The Nation Newspaper

Category: Jide Osuntokun

  • The worst of all possible worlds

    Sometimes when I can’t sleep, my mind wanders around the whole world trying to figure  out which part of the world is in good shape and which is not and why. It is sad to say very few spots are in good shape.

    Today the wars in the Middle-eastern countries of Yemen, Syria, Iraq and further afield in Afghanistan, have led to massive migration of people into Europe, destabilizing and leading to the rise of racism and nationalism which may yet plunge the world into serious crisis the end of which we cannot easily foresee. The rise of right-wing political parties in Italy, Germany and France as main opposition parties and governments in waiting and with Vladimir Putin riding the wave of a grumbling and angry Russian nationalist fervour constitutes a bad augury for the future.

    On the continent of Asia, China is determined to assert itself in relation to the previously dominant role of the USA in the area. America is tentatively developing a south-Asian strategy of  an alliance between it and India the biggest democratic nation in the world and presumably with India’s bitterest enemy, Pakistan both of which are likely to blow themselves up with nuclear weapons than join the USA to confront China. America is pursuing a policy of an entente cordiale with its former enemy Vietnam to confront China. Whether any of American moves succeed is moot question. What is certain is that America will not give up its privileged position in the East and South China Sea without a fight. In other words, a conflict between China and the USA is almost inevitable. The pregnant problem of North Korea remains. It is not likely that North Korea can be persuaded to give up its nuclear weapons yet America says it will demand denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in its impending talks with North Korea in May. If the talks fail, it will be difficult to restrain Japan from developing a nuclear weapons programme either openly or clandestinely. Although this will be a painful decision away from its pacific constitution, it will be difficult for Japan to continue to cringe before its former colony while North Korea holds the sword of nuclear Damocles over its head. It  is obvious  that peace in our times  in Asia  and Perhaps Europe is going to be illusory.

    America which used to be a force for good has withdrawn to fortress America under the “Make America Great Again” slogan of its erratic and irrational president, Donald Trump who represents the worst manifestation of the “ugly American”. He is undermining international global institutions like the United Nations and its specialized agencies as well as the World  Trade Organisation. It is a truism in international relations that countries that trade with one another usually do not go to war with one another. Trump has embarked on trade protectionism and tariffs wars. He has also withdrawn his country from the Paris protocol to save the environment and prevent or mitigate climate change. Even the global military architecture of the western alliance – NATO on which the balance of power in relation to Russia and the successor states of the former Soviet Union is based – has not received unqualified support from him. Even NAFTA (North American Free Trade Area) is being held by the gruff by Donald Trump thus threatening the shared prosperity of the American hemisphere. NAFTA was programmed to extend to the whole of the hemisphere but this is now dead.

    The poverty of people in Latin America is likely to increase and Trump wants to keep people from the South American “shithole” countries far from his “God’s own country” by building a wall to keep America white. Trump and his circle sees the world from racial and colour prisms. South Americans are largely black and brown just like Africans. This reminds me of the racist joke of the 1960s which says “If you are white, you are alright; if you are brown, stick around; and if you are black, get lost!”

    Africa is in a bad shape. There is no country on the continent apart from perhaps Botswana and Namibia that are doing reasonably well. This is largely because of good management of their resources and general good governance. South Africa has managed to get rid of the embarrassment of Jacob Zuma but the fundamental problem of the yawning gap between the rich and the poor, between the white and the non-white parts of its population remain. In Angola, the national wealth has been privatized into the pockets of the family of its former president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos from which the current president, Joao Lourenco is trying to free it. Zimbabwe after its economic collapse finally freed itself from one man rule of Robert Mugabe even though the country is still very far from its democratic journey. Zambia is  tied down by its total dependence on copper export while Malawi is largely forgotten and apparently condemned to vegetate in its grinding poverty.

    East Africa suffers from the African malady of tribalism and violence while the most naturally endowed country in Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is too rich for its own good and too large for African administrative genius or capability. Since its independence in 1960,  it has suffered from the twin evils of  dictatorship and underdevelopment. War and violence have been the daily experience of its people. The DRC shares the primacy of the worst place of governance in Africa with the Central African Republic (CAR)  and the newly created Southern Sudan  with its people jumping from the frying pan of Arab dictatorship and oppression in the old Sudan to their present tragedy of mutual ethnic slaughter under a black dictatorship.

    Arab countries of Morocco, Mauritania, Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt and the “disappeared state” of Libya vary from one country to the other. Morocco remains stable under its sharifian king. Tunisia where the “Arab Spring” began is the only regime standing after the revolution. Egypt has reverted to its usual dictatorship under its maximum military ruler, General Abdel Fattah el Sisi. After the challenge of the fundamentalist movement known as FIS (Front Islamique Salut), the old FLN (Front de Liberation National) under the leadership of the old and sick Abdelaziz Bouteflika who has been in power since 1999, has asserted itself. In both Egypt and Algeria, it is the peace of the grave that exists with occasional eruptions which are brutally suppressed. Libya has descended to the rule of regional warlords in spite of international effort to cobble up a national government. There is absolute lawlessness and violence in Libya that has spread to West Africa. This has led to proliferation of light weapons and small arms in places like Nigeria, Niger, Mali, Boukina Fasso, Cameroon and even small Guinea-Bissau. This has fuelled insurgency movements in Mali and the Boko Haram in Nigeria, Niger, Chad and the Cameroons. Money that would have been used for economic development is being diverted to counter insurgency and military operations thus fuelling the ranks of unemployed youth occasioning migration into Libya and across the Mediterranean into Europe.

    From Senegal to the Cameroons, democracy in one form or the other has flourished but this has not been accompanied by economic development and employment opportunities for the young in particular. This youth unemployment has created frustrations and insecurity in most of West Africa leading to all sorts of unorthodox ways of migration abroad. In Nigeria and Togo, this problem has been exacerbated by ethnic division and in the case of Nigeria, manifesting in mutual slaughter between herders and farmers, a phenomenon that has not been seen on this scale before. With nowhere to go or run to, Africans would have to face their problems and find solutions to them.

  • The Dapchi debacle

    I was in denial for a long time that 110 young girls were again kidnapped from their boarding school in Yobe State in the distressed and disturbed Northeast. After the spiriting away of almost 300 girls from Chibok in Borno State almost four years ago, this recent event in Dapchi is a national tragedy and humiliating national embarrassment. The way they were physically removed from their school was quite annoying because this was done in flagrant disregard and disrespect of the state of Nigeria. It was like there was no government presence and these hoodlums masquerading as religious fundamentalists simply moved in to fill the vacuum temporarily vacated by security forces and did their ghastly deed of removing innocent children some as young as 10 years old and spirited them away for raping orgies in some God-forsaken hideouts in the crannies of isolated villages in Yobe State.

    I know Yobe State. Certainly it is far from Sambisa Forest in Borno. In fact, there is no forest in Yobe State. These people rode in open pick up vehicles across some local government areas and villages without anybody stopping them or challenging them about their mission. There was no police to ask about their” particulars” or to collect the usual toll. Or perhaps after dropping “something “the police simply waved them on. What for God’s sake has happened to police intelligence department or the “E branch”?

