The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Women Are Not Beasts: A response to Olatunji Ololade ‘Beasts Of No Gender’

    We have too many women reading too much meaning into everything and agitating about anything, like the television commercial in which a joyous father of a newborn yells into his mobile phone’s mouthpiece; ‘Mama na boy o’. To them, such an advert constitutes an offensive patriarchal mindset.’

    ‘To be a feminist, if not a defect, is at least a fetish; like porn. The feminist is that woman who dulls down to an artificially created set of sexual-political sensibilities, in order to satisfy her emotional lust for being perpetually ‘oppressed’…like porn addicts, paedophiles, rapists and racists, such woman is an emotion junkie – infinitely handicapped yet propelled by her lust for unearned benefits…’

    And it goes on and on. There is a Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. The first time I read this very troubling rant by Olatunji Ololade against feminists/women’s rights advocates was three or four years ago when it was serialized in The Nation, a leading national newspaper  in Nigeria. I think one of two things must have happened. First scenario – Olatunji probably got so many horrified responses from women, it gave him a serious high which took him a long time to come down from, hence the need for another shot of adrenaline. The second possibility is that he did not get enough  push back the first time, so he became emboldened and decided to up the ante. In the interim, Olatunji became an award-winning writer, receiving CNN Multi Choice African Journalist awards back to back, as well as other local ones. Of course we are always proud of our fellow country men and women when they bring home well deserved laurels, it is great to have something to celebrate about Nigerians other than news about us being perpetual scoundrels.

    After wincing and grimacing through the January 2016 version of what passes for Olatunji’s analysis of the state of gender relations and women’s rights activism in Nigeria, I have decided to raise a number of issues with him in the form of some unsolicited advice as follows:

    Olatunji needs to take his responsibilities as a leading journalist and writer in Nigeria more seriously. Research, analysis, reflection, empathy and empirical evidence are critical to any nuanced understanding of an issue as complex as feminism and gender relations. The quality of debate you have in private spaces is not the same as the one you place on the pages of a national newspaper – in all its three part, problematic glory.

    I advise our award winning brother to do more reading. The more writing you do, the more you have to read. Olatunji needs to read the work of Nigerian feminist thinkers such as Ifi Amadiume, Molara Ogundipe-Leslie, Bolanle Awe, Ayesha Imam, Ronke  Oyewunmi, Amina Mama, Bisi Aina, Simi Afonja to mention a few. He would also do well to look at what other African women such as Sara Longwe, Abena Busia, Sylvia Tamale, Awa Thiam, and so many others have to say. These women, alongside scores of others, have worked to produce a body of knowledge and thought on African feminist theory and practice. The summary of their definition of Feminism is one of a global struggle against all forms of patriarchal oppression. Their analysis includes not only a critique of white, western feminist hegemony, but also serves to create a unique space for the conceptualization and practicalisation of a feminism that resonates with the lived experiences  of every day African women. One of the greatest contributions of African feminist thought, has been its insistence on locating feminist discourse within Africa’s historical realities of slavery, colonialism, globalization and marginalization. In essence, you cannot talk about an empowered woman in Africa without liberating her entire community from poverty and lack of opportunities. This includes the men and boys in her life. Some of these women I mention are my teachers and mentors, some are peers, and they are all my friends.  Most of them are mothers, wives and grandmothers. I am sure none of us ever dreamt that a day would come when a privileged, educated African brother would liken us to ‘porn addicts, paedophiles, rapists and racists.’

    Mr. Ololade needs to broaden his analytical horizons. Patriarchy is real. It is not in our minds. It has never simply been about Men versus Women. It is about the use of male dominated institutions and structures such as politics, religion, education, economics, culture and tradition to create a universe in which one gender becomes superior to the other. Olatunji said women made a big deal out of a seemingly innocuous ‘Mama na boy ‘advert. Even his fellow men understand why the fuss was made. Let us call the new baby boy John. In some cultures, on the 8th day of his birth, a goat will be killed. If the baby is a Mary, they will kill a chicken for her. John will grow up to be the first to have a shot at education if his family is poor. Mary will have to learn how to be a good wife because that is where her career prospects will lie, if she is to lift her family out of poverty. Perhaps Ololade missed the drama we all witnessed,  approximately ten years ago, when a wealthy politician celebrated the first birthday of his first son after five daughters, with the gift of a Rolls Royce to the little boy. Yes, Olatunji, ‘Mama na boy’ means something.   (To be continued…)

    Mrs. Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi is a renowned feminist, women’s rights activist and wife to Minister of Solid Minerals,Kayode Fayemi.                       

     

    Re:Beasts of no gender…

    There is no gainsaying Mrs. Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi and her peer raised valid points reflective of their politics in response to my serialised article, “Beasts of no gender.” However, I reiterate, like I stated in the first part of the article that it is not an attack on women but a condemnation of feminist-misandry, the desperate politics and towering monstrosity of man-haters pretending to be pro-women.

    Adeleye-Fayemi has since asserted that she deliberately feigned ignorance of the thrust of the article in order to score a point against the writer. She disclosed in subsequent conversation with the columnist that, while she is aware that certain self-confessed feminists pervert the cause of feminism by engaging in misandry, she needed the author to know that it was insensitive of him to generalise in his postulations which categorised progressive African feminists with misguided feminist-misandrists.

    I see nothing wrong with feminism without its blemishes just like I see nothing wrong in the patriarchy without its shortcomings. We are hierarchical animals. Sweep one hierarchy away and another will take its place. The feminist movement thus flagellates between its campaign for women’s rights and an insatiable lust to replace the patriarchy with matriarchy. This is understandable as nature fluorishes by hierarchies.

    But as there are hierarchies in nature, there are alternate hierarchies in society fostered by survival of the fittest. Nonetheless, in Nigeria’s patriarchal hierarchy, there are protections for the weak. We simply need to weaponise them against the vile in patriarchy. Nigeria evolves even as you read, to protect the interests of every human constituent, the vulnerable girl-child, boy-child and woman in particular. This is good news.

    I understand that no form of patriarchal stricture could vitiate or supplant the traditionally-vested roles of a woman as mother, wife, vessel of life, nurturer of character, provider and conscience of humanity. Thus the need to protect and seek an expansion of the rights of the female folk within the ambits of fairness and probity.

    This is one of the reasons I engage in crusade journalism. With total humility, I stress that, my CNN African journalism merit award for “This marriage will kill me – Tragedy of Nigeria’s child brides,” addressed the evils of female genital mutilation and Vesico Vagina Fistulae (VVF) on underage girls forced into marriage in northern Nigeria. Most of my award-winning stories addressed vile cultural practices and atrocities being perpetrated against the country’s vulnerable divide comprising women, the girl-child and boy-child in particular. There is need to highlight this fact at the backdrop of injudicious feminist rage at my serialised article.

    I understand that misandrists that fall in the bracket I likened to ‘porn addicts, paedophiles, rapists and racists’ and other emotion junkies would naturally pick a fight with me. I also appreciate Mrs. Adeleye-Fayemi’s maturity and brittle wit in all of these. Like most progressive feminists, she expressed her dissatisfaction like a mature human seeking to prick my emotive faculties. But many others, in juvenile fits of exuberance, sent hate messages and incoherent vitriol. The latter remain the bane of the feminist cause.

