The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tunji Adegboyega

  • Lagos must defend its own

    Lagos must defend its own

    Attacks on law enforcers is bad for law enforcement and should be frowned at by the govt

    If the Lagos State Government is truly desirous of making commercial bus drivers and their conductors, as well as thugs and other miscreants in the state imbibe sanity as a way of life, then it must be prepared to make those who attack its officials on duty pay for their actions. I say this, especially with last Monday’s attack on men of the state’s task force on environment and special offences at the Oshodi area, in mind. Some commercial bus drivers were said to be picking passengers right in the middle of the road and their vehicles were impounded only for the drivers and touts in the area to descend on the government officials.

    According to Ismaila Shamsudeen, an eyewitness: “The drivers parked in the middle of the road; while their conductors called out to passengers. The smart ones among them sped off on sighting the task force, while others fled, abandoning their vehicles to avoid being arrested. But they did not expect that their vehicles would be impounded. Before we knew it, the whole place was thrown into chaos, as hoodlums capitalised on the opportunity and started attacking anyone in sight. One of the task force officials was stabbed while another sustained minor injury. At a point, the policemen fired some shots into the air to scare the hoodlums.”

    This is a daily occurrence in Lagos, particularly at the Oshodi area, Mile 12 axis, Ikorodu and a few other places. The state government owes its workers some protection; particularly those saddled with the onerous responsibility of enforcing its laws so as to protect the law-abiding from people who prefer the Hobbesian state of nature to the ordered life that is the hallmark of civilisation. Without doubt, some of the officials sometimes go beyond bounds in the course of duty. Indeed, some of them are glorified touts in government uniform. But, whenever there is a crisis, the government must be interested in it because it has wider implications for law enforcement and peaceful coexistence in the state. It should therefore set up a machinery to ascertain what happened with a view to identifying who did what and why the hoodlums chopped off two fingers of a member of the task force, after stabbing him and attacking some of his colleagues for trying to enforce discipline on the road. Otherwise, the hands of criminals would be strengthened while the morale of the law enforcers would be dampened.

    Many of us are familiar with what life was like in Oshodi before the immediate past administration in the state began to sanitise the place. Mercifully, the incumbent Governor Akinwunmi Ambode has continued the process by demolishing some of the other hideouts of the criminals in the Oshodi area and also ensured that traffic continues to flow unhindered there. This cannot go down well with those who used those places for their nefarious activities and also caused the chaotic traffic situation through which they exploited hapless citizens.

    When people say corruption will always fight back; we tend to see it in the context of big people denied their easy way of making money. No; corruption comes in various shapes and sizes, with those involved taking advantage as far as their muscle could carry them. People who make money from commercial bus drivers illegally will always want to create artificial traffic jam because that is how they can make money. Of course it pays for the commercial bus drivers too to jump the queue in motor parks because that is the way they think they can make more trips and more money.

    The truth of the matter is that indiscipline (corruption) tastes so sweet in the mouths of some people; indeed, it is as if they are eating jollof rice or fried rice whenever they commit crimes or behave in an undisciplined manner. So, to ask such people to toe the path of sanity is like starving them of their delicacy. You literally have to whip them into line.

    Although leaders of the transporters’ unions usually say they train the drivers and conductors on how to behave responsibly and in a civilised manner behind the wheels, this does not reflect in the attitude of many of them. In corporate parlance, many of them would have been written off as “un-trainable” if after such trainings they still continue in their old habits. What kind of people will receive training only to continue to drive with only their singlet on? What manner of people will receive training only to look for broken bottles or any dangerous object to fight at the slightest provocation?

    People who have been to some of our neighbouring countries say it is not so with their commercial bus drivers and conductors. So, why would our own be different? Governor Ambode has a duty to make these people see the light. Those of them who cannot fit into the life in a civilised environment should relocate. They know which direction to go, even in the south west here, where such uncivilised and uncultured people are treated to red carpet reception.

    If criminals remain anonymous, then part of the reasons for the setting up of mobile courts in the state would have been defeated. It is also good for the government to realise that these courts are going to be manned by human beings. To that extent, therefore, their activities must be closely monitored. Just as the government must police its law enforcers to guard against arbitrariness, abuses and overzealousness, so must it ensure that the courts are not abused. If our regular courts could be manipulated, fears that such smaller courts could be are not misplaced. We should not see situations whereby ‘perpetual injunctions’ against further arrests would be given in the mobile courts to suspects as is the case in some regular courts.

    One would have been sympathetic to the cause of the ‘area boys’ but for the fact that many of them are into it not for lack of jobs. Many buses in the state operate without conductors because very few people see such jobs as rewarding nowadays. It is not the best, but the fact is that, these days some graduates are doing menial jobs just to make ends meet; what then will be the reason for stark illiterates to see some jobs as too low for them?

  • Ekiti: ghost that won’t just go

    Ekiti: ghost that won’t just go

    Sordid tales about how an election was rigged

    With the disclosure by the former Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ekiti State, Dr Tope Aluko, about how the June 21, 2014 governorship election was rigged in favour of the incumbent governor, Ayodele Fayose, there appears to be no doubt that the election was a mere formality; the powers-that-be had already concluded plans to install their own as governor long before the election. One other thing that is not in doubt is the heavy monetisation of the process, obviously from the public till. Aluko is not only the former state PDP scribe, he was also said to be a close ally of Governor Fayose when the going was good. So, he is in a position to know; forget the motive.

    The question now is: could it be that those who unleashed soldiers and thugs on the state then were not sure they could defeat the incumbent Governor Kayode Fayemi, hence, the recourse to strong arm tactics to the ridiculous extent that they went? This was despite the shortcomings, real or perceived, of the then governor. Or, could it be that they just wanted to bare their fangs as a sign of things to come in the (then coming) 2015 General Elections?

    When Colonel Sagir Koli first disclosed that such things happened in Ekiti State, the then President Goodluck Jonathan denied.  “There was no formal petition before them, but because of the general interest, they wanted to have him (Koli) interviewed to know where this was coming from. If someone comes up with a spurious allegation that has no substance and the person disappears, of course, what do you want me to do? Definitely, anytime we get him, he’ll have to substantiate his allegations. There is a lot of false stories being circulated and it is very sad”, the former president had said. Now, could the former president be telling lies or was it just that people merely took advantage of his weakness, ignorance and naivety (or all of the above) to commit blue murder on his behalf?

    Just like Jonathan, Governor Fayose had dismissed the weighty allegations as the ranting of a man disgruntled by his refusal to make him chief of staff and that it is all part of the grand plan of the All Progressive Congress (APC) to get through the back door the governorship that it failed to get through due process. Fayose was not forthcoming as to whether what Aluko said actually took place or not. One wonders how far this nation can go with such off-hand dismissal as a figment of some people’s imagination events that really took place. But that is one of the values that we parade in the country: people who cannot be faithful over little things we elevate to even higher responsibilities. We are already paying for such indiscretion and we will pay even higher price in future if we do not sanction those culpable in such matters.