    In an area of military operation and emergency, what happened to agents of Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA)? Was the Department of State Security (DSS), our own internal secret service, out of combat so to say in the area? If as being suggested these unfortunate children may have been spirited out of the country to neighbouring Niger republic, has our Nigerian Intelligence Agency (NIA)  been  totally decapitated by its internal wrangling and executive meddling that it is no longer able to collect useful information in neighbouring Niger? These are questions that easily come to the mind of someone familiar with governance.

    What about the emirate institutions in the area? Was the district head of the area so totally disconnected from the local people that he had no information on what was going on in the place? In any case, these kidnappers operated not clandestinely but openly driving vehicles over tens of kilometres and possibly over a hundred kilometres with nobody calling for their stoppage and interdiction. What does the emirate institution use its 5% local government allocation for? Or perhaps their allocation is being hijacked at the state level that they do no longer see themselves as agents or participants of government to maintain law and order? These are questions that government must interrogate to find out the weak link. I refuse to believe that there is total paralysis in government institutions that would permit this kind of open brigandage and challenge to the police and armed forces of the federal republic. If these people get away with their action, government control will no longer be respected in many parts of the country and our country will become a victim of warlordism. Any group would arm itself and challenge government whenever it feels aggrieved. Of course this is happening in the Niger Delta already and the Boko Haram insurgency and treason leading to purported carving out a portion of Nigeria and putting it under a foreign caliphate ruled by the Iraqi Abubakar al- Baghdadi is the extreme manifestation of challenge to government. This Dapchi episode must not be allowed to linger on indefinitely. Government must move in with violent ferocity to smoke out these people hiding and raping under-age children in some God-forsaken hideout. They must be found out and put away to rot in some isolated jails specially built for them because they do not belong in civilized Islamic community anywhere in Nigeria. The president recently said this is the last time this tragedy will occur. I say amen to his optimism and I hope nobody is sabotaging his efforts because this cannot be ruled out. The danger of dragging on this episode for too long is that copy cats hoping to reap bountiful harvest from ransom money being allegedly paid to secure Boko Haram captives would strike again in a remote region of Nigeria. God knows there are many remote areas of Nigeria where there is absolute absence of government. Nigeria of today does not seem to have enough police to secure every area of Nigeria. In other words the country is under-policed and this is why there is incessant call for state police and community police to work in tandem with the federal police as it is the norm in other parts of the world.

    The question of paying ransom to insurgents may have to be looked at again. Huge ransom payment emboldens the militants and provides oxygen for their movements. They are able to buy more weapons, pay their foot-soldiers and provision them as in normal armies. I know most countries make under-the-table payments to abductors of citizens while openly deprecating the practice. We however have to be careful that wholesale kidnapping of schoolchildren does not become an economic venture as the case of Dapchi seems to be. This is why these children must be rescued even with the possibility of collateral damage.

    It was amusing seeing Nigerian Air Force amassing their planes for operations in the Dapchi area. With all deference to military strategists, I do not see the need of deploying the air force in this instance apart from aerial surveillance that the air force can provide. What is needed is counter-insurgency operations like the one carried out in Indonesia and Malaysia in the 1950s and 1960s against communist insurgents. We also need to rejig the intelligence agencies where there is evidence of underperformance. Intelligence is not necessarily a matter of physical force anymore; it is more of brain than brawn. In recruiting into our intelligence outfits, we must recruit computer and electronic savvy individuals, historians knowledgeable of the various societies and their history and political analysts who can elicit policies from an assemblage of various types of information. This policy prescription is of course not for now, but for the future. Right now we have a battle to fight and win.

    There is nothing new under the sun. We have been here before. In the 1980s, Nigeria witnessed this kind of warped “Islamic” insurgency in the Maitatsine in Kano and its Bulunkutu variant in Maiduguri and Gombe. With combination of military and police force, they were put down. The officer who commanded the military in those operations was Muhammadu Buhari. Of course he is now an old, laid-back politician but he surely knows the terrain. Things are also a little different now. Today, because of the externally-induced collapse of Libya by NATO, there is a proliferation of light weapons and small arms across the whole of West Africa. The emergence of Al Qaida and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and their offshoots in the Maghreb and West Africa has internationalized a local problem. This is why Boko Haram has festered this long. But with the crushing of the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the internationalization of our problem is reduced to the Libyan question where all efforts to put together the Humpty Dumpty of the Libyan State have failed. What we must seek is international action to fashion out an effective government in Libya by the same NATO which ab initio was responsible for the destruction of the Libyan State. In the meantime, we must intensify cooperation with the Chad Basin countries of Niger, Chad and Cameroon’s to root out Boko Haram from our country. This military operation would have to be accompanied by political rebuilding of governance institutions and economic development.

  • Ibadan: Darkness has enveloped our world

    Ibadan: Darkness has enveloped our world

    I have lived virtually all my life in Ibadan and Lagos and whatever affects these two cities affects me. I remember when Ibadan was preferred over Lagos because of its space, serenity and virtual absence of anti-social activities that tended to mar the social life of Lagos. Ibadan was the capital of the Western Region which in all respects operated as an autonomous, if not outrightly independent country with its own coat of arms, constitution and external diplomatic representation in form of Agent-General in London up to the year of independence in 1960. Lagos at that time was the federal capital which the Action Group party, the party in government in the West, claimed was part of Western Region but which the federal government asserted was separate. The Yorubas of Lagos because of politics and federal money and the crumbs from the federal masters’ dining table sang the song of Lagos separateness. Since then, Lagos has always had identity crisis of whether it wants to be regarded along with the rest of Yorubaland as one and indivisible whole or as a separate entity. The debate is now academic because the old song of the Action Group “Lagos belongs to that West, Lagos belong to the West, awon oponu alai lero won ni gedegbe Leko wa; Lagos belongs to the West” has become a reality. Never mind the rear-guard sentiments of my friend the Oba of Lagos that Lagos is not part of Yorubaland because Lagos royalty traces its origin to Benin. First of all, the origin of a dynasty is not the same is that of the people. English people are not Germans even though their present dynasty comes from Hanover in Germany. The Bini people are not Yoruba in spite of their dynasty coming from Ile Ife. Furthermore, the Bini royal influence in Lagos is a reflection of the Ife- Bini relations. The territorial extent of the obas of Lagos on the Island was hemmed in by the pre-existing Awori kingdoms all around the same territory occupied by the Oba of Lagos. Permit my digression.

    Now to Ibadan.

    I have no comment on the tussle between the Olubadan and his son, the governor of Oyo State, Abiola Ajimobi. In any case the case is in court so it is sub judice. I want to applaud the tremendous efforts of the governor to improve the road infrastructure of the city and the state as a whole even though there is much to be done. There is no doubt that the governor would have done better if he has had the kind of resources available to other much better endowed states. On this point, I blame the Oyo administration for not increasing its internally generated revenues. The population base of the state is very large with cities like Ibadan, Ogbomosho, Oyo, Iseyin and many of the towns in Oke Ogun. Population is a critical factor of power of any state and if well mobilized can be decisive in its economic development. With fair and equitable taxation covering the whole state, Oyo State should be able to generate enough funds to run the state on modern lines. The state can borrow a leaf from Lagos State and begin to levy land use charge from a range of N100,000  to N5000 annually. People will naturally grumble but when they see what their money is being used for, they would calm down. This levy can be restricted to the towns and commercial and industrial houses as well as educational institutions to begin with. Later it can be extended to cover the entire state so that the people can be made to own their government. The present situation in which money comes from Abuja is not good for citizenship development and is largely responsible for leadership corruption all over the country.

