The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tunji Adegboyega

  • The new cement war

    The new cement war

    Govt has to rethink policy on 32.5mpa grade

    In the last few months, there has been another brewing war over cement in the country. This time around, the issue has to do with the 32.5mpa grade which a few stakeholders claim is responsible for the frequent building collapse in Nigeria. Curiously, it is the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), which had consistently maintained that all the cement produced in or imported into the country, met international standards that prescribed the reviewed standards of cement. Quite interestingly, only Dangote Cement, the dominant cement manufacturer in Nigeria, supports the SON’s review because it already has a headstart as it produces mainly the 42.5mpa cement. Others can hardly catch up.

    Cement comes in three grades, 32.5mpa, 42.5mpa and recently, 52.5mpa.. The new policy prescribes the use of the 52.5mpa for the construction of bridges; 42.5mpa for the casting of columns, slabs and moulding of blocks and the 32.5mpa for plastering only. Hitherto, 32.5mpa had been used for most construction purposes. The matter eventually got to the House of Representatives which set up an Ad-hoc Committee on Public Investigative Hearing on the Composition and Pigmentation of Cement (Cement Quality) in Nigeria. The committee conducted a three-day public investigative session from May 13 to 15, 2014, with relevant stakeholders submitting memoranda to it. The stakeholders included Federal Ministry of Trade and Investment, SON, Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN), Cement Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (CMAN), Nigeria Society of Engineers, Nigerian Institute of Architects, Nigerian Institute of Building,  Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors,  Federal Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development and FCT Development Department. All the eight cement manufacturers in the country also submitted their position papers on the matter.

    Going by the logic of those who claim building collapse is due to the use of 32.5mpa cement, buildings would be safe if the higher grade of 42.5mpa cement is used. This argument lacks substance, as there is no empirical evidence to support it.

    The chairman of the ad-hoc committee, Yakubu Dogara, in his welcome address at the public investigative hearing noted that building collapse claimed about 297 lives between 1974 and 2010 .. These numbers do not take into account the injured as well as many cases of permanent disabilities. Material losses, if properly quantified, will be in billions of naira”. Without doubt, the figure will be higher if we realise that not all the cases of collapsed buildings are captured in the media.

    Any rational human being confronted with such grim statistics would naturally be moved and the tendency could be to call for the removal of whatever is said to be responsible . But this is not something to be unduly emotional about. The situation requires extensive research to determine the true role that 32.5mpa cement played in these unfortunate incidents. As they say, ‘beheading cannot be the solution to headache’. Moreover, some of the prominent buildings built decades back were constructed with 32.5mpa cement and many of them are still standing. These include the National Assembly Complex, Abuja; Elephant House, Alausa, Lagos; Nitel Building, Lagos; Airport Hotel, Lagos; Western House, Lagos; Great Nigeria Insurance House, Lagos; Federal Secretariat, Lagos; Oriental Hotel, Lekki, Lagos; Premier Hotel, Ibadan and Cocoa House, also in Ibadan, among many others.

    Many of these structures have been there for decades. Cocoa House, a 24-storey building, for instance, was commissioned in 1965.  The 32-storey NITEL Building was completed in 1979, etc.

    For me, to blame a particular grade of cement for building collapse is like blaming waiters in restaurants for obesity. We all know, as the House committee and other stakeholders in the industry noted, that cement is not the only material that is used in the construction industry. In essence therefore, it cannot alone be responsible for the high incidence of collapsed buildings. So many other things could have gone wrong in the mix that could have led to building collapse.

    It would appear that the Federal Government has finally realised the dangers that unfair monopolies constitute to the economy, hence its decision to break them. At least that was the impression created by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, during the formal presentation of the Draft Competition and Consumer Protection Policy to ministries, extra-ministerial agencies, organised business communities and state governments in the northern part of Nigeria, when he disclosed that a new competition and consumer protection policy that would address the various trade concerns and provide a level-playing ground for businessmen in the interest of consumers, in particular, and the economy at large, would begin soon.

    Unfortunately, it is the same minister and SON that are behind the review of cement standards in the country in this suspicious manner. Now, at what point did SON have a change of heart, having certified the 32.5mpa cement as having met international standards, until lately? From the look of things, it would seem the decision was hasty and decisions on such crucial matters ought to be properly digested before they become government policy. All the critical stakeholders in the built industry that presented memoranda to the House committee could not have been wrong. Most of them are professionals in their own rights whose views should count when such decisions are about to be taken.

    This was what the House committee public sitting on the matter achieved. Its conclusions are much more robust and reflect the cross-fertilisation of ideas that went into their assignment. If we are even to go by the assertion by COREN that “SON does not have a technical laboratory nor competence to test the qualities of cement produced, packaged or imported into Nigeria, nor equipment for periodic monitoring of companies producing cement in Nigeria”, at the public hearing, a claim the House committee said “was not refuted by SON”, then, we can see that there is much to the matter than meets the eye. As the committee observed, no other country, apart from China, has banned the production of 32.5mpa cement. India’s grade 43 is said to be equivalent to the 32.5 mpa. Even China that banned the 32.5mpa did so because it has achieved over-capacity in cement production, and, also as the committee noted, “to address environmental concerns”. Nigeria is nowhere near self-sufficiency in cement production.

    It is instructive that the committee asserted that not in any single case of collapsed building has the use of 32.5mpa cement been blamed by the relevant independent professional bodies that investigated them. Buildings may collapse due to a number of factors including, but not limited to the following: the cement exhausting its shelf span or due to loss of its essential qualities as a result of stacking exposure or exposure to the element; lack of control or regulation, and because relevant standards on concrete and related issues are not enforced in the downstream informal construction sector. Other causes are: inadequate education or awareness on the appropriate application of cement grades in the country. Indeed, this is so serious, as, according to the House committee, “The level of ignorance of the availability of different grades of cement in the Nigerian market is so high to the extent that most directors of works and academic institutions of higher learning are not aware of the different types of cement available in the country”. So, “if gold rusts, what would iron do”? There is also the problem of the greed of some professionals or end-users who might decide to add more sand than required in the construction mix. Of course, there is also the problem of the quality of iron used in construction, etc.

    What one can see in all of these is the ubiquitous ‘Nigerian Factor’. If, as SON claimed, the 32.5mpa cement is susceptible to misapplication and can therefore “result in construction failure”, what is the guarantee that cement of higher grades cannot also result in the same thing once those saddled with the responsibility of ensuring standards and best practices in the sector do not do their work as they should? Or, put differently, when the ‘Nigerian factor’ still reigns supreme? The sad reality is that more buildings will still collapse in the country unless we begin to hold people accountable for the menace.

    All said, until it is conclusively proven that grade 32.5mpa cement is responsible for the high incidence of collapsed buildings in the country, or elsewhere, the SON review, which confers undue advantage on the dominant player in the industry that currently produces essentially the 42.5mpa grade would appear to have been targeted at stifling the weaker players who produce the 32.5mpa largely, and the 42.5mpa only on requests by their customers. It would be tantamount to continuation of the cement war by some other means, with the Federal Government throwing its weight, as usual, behind the dominant player. It does not make economic sense for any investor to set up a cement factory for the sole purpose of producing products for plastering. The government has to rethink the policy in the overall interest of the economy.

  • The principled satirist

    The principled satirist

    Ace journalism teacher, writer Olatunji Dare turns 70

    Unlike some of my colleagues who were taught formally by Prof. Olatunji Dare, I was not. But I had the privilege of benefitting from his wealth of knowledge somewhat fortuitously. The important thing though is that I (as his ‘unknown distant learning student’), and those who were taught by him in the classroom, have benefitted immensely from whatever we have learnt from him. And, as I used to tell another colleague, it is immaterial whether one is selling apples or oranges; what is important is that the two sellers are smiling to the bank! So, it is immaterial whether I was taught formally by Prof. Dare or whether I did it as an ‘unknown distant learning student’. I keep referring to myself as an ‘unknown distant learning student’ of Prof Dare because, unlike Jesus Christ who knew when the woman with the issue of blood touched the hem of his garment, Prof Dare did not know to what purpose I had put a beautiful piece he wrote in The Guardian condemning Decree 4 of 1984 promulgated by the draconian Buhari/Idiagbon regime.

