The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • The joy of Olympics

    I have thoroughly enjoyed watching the just finished Olympic Games. The old saying that the joy of Olympics is in participating but not winning is difficult to sell in a world where sports have replaced wars as a way of measuring the strength of states. This is happily so. Because of this, many states put a lot of resources and effort in organizing and ensuring that they win sporting events and not just participating. In other words, sports have become part of international politics. This is part of what we call cultural diplomacy in the study of international relations. It is cheaper and more effective than the expensive traditional diplomatic way of advancing the influence of states. The small country of Jamaica is probably more well known for good today than many bigger countries because of the achievement of its sports heroes. Usain Bolt the sprinter and his country do not have to hire lobbyists to make themselves known where it matters in the world. Sports as a way of advancing the interests, especially of poor countries in the periphery of world affairs has therefore become a useful tool in the hand s of diplomats. I remember when I was presenting my credentials as Nigeria’s ambassador to President Baron Richard Von Weisachker of Germany in 1991, he was more interested in the Nigerian soccer team and Nigerian writers – two areas constituting cultural diplomacy than in any other thing about my country. He did not ask me about Nigeria’s armed forces or gas and oil. The point I am making is that for our own good we have to place more emphasis on the development of our sports and culture generally, two areas in which we may have comparative advantage.

    Our recent woeful performance at the Rio de Janeiro games in Brazil calls for comment. Those who were following our shoddy preparation for the games knew we were going to be embarrassed by its outcome. I feel thoroughly ashamed that our country of 170million people could only secure one bronze medal. We have been on slippery decline in our sports for years without much attention being paid to it. We concentrate only on soccer as if other sporting events are not important. Even in soccer we have not been doing well. We only manage to reach preliminary stages before we are eliminated. It seems we are satisfied with our pedestrian performance and yet we have a whole ministry of sports with the usual bureaucratic burden with no performance worthy of note to show for it. Our show of shame in Brazil should sadden all Nigerians even at this time of economic difficulties at home. Our athletes wore track suits they wore in the world athletics games in Beijing two years ago while most countries wore their traditional colourful outfits. We had always been cynosures of all eyes in our colourful dresses in years gone by. So what happened? Are there no more tailors in Nigeria to sew ordinary brocades or adire? The track suits and other outfits of the Nigerian contingent we are told arrived on the 13th day of the Rio games! The football team was stranded in Atlanta and we are told a Japanese plastic surgeon out of the goodness of his heart sent $200,000 to fly the team to Rio and promised to pay each member of the team $10,000 bonus if they won a medal. This is what is in the global media and if it is true it is most shameful. Have we become a banana republic that we cannot fund sending our team to an international sports event like the Olympics?  This is so sad and sadder still when a statement was issued on behalf of our president urging the team to bring home medals. Everybody laughed at us and our children in diaspora were hugely embarrassed. We must remember that this is a critical economic constituency contributing perhaps more to our foreign exchange earnings than the so-called gas and oil sector whose so-called owners have been blackmailing the country and holding us by the jugular.

    Somebody must take the blame for this humiliation in Rio in which the entire ECOWAS countries were wiped out. But for Kenya, South Africa and Ethiopia, Africa would have remained irrelevant in the Rio global sporting arena. The millions of dollars Nigeria spent in sending people to the Rio games was a waste of scarce resources. I suspect the money may not have been released on time but this problem should have been anticipated and dealt with expeditiously. We must learn the right lessons from this debacle by preparing now for the Tokyo games in 2020 and for the World Cup in Moscow two years from now. In doing this we must begin to look for fresh talents and not rely on the old and time wearied old hags we resurrect from the dead and expect them to perform. Most athletes are past their prime by the time they are 25 and we also have the problem of old people passing themselves as young people in order to cheat their ways into international competition where they are exposed when they meet genuine stars who are adequately prepared and trained.

    There is much to do in our sports sector. We need to beef up the domestic league, bring back interstate soccer and athletics competition on yearly basis. The local soccer league should be organized as big business and our television stations should be forced to show  them instead of a situation where everybody is talking about English, German, Italian and Spanish football leagues. If so organized, apart from footballers the local league will employ thousands of young people as stadium managers, grounds men, advertisers, masseuses, organizers physical trainers, physiotherapists, sports medicine practitioners, advance men, insurers, television and telecast technicians, accountants, nutritionists and so on. Sports all over the world is big business and the Nigerian is nothing but a sports loving person. In sports we can also find a means of escape from our boring and sometimes unhappy and depressing lives. It is not only the structure of government that needs restructuring, our social and sporting lives need radical transformation.

  • World is watching Nigeria’s near-implosion

    Under British rule, Nigeria did not begin to be one country until the British colonial rulers unified it with a   federal constitution in 1949-51. From that moment on, the makers of Nigeria began to make the mistakes that have now led Nigeria to unmanageable disharmony – disharmony that has now brought Nigeria close to breaking up.

    The makers of the 1949 federal constitution recognized that Nigeria was a country of hundreds of diverse nations. But in the making of the federal constitution, they chose to accord recognition and respect to only the three largest nations – the Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo. There was no thought of respect for the smaller nations; all of them in each of the three regions were supposed to accept to exist happily under the large and dominant nation of their region. Naturally, the small nations in each region protested loudly and demanded a separate composite region of their own. The leaders and government of the Western Region stepped forth and supported the demands of the small nations of each region – including even the small nations of the Western Region. But, even after the British rulers were forced to set up a commission to investigate these demands and the commission had recommended that the British should grant them, the British chose to reject them.

    It was in the context of these historical happenings that Nigeria went astray in the management of its diversity. In the first place, it was gradually made to look as if seeking the interest of one’s particular nation in Nigeria was a backward looking stance, an attack on the unity of Nigeria. This got so bad that a Nigerian could not even say that Nigeria was made up of different peoples, without being called a “tribalist” – without being stigmatized a “Pakhistanist”.

    The foundation of it all was a woolly-headed superficiality – a refusal to look at facts, or a deliberate rejection of obvious and inescapable facts.  Our country is a country of very many peoples or nations, some large, some small. That is the fact. That fact does not presuppose that we cannot build our country into a harmonious and prosperous country. Sure, we can. Sure we could have done it if we had cool-headedly accepted the fact of our country as a country of many nations, and proceeded from that point to find ways to make our country a land of equitable opportunities for all its many nations, large and small, and all its millions of citizens.

    None of us needs to turn down his or her own nation, or to play down its interests, or to reject its unique heritage and ways, in order to be seen to be contributing to the unity of Nigeria or the building of Nigeria.  Building Nigeria does not demand that from any of us. But unfortunately, many Nigerians have quietly and timorously bought into the pernicious frame of mind which says that being “educated”, being “sophisticated”, being “broad-minded”, means that they must subdue any show of interest in the particular interests of their own nation. For such people, being “detribalized” (as it is called) is a virtue. And any Nigerian who shows concern about his own nation’s experiences in Nigeria becomes suspect – becomes “un-Nigerian”.

    By and by, those sections of Nigeria that desired to dominate the rest of Nigeria, and those who wanted Nigeria moulded according to the military command culture to which they are accustomed as soldiers, have succeeded in developing this rejection of Nigeria’s nations into an ideology for the building of a “united Nigeria”. The section of Nigeria that came to believe that it was its right to dominate Nigeria was the Arewa North – the Hausa-Fulani political elite of the Arewa North who happened to be the first controllers of the Federal Government at independence. Their quest for such domination generated serious conflicts in the political process, and these ultimately pushed Nigeria into an era of military regimes. And the military regimes, accustomed only to military command systems, proceeded to organize Nigeria as a country controlled only by the Federal Government. Since most of the military dictators since mid-1966 have been northerners, the excessive centralization wrought by the military regimes has enhanced northern success at domination, and therefore enjoys resolute northern support.