    Sometimes last week, I went out at 6 pm in the evening and returned at 8 pm driving from Molete to Bodija. I normally don’t go out after 6 pm. I was shocked by the fact that there was not a single street light along the roads. I was told this is the same all over Ibadan. It was very depressing and distressing. It was as if one were back to the 19th century. I discussed this with a few friends and I was told that why would there be light on the streets when there is no light in people’s homes. Well, there is a point in that argument. But lighting the streets is a security strategy apart from being a matter of aesthetics.  It is also not divine in both Christianity and Islam to live in darkness. God said we should let our light so shine so that people may glorify our father in heaven. The first statement of God at creation is let there be light. It is not good enough for a city of five million people to be in pitch darkness in the 21st century. A city that used to pride its institutions as “first in Africa” should not be in darkness. Are we now first in Africa in going about like blind men in total darkness in peace time?

    We must have street lights in Ibadan. How can Yorubas watch the biggest town in Yorubaland descend to this abyss of underdevelopment? This is not just acceptable. The governor of Oyo State should send somebody to China or contact our embassy there to visit the best solar energy company with good and demonstrated record of having successfully lit up cities in China and other parts of the world with solar power and invite such a company to come and visit Ibadan with the purpose of picking up a contract to light up Ibadan. China happens to be the leading country in this regard. We should bypass the local companies who have serially failed in executing solar energy contracts in Lagos and other cities and institutions all over Nigeria. This present gloomy darkness in Ibadan must be removed. When successfully tackled, the campaign must move to Oyo and Ogbomosho. Electric lighting of urban Nigeria is not only a matter of beautification and necessity, but a matter of security and safety.

    If all our universities ‘ streets and those of other institutions of higher education and even those of secondary schools were lit, the incidence of cultism and kidnapping will be greatly reduced. The Yorubas say “oru komeni owo” meaning darkness provide cover for all kinds of nefarious activities to be committed. One of the cheapest ways to secure a city is to light it up. This is why modern cities all over the world spend resources on urban lighting. In fact in modern cities,night does not mean darkness any more. Night fall is no hindrance to production and productivity. One of the reasons for our economic backwardness is the lack of electricity which in Nigeria unfortunately manifests in unlit or poorly lit streets. But solar energy, if appropriately deployed, constitutes a relatively cheap solution to this embarrassing urban problem. The Ibadan situation was first highlighted in Bola Ige’ s novel “ The Kaduna boy “ in which he reflected on the lack of streets light in Ibadan in contrast to Kaduna where he grew up in the 1930s. That’s almost 80 years ago. His grand children should not be afflicted with the same problem in 2018. It is my hope that Abiola Ajimobi will crown his efforts as not only a builder of roads and institutions but also as the governor who lit up Ibadan and brought the city to the 21st century.

  • Peaceful transfer of power in South Africa

    Peaceful transfer of power in South Africa

    Sixty-five-year old Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa, after the disgraced former  President, Jacob Gedleyihlekisa  Zuma was forced to resign, assumed office as  president of South Africa as fifth president of the new South Africa following the footsteps of Nelson  Rolihlahla Mandela,(1994-1999), Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki (1999-2008), Kgalema Motlanthe (2008- 2009) and   Zuma (2009- 2018). The regime of Zuma was marked by what South Africans call “state capture” by Ajay Gupta, Atul Gupta, Rajesh Gupta and Varun Gupta all brothers from Uttar Pradesh in India who thoroughly corrupted virtually everyone in power as part of their modus operandi of doing business in South Africa.

    Unfortunately this strategy seems to be what Indians doing business all over Africa including Nigeria adopt. They come to Africa wearing the clothes on their backs and carrying a few things in their briefcases. Once they arrive, they find their ways to our banks and borrow billions of the local currencies and set up export-import businesses. The banks prefer them to local people because they offer huge kickbacks to the management of the banks. Before long these people become rich enough to warm themselves into the embrace of local politicians thus completing state capture by cornering juicy contacts and serving as conduit pipes for bribes paid to politicians at home and abroad. The Guptas overreached themselves and the African National Congress (ANC) was so embarrassed by Zuma’s betrayal of trust that they were no longer ready to wait another eight months for him to complete his 10-year term as president before they threw the blighter out. Jacob Zuma who had refused all the pressure mounted on him eventually threw in the towel and surrendered like a well beaten boxer. He even tried to raise the ethnic flag by insinuating that his Zulu people might react violently but even his Zulu compatriots felt he did not represent the best essence of the Zulu people.  He had not only been corrupt he was accused one time of raping the daughter of a friend in spite of having three wives. His defence was that the girl involved sat carelessly facing him and that was a challenge to his Zulu manhood!

    He did not support Ramaphosa, his vice president to take over from him. Earlier on, he had backed his apparently capable ex-wife and former chairperson of the African Commission, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to succeed him as president. The gambit nearly worked. The lady was eminently qualified on her own capacity. She was a former minister of health under Mandela, minister of foreign affairs under presidents’ Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe and held the powerful ministry of home affairs under Jacob Zuma. Her candidacy failed because it was vastly conjectured as a plot to cover up the corruption of her ex-husband for whom she has three children. She inherited the support and enmity of her ex-husband in equal measure and she ran as a strong second to Ramaphosa. It will be prudent for the new president to protect his Zulu flank by bringing her into his government.

    Cyril Ramaphosa is from the small ethnic group the Venda but it seems South African politics has gone beyond ethnic considerations. Indeed Ramaphosa does not only speak his native Venda but also Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele, Sotho, Afrikaans and English. He was a trade unionist under the apartheid regime. Mandela had recommended him to succeed him but the other leaders of the ANC preferred Thabo Mbeki, the son of  Govan Mbeki who along with Raymond Mhlaba,  Walter Sisulu and others were the backbone of the ANC in their years of white persecution. But Ramaphosa’s time has now come. When he was rejected as Mandela’s successor, Ramaphosa buried himself in business and became one of the richest black South Africans.  When he says he will revive the economy and end state capture and corruption, he sounds believable. South Africans believe that as a rich man he will face the task of governance without having to dirty his hands with filthy lucre since he is already a rich man.

    His wealth may be a problem if he is too pro-business while the vast majority of black South Africans wallow in poverty. People still remember he had shares in mines whose management called policemen to shoot down striking black miners a few years ago. He will also have to do something about the yawning gap between the rich whites and the poor blacks in the country. The question of white ownership of most productive lands in the country while blacks are herded into bad patches of dry and infertile lands would have to be tackled. Housing is a major headache for blacks and so is growing unemployment among young graduates. The rate of violence in the country is one of the highest in the world. The country is also faced with the HIV pandemic. Recently, students in higher institutions protested against attempt by government to increase students’ school fees.