    It was at an interview I attended when looking for job after my National Youth Service in 1985. About 44 of us were invited for the interview at The Punch, to fill four vacant slots. It was a marathon interview which lasted from about 10.a.m. till about past five in the evening. The written test was in two parts: newspaper production, and an essay/feature article. Right from my university days, I had always avoided the production aspect of print journalism, so I knew I must have had an average performance if that had been the only area of journalism that we were tested on. Of course an average performance could not have been of much use in a situation where about 44 graduates from various universities were contesting to fill four vacant positions. Obviously then, my saving grace was the essay I wrote on Decree 4.

    A few days to the interview, I had been trying my hands on everything I imagined could be asked at the occasion. Then it occurred to me that I needed to read up something on Decree 4 and Dr. Dare’s piece came handy. I digested it. It was divine direction as it ended up being part of what we were examined on during the interview. By the time I was through with the question, I was cocksure that if ‘performance infrastructure’ was the only criterion for selection, I had already made it.

    But in Nigeria, we all know this is not always so. You can imagine my fears and the fears of many of us who did not know anybody of substance at the company then, when we saw some of our colleagues entering the offices of the ‘big people’ there, some emerging with bottles of water, others with soft drinks. We almost concluded that the interview was a facade and that they already knew the people they were going to take. Anyway, we later found out that we were wrong by the time the result started coming out, same day. People were weeded out in batches of 10 and somehow, some of those we had thought were ‘well connected’ could not make it to the third round. Our hearts skipped a beat whenever the person announcing the result came into the office where we were awaiting our result. That was the way it went until about 14 of us were left. This was the most dreaded stage of the interview. Eventually, by the time they came to weed out the last batch, only four of us were left and I cannot remember if any of us knew anybody at the company then. Somehow, all of us were from the Department of Mass Communication, University of Lagos.

    Perhaps a major lesson for jobseekers here is that they need not lose hope simply on account of what they see around them during interviews. For me however, Prof Dare’s piece on Decree Four gave me the edge that I needed in that interview as I gave it back to the examiners almost in the elegant manner it was presented by Dr Dare. I itemised the points just as he did, i.e. that the decree was draconian; it was discriminatory (obviously for the private media as no government medium could dare to run afoul of it, etc.), and argued the points very well, thus giving me that needed added advantage.

    My close friends knew how happy I was because securing employment at The Punch then was an ambition realised. Up till the time I did my youth service, I had craved working only with The Punch and Newswatch magazine; I mean the original Newswatch of the Dele Giwa fame.  That should be expected, given the fire of the fresh-from-school radicalism that was burning in me. It was the paper’s radical approach to issues that kept me in the company for about 12 years, despite the fact that one had all it takes to seek greener pastures elsewhere. Don’t forget, that was a time the company could not pay salaries regularly.

    My patience paid off. And that was why I celebrated Chief Ajibola Ogunshola, the former chairman of Punch Nigeria Ltd. last week, and I am doing same for Prof Dare today. If we cannot celebrate such people who have contributed immensely to human and economic development, then we should have no business celebrating politicians who only compound our economic adversity. On a personal note, I can only imagine what would have been my lot if I did not rise to the position of editor of  the paper’s daily before leaving the company in 1997. Given my post-Punch experience, one might have ended up as a footnote in the long list of veteran journalists, in a profession that one governor described as having ‘no second-hand value’.

    Anyway, back to Prof Dare. I guess I must have met him for the first time at a function organised by the Lagos State Council  of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), sometime in the ‘90s. I can’t remember the details of what the programme was all about, but it was from Dr Dare at the event that I first heard the expression, the “social cost of  SAP’,  (Structural Adjustment Programme)  introduced by the Babangida regime. Dare was then Chairman, Editorial Board of The Guardian. I do not know what exactly happened, but I remember that he left the venue in the car of a comrade friend.

    Apart from being a journalism teacher, and a good one at that, Prof Dare is more renowned as a satirist. I have tried my hands on satire a couple of times and have always felt so happy when people like him commend my efforts. However, like the hunchback who does not know the enormity of what people who stand straight do until he tries to do same, it is not easy to be satirical, especially in this country. It is also a thankless job because many people don’t understand it. Some people sometimes rain curses on me. But such people give me both sadness and joy at the same time. Joy because they feel so strongly about what you also feel strongly about but which you have expressed differently; and sadness because their misplaced aggression is a reflection of the state of education in the country.

    Born on July 17, 1944, Prof Dare, a first class material of the Department of Mass Communication, University of Lagos, is extremely principled. It was on this matter of principle that he left The Guardian when the management decided to go and beg Gen Sani Abacha to reopen the newspaper following its proscription by the Abacha junta, alongside some other strong newspapers in the ‘90s. THe same demand, I remember quite vividly, was made of us at The Punch then and we also refused to go and beg. As far as we were concerned  then, it should have been the other way round. Rather than join the ‘we are sorry train’, Dare simply turned in his letter of resignation. Apparently, principle flows in their veins in the family.

    Prof Dare’s nephew, Colonel Abayomi Dare (rtd), who was my classmate and good friend at Crowther Memorial College, Lokoja, where we did our school certificate examination had been known as a principled young man since those days. It was on that same pedestal that he took the Nigerian Army to court after his premature exit from the army a few years ago. He eventually won the case. Yomi and I met again for the first time in a long time at Prof Dare’s birthday lecture where he told some of my colleagues that both of us “used to do some funny things together” in those days. But for our long-standing friendship, I would have sued him because in our kind of society where we have too many people with dirty minds, they could interpret those ‘funny things’ to mean something else, which may make me lose self-esteem in the eyes of right-thinking members of the society!

    Be that as it may, the fact that Prof Dare is never led by ‘toys’ (material attractions) has greatly helped his cause concerning principle. His other armour in this regard is his abiding covenant with simplicity.  These are twin commandments for people who want to stand for something.

    It is only a man like Prof Dare that could have attracted the kind of quality crowd that graced the public lecture and presentation of a book to mark his 70th birthday at the Muson Centre, Onikan, Lagos, on July 17. Prof Kwame Karikari of the University of Ghana, Legon, was the guest speaker. With General Theophilus Danjuma as chairman, other dignitaries included Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State; four other governors – Edo, Lagos, Ogun and Osun were well represented. It was an occasion attended by many media executives, students and people from all strata of the society.

    Life begins at 70! Happy birthday, sir!

  • Ajibola Ogunshola at 70

    Ajibola Ogunshola at 70

    The actuary who brought The Punch ‘back from the dead’ joins the septuagenarian club tomorrow

    If any diviner had told Chief Ajibola Ogunshola that he would end up renowned as a publisher rather than an actuary that he set out to be, he would have told the diviner to go consult his oracle again. But that, interestingly, is the story of the man who literally squeezed bread out of stone, by the way he turned around the fortunes of The Punch, a once popular tabloid that had gone comatose as at the time Ogunshola took over as Chairman of Punch Nigeria Ltd in February 1987. He held the position until his retirement in April, 2011, a period of over 24 glorious years. Ogunshola joins the septuagenarian club tomorrow.

    Many people had thought that money was Punch’s main problem before the advent of Ogunshola. But he felt otherwise. Indeed, he said from the outset that he had no money to pump into the business. That was obvious, though. So, the idea of throwing money at problems did not arise. But Ogunshola diagnosed the problem correctly. The company had all that it required to reverse its fortunes. It had dedicated members of staff, a good press and the The Punch logo which he described as ‘saleable’ then.

    Something that has endeared Ogunshola to me was his promise when he became chairman, that he would make Punch “one of the highest, if not the highest paying newspapers (salary wise) in the country”. As a union leader in the Punch Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in those trying times, I recollect many of my members saying “what was this man saying. Let him just pay the peanut that we were being paid regularly; who is asking him to pay fabulous salaries?” You cannot blame them. What was on ground then did not inspire any hope that the dry bone that Punch then was could ever live again.  Ogunshola said then that we should bake the cake first, and thereafter share. Many other people in his shoes would feel reluctant to share when the cake was eventually ready. But he kept to that promise.