    It is gratifying though that the military has sanctioned its own implicated in the inglorious affair. But, would the military have punished its men implicated in the rigging plot if the story was some tales by moonlight or scenes from some Hollywood films? The revelations have named, but apart from the military’s, no other culprit has been shamed. Yet, people must be shamed if we are to make progress in our electoral process. One of the main problems with us is our failure to punish big criminals. Some people will tell you that the country has more than enough laws to deal with any situation but that we hardly punish people in spite of the existence of these laws. I agree. If the Muhammadu Buhari presidency is able to successfully prosecute and get some of the big thieves who had dipped their hands into our national treasury illegally jailed, it would be the first time we would be sending the appropriate signal that this country will no longer be a haven for thieves, whoever they might be and irrespective of where they come from or their creed.

    The country has an Electoral Law that prescribes sanctions for people who pervert the democratic process as we witnessed in Ekiti. Unfortunately, we hardly prosecute them. Before the Ekiti incident, we have had many similar instances of people committing electoral heist without being sanctioned. This is even when such incidents were recorded and we could identify them either running away with snatched ballot boxes or intimidating voters or members of the opposition parties at the polling booths. We just read those things in the newspapers or watch them live on television, cry foul; and that is all. If we had been punishing people for electoral crimes, those who blatantly engaged in the Ekiti show of shame could have thought twice before allowing themselves to be used for such illegal purposes.

    We must go beyond the entertainment provided by the narrations of what happened during that election by getting all those involved arrested and prosecuted. In like manner, whatever inspired Dr Aluko to say it all is immaterial. Whether it was guilty conscience, or because of Fayose’s refusal to honour his alleged pact to make him (Aluko) his chief of staff should not carry any weight now. It is not even important if he did to curry the favour of the Buhari administration. The issue is that, by his (Aluko’s) action, and given the fact that he had earlier testified before the election petition tribunal that looked into the conduct of the election that it was free and fair, what he is now saying is contrary to that. To that extent therefore, his case is different from Colonel Koli’s who fled after revealing the secret plot even when President Jonathan was still in power. No one should therefore be surprised that the Fayose government has dragged him to court which has ordered his arrest and prosecution for alleged perjury.

    A lesson from all these is that people joined together by treachery will also be put asunder by treachery. If the actors had been told that what they had regarded as top secret then would end up being subject of discussion in the public space, they would have disagreed. Now, we are being treated to a movie that we did not pay for.

    With the Ekiti case, the law has once again been proven to be an ass indeed. Otherwise, with all these stunning revelations, first by Colonel Koli, and now, Dr Aluko, there appears to be sufficient grounds to revisit that election, at least from the layman’s point of view. Unfortunately, Governor Fayose’s governorship has been signed, sealed, delivered and confirmed even by the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court. In a sense therefore, nothing untoward happened, at least in the eye of the law.

    But can that be the case in the face of these damning revelations? Even if the incumbent would still have won in a truly free and fair election, could the circumstances surrounding that election have guaranteed a level-playing field for all the candidates? Food for thought!

  • Matters arising

    Matters arising

    Still on taxation, Obasanjo’s letter and transparency in the National Assembly

    Three developments in the past week  in a sense lent credence to my position on this page last Sunday that what Nigerians need to get out of the woods is not  taxation. Asking Nigerians to pay more taxes now cannot be called creativity, especially since we had already travelled in the past the way of some of the taxes. As a matter of fact, we are still paying some of the taxes which some people want increased. Our problem is beyond that, and that much is evident in the mindboggling revelations on the $2.1bilion Dasukigate. As I said last week, this is only a tip of the iceberg because we are still going to witness even more damning revelations when the searchlight is beamed on the oil sector with its odious stench.

    The first development was the presentation of two bills by President Muhammadu Buhari to the National Assembly seeking to facilitate the war against money laundering.  The bills are: “The Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Bill, 2016” and “The Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Bill, 2016.” The letter to which the bills were attached was read by Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and House of Representatives Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, to legislators during the assembly’s plenary session on January 27.

    The first bill seeks to repeal the existing Money Laundering Act to allow for stronger punishments against money launderers while the second will make provisions that will enable Nigeria seek international assistance in recovering looted funds.

    The other development was former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s letter to the National Assembly on the obvious opaqueness of their spending, the N4.7billion cars they want to purchase, ostensibly for committee work, and sundry matters bothering on insensitivity and corruption.

    The third development was the announcement by the Federal Government that it does not intend to increase taxes. Coming barely five days after I had vehemently opposed further tax burden on Nigerians, these developments were such sweet music to my ears. Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udo Udoma, said after a meeting of the National Economic Council (NEC) that “Government will not impose additional taxes on individual and corporate bodies to avoid additional burden on Nigerians”. This shows the government already knows that the people are going through hell and would not want to compound their woes. This is compassion at work and it is the kind of soothing balm that Nigerians need in these trying moments, not harsh words like they ‘MUST’ pay. The government does not have to be a tax master to meet its budgetary obligations.

    Anyway, whilst Senate President Saraki’s reply to Obasanjo was somewhat courteous and understandable, Senator Dino Melaye launched into how Obasanjo bribed the then National Assembly over his third term ambition. I am not an Obasanjo fan and those familiar with my column know that much. But the fact is that as much as possible, we should always try to separate the message from the messenger. Obasanjo’s message in this instance is clear: the senators should reconsider their decision to buy 120 exotic cars at N4.7billion for committee work in view of the economic situation in the country. Senator Melaye simply failed to address that issue. Some other senators say Obasanjo wrote the letter to cause disaffection between them and the president.

    Pray, how does that also address the issue? Chief Obasanjo we all know. But, whether you like or hate him is not important. What is important is to realise that a bad child sometimes has his good days. Today, he is wrong; tomorrow he is right. You can even say, like Azu Ishiekwene once said, that whatever he did right was a mistake. May be his letter this time around was one of such mistakes; but he was right all the same. What Senator Melaye and the rest should tell us is whether Obasanjo made sense or not by telling the law makers to save the country the N4.7billion for cars, and make their spending transparent instead of wasting time telling us things we already know. Nigerians must be wary of this divide-and-rule tactic by our political elite. When they wanted to sweep former President Goodluck Jonathan out of power, many of them made Obasanjo’s home a Mecca of sort. It was convenient for them to forget then that he once bribed National Assembly members. They suddenly opened the book of remembrance now that Obasanjo attacked their collective insatiable desire for materialism. Nigerians must read between the lines. Senators cannot be clinging to the luxuries they presently enjoy only to turn to hapless Nigerians to pick the bill even on their empty stomachs.

    Nigerians should find it curious that it is their representatives, I mean the senators in this instance, that are clamouring for increases in taxation at this point in time while the executive arm is saying there won’t be anything like that. Isn’t this a curious role reversal?  Should it not have been the other way round? It is heartwarming though that President Muhammadu Buhari realised that the buck stops at his desk and has said there won’t be any increases in taxation. I commend him for that. I also commend the creative ways he has chosen to go about the dwindling government revenue without necessarily overburdening Nigerians to sustain the luxurious lifestyle of some public servants.

    What the government has done is to follow the maxim that a child looks to the front when he falls; but when an adult falls, he looks backwards to see what made him to fall. Jumping to raise taxation so soon cannot be the product of any rigorous analysis of the Nigerian economic crisis. As a nation, we must know what led us to where we are to be able to better appreciate the way out; I mean we must reminisce. That is what an adult does. To begin to ask for increased taxation and introduction of new taxes is out of the question because it is not just the fall in crude prices that is responsible for the country’s economic downturn. Rather, it is corruption; monumental corruption, the type that eyes have not seen and ears have not heard. So, it is that corruption that we must take out before asking people to bake again. To keep baking under the prevailing circumstance is akin to fetching water into a basket. Anybody who made his money genuinely must be wary of such sense of reasoning.

