinwunmi Ambode government for this marvelous job at the school, it is apposite to say that there are probably many other schools in the state requiring such attention. I wonder how learning could have been conducive in the kind of atmosphere that the school had been in these past years. I won’t be surprised if the school’s academic performance begins to witness gradual improvement as a result of this gesture. Learning is not only about having quality teachers and learning aids. The totality of the environment matters. I guess that was one of the reasons why the Fashola administration banned using residential buildings for schools. How will pupils not be distracted by the aroma of ‘egusi’ or ‘edika ikong’ soup from the kitchen in the same premises that serves as their school? In the same vein, how can students in a school where Indian hemp is smoked as routine concentrate without having a feeling that hemp is good; or without actually going ahead to have a taste of it? I never knew what hemp looked like as a child. But I have a feeling many of the students in the school would already know not only what it smells like but what it looks and (probably) tastes like. I won’t also be surprised if some of the students have taken to cultism because the porosity of their school makes it also a good breeding and recruiting ground for cultists.

    So, as the state government is investing on study aids and teachers in its schools, it should also spare a thought for a thing like good fence for schools that need one and have an arrangement whereby it begins to focus on this aspect in phases, if financial constraints would not allow it to go the whole hog. Its investment in security was one of the things that gave it the record result in the rescue of the Babington Macaulay Junior Seminary’s abducted students. If the government adequately secures its schools, it would be on a stronger moral pedestal to ask private school owners to do same.  Such investment in little things that matter can equally produce astounding results in education.

    It is gratifying that the abducted Babington Macaulay Junior Seminary students have all been safely released. It is also gladdening that the school authorities have made the school more secure. But we do not have to wait to discover other schools with similar shortcoming before running helter-skelter in search of solution. God gave us brain so He can rest. Let’s engage our brains by doing the needful. As doctors say, ‘we care, God heals’. Let’s first of all care and then allow God to secure.

     

  • Ese Oruru Beyond the shame of a nation

    Ese Oruru Beyond the shame of a nation

    Anyone having a daughter must have felt for Ese Oruru and her parents, seeing the kind of cross the little girl is being forced to carry at a tender age of 14. For seven good months (whatever is good in the months!) this innocent girl was abducted and taken to far away Kano, from her native Bayelsa State. Now, the girl is carrying a pregnancy she must have least bargained for. And to think that some prominent Nigerians were aware of her plight ab initio but did nothing, or did too little to get her out of captivity, only to be speaking in incoherent tunes after the harm had been done! There is God o! The question to ask these people, the most talked-about of them being the Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, is: would they have handled the matter the way they did if Ese was their daughter?

    One must single out the Emir because of his education and his exposure, considering what he has been able to do for himself in life before becoming Emir. How could anyone in this age and time abduct a 14-year-old girl only to forcibly convert her to Islam and then ‘marry’ her? And all an all-powerful Emir would do is ask that the child be released to her parents without following up on the matter? This is a serious omission on the part of Emir Sanusi that he would need all the angels swearing on his behalf to make any difference.

    What is going round is that such young girls are the lubricants that keep some big men in parts of the country going. Indeed, it is the blood of such innocent girls that these elders use to rejuvenate theirs. Others call it pedophilia but those who are into it see it as a practice welcomed by their culture or religion. But I guess it is more cultural than religious because there are Muslims in other parts of the country and they do not celebrate such ‘weddings’. Whilst it may sound so absurd to many of us who do not understand the basis for such a thing, those whose culture permits it must be surprised at how the rest of us are outraged, with a national newspaper launching a campaign for the girl’s freedom. This should be expected when culture or religion is transported to places where people do not accept such religious or cultural practices.

    Those familiar with the social media said the matter had been trending for quite some time. As a journalist it is good news that it eventually became an issue after it was published by a national daily. That was when panic hit the camps of all those involved and they became jittery, leading to the release of the poor girl last week. Some of the big dramatis personae, including the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Solomon Arase, even had cause to say ’em… em…’ after being boxed to inescapable corners over the matter. What this tells us is that the social media cannot be a substitute for the newspaper. Each has its distinct characteristics that cannot be replaced by the other.