    One of the results is that today, Punch Place (the company’s new office complex) is sitting majestically on a wide expanse of land at Magboro, Ogun State, from its modest place of birth at Onipetesi area of Ikeja, Lagos. The complex and its state-of-the-art facilities worth billions of naira were all achieved in the Ogunshola era as chairman, without borrowing from any bank.

    For me, the word ‘transformation’ has meaning when applied in the context of the success story that The Punch has become, from nothing; as against the connotation that the word has acquired as political propaganda in the country. And The Punch story can only be understood and better told by people that witnessed it, especially when things were really hard and payment of salaries was a major headache, being in arrears, sometimes for about four months. Those now seeing The Punch success would not be wrong to regard the narration of the company’s hard times as some fairy tale. Again, you cannot blame them, because it is rare for most companies to bounce back the way Punch did. I joined the company during those trying moments in September, 1985. But I learnt it was not so in the beginning. As with most organisations, that happened to be the company’s trying times. But it has overcome it, thanks to the indefatigability, doggedness, hard work and dedication of Ajibola Ogunshola.

    Many of the decisions taken during his time as chairman were implemented with mathematical precision and clinical efficiency. Much as he believes in workers being well remunerated, he abhors profligacy and extravagant lifestyle. Ogunshola is meticulous about little matters of details that many people in his position would regard as too small to bother about, including telephone bills from his house when he was chairman. I had the privilege of scrutinising those bills for payment as editor of The Punch then and I remember there were occasions when he had to query some international call charges on some of his telephone bills when he knew he never made such calls. Definitely, these little drops of water were to form part of the mighty ocean (by way of fortune) that became the lot of the company under his chairmanship.

    Chief Ogunshola, reputed to be the first actuary in Africa, sure has his own weaknesses; we all do. In doing the magnificent job such as he did at The Punch, some of such weaknesses must have manifested, whether at the level of decision-making or during implementation. In some cases, toes were inevitably stepped on. I guess the most strident of the criticisms of his era was his alleged high-handedness. In some cases this could be true; but if the end justifies the means, all those must have paled into insignificance with the remarkable result of his fortuitous intervention at The Punch.

    It was in recognition of his sterling achievements that Chief Ogunshola was honoured with the Special Media Industry Achievement Award by the Nigeria Media Merit Award (NMMA), alongside the soul mate of Chief James Olubunmi Aboderin, the founding Chairman of Punch Nigeria Ltd., Mr Sam Amuka, publisher of The Vanguard. NMMA Chairman, Board of Trustees, Mr. Vincent Maduka lauded specifically Ogunshola’s contribution: “For Chief Ogunshola, we recognise the great contribution he made to The Punch and the Nigerian media industry in general.”

    Quite characteristically, Ogunshola, even though was the driving force behind the exponential growth witnessed by The Punch dedicated the award “… to all the people I worked with when I was the Chairman of Punch Nigeria Limited.  I dedicate the award to members of the board, especially Dr. Lolu Forsythe, Chief Lekan Are, Ms. Lola Ibi-Aboderin and to all the top management of the company, especially the Managing Director, Mr. Ademola Osinubi. He also acknowledged the role played by his wife and children, especially his wife, “who had to do all she could to make me sleep in the middle of the night when I woke up to solve particular problems.”

    Born on July 14, 1944, Ogunshola attended the famous Government College, Ibadan, located on the hills of Apata Ganga, Ibadan. He graduated in Mathematics from the University of Ibadan in 1967. He travelled to the United Kingdom for some professional training and had served in both private and public capacities, including Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Niger Insurance Plc.He later established his own firm, Ajibola Ogunshola and Co., a renowned actuarial consulting firm.

    Chief Ogunshola is a fellow of the Institute of Actuaries of England. He was also Chairman, Presidential Committee on Civil Service Pension Review in 1988 as well as Chairman, Committee of Actuaries of the United Nations Pension Fund. Ogunshola was also Chairman, Committee on the Harmonisation of the Private and Public Sector Retirement/Pension Schemes for Greater Efficiency, and Chairman of Alexander Forbes Consulting Actuaries Nigeria Limited.

    He served as President of the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN) and is currently a representative of the south west states at the ongoing National Conference in Abuja, where he made or backed some radical proposals, including restoration of local, state or zonal policing; devolution of power to the federating units as well as making law-making at all levels part-time to save cost and, in his own words, “encourage wider talents into law-making”. Perhaps the other point he did not mention is that this would also reduce the ‘do-or-die’ battle that attends elections in the country, unfortunately not because of the urge to serve, but because of the money- spinning capabilities of political offices.

    Concerning Chief Ogunshola, a colleague made a profound statement that any leader, whether at the local government, state or Federal Government level could make positive impact exactly the same way Ogunshola has transformed The Punch. Unfortunately, what do we have across the country: power seekers who have no idea of what to do with the power after acquiring it! Providence thrust a great responsibility on Ogunshola’s laps and he made a good use of the opportunity.

    At this juncture, it is pertinent to acknowledge the role of Olola Moyosore Aboderin, Chief Ogunshola’s predecessor because if Olola Aboderin had not held the company together until Ogunshola’s time, the latter might have had nothing to revive. It is gratifying to note too that Olu Aboderin’s first child, Wale, has kept the flag flying since April 2011 when he took over from Chief Ogunshola.

    If only the dead can see, Chief Ogushola’s maternal elder brother, Chief Olu Aboderin, must in his grave be full of gratitude to this man who brought back his (Olu Aboderin’s) legacy from the valley of the shadow of death. Not many companies have the privilege of the second chance that The Punch had.  Many that did could not convert it.

    Happy birthday, Chief Ajibola Ogunshola.

  • Imelda Marcos at 85

    Imelda Marcos at 85

    Birthday highlights striking similarities between Nigeria and the Philippines; and marked in a peculiarly Nigerian manner

    Old habits, they say, die hard. That is why Imelda Marcos still wants the best for their dead patriarch, former President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, even in death. Imelda, widow of the late discredited ruler who clocked 85 on July 2, visited the crypt of her husband in Ilocos Norte, in the northern part of the country, as part of her birthday programme. At the crypt, she remembered the good old days, with the flame of love still burning in her as ever. She kissed the glass coffin where her husband’s body is, in a white jacket, ceremonial sash and polished medals.

    President Marcos was ousted from office in 1986; he died in 1989 but is yet to be buried, apparently because his widow’s wish is yet to materialise. He has been lying in a temperature-controlled mausoleum since 1993. Mrs Marcos’ wish is that her husband be given a hero’s burial, a wish the government finds absurd and has consequently turned down continually. No sane government would grant such prayer considering the harm done to the Philippines by Ferdinard Marcos who was removed during a sustained campaign of civil resistance against his regime’s violence and electoral fraud.

    What this tells us is that the woman sees nothing unusual in the global perception of her husband as a chronic thief when he was president. It is none of her business that her husband was one of the world’s renowned rogues that ever lived. Of course, she too is not a saint. How can she? A woman without blemish could not have enjoyed the company of a celebrated thief like her husband.  If it is true that ‘beside every successful man there is a woman’, then, Imelda must have been a bad influence on her husband. Her only luck is that in her country, as in Nigeria, many things, including the most unthinkable, are possible. That explains why Mrs Marcos could still be a Congress Representative in the same country that she and her husband plundered. That is why her son, Ferdinand Jr, could be a senator, and her daughter, a governor in that same country!

    It is because in the Philippines, as in Nigeria, the ‘infrastructure of the pocket’ is vital that she handed cash gifts to people in her constituency, as part of her 85th birthday mementoes. And that was why the people would have collected the ill-gotten cash gifts happily, apparently with the kind of gratitude that words are not enough to express. Needless to say that a party was held in her honour in her family’s stronghold in the northern part of the country where she blew out a candle on a cake topped with a shoe decoration. It is not clear whether the cake designer did so out of mischief or due to request by Mrs Marcos. The import of my point here will be clearer when we realise that Imelda’s collection of shoes was one feature that differentiated her from her prodigal colleagues in her era as First Lady. She was reported to have had as many as 3,400 pairs of shoes after her husband was removed from power in 1986. This was enough to commend her for psychiatric test because something must be wrong somewhere for someone to desire such number of shoes. I guess this must earn her a place in The Guinness Book of Record because I am yet to see any other person with a heart for such primitive accumulation of shoes!

