The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • In the future of our dreams…

    Our next best hope still elevates the eternal law of averages. They choose to ornament “less-than” even below the eternal line of averageness. I speak of the Nigerian youth. I speak of you and me. Beneath our passionate cry for change subsists a spinelessness that ornaments even the deserter with the valor of knights, thousands of miles from the scenes of combat and the valiant’s death. We have failed to make a response ideal to our cause. We have failed to display courage necessary to our survival and adequate to our time.

    It’s every man for himself; the successful doctor, banker, journalist, engineer, police officer et al, do not care about anything and anybody else. It’s what Evelyn Waugh describes as the sly, sharp instinct for self-preservation that passes for wisdom among the rich. Hence the desperation of the Nigerian youth to be rich, within the bounds of that dear old “wisdom” and thought process that infinitely manifests as foolishness.

    Such is the mentality of the Nigerian youth, regrettably lacking in guts and substance; our utterances persistently leap from our lips as discontent, insignificant as the spores of fungi yet impinged on the base surfaces of our minds. It’s indeed shameful what cowardly lot we have become.

    We dream of the future and talk of change within the limits of our intelligence forgetting that the world of such future that we anticipate will foster a more demanding struggle against the limits of our intelligence, not a cozy rose bed in which we can lie down to be waited upon by a more compliant fate and time.

    Our cries are for a historic revolution, bloody or not; even as our thoughts pander between the dangers of revolt and the inherent benefits in accepting the status quo in a prudent act of self-preservation. Hence we revolt by impotent words and a mad, desperate dash for wealth or what we’ve learnt to coin as our share of the Nigerian dream.

    This is our Nigerian dream: a lush, breathtaking future that de-emphasizes toil and accords our vanities a caressing glance. In the future of our dreams, we hope to keep strings of constantly increasing bank accounts at home and abroad; we hope to drive the best cars, live in palatial mansions in the choicest areas and enjoy the most lucrative job offers.

    In the future of our dreams, everything would work out just fine. There will be justice and equity even as we tirelessly wish to lord it over others; every public officer will be accountable to the electorate; elections shall be fair and free of fraud and other irregularities; political hooliganism and the godfather culture shall become monstrosities of a dead era; public service will work and the anticipation of road, sea or air travel shall evoke no foreboding.

    Our education, health, financial and transport sectors shall evolve at the highest standards; there will be stable adequate and stable electricity; bail will be free, police officers will decline and ask for no bribes; civil servants will become more honestly dedicated to their work and unemployment shall be reduced to the barest minimum.

    In the future of our dreams, we shall have more beautifully planned cities in replacement of our slums; we shall have more educated and law-abiding public; more liberated journalists, writers, musicians and artists; our leaders shall be men of immense stature and enviable track records in both public and private service.

    In pursuit of our dream future and desperation to guarantee its unobstructed realization, we have organized ourselves into riotous camps of retrograde youths offering ourselves as willing tools to every devious politician, godfather and criminal mastermind with a destructive plan.

    To achieve the future of our dreams, we scorn honest labour to perpetuate indolence and the most perverted mission aids. Every youth seeks the easiest shortcut to the future of his dreams; collectively the sum of our dreams and heartfelt hunt manifest as the worst human expression of vanity, civilization and desire.

    We do not do much to improve our plight and we do very little to improve the possibility of doing that. There is no conscious effort to mobilize ourselves for the good of our kind and the love of the collective good. Every youth pressure group presents a sham and a shameful representation of all that vanity and lassitude ever gives.

    Some of us are more brazen than others; individually, they hustle to position and project themselves as the best leaders of thought and drivers of hope that we would ever have. I speak of the self-styled “youth leaders,” “advocacy gurus,” “evangelists” and “mentors” endlessly seeking local and international merit awards, presidential tea sessions and handshakes for leadership and inspiration they are yet to offer – and are infinitely handicapped to offer.

    This shameful lot refuses to function and contribute their quota to the general pursuit and achievement of our cause. Rather they spend quality time applying for international and local funding for their suspicious schemes and non-governmental organizations (NGOs); they spend quality time functioning as campaigners, muscles and agents of the incumbent ruling class that we swore to ouster.

    Together with our shameful and psychically handicapped “youth leaders,” we engage in unprecedented self-deception conveniently choosing to apply the balm to our chest while our hearts clog with morsels of our victual lust.

    Eventually our deceitfulness and greed roost with devastating consequences in our lives: think Boko Haram, Niger Delta militants, kidnappers, Yahoo Boys, and every other corrupt youth scattered across our tribes, workplaces and pressure groups to the detriment of all and the Nigerian dream.

    But rather than speak as much truth to ourselves as we love to speak to power, we conveniently ignore our dread for the truth in relation to our kind. Consequently, the impacts of our dishonesty extend far beyond our travails as you read. It gets scarier knowing we shall undoubtedly pay for our duplicity whether we like it or not as we are doing now.

    The post oil subsidy removal palliative cash has crashed from its fabled N1.3 trillion to N426 billion and then nothing. Thus our subsidy removal protests were in vain. The youths that died have died in vain. President Jonathan and company will get away with tyranny and there is nothing any one can do about it.

    This minute, our heartfelt protests are silenced by greed and the familiar rustle of currency. Mr. President and company as usual, accord patience to our yearnings; we are being noticed because it is election time. Come 2015, if we fail to vote the incumbent ruling class out of power, the mean fate and tragedies we share shall persist, and we shall only be seen during familiar moments of tragedy when our negligible fates manifest disastrously like photographs of acceptable deaths.

    Our hearts shall cry to our leaders for succor and they shall reluctantly budge, as usual, alighting from their stuck-up pedestals to accord our tragedies a passing glance. We shall cry over relatives lost to avoidable car crashes, plane crashes, boat mishaps, bomb blasts and state sponsored genocide but leaders we have shall cry over vacations cut short, aborted fornication, and elongated work hours.

  • Lagos School of History: An exploratory discourse – 4

    Lagos School of History: An exploratory discourse – 4

    The Lagos School has taken off where the Ibadan School stopped. The Lagos School assumes that there is no point discussing whether Africa has a history or not but rather of the usefulness of historical scholarship. In straining to be relevant, the Lagos School exposes itself to critics who feel that many of the published articles from the Lagos School’s exponents read like political science and economics rather than history. There is a suggestion that topics being researched into are too current and that the dust of history should be allowed to settle before any meaningful research can be conducted. It is the old question of whether historians should give a hundred years or 50 years between them and their subjects of enquiry. This antiquarian approach to historical writing has been brushed aside by the Lagos School that feels that unless historians adapt to change, the academic discipline of history may die a natural death because young people will not be interested in studying the past for the past’s sake without relevance to the present. The utility value of history will therefore be called into question. The shift from the traditional concern of historians to question of functionality has even led to the nomenclatural change of the Department of History to the Department of History and Strategic Studies. The debate of what to call the department was a lively debate in the 1990s and there were different formulations such as History and Diplomatic Studies, History and Cultural Studies, History and International Relations and History and Strategic Studies.

    The choice of History and Strategic Studies was arrived at so as to avoid conflict and involve history in territorial dispute with political science over international relations. In spite of this, the subject of international relations has become a lively area of research of the Lagos School. International Relations broadly defined to mean interstate economic relations, defence studies, boundaries, cultural and diplomatic history. This nomenclatural and academic orientation of the Lagos School has led to a revival of interest in the study of history as a foundation for understanding the problems of modern times. This shift of emphasis has not gone unnoticed in many parts of the country even though this shift of emphasis began in Lagos State University but in terms of development and application University of Lagos takes the Victor Ludorum in the game of intellectual competition among Nigerian’s departments of history. The Ibadan University’s Department of History and its sister departments in Obafemi Awolowo University and Ahmadu Bello have refused to rebrand their departments and have continued their resistance to this new paradigm shift in the academic study of history.