    But that was only a digression. Although Yunusa Dahiru (a.k.a. Yellow) is the sole beneficiary of the absurd and regrettable episode; to me, he is but an unknown quantity who nonetheless must have his full comeuppance by the time the full weight of the law is applied on him, to deter others  who might be harbouring the devilish intention of forcibly having their own virgins here and now. If those that mattered had acted expeditiously by telling him in unmistakable terms that he could not do what he did, the man might have thought twice, seeing that he was on his own. What the feeble response of the Emir and others in the matter did was to embolden him. Now, the result! Unless the dramatic happens, Ese’s pregnancy may change her life trajectory for life. This is why these people who have turned little girls barely old enough to be their children or even grandchildren into groundnuts that they can ‘taste’ anyhow deserve to be condemned in the strongest terms.  Ese’s case is that of a baby that would, in the next few months, be tending to another baby, her own baby! Not just a baby-mother; but a forced one at that!

    There are several reasons why Yunusa should be in soup over this matter. First, he took his search for a minor to marry beyond the borders of where such is permissible. May be if he had restricted himself to places where such a practice is allowed, he would have got away with it, or, at best, got a slap on the wrist for his imprudence. Second, his victim is not even a Muslim; so, she could not have understood all the talk of her conversion to Islam, not to talk of marriage without parental consent. Ese might not have witnessed her parents’ wedding, but she must have heard one or two things about how they did it. So, she must have seen the wide world of difference between her parents’ marriage and the one she was initiated into.

    There are useful lessons we all must learn from this sad incident. One is that we should teach our children never to trust strangers. As a matter of fact, with the benefit of hindsight, Ese’s mother (Rose Oruru) too must have realised that we have to be measured even in being nice to people. According to her, she once allowed Yunusa to be sleeping in her shop when she found out that he was homeless. Ordinarily, this would not have been a bad deed; indeed, it is what the scripture enjoins Christians to do: give succour to the distressed and home to the homeless. It only happened that she was nice to the wrong person. Her good nature was what must have given her daughter the confidence that, with Yunusa, she was in safe hands. Even if Ese was hypnotised as the mother claimed, the familiarity between Yunusa and the family must have facilitated that. It is unlikely that the poor girl would have felt so secure in the company of Yunusa if he had not been close to their (Oruru) family.

    I have seen some people describe Ese’s plight as the shame of a nation. It is worse than that. It signposts how far we have gone adrift and lost. How could someone pounce on a 14-year-old girl and think that he has had manna from heaven? What kind of culture or religion approves of such criminality? So, if there had not been an outrage over the matter, Yunusa would still have been keeping the girl under the illusion that she is his wife, while the parents keep agonising over their daughter’s whereabouts. Although Ese has finally reunited with her family, the next stage is to ensure that those who are responsible for her plight are brought to justice. The matter is too grave to be swept under the carpet. If the investigations are thorough, it is unlikely that Yunusa would face his cross alone; all the big men named in the saga must also be made to face the music.

    The IGP was saying the other day that all the policemen found culpable in the saga would be identified and punished. From what is in the public domain, most of the middle-level police officers involved in the matter tried their best. They only gave up when they discovered there were powerful interests involved -interests so powerful that the IGP himself could not untie their shoelaces. But, in all true conscience, does the inspector-general think he too has done well in this matter? Anyway, we are waiting to see how far he can go, first in picking up people involved; and then in ensuring they are prosecuted. We want to see if he too would step down from his high horse, at least pending the completion of investigation on the matter because he is involved and so does not qualify to preside over any such investigation.

    But what seems the most important thing now is to get Ese the proper counselling that would prepare her for the new life she has been forced into. One can only imagine how the girl would be feeling in the midst of her peers, with her protruding tummy. She needs all the attention – medical, psychological – and all so that life does not become miserable for her.

  • Time to look inward

    Time to look inward

    Whether for education, medical care or what
    have you, let’s think Nigeria

    Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) reversal of the earlier decision of the Bankers Committee which had met in Abuja and decided to place restrictions on allocation of foreign exchange for school fees abroad and medical tourism is only postponing the doomsday. If, as the Bankers Committee said we commit about 15 percent of our forex to serve these two purposes, then there is danger ahead because the country is unlikely to be in a position to afford that forever as things are.