    Then, Mrs Marcos realised that her birthday bash was incomplete without giving thanks to God for sparing her life to witness her 85th birthday. In church, she sang with a priest and was also presented with a crown made of flowers, a traditional birthday ritual in the country. What we were not told are the fat envelopes that the priests would have been given and the sweet and kind words they would have spoken of her and her husband, not forgetting to mention the privilege of having the former First Lady in their midst.

    Yet, the likes of Mrs Marcos, in saner climes, would be a recluse that many people would want to avoid like the plague. This was a woman accused of stealing billions of public funds to sustain her ostentatious lifestyle during her husband’s 20 –year rule at a time when many Filipinos were wallowing in abject poverty. The only thing is that she was never convicted. That should also remind you of Nigeria. Many Marcoses are walking free on our streets who should be in jail in a situation where we are kind enough not to administer the capital punishment on them. And even though Mrs Marcos left the presidential palace many years ago, she does not think she has had her fair share of the place. She nurses a come-back there, this time not as First Lady but as First Mother. She is banking on her son succeeding the incumbent President Benigno Aquino whose tenure ends in May 2016. Perhaps the fact that her husband has not been buried  25 years after his death, such that she could still plant a loving kiss on his coffin makes her live in the illusion that death is like some deep slumber. Otherwise, an 85-year-old would by now be thinking of life hereafter instead of the mundane that she is still bogging herself down with. It remains to be seen though how far this ‘leap of faith’ would take her.

    Obviously, she is overstretching her luck. But, as we await the result of her wish and desire in spite of the colossal damage her husband and herself did to their country reminded me of what Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State said on Monday at the inaugural lecture on democracy organised by Freedom House, which held at the MUSON Centre, Onikan, Lagos. Prof Larry Diamond, the Director of Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, Stanford University, in the U.S. who was the guest speaker said virtually everything that ought to be said, from history to economy, political economy, politics, etc. about Nigeria. And it was not surprising that he did a good job because of his rich knowledge of the country. Apart from being a Fulbright scholar at Bayero University, Kano, he has written several books on democracy in Nigeria. These include ‘Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria’; ‘The Failure of the First Republic’ and ‘Nigeria in Search of Democracy’.

    However, I was more  fascinated by Amaechi’s submission (which drew the applause of the audience), that corruption persists in the country because Nigerians are not stoning corrupt leaders; this is what is directly relevant to what we are talking about today. Amaechi made copious references to the past saying that students in the country would have trooped to the streets with the humongous looting going on in the country. And he was correct. Hell was let loose in the Second Republic when we were told (rightly or wrongly) that some N2.8billion Nigeria’s money was missing. These days, we only made some side comments when told that about $20billion public money was missing. We forgot the matter only by being told that America would know if such money was truly missing!

    I remember we were almost getting to the point of stoning those we saw as thieves in the Second Republic, particularly in Lagos. As a matter of fact, despite their security details, some of the public officials in the then ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN) were stoned on the streets of Lagos and called thieves. Perhaps it was the military coup of 1983 that did not let that get to other parts of the country.

    It is this same ‘I don’t care’ attitude to serious matters of public concern by the public that is giving Imelda Marcos the impression that her husband deserves a hero’s burial. It is the same mindset that is propelling her belief that the incumbent President  Aquino, come 2016, could be succeeded by ‘Marcos the son’. If her wish comes to pass, then the Filipinos would be in for it, unless of course, Ferdinand Jr. is not a chip off the old block. But Amaechi’s point should be well taken because if the Marcoses had been stoned publicly, Imelda would not be running her mouth so insensitively as she is now doing.

  • #BringBackFayemi

    #BringBackFayemi

    Ordinarily, Saturday polls should be a walkover for the incumbent

    It’s been quite some time since I wrote on Ekiti State. Like most other Nigerians, I seemed to have gone to bed, believing that there is no reason to focus on that state, especially since it is now doing well in accordance with the aspirations of its founding fathers.  But this is not the time to be silent on a state renowned for its erudite scholars, at least not with the vultures and predators now lurking around, waiting to reap where they did not sow.

    Before I proceed to justify my support for the Kayode Fayemi administration, let me acknowledge the role played by the former governor of the state, Olusegun Oni, in the build-up to the coming June 21 governorship election in the state. Without prejudice to what anybody might say about the point that I want to make concerning Oni, the former governor under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), especially now that he has joined the All Progressives Congress (APC), I wish to salute Oni’s courage and forthrightness. I recall that in the course of the struggle by the then Action Congress (AC) to retrieve its stolen mandate from Oni a few years back, I was annoyed when a respected senior colleague told me that he knew Oni very well to be a gentleman.

    I had wondered how a gentleman could be comfortable not only keeping a stolen property, but also having the temerity to face the owner in court. With the benefit of hindsight, I now know better. It is not many people who will make the kind of decision that Oni made to join the APC, as he put it, in the interest of Ekiti State. As the former governor rightly said, it is the future of the state that is at stake in the coming governorship election. Oni had the choice of joining forces with those who do not share such an aspiration, and go to the centre for some filthy lucre, even as he knows deep in his heart that the PDP has no chance of winning any free and fair election in the state; he did not consider that option. This is a rarity in our clime. I salute his courage.

    Back to Fayemi. It is when orange is not sweet that one will be satisfied sucking just one; but when the oranges are juicy and sweet, one could suck as many as one feels like sucking. I hardly endorse political candidates in my column, whatever the political party they belong to, unless I have sufficient reason to so do. I guess the last time I did that was during the reelection bid of Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State. I also did that for Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State. And for those who might be wondering why it is only governors of the AC or APC that I am mentioning, let me also say that I have had cause to celebrate Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State in this column way back as three years ago when no one could have thought he would join the APC. All these are acclaimed achievers, politics apart. Again, for those who might want to say whether it is only in the south that we have performers, the answer is no. The point is that before I put pen on paper to say this candidate is good, I must be sure of my facts, and my main criterion is achievement.

    It is on that same pedestal that I stand today to commend Fayemi to Ekiti voters. Under normal circumstances, the election should be a walkover for Fayemi. His work should speak for him. But we are not in a country where circumstances are ever normal. Indeed, ours is a country where there is always cause for concern because everything is perpetually under alarm, especially when the matter has to do with elections.  What I am saying is that we are in a place where elections cannot be taken for granted, particularly when the PDP is involved. This is a party that has achieved next-to-nothing even at the centre , yet, it is its president who has been going about marketing the party’s candidates, a president who should lose his deposit even in his own ward! But that is Nigeria for you. And that, precisely, is what anyone who wants to contest the election with Fayemi wants to do: ride on the crest of that ubiquitous ‘federal might’, which in sane climes would have guaranteed nothing but electoral disaster. The people of Ekiti have tasted what life could be like under a PDP government and they have also tasted it under Fayemi and have seen the difference. There is just no basis for comparison. The gap between both is wider than that between apple and oranges.

    After the years of the locust, the south west has rediscovered its lost compass; it has woken up from its slumber to remember that the region used to be the pace setter in terms of development in the country. It is instructive that the governors of most states in the region know that they are like cows without tails that are at the mercy of God to ward off flies, unlike their PDP counterparts that look up to the Federal Government for crutches at election time. Even if that explains the efforts being made by governors in the region, particularly in Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Ekiti and Lagos states, including even Edo in the south south to leave enviable legacies that they would be proud of, it is something. What matters is that progress is being made in these states.