  • Akintola, 50 years after assassination – 6

    One last point I want to make is how to balance regional autonomy against national unity in Nigeria. The constitutional device that every governmental institution must reflect the ethnic plurality of Nigeria, euphemistically referred to as its “federal character”, is not without drawbacks since it could be abused if enforced at all costs; it could lead to injustice and unfairness to some groups who quantitatively have more educated and experienced people than the up-and-coming ethnic groups. One hopes that career opportunities would continue to open up so that there would not be unnecessary job competition to an extent that would provoke nepotism and jobbery. A federation is inherently weaker than a unitary state, but a federation where its leaders understand its strength and weaknesses need not be weak to the point of political instability. In Nigeria our appreciation of our weaknesses is a move in the right direction. The fact that we are prepared to take “affirmative action” such as admission to federally-funded institutions on a quota basis, if only for now, is evidence of our recognition of existing problems of disunity. It is better for these problems to be brought into the open rather than to be swept under the carpet while everybody pretends and wishfully thinks that no problems exist. In bringing the problems of ethnic division, nepotism, and disunity out in the open, Chief Akintola touched on sensitive issues but his lasting contribution was to make Nigerians aware that the problem of the inequitable distribution of national resources does exist and that something must be done about it, if the political entity and pluralist state of Nigeria is to survive. Each ethnic group must have control of its God given land and the question of a common citizenship must not override the rights of indigenes in their own land.

    In conclusion, Chief S.L. Akintola as a patriot would have been opposed to any move to swamp local or indigenous people by massive migration of others into their territory under the rubric of a common citizenship. The idea of comparing the fact that one can move from one state in America and instantly contest for an elective office would have been laughable to him. This is because America is not Nigeria and Nigeria is not a newly settled country like the United States. In this context, he would have been on the side of indigene-ship against citizenship. His Ogbomosho people are to be found in Northern Nigeria and other parts of West Africa where they have remained Omo Ogbomosho and not natives of the places where they settled. Chief Akintola built his first house in Ajasa Street in the heart land of the Island of Lagos and he would not have because of this claimed Lagos indegeneship for himself and his descendants. The same thing would go for the thousands of Ogbomosho people in Jos, the Ivory Coast and Ghana. The import of this on the sterile debate of the ownership of Lagos is clear. He would have said Lagos belongs to its original owners and their Awori neighbours. The growing tendency all over the world is the yearning by people for their God given right to their own separate land and space. This accounts for the desire for separate identities by old nations like the Welsh and the Scots embedded in a common United Kingdom of Great Britain. The same desire for their own land and space has led to the disintegration of the old Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and possibly Belgium in the future. In order to avoid this in Nigeria we must respect peoples love and desire for the land which their ancestors have historically occupied. There should be no conflict between patriotism and nationalism. This would have been Chief Akintola’s position.

    It is also now clear that the Yoruba people realise that they cannot do it alone in the politics of Nigeria. Although his idea is quite different from those who advocate belonging to the mainstream of Nigerian politics so that they can join in ravenous eating of the national cake with others. Chief Akintola rightly believed that the Yoruba people have fundamental right to contribute to building the national edifice, the architecture of which they must have participated in designing. He was also of the belief that absence of the Yoruba in national government will derogate from the value of such government because the experience and more than a thousand years of Yoruba culture of governance would have been denied to that government. It is therefore a welcome development that in the two political tendencies now prevailing in Nigeria, the Yorubas are not in a tight corner and making themselves victims of their history of regarding the Northern part of Nigeria as enemy territory. The acceptance of this new tendency in Yoruba politics has more than confirmed that Chief S.L. Akintola has been right all the time and has not died in vain.

    One of the concrete legacies of Chief S.L Akintola is the Odua Conglomerate which is perhaps the biggest indigenous company in Nigeria. It was also under his administration that the University of Ife now Obafemi Awolowo University was established. Although the Nigerian Airways is no more, it was Chief S.L Akintola who established it in 1958. In 1957, he moved the motion for Nigerian Independence which was supported by the whole House in contrast to an earlier motion by Chief Antony Enahoro which unrealistically called for independence in 1956. A British commentator once said about Chief Akintola while he was leader of Opposition that he led the government from the opposition bench. This was probably because he spoke Hausa fluently and he was generally an amiable and friendly person.

    Critics may say that his politics of participation is not based on principles but rather than on sharing the proverbial national cake. This would be wrong because his idea is that national resources must not be under the control of a certain group with the exclusion of his own Yoruba people. He recognized that there is no ideology guiding politicians in their struggle for power and rather ethnic interest is hidden under the camouflage of one ideology or the other. In any case in a largely illiterate society, ideology counts for little and since politics is about people and development, absence from the dinner table of national resources would be detrimental to the group that is not present. His politics is based on individual and group interest and a belief that one can be a Yoruba patriot as well as a Nigerian nationalist. His life as an editor of a major newspaper, a practicing lawyer, one of the first central ministers, leader of opposition and premier was a living testimony to the harmony between individual, group and national interests.

  • Nigeria and petroleum

    From all indications worldwide, the era of the petroleum boom is over. The era started in the opening years of the last century, the years of the great discoveries that have shaped the modern world – namely electricity (and its applications in lighting, radio, television and, ultimately, the computer), the internal combustion engine (and its applications in automobiles, trains, aeroplanes, power-driven ships, power-driven production machines, etc), various chemicals, and others. Petroleum was discovered as the best source of fuel for the internal combustion engine, and it rapidly became a very huge factor in the economy of the world. Countries that could produce the crude oil found themselves awash in cash.  Nigeria joined this highly favoured league of countries gradually in the years after Nigeria’s 1960 independence. By the 1990s, Nigeria was one of the leaders of the league.

    Even in the most euphoric years of the petroleum boom, there were always voices warning that the boom was not likely to last long. Some geologists thought that the amount of oil below the surface of the earth was finite – and that there would, someday, probably soon, be no oil left to mine.  At the same time, developments in technology increasingly indicated that alternative sources of energy would soon begin to compete with petroleum – and might soon knock petroleum from its throne as the world’s king of energy sources. Almost daily, there have been, throughout the past many decades, bigger and bigger news of the growth of these alternative sources of energy – solar, wind, new applications of electricity, super-batteries, etc. In various countries, engineers, inventors, entrepreneurs and businesses have been hurrying to take advantage of the changing paradigm. In country after country, leaders and policy makers took steps to re-align their countries’ economies to these growing changes.

    But, unfortunately, the rulers and policy makers of our country, Nigeria, did not respond to the changes. They were so overwhelmed by the enormous wealth coming from crude oil that hey continued to build everything on the hope in crude oil. Those who controlled the power of the Federal Government resolved to themselves that they only must control the crude oil and all its in-flowing ocean of cash. From that they soon arrived at the decision that the Federal Government must control all resources – minerals, coastlands, lands along rivers, Value-added Taxes, and even the management of the exports of agricultural products such as cocoa, groundnuts, palm produces, gum Arabic, etc.  Gradually, federal power inculcated inefficiency into the management of all these resources. Nigeria almost totally disappeared as an exporter of some of these agricultural products. Our farmers who used to earn fairly good incomes from their produce became widely pauperized.  To be able to accumulate all these resource control at the federal centre, our federal rulers gradually created smaller states (and without any real principles), so that the states would be impotent entities amenable to federal control and manipulation. State and local initiative and energy in development declined sharply, and poverty became the lot of most Nigerians. Meanwhile, the endless ocean of cash in the control of the federal rulers became an object of greed and rapacity, and our country became the victim of perhaps the world’s most vicious culture of public corruption.