    Thus the Arewa North elite and the military have collaborated to foist an excessive centralism, and a mainstream ideology, on the making of the Nigerian federation, with the result that what we now have is not a federation but a unitary system. The coming of large revenues from petroleum in the years after 1970 put enormous economic power in the hands of the federal government, seemed to make full federal control of Nigeria achievable, and greatly increased the domination ambitions of those in control of the federal government. The final legal formulation of the system was effected in the making of the 1999 Constitution – a constitution which the Arewa North intellectual champions of the mainstream ideology wrote for the military regime of 1998, and which has since been touted as a constitution written by “the people of Nigeria” for the “people of Nigeria”.

    When a Yoruba citizen, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, a retired military officer turned civilian politician, was elected civilian president in 1999, there was hope that he would bring into the governance of Nigeria the typical and well-known Yoruba ideology concerning Nigeria. The Yoruba ideology proposes that since Nigeria comprises many diverse nations, each nation deserves to be respected in the context of Nigeria, and deserves to be allowed some autonomy to manage its unique concerns and desires in the context of Nigeria. Yoruba leaders (in Egbe Omo Oduduwa) first wrote the basic outline of this in 1949 as a proposal for the British colonial rulers to use in organizing Nigeria. Thereafter, succeeding generations of Yoruba leaders have restated this ideology over and over for the proper and harmonious structure of Nigeria. By the time of the Obasanjo presidency, it had become essentially a unifying Yoruba position concerning the proper and stable governance of Nigeria.    Hope that Obasanjo would follow this Yoruba ideology was heightened by the fact that he had written a book in 1998 (The Animal Called Man) in which he had advocated that the Nigerian constitution should include clauses stating the rights of Nigerian’s nations to secede from Nigeria and spelling out the processes towards peaceful secession.

    But as president, Obasanjo veered completely away from his Yoruba political heritage and energetically pursued the centralizing and mainstream ideology of other people, with serious efforts to subdue Nigerian nations (including his own Yoruba nation) to federal control. Unhappily, President Jonathan too, another president from another region that has always resisted excessive federal power, simply followed Obasanjo’s centralizing example. Even when Jonathan finally yielded to pressures to call a National Conference to review the structure of the Nigerian federation, it was obvious that his heart was not in the exercise, and that his real expectation was that his calling of the National Conference would boost his re-election chances. Obasanjo and Jonathan have thus demonstrated that it is almost impossible for any Nigerian president to accept federal loss of the control over all the power, all the money, and all the resources now controlled by the federal government.

    With President Buhari, a retired general from Arewa North now serving as Nigeria’s president, we should not be shocked by what we are seeing. He has said that he has no business with restructuring; and that he has “not bothered to read” the 2014 National Conference Report, but that he has simply tossed it into the archives.

    The only pity is that Nigeria has now absolutely reached the point of decision – either to restructure its federation or buy harmony and stability, or to refuse to restructure and thereby face implosion and break up. Conquering and subduing Nigeria’s peoples in order to keep Nigeria as one country, though attractive to those who control power over Nigeria, is no longer a viable choice. President Buhari says that he is exercising restraint over the use of military force for ending revolt in a part of Nigeria, and that is a good thing – but that is far from being good enough. The world is watching.

  • Budget padding and its challenges

    Until disloyalty to the nation and the conspiracy against their constituencies which brought them together ripped them apart two weeks back, Speaker Dogara, and his estranged friend, Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin, the former chairman, Appropriation Committee and the majority of the house members justified ‘budget padding’ by appealing to the provision of Sections 3, 24 and 30 of the Legislative Houses (Powers and Privileges) Act.  But that for many could only have been self-serving because the law on the public budgetary process is very clear. The motive of their framers is unmistakable and their logic, sound and unassailable. To the extent that a government budget is the political tool with which government in power fulfils its electoral promises to the electorate, the major actor in budget preparation is the executive. Other actors in the budgetary process have their specific roles clearly spelt out. The legislature debates, examines and authorizes spending of public revenue and to avoid any ambiguity, areas of joint cooperation between it and the executive are clearly listed to include implementation, monitoring, evaluation and reporting. To protect the interest of their constituencies, the legislature like all other actors such as NGOs, pressure groups and international donors are expected to lobby the executive at the budget preparatory stage.

    Padding of the budget especially after the second reading is therefore a criminal act. Unfortunately, that seems to be what has been going on since the beginning of the fourth republic. When last May, the bubble first burst following the alarm raised by the ministers in charge of health and transport about the padding of the budget they submitted, the President refused   to append his signature. He was however blackmailed by the lawmakers and their apologists who accused him of insensitivity to the plight of the public that will suffer from his refusal to play politics and accommodate the excesses of the lawmakers.

    But as it is often said, ‘there is no perfect crime’. Two weeks ago, Jibrin’s swift reaction to his removal as chairman of the Appropriation Committee following a claim he ‘unilaterally padded the 2016 budget to the tune of N4.1 billion to his Kiru/Bebeji federal constituency in Kano State’,  was to attribute his travails to his ‘inability to admit into the budget almost N30 billion personal requests from Mr. Speaker and the three other principal officers’. He went on  to add that that the Speaker did not only divert a federal government water project to his farm but that he blackmailed an unnamed construction company to work on his Asokoro new mansion.

    Last week, a civil society group, SERAP lodged a petition against Dogara and his men at the UN claiming ‘removal of critical projects and replacement of such projects with constituency projects, not only undermined the fight against corruption in the country, but also exacerbated extreme poverty’ of the same people on whose behalf Dogara and his House members pretended to fight. We have also now  learnt that about N350b appropriated by the National Assembly in respect of about 2,516 projects spread across the country in the last five years never took off even after full payment had been made. On July 17, this newspaper in a piece titled “Constituency Projects – a ritual of monumental waste”, listed on pages 9, 10 and 11, 211 abandoned budgets. It was the result of a survey of 436 projects spread across 16 states of the federation by a Civic Technology Organisation-BudgIT. Some of these projects include water bore-holes, rural electricity and roads projects and primary health centres designed to alleviate the suffering of the poor.

    This monumental fraud at the National Assembly is replicated in all the 36 states in the country where governors in most cases operate like sole administrators with state assemblies serving as rubber stamps. The 774 LGAs are not different. The local council chairmen who collect free allocation from Abuja are answerable to no one. The councilors many of who have been known to build houses within a year in office cornered the available road and culvert contracts that get washed away if and when implemented after one rainy season because of usage of substandard materials.

    Budget padding like some of our other crises of nationhood as many well informed Nigerians have told us is closely tied to our unwieldy and unworkable structure. This however is a fact those who are benefitting from the current anarchy including our over 400 highly paid lawmakers currently engaged in budget padding in Abuja and other parasitic politicians at the state and local council levels are ready to deny.

    Close  to a century after  the warning by the colonial masters that  we must as a multi-ethnic society with diverse cultures ‘allow groups to develop at their own pace without interference from others’, we have continued to play the ostrich. Sixty years after the collapse of the structure we inherited from our founding fathers, no Nigeria leader has been able to properly articulate our crisis of nationhood. But if we don’t know where we are going, we at least know where we are coming from. And this was exactly what Professor Banji Akintoye, a world celebrated historian tried to do in a recent lecture he delivered in Ibadan to celebrate the past peaceful co-existence of our various nationalities.

    In terms of world view, the Yoruba according to him has as its core value, ‘welfarism’. In most Yoruba towns, age groups engage in communal cooperative endeavours known locally as aaro whereby they jointly help their members to construct houses in turns. Women according to Prof Akintoye had their equivalent of aaro.