    In recent times, and in order to remain alive, and be in tandem with current developments in the Lagos School, the University of Ibadan’s Department of History now seem to have embraced the historical modernity and currency of the Lagos School. The Department of History in Ibadan seems now to have left the Ibadan School of History whose task seems to be over after blazing the trail of the Nigerian nationalist historiography for which the Ibadan School can justly be proud of. Either because there is a dearth of topics on the distant past of Nigeria and Africa, students in Ibadan are now almost at a convergence with their counterparts in Lagos in their research offerings. Recent theses completed in Ibadan illustrate this point. These include; Adesina O.A. Gender Relations in Ikaleland of South Western Nigeria in Historical Perspective (2010), Afolabi A. Taxation and Revolts among the Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria 1900-1970 (2010), Ugboajah P.K.N. Juvenile Delinquency and Its Control in Colonial Lagos 1861-1995 (2010), Attah N.E. The Dynamics of Peasant Oil Palm Production in Igalaland 1900-1995 (2010), Ehimore M.O. A Socio-Economic History of the Ilaje of Southwestern Nigeria 1500-1900 (2010), Erinosho T.O. Nigeria and ECOMOG Peace-Keeping Operations in Liberia and Sierra Leone 1984-2004 (2010), Nwaka J.C. The Catholic Church and Conflict Management During the Nigerian Civil War 1967-1970 (2011), Ugbogu M. Management of Public Enterprises in the Western Region of Nigeria 1946-1966 (2013), Muojama O.G. Nigerian Cocoa Exports and Global Capitalism 1914-1960 (2013), Nwaokoro T.T. Women Education and Social Changes in Ondo Southwestern Nigeria 1875-2008 (2013), Oparah O.M. The Nigerian Civil War and the Adaptive Diversity of Biafra’s Research and Production Group 1967-1970 (2014), Alo L.K. Legal Regulations of Chieftaincy Disputes in Yorubaland 1939-1960 (2014). Theses in view include; Achoba F. A History of the Igala People 1100-1900, Oluyitan J.A. History of Colonial Medical and Health Services in Ibadan 1900-1960, Muritala M.O. Urban Livelihood in Lagos 1861-1990, Ajayi A. Change and Adaptation in the Commercial Sector of Osun Division Western Nigeria 1900-1960, Oladejo M. Ibadan Market Women and Politics 1900-1995, Ajayi D.O. A History of the Nigerian Bar Association 1960-2010, Adeyeri J.O. British Imperialism and Socio-Political Transformation of Akokoland 1987-1960, Sanni H.A. Origin and Development of Eastern District of Lagos 1850-1972, Animashaun B.O. A History of the Idejo Political Institution in Lagos up to 2000.

    It is now obvious that the Ibadan University’s history department has definitely borrowed a leaf from their sister department of history of the University of Lagos in embracing relevance and applied history.

    The Lagos School must of course take care in not radically departing from its roots in historical scholarship and fall victim to what is new and fashionable. This warning is particularly apt in the area of biographies which is an area in which the University of Lagos department of history has blazed the trail and has continued to attract invitation by the worthy and unworthy Nigerians who want themselves celebrated in books. There is of course nothing wrong in scholarly biographies. Great historians like A.J.P. Taylor and Allan Bullock wrote great biographies during their time of pre-eminence in the historical firmament in England.

    Some may argue that what the Lagos School has done is not new and that the University of Nigeria, Nsukka when it was established offered combined honours courses in history and archaeology and that the twining of history with a related discipline at least in Nigeria is not new and certainly is not new in the Anglo-Saxon world and that it is even coming back in different versions in universities in America where history and conflict/peace studies, history and development studies, history and political science, history and philosophy are becoming quite fashionable. The criticism that young historians in those days levied against the Ibadan School of History about not being concerned with social and economic interpretations and about not being ideologically driven may not be relevant in the case of the Lagos School. In any case socialism which became fashionable in the 1960s and 1970s are on the wane following the collapse of the Soviet Union and communism generally. Nevertheless, the Lagos School must like Ibadan School embrace multi-disciplinary approach, and must ensure analytical rigour, without sacrificing what is central to the school which is relevance and intellectual adaptation. The breadth and scope of historical research in the department of history at the University of Lagos, takes on board issues of social, political and economic importance in the country. The crop of younger professors such as Ayo Olukoju, Bayo Lawal, Yomi Akinyeye, Taiwo Akinyele and Funke Adeboye are breaking into fields such as medical history, history of commerce and industry, sub ethnic nationalism, defence studies, international relations, women and gender studies with direct importance to the problems of development. Younger lecturers such as Omon Osiki has just returned with a doctorate from China and should put the department on the global map of Afro-Chinese studies which will become more and more relevant in the future predicted to see China emerge the greatest force in global economy.

  • PDP’s Ill-advised Abuja Carnival

    PDP’s Ill-advised Abuja Carnival

    A trend has long been established. We now know that anytime President Jonathan plans to undertake some of his unproductive foreign trips or embarks on political jamboree similar to his last week coronation as the adopted PDP candidate, at the Abuja Eagle Square, it has often been preceded by a pattern of brutal killing of innocent men, women and children by the sick minds that fraudulently claim to be fighting in the name of God in the besieged north-eastern Nigeria.  The President and PDP’s reckless celebration in Abuja last week was no exception. On the eve of the event, in the words of the President, “Government Science Secondary School in Yobe State was bombed by insurgents, killing our promising young children who were seeking education to build the country and support their parents”. Casualties were put at over 50. Of course, this did not dampen the enthusiasm of PDP and its rented crowd just as our inability to rescue over 200 girls abducted from their secondary school in Chibok six months back did not stop the President’s storm-troopers from organizing misguided carnivals across the country to collect over 17 million signatories of those who want Jonathan to continue his good work come 2015.

    The response of government handlers to criticism however has always been to portray the President as a man of steel who must not be seen to succumb to Boko Haram blackmail by abandoning his planned foreign trip, and mobilization of his party faithful across the country. The tragedy however is that because such trips or planned jamborees add little value to the well-being of Nigerians, buffeted by various problems ranging from insecurity of lives and property and poverty arising from corruption by those in government and their fronts, the message people take away is that of an insensitive government interested only in power ignoring the admonition of St Thomas Acquinas (1225-1274) ‘that government is about the people’.

    Consequently, if the objective of committing heinous crime against the people by Boko Haram was to portray PDP and the President as inept leaders pursuing anti-people policies, they seem to be succeeding. The insurgents have shown that they are not only effective on the battle-field, but that they are more strategic in their battle over the minds of their supporters as well as those of their victims. As against the government subliminal messages based on lies aimed at portraying Jonathan as the messiah we have been waiting for in spite of worsening insecurity, poverty in the midst of plenty and pervasive corruption and government impunity, Boko Haram’s brutal attack on innocent Nigerians which are often followed with the images of the President dancing in carnivals in Ilorin, Kano or as in Abuja Eagle Square last week, a day after brutal murder of over 50 innocent school boys left a more lasting unfavourable image of government. And in an age of social media, the footage of a dancing president in a PDP carnival, a day after such national tragedy that ought to have been declared a day of national mourning could not have been anything but a display of recklessness.

    It is not any more comforting that what went on at the Eagle Square last week was a celebration of injustice. There was no level playing ground. Jonathan candidacy was like everything else in PDP, a product of bargaining and trade-off by PDP governors who wanted automatic ticket for another term or those who wanted to go to the senate after eight years as governors. There was also stories of intimidation and blackmail of the President’s rivals some of whom were alleged to have been threatened with EFCC. It was also all about political subterfuge. While the President was telling Obasanjo who had reminded him of his pact with the northern governors whose turn it was to produce the presidency in 2011, he had not told anybody he was interested in the 2015 contest, his promoters armed with billions of naira were let loose on the land. In this misguided celebration, Christ message  of ‘equality, humility and service’ to rulers who must also be judged with the same moral compass with the ruled ‘ seemed to have been lost on the President and PDP that fraudulent calls itself Christian  party while denigrating the opposition as a party for Muslims.