    The outcome now is that the coming of the long-prophesied end to the petroleum bonanza has found our country in a terrible situation. Our present rulers find themselves in conditions that nobody could have imagined only a few years ago. The price of oil has declined from over $110.00 per barrel to about $30 in only one year. Worse still, various conditions in the world oil market are edging the Nigerian oil out of the market. The leading buyers of Nigerian oil are no longer buying our oil, and the ones that replaced them for some time are also moving away now.  Even when we offer to sell at discounted prices, we are not succeeding in getting reliable buyers. It is rumoured that even our federal ministers are not being paid their basic salaries and allowances, and that funds for the implementation of ministerial duties are simply not available.  The drastic decline in foreign exchange earning is forcing our Naira to decline incredibly, and this is causing food prices and other prices to rise dangerously in our marketplaces. Altogether, we have created the conditions that appear now to be likely to push our country into very serious problems.

    When one looks at this whole situation, one must wonder about our rulers. Is it that they have been incapable of seeing what the rest of the world has been seeing in the petroleum economy in the world? Or is it that they saw it but just didn’t have the innate ability, or the basic love of their country, to respond as needed? As this problem has approached closer and closer, how have our leaders been able to give most of their time to stealing and stowing away the large amounts of money that we have been reading about in the press in the past few weeks?  On the whole, what kind of country is ours?

    There is a small desert emirate named Dubai in the Middle East. Like most parts of the Middle East, Dubai is rich in oil. When their oil bonanza began to reach a peak in the 1970s, their rulers were, of course, elated about the new oil wealth, but they were also mindful about what informed voices were predicting about petroleum in the world – namely, that the petroleum boom was not likely to last very long in Dubai. And so they paid attention, and began to evolve policies – policies that would use the oil money to build Dubai into a rich land that would still be wealthy and strong after the oil boom would have ended. Looking at the oil boom and the predictions, their foremost leader of the time, Sheik Rashid Al Makhtoum, is said to have made the following strange statement: “My grandfather rode a camel. My father rode a camel. I drive a Mercedes. My son drives a Land Rover. His son will drive a Land Rover. But his son will ride a camel”. What he was saying is that in the traditionally poor landof Dubai where his forebears had ridden camels, the oil boom was making it possible for him and his son to ride sophisticated cars. It might also make it possible for his grandson to ride similar cars.  But if Dubai’s rulers did not use the oil money sensibly to build a prosperous Dubai, the oil boom would end and his descendants would return to riding camels.

    Al Makhtoum saw the oil wealth as a brief blessing that would soon end; but that could be used to build a Dubai that would be rich for a long time in the future. In contrast, Nigerian rulers saw the oil money as a tool to make themselves rich now, while leaving Nigeria unchanged. What would happen to Nigeria after the oil boom has not concerned them. The difference is staggering. Dubai’s leaders designed programmes that would use the oil money to make Dubai rich in tourism, shipping, mass communications, and finance. Today, Dubai is a glowing gem of the earth, and folks from all over the world want to go there for one reason or another. Nigeria is the quintessentially poor country and, for the most part, Nigerians are the proverbial “wretched of the earth”.

  • When tomorrow comes

    In other societies where lives matter, Abba Moro, former Minister of Interior, would have been fired immediately after the 2014 Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) recruitment tragedy in which 19 people died. As the minister under whose watch the tragedy occurred, Moro should have carried the can, but he passed the buck. He sought to use former NIS Comptroller-General (CG) David Parradang as scape goat.

    There was nothing Moro did not do to ensure that Parradang became the fall guy. He accused Parradang of abandoning his job for a party in Jos, the Plateau State capital, on that fateful March 15, 2014 when the recruitment took place nationwide. Where was Moro himself that day? What was he doing where he was – monitoring the exercise? I doubt if he was anywhere near any of the centres for the exercise. Is it not expected that for such a huge exercise, the minister and the head of the agency should be in constant touch?

    Was there such interaction between them to ensure that things went smoothly? There was not and this was why the tragedy happened. Both of them are guilty of failing in the discharge of their duties to the nation. But Moro should take the larger share of the blame as the supervisory minister of NIS. It does not speak well of his office that he would descend so low as to start blaming his CG for the tragedy when he too failed in the discharge of his statutory obligation. Moro, it seemed, was more interested in the multi-million naira contract for the recruitment than in ensuring that preparations for the exercise were hitchfree.

    When the Board of Immigration Service, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence, Prisons and Fire Service appeared before the House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts on March 19, 2014 over the matter,  it blamed Moro for the tragedy. A Commissioner on the board, S.D Tapgun, said  only Moro and the consultant he engaged for the exercise could tell Nigerians exactly what happened. He said Moro ignored their letter not to hire the consultant, adding that the CG was not “part of the recruitment at all”.

    The consultant collected N1000 each from the over 520,000 applicants, who also bought tee shirts for N500 at their centres. The problem with our public officers has always been that of money. When money is involved in any deal, they will show more than a passing interest in it. Once they get the money, they will turn their backs on the project. Could it be that Moro became disinterested in the NIS recruitment after his consultants reported back to him on the money collected? In all good conscience why will he expect Parradang to monitor the exercise when the former CG was not aware of the preparations for it? Where is the money collected from the applicants – in the treasury or private pockets?

    Another leader would not have wasted time in dealing with the matter.  But former President Goodluck Jonathan pussyfooted. In his characteristic manner, he did nothing, waiting for the storm to blow over. That is the kind of leader we had; a see nothing and do nothing leader. Even when his country is burning, he will pretend as if all is well. Little wonder that Moro got away with the death of those poor guys. If we had a decisive leader then,  Moro would not have stayed a minute longer in office after the tragedy. But what did we have? He served out his tenure until Jonathan lost the April 28, 2015 election to President Muhammadu Buhari. Moreover, those who should have pushed for Moro’s sack in the National Assembly were criminally silent over the matter. Moro was a protege of former Senate President David Mark, who pushed through his clearance at the Senate. With people in high places to watch his back, Moro was not brought to justice for the death of these young, promising Nigerians who only applied for jobs with NIS. Did they commit any offence by so doing to warrant their death in such a callous manner?

    All calls for Moro’s sack were ignored by Jonathan. Instead, he left leprosy to treat ringworm. Since he knew his compatriots to be gullible, he promised members of the bereaved families jobs and N5 million compensation. To him, that was the end of the matter. The lost lives did not matter to him. The money and the jobs will settle everything, so he thought. He forgot that everything is not money. His action emboldened Moro, who rejected calls for his resignation and also had the temerity to blame the victims for the stampede that led to their death. ‘’They failed to obey instructions’’, he said, alleging that some unauthorised persons came to the centres to cause problems. Adding insult upon injury, he declared: ‘’I will set up a probe panel’’.

    See who wanted to probe who!  The person that should be tried, saying he would probe those, who out of desperation for work, subjected themselves to harsh conditions in order to be employed. Is that an offence? The offender suddenly became the complainant in order to save his own neck. His ploy worked with Jonathan, who instead of punishing him allowed him to be. All we heard was that the former president told him in private that ‘’I am highly disappointed with your performance. I cannot tolerate this’’. And the matter ended there.

    In 19 days, it will be two years since they died. It is painful that the Jonathan administration carried on as if nothing tragic happened on March 15, 2014.  If Jonathan had returned to power, by now, everything about the case may have been forgotten. What is more, Moro too may have returned with him, if no longer as interior minister, but still as a member of the cabinet. His retention would have been Jonathan’s way of paying him back for a job well done as if the death of those job seekers is a good thing!

    But the day of reckoning is here for Moro. He will soon get his just deserts long after he thought he had gone scot-free.  Thank God, we now have a Pharaoh who knows no Joseph in power. This is why Moro is being called upon to account for what happened in 2014. Though it is rather late in the day, but I do not think it is too late to do justice to the memories of the dead. Their families have suffered for long in silence. What is happening now is heartwarming and reassuring to Nigerians that though the wheels of justice grind slowly, they grind finely. Let Moro take his stand in the dock and tell Nigerians all he knows about the Immigration recruitment tragedy. This is also a lesson to all of us that no matter the office we occupy today there is always a tomorrow when we will give account of our stewardship.