    If we must do anything about taxation, it is to widen the net. Let the people enjoying luxurious lifestyle also pay luxurious tax. Let churches and mosques with investments pay. We can also consider tolling the major expressways in the country to sustain the maintenance of those roads. But to want to raise Value Added Tax (VAT) because Nigeria is the country paying the lowest VAT (even if I do not know the proof for this or what it is supposed to mean) seems to me a mere regurgitation of jaded economic theories or, at best, genuine intentions in climes where there are already structures to prevent such revenue from being plundered, or deny the plunderers the right to perpetual injunctions, so that they can speedily have their day in court when they lust after public funds.

    As far as I am concerned, increased taxation can only be an option when all else had failed; I mean it should be the last resort if indeed, national development is the true reason for the hike. The Buhari administration has done what looks to me to be imaginative or creative in addressing the gaps in the budget proposals. For instance, it talked about possible cuts in the country’s cash call elements by innovative financing which is about N1trillion; the possibility of getting private sector financing for some projects; looking into the activities of some government ministries, departments and agencies that are generating money in dollars and remitting in Naira; etc. So, one sees a government that is unwilling to tear Nigerians’ pockets in the name of making up for shortfall in government revenue. It is the senators that MUST (to borrow their emphasis) show that they care by acting on President Buhari’s letter and facilitate the war against money laundering. As a matter of fact, the bills must be debated and passed expeditiously if the senators are desirous of fighting corruption. Another point is; there is so much money hanging out there that would be useful if it is recovered. The Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), for example, has just expressed frustration with the N5.4trillion debt owed it by a handful of Nigerians. If only the Senate can address all of these, we may end up discovering that we do not need to raise taxes.

    We may not have to arrest Dasuki and others involved in Dasukigate another time, but we would have succeeded in sending the message across that such plundering of the national patrimony would no longer be treated with kid gloves, thus minimising the propensity of public officials to want to feed fat on public funds.

  • These senators, again!

    These senators, again!

    Rather than kill Nigerians with tax that may end up being embezzled again, senators should think outside of the box to make up for revenue shortfall

    I felt so sad when on Friday I saw the headline in one of the dailies: “2016 Budget: Senators seek heavy taxation of Nigerians”. The senators’ argument is that since the government’s revenue projection on the2016 budget is being threatened by plummeting crude oil prices, it is better to augment the shortfall with taxation instead of borrowing as proposed by the Federal Government. Crude prices have dropped from the $38 per barrel adopted in the budget to about $27. We do not know if this would further plummet. So, there is sense in looking for a way to augment the shortfall. But, is taxation the answer? No, especially given the reasons by Senator Olusola Adeyeye, the chief whip, who led the debate on the matter.

    Senator Adeyeye wants us to return to the days of old when every adult was taxed. He says we should bring ingenuity to this. I do not know what that means because, even in those days, many people had rough encounters with the tax collectors. Things are harder now. How many adults have regular incomes that can be taxed now? There are no more farmers in the farms as ‘King’ Sunny Ade sang; as the child of the farmer of old has brought his father to the city to have a taste of the allures of city life.

    Senator Adeyeye added that: “Text messages cost N3.81 a page; if we add just N1 to a page of text message and we say that money belongs to government, we will make billions”. Apparently Senator Adeyeye and his colleagues must think Nigerians have short memory to have made such suggestion. The truth of the matter is that successive governments have made so much money off the people that we cannot even keep track off, hence some unscrupulous persons have taken advantage of this to enrich themselves, illegally. Even with specific reference to the telecoms sector, each of the initial operators paid money for their licences which the government promised would be reinvested into the sector. Was that promise fulfilled?

    The same goes for toll gates on our roads which the senator wants us to bring back. He said “we must install tolls on roads; but that is not enough: across the world when you park at any airport, you pay per hour; we must do what the rest of the world does”. Good talk. But which of these roads have we not travelled before? Once upon a time we had toll gates on some of our major highways but then, President Olusegun Obasanjo woke up one day to scrap them, citing corruption as reason why they had to go, instead of dealing with the problem. I admire Senator Adeyeye’s suggestion that we should “do what the rest of the world does”. Another good talk; but can we? Where else in the world that the senators are talking about that people would have money to buy arms to fight insurgency and that money would be shared and there would not be outrage? In Nigeria, some people are romanticising rule of law in a matter as grievous as this; a thing many elite thieves in this country had exploited to delay, if not permanently escape justice in the past. The senators should lead the way in making Nigeria do what civilised countries do.

    Perhaps the most laughable, even if annoying of the senators’ suggestions is that worker’s allowances must be taxed. “We must begin to tax allowances”, Adeyeye said, adding once again, for effect and rather to boot, that “Nigeria is the only country that shelters the bulk of the earnings of its workers and call them allowances”. And then asked, rather rhetorically: “You don’t want your allowances taxed?” a question he also answered himself, rather arrogantly and, if I may add, annoyingly: “They will be taxed because they MUST be taxed”. I wonder who made Senator Adeyeye judge over his own cause. This is the same National Assembly that was ignored by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) on tariff increase and did nothing, now boasting that workers’ allowances “must” be taxed.

    Whatever gave them the impression that Nigerians can be slapped left, right and centre without expecting a reply. How much tax do the senators and National Assembly members themselves pay? I am not talking of what is in their so-called pay slips which a former House of Representatives speaker once displayed with glee when he visited this newspaper a few years ago; but when we quickly reminded him that we were not talking about his official earnings but the innumerable allowances not reflected in the pay slip, the gap-toothed speaker simply smiled and that marked the end of the story.  If the senators must be told, elected people have a responsibility to protect the interest of the electorate. Where they cannot, they should leave the people as they met them rather than add more to their yokes. Honestly, the senators have stirred the hornet’s nest and I wonder what the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) is waiting for.

    Instead of first ensuring that we get what has been stolen from our very important thieves (VITs), we are talking as if we simply woke up overnight to realise that the country is broke and that the average Nigerian is the cause and should therefore cough up more money for the thieves to share again. If we must tell ourselves some home truths, the senators were part of the people that led this country to where it is today; not the hapless Nigerians that they want to tax out of existence. Some of them have always been recycled and have been senators since God-knows-when; so, such people cannot exonerate themselves from some of the problems over which they are seeking to make Nigerians the beasts of burden. If the Senate, as the upper legislative chamber had played its role as it should, some of the revelations we are having today about the arms fund scandal, which, for me is just a preamble of things to come, would have been detected by the law makers and checked before they became the festering sore that they have  become.

    Anyway, may be the senators have a point in asking Nigerians to bear the shortfall in the budget. The people seemed to have accepted their fate with equanimity. Since they won the gold medal of being the ‘happiest people on earth’ a few years back, they have remained their perpetual happy selves, unperturbed by anything. Nothing shocks them again. Lai Mohammed, information minister, was so worried last week that everybody has been going about his or her duty in the country as if nothing happened despite his disclosure that only about 55 Nigerians stole N1.4trillion in eight years. When you have such people to govern, the temptation is to continue pounding them until they show physical resistance. But this is dangerous.