    What Awo and his group of Yoruba educated elite did, we now know, was to build on this core values. Free education was anything but free. Adult Yoruba who used to escape to the forest at the approach of tax collectors were heavily taxed whether they had children or not. Cocoa farmers were equally taxed through the marketing boards. The proceeds were used to prosecute free education and send brilliant western Nigeria youths to the best universities in the world. They built shoe, tyre, beverages and vegetable industries to add value to the farm produce of their farmers. They modernized the aaro concept with the establishment to housing estates and to cater for the taste of an emergent middle class. Of course, Ahmadu Bellow built on the values of his own people to establish the NNDC as the biggest business conglomerate in Africa, ABU and ‘one north one people’ where Christians, Muslims and various ethnic groups in the north coexisted peacefully.

    Sine no one deliberately sets out to destroy his father’s house, budget padding by elected legislators can only signify lack of faith in Nigeria. Unfortunately self-serving opponents of restructuring are not even prepared to appreciate that the whole essence of a federal arrangement is to make individuals and groups remain proud members of their small group within the greater nation.

    If I were an adviser to President Buhari who is currently seeking extra emergency powers, to tackle the nation’s economic problems, I will suggest he  ‘seeks first the of kingdom of politics’ as Nkrumah once admonished by leveraging on the trust he enjoys among Nigerians and use the unique opportunity he today has to undo what his colleagues – the ill-informed military adventurers did by restoring our beautiful country back to a workable, productive, and competitive federal arrangement that once made Nigeria a reference point as world greatest exporter of groundnut and palm oil, the country with the best bureaucracy in Africa, with the first television in Africa and with UCH Ibadan, as one of the best three teaching hospitals in the Commonwealth of Nations.

  • Does Buhari need emergency powers?

    Does Buhari need emergency powers?

    This paper, The Nation, reported on its front page on Monday, August 22, that, on the advice of his economic (advisory) team, President Muhammadu Buhari is seeking emergency economic powers to tackle Nigeria’s sluggish economy. An enabling economic stabilisation bill giving him wide emergency powers is to be sent shortly to the National Assembly for its deliberation and passage. The details of the enabling bill have not yet been made public, but the paper hinted that the emergency economic powers President Buhari is seeking will be sweeping and wide ranging, and could cover fiscal and monetary policies as well. The proposed emergency economic powers will be justified on the grounds that our economic recovery has been rather slow and that a shot in the arm, through emergency powers for the president, is now needed to move our country out of its recession speedily. The proposed bill will, of course, have an easy passage in the APC-controlled National Assembly.

    But I find the claim that the president needs extra powers to tackle our economic problems astonishing. It is perfectly understandable that his Economic Team, out of frustration with the sluggish economic recovery, should urge the president, who is just as frustrated, to seek wider emergency powers to tackle the sluggish economy. But are the new emergency and extensive powers being proposed for the president really necessary? Does he not already have all the powers he needs to move our country forward? Will the granting of such wide powers to the president by the National Assembly lead to a better management of the economy and turn it round? Will it create more jobs? I do not think so. In fact, I consider it dangerously delusional. It is a populist economic strategy that will attract some support from the public who, in their desperation, will clutch at any straw now in the hope for a dramatic transformation of the economy after decades of neglect and mismanagement. But I do not think that giving the president wider emergency powers and impunity over the economy now will produce any significant change in the economy. He knows he does not have a magic wand to accomplish that. The president has himself admitted several times publicly that there are no ‘quick fixes’ to the grave economic challenges facing our country and that more time is needed to tackle these challenges. In fact, in the absence of any clear and coherent economic strategy by the government, giving the president emergency powers now over the economy could be counterproductive and lead to more chaos and public frustrations with the management of our domestic economy. We should avoid having to act out of desperation.

    To start with, as is well known, Nigeria’s economic problem is really structural and deep seated. It has more to do with its over dependence on oil revenues and our failure over the years to make the necessary public investments to diversify our country’s economic structure away from its dependence on oil revenues which, recently, has fallen by over 60 per cent. It is unlikely that recovery from the decline in oil revenues will occur soon. There is a global economic recession and a consequent fall in the global demand for oil. Due to the insurgency in the Niger Delta, Nigeria’s oil production has fallen from 2.2 billion barrels a day to only 1.5b. Its main competitors in oil exports, such as Venezuela, Iran, Angola and Saudi Arabia are in full production even when global oil demand is falling. So, wider economic emergency powers for the president will not lead to more oil exports or revenue for Nigeria, even if the Delta returns to normalcy.

    In addition, some of the nagging economic problems for which the president is being urged to seek wider powers can more easily be addressed by mere administrative measures. These include the delay in the granting of Nigerian visas for prospective foreign investors, the education fund, mobilisation funds for local contractors, and the existing procurement process. All these do not require additional powers for the president. Where it is necessary to amend the existing constitutional procedures to deal with these problems, this can be done by the Executive presenting the necessary amendment bills to the National Assembly, rather than by seeking new and sweeping economic powers for the president.

    For instance, in the case of mobilisation fund for contractors, it was reported that the president will be seeking to increase it from 15 per cent to 50 per cent. I consider this proposal an outright prescription for financial and economic disaster in our country. Many contractors will simply collect the 50 per cent mobilisation funds and walk away from the project. It will be difficult for the government to recover such funds from the contractors, particularly as most of the beneficiaries of such funds are likely to be party hacks who, in the first place, secured the contracts on the basis of party political patronage. In most cases the governments award the contracts as a means of funding their political parties. They are then obliged to turn a blind eye to the failure of these political contractors to complete the projects for which they received mobilisation funds. It is rare in our country for the government to take defaulting contractors to court for defaulting on contracts. The matter is simply swept under the carpet in view of the political stakes involved, and its potential for generating political scandals. As we have seen recently from the ongoing EFCC investigations into public corruption, the Jonathan PDP federal government fraudulently awarded a vast number of such phony contracts to its political supporters. This is a situation that must be avoided at all costs, as increasing the mobilisation funds of the contractors will not solve the problem of lack of financial accountability. It will make it worse. The existing financial rules regarding the procedure for the award of public contracts are quite adequate and should take care of the concerns of the government about the non-completion of public contracts.

    With regard to the existing public procurement process that the federal government is now seeking to change, it should not be forgotten that the current process was introduced to curb the irresponsible and corrupt manner in which public agencies were making procurements. The whole business was riddled with corruption leading to massive loss of public funds. The complaint now is that the procurement process is too long and that it is responsible for delays in the implementation of public projects. But the problem really is that applications for public procurements are usually delayed by the bureaucracy so as to stampede the procurement agencies into granting hasty approvals. In some cases lack of funds causes the delay in procurement. But there is no question that the existing procurement process has worked reasonably well. Large savings of public funds have been made by the insistence that due process be followed in public procurements. Scrapping it now and transferring the responsibilities to the president, or his designated officials, is likely to cause more delay and worsen public corruption in our country.