    There is nothing we do today that we will not account for tomorrow. Moro’s tomorrow has come and it is left for him to give a good account of himself or face the consequences of his actions.

  • Can CBN save the naira?-2

    Can CBN save the naira?-2

    The debate on the adjustment of the exchange rate of the naira is beginning to gather momentum. The nation is understandably divided over it. If it can be avoided no one wants a devaluation of the naira. But the naira is now under increasing demand pressures. The unofficial exchange rate now stands at nearly N400 to the US dollar, while the official rate hovers around N200. The following article by me on the issue was first published in this paper in October, 2015. At the time the naira exchange rate in the parallel market was N238 to the US dollar. It is being published again, without any editing by me, because I believe that a downward adjustment of the naira exchange rate is now inevitable. The CBN cannot save the naira from devaluation now unless there is a substantial build up of our foreign reserves through increased oil exports and revenue. This is unlikely in the short to medium term. Further delays in allowing a more flexible exchange rate will worsen the situation and constrain economic growth.

    As in 1984-5, Nigeria is again at loggerheads with the international financial institutions. It is under strong and persistent pressure from the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to devalue its national currency, the naira. At a recent meeting of the WB/IMF group in Lima, Peru, a senior official of the IMF was reported as urging Nigeria to devalue its currency ‘as a way of adjusting to the reality of the current (global) economic conditions’. These conditions include the sharp decline in the global price of oil, as well as a fall in the price of non-oil/commodities exports. Specifically, the IMF official argued that exchange rate pressures in Nigeria and other oil producers had been considerable since last year. Nigeria’s oil exports and revenues have fallen considerably, while the high demand for foreign exchange in Nigeria has continued to exert considerable pressure on the exchange rate of the naira. In other words, while earnings from oil and non-oil exports have in the past year declined by over 70 per cent, the demand for foreign exchange to finance Nigeria’s huge import bills has not fallen. Because of Nigeria’s high import dependency, there is a supply/demand gap in foreign currencies that is putting pressure on the naira exchange rate. There was also some reference by the WB/IMF to ‘uncertainties in Nigeria’ about the May elections and the policy direction of the new federal government regarding urgent policy reforms. These were claimed by the WB/IMF as additional factors that have led to pressures on the naira. Very few informed analysts will dispute this.

    But the CBN Governor has rejected the calls for the devaluation of the naira. As an alternative to a more flexible exchange rate, the CBN has introduced administrative measures that are intended to limit access to foreign exchange, as well as a ban on some 41 listed import items as a way of reducing the demand for foreign exchange. The CBN Governor has vowed to defend the naira at all costs against any devaluation, adding that it was a question of nationalism. Economic nationalism is good and popular, but it has to be based on the prevailing economic realities. If it has any potential of hurting the economy, then it should be reviewed. The WB/IMF has dismissed the CBN administrative measures aimed at import restriction as detrimental to the Nigerian economy, as both local and private investors see these measures as very detrimental to their economic activities. There is already considerable concern in the Nigerian business circles over these restrictions, as their impact on business in Nigeria will be negative, with loss of productivity and jobs. Instead of these administrative measures, the WB/IMF are urging the federal government and the CBN to permit the naira exchange rate to adjust so as to reduce the demand for more foreign exchange, and to help contain the level of imports that is no longer sustainable in the light of the external shock (the decline in oil revenues) to the Nigerian economy. So far, the CBN has ignored these local and foreign pressures to devalue the naira.

    In all these, it appears that, right now, the federal government is in support of the position of the CBN that the current exchange rate of the naira should be maintained at all costs. In effect, for now, President Buhari has ruled out any further devaluation in the exchange rate of the naira, despite its volatility. This is not surprising. When he was in power from 1984-85 as a military ruler, Buhari rejected similar calls by the WB/IMF on Nigeria to devalue its currency. Then, Nigeria faced a severe external shock, worse than the current one, with severe balance of payments disequilibria, a huge foreign debt, and lack of foreign credit. Nigeria had drifted into economic chaos during the Shagari government, which lacked the capacity to effectively tackle the underlying structural problems of the Nigerian economy. Tougher economic measures had become urgent and imperative. The nation was on the verge of total economic and financial collapse. Productivity in the manufacturing companies fell, leading to a rise in unemployment and long food queues. Nigeria resorted to rationing ‘essential commodities’ as a result of severe import restrictions.

    In response to the severe economic and financial crises, the Buhari military regime also resorted to import licensing, trade by barter and counter trade. But all these administrative measures failed to address the underlying structural imbalance in the domestic economy. Buhari rejected the advice of the WB/IMF to introduce a structural adjustment programme (SAP), the highlight of which was the devaluation of the naira, to curb imports and promote non-oil exports. Buhari considered the measures being urged on him as impractical and politically inexpedient, as it would certainly lead to an inflationary spiral in food prices and other vital imports. In Egypt, similar currency devaluations had led to ‘bread riots’ and instability in the Arab world, a situation that could threaten the survival of his new military regime. He considered the WB/IMF prescription for devaluation as an invitation to suicide and so rejected it.

    But in December, 1985, Babangida replaced Buhari as military ruler. Shortly after, he introduced what he called a ‘home grown’ SAP after a long and heated debate in the country, with the overwhelming majority of the Nigerian public rejecting any devaluation of the naira. But courageously, he pushed through the tough economic and financial reforms that the situation called for, including the massive devaluation of the naira. The reforms soon paid off. Imports fell and non-oil exports expanded considerably. Nigeria returned to fiscal balance and balance of payments equilibrium. New foreign credits were extended to Nigeria, the food queues ended and the economy recorded a modest growth. Of course, the global rise in oil prices assisted the process of economic recovery, but the exchange rate adjustment introduced at the time by the Babangida regime and the CBN made this modest economic recovery possible. Had he not taken those urgent and necessary monetary and fiscal measures, particularly the devaluation of the naira, Nigeria’s economic crisis would have worsened. Of course, Babangida later abandoned some of these effective economic and financial measures for reasons of political expediency. This soon undermined the modest economic recovery achieved during his regime.

    Right now, we are at a similar crossroads as in 1985-86 when the issue of the exchange rate of the naira evoked very strong negative response from the government and the Nigerian public. Again, the CBN has rejected all calls for a downward adjustment of the naira. But can it really save the naira from further devaluation? Right now, the official exchange rate of the naira to the US$ is N200 to 1, while at the parallel market, the exchange rate is N238 to the dollar. This is a clear indication that the naira is overvalued. One indicator of overvaluation of a currency is the difference between the official nominal exchange rate and the parallel market exchange rate. The parallel exchange rate is probably nearer the net effective exchange rate than the official rate. One possible cause of the probable overvaluation of the naira is the rising inflation rate that now stands at nearly 10 per cent. This was caused by the excessive expansionist policy of the federal government in recent years. So, the issue of devaluation is not simply a question of nationalism or patriotism. It has more to do with the global recession, the fall in the value of our exports and the failure caused by our inconsistent economic reforms over the years to diversify the economic base.  Nigeria’s domestic economy is not yet mature. Growth is still fragile as it depends mainly on oil exports. This situation makes it difficult for the Nigerian economy to successfully withstand the external shocks we have now had for a year. Market conditions are not always perfect. They can be easily manipulated by financial speculators. And devaluation is not always the answer to external shocks of the kind now facing Nigeria. But any alternative offered by the financial authorities must be effective, sustainable and credible. Administrative restrictions lack these qualities.