    I was in Ekiti about five years ago, and I was there again in December, last year. What I saw was amazing. It is unimaginable that anyone would have been able to make such a difference in less than four years, especially when it is realised that the state is not among those awash with petro-dollars. What are we talking about? Is it Fayemi’s social welfare grant of N5,000 to every old citizen in the state? This is commendable in a country where pensioners are left to their own device. And the uncommon transformation of the Ikogosi Warm Springs? Roads, especially intra-state roads in Ekiti are in good condition such that it takes only about one hour to travel from the state capital to anywhere in the state. Fayemi’s covenant with Ekiti people is encapsulated in his eight-point agenda which he has been pursuing diligently.  “My eight-point agenda would be pursued with vigour and life would be more abundant for our people. Governance shall not only be transparent and accountable but the good of our people would be the template,” the governor said during his inauguration in 2010. He has largely kept faith with that promise.

    Without doubt, those who chose Ayo Fayose (PDP) to contest against Fayemi either wanted the PDP to fail in the state ab initio or are relying on something else to ‘win’ the election.  This was the same Fayose who established a poultry project worth over N1billion as governor in the state which Chief Olusegun Obasanjo (also a PDP president then) was shocked the usual smell associated with poultries was missing in Fayose’s poultry when he visited the place! As a farmer, Chief Obasanjo should know and he did know that the poultry was a ruse. Moreover, Fayose has all manner of allegations hanging on his neck like a necklace of iron, and it is only a party suffering from an acute shortage of good men that could have fielded such a candidate and expect to win an election.

    All said, what people are pleading for is that the June 21 election in Ekiti State be free and fair. No more, no less. And that cannot be a misguided plea. Those who are relying on wars and chariots or crutches from the Federal Government or the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) during the election are advised to go dust up their history books. A word is enough for the wise.

  • Hungry for knowledge

    Hungry for knowledge

    Nigeria’s tertiary education crisis in perspective

    Depressing. That is the way to describe the three stories that appeared on pages 8 and 9 of this newspaper on Wednesday. “Lecturers, Amosun differ on OOU funding”, “OAU defends increase in school charges” and “LASU students’ protest grounds Lagos”. And, just about when this piece was being put together, news filtered in that University of Lagos students were demonstrating over school fees that have just been hiked in the school. I hear Obafemi Awolowo University; Ile-Ife, students too are having issues with their authorities. Perhaps what makes the matter the more depressing is the fact that this is not an exception; it is rather the rule. Such stories about tertiary education in the country are a daily feature. We are either having student unrest or lecturers unrest. Either case, the implications are grave: the quality of academic work suffers even as academic calendars become unpredictable. Many students have become ‘deans’, so to speak, in some of these institutions affected by these unrests due to no fault of theirs. At the heart of the matter is funding.

    Yet, Nigerians are hungry for knowledge. This explains the huge number of candidates seeking admission into our universities yearly. Yet, it is not that the country is not rich to make knowledge available to them at a relatively cheaper cost. The problem is the mind-boggling corruption. President Goodluck Jonathan alluded to the fact that there is no poverty in the land. But we have since told him he was dead wrong. Indeed, he spoilt his own case with the example of the number of private jet owners in the country that he gave to buttress his point. Thank God, President Jonathan’s aides had not seen the story published in The Punch of June 2, to the effect that “Nigerians own 70% of most expensive buildings in London”. They would have added it to the points to give the president to cite as evidence that we are a rich, blessed and potentially prosperous nation. The same way they would have told him that the fact that Nigeria is today placed third on the list of countries with the highest number of students studying overseas is evidence of our prosperity because studying abroad does not come cheap.

    Forget Boko Haram’s position that western education is sinful. Even if it is, it is a sin many Nigerians would be glad to commit. No family worth its salt wants to be without a graduate; at least in the southern part of the country. Even in the north, barriers are being pulled down that hitherto restricted especially the girl-child from going to school. Unfortunately, there are not enough places in the universities to accommodate the about 1.5million school leavers who sit yearly for compulsory entrance examinations into 150 public and private universities in the country whose approved carrying capacity is 600,000 students.

    It is this same insatiable quest for knowledge that has forced many Nigerians to look beyond our shores in search of the proverbial Golden Fleece. A study quoted by a national daily on Tuesday last week indicated that there are at least 75,000 Nigerian students studying in Ghana. What is happening is that those who cannot find space within naturally look for space without, hence, to Ghana and other African, European countries and the United States of America many of such candidates turn for university education; at least for those whose parents can afford it.

    And they pay through their nose.  In a public lecture Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), revealed the numbers and cost implications for students. “Although there are no comprehensive data on the number of Nigerian students abroad, recent data have shown that there are about 71,000 Nigerian students 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. In other words, the money spent by Nigerian students studying in Ghana with a better organised system is more than the annual budget of all federal universities in the country,” Sanusi said. He should know; because requests for overseas remittances, including students’ fees and allowances pass through the CBN.

    This is for Nigerian students in Ghana alone. If we consider our students in other parts of the world, the cost implications would be staggering. Now, the question we may ask is ‘if Nigerians are willing to pay this much for their students abroad, why can’t they pay half as much at home? The answer is simple: even if they do, what is the assurance that their wards will graduate to time, with all manner of strike and other issues which make academic calendar unreliable? Again, what will be the worth of their degrees?

    In the midst of this confusion, Chief Afe Babalola (SAN) has advised the Federal Government to take over some ailing private universities in the country. Chief Babalola’s (himself founder of a private university, Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti) talk will be good talk only if the Federal Government universities themselves are exemplars of what universities should be in contemporary times. The impression created by Chief Babalola is that it is only some of these private universities that are sick and require surgical operation. This is erroneous. Many of the universities owned by governments, federal or state, are chronically sick too; this is the truth. So, how can someone who has not been able to put his own house in order help somebody else do same? Isn’t it good that you look at what the person promising to give you a dress is wearing to know whether he is capable of fulfilling the promise? If the universities owned by the Federal Government are healthy, how come only one of them is in the list of the world’s first 5,000 universities? The premier ones were recognised worldwide in the past, but no more.

    When we consider what the governments, particularly the Federal Government is doing to education, we will see that it is the real Boko Haram; the difference is that it is not carrying bombs to kill education like Boko Haram. But it has its own ‘suicide bombers’ who are killing education with their mouths and actions. Since September 2013 that Professor Ruqayyah Ahmed Rufa’i was removed as education minister, there is no substantive minister in charge of this important sector. Nyesom Wike, the supervising minister in charge of the ministry is more of a politician than education minister. How else could a government have killed education?

    Now, we are in a situation where universities are finding it difficult to pay their bills and they have to turn to the students who in turn must turn to their parents for an answer. Unfortunately, much as some of the parents would have readily embraced poverty if only to ensure their children get university education, the economy is unhelpful. At this point, the question that comes into mind is what has happened to the scholarship boards? Many of those who are now making things difficult for the younger generation of Nigerians enjoyed one scholarship or the other. As a matter of fact, some had the privilege of more than one scholarship in their time. Now, having emptied the treasuries, having messed up the various scholarship boards, having stashed so much ill-gotten wealth in foreign banks, having bought up the best of mansions abroad where even the ‘sons and daughters of the soil’ cannot afford the mansions, they are now singing that there is no money to fund education. What a pity!

    A situation where qualified people cannot go to university because they cannot afford it is as potentially explosive as the situation where graduates cannot find jobs. I cannot see much difference. The implication is too grave to be contemplated.

  • Akpabio, Akpabio

    Akpabio, Akpabio

    Why should the governor’s stupendous retirement package for himself be an issue?

    Many people must have been wondering why tongues have been wagging in Akwa Ibom State since Monday when the state house of assembly passed into law a bill presented to it by Governor Godswill Akpabio. The bill, as passed, sought a pension for life at a rate equivalent to the salary of the incumbent governor, to former governors and ex-deputy governors. It also provided for the former governor a provision for funds to employ a cook, drivers and security guards at a sum not exceeding N5million per month and N2.5million for the deputy. The (former) governor would also be entitled to free medical services for his person and spouse at a sum not exceeding N100million per annum and N50million for former deputy governor.