    In short, his regime is going to be faced with rising expectations in an economy that is not keeping pace with demographic growth. On the ANC’s left politically is Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a break-away youth wing now unreasonably campaigning for nationalization of land. This is a popular call among the youth but if done may possibly ruin the agriculture and economy of South Africa. Ramaphosa would have to balance as delicately as possible, South Africa’s economic interest represented by white ownership of means of production with political demands of the black majority. He will have to persuade the whites to let go some of the land while also letting the blacks know they would gain from a booming economy. It will not be easy. Ramaphosa was largely responsible for marshalling the ANC’s position during the negotiations for a post-apartheid South Africa; he should be able to bring his negotiating skill to reconcile black economic and political aspirations with realistic economic interest of the white and Asian community in South Africa. The quick transfer of power in South Africa has convinced foreign investors of the economic and political stability of the country under a relatively young and astute leader.

    Presently the economy is growing at 2.5 percent of GDP a year. This is below most of the growth rate of the economies of most countries in Africa south of the Sahara and north of the Limpopo. Even sluggish Nigerian economy’s growth should be more than 2.5 percent this year.

    South Africa will be going for election next year just like Nigeria. But unlike doomsday’s prediction in Nigeria, the election in South Africa will not be marred by violence and tensions. Nigeria may be the largest economy in Africa and there is no reason to boast about it, we are four times the size of South Africa in population but our antediluvian infrastructure is a cause for soul-searching and a national disgrace. Only God knows when we will ever have regular supply of electricity. Potable water in Nigeria has become history and most homes depend on dug wells behind the main houses.  Intercity travelling is constantly challenged by Kalashnikov gun-wielding terrorists masquerading as herders. Our population is galloping at geometric rate of growth with challenge therefore posed to our ability to feed ourselves even before herders drove away farmers from the land. We are faced with existential challenges while our governments do not seem to appreciate the problems but rather prefer to play politics with the present and future of our country. Yet without Nigeria doing well, the fate of the black man is sealed. The future of the black man will be determined not in South Africa but in Nigeria. This is our destiny whether manifest or hidden. Until we have leaders who appreciate this call to rise and fulfil our role in Africa, we will continue to grope in the dark.

     

  • Aviation industry in Nigeria

    Aviation industry in Nigeria

    On Sunday February 11, a regional airline flying an Antonov medium range jet crashed about 10 minutes after take-off from Moscow’s domestic airport on an internal flight. All the 71 souls in the plane perished. It is an occasion like this that brings to the fore the issue of aircraft safety and security. As proficient as the Russians are in military aircraft making, it does not appear they are good in making civilian planes. There have been so many air crashes in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union necessitating the wholesale change of equipment from Russian aircrafts to Boeing and Airbus planes whose superior aircrafts are the planes of choice of Russian civilian pilots. Russian military aircrafts are as good if not better than their western counterparts. In fact, Russia’s Antonov An-225 Mriya and Tupolev ANT-20Mazim Gorky are the largest planes ever built.

    There is secrecy surrounding military aircrafts and their operation and accidents but civilian aircrafts operate under international codes and norms determined by ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) and any air accidents must be reported. Air crashes can occur as a result of poor equipment, pilot’s error, poor maintenance, and bad weather. All things being equal, flying is the safest means of travel.

    I have in my professional life as an academic and diplomat travelled to all the habitable continents of the world viz, Europe, Africa, Latin and North America, Asia and Australasia and across Canada and the United States from East to West. What I am trying to say is that I have experience travelling by air and I thank God for my safety over these years. When I travel by air, I want to be assured that the plane I am flying is ship-shape and in good condition while I leave my safety in the hands of the Almighty. Like all members of the travelling public, I am always sorry to hear about plane crashes because of the loss of lives that always come with the crashes.

    On the 7th and 9th of February, I made a quick visit and return flight to and from Abuja from Lagos and I did not enjoy the trip on account of what I would call eventful flight. When my ticket was to be bought, Dana airline tickets were to be purchased but when I was told, I turned the offer down and settled for what I thought was a tested and better established airline which was Arik. I had travelled on Arik for many of its 10 years of existence. I had never complained before. If I do not complain now, I will be failing in my duty as a responsible elder citizen.

    When we took off from Lagos, the noise of the aircraft was simply overwhelming. It sounded like the noise coming out of two exhaust pipes of a huge truck. I thought it would stop the moment we reached the right altitude but it continued until we started descending into Abuja 40 minutes later. The aircraft vibrated and rattled throughout the journey. It appeared to me that the plane needed a D- check or total overhaul. I believe this particular aircraft is not more than 10 years old which by international standards, it is not old. But even a year-old aircraft if not properly maintained, can constitute a hazard to the flying public. On my return journey, I thought whatever temporary problem the aircraft had would have been rectified but it was not. The flight rumbled noisily again shaking and vibrating and noisily ploughing through the clouds like a brakeless truck that has lost its silencers. I told myself that if the best airline in Nigeria is like this, God help us. On the same day, I flew to Abuja, Dana Air, the flight I rejected lost its cabin door on landing at Abuja airport. The circumstances are not clear. Some of the passengers claim the cabin door actually opened while the aircraft was making its final approach to land in Abuja. Just as we were getting out of the bad news, an Air Peace plane about to take off from Lagos to Abuja on February 9 found that robbers had shot at its luggage hold while on the tarmac. The flight take off had to be delayed for about two hours before finally taking off. Some years ago in Port Harcourt, a plane nearly crashed when cows blocked the runway. It was an embarrassment that went viral all over the world. One hopes this will never happen again and that all the airports in Nigeria have perimeter fences. There is plenty of people looking for jobs that fencing of airports should not be an issue at all. What does this say about the aviation industry in Nigeria?

    It is obvious that the industry is poorly supervised. Anybody,  it seems to me , can go to the desert of Arizona in Tucson or Mohave Airport in Eastern California where  time-expired planes are stored in what are called boneyards to purchase what are meant for scraps and refurbish them to set up their so-called air lines in Nigeria which a former aviation minister called “flying coffins”.

    We should not wait until we have another air crash before we call the attention of the travelling public and our government to the danger of flying in Nigeria. I am not sure whether setting up a national airline is the way forward.  Our experience with the defunct Nigeria Airways does not recommend government setting up a totally owned airline. It seems in Nigeria that whatever belongs to government belongs to nobody and is quickly run down. It was a pity that we did not allow the Virgin Atlantic venture into our local aviation industry to succeed. The newly signed open air protocols in Addis Ababa hopefully will lead to investment by well healed foreigners in our aviation industry. Our government can invite say Lufthansa German airlines or Ethiopian airlines to set up local airlines in Nigeria with Nigerian public and private part ownership. The current airports being modernized in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano are not going to be worth our while unless we have thriving domestic usage of these facilities. The present local airlines are just not up to what is needed in the biggest economy and the most important country in Africa. I of course can attest to the fact that Nigerian pilots are among the best in the world. The fact that in recent times, unlike in the past, and in spite of poor equipment, we have witnessed few accidents in Nigeria is a pointer and confirmation of their expertise and professionalism. But we cannot rest on our record and wait until avoidable accidents occur. Whatever the case may be, we need an efficient aviation industry. Travelling by road is not the best way to go. This is even more so because of the creeping insecurity of road travelling in these days of kidnapping, armed brigandage, attacks by so-called herdsmen and armed militia gangs. Travelling by rail is an aspiration for the future.