    To save the naira from further devaluation, oil exports and revenues need to rise significantly. The short term prospects for this are not encouraging. Commodities’ prices are also falling and do not offer Nigeria any real alternatives. Nigeria’s foreign reserves now stand at less than US$30b, enough only for four to six months’ imports. The SWF of US$1b has been depleted by US$700m to meet domestic deficits, leaving a paltry balance of US$300m. Our foreign debt is growing, exports are falling, and there is a rising demand for foreign exchange from the manufacturing sector. The volatility of the naira exchange rate is leading to capital flight and a disincentive to both local and foreign investment in the economy. Planning is made more difficult by the volatility in the exchange rate of the naira. Foreign investors will be looking to other countries with financial stability, particularly in respect of exchange rates. In the circumstances, it will be tough for the CBN to maintain the current official exchange rate of the naira.

    Of course, the World Bank and the IMF are sometimes wrong when they urge devaluation on developing countries facing external shocks, irrespective of their respective situation. Some countries need it, while others do not. And the refusal to undertake the necessary exchange rate adjustment is not simply a question of patriotism or nationalism as the Governor of the CBN was reported as claiming. Even China, the second largest and fastest growing economy in the world, has had to devalue its national currency by nearly 30 per cent to boost its exports. The result has been positive. This year, China’s economy will grow by nearly 7 per cent, while Nigeria’s growth rate will fall from nearly 7 per cent to only 2.5 per cent. Actually, the US wanted China to revalue its currency. Instead, it devalued it to promote its exports. Many of the advanced industrial countries have also had to devalue their currencies at one time or the other. In 1966, the British Labour government devalued the pound sterling when it needed to borrow from the World Bank and the IMF.  Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Mexico are some of the BRIC countries that have had to devalue their currencies in recent years to cope with external shocks to their economies. Most African countries, including Ghana, Zimbabwe and Tanzania have had to devalue their currencies in the past year. If it devalues, Nigeria will not be the only African country to do so. And it is always better to devalue early than later under stronger international pressure.

    So, if it decides to devalue the naira, Nigeria will not be an exception, as it is simply a matter of adjusting to external shocks. If we do not devalue now, then we will have to take additional economic and financial reform measures, as tough as those of the Babangida years. These will still have to include the devaluation of the naira. Such reforms will have to include a review of the existing oil subsidy, which cannot be sustained financially for much longer. Major reforms will also have to be undertaken in our oil sector to eliminate the vast corruption and oil theft there. The cost of government will have to be cut considerably. As long as the reform measures are fair and transparent, they will be accepted by the Nigerian public. Smuggling of imports into Nigeria through our porous land and sea borders will make nonsense of the present strategy of import controls. Unless there is a significant recovery soon in our oil exports and revenues, I believe that Nigeria will be forced to devalue its currency, the naira, before too long. In fact, by the second half of next year the dollar exchange rate could be as high as N300. An early and modest devaluation of the naira will be in the overall economic interest of our country.

  • In defence of Modu Sheriff

    Poor Ali Modu Sheriff. He has been going through severe strain and stress since his emergence as chairman of PDP. Those who hate his guts do so with a passion. Those who love him deployed state funds to lease aircraft to ferry lobbyists across the country to appease his enemies.  But PDP BOT is adamant. It says ‘Sheriff is not suitable as national chairman of the PDP’. Ayo Fayose says ‘his emergence at this time is the best thing in the present circumstance’. Sheriff himself is resolutely determined to stay put. ‘I do not plan to resign, I will not resign’ he has declared. Femi Fani-Kayode and Doyin Okupe are blowing hot and cold.

    But the question is, if not Sheriff, who else? He is a man of great wealth. But many believe Sheriff like other products of Babangida School of democracy who saw politics as investment, invested heavily in politics in 1999. This has yielded bounty dividends. He was a two-term governor of Borno State and one-term senator. And finally, as a member and former chairman of APC Board of Trustees (BOT) until 2014, I think he is adequately equipped for a controversial job many have likened to that of an undertaker.

    In any case, if  we are talking of an association  of rancorous group of men permanently engaged in war of attrition over sharing of spoils of office, a group described by  John Campbell as ‘an elite cartel at the centre of power in Nigeria with no ideological or programmatic basis, but simply as essentially a club of elites for sharing of oil rents and political spoils’ and not of a political party, with ‘disciplined membership and programmes for the promotion of collective good’, I cannot see a man more eminently qualified than Sheriff, a man of drifting loyalty.

    Apart from Fani-Kayode’s unproven allegation and libel that Sheriff masterminded the ‘killing of Mohammed Yusuf, the erstwhile leader of Boko Haram, by our security forces whilst in police custody in 2009 just so that he wouldn’t live to tell the whole world who gave him the funds to set up his murderous cult’, Sheriff in my view is by far is more honorable than most PDP past chairmen. Records before Nigerians clearly show that apart from the late Sunday Awoniyi and Audu Ogbeh who retained their integrity after serving as PDP chairmen, Sheriff seem to be head and shoulder taller than all others. Ahmadu Alli as PDP chairman presided over the theft of N1.6 trillion through fuel subsidy scam.  Ogbulafor, Nwodo and Tukur ended their tenure mired in controversies over allegation of financial fraud and nepotism.

    And if his offence was that he decamped from APC to PDP only in 2014, that is a crime his tormentors and supporters are no less guilty off. Fani-Kayode himself has moved in and out of PDP. While still in APC, he once wrote off Jonathan claiming his “chapter has been finally closed by OBJ with his letter”; predicted “All Progressives Congress, APC, would form the next government at the centre” and wrote off PDP saying “PDP as we once knew her has gone forever; the ship has hit the rocks and she has sunk to the bottom of the sea; she is dead and buried”. That was before Jonathan offered him the lucrative job of Director-General of PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation, (PDPPCO)

    Fayose moved from PDP to Labour. He only moved back following Jonathan’s alleged provision of $37m state funds and a number of soldiers shipped from Anambra and Abuja to execute what a PDP former secretary, Dr Temitope Aluko described as a coup against the Ekitis during the state governorship election. As for Olusegun Mimiko, he is a serial ‘decampee’, whose motto appears to be ‘water has no enemy’.

    In a desperate attempt to undermine the integrity of Sheriff, Fani-Kayode says a man with link with Boko Haram is not qualified to run the affairs of a party like PDP founded by ‘men of great vision, courage and good character’ such as General Ibrahim Babangida, President Olusegun Obasanjo, Vice President Abubakar Atiku, Chief Tony Anenih, President Umaru Yar’Adua, President Goodluck Jonathan, Chief Bode George, Col. Ahmadu Alli, Chief E.K. Clark, Professor Jerry Gana, Dr. Chuba Okadigbo, Chief Ken Nnamani. Apart from searching without finding any record of Sheriff’s disservice to the nation, one is tempted to ask, what are the legacies of Fani-Kayode’s PDP men of great ‘vision, courage and good character’?

    Babangida introduced SAP against the advice of informed Nigerian intellectuals. It resulted in the collapse of our budding industries and reduced Nigeria to importers of the labour of other societies. Obasanjo and Atiku mismanaged the privatization programme selling off $100b assets Nigeria’s founding fathers built up between 1958 and 1998 for a paltry $1.6b. Nigeria lost everything hotels, airlines, insurance firms, Ajaokuta Iron and steel industry, fertilizer company, and  Eleme Petrochemical plant  built with taxpayers’ $2.4b but sold for $215m as well as the World Bank projected seven million jobs.