    The Organised Private Sector (OPS) was reported as being in support of the proposed emergency economic powers for the president. This is not altogether surprising as the business community, which was apparently consulted on the issue of the proposed emergency powers, tends on the whole to support draconian measures in times of economic recession. But I know from personal experience that it is a decision it usually regrets later as sweeping economic powers for the president may be detrimental to the real economic and financial interests of industry. It is no guarantee for speedy economic growth and has the potential of even dividing the business community. During the long period of military dictatorship in our country the military rulers virtually enjoyed unlimited and untrammelled emergency powers over the domestic economy. Institutional checks and countervailing forces against public corruption and the abuse of such wide powers were simply swept aside by the military. This trend which was inherited by the succeeding civilian governments accounts to a large extent for the economic mess in which our country now finds itself. The truth of the matter is that because of its lack of accountability, military rule set our country back by several decades. Vital decisions on investments in our infrastructure were not made. For instance, the introduction of import licensing by the first Buhari military regime was grossly abused by senior military officials placed in charge of the Import Licensing Committees. The import licences went to the wrong people who then sold them to genuine importers at highly inflated prices. Recently, President Buhari claimed publicly that one of the reasons his military government was overthrown in 1983 was that he was going to deal with this abuse by some of his senior military colleagues. When Babangida was in power, he too introduced and fraudulently granted import duty waivers to the wrong importers as well. These selective import duty waivers killed many local industries. The concern here is not that, if granted, PMB will himself abuse his emergency powers. Rather it is that his subordinates cannot be trusted by the public to ensure a fair and level-playing field under such emergency powers. Giving the president such sweeping powers over the economy could undermine our fledgling and fragile democracy and our economic rights. In any case even without additional emergency powers the President of Nigeria is powerful enough to steer the economy in the right direction without demanding additional powers which will, almost certainly, be abused to our economic detriment. He is one of the most powerful leaders in the world.

    But the most compelling reason for urging the federal government to have a rethink on the issue of emergency economic powers for the president is the suggestion that he should be directly responsible for determining monetary policy. This could justifiably be viewed as another negation of fiscal federalism in our country. Specifically, it was mentioned in the media reports that exchange rate adjustment strategy will come under the President’s purview. This has to be speculative as I cannot imagine a more dangerous prescription for our economy than the proposal to transfer the constitutional responsibilities of the CBN regarding exchange rate management directly to the president. It is this kind of currency manipulation by the leaders of countries, such as Venezuela and Zimbabwe that has destroyed their economies.

    The world, including Russia, China and India, has moved away, rightly, from excessive state control of the economy to a more liberal strategy based on the effective functioning of state institutions. Awareness of this positive trend is reflected in our more recent economic plans and strategy, such as the MDGs and vision 2020. State controls are often arbitrary and tend on the whole to discourage local and foreign investors due to their inherent economic flip flops and uncertainties. The spectacular economic transformation of countries, such as India, China and Brazil is sufficient illustration of the efficacy of a liberalised and market-based economy in achieving faster economic growth.

    Even in Africa, more and more countries are moving away increasingly from state controls to a free economy with the necessary adjustments. If maintained, the war against public corruption in our country will restore some economic sanity to our country. Instead of giving the president wider emergency economic powers, what the country needs are reformed state and public institutions that can be relied upon to function more effectively. A continuation of the reform of state institutions to make them more effective and efficient is what is needed, instead of resorting again to a command economy that has not served our nation well in the past. It will be a case of one step forward and two backwards.

     

  • Standing with Buhari

    The economy is central to every country. How strong or weak the economy is goes a long way to determine how powerful a country may be. If the economy is strong it will reflect in the status of a country. The country will be strong. But if the economy is weak, the country will be weak. There are no two ways about it. The economy is the live wire of any country. This is why countries do everything they can to ensure that they have a robust economy. The economy does not grow overnight. It requires coordinated and sustained planning to build.

    For an economy to be vibrant, a country must have functional industries. The real sector, especially, must work in order to generate massive employment. Where the mass of the people is out of job the economy will not thrive. Former American President Bill Clinton knew the importance of the economy to the life of a nation. So during his campaigns, he emphasised that he would concentrate on the American economy, which was then in bad state, if he was elected. ‘’It’s the economy, stupid’’ was his refrain. He did as he promised as he revived the economy and set the United States (U.S) on the path of growth again.

    The economy matters and every leader knows this. Any leader, who does not appreciate the value of the economy to the continued growth of his country, does not deserve to be in office. We have seen what can happen if a country’s economy is in tatters. Greece comes to mind in this regard. We all saw what happened to the historic country of recent. It was neck-deep in debt that its economy was shaky. Its citizens were fleeing to seek refuge in other European countries. At a stage things were so bad that its banks shut down because they could not fulfil their obligations to customers. Many went to Automated Teller Machine (ATM) portals to withdraw money, but could not because the machines had no cash.

    Greece was on the verge of bankruptcy. To avoid a major crisis, which would have reverberated all over Europe, the European Union (EU), after marathon talks in Brussels, Belgium, resolved to give another 10.3 billion euros to Greece in a third bailout fund. For Greece, the debt relief came at an appropriate time. Since the release of that fund, it has been putting the money to good use to enable it meet the repayment deadline, according to the terms of the bailout. With a debt overhang of 321 billion euros said to be worth 180% of its yearly economic output, things are certainly not looking bright for Greece, but with the continued support of other European countries it can still pull through.

    But can the same be said for our country? Where will we get relief if push becomes shove in our own case as our economy keeps tottering?  Though we are not burdened by huge foreign debts like Greece, our economy, the so-called rebased economy described as the biggest in Africa by former Coordinating Minister of the Economy Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in April 2014 is prostate. What she and her boss, former President Goodluck Jonathan, handed over to President Muhammadu Buhari is a debased and not a rebased economy. What did they rebase to make our economy the largest on the continent? The rebasing was just the mere inclusion of other sectors hitherto not captured in the economy into it. The fast growing telecommunications and entertainment sectors were brought in to raise the number of industries in the economy.

    Knowing that most of us are not literate in economic matters, the government used the rebasing thing to hoodwink us to make us believe that it has done something great with the economy. But the government did nothing because the rebasing did not change anything; it merely raised the number of sectors in the economy. In terms of a thriving economy, South Africa’s is still far, far better than ours and that country is not making noise about it. Firms from that country are just making cool money here and sending it back home to strengthen their economy, while we are gloating about rebasing. Rebasing, my foot.

    After battling with the damaged economy handed over to him more than a year ago, Buhari has seen the need to do something urgent about reviving it. This paper reported on Monday that he will seeking emergency powers from the National Assembly on his plan to ‘’stabilise’’ the economy. If this is the way to revive the economy, I am all for it. We are in a drastic situation and we need drastic measures to get us out of it. When American President Barack Obama took over in 2009, he found his country’s economy in similar mess and he wasted no time in asking for a $800 billion stimulus package from the Congress. The Congress granted his request and the US, where unemployment rate was high seven years ago, is today enjoying a good employment rate. Things have never been this better for the US.

    The powers Buhari is seeking are for the betterment of our economy. Only those opposed to the revival of the economy will object to what he wants to do. The National Assembly is there to monitor him to ensure that he does not misuse the powers once they are conferred on him. There are too many controls, which have now become strictures on the path of our economy. Though they were not meant as such, the problem we have found ourselves in has made it imperative for these strictures to go, at least for now, for the economy to grow. What Buhari has going for him is his integrity, which is what is required now from anybody seeking to rescue the economy. We will only be deceiving ourselves if we say we are not already in emergency when talking about our economy.

    What economy is that when the real sector is virtually dead? What economy is that where there is no regular power supply? What economy is that when over 80% of youths are jobless? What economy is that when there is no security of life and property? We cannot continue to live like this or else we will be breeding criminals that will make life unbearable for us. Is that what we want? Surely not. To the organised private sector (OPS), the president’s plan is in order. The industrialists are all for it because it holds the promise of reviving the comatose economy. I pray that the ‘’Emergency Economic Stabilisation Bill’’ sails through at the National Assembly when it gets there.

  • Mob parable

    Mobs destroy and scarcely create. Be it as wild savages or unthinking herds, it has always been the preoccupation of the mob to tear down. Take the Nigerian mob for instance; by its impulsiveness, lack of forethought and restraint, want of personal and societal ethics, it expedites the destruction of everything and anything – like an unpopular policy or worn-out civilization. Whether concrete or abstract, hard-wearing or fragile, whatever object or subject becomes the fascination of the Nigerian mob is sooner annihilated.