    As a matter of fact, to underscore the urgency and seriousness attached to the matter, some of those who had lost hope of getting forex allocation for their children abroad started receiving alerts from their banks, asking them to turn in their papers after the CBN’s decision. I agree though that it would be unfair to deny those already abroad the opportunity of finishing their programmes; but those thinking of joining them should begin to think twice because, if things continue like this with our forex situation, a time might come when the country would find it difficult to meet such obligations. Even if things get better with the country’s finances, it is still not good to continue on the present destructive path which only guarantees jobs for people abroad at the expense of Nigerians at home.

    What I am saying is that, our current quagmire should nudge us into reviewing the way we do some things. Whether as individual Nigerians, or as governments, or as a country, it is time to change from this foreign dependence on virtually anything imaginable. Nigerians should start rethinking this idea that everything Nigerian is bad; or that everything foreign is good.

    Please get me right; it is not that studying abroad is inherently bad, or that it is something novel. Even in those days when the premier university in the country, the University College, Ibadan, now University of Ibadan, and a few of the first generation universities around were still in good shape, turning out quality graduates, some Nigerians were still going abroad to study. But what we have today is a complete departure from what obtained then. Many of those studying abroad now are there either for status symbol or because they could not find space in the local universities. With standard perennially falling in many of the local universities, parents who can afford it prefer sending their children abroad to study, instead of staying in overcrowded lecture theatres where some half-baked teachers would also stuff into their brains what they are not paid to stuff there. Or, where for the better part of the academic year, the schools would remain shut due to one industrial crisis or the other.

    There is no doubt that the existing universities in the country are inadequate to cater to the admission needs of the multitude of candidates seeking admission into the universities annually. With about two million candidates scrambling for admission into the about 128 universities (public and private) around with a total capacity of about 550,000, it becomes imperative that many may be called, but only a few can be chosen. Since this has become an annual thing, what we always end up having is a ballooning of the figure of those who cannot find admission in a particular year added to the following year’s list. It was partly in an effort to fill this yawning gap that some institutions established private universities, to at least reduce the number of qualified youths that cannot find space in the public universities. Still, hundreds of thousands are left in the lurch. The implication is that more and more people would naturally look elsewhere for university education. This cannot be a crime.

    But studying abroad does not come cheap; it comes at humongous costs that, unfortunately, the nation is going to find difficult to afford, especially at this point in time. Nigerian students abroad are said to be costing the country about N1.6trillion per annum. Ghana alone gets N160 billion of the funds, while Nigerians spend over N80 billion on education in the United Kingdom. According to Vanguard, “… In 2014, about 75,000 Nigerians were said to be studying in Ghana, paying about US$1 billion annually as tuition fees and upkeep, as against the annual budget of US$751 million for all federal universities. The amount was about 70 per cent of the total allocation in 2008 to all federal universities. In 2011, there were 17,585 Nigerians studying in UK universities, about 1,000 more than the 16,680 registered in the 2009/10 academic session, making Nigeria’s student population the third largest from non-European Union countries, trailing 39,090 recorded for India and 67,325 for China, according to statistics provided by UK Council for International Student Affairs”.

    Of course there are Nigerian students in other places, with the United States of America and Canada as the most popular choices, and also Central and Eastern Europe, where the tuition fees and living costs are low.

    What has become the lot of the country’s educational sector is, also, sadly the same with the health sector, as indeed with every sector of the economy. When in December 1983 the military struck and put an end to the Second Republic, part of the reasons cited for the coup was the state of our hospitals, which were then described as ‘mere consulting clinics’. In spite of the billions of petro-dollars the country has made over the years, even since then, things have only worsened in the sector. There are fewer consultants in the hospitals today as many of them have left our shores for greener pastures abroad.

    The experience with medical tourism is such that there is virtually no ailment that our rich do not take abroad for treatment, from radiculopathy to cancer, to knee injury. Even when they want to indulge themselves, they travel out for tummy tuck. As with education, medical tourism comes with its own cost. According to the Chief Executive Officer of Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority, Uche Orji, about 30,000 Nigerians spend $1 billion on medical tourism annually. Apart from the UK, USA, Germany, France that many of our elites go for treatment, many Nigerians also find places like India useful for certain ailments, all of which represent a drain on our foreign exchange. Although $1billion may look conservative as what Nigerians spend on medical tourism, but when added to the N1.6trillion that the country spends on its students abroad, then we can appreciate what the Bankers Committee was talking about. This is about two-thirds of this year’s budget.