    The question also arises as to why a nation at war needs such a jamboree and laying of red carpet to celebrate a Commander-in-Chief whose soldiers are in disarray with some finding their way to Cameroon. This was only a week after the fall of Mubi to Boko Haram and the attendant killing of over 200 innocent Nigerians. It was bad enough that this was six months after government’s failure to rescue over 200 girls abducted from their dormitories, but more tragic that it was the week parents who were told to expect the release of their loved ones following a cease-fire promoted by the chief of defence staff were rudely told by insurgents who outwitted government that the girls had been married out to insurgents or sold into slavery. And this was the very week the UN reported that Nigeria scored a world record as a country with the highest number of people (estimated at 4,000) killed in one year by insurgents.  The President’s declaration of interest last week ought to have been a period of deep reflection and not an occasion for pomp and pageantry. Sometimes it is difficult not to doubt the sincerity and loyalty of those paid by the taxpayers to protect the President against himself.

    At the end, the celebration was all noise and fury, signifying nothing beyond self-glorification. The president reeled out list of his achievements ranging from new power plants, an ‘African Great Green Wall’, rail lines, ‘gas infrastructure’, the National School Agriculture Programme, ‘ Nagropreneurs Programme’ and the ‘YouWin’, the establishment of 14 new universities and the Almajiri schools, the National Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP) and the National Enterprise Development Programme, all of which The Guardian in an insightful editorial described as ‘work in   progress’. Also listed as part of Jonathan success was “the rebasing of the Nigerian economy to now read a GDP of N80 trillion and the 26th largest in the world”, forgetting to add we have equally been classified as one of the poorest nations of the world. He also took credit for the containment of the Ebola Virus Disease credit that rightly belongs to Lagos State. The President also claimed “Some of our hospitals now perform open heart surgeries, kidney transplants and other challenging operations…” without identifying those hospitals which definitely do not include any of the government teaching hospitals  where patients buy water including UCH, once rated as one of the best in the whole of Commonwealth.

     On power generation, one would have expected the President to allow Nigerian electricity consumers who depend on cheap Chinese generators to power their houses and small business to pass the vote of confidence on his handling of the energy sector. The reality on ground is that government and its appointed agents generate only about 4500 MW, a marginal improvement on 4200MW, the late Governor Olusegun Agagu claimed was generated under Obasanjo in 2002 in spite of injection of between US$24 and 50 billion. Just as the President was awarding himself marks, his estranged godfather, ex-President Obasanjo was accusing his administration of scuttling the plan that would have taken Nigeria to aprojected 20,000MW by 2015.

    The president had hardly finished scoring himself high in the management of the economy when Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, often obsessed with economic growth rather than economic development, spoke of austerity measures as panic reaction to an unfavourable variation in the crude oil market finally admitting what informed Nigerians have said for years- a rentier nation importing the labour of other societies will end in economic ruin.

    What also got lost amidst last week carnival was the President’s undertaking while accepting his nomination as a candidate in 2011. He said, “It is with great humility that I accept the monumental mandate … This mandate is unique as it makes a decisive statement in the history of our great nation. This statement is that our people have chosen the unity of our country above all other considerations. It is a quantum leap into the great ideals to hold our great nation together”.

    Those ideals and its promoters like Obasanjo have been sacrificed in the pursuit of 2015 ambition. The President captured by ethnic irredentist has opted to put his fate in the hands of his South-south and South-east compatriots and praise singers as represented by ‘Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria’ (TAN), a clone of 1993 Arthur Nzeribe’s  ‘Association for Better Nigeria’ (ABN) that wanted Babangida to continue after  eight years of ‘transition without end’;  Daniel Kanu’s 1997 ‘Two million march of Youth Earnestly Ask for Abacha’ (YEAA) and  the self-serving sycophants that lured Obasanjo to his third term fiasco.

  • What election rigging may soon do to Nigeria

    What election rigging may soon do to Nigeria

    As a peasant farmer’s son, I knew that there were certain climbing parasitic weeds that we boys had to prevent at all costs from showing up in our father’s cocoa farm. Make the mistake of allowing them to grow there and they will climb and kill the cocoa trees.

    To the processes and health of democratic politics and society, election rigging is a killer parasite. It is the most vicious among the demons that have been gradually killing Nigeria since independence. Those of our influential politicians and top civil servants who strategized in the dark to rig our newly independent country’s first elections – the 1964 federal elections – may not have known the ultimate outcome of what they were starting. But we Nigerians of subsequent times now know that they planted the parasite that will, as things are now going, almost certainly kill Nigeria.

    Once election rigging establishes a presence in an avowedly democratic society, it is virtually impossible to remove – and the reason for that is that it titivates and romances one of the darkest and most powerful instincts of the human psyche – the urge to power, influence and glory. If others before you in positions of power in your country have rigged elections for themselves and their friends and gotten away with it, why would you not do it for yourself and your friends too? The outcome can only be that the persons in power will become more and more skilful in doing it. And the ultimate end will only be some kind of collapse of the society.

    Realistically, therefore, it seems very unlikely at this point that we can sustain Nigeria for much longer than now. It is not a question of whether or not we love Nigeria. Of course, very many of us love Nigeria and would wish that it would live on and become a great and powerful country in the world. I can never tire of saying this – that, as a young Nigerian in the 1950s and early 1960s, I grew up and matured  in a time when being a Nigerian was a huge pride in the world, and I cannot forget that or let it go away easily. But that is a totally different matter from the realities that I perceive all around me today. I love my friends and wish they would never die, but I know that, being the naturally fickle humans that we all are, we will all die – each in his or her own time. I love Nigeria, but I fear that a country that has become as sick as Nigeria has now become, and without any measurable effort at remedy too, will die and fizzle out, probably soon. It is very painful to me to write this last sentence, but at least some of us must boldly and clearly leave record of our fears and warnings about what is being done to our country today. No human country can possibly survive the periodic assault by the power of election rigging and its accompanying disruptions, especially when these are also allied to other deadly monsters like massive public corruption, massive poverty and hopelessness, massive inter-people animosities, massive religious intolerance and aggressiveness, and massive leadership and managerial incompetence.

    Among most Nigerians at home and abroad, and among most informed observers in most parts of the world, Nigeria’s coming elections of 2015 are arousing serious fears and questions. The vibrations emanating from Nigeria about the elections speak mostly of competing determinations to settle issues by crookedness and violence; they also very pointedly portend conflict and ruin. All over the country, people are no longer speaking of the well-known election rigging methods of the past, but of mind-bogglingly high technology rigging devices and methods of today. Fears that the federal government and its agencies (INEC, the Nigeria Police, the SSS, and even parts of the military) are bracing to carry out the most horrendous election rigging in Nigeria’s history are frightening masses of people and making others shake their heads in wonder. In Nigeria’s north-eastern region, one of the world’s most violent Islamic fundamentalist terror groups is expanding its massacres, kidnappings and destruction, as well as its area of control, and preparing to extend its devastations to the rest of Nigeria. Significant groups of leading citizens in the North-west and the South-south are escalating their already troubling sabre rattling. Openly and loudly, secretly and quietly, Nigerians in their millions are saying that 2015 is likely going to be the year of Nigeria’s implosion that many in the world – including well-informed agencies of the United States government – have been predicting or warning about for years.

    In fact, no serious-minded person now expects that the 2015 Nigerian presidential elections are sure to end peacefully in victory for any side. The talk of rigging is so totally universal and so trenchant among Nigerians. And the reasons for that are obvious and understandable. In over 50 years of the existence of Nigeria as an independent country, Nigeria has not succeeded – or even sincerely tried – to nurture federal agencies and public servants that can be relied upon to do their duties as impartial umpires in the political process. Politicians controlling the federal government at any time want the top police, secret service, electoral officials, and electoral tribunal judges, to see themselves, and to operate, as partisans of the ruling political party, and the officials, for the most part, do just that. They are therefore widely and profoundly distrusted by all other parties and groups. Naturally, to have a chance to compete reasonably at all, these other parties dig in and strive to influence and buy the officials of the federal agencies – which they sometimes succeed in doing.