    I know quite a few Nigerians who, so unsure of our local aviation industry that if they have to go from Lagos to Maiduguri would rather drive. Aviation industry is so critical to our development that our present critically challenged government must face up to its duty of providing a safe means of air travel in Nigeria. The present “bolekaja” planes in the domestic air space of Nigeria need to be grounded immediately in order to save the lives of already traumatized and exhausted Nigerians facing the sometimes self-imposed problems of bad governance.

  • Obscene pensions for state governors

    Obscene pensions for state governors

    Some few weeks ago, Justice Oluremi Oguntoyinbo, presiding judge at a Federal High Court in Lagos gave decision in favour of the Socio- Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) that brought a suit in December 2017 challenging the legality of 21 former state governors or deputy governors now serving as ministers and senators and drawing two salaries and emoluments, one as former governors and now ministers and senators. Even if it were not illegal, it will be immoral in situations where most states are unable to pay salaries and pensions. But in real fact, it is actually illegal. SERAP is also asking the federal attorney- general to sue the 21 former governors involved who have allegedly collected N40 billion since 2015. I have on one occasion written about the immoral allowances and pensions some of these governors awarded themselves on their way out of their executive mansions. For example In Akwa Ibom the most extreme in generosity, a former governor is entitled to the following: N100 million for medical treatment annually; N1 million monthly medical allowance; Five bedroom bungalow each in Abuja and Uyo; 300% of the basic salary of the incumbent governor; a new utility and three saloon cars every three years; foreign holidays for wife and children under 18 years; provision of personal aide, cook, security guards not exceeding N5 million per month.

    Former deputy governor of Akwa Ibom receives about half of these humongous and unfair salaries and allowances.

    It is of course not Akwa Ibom alone that is involved in this executive looting. All the states of the federation are complicit in this sordid deed. One of course hopes that Ekiti and Gombe states – the two poorest states in the country will not be involved. This is only a hope but my guess is that all the former governors and their deputies in Nigeria are collectively involved in this gubernatorial financial selfish financial self-aggrandizement.  It seems these governors are in competition with the federal legislators who are each allegedly earning from N23 – N28 million every month. The suit filed by SERAP hinges on the illegality of earning two salaries from the same government in the federation. I will even go further for a cancellation of pensions for governors and their deputies who may have served for between four and eight years or in some cases less than four years. Ordinarily a person who has not worked for up to 10 years is not entitled to pension under the old labour laws of Nigeria. My assumption is that former governors and their deputies were either self-employed or on salaried jobs before coming into elective offices and they are by my own reasoning not entitled to pensions.  We all know that these former state executives do not need these huge unearned pensions. The former governor of Lagos, Babatunde Raji Fashola SAN said he declined to accept any pension saying serving as governor of Lagos was sufficient honour for him. I commend Fashola and I hope this republic will benefit from his excellent character and service for many years to come. Dr Bukola Saraki also said he has stopped collecting pensions from poor Kwara State for now.

    In the First Republic, members of parliament at regional and federal levels served on part-time basis. Those who were elected were professionals and whenever they left office they went to their jobs as teachers, lawyers and civil servants. I regret to say that some of them died in penury but this should not be used as justification for this financial shenanigans masquerading as pensions policy we have today.

    We do not know if the legislatures at state and federal levels have also approved humongous pensions for their members, most of whom are birds of passage.

    Since the public, in spite of the Freedom of Information Act, do not know the terms and conditions of service of members of the various legislatures in the country, former members may also be earning huge pensions quietly. We have also heard of people being given so-called “severance packages” which are totally illegal. At the right time when we have a regime that wants to cleanse the system, many may have to pay back moneys illegally collected. Who for example would have believed a conservative kingdom like Saudi Arabia would arrest several of its leaders who are mostly princes and force them to disgorge US$117 billion which they illegally appropriated to themselves from the public treasury?  In the United States, former governors would have contributed to public pensions scheme which is available to all public workers unlike here where politicians treat themselves as unique and special individuals. In the United Kingdom, Members of Parliament   receive a pension of either 1/40th or 1/50th of their final pensionable salary for each year of pensionable service. Ministers who are members of parliament are also entitled to pensions on the same scale. Members of parliament are also encouraged to buy into investment that is available to all British people. With the huge bulge of youth unemployment and economic hopelessness in the land, we may have to tidy our finances and recover whatever had been illegally cornered using political power.

    There is nothing stopping governors, their deputies and members of parliament at state and federal levels setting up pensions schemes or buying into existing pensions that are based on voluntary or in some cases compulsory contributions. This is what Nigerians who are lucky to find jobs do and our representatives should reflect our financial reality and in any case politics should not be made so attractive that getting elected becomes a matter of life or death. We must go back to part-time legislatures and abolish the extant laws permitting current executive brigandage. The only elected officials of government who should live at our expense after their service are the president, vice president and judges who cannot after office go back to work. The president and the vice president are by the nature of their offices, physical representation of the Nigerian nation.

     

  • The Trump doctrine

    The Trump doctrine

    At his presidential inauguration about a year ago, Donald J. Trump came up with the slogan “America first” or “ make America great again”. He again in October last year at the plenary session of  the United Nations General Assembly said he would put American interest above that of others and that he expected other countries to put their countries interest above those of others. He further threatened to incinerate North Korea if that country, led by a “little rocket man” dared to threaten the United States or her allies. He did not find this statement out of place in the venue of an organization founded on the principle of collective security after the terrible destruction of the Second World War when an approximated 60 to 80 million people were killed which was about 3% of the global population then. The approximate loss country by major countries were as follows: Soviet Union – 24million military and civilian deaths; United Kingdom – 450700; United States – 418500; Yugoslavia – 1000000; Germany – 8000000 including those seized by the soviets and those expelled from their homelands; China – about 14 to 20,000000 killed by Japanese from 1937 to 1945; Japan – between 2,000,000 to 3000,000; Italy – about 4.3 million civilian and military deaths.

    It is important to state that the United States was largely responsible for rebuilding the world after the global catastrophe. It was the USA and others that  were responsible for the post-war political and economic architecture that has worked reasonably well since 1945. Even though the  post-war division of Europe into two military alliances, namely the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)  and the Warsaw Pact ushered in a period of ideological rivalry and Cold War lasting till 1994 when the Soviet Union collapsed, there has been no major global conflict originating from Europe. Imperfect as it may appear, the global system has worked reasonably well. The unipolarity following the collapse of the Soviet Union has now happily been replaced by a bipolar world of the United States and China with resurgent Russia trying to regain big power status.