    Our legislators should realise that when a goat is pushed to the wall, it fights back. The lawmakers should remember that taxation is one of the ways to easily make people angry, especially when it becomes excessive. They should remember the many protests that it had caused in the past, as in the case of the Abeokuta women’s protest which culminated in the abdication of the Alake on January 3, 1949. “As a matter of fact, not a few persons have argued that Nigerians are complacent even in the midst of massive looting of the treasury because the money being stolen is OUR money. They argue that when they steal MY money, Nigerians would be roused from their complacency.

    The scripture enjoins us to rend our hearts and not our garments; it is our lawmakers that ought to shed weight.  Their case is like the pastor who is getting fatter and yet advising his church members on the need to go lean. The senators are the ones who work on part time for four years and yet collect severance package that people at their level in the civil service look forward to in their entire life in service.  I do not know any other country where casual workers get so handsomely rewarded.

    These senators must think outside of the box and use their good offices to get money for the country, instead of insulting our sensibilities. Our problem is corruption and not inadequate taxation. As a matter of fact, if there is problem with taxation, it has to do more with the rich who know how to evade taxes. I would have loved to see our senators come up with legislation/s that would protect the average Nigerian from people who cannot live without stealing oxygen from the public till.

    They have to be careful though not to take Nigerians for granted beyond their coping capacity. Once that coping capacity breaks down, anything can happen. The senators should not allow Nigerians to see the upper chamber as a symbol of legislative tyranny and insensitivity.

  • Dasuki’s forbidden porridge

    Dasuki’s forbidden porridge

    Even our elders allegedly chopped-and-cleaned mouth

    They are mostly elders, and this newspaper on Monday did justice to the story of how they also ‘obtained’, allegedly from the much beleaguered $2.1billion arms procurement fund that the former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki, disbursed as he pleased. With their pictures prominently gracing the cover of the day’s edition, we saw what looked like a galaxy of pan-Nigerian elders. Understandably, the first portrait was that of Chief Olu Falae, followed by former Anambra State Governor Jim Nwobodo; then Rashidi Ladoja, the former Governor of Oyo State; then former Governor Peter Odili of Rivers State and the ubiquitous Chief Tony Anenih (never to be missing in action where such matters are concerned). Below these men’s pictures were the portraits of Chief Bode George (Boy George) of the ports authority contract splitting fame; then former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Chairman, Ahmadu Ali of the Ali mun go fame; Mahmud Aliyu Shinkafi, former Governor of Zamfara state; Olisa Metuh, PDP’s national publicity secretary and Tanko Yakassai, a founding member of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), among others. We were told that they all ate in Dasuki’s alluring forbidden porridge. As elders who did not know how to say ‘no’ when they should, what they thought they had eaten in secret and cleaned mouth has now become a subject of open discourse, and in some cases, open acrimony. It is immaterial whether whatever they got was Dasuki’s forbidden porridge or PDP’s poisoned chalice.

    Chief Falae collected N100million; Nwobodo N500million; Ladoja N100million; Odili N100million; Anenih N260million; George N100million; Ali N100million; Shinkafi N100million, Metuh N400million and Yakassai, N63million, among others. These are mostly elders in their own right; and please, when I talk of elders I am only talking in terms of age. So, nobody should begin to have funny ideas about Yoruba elders or Hausa elders or Igbo elders, or something. Chief Falae was born September 21, 1938, which means he will turn 78 this year.  Boy George was born on November 21, 1945. He will be 70 this year. Nwobodo was born May 9, 1940 (75 years); Ladoja was born September 25, 1944 (71 years); Odili was born August 15, 1948 (67 years); Anenih August 4, 1933 (82 years); Ahmadu Ali was born March 1, 1936 (79 years); Yakassai was born in 1926 (89 years). Metuh is probably the youngest of the lot.

    We must commend whoever drew up the list because it is truly national. Forget about whether some of the people there are paper or feather weight, or whether they even have any weight at all to deliver whatever entitled to them to the booty. One must commend the spread, at least in terms of its geo-political balancing.

    Even the south-east that perpetually cries marginalisation is silent for once because the region is ably represented as only two of their own in the pack, (Nwobodo and Metuh) between them obtained about N900m, far in excess of the paltry N300million that Falae, George and Ladoja got or, better put, obtained. We need to know the sharing formula though, otherwise, the south west too will protest its abysmal share in the booty. I only hope when people start sharing the jail terms too, some sections would not cry marginalisation. When Chief Olusegun Obasanjo became president in 1999, one of the first things he did was purge the military of ‘political military officers’ (those soldiers who had tasted political offices and were therefore thought to have known the difference between good and bad, so that they would not contaminate the system). Because a section of the country benefited most from the political appointments, that section naturally had more casualties. This is only a natural sequence. So, those who got bumper obtainment must not complain when the jumbo jail terms come and many of their elders cannot make it back home from prison.

    No doubt some of these people have come a long way in obtaining. Chief Anenih, for instance; Boy George is another. That was why a man like Chief Anenih obtained N260million and gave ALL out and took nothing from it. The biblical widow’s mite must have informed his uncommon candour. That there is no wrangling (at least none so far) in the ‘Anenih sector’ concerning the disbursements is enough proof of his vast experience on the matter. Conversely, that the ‘Falae sector’ has been shouting that he be crucified because they were not told that anyone obtained on their behalf probably indicates the novice that Falae is in the business.

    Indeed, until now, we had thought that someone like Chief Falae does not or would never obtain. Now we are better informed. But it is good that some of these people are being demystified in the twilight of their lives. Perhaps but for Dasukigate, we would have been having wrong impressions about their true personalities. How can people of their age say they got millions to form alliance with a stinking and sinking government? So, where is honour in all of these? For the Yorubas in the present pack, they messed themselves up just because they do not like someone’s face. Do you now put your cap on your navel simply because you are quarrelling with your head?

    Show me another set of elders who would rather eat up their children’s tomorrow today! “‘The parents eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’? Elders sharing public funds in a country where millions of youths are jobless, where virtually everything has ‘disorganised’, to borrow Fela Anikulapo’s expression! Ha!

    It always bothers me to see people who should be thinking of the hereafter still hankering after material things. But a guest at our editorial board meeting last week shed what looked like some light on the matter when she made the point that old age is capital-intensive. Until then, I had thought something being capital-intensive has to do with certain businesses only.  I guess our guest’s explanation would have made sense to me more than the alibi given by Chief Falae that he did not obtain from the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) but rather from the N21billion the PDP realised at its campaign fund-raiser last year. How did the chief know from where the money came? Was the money obtained from ONSA carrying ONSA stamp to indicate it came from there? Has the chief bothered to trace the genealogy of the money or ask those who gave it to him?

    Anyway, since I am now better educated that old age is capital-intensive, I forgive Chief Falae and the other elders for obtaining, even if without a thought for the leaders of tomorrow. My fear though is that the way they had obtained, thus contributing to the free fall of our currency, the Naira would definitely not be among the legal tenders in heaven. So, those of them hoping to continue spending Naira there when they die would be roundly disappointed.

  • Tariff without representation

    Tariff without representation

    It is now incumbent on Fashola to ensure improved power supply, having made Nigerians cough up more for it

    Come February 1, electricity consumers in the country will have to cough up more money in line with the approval given for increases in tariffs granted the Electricity Distribution Companies (DISCOs) by the Federal Government.