    This devastation persists as a ceaseless cycle and it is amply sustained and accelerated via brutish inclinations that characterize the Nigerian mob. Like primeval savages, the Nigerian mob lives, thinks and acts like creatures of the wild thus its unwritten code of existence: “Every man for himself in our communal jungle where only the strongest survive.”

    Who are the Nigerian mob? This question expectedly excites spurious theories, allegations and conclusions about the breed aptly classifiable and identifiable with mob mentality. While many would readily finger the nation’s ruling class and its horde of loyalists, many more would categorize the impoverished breadlines as the core of the Nigerian mob.

    In the flurry of generalizations, a certifiable crowd is omitted essentially because it constitutes the cult of self-appointed critics, intellectuals, moralists and the socially aware. This crowd comprises the pedestrian and infinitely tiresome breed of Nigerians who never see anything good about Nigeria; their pastime involves logging on to every social media portal with considerable traffic to continually vent and portray Nigeria as a failed enterprise.

    Facebook and Twitter offer wonderful platforms for these interesting breed to say all manner of unprintable things about Nigeria and their fellow Nigerians. Another category of this breed comprises journalists, ‘social commentators’ and newspaper columnists like me. The access we enjoy to means and channels of expression is oftentimes abused by us.

    It is alright to criticize but the bulk of what many of us do is classifiable as destructive sentimentality and hate-mongering. Oftentimes, we engage in sanctimonious whining, blame-casting and character assassination for reasons that border on the infantile and shame logic.

    The utter lack of gumption and foresight incessantly perpetuated by this breed continually offer court jesters and media attack-mongrels of the ruling class innumerable opportunities to lash out, deploying sophistry, ad hominem and juvenile heckling in responding to critics of the ruling class they serve.

    Such characters can treat the Nigerian critic and journalist with contempt given the irresponsibility and mercenariness that characterizes the latter’s criticisms of their principals. Having spent quality time as vocal parts of such crowd, media aides and attack-dogs of the ruling class respond to criticisms from a standpoint of knowledge and towering impatience.

    A Special Adviser to the President or a Governor on Media Affairs for instance, can continually afford to treat their principals’ critics with disdain goaded by the notion that the latter lacks the moral justification to perform such crucial roles in the interest of the collective.

    True, many a government critic on Facebook, Twitter or newspaper column is as despicable as the ruling class he condemns. Racism, gluttony, political harlotry, religious intolerance, sexism, all manners of bigotry and base sentimentality characterize Nigeria’s crowd of social critics. In several instances, members of this breed cheerily present themselves as muscles to the tyrannical ruling class they love to condemn, for a price.

    This breed of Nigerian mob, in its incessant criticisms of the ruling class, conveniently forgets that the incumbent leadership is a reflection of the society from which it emerges. If we are yet to produce honest and conscientious leadership, it’s because our society is constituted by the perverse and corrupt. If bank chiefs, stock exchange bosses and civil servants we parade are more nimble at stealing than performing constructive, developmental roles, it is because the society institutionalizes and celebrates vice. And if the worst of us continually emerge as the best leaders we could ever have, it is because we are innately wired to value and elevate vile above virtue.

    Sadly, rather than engage in active crusade against the perpetuation of such anomalies, the critical mob scurry on to soapboxes we mount in our living rooms, courtyards, pubs and social media to curse our luck and curse the times.

    We are that pathetic part of the Nigerian mob; negligible integers a cynical reader recently identified as “armchair Trotskys.” Unlike the more servile herd whose allegiance to the ruling class is at once wild and destructive, the breed we comprise is even more vicious and symptomatic of the failure of scholarship, literacy and other contemporary advancements in civilization we ought to epitomize.

    At least, the servile herd is actively involved – be it negatively or positively – according to the depth and strength of its awareness; this teeming mass of illiterate, semi-literate, unemployed and impoverished breadlines to mention a few, claim ignorance and poverty as reasons for its blind acquiescence to the tyranny of the ruling class, however, career critics and armchair Trotskys like you and I, given our touted learning and exposure, can hardly make such claims.

    Today, we are shackled by vulgar sentiments of religion, rebellion and ethnicity. More worrisome is our continued enslavement by the ruling class via obscene inducements and gifts of grandeur. Consequently, we capitulate to a system by which we are psychologically broken and confined to dubious segregation and manipulative politics. The sentimental fops amongst us are programmed by rumors, innuendo and outright falsehood to shun the path to progress and tow the fast lane to destruction.

    Exasperatedly, many identify the major problem afflicting us as the dearth of upright leadership mooted and drawn from the nation’s youth divide. This dearth persists due to our inability to selflessly and responsibly apply ourselves to the crusade against corrupt and selfish leadership. A more crucial dearth however, manifests by our inability to fulfill the demands of sterling citizenship.

    A sterling citizenry no doubt provides the humane elements necessary to foster a benevolent leadership but we are too busy casting blames and feathering our own nests that we conveniently forget to become the good citizens we ought to become. The prospective heroes we could rely on have learnt the wisdom of keeping silent. They tactfully scoff at our romanticized wish to abolish the status quo, knowing that, as usual, we would settle for an opportunistic contract between our exploiters (the government) and a part of the exploited (labour and youth leadership), at the expense of the rest of the exploited (you, me and everyone) – something Noel Ignatin aptly identifies as “the original sweetheart agreement.”

    Thus we resign to the tyranny of the ruling class, courting and maligning it often in the same breath, while we anticipate and wish doom upon Nigeria. If we look inwards, we would find that the intellectual aptitudes, will and individuality of many of us are strained by disillusionment, cowardice, laziness and abject failure in our roles as patriots and citizens of humanity. Several self-styled leaders of the critical mob are currently in the jailhouse of mammon and sociopolitical expediency. Consider the case of several critics turned presidential aides for instance; yesterday, they were mob heroes; today they carry on like minions enslaved to power and perpetually drunk on their own saliva.

  • Rio 2016 (The Nigerian paradox)

    Rio 2016 (The Nigerian paradox)

    Nigerians watching the Rio Olympic Games have been asking one question: where is “the Nigerian Spirit”?

    We have a way of rising from the lowest rung of the ladder to survive and triumph when the world has written us off. It is not just in sports; it is in all areas of our unique life. Politics. Busines. Academics. Wars. And more.

    With the seeming gradual disappearance of that never-say-die spirit, many are being forced to wonder: why the Nigerian paradox? Why should a country be so blessed – to the envy of many – and yet so poor – to the consternation of all? This is the question that sociologists have been battling for long. The mystery of a country blessed by nature and wrecked by the very hands that should nurture it like a rare flower tendered by a master florist.

    Is it all in our gene as some, without iron-clad proof, have derisively suggested? Is it poor leadership? Why poor leadership when we have men who can hold their own among the world’s best in any trade? When and how did we miss it? Can we regain our glory? When? In this generation?

    My apologies for the seeming digression. It has been a great time at the Rio Olympics. Against all odds, Brazil has staged an extraordinarily classy show that has kept the world singing its praise. Just before the games, the country was embroiled in social and political upheavals that kept many wondering whether it was ready to host the world. Life was tough for the man in the street and Zika virus was a big challenge. Petty thieves ruled the streets and politicians slugged it out in a do-or-die battle for the presidency.

    But, all that has been elbowed out by the Brazilian “miracle”, the world has fallen in love after seeing a great spectacle of an opening ceremony – enchanting and gripping – and some of the structures that are arguably the highest exhibition of architectural prowess. Indeed the land of samba has proved the bookmakers wrong.