    Anenih as minister of works allegedly diverted About N300b budgeted for roads during Obasanjo’s first term to fight the 2003 election by PDP. The verdict on Jonathan’s government   by Adewale Maja-Pearce in a piece titled. “The Nigerian Status Quo” written for the New York Times on November 16, 2014, that “The (Jonathan) government is widely seen as the most corrupt since independence from Britain in 1960” resonates with Nigerians and the international community. Bode  George was jailed and later exonerated by the Supreme Court for helping some of his PDP friends as chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority. Ahmadu Ali as chairman of PDP, presided over the theft of N1.6t through fuel subsidy scam. Chief Edwin Clark hijacked President Jonathan and reduced a man who secured a pan Nigeria mandate in 2010 to an ethnic irredentist in 2015. Jerry Gana, a one time   university geography teacher had until 2015 been part of every government in power since 1983. He donated N5billion on behalf of his unidentified friends to the doomed Jonathan re-election bid. Both Dr. Chuba Okadigbo, Chief Ken Nnamani were accused of financial malfeasance as senate presidents. Behold Fani-Kayode’s PDP men of vision and character.

    Those currently weeping louder than the bereaved fearing PDP’s descent into factional chaos will deprive the country of much needed opposition voice should wipe their tears. An association of wheelers and dealers that as a ruling party raped our nation for 16 years through dubious self-serving policies such as privatization, monetization, setting up of PPPRA to import fuel instead of ensuring we refined our own fuel domestically cannot as an opposition party perform the patriotic role of ‘keeping the APC on track, influencing public opinion, and providing a shadow for the ruling party’.

    PDP doesn’t deserve to survive. Even Dr Doyin Okupe, who reaped abundantly as a leading member of PDP has come to terms with the terrible fate of his party. According to him, “if it is the divine will of God that our present masters must kill PDP, then by the Grace of God we shall yet tarry at the graveside to bid it farewell.”

    Why must people now weep louder than the bereaved? Please join me in congratulating PDP for appointing an undertaker.

  • Parable of the grifter calling the con-artist…’fraud’

    If I should hesitate to say these things, it will not be because they are untrue but because I cannot speak of them without betraying my imperfection: Nigerians are the last people on earth who should have children; because we are very, very bad people. Having children is akin to nurturing more hyenas at home and breeding a nest of sorrows. Whether rich or poor, aged or young, the poverty of our souls and our hatred for humaneness leaves us unworthy of such worthy enterprise as procreation.

    A cursory look at our families excites the creepiest form of marvel. The Nigerian family unit today parades the worst form of savagery. Mothers are mightily pleased to see a child hurt an annoying neighbour’s dog or cat; and such wise fathers we have now that consider it a notable mark of martial spirit when they see their son domineer his weaker peer. And there are those whose parents raise righteously, breeding them in their images, to conform to and perpetuate the worst forms of religious bigotry and inhumanity, according to the holy scriptures.

    Ultimately, our parents look upon it as a sign of great wit and astuteness to see us cheat and oppress our peer by some malicious treachery and deceit. It gladdens their hearts to see us evolve into ‘lovable’ brutes at a tender age. They claim it’s a worthy demeanor for the very tough world out there.

    Thus from adolescence through adulthood, they greet every dishonesty we perpetrate with cheer, as long as it translates to stupendous wealth, higher status and the comfort of knowing that their children are “smart” and inured in the ways of the world. These are the true seeds and roots of cruelty, tyranny and treason. Our parents nurture vile in us and we perpetuate it in attitude, learning from their misconduct, till we start procreating and perpetuating within our lineage, grosser forms of grotesqueness and bestiality.

    It starts from the very little things, like nurturing us to be brutes through childhood and grooming us to be fraudulent through adolescence. Hence the multitude of “peaceful, hardworking and God-fearing” families engaged in desperate pursuits to enroll their wards and university hopefuls in “special coaching schools” while they purchase for them, seats at “special centres,” as they write the S.S.C.E and JAMB exams.

    Such wards, dutifully trained to circumvent the straight, moral path to progress and self-actualization, eventually mature into foetal, perverse adults. All through their lives, they navigate the depths and shoals of challenging realities with the courage of a weevil and the wit of a hyena, if I may insult the poor animals by comparing such with them.

    Eventually, the seeds of indolence and monstrosity sown in them grow to prodigious bulk, cultivated by society and custom; at the end, we have brutes and savages running our lives and determining our future. At this juncture, I guess, many would dispute, claiming such shameful lot constitute just a minor fraction of the country’s 170 million-strong families or thereabouts.

    I whole-heartedly disagree but if they insist, I hereby reiterate that, such wonderful families we have now that blesses us with the current ruling class. Such wonderful families we have now that blesses us with thieving bank chiefs and corrupt law enforcers.

    Such wonderful families we have that blesses us with slothful civil servants, light-fingered bank clerks, desperate, treacherous journalists and lawyers. Such wonderful families we have that blesses us with prostitutes, armed robbers, Yahoo boys, and currency-activated clerics to mention a few.

    One degeneracy gravitates into the other and we have for ourselves, a nation of finely bred brutes, idiots and foetal adults, pitifully programmed to self-destruct. I do not apologize for my abrasive choice of words. Were it acceptable, I would depict the average Nigerian with more colourful choice of words. We are very, very bad people.

    Driven by greed, selfishness, indolence and appalling inclinations to play “God,” we embark on a never-ending quest to ruin Nigeria…righteously. The argument that it’s the lack of good leadership that forces us to be corrupt does not hold much substance anymore; let each one of us be accountable for his actions.

    How many leaders do we have? If we count the number of politicians and every hoodlum plaguing our industries, politics and occupying our seats of power, will they add up to a million? Let’s assume that they add up to a million; there are 170 million Nigerians or thereabouts, of this lot, should a paltry million lead about 169 million astray?  Is the fault not with the 169 million?

    Our nation perishes by our gluttony and lust for fleeting and perishable vanities. It was greed and a disgraceful strain of cowardliness that drove our touted “men of god” to endorse former President Goodluck Jonathan’s candidacy, claiming his emergence was sanctified by their “god.” It was gluttony, cowardice and an unconquerable strain of prejudice that drove millions of Nigerians to troop to the polls to endorse the worst form of the ruling class.

    Bestiality, like blood, seems to run perpetually in the veins of the Nigerian ruling class. It is not that the working class is any wiser. Age is of no value within our clans, likewise experience. Our old have no important advice to give to our young. Their experiences have been so partial and fraught with fraudulence that at the end, they pass off as miserable failures.

    Indeed, it is good to be bad and bad to be good in contemporary Nigeria. Let us consider for a moment the caliber of leadership we have; the Nigerian ruling class tirelessly appropriates for itself what is meant for the benefit of all. Likewise, the poorest constituent of the breadlines is capable of meaner grotesqueness were he opportune to play with money and power. As it is with the rich, so it is with the poor. Poverty and affluence brings out the worst in us.

    Every Nigerian is a law breaker. The rich believe they are above the law and the poor believe they could sneak under it, through it and away from its grasp. I would like to believe that the worst of our kind constitutes just a minor fraction of 170 million of us but as you read, our ruling class is busy pilfering our coffers even as it plays Russian roulette with our lives. The rich still connives with the ruling class to impoverish us further. The poor still curses the ruling class and curse the times even as they die daily to serve the whims of the ruling class.