    Moreover, the former governor is entitled to a befitting accommodation not below a five-bed room maisonette in either Abuja or Akwa Ibom and a yearly accommodation allowance of 300 per cent of annual basic salary for the deputy governor of the state. I can hear you ask: what is a maisonette? You cannot know and should not bother, after all, you are not a retired governor. Other allowances include a severance gratuity of 300 per cent of annual basic salary as of the time the governor leaves office, among other things.

    I guess the state chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) that had earlier threatened to embark on a protest to halt the passing of the bill eventually saw reason; hence, its failure to embark on the protest. A newspaper report said the union merely “turned numb as the House, after moving a motion for the bill to be read the third time, passed it into law”. That is what contemporary labour unionism demands – labour leaders don’t have to be unrealistically rigid; they also reserve the right to use their discretion and soft-pedal when confronted with superior argument. The proviso in this case is that the labour leaders have to be convinced that the people explaining the situation to them must at some point be making sense. So, the labour leaders can then ‘try their best’, to quote a prominent traditional ruler in the June 12 debacle. ‘Trying their best’ in this context means aborting the protest they had earlier threatened to embark upon.

    I know mischief makers with dirty minds would be saying all kinds of things now that the labour leaders have seen the light. For instance, they would start thinking that the governor must have silenced them with wads of naira or even dollar or pound sterling notes, or that their banks must have sent alerts to them about some strange but welcome deposits in their accounts.

    But beyond all that speculation, what the new law confirms is that our governors are not only going to have the good life here; they are also going to have it more abundantly hereafter. In other words, they will not only live well, they will also die well. Shakespeare agrees with that: “When beggars die there are no comets seen; the heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes”? And, I think our governors deserve it all for the meritorious services they are rendering. You reserve the right to argue that not all of them deserve to be pampered, but no one can say that Governor Akpabio has not worked well enough. Apparently, it is in recognition of his hard work that the legislators quickly passed the bill into law before some people will throw spanner in the works in the name of protest.

    It is such people who do not see anything good in political leaders who have described as ‘indecent haste’ the hurry with which the house of assembly passed the bill. What they did not understand is that the lawmakers must have been guided by the governor’s achievements. The legislators should simply ignore people who might be thinking that they were induced to pass the law. Another thing that must have worked in the governor’s interest is the fact that Governor Akpabio is also a ‘friend of the president’. If the governor does not have complimentary cards to that effect, the presidency should ensure, as a matter of urgency, that he gets some. Such cards served as meal ticket for one influential Nigerian in the Obasanjo era. To be fair to Akpabio, he has been of tremendous assistance to President Goodluck Jonathan, whether in the formation of the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) Governors Forum which he is its chairman, to whittle down the power of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) that the presidency polarised; or even in the NGF election  that the presidency celebrated Governor Jonah Jang who had 16 votes as winner, against Governor Rotimi Amaechi’s 19 votes.

    Indeed, you must be of the world to be wondering why Governor Akpabio and President Jonathan are soul mates. The rest of us understand that this is quite natural. While the former has good luck always answering unto him, especially after his initial shoeless years, the latter always believes that whatever he does has the imprimatur of God. And there is a limit to how far we can query someone who bears God as part of his name if that person says his actions are based on God’s will, when even people who have no such semblance with God use God’s name in vain for all kinds of things, including waiting on Him to tell them if they should contest third term or not!

    Apart from these two incidents, and, lest I forget, a third, which was the governor’s manipulation of the result of a 2007 PDP  senatorial primary election in  the state by single-handedly replacing the winner with the name of his preferred candidate, we should be able to canonise Governor Akpabio, more than seven years after assuming office, with the angels rejoicing in heaven.  After all, he is human and, to err is human, and to forgive, divine. At any rate, none of these acts is corrupt practice. By President Jonathan’s (thank God he is not our grundnorm) definition, they could only amount to mere em… em.

    As a matter of fact, these misdemeanours pale into insignificance when we consider the governor’s numerous achievements. But one that interests me is the way he has caused a scarcity of housemaids in the country. Before his coming to power on May 29, 2007, Akwa Ibom State was, in a writer’s view, “a foraging ground for persons seeking housemaids and house-help”. Governor Akpabio reversed that with his enactment of a Child Rights and Protection Law which makes it mandatory for every Akwa Ibom girl-child to be in school instead of wasting away in the homes of some rich people in Lagos and its environs. These Lagos big people, they are now like the tortoise that cannot be missing in any ignoble conduct. Remember it was their children that the president accused in 2012 of enjoying the entire subsidy that government pays on petrol!

    Akwa Ibom girls played immeasurable roles in the lives of their masters in those days before Akpabio made us understand that they did not have a monopoly of comparative advantage when it comes to tending the homes, or even preparing irresistible delicacies. No wonder many Akwa Ibom women (and men) have won elite cooking competitions in the country over and over again. But I know the Lagos masters preferred the ‘she-mails’ (as opposed to the ‘e-mails’) because Akwa Ibom girls and ladies are also said to be masters of a third ‘chore’ which I dare not mention because today is Sabbath Day which the Holy Bible tells us to keep holy. As a matter of fact, something tells me it is the big people who have now been denied the services of such ‘she-mails’ by Akpabio and are compelled to look for maids from neighbouring countries at very high costs (but who cannot deliver value in any material particular like the Akwa Ibom girls), that see as extraordinary the retirement package that Akpabio has arranged for himself and other governors and their deputies in the state. I can’t see anyone of substance objecting to the generous package in an oil-rich state like Akwa Ibom where money is not the problem but how to spend it. Are governors of less-endowed states not enjoying similar benefits, at least relatively?

    Honestly, it is difficult to blame the governor for doing it himself. In these days when erstwhile political aides become masters to their former masters once they have power in their hands, that is the commonsensical thing to do. You never can trust anyone to do such a thing for you; so, it is better to do it yourself. The governor seems aware of some sayings that even if we give a hoe to a mad man, he would cultivate towards himself. If a mad man can do this, do we expect less from someone like Governor Akpabio who is alright, not only up but down as well? Moreover, a governor that works well also deserves to retire well. Above all, if Governor Akpabio is said to be generous to a fault; why then should he be stingy to himself? Akpabio, Akpabio! I don’t know why the new law should be an issue considering that the governor has even helped the state by putting a ceiling to how much former governors could spend, say, on medical treatment. HItherto, it was open-ended.

  • 15 wasted years

    15 wasted years

    It has been 15 years of the changing getting worse

    SHORTLY after Nigeria’s return to civil rule on May 29, 1999, the raging argument was, which of the two dates – June 12 or May 29 – is superior. The argument may have somewhat subsided; the fact is that the son cannot be the father of the man. Without June 12, May 29 would not have been. If it was June 12 that begot May 29, it follows that June 12 should be accorded its rightful place in the scheme of things in the country. If it is not; part of the reasons is that many of us who fought the good fight during the struggle for the revalidation of the June 12, 1993 presidential election result simply left the stage after the soldiers retreated to the barracks, for all manner of people to take charge. The election was won by Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Abiola.

     Even President Goodluck Jonathan was not known to have played any active role in that struggle. Now, it is people like him who are calling the shots at many levels of government today. That is one of the reasons we are not having the right leadership at many of those levels. It is one of the reasons why we are where we are and are lamenting today. Anyway, it is needless debating which comes first,: whether it is the chicken or the egg. Perhaps the debate on June 12 and May 29 would also have been unnecessary if we have made good for ourselves as a people in the last 15 years.

    Nigerians who were of age during the struggle for the country’s return to military rule must be wondering what it is that has brought us to this sorry pass, 15 years after. The same way our forefathers who fought for independence from British rule and who lived long enough to witness the progressive decline the country has been slipping into wondered whether this is the same country they fought for to be independent. But here we are, 15 years after we returned to civil rule (note my emphasis on civil rule and not democratic rule because it is deliberate); no one, except the incurable optimists in government and their cronies can see any light at the end of our long tunnel.  This is regrettable.

    Whereas, on May 29, 1999, many of us were hopeful that we can now take our destiny in our hands after sending the soldiers who had kept us under their jackboots for more than 16 straight years since the fall of the Second Republic to the barracks; and whereas Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the man who was installed president on that day had assured us that he was going to lead us aright,  I will give the forthright, purposeful, committed, honest and transparent leadership that the situation demands. I am determined with your full cooperation, to make significant changes within a year of my administration, Obasanjo had said during his inauguration, here we are, stuck with President Jonathan’s presidency. Obasanjo never ruled by his words. Perhaps things would have been different if he did.