    It is an exciting love affair. Records are being shattered and legends are being made.

    Jamaican sensation Usain Bolt has become the first man to win the 100 metres dash three consecutive times, breaking his own record. As he flew onto the finishing line, he raised his forefinger, obviously to tell the world that he remains number one. Of course, the world rose to hug a true star, the fastest man on planet earth.

    Michael Phelps of the United States became the world’s most decorated Olympian of all time, taking his 21st Olympic career gold. Fondly called “The Baltimore Bullet”, Phelps  carted home six gold medals at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, eight at the 2008 Games in Beijing and four at the  2012 Olympics in London. He returned to the pool in April 2014 after retirement to qualify for Rio where he has sunk his own records.

    South African star athlete Wayde van Niekerk smashed United States’ Michael Johnson’s 17-year-old record in the 400 metres when he did it at 43.03 seconds.

    Team Nigeria  has shown  only sparks of high class performance. We are yet to hit the medals table. But the sparks have indicated clearly that we do not lack the talents to excel on the global stage. No. The truth is that talents alone do not make success. The other key elements, such as right environment for training would-be champions, facilities, motivation and quality leadership, are missing.

    The soccer team, for example, has shown some strength of a champion. After a botched travel arrangement, it arrived in Brazil hours before its first match in which it beat Japan 5-4. It lost to Colombia 0-2 and beat Sweden 1-0, before humbling Denmark 0-2. It lost last  night 0-2 to Germany.

    “It was very difficult. We struggled to get here. But there is a oneness, a team spirit and a willingness to overcome,” coach Samson Siasia was quoted as saying. He was recalling the team being stranded in Atlanta.

    The story remains unclear. Some said it was cash palaver. Others said it had to do with currency conversion and transfer problems – transferring.money out of Nigeria could sometimes be like breaking a rock, according to knowledgeable sources.

    The team’s performance so far has rekindled sweet memories of 1996 when Nigeria beat Brazil after being down by three goals. It overcame another two-goal deficit to humble Argentina 3-2 in the final.

    Sprinter Blessing Okagbare did not make it in the 100 metres. The popular thinking is that our athletes run themselves out of the medals dais by participating in small races in which they get burnt out before getting to the big stage. All because they need cash for their upkeep.

    Table Tennis star Aruna Quadri did not get a medal but he made us all proud when he smashed his way to the quarter finals, the first African to make that feat. He beat Timo Boll, the former world number one and the number 10 seed in Rio. He was stopped by the world number one, Chinese Ma Long. His team mate Segun Toriala was honoured for his seventh Olympic  Games appearance.

    Chimerical Ukoga, the rower, reached the quarter finals, after putting her medical school on hold to represent Nigeria. Hers is a worthy story of patriotism. The first Nigerian representative in rowing schools in the United States.

    Boxer Efe Ajagba, Nigeria’s sole representative, lost in the quarter finals. He knocked out Trinidad and Tobago’s Nigel Paul in the first round. Nigeria has not won a medal in boxing since 1996 when Duncan  Dokiwari got a bronze in Atlanta. Ajagba won a bronze at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, 2014 and gold at the All Africa Games, 2015.

    These Nigerians and many others, who emblematise the Nigerian Spirit, surely would have done better in Rio, if they had been physically and mentally well prepared for the Games. Such preparations take at least four years, not the crash programme and emergency projects we do here. Not the kind of preparation in which more players are taken overseas than the number needed, with hotel bills sparking rows about who owes what and who pays.

    Winning at the Olympics is no 100 metres dash. It is a result of marathon preparations, guided by a foolproof policy geared towards producing champions and not carpetbaggers.

    Britain did not do well in 1996. They returned home and set their hands to the plough. They won the bid to host the 2012 Games. Now they are third on the medals table.

    The Asians are fast on the heels of the Jamaicans and the Americans in athletics. They are the undisputed champions in table tennis – a game that has its original home in England – thanks to years of sweating. There will be little surprise if they start dominating track and field.

    At the 1996 Olympics, Jamaicans were struggling to do well. They returned to the drawing board to build champions. They sent people to understudy the Americans and take advantage of the world class facilities there. Now there is a new generation of speedsters. Three Jamaicans ran in the men’s 100 metres finals.

    American greats have returned to colleges to raise new world beaters. Their focus: the 2020 Games.

    Here in Nigeria, every Olympic is a jamboree. We are the only country who still live in the past when “the important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win, but to take part” as the father of the modern Olympics, French educationist Pierre de Fredy, Baron de Couberlin (1863-1937) said.

    Our governments are blind to the great potential of sports to generate employment and revenue. The private sector knows its role in this, but there seems to be no plan to rally business for sports.

    Schools lack facilities. Even those exotic neighbourhoods that are the homes of the rich and powerful have no facilities. Little wonder most of our stars are from poor homes. Imagine somebody encouraging those kids who run after moving vehicles to sell mobile phone recharge cards and other items to take to sports.

    Sports Minister Solomon Dalung is quoted as saying he would not leave Brazil without a medal. “Let him seek asylum there, na im sabi,” a youngster said cynically.

    A fellow questioned why Sports and Youth should be lumped together in one ministry . Besides, he scorned the minister for, according to him, dressing like a retired soldier turned door man and a Civil Defence recruit awaiting his first set of kits. “That is what you get when you hire a lawyer to run sports in a country of many former great sportsmen,” he said dejectedly.

    How do we use the Nigerian Spirit to tackle the Nigerian paradox of a rich nation stricken by the Zika of poor leadership? Our leaders see – even if they do not, don’t they feel ?- how united Nigerians are when the national soccer teams are playing. Can’t they use this to close the yawning gap that has created the crisis of suspicion that has created such scary belligerents as Avengers, pro-Biafra activists and Boko Haram?

    How do we tackle the Nigerian paradox?

  • Forthcoming US presidential election

    I have followed with keen interest and from the vantage point of being in America at this auspicious time, the national conventions of the American Republican and Democratic parties in Cleveland Ohio and Philadelphia Pennsylvania respectively. I am also anxiously looking forward to the election in November. This is because whatever happens in the USA has ramifications all over the world. As it is popularly stated, “when one sneezes in Washington DC, the rest of the world catches cold”. USA whether one likes it or not, is an exceptional country. It is the most powerful economic power in the world. Its currency is the reserve currency of the world leading to its accusation of dollar imperialism. It has the most powerful military in the world with a reach that is unmatched by any other nation on earth. This military power is deployed in space on earth, under the sea and in strategic silos in many parts of the world. It has salt water navy that is deployed on all the seas of the world. When there is a human crisis of hunger and outbreak of pandemic disease, it is the USA that most of the world looks up to. It’s farmers who are four percent of its population has the capacity to feed the whole world. America constantly renews itself through the ingenuity of its people, immigration from all over the world and belief in God and some kind of what its historians and politicians used to call its manifest destiny. Needless to say America is largely a faith based country of the Judeo-Christian tradition

    In spite of all these great attributes America has some shortcomings and internal problems. Internally, the country is severely divided between the forces of its racist and slave holding past and those of the liberal present that believes in its founding credo that “all men are created equal and endowed by their creator to certain unalienable rights among which are the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. It is also separated by the extremes of wealth and poverty as well as those who believe that the problems of our world would not be solved by resort to force always but by dialogue, diplomacy and mutual understanding. President Dwight Eisenhower, a former Allied commander in Europe during the Second World War who subsequently became US president had occasion to warn his country to beware of being taken over by the military-industrial complex, that is to say, those forces who constantly wish to put AMERICAN industrial power and processes on war footing for the benefit of the rich minority of less than one percent of the people who use their awesome power to dominate and manipulate national politics. There is also the vicious racism which pervades all sectors of the American society, be it employment, industry, the military, church and state education, health, politics and policing. Because of the disadvantaged position of descendants of slaves in relation to that of their slave-holding masters, it has proved impossible to bridge the social and cultural gap that separates the two. Thus blacks had been kept down by lynching and Jim Crow in the past and by unemployment and poverty in the present and police brutality manifesting in unrestrained shooting of young black peoples without provocation. Admitted that there is black on black violence in the urban ghettos in which blacks are confined, the general violence in America is aided by the so-called second amendment to the USA constitution allowing citizens to carry fire arms. This widely misunderstood right has led to loss of millions of lives of Americans in needless violence. There are studies showing more lives have been lost due to gun violence than lives lost in wars in which America has been involved. In spite of several pleas by the current US President Barak Obama and weeping parents, Americans are held down by the gun lobby of the powerful American Rifle Association which funds election of several members into the US Congress. These then are the fundamental issues facing America which those running for the presidency and the Congress have always been called upon to address during elections every four years.