    The bitter ideological conflict of the past has been replaced by the quest for economic development and prosperity. Even though Peoples Republic of China and Vietnam that were previously enemies of the United States still continue to mouth the communist slogans, but no one is deceived and China for example has a gerontocratic  regime masquerading as communist party rule. Russia has abandoned communism for some form of guided democratic authoritarianism. China and Russia in terms of military capacity, are the only countries that can challenge United States’ dominance or hegemony in global politics. The European Union, dominated by Germany and France, just want to be left alone to trade with all parts of the world while enjoying the United States’ nuclear umbrella. Japan is also in the same relations with the United States. South Asian countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan are for now too poor to be an arena for global conflict. There are two nuclear countries here, namely Pakistan and India, who for religious reasons are locked in mortal conflict of self-destruction to bother the rest of the world. The Middle East is important because of its oil and gas and also being the birth place of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. But the area is divided by sectarian conflicts between Shia and Sunni on one hand, and between Iranians and Arabs on the other. Superimposed on this sectarianism is the nuclear weapons state of Israel which enjoys special relations with and protection of the United States.

    The former communist states in Eastern Europe, if allowed by Russia will find their way into the European Union and possibly into NATO. They are all busy adjusting to capitalism and free enterprise and market economies along western lines. They are also sorting out ethnic problems that were suppressed under communism.

    The continents of Africa and South America with their enormous natural resources and inchoate nations will in future be places for struggle by China and the United States. Trump is making a mistake by regarding these two continents as “shit holes”. America will pay for this in the future. No country or continent is unimportant. For example, according to Robert Kennedy who was his brother President John F. Kennedy’s Attorney-General, it was through Guinea that communication that ended the Cuban crisis of 1962 passed between the Soviet Union and the United States by which the world avoided a thermonuclear conflict that may have wiped out human civilization.

    This broadly speaking is the picture of the world facing Trump.

    He has said globalization has been unfair to America. What he says he wants is not free trade but fair and balanced trade. Rather than multilateral trade agreements like the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) from which he has withdrawn or regional economic integration like NAFTA (North American Trade Agreement) from which he is likely to withdraw, Trump wants bilateral trade agreement with each country. In his scheme, the World Trade Organisation ( WTO) obviously has no role. Even NATO, the military alliance that had served the United States since 1945 is under scrutiny on the basis either that it has outlived its usefulness or on the basis that member-states were not paying their fair share of the alliance budget. His attitude to the United Nations is very lukewarm. He has already withdrawn from UNESCO and withdrawal from some other specialist agencies of the United Nations may follow. Ironically, he has in his nuclear confrontation with North Korea often rushed to the UN Security Council asking for one resolution after another.

    In the Trump strategy, he  has argued that the United States has two strategic competitors – namely China and Russia. Left to Trump, he would reach a rapprochement with Russia even recognizing Russia’s annexation of Crimea and perhaps asking Ukraine to cede the ethnic Russians-inhabited eastern part of Ukraine to Russia. But for the United States Congress’ opposition, Trump wants to be friends with Russia. He sees Russia from the prism of a white country in  his nativist picture of the world. He seems to see China as a potential existential challenger to American hegemony in the world perhaps harking back to the 19th century of seeing China as the “yellow peril” to the white race. Even though China and America maintain some symbiotic economic relations, Trump  however sees China’s remarkable economic leap forward  as something that was achieved at the expense of the United States. The people of the American rust belt of Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and the southern states of Alabama, Missouri and the Carolinas who have watched helplessly their manufacturing industries fold up while China has become the industrial workhouse of the world are with Trump in his economic war with China. Playing to his base, China has become the bête noire of the  Trumpian  White House. In his strategy, he sees Europe as a competitor and he is not even a supporter of the EU and sometimes insinuates that the EU is dominated by Germany and was one of the supporters of Britain’s exit from the EU (BREXIT ) apparently as a first step to dismantling a successful economic union which has made war in Europe inconceivable.

    One thing  that is clear about Trump is that he is an iconoclast determined to undo what existed before him without having thought about what will replace the institutions he wants to dismantle. In doing this, he is dispensing with good old diplomacy with what he calls “peace through strength”. This is why he would threaten North Korea with “fire and fury” and seriously mean it. He seems to believe in the use of American power to achieve his aim whether in Iran where he wants to abandon the carefully negotiated five power plus one deal to rein in Iranian nuclear ambitions, or in North Korea where that country has presented the world with a nuclear  fait accompli. Where his  bellicose politics will lead remains to be seen but one thing is clear is that the world is entering a dangerous denouement.

  • Small arms proliferation

    Small arms proliferation

    Since the Liberian and Sierra Leone civil wars of the 1980s and 1990s, the West African region has been faced with the problem of small arms proliferation. What was a Middle Eastern, South Asian and post-Soviet Union problem had by the 1980s become a global threat. Such was the severity of the problem that it became an item of deliberation in the United Nations General Assembly Plenaries of the period. The flow of arms to West Africa and to the boiling cauldron of Liberia and Sierra Leone came from Libya whose strongman Muamar Gadhafi had the ambition of spreading his influence all over Africa either by force or bribery made possible by the huge petroleum dollars in his country’s coffers. Charles Ghankay Taylor of Liberia now serving a life sentence in Europe, became one of Muamar Gadhafi‘s protégés. Most of the rebels in Liberia and Sierra Leone carried the AK47 supplied them by the Libyan regime. The AK 47 which most of the armies in the collapsed Soviet empire in Eastern Europe carried could be bought for half a penny, with a bit of exaggeration, on the streets of the capitals of newly freed East European countries and the Balkan region of former Yugoslavia, Albania and Bulgaria.

    The AK 47 is a revolutionary weapon and gas operated7.62x39mm assault rifle, developed in the old Soviet Union by Mikhail Kalashnikov. It is light and simple to operate and very deadly. It is now made either under license or pirated in several countries of the developing world. This is the weapon of choice by many guerrilla movements or armed gangs with no noble or ideological causes. The ECOWAS heads of state and governments during the post-civil wars in the region tried to prevail on governments in the region to find ways to disarm former rebels and those in possession of small arms by arguing that these arms presented as much existential challenges to Africa as nuclear weapons to people in the so-called First World. From what is going on now in Nigeria, all our protestations have apparently been in vain. The fact that herders of cows are killing farmers with these weapons means we still have much to do. The volume of this type of weapons available in our region has been increased by the wars for territorial control raging on in Libya after the NATO-induced overthrow of Gadhafi. Unscrupulous Nigerian businessmen have also been bringing these weapons from Turkey and China as articles of trade in readiness apparently for the 2018 and 2019 elections in Nigeria.

    It seems the security organizations in Nigeria are either inept or overwhelmed by the enormity of the problems. It is no use blaming the president even though I agree the buck stops at his table. What we should be asking is what the security agencies are doing while the country is being overrun by a rag tag band of herders or armed militia. The fact that things have gotten to a situation where innocent people are being killed daily is a serious indictment of our federal government agencies responsible for securing the country. If the current heads of these agencies are not performing optimally, then there is a need for their wholesale overhaul. President Buhari must save us and save his government from the current trauma. People are afraid to travel all over the country. It is becoming dangerous to move even from Abuja to Kaduna a few kilometres from the seat of the federal government. If this is so, one can imagine the situation at the periphery in the states where sometimes there is no effective control of government because states have no means of enforcing their laws.