    However, information minister, Labaran Maku, has said the Federal Government would celebrate the 15 years of unbroken civil rule by showcasing the achievements of the Jonathan administration in the last four years. One wonders what these achievements are. Of course, we know it is the lusual dishing out of figures instead of tangibles that Nigerians can see and feel. Finance minister and coordinating minister for the economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, for instance, would give us statistics of the number of unemployed graduates and how the government has taken over a million of them out of the unemployment market, without being specific as to where such people have been employed and the nature of jobs they were given. She would also bore us with figures showing how our economy is growing even if our pockets are shrinking. And, trust the agriculture minister, Dr Akinwunmi Adesina, a farmer with a difference; resplendent in his bow tie and suit to match, he would not fail to remind us that we are already self-sufficient in rice production, when it is common knowledge that most of the rice consumed in the country is imported.

    In virtually all our banks and telecoms companies, many graduates are now on contract employment, despite the stupendous profits that these establishments post yearly! The same applies to giant construction companies that pay graduates peanuts for staying in the sun or rain for hours in the name of flag boys or girls. All these in a country with a government! Then power supply. What we should expect to be told is that the Jonathan administration has finally succeeded in privatising the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) and that it would take some time for us to feel its effects. The government would have conveniently forgotten that the president himself promised us sometimes ago that by now, we should have dashed him our generators because we would have no need for them since power would have been more stable. And President Jonathan himself will tell us his regrets during the years he had not known cassava bread and how he wished he could turn back the hands of the clock so he could start eating this sweet bread early enough.

    Perhaps nothing signposts the fact that the country is indeed failing than the insecurity in the land. Before Boko Haram went wild, we contended with armed robberies and kidnappings in several parts of the country. Today, it is people who kidnap for ritual purposes that are on the prowl. I hope the government would also tell us that under this administration alone, Nigeria has probably lost so many lives to one kind of violence  or the other more than we had in some years put together, including years that our planes were dropping like kites from the skies. One is not saying that the present government caused all the problems, but it is clear they are beyond its ken; so, it cannot have the solution to them. Unfortunately, that is one thing those in power have refused to acknowledge. But for the uproar that attended the Chibok girls’ kidnap, President Jonathan might have declared his intention to go for second term by now. And you ask: does he think he merits this? What has he done to justify a second term?

    More than four years down the line, Nigerians have come to know the Jonathan administration and can as well predict it. That is why not many of them would be looking forward to what the president will list as his achievements on Thursday. Unfortunately, as they condemn those so-called achievements and his speech as a say-nothing speech, the sycophants in and out of government would tell him they have never seen such a beautiful speech anywhere in the seat of power since the days of Lord Lugard. That is what they live on, though; so, we cannot blame them. We can only blame those who make themselves available for such flattery.

    But, wait a minute, why would the government choose to tell us only what President Jonathan has done in four years? Why can’t it tell us what the party that has been in power at the federal level since May 29, 1999 has done, after all, it is the president’s party? We should be looking at 15 years of civil rule under the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and not just what Jonathan has done, that is even if that would amount to much. The government can still amend the programme since it is still four days away; that is if it was an oversight. We can only accept an account of four years that President Jonathan has been in office if he belongs to a different political party.

    It is not just that Jonathan has failed to perform, but unlike Lucky Igbinedion who was allowed to ‘repeat’ after his father pleaded with the people of Edo State to allow him ‘repeat’, it is unlikely Nigerians would want to take another gamble by affording the president another chance. The president might, to paraphrase General Yakubu Gowon, have tried his best, the fact is, that best is not good enough for Nigeria. We need fresh blood, that is, people who understand the issues and have what it takes to tackle them.  That is the only way we can sing a new song come May 29, 2015. I have always warned the president against behaving like the tortoise that said it would not return from a trip until it was thoroughly disgraced. That is what second term ambition would do to President Jonathan.

     Again, a word is enough for the wise.

  • Does the president need help?

    Does the president need help?

    I’m afraid, he is the only one that can help himself

    It is not in my character to react to people’s comments. But I found the comment by Jide Ajani of Vanguard titled “Goodluck Jonathan: A president in need of help” quite interesting. The beautiful piece was published in the May 11, 2014 edition of Vanguard. The piece was a recap of the Presidential Chat of May 4 and the dinner that followed.

    It is not that Ajani said anything that we did not know. But the beauty in his write-up is that what he said was not based on conjecture or wild imaginations, but an account of what took place at the president’s residence. When, for instance, we say Nigeria’s rulers are surrounded by sycophants, we tend to see the sycophants as some ghosts that mill around the seat of power, ever ready to sing the praise of whoever is in charge. This ‘dance-on-we-are-solidly-behind-you orchestra’ is as old as the country’s seat of power; perhaps older. I cannot recollect any government where they did not feature; interestingly, they almost always have the ears of those in power. This means that our rulers love being deceived or flattered. The sycophants last so long in government while those who say it as it is don’t.

    Those who have worked closely with some of our political rulers, including presidents, governors and even local government chairmen know that this is  one of their worst challenges. A former governor in the south-west had an information and strategy team when he became governor. For the better part of his first term, this team functioned well and was able to help the government, which also made the job easy for the team by its initial impressive performance. But decline set in when political considerations and petty ego took over, with sycophants making the governor to see only what he wanted to see.

    There is no doubt that it takes the grace of God for one to be able to maintain a cool head while occupying certain influential positions. One will indeed pity these rulers when you see the caliber of people deceiving them (the rulers) usually for what to eat and sometimes for inexplicable reasons when one realises that some of the sycophants are men and women of means and not those of straw. Even many of us who only have the privilege of managing a few hundreds of people sometimes become something else with the little powers in our hands.

    Most of us saw the last presidential chat and we rated it poorly as usual; vintage President Jonathan. But, according to Ajani, the president’s handlers hailed the performance. Hear him: “At the end of the two-hour session, the coterie of staff and a few friends were all smiles. ‘Mr. President, well done’; ‘Mr. President, that was a good one’; ‘Mr. President, that was great”. Those were the comments from virtually everyone around. So, you needed to do a reality check: Were these guys referring to the same media chat that had just ended; a chat that saw Mr. President avoiding some questions and instead launching into a series of expeditions? But then, you were quickly reminded that by Mr. President’s own standards, this was one of the best performances”.

    Now, to specifics, quoting Ajani again: “On the question of corruption and the NNPC, President Jonathan missed some points. He did not need to attempt to define corruption and its relationship with stealing. He did not also need to drag the legislature into it – by saying he smelt legislative dictatorship in the conduct of the activities of the House of Representatives; he also did not need to attempt to draw a parallel between corruption, inflated pump-head price of petrol and the popular rally of January 2012.

    “On the need to curtail the excesses of petroleum products’ marketers who are selling beyond the official rate, President Jonathan sounded very distant.   There is the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, statutorily mandated to monitor activities in the sector.   But Mr. President first embarked on a voyage of disbelief; that he finds it difficult to believe that the claim was true; and that Nigerians were responsible for the serial inhumanity against fellow Nigerians.   Then suddenly, Mr. President remembered that there was DPR which, he admitted, should begin to do its job”.

    This is what Mr. President’s aides were commending. Curiously, Ajani singled out presidential spokesman Reuben Abati and Labaran Maku, the Minister of Information, as being different from the pack. Well, I do not know whether he merely said this to humour them because, I may not know Maku well but the Abati I knew would have written volumes and volumes of negative things about the Jonathan presidency if he is not involved. I said I do not know if he is humouring the duo because Ajani spoke of Maku in the same piece thus: “Watching our Information Minister on CNN, shouting and attempting to use decibel to break down their microphone smacks of panic response. Yet, I can bet you, as indecorous as that action may be, there would be some people in the Villa who would say, ‘Well done, Mr. Minister,’ ‘You did well, Mr. Minister’.