    We can go on and on citing examples and quoting statistics but this would not help our situation. It is only the uninitiated that would want this state of affairs to continue. Collectively, therefore, we must do something to change the situation so that something will not do us. The government must show the way.  It should go beyond the usual lip service but take practical measures to get our schools and hospitals working. This may take some years; but we must start immediately to make the difference. With better standards in our educational institutions and hospitals, some Nigerians would begin to see the light and the need to stay at home to study, even as some others would also not feel that they would end up in the morgue after attending our public hospitals. The government can even ban public officials from seeking medical treatment abroad for ailments that can be treated at home for a start. Of course the private citizens who can afford it could still be allowed but that would be for some time. Eventually when people develop confidence in the system, more and more Nigerians would embrace our schools and hospitals.

    Ultimately, however, a change of attitude is what is required to achieve the aim of conserving foreign exchange for the country. Without this, all the hopes on diversification of the economy would amount to naught. Even if we make all the foreign exchange after diversifying the economy and the new nouveau riche still continue in the old ways of their predecessors by not checking their insatiable appetite for foreign goods, or by extending the frontiers, say, by making marrying of whites abroad their own new fad, we would still end up in square one again. A change of attitude has become inevitable. We have got to the point where we must ask, as Tokunbo Martins, CBN’s Director, Banking Supervision, asked during the Bankers Committee meeting in Abuja: “If you think about it, the pressure on forex now – from school fees abroad – is significant. At what point should we begin to look inwards? The pressure on medicals is significant. At what point should we begin to look inwards?”

    I ask too, at what point? At what point?

  • Still on Fashola’s quinine

    Still on Fashola’s quinine

    Again, my case against the bitter pill

    As at Friday when I was putting finishing touches to this piece, we have not had electricity in my area for about seven consecutive days.  In fact, the light did not blink during the period. Yet, I am sure this would not reflect in my bill when the bill finally comes. This is because the bill, as I always say, is already ‘gazetted’ in the computer of the electricity firm, in this instance, the Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company (IKEDC), as inherited from the former Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) which also inherited it from its predecessor, the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA).

    In case you are wondering where I am talking about, it is the Pleasure area of Oke-Odo, Agege in Lagos. I guess we share the same transformer with the General Hospital in Agege, which, ordinarily, should have been an advantage. It is almost always like that. As a matter of fact, we are getting ready for the usual experience in the rainy season when something must go wrong with the transformer and take days to resolve. Yet, behind my house are some other buildings enjoying by far more constant supply of electricity. People there are on a different transformer.

    Whenever I write on this topic, I always cite personal experiences, particularly the 21 consecutive days when our light did not blink and another nine days of similar experience. Yet, I was slammed the usual bill of N11,000 plus, several years ago. I was not operating a bakery in the house and I had no special electrical gadget or equipment that guzzled current. Again, between December last year and January, this year, I had been billed N12,000 and N13,000, plus, respectively. Yet, they say my meter is not working. Yet, the power czars appear to usually defend such system by saying that there are approved  amounts as bill for people without meters or those with faulty ones, depending on the kind of apartment they live in. What logic! As if it is not known that some people in face-me-I-face-you apartments have more electrical appliances that gulp power than some people living in so-called flats! The ideal thing should be for the electricity distribution companies (DISCOs) to change faulty meters, especially now that we are doing away with the old ones.

    Now that the government has given the DISCOs the nod to hike tariff (which I hope Nigerians should keep rejecting until the needful is done), would IKEDC base my new bill on the same estimate that I had been contesting for more than three years? As a matter of fact, I even think they had somehow increased my bill because I was slammed N13,000 plus for January (wherever they got the figure from) well in advance of the February approved date by the government. Could that be a ploy to hoodwink me into coughing up more money when the February bill comes? Haba! No prophet has seen a vision for me to offer sacrifice, because that is what paying the reviewed tariff on the existing bill would tantamount to.

    I am not opposed to tariff hike in the power sector, per se. Moreover, having improved power supply is good, but that, frankly speaking, is also not my main bother. As I have always argued, I am more particular about Nigerians paying for what they consume. If, as in the case I cited about my area where we have not had light for about seven consecutive days I will only pay for what I consume, I can live with that. I can always make up with my private supply of electricity. We are used to that kind of self-help in Nigeria: we provide our own water; our own roads in some cases, and so on. It is the DISCOs that should worry that some areas have been without light for so long because that should have implications for their revenue. But that is, other things being equal. The way things are, however, the DISCOs may not have to lose sleep over that with the distorted billing arrangement that allows them to allocate figures to people as bill, instead of bill based on actual consumption. Many Nigerians are of the opinion that this is the main reason why the DISCOs are foot-dragging on provision of prepaid meters.