    What is happening in Nigeria is not just Fulani herders killing farmers. There is evidence that the killing is mutual in some parts of the country like Adamawa particularly in Numan and Bachama areas, Jos and the Mambilla Plateau. These killings are manifestations of ancient animosity among ethnic groups. The same is true in Taraba where Jukun/ Chamba are in antagonistic embrace with Kutebs, and Tivs over land.   In most instances, these killings have no religious significance; in fact many of the Bororo Fulani herders are animists and not Muslims. In the past these violent tendencies were curtailed by the effectiveness of local governments and the emirate administrations. But not anymore. The local governments have been reduced to mere sharing of unearned income  from the federal government by local officials and leaving the local people to settle ancient  disputes arising from mutual hatred rooted in history of conflict passed on from generation to generation. I personally witnessed this from my sojourn on the Jos plateau and Maiduguri for about five years.

    What is to be done?

    The federal government as a matter of urgency must and should call in the army to embark on “Operation Damisa” to ask all those in possession of arms to surrender them at their state headquarters supervised by the army. To make sure this is done, every arm surrendered should attract a reward of N1000. The time lag should be two weeks after which anybody with arms will be treated as terrorists and summarily dealt with. In this mission, the army should alone be responsible for collecting the arms after which bonfires should be publicly made of them.

    The long-term solution is education for both farmers and herders and their sponsors. Those involved in cattle rearing should be persuaded that ranching is the way forward. If properly done, ranching will bring more money to owners of cows particularly in the production of milk, cheese, hides and skins for local and foreign shoemakers. In ancient times, the so-called Moroccan leather came from Sokoto and ‘shipped’ across the desert on camels’ backs. Instead of cows being driven across the country until they become emaciated, they would be slaughtered in the ranches and transported across the country in refrigerated trains, trucks and air planes. We used to get beef airfreighted from Argentina in the 1970s. As the Americans used to say in the Clintonian era, it is the economy stupid! We have to find a way to create jobs for our teeming young population. If people have jobs, it will not matter what ethnic groups people come from.

    We must again look at the political geography of this country. Do we really need 37 states including Abuja guzzling 90 % of our resources for administration with little left for development? Whether we like it or not, we must collapse these unviable and insolvent states that are unable to pay salaries and maintain law and order into six or at most eight ethnically rational states or regions so that we can have a competitive and cooperative federation as we used to have in the past. Nigeria is not more heterogeneous than India and the kind of mutual slaughter going on here will be obviated when the coordinating federal government is not overburdened by the weight of too many responsibilities. In this regard we must redesign our federal architecture so that the issue of security is divided between the states and the centre so that we do not have a Poobah of a president and political leviathan with all power of security in the hands of a single individual as we have today.

    But we must begin our journey to security and sanity by countrywide disarmament which must be coordinated with our partners in ECOWAS and the Lake Chad Basin Commission. This is an existential urgency before the coming elections. Any prevarication is not in anybody‘s interest. Nigeria is too important to Africa and the black race in an era of rising racism all over the world to be toyed with and be tossed up and down by a clandestine political interest group whose interest may be at cross purposes with the overall interest of the country at large.

  • Africa: Shithole continent

    Africa: Shithole continent

    While discussing the issue of immigration reform in the USA with Congressional leaders, Donald J. Trump, the USA president wondered why people from Haiti, El Salvador and the “shithole countries in Africa” were being allowed to come to the USA. He later followed it up by asking Norwegians to emigrate to the USA. Why will anyone from Norway that has the highest income per capita migrate to the USA with all its crime, guns and racism? From the time of the pilgrims’ progress1607-1620 and particularly in the 19th century, it was the bedraggled, depressed, disadvantaged and the poor and fugitives including Trump’s grandfather who sought better lives for themselves and their descendants in America. Trump had earlier on said pointedly that when Nigerians visit the USA, they are reluctant to go back to their huts. This remark has generated heated remarks from Americans and the global community particularly in Africa because of the malignant racism implicit in the president’s comments.

    It is of course within the sovereign rights of the USA to determine what kind of colour of people it wants to have in its country. But it is not the right of the Americans to denigrate any country and a whole continent because of the colour of their skin. We know Trump was elected in reaction to the election of President Obama, the first Blackman to be so elected. It seems white Americans suddenly felt they were losing control of power. This was why a brilliant woman like Hilary Clinton lost election to this bumbling dotard of a president. The demographics of the United States are changing with the influx of Latin Americans mostly from Mexico and Central America. When added to the population of Afro Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans and white women and college-educated young white men all inclined towards the Democratic Party, it is explainable why the white supremacists and their representative in the White House are fighting back. Donald Trump knows what he is doing. He is merely playing to his base and supporters by saying all these racist taunts including saying some of the white supremacists in Virginia were good people and calling on white policemen to shoot blacks before asking questions. If he has the power, Donald Trump will roll back the clock and cancel the civil rights of black peoples which people like Martin Luther King jnr. and Malcom X paid for with their lives.

    We must however give it to the United States that it is still a country of laws and no matter how powerful their president may be, he is still bound by the laws of the land. One thing should however now be clear to people in the so-called “Third World” that the leader of the most powerful country in the world does not wish them well and they should adjust their policies in reaction to that fact. They should ally with countries that wish them well and that respect their people. It is not that Africa has no alternative to the USA in terms of trade and technology. Our diplomatic relations and global diplomacy should reflect the reality of American disregard, disrespect and hostility to us based on racism. We should make it clear that from now on we would not be bound by any American inspired and induced United Nations sanctions targeted against countries like Iran, and North Korea that we have no quarrel with. Let Donald  Trump continue with his “America first” policy and isolationism while the rest of the world goes it alone and embraces the tested policies of multilateralism and globalization  for which China has come out ready to provide leadership.

    The other side of the coin is a clarion call to African and particularly Nigerian leaders to shape up or ship out. We do not have the luxury of time for non-performing government in the face of global and American hostility to us and our aspirations.

    I called a few friends of mine in the USA to sound out their opinions about what is going on. Incredibly as it may sound the Africans among them including Nigerians said they agree with Trump’s description of their continent as “Shit hole”. They blame the leaders of Africa for this insult. They said with the constant killings and civil wars on the continent and lack of development leading to young people fleeing the continent to die in the Mediterranean Sea, Trump’s insult is deservedly earned. The situation in Nigeria is particularly pathetic. Here is a great country brought down through inept and uncaring leadership that is silent when insecurity is enveloping the whole country. People are afraid to travel on the highways because of fear of being kidnapped by so-called herdsmen who have abandoned herding cows for kidnapping hapless human beings for ransom. Our government keeps quiet sometimes saying these are foreigners as if foreigners have the right to come into our country to kill us! People are being slaughtered, kidnapped and prevented from farming and the security forces are kept in the barracks doing nothing thus inviting chaos of people resorting to self-help and arming themselves against armed marauders whether indigenous or foreign.