    With the new tariff structure, residential consumers (R2) will pay on the average 48 per cent more than what they are currently paying. Consumers under the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company who are paying N19.96 as energy charge currently will pay N29.56, representing an increase of 48.1 per cent; those under the Eko Disco will now pay N28.75 instead of N18.75, representing 53.3 per cent increase.

    Those under Ikeja, Kaduna and Benin Discos, who are paying N14.96, N20.66 and N18.46 for a unit of electricity, will from February 1 pay N22.96, N31.71, and N27.72, respectively. These represent 53.5 per cent, 53.5 per cent and 49.62 per cent rise for the three Discos, respectively. Commercial consumers (C2) under the Ibadan and Enugu Discos, who are paying N26.79 and N29.05 for a unit of energy, will from February 1 pay N38.87 and N42.4, respectively. These represent 45.1 per cent and 45.9 per cent increase in the respective rates.

    Asking consumers to pay more for goods or services would ordinarily not be an issue in view of the many vicissitudes that the country’s economy has witnessed in recent times. One is here talking about the crash of the naira and all that. But we know that market forces work in mysterious ways in Nigeria. In the days of the defunct National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) and its successor, the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), electricity tariffs were fixed arbitrarily. What consumers paid was a function of so many things, including whether the meter reader liked your face or not; and this is also a function of how far you could go in greasing their palms. If you were not the ‘hospitable’ type, you were at the mercy of the meter reader who slammed you with whatever amount he liked. They called it crazy or estimated bill. The meter reader had no business reading your meter. Indeed, some of them would tell those of us who could confront them that they had revenue targets (but not power supply targets) that they must meet, else they would be in trouble themselves.

    To show the absurdity in that era, I will cite one or two personal examples. The first was an occasion when, from Good Friday of a particular year our light did not blink for 21 consecutive days. Yet, when the then NEPA people brought their bill, I was asked to pay the usual amount that had been ‘gazetted’ into their system in my name. There was another occasion that a ‘molue’ fell one electricity pole in my area, which was a stone’s throw from the NEPA undertaking there leading to power disruption for nine straight days. I was still slammed the usual estimated bill. This, largely, was what the present owners of the Discos inherited and it seems quite okay by them. It was only after the reality dawned on them that the former President Goodluck Jonathan is out that they also realised that an abrupt end had to come for their disco party. The truth is that because of the unearned money that these companies are making from hapless Nigerian consumers, they are not in a hurry to let go of the ancien regime of tariff. They had thought that the music would continue, with former President Jonathan in control.

    Normally, increased tariff should translate to improved efficiency. That is, other things being equal. But Nigeria is a peculiar country. Other things can never be equal in a situation where there are about four broad categories of electricity consumers and not all of them are paying for electricity. The first are those consumers whose meters are in good condition; the second are those with meters that are faulty; the third are those consumers without meters but the power firms are aware of and therefore give them some form of bills monthly. The fourth category is those that are not on the power firms’ records because they tapped electricity illegally. One would naturally assume that those with working meters would have their meters read. This is wrong assumption because many meter readers back then (and even now) as I said never read meters; they already had their minds on what to bill consumers. Only a few of them did and still do their work conscientiously.

    Now, if meter readers are not under compulsion to read even meters that are working, why would they want to listen to those with faulty meters, begging that the meters be replaced so they can have a fair idea of electricity they consume? If a meter is not working, does the solution lie in guesswork? The power firms simply ignore demands for meters that are not in good condition because the idea is not necessarily to bill consumers for what they consume but to make money off the consumers, even if illegally. As for the category of those that the power firms know are connected to the national grid but do not have meters, what they pay is either determined arbitrarily as ever from the offices or the meter reader uses his discretion to determine their bills, depending on their ‘standing’ with him.

    So, for me, where to start is not necessarily in raising tariffs. This is putting the cart before the horse. The first thing is for each Disco to have a proper enumeration of its customers, bringing into the net those who had tapped electricity illegally. As things stand, they cannot in all conscience say they have done that. And until this is done, some other people would continue to subsidise the electricity consumed by such people.

    It is going to be easy to make people who entered into a business genuinely to make profit to shape up. But not so for companies that never thought the days of impunity of the Jonathan era would end so suddenly. Quote me, they would soon start asking for another tariff review unless they first change their business module, and then bring in people who are using electricity illegally because they can never recoup their money the way things are, not to talk of make profit. It was former President Olusegun Obasanjo who should have asked the then NEPA how it did it, when in the early years of his administration NEPA said it had succeeded in raising revenue from less than N2billion monthly to about N6billion at a time power supply had ebbed considerably.

    If you are wondering where I got my headline from, it was graciously supplied by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) boss, Sam Amadi, when he told reporters the process through which the new tariff structure passed before it was approved. “We have gone to the Discos, gotten feedback, gone to government and gotten feedback”. So, where did they put the electricity consumers in all of these? I know the Discos themselves had tried to carry consumers along but failed because no rational thinking electricity consumer would make himself available for suicide by agreeing with them on tariff increase, given the numerous failed promises in the past on electricity supply.

    When announcing the (then) impending tariff hike, the MInister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola had appealed for understanding from electricity consumers. To the extent that Nigerians are not protesting the new order, at least not loudly, it can be taken that they have accepted his plea for understanding, but it is incumbent on the minister to extract efficiency from the power firms. Otherwise, he would have succeeded in allowing Discos that never prepared to do business in the kind of environment they now find themselves to further con hapless Nigerians. Worse, he would have succeeded in also eroding the goodwill on the crest of which President Muhammadu Buhari rode to power.

    Lest I forget, the minister also made the usual comparison between the electricity sector and the telecoms sector to buttress his point about the advantage of privatisation. I disagree. They are two different things. If as a consumer I am dissatisfied with a particular telecoms provider, I can switch to another even without losing my number. I mean I can simply port. It is not so with the electricity sector where consumers are inexorably tied to the DISCO in their area.

  • Dahiru and the cadets

    Dahiru and the cadets

    A poor boy in the hands of two Air Force cadets

    I had thought of writing on the new electricity tariff approved for our electricity distribution companies (DISCOs) by the Federal Government today. Somehow, what you are reading pushed that forward. That may come up next week, God willing. What I am looking at today is  Citizen Dahiru Lawal and two air force cadets.

    For me, Dahiru is one of the luckiest persons in 2015. Barely 48 hours to the new year, the poor boy had an encounter with two Nigeria Air Force cadets, Abdullahi Fahad and Peter O Solomon at the Mile 12 area of Lagos. Mile 12 has become more notorious not only for the presence of the market there but for the chaotic traffic situation that has become a regular feature of the place. But people in the area were treated to something bizarre when on Wednesday, last week, the two Air Force cadets locked up Dahiru in the boot of their car. But for the intervention of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State, only God knows what would have been Dahiru’s fate by now. But my guess is, he might have passed on to the Great Beyond because there is a limit to how long a human being could stay alive while locked in the boot of a car after being dragged on the ground.

    According to reports, the cadets said they put Dahiru in the car boot for trying to escape after breaking the windscreen of their car. “What happened is that the boy broke the windscreen in front of my car. When I stopped, I asked him to come, the boy ran away. We have to drag him back and put him in the boot”, Solomon said, when asked to narrate what happened. He added: “I kind of threatened his boss that he is working with and when his boss came and looked at what he did to me, that was when I put him inside the boot, but I did not lock the boot”.