    The current struggle for power is between on the Democratic Party’s Hilary Rodham Clinton, former First Lady to President Bill Clinton, former Senator representing New York State and recently American Secretary of State. Opposing her is Donald J. Trump, a boasting billionaire also from New York. He made his fortune in property development in many parts of the world and in casino and gambling. He is given to amassing wealth by unscrupulous ways such as setting up a university and duping people to part with their money by suggesting to weak-minded people that he could teach them the secret of becoming billionaires like himself. In short he is a totally objectionable character but he has been able to touch the sore nerve of general distrust of politicians and discontentment of those Americans left behind by the forces of globalization that has led to manufacturing industries and therefore jobs being transferred to Mexico, India, China and other underdeveloped countries with cheap and skilled labour with lower wages and less rigorous environmental regulations. Trump is promising to possibly deport all illegal immigrants taking away jobs from Americans and build a wall against future immigrants crossing the Mexican border into the USA. In a world torn apart by terrorism which he says is inspired by Islam, Trump has said he will ban all Muslims  from coming to America and Newt  Gingrich, one of his supporters and former Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives wants to go further by deporting Muslims from America. Trump says American under him will abrogate NAFTA, WTO, Paris Protocol on climate change and tear apart NATO unless members pay up. Many of what he is saying resonates with blue-collar white workers in the United States because many of them are not well informed due to their little education. Those who know Trump say he does not mean what he says and that he is a demagogue who will say anything to get elected. In my life I have seen this type of AMERICAN politician before in the person of the Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater who ran as a Republican presidential candidate against President Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1964. Goldwater famously said “moderation in the defense of Liberty is no virtue and extremism in the defense of freedom is no vice”; he also threatened to use nuclear weapons against American adversaries and was promptly defeated in a Johnson landslide victory.

    The difference this time is that the Democratic opponent of Trump, Mrs Hilary Clinton carries quite a bit of electoral baggage. First no woman has ever run for president of the USA before. Thus she is seen as some kind of a threat to deeply held idea of the place of the woman in AMERICAN society. Second she is a Clinton and many Americans do not like the idea of dynastic succession. Thirdly, she has antagonized the poor base of the Democratic Party by being too close and cozy with Wall Street of bankers and the rich. Fourthly, while Secretary of State, she used private server for her e-mails thus exposing secret USA documents to enemy hacking. This has led to FBI investigation in which she came out in unfavorable light. And finally, she has been unreasonably accused of being responsible for American foreign policy debacle in Libya and the Middle East in particular leading to destabilization of the entire region. She has also been accused of being the brain behind American accommodation with Iran over that country’s nuclear power ambition which saw Iran foreswearing nuclear ambitions for the foreseeable future in exchange for lifting of global sanctions against it and guaranteed by the USA, Britain, Russia, China France and Germany. The forces in America egged on by Israel that would have wanted a war with Iran remain dissatisfied with the Iran deal justifiably thinking Iran would in future break the agreement. Some of what Mrs Clinton is being crucified for are totally unjustified but that is politics!

    There is no doubt in my mind that Hilary Clinton will be a great president. She is probably the most prepared person by experience for the post.   President Barak Obama openly stated this at the Democratic Party’s convention and most people agreed with him. All things being well, she will be elected president in November. This is of course with the proviso that no damaging e-mails are released by   Wikileaks/Russia and no major acts of terrorism in America or Europe traceable to the Islamic caliphate or ISL breaks out before November. The world will be much safer if and when Hilary Rodham Clinton, rather Donald Trump, joins Angela Merkel of Germany Theresa May of Great Britain in the increasing club of female leaders of the world.

  • Taxing Abuja property owners

    Nigerian political office holders and their fronts with access to free state funds have come to be associated with irrational acquisition of properties they hardly inhabit, in and outside the country. “A large number of mansions in the most exclusive areas of London are owned by Nigerians”, the bemused British media once declared. As if to corroborate this claim, Kolapo Olapoju in a recent write up claimed ‘Google Earth virtual tour revealed that two Nigerians, James Ibori and Cecelia Ibru were among the world’s ‘six most notorious for acquiring valuable properties with stolen funds and corrupt means’. They are in ignoble league of Muammar Gaddafi, Mobutu Sese Seko, Imelda Marcos, and Teodorin Obiang, the son of President Obiang of Equatorial Guinea.

    It is hard to controvert such claim when one for instance is confronted with the fact that an incredible 103 properties in the United States, Nigeria, South Africa, Dubai and London were in 2009 seized from Cecilia Ibru, the former Managing Director of Oceanic Bank PLC who was also sentenced to six months in prison for fraud and ordered to hand over $1.2 billion in cash and assets; or when James Ibori, described by his London Prosecutor, Sasha Wass as “a thief in government house”, was credited with a fleet of cars such as armoured Range Rovers costing £600,000, £120,000 Bentley, £300,000 Mercedes Benz and  six properties in London, including a six-bedroom house with indoor pool in Hampstead at a cost of £2.2million and a flat opposite the nearby Abbey Road recording studios.

    And while we raged against David Cameron for describing our nation as ‘a fantastically corrupt country’, we were confronted with a UK Daily Mail’s publication of mansions owned by Nigerians in London which it described as “palaces of corruption”.  This was followed by the report of Global Coalition Against Corruption that claimed “about 57 other Nigerians including   Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, Joshua Dariye, the late Abubakar Audu, Chimaroke Nnamani, Lucky Igbinedion, Diezani Alison-Madueke and  13 ex-governors on trial for financial crimes, some former ministers either on trial or under investigation, some indicted top bankers’ may forfeit  their foreign assets”.

    Back home, EFCC in January this year announced the seizure of N10b properties owned by Alex Badeh just as it claimed it traced another $2.8m properties owned by his daughter to the US. In June, EFCC announced the seizure of 29 properties including an N980m shopping plaza, a N450m residential mansion, a N710m executive mansion and anotherN720m four-unit terrace in choice areas of Abuja from three ex-Air Force chiefs – Air Marshal Adesola Amosu; Air vice Marshal Jacob Adigun (retd.); and Air Commodore Olugbenga Gbadebo (retd.). EFCC followed with the announcement of the seizure of Fayose’s N1.35bn properties made up of four duplexes on Victoria Island in Lagos State and Maitama, Abuja.  This was soon followed by EFCC’s seizure of four houses worth N872 million from a former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Sen. Bala Mohammed, and three duplexes costing about N222 million in the Apo Area of Abuja from Shamsudeen Bala, his son.