    Therefore, whichever side is declared winner by the widely suspected electoral officials, or adjudged winner by the electoral tribunals, the other sides will very loudly and insistently claim that rigging has been done. And then, there is likely to follow the violence that some significant groups have been preparing for, and the rolling out of the sophisticated weapons that various groups have built up. And what may follow after that is impossible to tell – other than that countless Nigerians may lose their lives, that more may be displaced from their homes, and that the widening chaos may overflow and drown much of Africa.

    And yet – and yet – no notable Nigerian group is urging that the persons who rule and lead Nigeria should stop and look into this whole situation. No notable group is seriously suggesting that concerted efforts be made to halt the looming disaster. All that the rulers and influential politicians are talking about, all they are bent on securing, is “victory” – that is, victory for their own particular groups and desires. Simultaneously with the scenes of President Goodluck Jonathan’s victorious and jubilant declaration of his candidacy for the 2015 presidential election in Abuja last week, there appeared on television worldwide the horrifying sight of tens of Nigerian students who were blown to pieces at about the same time by a suicide bomber in a college in the Nigerian Northeast.  To the sane world, Nigeria has become something unknown, unknowable, and baffling.

  • Nigeria’s financial and economic prospects for FY 2015

    Nigeria’s financial and economic prospects for FY 2015

    In recent years, Nigeria’s financial and economic conditions have been generally favourable. Although it has not translated into any significant alleviation of mass poverty in the country, the annual economic growth rate of over six per cent is quite impressive.

     But, right now, economic prospects for next year do not appear to be good. Falling global oil prices this year have forced the Federal Government to review downwards both its revenue and budget estimates for the 2015 fiscal year. Referring to the grim situation and the report of the WB/IMF on the global impact of the slump in oil prices, the Finance Minister, Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has warned that the fall in oil prices ‘presents (Nigeria) with a serious challenge’, and that everyone in the nation should be prepared to make the necessary sacrifices called for by the slump in the price of oil.  In spite of the determined efforts over the year   s to diversify the structure of the domestic economy, revenue from oil still accounts for over 85 per cent of the total national revenue.

      Already, because of the fall in oil revenue, the excess crude oil account (ECA) from which both the federal and state governments draw has declined from $11.5 billion at the end of 2013 to only $4.11 billion now. Evidently, the drastic draw down is due to financial pressures that were not envisaged and for which there was no provision in the current budget. The states are currently demanding the further release to them of US$ 2 billion from the excess crude oil account. Anticipated revenue for the current year is N7.23 trillion. The Federal Government’s projected revenue for 2015 is N6.83 trillion, a staggering estimated loss in revenue of almost N500 billion.

      In response to the looming financial crisis, the Minister for Finance has announced several austerity measures to deal with the situation. First, instead of the current budget oil benchmark of $77 per barrel, the budget for next year will be based on a bench mark of $73 per barrel. A fall of only $4 per barrel in projected oil benchmark should not be unduly alarming, as the loss of oil revenue involved can be easily recovered from the slack in public taxation and a more stringent adherence to budget proposals. As is well known, one of the main problems with Nigeria’s public finance is its poor budget implementation and the lack of budget discipline. Extra budgetary public expenditures on non-critical sectors of the economy tend to aggravate the financial situation. Privatisation was intended to reduce public expenditure. But this has not happened, as the cost of government has continued to increase inexorably with the replication of several government agencies. The fight against public corruption has to be intensified.

      The cautiously expansionary budgets of recent years have certainly stimulated economic growth in the country. Most of this impressive economic growth is due to vastly increased foreign direct investment (FDI), including remittances from Nigerians abroad. But it is doubtful that these favourable economic and financial conditions can be sustained for much longer in view of the expected downturn in the global economy in the immediate future. Economic recovery in the European Union is sputtering. Even growth in China and India, the two fastest growing economies in the world, is beginning to slow down. China and India are now Nigeria’s largest oil importers. But next year and beyond, these two nations will import less oil from Nigeria due to the slump in global demand for manufactures. The United States has not only stopped importing oil from Nigeria completely, but has itself, thanks to its shale oil, become quite a big player in oil exports. So the lucrative American oil market has been lost to Nigeria- perhaps for good. But Nigeria has not yet made the necessary adjustments called for by the loss of the lucrative American oil market.

     The logic of these negative trends in the global economy has not been lost on Nigerian economic planners, and Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala’s dire economic prognosis and warnings should be well taken. Highlights of the austerity measures proposed by the Minister of Finance include a tight fiscal policy, a reduction in the allocation to the states and local governments from the federation accounts, a reduction in the general cost of administration, including a ban on non-essential foreign travels by public servants, better administration of the tax regime still, being largely evaded, and a cut in both recurrent and capital expenditures next year. Although she did not specifically say so, the Federal Government will be thinking of reviewing and eliminating some of the subsidies being enjoyed by the public. Of these, the so-called oil subsidy is the most obvious, but also the most contentious. Removal of the subsidy will increase the burden on the poor and increase the cost of doing business in the country as well. And there is no guarantee that the savings from the removal of the oil and other subsidies will be used prudently to mitigate its effect on the poor. Okonjo-Iweala has said agriculture and housing will be the core areas of investment next year. To these must be added the upgrading of the poor infrastructure, particularly power and public transportation, as well as the social sector of education and health.

     Obviously, the proposed austerity measures are intended to return the economy to a fiscal balance. They are no doubt necessary, but care should be taken to ensure that the cost -saving measures do not lead to an economic recession in the country. The Minister of Finance underlined the risks involved in a deflationary financial strategy when she said that there was no need to panic over the anticipated decline in oil revenue for next year, and that the economic fundamentals in the country were still quite strong. But there is going to be increased pressure on the naira exchange rate, which the government has been trying desperately to shore up by drawing increasingly on the foreign reserves. Given the expected decline in foreign exchange earnings from oil, which constitute about 75 per cent of all foreign exchange earnings from exports, the government may be forced to abandon its defence of the naira exchange rate, and allow some devaluation of the national currency. The naira exchange rate, currently at N160 to the US dollar, may go up as high as N180, or more next year. Of course, this will have negative consequences for the economy in terms of inflationary spiral and the creation of jobs, the Achilles heel of the domestic economy. This will be accompanied by a rise in the cost of living, and this expected development could lead to widespread demand for wage increases in all sectors of the economy. We can expect some Labour strikes next year in response to an increase in the cost of living. Fearing the possible devaluation of the naira, foreign investors have begun moving their capital from the domestic economy to other economies where there are better and more stable fiscal and monetary policies, particularly the exchange rates.

     It has been suggested in some powerful quarters that, to mitigate the negative effect of the decline in revenue on the domestic economy, the Federal Government should resort to deficit financing which will allow the public sector to borrow massively from the banking sector. Whatever might be the attractions of this alternative strategy, care should be taken to control and effectively manage the level of deficit financing so as not to completely crowd out the private sector from borrowing from the banks. There is some palpable fear in the private sector that any increase in the public sector borrowing requirements will damage the much desired expansion in the industrial sector, and consequently the prospects for job creation. Already, the domestic debt stock is much too high, and the foreign debt is beginning to mount again. Yet, the Federal Government is seeking to borrow some US$ 1 billion to better equip the Armed Forces to enable it tackle the growing Boko Haram terrorism. But a political resolution of the insurgency is more likely to succeed than a military solution.

     Elections are due in the first quarter of next year. This will lead to a slow down in public sector economic activities, as all energies will be diverted to the elections, particularly the presidential. The second quarter too will not generate more economic activities, as the new governments at both the federal and state levels will need some time to settle down. In the circumstances, some decline in the growth rate in 2015 should be anticipated. It is unlikely that the current growth rate of 6.5 per cent will be achieved next year. Altogether, 2015 is going to be a more difficult economic and financial year for the country.