    Fahad more or less corroborated this story. He said he and his colleague were at Mile 12 after visiting a friend when they heard a sound on their windscreen and they saw Lawal attempting to escape … “We now ran inside the market and dragged him (Lawal) down. I was even asking for who he is working with because I wanted to see his oga since I know he cannot repair my damaged windscreen. I want to see the man he is working with so that we can settle everything with him. I now told my colleague that we should hand him over to Air Force Police at the Air force Base”, Fahad added.

    Dahiru states his own side of the story. He said he mistakenly broke the windscreen with the load he was carrying and that he took to his heels for fear of what the cadets would do to him. “I ran into the market and they pursued me and caught me inside the market. They started beating me and dragged me to their car. The pleas of my boss and other people around fell on deaf ears. The policemen there, according to reports, also came to plead with them to open the boot but they insisted on taking me away and it was at this point that the convoy of the governor arrived to rescue me from the boot of the car where they kept me”, he said.

    Why would the cadets want to take the boy to Air Force base when there were policemen around? Although the cadets claimed they did not lock the boot of the car after puting the boy in it (a claim Dahiru said was a lie), that, for me, is immaterial. Why put a human being in the boot of a car at all? Now, even if what they wanted to do was drive him to their Air Force base, would they still have left the boot open while driving to the place? How many people would break the windscreen of a military personnel’s car and wait, knowing full well the repercussion? This is not to justify what the boy had done, though. Despite being a boy, he already knew what to expect from the cadets after breaking their windscreen. Moreover, it does not seem to me that the boy deliberately broke the windscreen. Even when the boy’s boss arrived, there was little he could do seeing that the people that his boy offended were military men. If he said what they did not want to hear, he could end up receiving lashes of koboko (horse whip) and end up in the boot with his boy. So, the best he could do was plead with the cadets, realising that even the policemen around could not get the boy off the hook.

    Indeed, this is where I am going. At the time the policemen on ground there intervened, the military men ought to have handed over the boy over to them, granted that they wanted their windscreen replaced (a not too illegitimate demand). But that is what due process and rule of law demands. It was wrong for them to contemplate taking the poor boy to their base because that could not have been a substitute for a police station. It was a civil matter which should be reported at the police station.

    Apparently too, the policemen there were helpless because if they tried to insist on taking up the matter, things could go awry between them and the cadets on the one hand, and the cadets and onlookers on another. Before one could say Jack Robinson, the entire place would start boiling and we may begin to record casualties by way of deaths or injuries. Reinforcements would come from nearby military barracks upon mere speculation that some bloody policemen have manhandled two Air Force cadets. It was probably to avert this that the policemen there chose to plead with the cadets and when they saw their pleas were not heeded; they abandoned the boy to his fate.  Thank God for the governor’s convoy that was passing at the time. That is why I say Dahiru is a very lucky boy. If not, why did the governor arrive at the very point that the boy needed a superior authority to free him from those who were too powerful for those around to rescue him from?

    The point is that some of our military officers need to learn how to relate with members of the public. In fairness to some of the officers, they are somewhat  courteous while dealing with civilians. But some of these boys joining the military have a different idea about what the institution is all about. They see their uniform as something that entitles them to bully others and cow people into submission. If mere cadets could put someone who broke their windscreen in the car boot, what punishment would they mete out to him if they were officers in the Air force? To even think that the cadets are from what many of us see as the elite arm of our military, the Nigerian Air Force! It is bad enough that in this case, the boy was at fault. But I have no doubt in my mind that if the case had been otherwise, the same cadets would want to bully their way through, perhaps without offering an apology to their victim.

    Did it cross the minds of the cadets that Governor Ambode could have ordered them put in the boot of one of the cars in his convoy because he too had superior powers, even if this would have attracted condemnation later from some citizens? Yet, some would have seen the ‘punishment’ as a well deserved comeuppance for the cadets who did not realise that where their own power ends, someone else’s begins?

    Our military authority must teach their officers and men how to deal with civilians. They must know that we are now in a democratic era and there is no room for raw or brute application of power or authority. In a sense, Dahiru is a Yoruba equivalent of ‘Ayorunbo’ (someone who has died and returned to earth). Reports said he was already gasping for breath when the governor arrived and ordered that he be freed. Thank God he is free indeed!

  • Letter to President Buhari

    Letter to President Buhari

    A guide to PMB’s New Year Resolutions

    Dear PMB,

    This time last year when we witnessed the last Sunday of the year 2014, things were still somewhat fluid about who would lead our dear country, Nigeria. To the discerning few though, it was clear the then President, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, would not return because of his abysmal failure to lead the country aright, as well as his government’s unholy romance with corruption. Some of us said so directly; some others did indirectly. Some others were too blind to see the handwriting on the wall. One thing was clear though; many of those who felt the former president would find his way back did not credit him with much by way of performance. Rather, they hinged their optimism mainly on what they termed the ‘power of incumbency’. Some of us felt well, if incumbency was that powerful such that we would not be able to remove a non-performing leader, then there was no point holding elections. We jolly well would have told the former president to carry on.

    Then came the 2015 elections in which you roundly defeated your predecessor and he had to concede defeat in March. But President Jonathan did not lose the election the day he conceded defeat; he lost it the day you were successfully chosen as the All Progressives Congress’ (APC) presidential candidate on December 23, last year. Some of us told the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) then to begin to pack its bag and baggage in readiness to vacate Aso Rock while the then president should join the unemployment queue. Former President Jonathan has since returned to his home town, Otuoke, in Bayelsa State, while your humble self has since May 29 taken his former position.

    Since then, there have been a few things you did which Nigerians felt you should have done otherwise, or you should not have done at all. Mr President, some of your comments have not particularly gone down well with many Nigerians. One was your statement to the effect that even without you doing anything, there has been noticeable changes in the country. In other words, your ‘body language’ has been working wonders. This was true to a large extent, at least initially. But, whether in terms of power supply which dramatically improved on your assumption of office, or fuel supply which similarly witnessed relative stability after the initial hiccups then, things have nosedived in both sectors as I write. Electricity supply has returned to its epileptic past even as fuel queues have not only returned but have done so with an uncommon obstinacy.  What these tell us is that ‘body language’ cannot last forever. It seems to have lost its potency  and it can only continually get eroded as more and more people notice this weakness.

    Although you have apologised to Nigerians for the fuel scarcity and they have accepted your apology (I guess I am speaking the minds of many of them), but beyond the apology is what happens next. How do we get out of the fuel scarcity conundrum? That is the main issue now as we prepare to usher in a new year.

    Aside the temporal efficacy of your ‘body language’, the import of your statement, Mr. President, is that the country is on auto-pilot and this did not go down well with many people. Even if it was true that a few things knocked themselves into shape when you assumed office, one would have expected such statement to come from the people themselves. I am not even sure it is something to celebrate by your top aides. I may be wrong here, though. But certainly the statement ought not to have come from you directly.

    Mr. President, we are beginning to see what your policy thrusts are. Your maiden budget of N6trillion appears ambitious, given the downturn in oil prices. Your government’s intention to downplay oil in the government’s revenue profile is good, at least on paper. Whether it is realistic is a different matter entirely; but it is worth giving a trial because that is where we should be going. There are some salient aspects of the budget which appear good on the surface; again, whether they are attainable is the issue. For instance, the proposed creation of about 500,000 jobs for teachers is good, just as the social safety net of N5,000 monthly proposed for the indigent elderly. One can only hope that these have been well thought-out so they do not end the way of the Poverty Alleviation Programme (PAP) of the PDP which was alleviating poverty in reverse by pumping hefty sums of money into the pockets of the party’s wealthy chieftains.