    Although not a few Nigerians are outraged by EFCC scandalous revelations, they  nonetheless merely exemplify the depth of rot in Abuja where there is hardly any minister, governor  or a lawmaker who served between 1999 and 2016 who do not own a mansion, an hotel, an estate, a shopping plaza or a farm. We may therefore not in all conscience say that those EFCC has fingered are any more guilty than ministers and lawmakers who deployed  proceeds of budget padding or unimplemented constituency projects towards acquisition of choice properties in Abuja .

    Although because of the slow pace at which the wheel of justice grinds in our nation, (apology to ex President Jonathan) and since in the name of democracy, the law crafted by the political elite does not allow us question the source of new found wealth of political office holders who yesterday could only afford a modest bungalow after a life long struggle or those who had nothing before becoming lawmakers in their thirties, but within four years tour of duty became transformed into proud owners of multibillion Abuja mansions, I don’t think government is totally helpless.

    Here again, APC government is not being called upon to invent the wheel. All they have to do is borrow a leaf from the enlightened British political elite from whom we copied the liberal democratic process. Precisely because they understand that the well-being of the poor and the disadvantaged is the only safeguard for the safety of the leisured class who have taken more than their proportionate share of their nation’s resources, properties owned by the latter (including mansions bought by Nigerians with stolen funds) are heavily taxed. The tax returns are thereafter channeled into building of Council flats for low income earners in all the counties. The Local Council officials collect rent with which the council flats are maintained. And where some cannot afford the heavily subsidised rents in the council flats, government come to their aid and even provide food to ensure no one is without roof over his head or go to bed without food. They know this is the only way the rich can live in peace.

    With the rejection of the above tested path by an unenlightened Nigerian political elite  headed by Obasanjo, Jonathan and their greedy lawmakers who preferred to confiscate land and properties they held in trust for the poor between 1999 and 2015, what is expected of government of change is a new beginning, starting with the path never taken. It was for this reason Nigerians voted for change. Nigerians are opposed to lawmakers expending taxpayers’ money of SUV toys. Nigerians who saw the immediate past British Prime Minister, David Cameron drive out of 10 Downing Street after six years in office in his small personal car with his family are not asking for too much. But what they got in contrast under a government of change is a lawmaker Abdulmumin Jibrin, 39 who came out of thirty something million naira SUV Landcruiser and walked with a swagger to Abuja EFCC’s office to lodge complaints about alleged budget padding by 13 of his colleagues.

    Nigerians expect Buhari and APC to set a new tone. The mood of Nigerians after 16 years of Obasanjo and his PDP profligacy is that lawmakers who cannot ride assembled in Nigeria Peugeot vehicle as official cars should trek. Nigerians who voted for change expect cash-strapped Buhari and his APC government to take the census of property owners in Maitama and Asokoro areas of Abuja for the purpose of taxing the idle parasitic owners in order to bring relief to thousands without homes in Abuja without whose contributions the city decays. And finally the mood of Nigerians who voted for change is for APC government to copy the prevailing law of inheritance in a welfare state like Britain that allows imposition of taxes or outright confiscation of properties of idle children of fraudulent fathers who in their twenties and without visible source of income inhabit N300m mansions in Abuja.

    I think beyond blackmail, Buhari and APC have nothing to fear. If the push comes to shove, politicians who have defrauded their states as governors, the nation through budget padding which dates back to 1999 or their constituencies through unexecuted projects may be asked to explain the sources for the funding of their multi-billion Abuja properties.

  • The umpire who failed us

    Long before his appointment as Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) chairman in 2005, Prof Maurice Madukolam Iwu had served as national commissioner representing Imo State. In that capacity Iwu was in the centre of the commission’s power matrix. The national commissioners and the chairman determine what happens in INEC. The chairman as it were is the first among equals. So Iwu already knew how the commission works before he mounted the saddle. With his experience of the inner workings of INEC much was expected of Iwu.

    The professor of pharmacognosy also promised to do his best to redeem INEC’s image. But, he ended up shattering what remained of that image. When it comes to elections, Nigerians hardly trust their electoral commissions. The people do not have faith in the electoral umpire because it panders to those in power. An electoral agency is supposed to be above board. It is expected to be impartial in the discharge of its duties for democracy to thrive. And democracy thrives where elections are free and fair  But our elections have always been marred by irregularities because of the inadequacies of our electoral commissions.

    No matter how principled and honourable many of the chairmen were before assuming office once they get the job they throw these attributes away for filthy lucre. They believe that their appointment is an opportunity to make money and without any qualms they throw themselves into the political arena and become more partisan than the politicians themselves. The politicians too who are ever ready to get someone to do their dirty job quickly read the situation and put the electoral umpire on their payroll. With free money pouring in from right, left and centre, the umpire loses his sense of judgment.

    He no longer sees himself as serving his country; he feels beholden to the politician who picks his bills. Although the commission takes care of all his needs, the chairman is never satisfied until he gets that extra change from his new master, the politician. The job is full of temptation and it takes only a chairman with the fear of God to survive in our highly corrupt political process. In the Second Republic, former Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO) chairman the late Justice Victor Ovie-Whiskey caused a stir when he told reporters on being asked ‘’whether water passed under the bridge’’ during the much-criticised 1983 election that he would faint if he saw N1million. Then N1million was a lot of money. Today that amount could be the equivalent of N10billion or more.

    What I am trying to say going by the eminent jurist’s remark is even where the umpire does not go out of his way to look for free money such money will come looking for him through unscrupulous politicians and their ilk. Only an umpire, who is not on the take like the late Ovie-Whiskey, can emphatically say that he will faint on seeing a million naira. Many such honest men still abound in the country, but unfortunately they will not touch the electoral umpire’s job even with a 10-foot pole for reasons best known to them. Iwu should have learnt one or two things from the late Dr Abel Guobadia who he succeeded. The late Guobadia would have conducted the 2007 election if he had not died two months to the poll. But fate decided otherwise.

    Instead of using the opportunity to write his name in gold Iwu chose infamy. The 2007 election conducted under his watch remains till date the worst poll ever in the history of our country. It was a charade of an election. Both foreign and domestic observers condemned the election, which was marred by barefaced rigging and other malpractices. The victory of many of those elected during the exercise was voided by the courts. The late President Umaru Yar’Adua also condemned the poll, promising electoral reforms before the 2011 election. If a winner, and the president for that matter,  could condemn his own election shouldn’t the umpire just keep quiet and watch? No, not Iwu as he went about defending the indefensible. He even had the temerity to describe the election as one of the best ever in the country.

    He was only deluding himself. He did not stop there. Under him, INEC joined issues with petitioners at the election tribunals rather than just stay out of the way. Some of the judges were baffled by the commission’s stand that they wondered what it was up to. They could not believe that a supposed impartial umpire could come to court to take side with a party. An electoral commission does not work like that, they held. Iwu still did not take the hint. A wise man would have pulled the brakes there and then. But, as they say, he carried his sacrifice beyond the mosque, huffing and puffing about how he would conduct the 2011 election. He was daydreaming. Acting President Goodluck Jonathan, as he then was, removed him in April 2010.

    Now, Iwu’s name has been written in the hall of infamy for his poor conduct of the 2007 election. Based on the judgements of some tribunals, he along with scores of others has been tagged as ‘’electoral offenders’’ by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). The commission has recommended that they be prosecuted by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice. According to NHRC Executive Secretary Prof Bem Angwe, “unless steps are strengthened to deal with electoral impunity, the right to vote and be voted for and related rights will continually be infringed upon with adverse consequences on democratic governance’’.

    I agree with Angwe. If we do not do anything to stop electoral impunity our democracy will be in danger. What is democracy without free, fair and credible elections? Nothing, absolutely nothing. This is why the “electoral offenders”, particularly those involved in the conduct of the elections, should be tried and severely punished if found guilty to deter others.