  • Nigeria will be finished

    We belabour the ‘Nigerian dream.’ We abuse the idea that life will get better, that progress is assured if we keep faith, obey the rules and work hard, that prosperity is guaranteed if we continue to tread the slow, steady path to progress and a prosperous future. And in pursuit of these lofty ideals, we pervert the steady, measured, impartial course of the universe; hacking pliant paths to our dreams, from the crossroads where gluttony fosters depravity.

    Eventually, we awaken to a cold, bitter truth: We are being sacrificed. The Nigerian dream we are sold isn’t worth our sacrifice. And the individual dreams we pursue, aren’t worth a smidgen of what we make them out to be. By the time we all struggle to achieve our dreams; Nigeria will be finished. Given that each tribe may finally achieve its dreams of nationhood via secession, Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Ijaw to mention a few may establish their new nations.

    When we do, the swollen belly of our idiocy and pride shall become clearly visible to us. When it does, it shall suddenly dawn on us that, all along, we had been blindly acting to a script prepared by career predators from Western nations of Europe, America and our ruling class.

    The truth shall become clearer to us in intensity and impact and we shall hopelessly realize that we are being sacrificed. We will all be sacrificed; some of us much quicker than others. As it is now, so shall it be in our new nations, the Biafran youth, Ijaw youth, Oodua youth and Arewa youth to mention a few, shall become disposable indices in the scheme of things.

    But until then, we will continue to have today and squander it on the altar of racism and greed. Today, it’s impossible to see any offspring of our ruling class engage or become embroiled in the familiar tragedies that mar our lives. It’s always the children from the breadlines, struggling middle class and backwaters that are involved. We are the youth divide traditionally expected and required to function and serve as unquestioning muscles and ordinary cannon fodder in the ruling class’ blueprint of pillage and destruction.

    The decline of Nigeria is a story of gross injustices by the ruling class to the citizenry. But that is only an aspect of it, the greatest injustice is that meted out by individual citizen to self – the youth particularly. And this predominant malaise often plays out in our corruptibility and disinclination to foster a more humane leadership and society.

    Today, we suffer declining standards of living, stagnant and falling wages that are hardly paid at due time; we suffer curtailment and absolute denial of our basic wages, long-term unemployment, slave labour, escalating crime wave, among other ills.

    Together, we perpetuate gruesome realities of the weakest being crushed decisively and maniacally by the affluent and strong. Together, we perpetuate a story of unbridled sectarian, ethnic and corporate power that has taken our government hostage, overseen the dismantling of our cultural heritage, societal and entrepreneurial values.

    But if the ruling class, in connivance with predatory nations and institutions from the so-called ‘first world’ is responsible for plundering our natural resources and bankrupting the nation, we, the youth, are responsible for even worse atrocities.

    We serve as the tools by which the ruling class and its cohorts overseas plunder and destroy our nation. The virus of political corruption, the perverted belief that only political and material profit matters, has spread to distort our thoughts and understanding of right and wrong. Today, it manifests in endemic proportions plaguing our communities with religious and political terrorism, economic and cyber-terrorism to mention a few.

    Today, the Nigerian society dies a gruesome death basically because we lay to waste, our youths and we, the latter, by our suicidal actions and thoughts, submit ourselves as hopeless prey to the Nigerian ruling class and their cohorts overseas.

    Everyday encounters with gluttonous gangs of struggling youth reveals among other things, that many of us are the same social products as our peer from the aristocratic divide. Conditioned by life’s harshest vicissitudes to survive at all cost, we lay in wait, striving and bidding our time until we are ably positioned and strong enough to serve or rob the rich whose life we earnestly covet and decry.

    A visit to any night club, party, religious organization or office still attests to this fact. Ambitious and upwardly mobile youth from the breadlines or struggling working class families engage in a variety of excesses to the applause of mates yearning to be in their shoes. Either as advance fee fraudsters, bankers, journalists, accountants, secretaries, factory hands or ordinary clerks, youths from the breadlines daily engages in a bitter, desperate struggle to chance on the shortest possible cut to sudden and stupendous wealth.

    We seem beset by a greater and unexplainable fear beyond the fear of poverty amongst other harsh realities of their lives. Fear plays a greater part than hope: we are infinitely buoyed and obsessed with thoughts of the money that we could make or the possessions that might be taken from us or elude us, than of the joy and value that we might add to our own lives and to the future of our fatherland.

    Most of us, like our more privileged peer crave the best of everything without actually sweating for it. And when we do sweat for it, our industry is tainted by vigorous dashes of impatience and duplicity. In our work, we are haunted by jealousy of competitors, and a fleeting interest in the actual work that has to be done. We spend greater time and passion defending unjust privileges that we are desperate to enjoy.

    Such appalling youth constitute a greater segment of the human element expected to salvage Nigeria from eternal ruin and bloodbath. Consequently, our society becomes more rudderless and unstable and vulnerable, on our watch. Now that Nigeria as our fathers, ‘the wasted generation’ made it, and we the youth, aggravate it, have begun to collapse, we withdraw from the possibility of rebirth, and instead choose to exploit the infinite possibilities in our fragility and predicted collapse.

    It’s about time the Nigerian youth started postponing immediate gratification and endure hard sacrifices spurred by conviction that the future can be better than the past. Beyond the politics and inanities of our existing ruling class and political parties, we face far more difficult questions at our moment in history: How do we reconcile reality with promises that have been made to us? How do we make the best of our circumstances at the backdrop of indefensible leadership failure and disillusionment of the citizenry?  How do we evolve and nurture to fruition, a new vision to help us deal with our gruesome realities, even as we chart a promising story of the future? How do we divorce ourselves from the pains and disappointments of the past – particularly those that many of amongst us had no stake in but yet internalize and perpetuate unexplainable miseries thereby?

    How do we redefine “Peace, Unity and Progress” with our lust for “Life, Liberty and Happiness?”  How do we become more human than we are now?

  • Abba: The first 100 days

    Abba: The first 100 days

    IT has been more than 100 days since July 31 when Suleiman Abba was named Acting Inspector–General of Police. The next day at the Villa in Abuja, he excitedly raised his hands like a politician and flashed those toothy smiles as he posed for photographers. If not for the uniform, many would have thought he was just an ordinary fellow who had just won the lottery.  But then, isn’t a police chief’s job seen among officers as hitting the jackpot?

    There were hopes and expectations of a new era amid daunting tasks. Boko Haram had moved from a band of violent intruders to an army of insurgents, snatching town after town and village after village to realise its dream of a caliphate. Armed robbers seized cities by the throat, as if they had sworn to an oath to avenge some inexplicable wrong. Kidnappers cut short what looked like a short vacation and stepped up their evil trade. Communal clashes failed to subside.

    Abba, a tested officer, vowed to tackle them all. He set his hand to the plough. But time, that old trickster, is at its game. It is just a little over 100 days since Abba mounted the saddle. Now, many are saying haba!

    He announced his arrival with a massive shake-up, which many an observer insisted was made to favour his cronies. A police chief eager to change things would have departed from the old way of seeing postings as a largesse for the boys, but a tool for fundamental change that will enhance professionalism and change the perception of the police as an organisation with little or no redeeming feature. An officer is asked to police an area that is strange to him in culture and history. He ends up muddling things up. This won’t ever help the police.

    Abba was never bothered by such criticisms. He was too busy making history. Now it shall be recorded that under him the Police Academy in Gwarzo was on August 20 seized and turned into a Boko Haram camp. Besides, no fewer than 30 trainee-policemen were abducted, perhaps never to be found again, their families left to mourn their horrific fate.

    Good news–Abba said yesterday that one had returned; now 29 missing. Will they ever return?

    When reporters pestered him with questions on the trainees, Abba would sometimes reply that efforts were being made to secure their release, saying nothing about the nature of such efforts and who was making them. Other times, he sounded helpless, pleading for help to find the missing men.

    If a police training facility could be overrun and annexed so easily by Boko Haram insurgents, then the September 18 invasion of the College of Education in Kano was no surprise. A gang of gunmen stormed the school while lectures were in full swing. They were shooting and throwing bombs. The pandemonium was unimaginable. By the time the smoke cleared off the scene, 13 students lay dead. Two gunmen also died.