    As you read, parents are purchasing seats and liberties to cheat for their wards at JAMB and SSCE “special centres.” Our bankers are pilfering our accounts 50 kobo, N1 to N1000 by the second. Motorists are hastening off their normal lanes to face oncoming vehicles on the wrong lanes. Public administrators are stealing pension funds meant for elderly retirees. Journalists are receiving money to doctor and tilt stories according to the whims of shady politicians, business class and criminal masterminds. Doctors are forgetting surgical knives in helpless patients; lawyers are twisting the law to serve the whims of the worst creatures ever and you are reading this thinking I am just another ‘grifter’ calling the con-artist, ‘fraud.’

  • Corruption: Questions for President Buhari

    When President Buhari started the war against corruption, he started a worthy struggle, a direction that our country desperately needs. His prosecution of that war is still commendable as far as it goes. But there are already potent indications that this war may soon plunge into some sort of confusion.

    Already, from some of our eminent voices, as well as from the mostly unheard voices of the masses of our people, troubling questions are being asked about the agenda. Some days ago, one of our country’s most respected Christian leaders proposed that the war against corruption should end simply with the recovery of stolen public money. He suggested that once the thief has surrendered his loot, our government and law enforcement agencies should do nothing further against him – indeed that he should be left alone. The implication of this is that recovery of stolen public money is the end purpose of the whole war. But very many citizens are wondering whether this is right.  What about our laws? Are we now maneuvering ourselves into a new culture – one more destructive than the culture of corruption, a culture in which our country’s laws will become negotiable. If a Nigerian be accused of a crime, will it become sufficient for him to send influential relatives and friends to beg the rulers of the land or make some retribution which the rulers arbitrarily deem acceptable? Is this the future we are striving towards? A sort of primitive ‘pre-law’ society?

    A few days ago also, another eminent Nigerian, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, proposed in the course of a public discourse that President Buhari should start the war on corruption from the highest level – that is from the presidency itself. Apparently, he was not thinking of asking anything other than that the probes should start from Buhari’s own presidency. It would appear also that he did not think that his question could have wider ramifications. To his surprise, someone in the audience asked him whether he meant that the probes should extend all the way back to the Obasanjo presidency. The former president sidestepped the question in his response and preferred only to remind his audience that it was he who had created the legal instruments that are now being used by President Buhari to fight corruption. In that, he is right; but most Nigerians would still want to ask him if it would be right to limit the probes only to the present.

    Nigerians know that the era of unrestrained public corruption in our country started in 1966, or at the latest, 1979. The big question is this: Can we really destroy the culture of corruption if we deal with the thieves of the past six years only and leave those of earlier years to luxuriate in their loot? Moreover, is this a war against federal level corruption only or will it also take on functionaries of state and local governments also? And then there is an overarching question: Can we really be said to be killing corruption if we are doing it only amongst the highest public officials only? What about the deep roots that corruption has dug into other levels of our society? Afterall, no nook or cranny appears to have escaped the scourge! Are we going to do something about senior civil servants who regularly take bribes from folks seeking civil service jobs? Or those who dream up phantom contracts, award them to phantom contractors and pay the contractors for the phantom completion of the jobs? How about university officials who take bribes to manipulate university admissions, or those lecturers who coerce their students to buy shoddy handouts or give various types of gifts as a condition of passing the examinations? What shall we do about the rampant passing of bribes at all levels of public service, customs service, immigration service, passport office, driver licensing offices, land administration offices, etcetera? How about the rampant practice of bank employees stealing from their employers and customers? Or the general fear of Nigerian employers about the tendency of Nigerian employees to cheat and steal? For that matter, will we do anything about the perpetual rumour that church officials also steal from church coffers? The list is endless!

    In short, how far do we, as represented by the Buhari presidency, intend to go with this war on corruption? These questions are now emerging because not much is being told us Nigerian citizens by our government. All we hear is a constant stream of stories of mind-boggling amounts of loot that has been detected and sometimes huge amounts that have been returned by the thieves. The president has started the most important war in our country’s history – a war for which he deserves our commendation. But he is not talking to us as he should about it. Perhaps it is his military background that predisposes him to believe that his government can fight this overwhelming war alone. He needs to consider that he may be wrong. This is a war that all Nigerians are mightily interested in. We want it to be won. We have all had enough. We therefore want to understand what is happening in this great war. We want to be able to help in whatever small or large way we can. We know there are powerful forces hiding in the shadows, waiting for an opportune moment to wage a counter-offensive. We perceive the rumblings of corruption’s fight back already. President Buhari will need us, the masses of common Nigerians, to resist that counter-offensive. He needs to prepare us accordingly. He must begin to do that now. He must leverage all the authority of the presidency to do so. This is a war for all Nigerians who love their country and want her to become prosperous and respectable. We are in a fight for the very soul of our nation. Those who seek to keep corruption alive and well are akin to vampires who care nothing for their victims but seek only to suck the very lifeblood out of her. President Buhari has begun the rescue of Nigeria from those predators who would bleed her dry and indeed have been doing so for decades. Many hands they say, make light work. Not that this work could ever be light. But it can be made lighter by the participation of millions of willing Nigerians. President Buhari must harness their involvement. Ultimately, this great war will only be won when most of us citizens accept the mantle of ‘corruption fighter’. When love for country supersedes desire for convenience. When we return to the days when dishonesty carried a stigma and thieves were shunned by decent, upright citizens. Then and only then, will we win this war on corruption.

  • Akintola, 50 years after assassination – 5

    A way out for the dominants of the three major ethnic groups was the creation of states, which was expected to take the sting out of ethnic chauvinism. This ideal has been realised to a certain extent. But the block-voting by the Yoruba for Awolowo, the Igbo for Nnamdi Azikiwe and the Hausa-Fulani for Shehu Shagari during the election ushering in the Second Republic in October 1979 provided a reason to question the success of the attempt to remove the ethnic basis of Nigerian politics. The irony of Nigerian politics is that the erstwhile monolithic North has been broken or fragmented politically to such an extent that support for political leaders is not based on ethnic considerations alone; indeed one can argue that “statism” has emerged as the most potent force working against greater integration of the country.

    It is now doubtful that any of the three major ethnic groups could control Nigeria short of alliance with either most of the minority groups or at least one other majority ethnic group. It therefore stands to reason that we must come back to the idea of Akintola, who saw Nigeria as an “Ethnic Commonwealth” in which all must participate, in the interest of peace and stability. The hard facts of the Nigerian political situation call for a constitution that takes this into consideration; it calls for leaders who are able to compromise and who in the traditional Fabian fashion, will strive to reform from within. Nigerians must recognise that theirs is a multi-national and pluralistic country in which each of its ethnic groups has a stake. Any political privilege based on the rule of might of one group over others is bound to fail.

    If Nigeria is to survive and prosper, a means must be found to actualise the idea of an “Ethnic Commonwealth” which would lessen the political tension in the country. This is not to suggest that a loaded epithet such as “federal character” or any other is the panacea to all Nigerian problems; but the recognition of the ethnic factor in our country as a potential for divisiveness, and the willingness to deal with it on a realistic basis of consensus politics may yet be the strength of the Nigerian federation. This is what Akintola stood for and history has proved that to that extent and in spite of the way he went about effecting the principle, he was right. The zoning of political offices and the alternating the presidency between the North and South are attempts to paper over the fundamental division in the country.

    Indeed it would have been helpful if the six recognized zones could be made the federating states instead of the puny 36 states which are too week financially and politically to restrain the tendency for abuse of power by the centre. No matter how long Nigeria survives, the fact will always remain, as it has in Switzerland, Belgium, the former U.S.S.R., and even the United Kingdom, that linguistic and cultural differences are not easily obliterated and that recognition and accommodation of these differences are the sine qua non of political wisdom. This political realism is Chief Akintola’s major contribution to Nigerian politics.