    Of course, we do not need Ajani to tell us that people who commended this kind of terrible media chat were jesters.  I have no problem with the president surrounding himself with jesters, but they must be quality ones and not   those who “cracked jokes that were at once dry and unproductive”, as Ajani puts it.. With this kind of jesters in the Villa,   the president’s sense of judgment in recruiting his aides or even choosing those around him becomes questionable.

    Even if they are deceiving someone and those deceiving the person pretend not to know they are deceiving him, the person being deceived ought to know when he is being flattered. If your handlers say you had a great performance today and the next day, the media and other opinion moulders condemn the very thing they said was a scintillating performance, then you should know something is wrong somewhere. The worst disservice many Nigerian rulers do to themselves is to see every criticism as being politically motivated. If, for instance, any news medium said the president did well during that chat, that medium would be shooting itself in the foot. If it persists along that line in its treatment of matters from or concerning the Jonathan presidency, it is only a matter of time for that medium to begin to rely on crutches from the seat of power instead of its own integrity and professionalism for survival, and consequently consign itself to history. President Jonathan would be naive to think that the media can do well by reporting that he is doing well when even the blind can see that  he is not. The media mirror the society even as they set the agenda.

    Matters are not helped by President Jonathan’s kith and kin in the Niger Delta who believe that their ‘son’ is being vilified because of where he comes from. I find this sickening because the president has not just ‘naturalised’ as a south-south indigene; we knew he was from there when he was massively voted in in 2011. If today the music has changed or is fast changing, it has nothing to do with where the president comes from; it is more of a function of a people who are disappointed that the man they invested a lot of hope in three years back does not have an idea of how to solve any of the country’s multifarious problems.

    Then the president’s wife, Patience. We know that there is little we can do concerning what God has joined together. We also know that love is thicker than water; even if Mr President has not done full disclosure by giving us an idea of how  madam performs at the home front, her marital and conjugal duties and all, but we know her meddlesomeness in governance is unhelpful to her husband and the country.

    One thing that President Jonathan should understand is that he cannot be doing the same thing the same way and expect a different result. I do not know if it is not late in the day for him to retrace his steps because if the perception of his government must change, then he has to do away with many of those aides that have been giving him the wrong feedback about how Nigerians rate him and his government. I know political exigencies and even the fear of missing their melodious even if ultimately injurious tunes may not make that possible. But the ball is in his court. As they say, ‘heaven helps those who help themselves’.

  • The power of protests

    The power of protests

    This is something we used to do but abandoned; we must sustain it even after our girls have been brought back

    With the global outrage over the abducted 257 students of Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, (now popularly known as ‘the Chibok girls’), by the Boko Haram fundamentalists  on April 15, President Goodluck Jonathan must by now have realised the sanctity of human life. Not even President Barack Obama of the United States, for instance, could have afforded to dance hours after the girls were abducted like our president did, unless he was not aware of their abduction because he knew Americans may not penalise him for that, but they could take judicial notice of it. But, let the American leader make the mistake of even laughing when the U.S. is confronted by such an issue, he would be in serious trouble because they value life in his country. Indeed, in that country as in other civilised countries, it is immaterial if elections are still about a year away, President Jonathan’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would have known the election result by now. As a matter of fact, if it still participates in the election, it would be for the sake of it and not necessarily because it hopes to win.

    The world’s reaction to the abductions might be coming late; it is still good.  But then, can we blame the outsiders for this when, barely hours after two major tragedies (including the unfortunate abductions) befell the country, our president was dancing at a political rally? Why then would anyone want to weep louder than the bereaved? Why would anyone want to be more interested in rescuing the girls when their own president is enjoying himself (or is it deluding himself) at a political rally? But when the world saw that Nigerians of all shades sank their differences to ask for the release of the girls, and for the government to get serious about the issue, the world needed no one to tell it that it was time to act. Of course, the world must have seen that the issue was not getting the desired attention because it is the children of ordinary Nigerians that are involved. We must be grateful to the United Nations, the United States of America, Britain, France and others that have expressed readiness to help us in our search for and rescue of these young ones.

    Even the president’s acceptance of the U.S. offer, good as it is, especially with regard to the possible rescue of the innocent girls, is also a minus for our national pride. One can only hope that President Jonathan would be deep enough to understand this. The way things are, though, there does not seem to be a choice but to accept the offer, with thanks to the Americans., to boot. But great presidents would vow within themselves that never again would their country ever be in that type of situation. Unfortunately, it does not seem that President Jonathan can ever make such resolve. Lest we forget, he once said that if ever he had the opportunity to lead the country, he would ensure that our elections are credible such that no Nigerian leader will go through the kind of embarrassment he went through, following the embarrassing questions he was asked whenever he travelled out of the country after the 2007 elections. We all know that  he cannot live up to this promise, given what we have  seen as his political desperation.

    Anyway, for once since the fuel subsidy protest of January 2012, one is happy that Nigerians seem to be waking up to their civic responsibility of trooping to the streets once again in protest. The girls were abducted exactly one month after some 18 job seekers died in different parts of the country, in search of jobs in the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS). Then, nothing happened.

    Without doubt, these sustained protests have helped to internationalise the disappearance of these innocent girls and kept their issue in the front burner, not only of national but also international discourse. Nothing can be more gratifying because, but for our protests, the Nigerian government would have continued with its business as usual. If the girls are later found, fine; and if not, that is not enough to bring governance to a halt. That is the mentality of government and its officials, given the nauseating defence of the information minister and others in the government. Nigeria is one of the few countries where government could have continued business as usual in the face of the massive protests across the country and beyond, and with even outsiders getting more concerned about the abductions.

    Many of us have always argued that our undue silence over, and carefree attitude to many of the ugly developments in the country today is the reason why our governments continue to take us for a ride. Just imagine how we have succeeded in bringing global attention to the Chibok girls issue simply because we have refused to let the dust settle. Even the Federal Government must have known that this is an unusual tea party; that is if it is a tea party at all. Honestly, Boko Haram must have overstepped its bounds by abducting those innocent students who have no idea what their grievances are (as if I know myself) because if the idea is to prohibit people from going to school, that cannot be a genuine grievance. It is even going to be more futile if it is to convert every northerner to Islam.  Whoever does not want to go to school has a choice not to; but to now attempt to let everyone else see that blissful ignorance as utopia is simply impossible. In the same vein, it is absolutely impossible to turn everyone in that part of the country to Muslims.  It is only that we do not have a credible and serious government; the one we have worsens matters for itself by bungling opportunities to rally Nigerians to its side. Of course this has to be earned; it is difficult for a government perceived to be corrupt and incompetent to get the people’s support.

    But now that the world powers have promised to step in, the government is happy and has in fact jumped at the offer. Nigerians  can testify to it that if anyone  rides a horse in President Jonathan’s stomach now, it would be a smooth ride. But the reverse has always been the case when these powers rate our economy low or give us our true score card about human development index or other parameters of how we are doing; the Federal Government becomes uncomfortable, just like an old woman when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb.

    It is heartwarming that the Chibok girls’ abduction has united Nigerians; this is the spirit. And it should not end with this issue. There are many other issues that will require our collective effort and action to stem. For sure, the so-called fuel subsidy removal is still very much there. But for the Chibok issue, the Federal Government could have dared Nigerians by removing it, after all the governors have conspired with it so insensitively to ask that it be removed. The truth is that many of our elected officials are so desperate for power and money now. Indeed, one wonders the difference between these politicians and the ritual killers at Soka village in Oyo State, or elsewhere in the country. People Power has always worked when  deployed rightly; it has worked in several places, including even Nigeria. It will work again. No government can be bigger than the people that put it in power. So, Nigerians should see the fuel subsidy matter when it eventually comes as a clarion call to action that it is.

    The only alternative to that is for us all to keep praying that the heavenly hosts should find something that would keep the government busy such that even if Nigerians ask it to remove fuel subsidy, it would be the one to tell us that that is not a wise thing to do because, it will be tantamount to the government behaving like the proverbial greedy fly that follows dead bodies to the grave.