    These incidents, one had thought, were enough to embarrass any police chief. Not so Abba. Some of his men are redefining the job, even as he carries on like a builder who has no architectural drawing.

    The repulsive abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls has elicited emotional reactions from the world. The BringBackOurGirls campaigners have been meeting in Abuja to arouse whatever is left of the government’s conscience to the need for these girls’ rescue. First, the government called the protesters names and claimed –without any proof whatsoever – that they were being sponsored by the opposition. Then, it encouraged those campaigning for President Goodluck Jonathan’s second term to mount electronic billboards as a kind of distraction at the venue of the daily protests. Instead of deterring the protesters, the cowardice fired them up the more – to the shame of the Jonathan-for-2015 crowd.

    Enter Mbu Joseph Mbu. The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Police Commissioner suddenly announced that rallies had been banned, warning the Chibok girls campaigners to go home or get arrested. The world was appalled. Abba watched as Mbu turned the police into a laughing stock, until a court stepped in to stop the joke, ruling that the police could not ban rallies.

    But Mbu wasn’t done. Puffed up with conceit, he recalled his tour of duty in Rivers State and described himself as a leopard who tamed the lion – a curious allegorical allusion to his unnecessary running battle with Governor Rotimi Amaechi, in which he was apparently doing the Villa’s bidding.

    Not quite long after, a reporter, Amaechi Anakwe, described Mbu as controversial in a report. Mbu “the lion”  roared into action. He seized the reporter and hurled him into detention. The next day, he bundled the poor fellow before a magistrate. He was granted bail.

    It is not on record that Abba called Mbu to order. There were suggestions that he gave Mbu a slap on the wrist because he was afraid that the Villa could reprimand him.

    Not long ago, former Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) President Okey Wali was kidnapped. Lawyers cried out. His family screamed and prominent Nigerians pleaded for his release. His abduction provided a vivid picture of the danger we all face. Eventually, Wali was let go by his abductors, obviously after getting a hefty ransom. The police are yet to arrest a suspect.

    As if these were not nauseating enough, the police became an accomplice in the assault on the Judiciary, an institution it is expected to protect and respect. When the then governor-elect of Ekiti State, Mr Ayo Fayose, visited the Election Petition Tribunal where his victory at the June 21 election was being challenged, a band of thugs went on the rampage on the premises, which also houses the State High Court, smashing windows and tearing documents. A judge was beaten up, his dress shredded. The police watched the scene, unmoved.

    Besides, the police also lent their strength to the despicable siege to the courts, sealing off the place and preventing judges from sitting for many days. The louder the protestations against this aberration, the longer Abba and his men stood their ground. At a point when they no longer could shut down an arm of the government without an explanation – an action legal giants described as a coup – the police said they were simply keeping their lordships from harm’s way as they had found a bomb on the premises. “Could you show us the bomb?” “How soon will it be removed?” their lordships asked the police. There was no answer.

         But the National Judicial Council (NJC) insisted that the rights of the courts to  adjudicate on disputes without hassles from any quarters must be enforced. The Chief Judge should reopen the courts, it said. By that time, the partisanship and stupidity of the police had become so glaring that they could no longer hide behind one finger. They then withdrew from the courts. No apologies. No regrets. No qualms. Haba!

    Louis Edet, Kam Salem and all those other noble souls who nursed the police to maturity must be spinning in their graves.

    The other day when House of Representatives Speaker Aminu Tambuwal  dumped the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the All Progressives Congress (APC), the Villa’s anger hit the overdrive. Apparently playing the good boy, Abba – parading a dubious interpretation of the law – withdrew Tambuwal’s guards.

    Abba’s police became the PDP’s court and the enforcer of the law. There were cases in court on the matter of politicians leaving one party for another. That did not matter to Abba. A court has ruled that he was wrong. We await his reaction.

    It is not as if Abba’s report card has been all-red. No. The other day in Edo State, a man lured a dog into an uncompleted building and slept with the animal. Neighbours seized him and raised the alarm. The police, ever vigilant, promptly arrested the suspect and announced that he would soon be charged to court. The owner of the dog, apparently disappointed by its attitude, disowned it. The police are yet to tell us what fate befell the poor dog. Neither do we know if the suspect has been taken to court. Investigations continue? Anyway, I am told, the suspect remains on bail – remember bail is free o!

    Dogs seem to be giving Abba’s police a nightmare. Two dogs that attacked a kid at Igando on the outskirts of Lagos have been booked. Their owner has been arrested after a painstaking investigation conducted by experienced officers. The dogs, I learnt, will soon have their day in court. Good job. A sloppy police would have found the dogs but not their owners or the owners and not the dogs. Abba’s police found both. Bravo!

    A word for Abba and all those using the police to promote impunity: anarchy blows no siren. We must avoid it. How? By building institutions and respecting the rule of law.

  • Lagos School of History: An exploratory discourse – 3

    The Lagos School of History was more concerned with relevance of the discipline to national and international problems facing Nigeria. The Lagos School did not want to concede finding solutions to political, social and economic problems of Nigeria to political scientists and economists because the study of history probably provides a more solid foundation for understanding the problems of social and economic development. And in any case history provides the basic foundational structure from which the social sciences take off. Even though most of the staff of the Department of History in Lagos were trained outside the University of Lagos and came from different universities ranging from the University of Ibadan, American, British, Australian and Canadian universities and have trained and written their doctoral dissertations not with the aim of developing any school, they however found themselves involved in what later became the Lagos School of History.

    One of the interesting things about the Lagos School was its bias for International Relations, Biographies, Defence Studies, Cultural, Maritime and Economic History. The founding fathers of the department were Professor A.B. Aderibigbe, who had interest in the history of the city of Lagos, Professor Olusanya whose interest was nation-building, the rise of Nigerian nationalism and international relations, Professor Gbadebo Gbadamosi whose interest lay in Islamic tradition and culture in western Nigeria and Professor Tunde Agiri whose interest was economic development.

    They all applied their scholarship to the socio-political problems of the times. And just like the Ibadan people, they were able to create niches for themselves especially in the functional approach to history. Professor Tony Asiwaju brought his wealth of border land studies and boundaries into play in assisting the National Boundaries Commission as a member of the Commission and later as a member of the International Commission on the Bakasi Question. His training and dissertation on Western Yorubaland under Western colonialism with its emphasis on comparative assessment of British and French colonialism provided a foundation for his training and development as a boundary man and he was able to leverage this in helping Nigeria to resolve boundary problems both nationally and internationally. This columnist trained in Canada and his training in military, diplomatic and international relations evidenced by his book on Nigeria in the First World War provided the basis for his branching into international relations where his study of relations between Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea launched him into the policy arena of international relations.

    Professor Ade Adefuye even though majored in East African History has since shifted his focus to Nigerian foreign policy and cultural diplomacy and this has led him into diplomatic representation of Nigeria in Jamaica, Great Britain, United States and in working in the Commonwealth secretariat. Junior colleagues and students of these trailblazers have found niches in economic, defence, maritime, ethnic, naval and social history. The significant thing about the Lagos School is its relevance.

    The engagement of members of the department with the government in several advisory capacities led at one time three members of the department being appointed ambassadors and at another time Professor Olusanya was appointed Director-General of N.I.I.A., while Professor A.I. Asiwaju was appointed member of National Boundaries Commission, and this writer became Special Adviser to the Ministry of External Affairs and later ambassador to Germany after having served in quasi-diplomatic posts in Ottawa and Washington DC. What was significant about all this was the placement of round pegs in round holes. Most of the post-graduate students coming out of the Lagos School attempt to study topics that are of direct application to policy without sacrificing the rigour of historical analysis.