    Of course we have problems in Africa and particularly in Nigeria. If Nigeria is not doing well, the entire continent suffers. We see the leadership of this continent slipping from our hands.

    Why did it take Geoffrey Onyeama, the foreign minister a whole week before summoning the American ambassador to tell him off and send a stiff message to his president? South Africa did that immediately Trump made the offending statement so did Ghana. If the president was slow to give a directive, the minister should have done his job and then reported to the president. The worst that could have happened is for the presidency to disown the statement. This is allowed in international relations but the original national anger would have registered where it mattered. Calling in the ambassador after the brouhaha had died down amounts to shame, humiliation and national weakness. Nigeria may be needlessly poor because of poor leadership, but we are a sovereign nation and our founding fathers fought for this sovereignty. We should not allow our current inertia to permanently damage our leadership position on the African continent.

    As for those of our folks abroad who say we, as a continent, deserve all the insults that Trump can heap on our heads, I remind them of the African proverb that says you do not point out to a man who has nine fingers that he has nine fingers. It is bad manners to point out the deformity of a fellow human being. Pointing this out could lead to irrational reaction. This is what President Trump has done to a whole continent. He can bar our people from coming to his country without insulting us. He must also be taught some history about how American capitalism was founded on the blood, tears and unpaid black slave labour for four centuries.

    In the world of diplomacy, reciprocity and etiquette are greatly appreciated and they constitute the grundnorm of international relations. This is what the current occupier of the White House has breached and he should be told that he is wrong and this should be done explicitly without ambiguity and redundancy.

  • Fuel shortage madness

    Fuel shortage madness

    It is only a mad person who does things repeatedly in one fashion and expects  to get different results. The political economy of petroleum resources is too important and critical in Nigeria to be left to the government alone. Supply and distribution of petrol (benzene) for fueling internal combustion engines whether vehicles or generators are not rocket science or neuroscience to be left to experts alone. It is simple economics of supply and demand. Countries that do not  have or produce petroleum  have to import and distribute the stuff without the agony and trauma that regularly befall Nigerians especially annually at Christmas.

    Our basic problem is that we are not refining enough petroleum for domestic use. We have four refineries, two in Port Harcourt, one each in Kaduna and Warri. These are refineries established at different times and with different capacities starting with the first one in Port Harcourt in 1965. The one in Kaduna is poorly located and its location was probably influenced by political considerations. This was a wrong decision for a purely economic matter. This is because transportation of refined petroleum is easier and cheaper than  the transportation of crude oil. This is more so since the Kaduna refinery was built to refine heavy crude imported from Venezuela at a point in time. We may in future be able to refine in Kaduna crude oil from Niger republic. However, the locational issue is now academic.

    The reality is that all the refineries are not working  at optimal level. This means we rely on imports to satisfy local need. The cost of imported fuel is subject to the vagaries of the up and down of global cost of petroleum. When the cost is low, government does not need to subsidize but when it is high the government in order to keep  pump price low has to subsidize to keep importers to continue in business. Unfortunately this scheme has been so thoroughly abused in the past to the extent that trillions were used in one calendar year as subsidies. People who knew nothing about the oil  and gas trade jumped unto the bandwagon and overnight became gas and oil business men and instant billionaires.

    During the Jonathan regime politicians and their children used their connection for financial aggrandizement at the expense of the state and poor struggling Nigerians who bought fuel at prices dictated by cartels in cahoots with people in government. The huge amount spent on importing petrol led to the downward spiral of the Naira. So much foreign exchange was used for oil importation that the real sector of production was neglected because there was no hard currency to import spare parts and raw materials for local industries that unreasonably depended on imports. But because crude oil was selling sometimes close to $120 a barrel, it was easy for operators of the domestic economy to allow all kinds of imports thereby giving a feel-good effect for everybody while kicking forward the lean years which were bound to come when the price of crude oil drops. This came with the change of government in 2015 and drastic drop of crude oil production and price globally due to over supply of the world market. This overproduction came as a result of increased oil production in Russia, Saudi Arabia and the re-entry on a large scale of Iraq, Iran  and the United States whose local production increased exponentially because of fracking which is now responsible for 50 percent of America’s oil output.

    When this Buhari government came two years ago, subsidies were mercifully stopped to wide acclamation and trillions of naira were  therefore saved.  Subsidies could not continue because the country was broke. If Jonathan had won  the election, he would have had to cancel the subsidy regime or allow the country to go bankrupt like Venezuela. The  Buhari government however failed to educate Nigerians that the price of petrol would rise if the depressed price of crude oil at that time about $35 rose. The price of crude oil is now double what it was two years ago so the pump price of petrol must go up  unless huge subsidies are again paid to importers. If  after subsidies current pump price is maintained, Nigeria through smugglers will be providing refined petroleum products and gasoline to her neighbours. The point to make is that as long as we do not refine  adequate amount of petroleum for domestic use, the price of petrol at the pump will vary with the vagaries of international price of crude oil. How much will be enough at the pump to encourage oil importers to continue in business without subsidies? How much can the people pay in a period of economic depression? What price is politically wise to ask hard pressed and struggling Nigerians to pay? Should market forces be allowed to operate without government intervention? These are the issues.

    First of all, what can be done to speed up local refining of petroleum? The answer is not annual Turn Around Maintenance ( TAM). Some have wickedly described it as “ Automated Teller Machine)  those working in NNPC. Can anyone blame them? This is a drainpipe of government revenue which has been going on since these refineries were built. Any sane man would have expected government to have signed maintenance agreements with those who built the refineries right from the start. I remember Sani Abacha asking TOTAL petroleum of France to do a TAM at the Kaduna refinery at a cost of US$100million when he was in power. This was at a time when a modest new refinery in Singapore was costing the same amount.Now we are being told  again that NNPC is planning TAM for the old four refineries at $1.2 billion. This contract should be stopped immediately. The refineries should all be sold to oil companies doing business in Nigeria at buyer determined price.

    If I was advising President Buhari, I will ask him to give them away at zero price with the condition that the companies buying them will make them work within a year.  The other condition will be that continued business of these oil companies will depend upon cooperation with government to make these refineries work. The money saved from TAM will be used to import petrol while waiting for the repairs to be carried out at no cost to the national exchequer. The huge cost of TAM would therefore have been saved and used for importation and what would have been used for importation will sit pretty in our foreign reserves and be used to support economic development. Former president Olusegun Obasanjo had a plan like this in 2007 but those who moved in with President Umaru Yar’Adua sabotaged this plan and forced the health-challenged president to change course so that they could benefit and did benefit in the shady and corrupt Nigerian oil and gas business.  These same people for two years prevailed on the Yar’Adua government to cancel contracts for building much needed electricity generating plants. It is not too late for Buhari to go back to the past and embrace this solution so that he can leave a lasting legacy.  The annual Christmas headache of fuel shortage will end hopefully by the time the old refineries come alive at no  cost to government and the much ballyhooed Dangote refinery in Lagos comes on stream. A private company would have come to the rescue of Nigeria and we will all be able to say like Martin Luther  King junior “ Free at last,  Free at last ,Lord God Almighty , we are free at last”.