    The Civil War ought to have taught us a lesson that every Nigerian group is capable and able to press its claims of inclusion in the government of Nigeria and if peaceful means fail, by violent means. It is in the interest of all that things do not degenerate to this level. Realism and tolerance must be the basis of a Nigerian federation. To survive Nigeria must recognise that if one part of the country is disgruntled, the others cannot ignore it. Nigerians are most anxious for stability along with development, and if that means total mobilisation of all zones of the country as long as political plurality is tolerated, the people would not be opposed to it. This was what Akintola stood for after his disastrous 1953 venture into the North as Action Group leader. The experience convinced him that Nigerian politics in the future must be based on the kind of compromise which would permit a capable Hausa, Fulani, Igbo, Yoruba, or any other to be President, and as President to command respect of the entire country. Recent events have shown that there is indeed a light at the end of the tunnel, and that the body politic of Nigeria is flexible enough to accommodate all the shocks and challenges the future may have in store for us.

    Chief Akintola was a product of his time and his society. This is not to deny that he was a man of free will, but there is no doubt that to a certain extent, the kind of situation in which he found himself determined his actions, his responses, his contributions and achievements, and his shortcomings. The colonial situation after the end of the First World War, a war fought theoretically to “make the world safe for democracy”, meant that any intelligent young child who had some financial backing to further his education could expect some rewards either from co-option into or participation in the colonial political dispensation or through agitation to bring down the colonial establishment with the aim of inheriting one of the positions vacated by the outgoing colonial overlords. In other words, if one was educated, one did not need to be otherwise distinguished during the dying days of European imperialism to be actively involved in the politics of liberation and to reap the rewards of progress in one’s country. As pointed out earlier, Chief Akintola was the editor of a major newspaper whose mission was to effect a change in the political situation of Nigeria from subservience and servitude to political autonomy and independence.

    In the struggle against an external foe, it was relatively easy for everyone to rally round a few leaders, but with victory in sight, the inherent weakness of an ethnically variegated country became manifest. With this complexity in mind, the colonial masters, under pressure from the Hausa-Fulani and Yoruba leaders, devised a federal constitution which, even if it did not please everybody, gave the three major ethnic-national groups enough freedom to make the association workable. From the time of the Federal Constitution of 1954, the struggle for control of the centre has characterised Nigerian politics. First of all, the politics of ethnic-national autonomy gave rise to the Federal Constitution, and the power-sharing this involved led to competition among the three regions for participation at all costs and to shifting political coalitions and realignment. The dynamic vitality itself of Nigerian federation is what made the intricate political network unstable. It is by understanding this background that one can view in correct perspective the forces that impinged on the society and that created the ever-changing political situation in which individuals such as Akintola and others played out their roles.

  • A budget of errors

    The drama over the 2016 budget seems unending. As one act ends, another opens, making Nigerians wonder whether the government really worked on the appropriation bill before sending it to the National Assembly. It was with fanfare that President Muhammadu Buhari presented the budget to the National Assembly last December 22. Tagged ‘’Budget of Change’’, it is, according to the president, meant to restore Nigerians’  hope in their country after so many years in the wilderness.

    Sadly, the enthusiasm about the budget is waning. Nigerians cannot understand what is happening to the budget over one month after it was presented to the lawmakers. Rather than see their representatives progress with work on the budget, it has been one complaint after the other since the document got to them about two months ago. From the Senate, first came the allegation that the budget had ‘’disappeared’’. Disappear? Nigerians could not believe their ears. How could the budget disappear when it is not a piece of paper on which something was hurriedly scribbled?

    As the din over its whereabouts grew, the Presidency wrote to the National Assembly leadership, seeking to recall the budget for some corrections. Last January 19, it sent the corrected budget back to the lawmakers, with the figures, it said, ‘’remaining the same’’. Since the revised appropriation bill got to the lawmakers, our ears have been tingling from what we have been hearing from those coming to defend their budget. The impression they are creating is that they do not know anything about the document’s preparation. It sounds unbelievable that a minister will not know about his ministry’s budget until  he is confronted with the figures by the lawmakers.

    It all looks so comical, but it is not a laughing matter; no, not at all. Is it possible for a minister not to be in the know of his ministry’s budget until he and his team appear for its defence at the National Assembly? If this is so, who then prepared the budget? Was it prepared before the minister assumed office? If that is the case, was he not briefed about what was done before it was sent to the Budget Office for collation along with others? If we did not see the respective ministries working on their budgets, at least we saw the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, and his team working on the N6.08 trillion budget on national television.

    Udoma even invited Vice President Yemi Osinbajo ‘’to see what we are  doing’’. The vice president praised the team for what it was doing and Udoma said then that what remained was to dot the i’s and cross the t’s. Unfortunately, the budget defence has put a lie to the so-called enormous efforts said to have been put into the document’s preparation. Is this happening because the administration is in a hurry to meet the people’s expectation? It is good that the administration desires to fulfil its obligation to the people, but it will be better if it is thorough and painstaking in doing so because a country’s budget should be prepared by the finest minds around.

    No matter the hurry in drawing up the budget, every figure must be correct so that when the document comes under scrutiny, as it is now at the National Assembly, there will be no room for doubts. Doubts have been created with the disowning of the budget by some ministers and the discrepancies discovered by the lawmakers. The firing of Director-General of the Budget Office Yahaya Gusau on Monday shows that there is more to the matter than meets the eye. Last February 8, Health Minister Prof Isaac Adewole caused a stir when he told the Senate Committee on Health that his ministry’s original budget had been ‘’largely distorted’’. A bigger drama occurred at the House of Representatives Committee on Capital Market last Thursday when the Investment and Securities Tribunal (IST) represented its 2015 budget for 2016.

    ‘’The budget for IST in the 2016 budget proposal is just an exact copy of its 2015 appropriation. It is word for word; figure for figure. And items dealt with and completed in 2015 were repeated’’, the panel said. Are those who prepared the budget blind? Or was it done deliberately to perpetrate fraud? The seriousness of the matter should not be lost on us all. This is why I disagree with Udoma that the errors were ‘’overplayed’’. They were not overplayed. Rather, it is Udoma, with all due respect,  that wants to downplay a serious matter for which those responsible should be punished. A budget is not a document that should be treated in a slipshod manner the way some civil servants have attempted to do with the 2016 appropriation bill. I expect the minister to be angry that some people want to rubbish the first budget that will be prepared under his watch instead of him talking as if there is nothing to what has happened. There is a lot to it and in some countries it could have led to the resignation of the man in charge.

    To many Nigerians, the president’s probe of the ‘’budget padding’’ is welcome so that our people will know that it is no longer business as usual. We expect more heads to roll over this matter besides that of Gusau. That will be the only way for Buhari to live up to his promise that ‘’the 2016 budget will address the problems. We are here to serve Nigeria and indeed Nigerians will get the service they have longed for’’.

     

    See who’s PDP chair

    On Tuesday night, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff popularly known as SAS became Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chairman after a lot of wheeling and dealing. Many never expected PDP to go for SAS, but the party has made its choice; so it should live with it. But what has SAS, a former Borno State governor, got to offer the party? We wait to see.

     

    The seven ‘wise men’

    The jury is still out on the Supreme Court verdict upholding the election of Nyesom Wike as Rivers State governor. Did the Supreme Court err? Was the full court of seven justices induced? I keep my gun powder dry for now. For the benefit of readers, who have been asking, the seven-man panel comprised Chief Justice Mahmud Mohammed, Justice Ibrahim Muhammad, Justice Nwali Ngwuta, Justice Kumai Aka’ahs, Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, who delivered the lead judgement, Justice John Okoro and Justice Aminu Sanusi.