    Within the last decade, two doctoral dissertations from the department were adjudged the best in the Humanities Law and social sciences in Nigeria by the National Universities Commission. Recent theses coming out of the department of history, University of Lagos bear out the orientation of applied history which is the strength of the department. These dissertations include A.O. Ogunyemi “Federal Budgets in Nigeria, 1954-1999”, O.J. Ogen “The Ikale of South Eastern Yorubaland1500-1900”, Paul A. Osifodunrin “Violent Crimes in Lagos 1861-2000”, Ganiyu O. Davies “The Interconnectedness of Urbanisation and Colonial Land Policies in Lagos 1914-1960”, Uche Igwe “The Impact Migrant Labour from Owerri Province on the Economy of Eastern Nigeria 1915-1965”, Obichere G. Iwuagwu “Socio-Economic History of Food Crop Production in Igboland 1900-1980”, Victor Ukaogo “From Palm Oil to Crude Oil: The Impact of International Trade on Niger-Delta Communities 1895-1995”, Femi Adegbulu “Oyo from the 16th to the 19th Century: A Study of External Relations of an African State”, Danladi A. Ali “Nature and Impact of Trade and Inland Water Transport in the Lower Niger Region 1879-1997”, Irene Osemeka “The Casamance Peace Process 1947-2004”, Kenneth C. Nwoko “The International Committee of the Red Cross in Nigeria 1960-2007”, Uche Okonkwo “A Socio-Economic History of Alcohol in South Eastern Nigeria since 1890”, Sikiru Momodu “Nigeria and International Labour Organisation 1945-1993”, Falode A. James “The State and Nation Building in Nigeria 1967-2007”, David Aworawo “Diplomacy and Development of Equatorial Guinea 1900-1990”, Monday M. Ogbeidi “Educational Exchanges in Nigeria-USA Cultural Relations 1938-1988”.

    In the same vein and following the same tradition and trajectory of relevance are the current ongoing doctoral dissertations namely; Ogunjewo Henry Bandele Diplomatic Missions and Foreign Relations: A History of the Nigerian Mission to the United Kingdom 1960—2010, Anaemene Benjamin Uchena Nigeria and the World Health Organisation 1960-2007: A Study in Health Diplomacy, Friday Aworawo Third-Party Intervention in Intra-State Conflicts in Africa: A Comparative Study of Chad and Sierra Leone 1975-2005, Segun Bolarinwa A History of Development Initiatives in Africa 1975 to the Present, Adinuba Bernard Chuks The Quest for Food Security in Anambra State, 1960-1991: A Historical Analysis, Bernard Fyanka History of Small Arms Control in Nigeria and Liberia 1967-2012: Implications for Peace Building and Security, Eguedo-Okoeguale Hysaint Nigeria-India Relations, 1960-2010: A Study in South-South Cooperation and Development, Chilaka Edmund Mbama Ghana’s National Shipping Line and Ghana’s Black Star Line 1957-1998, Grace Emeka Ogubo Economic Impact of Colonial Rule on the Upper Cross-River Region 1900-1960, Adeogun Adebayo Hegemons and Regional Economic Integration: Nigeria in ECOWAS and South Africa in SADC, Ashe Muesiri A Historical Study of Local Government Administration in Urhoboland 1917-1999, Decker Jonathan B. A History of the Poor in Lagos 1861-1967.

    From these doctoral dissertations, it is clear that the orientation of the Lagos School of History is what may be called applied or functional history, not just history for history’s sake, neither is it in the tradition of total detachment from subject matter like those followers of Leopold Von Ranke tradition of historicism. A.J.P. Taylor, distinguished Regius Professor of history in Cambridge dared to say history should not be written with the purpose of its relevance to present events or situation but should be written from pure academic detachment and that a historian should never worry about where his scholarship may lead.

     

  • Okupe defines Jonathan presidency

    Doyin Okupe is an illustrious scion of illustrious pa Mathew Okupe of ‘Agbonmagbe’ bank fame. The father was one of the wealthiest Nigerians of his time. Young and gifted Doyin must have resolved at an early age not to fall below his illustrious father’s social ladder. Perhaps for this reason, although  a trained medical doctor, he thrives more as a politician  and contractor, the two most rewarding callings  in our nation, where any upstart without Okupes talents and the privilege of being born with a silver spoon effortlessly finds himself at the top of the social ladder.  Goodluck Jonathan, an unknown shoeless school boy turned President, finds men of influence like Okupe irresistible. Even when the President was forewarned while appointing him to launder the image of his government, that Okupe, by his caustic tongue and temperament would create more enemies for the President, he did not give a damn. All that mattered was having a man of influence like Okupe on his side to intimidate his political adversaries. But tragically, Okupe has turned out to define all that is wrong with Jonathan’s presidency.

    Of course, President Jonathan has reaped handsomely from his investment on Okupe. Unfortunately for us as a nation, the President’s gain is Nigeria’s loss. As predicted, Okupe has with his caustic tongue alienated some of those whose name Jonathan once swore by. For instance, the President once rated Obasanjo as the greatest influence in his life after God and his parents. Few weeks back, Okupe wrote Obasanjo off as being incapable of winning any election for PDP in the South-west. He traded him off for Buruji Kashamu, the President’s new friend and Obasanjo’s foe. Not too long ago, he also questioned Pastor Tunde Bakare’s credentials for criticizing government economic policies. At the  time Okupe was serving a different master, it was Bakare who mobilized his group  to secure for the President, his  constitutional right, then abridged by ailing Yar’ Adua’s  kitchen cabinet headed by now jailed James Ibori.

    Just as he had turned old friends to sworn foes at home, he has by his haughtiness and offensive habit of denying what would be obvious even to the half blind, forced exasperated traditional friends of Nigeria in the international community to give up on the search for the abducted Chibok 200 girls ‘wishing Goodluck’s Nigeria, good luck’. Others have publicly challenged the President over his handling of corruption among his party men. Even African leaders like Yoweri Museveni of  Uganda, tongue in cheek says to his people that certain things cannot happen in his country because Ugadan is not  Nigeria while South  Africa that has, according to Mandela always looked up to Nigeria as hope of Africa, recently gave President Jonathan a stern warning that the type of impunity that thrives in Nigeria has no place in South Africa when it confiscated $15 million illegally ferried to the country in a private jet with government backing.

    Last week, Okupe totally went out of control directing his diatribe at those who have in the wake of worsening insecurity problems reminded the President that a government that cannot secure life and property of the people loses the raison d’être of government and thus loses its legitimacy. Puffing and huffing, Okupe whimsically dismissed ‘Bola Tinubu andhis colleagues in the opposition as a bunch of political anarchists and charlatans blinded by an unbridled appetite for power’. Where what was expected of an image maker was to reassure the public of what government was doing, his puerile message to embarrassed Nigerians and besieged people of parts of Nigeria now under the control of cave men was to remind us ‘it was leading members Tinubu’s party who vehemently opposed and openly criticised the proscription of the Boko Haram sect by the federal government in 2013.’ With such, mischief and insensitivity, Nigerians can see why Boko Haram appears unstoppable.

    Governor Babatunde Fashola, also had a taste of Okupe’s caustic tongue. Fashola had at the 50th birthday celebration of former Governor Timipre Sylva said Jonathan’s government “had been inactive for three years and in the fourth year intends to give the electorate kerosene, price and money for the purpose of seeking their votes.” Okupe’s specious response was, ‘I want to say that we have no apologies for stating the obvious fact that this administration has surpassed all the others before it.’ Okupe forgets it is only the citizens who can say that. But he did not stop at that. He went on to query Governor Fashola  for ‘coming to Abuja to give a satirical lecture pretending to be a catholic priest after ‘leaving the putrid stench of alleged financial immorality and impropriety in Lagos where under his watch it is rumored that private individuals have acquired more wealth than the state government’. And now because of what Okupe described as rumor, Fashola has lost his right to call attention to the federal government mishandling of our economy and the war against insurgency that threaten the survival of the nation.