    Many Nigerians are also not happy that your government’s major policies are announced abroad. It was in Iran that you first announced that some past public officials who stole public funds have started returning part of the loot.  You were also outside of the country when you said that Nigeria was broke and also that the Federal Government was considering negotiating with Boko Haram insurgents. The same thing applied to your announcement that you would appoint your ministers in September, 2015.

    With regard to the anti-corruption war though, we are beginning to see some action, especially with the arraignment of some of the big suspects involved. It has been fascinating as it is revealing so far; but when we realise that the shared arms fund that has given us so much shock was only a fraction of what was stolen in the oil sector where Diezani Alison-Madueke held sway, then we can only see how callous some of our so-called leaders can be, given the millions that go hungry daily and the countless others that were dying and being displaced because some people had stolen the money that was supposed to be used to buy arms.

    We are also hearing a lot of speculations about plea bargain. I guess with time, some people would start talking of state pardon, even as the case proper is yet to begin. For me, though, what is most important is the recovery of our common patrimony that was stolen. But that should not be a reason to start giving the impression that things have to be done differently only because those involved are big thieves. Will a poor man who stole a goat or cow have the opportunity of plea bargain if he returns that goat or cow? Although plea bargain is used in some parts of the world as a way to resolve disputes and save valuable time and money on litigation, it is not done the way we do it in Nigeria. So, the president has to be wary of the kind of plea bargain he would allow for the unconscionable looters. Justice must not only be done; it must be seen to have been done.

    Dear Mr. President, it is not that you are not aware of some, if not all of these issues; but it is important to put them together in a way that they would attract your attention and enable you decide which of them you may want to rethink in the coming year. You may also be compiling a list of your New Year resolutions. This may as well serve as a guide.

    Happy New Year in advance, sir.

  • Itching to be embedded

    Itching to be embedded

    It is unfair to have left some of us out of the ‘train’

    Embedded. Hum, embedded! That is one word that is now trending in the country, following the recent expose on the $2.1billion arms fund scandal. I had thought I knew the meaning of the word ’embed’; but my knowledge paled into insignificance when the Emeritus Chairman of DAAR Communications, Chief Raymond Dokpesi, who has been accused of collecting N2.1billion from the arms money told the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), among other things, that he “was embedded in various (media) organisations” for the Office of the former National Security Adviser (ONSA), Col Sambo Dasuki (rtd).

    That is one problem with Nigeria’s big men. They like to mystify Nigerians with big grammar or try outright to invent words in their trying moments. That is when you know that the rich also cry. One does not know whether it is out of fear or just because they want to daze the rest of us with big vocabulary, some of which they invented. Imagine General Oladapo Diya when he appeared before the tribunal trying him and others for alleged coup plot in the Abacha era.  General Diya that we hitherto thought was a strong man suddenly became lily-livered during interrogation. The shocked and embarrassed general asked the coup tribunal panel: “Bamaiyi is the masterminder (sic) of this. Where is he?” (when actually he meant mastermind). Just like some other words and concepts that we are already used to in the country (another such word is parastatal) but which cannot be found in any good dictionary, I have tried in vain to check the word masterminder, to no avail. A handsome reward awaits whoever succeeds in finding the word in any dictionary – good or bad.

    Anyway, back to Chief Dokpesi. Those who saw him on television when the story broke would testify he was truly ’embedded’, given the way he shied away from facing the camera. Chief Dokpesi should have saved us all the trouble by simply saying he spent what he got on media publicity for the government. If it was as simple as this, why daze us with a big word? I was told even the EFCC did not know what Chief Dokpesi meant by “he was embedded” and they therefore asked him to break it down. “We don’t know what he meant and we have written the affected media to explain if they were given any share of the N2.1billion for publicity”, one of the commission’s officials was quoted as saying. Imagine the trauma that even the anti-graft agency passed through just because of one word!

    I am still at a loss as to how I missed out completely from these actions. Although I must confess I did not know the NSA; not to talk of his office, ONSA, which was doling out money in a way that would make many of our religious fathers fall over themselves inviting him for thanksgiving in their churches; that did not appear to be a criterion. After all, one of those who said he got only $30,000 confessed that he did not know the NSA. So, what could be wrong with me? It is not funny that of all the categories – embedded, consultancy – I was cruelly neglected? Even the princely N4.6billion that was said to have been allocated for “spiritual purpose”, I could not make a dime from. Well, one is not even sure whether the N4.6billion was full and final payment for the spiritualists consulted, or it was just one of the tranches. But that is hardly important. Even if it was the N4.6billion that was at stake, it was something. Beyond that, however, the EFCC must be interested in which spiritualist got what because, apparently quacks must have been consulted to do the job; that is why things turned out the way they have. Those of us who could have fasted and done vigil and our sacrifices would have ascended were ignored.

    Anyway, what I am saying so far, for those who might not have known where I am headed is that EFCC’s concern is not necessarily my concern. I am not even worried by what is worrying the Federal Government on this matter. As they say, different folks; different strokes. They can be interested in who did what with the arms fund. But I am more interested in how I missed out in the action. Why was I nowhere near being captured in the radar? Indeed, it is now I know how little I am in this country, and, but for my Christian conscience, I would have started to review my continued citizenship. How could people be getting embedded left, right, centre and I was missing all through? With three decades of what I used to think was meritorious media practice, I feel I am eminently qualified to be embedded in the media campaigns.

    Now, the EFCC has asked some of those embedded in (or is it with?) the arms fund to provide some documents, including their tax certificates. The commission would do better by asking those of us who were marginalised to also submit our petitions so they can ask those in charge why they found us unworthy for being embedded or consulted despite our long years of service which, naturally, should be an added advantage. I was reliably informed that editors from a particular region in the country were favoured in the ’embedment’.

    Apparently, like most other things Nigerian, due process was not followed in determining those to consult or embed. Yet, this country belongs to us all. Why should only some people be enjoying the fruits of the land by way of ’embedment’ to the detriment of the rest of us? It is memories like this that make some people want to get out of our union. But as the patriot that I am, I won’t quit because I am sure this my public petition will bear fruit. God definitely did not make a mistake putting me here.

    For now, I hold no grudge against anyone for not embedding me when it mattered most. But I will forever hold it against them if at this juncture they still do not deem it fit to get me into the train. What I am saying is that I am still available to be embedded. After all, they say it is better late than never. In a system where the minimum take-away by the lucky ones that got embedded was N100 million (except the media houses whose operations were disrupted last year by government’s troops that got a paltry N10million each from which N1million was also creamed off for the organisation that brokered the inexplicable truce between government and the newspaper houses) any right-thinking person would not mind being involved in that arrangement. Indeed, from what is already in the public domain, it appears the roll call of those embedded parades the who’s who in the country. And the song is not over yet. We are still likely to hear more as the trial progresses. So, since being embedded (is like gonorrhea which was known to be a disease of the famous when I was growing up) appears to be the in-thing, I think it would not be a bad idea to ask the EFCC to ’embed’ me in the suits in anticipation that this application of mine will be favourably considered. This is my irreducible condition to be on the same page with the commission.