    This is why I support the protest organised by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) against the tariff hike. Those who say Labour should not arrogate to itself the right to champion the cause of the masses as it has done in this case have no point. The protest was a refreshing intervention. In any society, someone has to bell the cat. We used to have a vibrant civil society, especially in the military era and the groups did a lot in the struggle to send soldiers away from the country’s political scene. Unfortunately, many of them simply went to sleep the moment the soldiers left, thinking we have had democracy. But here we are today (not as that governor said during his thanksgiving service o), still having to battle with the fundamentals of democratic culture, after more than 16 unbroken years of civil rule. We should not pretend that we do not know that in our kind of situation, about 10 persons are clinging to one worker’s salary. If this is so, why can’t labour be at the vanguard of the protest?

    The accusation is therefore diversionary. It is the usual excuse of the elite when things are not going their way. As they say, “there are no permanent friends or permanent foes, but permanent interest”. On this issue, Labour happens to be on the same page with majority of Nigerians. If we have had genuine democracy these past 16 years, we would not be where we are today. Indeed, if that was the case, no one would be justifying why electricity tariff must go up at this point in time, given our experiences with the sector these past years.

    When the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, said Nigerians should trust him that the power firms will perform after the tariff hike, he must have forgotten that we have had similar promises in the past from the electricity firms. He must also have forgotten that prices hardly come down in Nigeria; so his expectation of a drop in tariff in four years’ time may be correct but Nigerians are not prepared to be that gullible without interrogating the assertion simply because it is coming from Mr Fashola. Once upon a time, the DISCOs asked people who were in a hurry to have prepaid meters to pay some money which would then be credited to their account. Many of those who paid are yet to get the meters years after. And there is nothing anybody can do about it beyond urging the DISCOs to roll out the meters.

    Mr Fashola should understand that governance in Nigeria today, especially as it concerns the all-important power sector, has transcended his own antecedents or President Muhammadu Buhari’s personal integrity. That is why Nigerians want to take their destiny in their own hands. If, as Mr Fashola said, even his own relatives are asking him questions about this quinine that he wants us to swallow, that should tell him that something is not right somewhere. And what is not good is not good; there cannot be any other name for it. By going ahead with the tariff hike in spite of opposition from the National Assembly and even the court, the minister succeeded in doing what the typical government officials do:  thinking that they are more patriotic than the rest of us, which is not so.

    So, the earlier the minister understood Nigerians’ frustrations with the power firms, the better. Nigerians have come a long way with regards to promises by government officials that were never fulfilled. As a matter of fact, if many of the past promises had been fulfilled and past assurances had come to fruition, the minister himself would not have inherited the mess he inherited in the power sector.

    For genuine investors interested in earning (emphasis on EARNING) their revenue, provision of prepaid meters should have been one of the first things the new players in the power sector, particularly the DISCOs, should have accorded top priority. If the Goodluck Jonathan’s government did not insist on that, Buhari’s government should. If they were truly serious about collecting money only for service rendered, two years is more than enough for them to carry out an enumeration of their customers with a view to ascertaining their number, meter and other requirements. I do not know of any paradigm in the world that would allow people to be billed based on rule of thumb for any type of service.

    It bears restating that I would not have been this passionate about this matter if, as it is in the telecoms sector, I can simply migrate from a DISCO which I am dissatisfied with its beats and lyrics and go to dance my disco somewhere else. But this is not possible; the DISCOs are still essentially monopolies in their areas of influence, and, to that extent, the comparison of the power sector with the telecoms is baseless.

    It is on this note that I humbly submit that no one should be worried about the threat by the players in the power sector that about 50,000 Nigerians would lose their jobs if they did not have their way. Let no one give the impression that the power firms are doing Nigerians a favour. That is the impression one gets when government officials say the tariff hike is still cheaper than fuelling our generators. The point is, many of us are not necessarily saying they should not increase tariff, what we are saying is that they should give us meters that would gauge what we consume, before anything else. Thereafter, we can begin to talk about tariff increase. Is that asking for too much?