    Besides Tinubu and Fashola, there were others at the receiving end of Okupe’s diatribe last week. The Deputy Governor of Borno state, Zanna Mustapha’s observation that ‘it is a big crime that the criminals are better equipped than the military’ and that going by the ease with which Boko Haram was capturing territories in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, (over 20 LGA as at the last count), “If the Federal Government does not add extra effort, in the next two to three months, the three North-eastern states will no longer be in existence.”  That, in addition to Atiku’s own warning that ‘if the activities of the insurgents were not quickly curtailed, they could overrun the entire region,’ attracted only the usual Okupes’s tirade. His bizarre response was ‘to recommend critics of Jonathan’s handling of Boko Haram insurgency for a psychiatric test’. And as a merchant of mischief, he added ‘it was wrong for someone aspiring to lead the country to speak ill of the armed forces because he would command the same military if elected’. As an image maker who pretends not to know the buck stops on his principal’s table, he alleged  ‘it was the people like Atiku Abubakar who said that those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable’, before the 2011 election that encouraged Boko Haram to take up arms against their state’. Such crooked logic only confirms the fears of those who insist Jonathan’s government is clueless. And if Nigerians wanted an answer as to why Boko Haram outwitted Nigeria authorities, capturing the chief of defence staff’s town and torching his personal house while he was busy selling a non-existent cease fire agreement to Nigerians and assuring parents to expect the release of their loved ones abducted over six months ago, it was precisely because we have men who trade in mischief thinking for government.

    Okupe probably persuaded the President that Shettima who had in February said “Boko Haram are better armed and are better motivated than our own troops. Given the present state of affairs, it is absolutely impossible for us to defeat Boko Haram,” was out to undermine the efforts of the military and subvert Jonathan’s presidency. The president soon followed what was nothing but blackmail, to threaten Shettima that if he withdrew the soldiers from Borno, Shettima would not be able to hold on to his coveted office of governor for long.  Today, nine months after Shettima’s alarm and the president’s un-presidential response to a patriotic call to avert a looming tragedy, the chicken has finally come home to roost. Nigeria has now been said to have the highest number of terrorist killings in the world with over 4000 lives lost in the past year. While government was scrambling for $1 billion foreign loan to buy arms, Boko Haram has moved out of Sambisa forest capturing an area said to be larger than Ekiti and Ondo states.

    And finally, the damning verdict Okupe had tried to keep away from Nigerians is now in the open. A former British military attaché recently confirmed what concerned Nigerian had always feared- that the Nigeria military is “a shadow of what it’s reputed to have once been. It’s fallen apart.” They are short of basic equipment, including radios and armoured vehicles. Morale is said to be low. The country’s defense budget accounts for more than a third of the security budget of $5.8 billion, but only 10% is allocated to capital spending’ .

  • The Jonathan heritage

    When the question arose in 2010 about a successor to President Umaru Yar’Adua who had fallen in the course of national service, I was one of many who automatically and instinctively supported the then Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan. As far as I and the group I belonged to were concerned, the constitutional position was clear and unassailable on the subject.

    But, apart from the constitutional propriety, we had other more serious reasons to support Jonathan. In our view, the fact that Jonathan came from a minority southern nationality was a God-given asset in the prevailing situation of Nigeria. And his minority nationality was not just any minority nationality; it was the minority nationality which had since independence suffered the most egregiously from the Federal Government’s insensitive and roguish attitudes to the oil wealth in the Niger Delta, and which had stood in the forefront of resistance to the Federal Government’s brigandage. As a university student in the early 1960s, I had been personally acquainted with Isaac Adaka Boro; and Ken Saro Wiwa and I had trodden the academic corridors of University College Ibadan and University of Ibadan at roughly the same time and shared a little together in some activities of the students’ community.  Among us therefore, there was strong generational and other kinds of loyalty for these Delta heroes, as well as for their kinsmen who had died fighting by their side, and for the millions of their people who had been, and were still being, brutally pauperized by the side-effects of the oil industry assisted by the inhuman neglect by the rulers of Nigeria.

    Even more importantly, and above all else, a Jonathan presidency obviously held out, in our assessment, the strong probability that the Nigerian federation would at last be properly restructured and that Nigeria would be saved. The complex mess in which Nigeria had landed itself by 2010 had, without any doubt, been caused by those who had controlled Nigeria since independence and who had gradually destroyed the federal make-up of Nigeria and replaced it with an all-controlling federal establishment. To have a minority man from the Delta as president for some years would, we hoped, at least begin to resuscitate the federal structure of Nigeria – and thereby give Nigeria a new chance to revive, survive and go on to thrive.

    It has not happened. Apparently, no matter who is president, it cannot be done. Another southern president, Obasanjo, could not do it too. President Jonathan says he wants to seek one more term, and the constitution seems to make that available to him. During the recent National Conference, some leaders at the conference confronted me with the question whether, on the basis of the Nigerian Constitution, President Jonathan could legitimately run again, and my answer was yes. My answer is still yes.

    But both that question and my answer are beside the real point. The real point is whether President Jonathan should be running around about re-election now – all things considered.

    If Nigeria was only shaking by 2010, it is actively ripping apart today. Rather than getting ready for the 2015 elections, significant sections of Nigeria are amassing weapons and getting ready for a civil war. Many even openly avow civil war intentions, and threaten to kill, maim and destroy if what they want is denied them. And from what is now generally known, Nigeria does not command the will or the means for stopping any Nigerian group that is seriously bent on violence and destruction. We all know that – there is no room left for self-deception any more.

    In the three states of the North-east – Borno, Adamawa and Yobe, representing about one-sixth of Nigeria – Boko Haram is now no longer a mere insurrectionist rebel force; it has become, for most practical purposes, the holder of an alternative country – according to Boko Haram’s leaders, a Caliphate separate from Nigeria. Observers on the spot report that most of the important bridges linking these three states with the rest of Nigeria have been destroyed and that Boko Haram’s flags now fly over almost all the towns and villages. I am still inclined to refrain from making any derogatory statement about the Nigerian armed forces, but most observers have now learnt to watch the performances of the armed forces rather than listen to their words in this struggle with Boko Haram. Questions about who started, who is supporting, or who is using, Boko Haram have become essentially academic. Whatever source Boko Haram is getting its support from must be substantial and solid, and Nigeria does not seem to command the capability to counter that effectively.

    Most serious of all, and over-arching all else, is the fact that economic forces are arising that are likely to begin to undermine Nigeria’s already fragile political strength. The main pillar of the Nigerian economy, oil, has run into trouble. Until this past June, the world price of oil still stood as high as $115 per barrel. It has now fallen to under $80 and continues to fall – with the probability that it may fall below $70 soon.

    For Nigeria, some factors make these falls particularly troubling. Even if the falls come to be temporary worldwide, Nigeria may have longer lasting problems. The United States, the largest buyer of Nigeria’s oil, has almost suddenly increased its own domestic oil production in the course of the past year or so, resulting in predictions that America will begin to cut down on oil imports soon – and even soon become a net exporter of oil. Another major buyer of Nigeria’s oil, China, is now experiencing a deceleration in its economic growth, resulting in declines in its oil imports. Moreover, China has been turning more and more to Russia for its purchases of oil. And to make the situation worse, Nigeria is widely reported to be exporting less and less oil – because of greatly increased stealing of oil in the Niger Delta oil fields – through the practice known as “bunkering”. Nigeria has thus entered into a big prospect of unpredictability in its oil incomes.

    And now, the time may have come for Nigeria to suffer for the folly of depending on oil predominantly and doing almost nothing about developing other resources.  The quickest way to get a feel of Nigeria’s economic troubles is in the states of the Nigeria federation. Many months ago, a Nigerian Senator alarmed the country about the terrible financial conditions of the states. According to him, many states were becoming unable to pay the salaries of state employees, and many states were borrowing money to keep their services going at all. Soon after, the governors themselves, in the Governors Forum, confirmed these things. From all reports, the situation is getting out of hand right now, as state officials are having to return to their states from Abuja with less and less money than their states are entitled to.

    What Nigeria needs from President Jonathan is to give Nigeria a clear picture of all these troubles. In these circumstances, his seeking re-election is a distraction. We almost certainly have reached the point at which we Nigerians must determine the future of Nigeria. Rather do it peacefully than let us stumble on into chaos and massive conflicts.