    And just in case there are no more beds for me to be embedded, I would not mind to be enmatted. After all, in many parts of southern Nigeria, when a woman gives birth to a bouncing baby boy, people (including other women) rejoice with the parents, wholeheartedly. But if a woman gave birth to a baby girl (mind the missing operational word ‘bouncing’ in this instance, we don’t have anything like bouncing baby girl) people only rejoice with the parents, reluctantly. The well-wishers’ response is usually “a girl is also good”.

    So, if I can’t get bed to embed upon, a mat is also good. Let me be enmatted. You don’t worry about the risk because the risks too have been ’embedded’. I must put to shame those witches and wizards in the village that made me not to be embedded when it was fashionable to so be.

     

  • In the name of arms

    In the name of arms

    Those who swindled the country must not go unpunished

    Nigerians may not yet know those involved in the messy $2billion arms deals that have dominated the country’s media in the last few days. But they know that a lot of money meant to purchase arms and ammunition for the Nigerian Armed Forces ended up in private pockets in the better-forgotten, yet difficult to forget Goodluck Jonathan years. Budget allocations to security/defence, especially in the Jonathan era, is enough evidence of what was sunk into these areas, sadly, without result. In 2008, we spent N444.6 billion on security; 2009: N233 billion; 2010: N264billion; these were Umaru Yar’Adua years. In 2011, after former President  Jonathan had taken over, we committed N348 billion to security; 2012: N921.91 billion; 2013: N1.055 trillion. It fell to N968 billion in 2014, about 20 percent of the year’s N4.962 trillion budget.

    These were budgetary allocations alone. But, going by revelations now coming up after the arrest of former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd.), and others suspected of involvement in the arms scam, it is getting clearer that the Jonathan government went beyond budgetary provisions in disbursing funds to the Office of the NSA, ostensibly for security purposes. Former finance minister and coordinating minister for the economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said she also gave $322m to Col. Dasuki from the loot recovered from the Late General Sani Abacha. In her words, “the NSA made a case for using the returned funds for urgent security operations since, he noted, there cannot be any development without peace and security”.

    These defence disbursements have many mindboggling dimensions. One, we did not have value for the money. And no one would have expected that a country at war with the dangerous Boko Haram sect would have been so inhumanly raped by those who were supposed to ensure its wellbeing. There is also the dangerous implication for our armed forces whose men and officers were ordered to confront the murderous Boko Haram gangsters, literally with bare fists.

    Perhaps we need some statistics to drive the points vividly home. Boko Haram insurgents have killed more than 20,000 people since their insurrection began in 2009 and displaced more than 2.3 million from their homes. Indeed, the insurgents had wreaked havoc that would take decades to reverse, particularly in the north-eastern part of the country where their activities have been most pronounced. The group has carried out mass abductions, including the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok, in April 2014. Some of them have returned; others remain at large.

    All these explain the joy across the land when officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) began to arrest suspects in connection with the $2billion arms deals.  Others that are now having their day in court with the former NSA are former Governor Attahiru Bafarawa of Sokoto State who allegedly collected N100million cash from Dasuki; Emeritus Chairman of Africa Independent Television (AIT), Chief Raymond Dokpesi, said to have collected N2.1billion from Dasuki’s office. The EFCC has also launched a manhunt for a former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mohammed Haliru Bello, in connection with some diverted arms cash. One of the suspects in the EFCC’s custody is said to have refunded N200million and has pleaded for bail to refund about N1billion credited to him as diverted funds.

    One good thing about what is happening is that hitherto untouchables are now being touched. That is the way it should be; the law should be no respecter of persons – soldiers, governors, ministers, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, media owners, even former presidents! Although the case proper is yet to start, we are already being treated to melodious songs; some people are singing like canaries already.  I can’t wait to hear more melodious tunes from the big people that would sing – treble, tenor alto, bass – from the witness box in the coming harvest of songs that would make the Apostolic Faith Church Annual Musical Concert a child’s play!

    But Nigerians should rejoice that they did not allow their military to commit serial senseless murders in the name of punishing soldiers for mutiny because it would have been disastrous if we are now hearing what happened after those innocent soldiers had been killed. Yet, the then Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Alex Sabundu Badeh, endorsed the summary trials and execution of the soldiers and officers who deserted the war front because they did not want to commit suicide that the Nigerian authorities wanted them to commit. Regrettably, Badeh was quoted to have said: “In fact, may be you will now push us to go and start doing field court-martial in the bush. We try them, in five minutes we would have finished the trial, kill them, bury them and we go on with the fight,” Badeh said in reaction to the barrage of criticisms that trailed the sentencing of 12 soldiers to death for alleged mutiny and other military offences. Now, the question is: Do you confront bandits who have superior weapons with bare hands? Only God knows how many soldiers and officers had gone the Badeh way in the military era over coups, real or phantom.

    This was simply the height of man’s inhumanity to man. The same Marshal Badeh it was who testified that he headed a military that lacked equipment, when he was handing over to his successor, Major-General Abayomi Gabriel Olonishakin in Abuja, following his well deserved sack alongside other military chiefs by President Muhammadu Buhari on July 13. “The task of coordinating the military and other security agencies in the fight against the insurgents is perhaps the most complex and challenging assignment I have had in my over 38 years in service. For the first time, I was head of a military that lacked the relevant equipment and motivation to fight an enemy that was invisible and embedded with the local populace”, Badeh said at the occasion.

    Now, if Badeh knew his troops did not have equipment, why approve the killing of soldiers who refused to make themselves available for suicide? Perhaps it did not occur to him and his colleagues that these soldiers are somebody’s children; somebody’s husbands; somebody’s fathers, some people’s breadwinners, etc. Again, was the former chief of defence staff not aware of the billions that had been budgeted for the same military to buy arms and ammunition? What happened to the billions and why would the military still be left without weapons and motivation, as confirmed by even the United States Director of the African Centre at Atlantic Council in Washington DC, Dr. Peter Pham?

    If security is a function of huge budgetary and extra-budgetary allocations, then Nigeria should be one of the most secured countries on earth, given the stupendous amounts that security has swallowed in the country’s budgets in the last three years in particular. That this is not so is depressing enough. The matter is worsened by the ungodly manner the military authorities handled it. Indeed, I am beginning to be convinced that God would have to create special courts for Nigeria on the Day of Judgment. He would need more than the required number of angels for (the same) security reasons so that our big men who know all the tricks to evade judgment after committing crimes would not play a fast one on His angels. Those who say the furnace in hell would be reinforced seven times more than usual on that great day must have had Nigeria in mind. Very soon, some of the big suspects would start having strange ailments and they would be asking the courts to let them travel abroad for treatment. But the courts should be vigilant.

    Part of the beauty of the arms deals case is that it would check impunity on the part of public officials and their collaborators. Those close to the seat of power did so many things with impunity even so that the blind would see, especially in the immediate past. President Jonathan would need all the angels swearing on his behalf that truly, he was not aware of these monumental scams because, in terms of whistle blowing, he had a surfeit of it; but, rather than do something, he was busy distinguishing between stealing and corruption.

    The EFCC should cast the net even wider to get in all the others who might have partaken in the sharing of the arms funds. No one needs to remind President Buhari (as a general) that the scam is beyond fighting corruption. It has implications for loyalty, professionalism and cohesion in the military. It has implications for national security. It has gone beyond being swept under the carpet.