The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Useful ‘idiots’ (1)

    An Ivy League education without ethics makes a trust fund ‘baby’ an expensive toy without batteries. Substandard education makes the middling youth even worse; it moulds him into a broken toy without appeal. They are both disposable but they enjoy patronage anyway – by the ones Wole Soyinka eloquently described as the wasted generation.

    The Nigerian youth is a breed with all the personality of a paper cup. Thus like paper cups, we are used and disposed by men and women unfit to be elders. Yet whatever callousness we are forced to endure, our elders are not to blame. They shall not be blamed, for we made ourselves unbidden offering on the altar of vultures.

    It is the malady of this age that the youth are too busy preaching that they have no time left to learn. In Nigeria, we are too busy dumbing down that we barely have time left to grow. It is a sad manifestation of stunted growth that we evolve into foetal adults and spend the rest of our lives seeking the comfort of debilitating “life boats.”

    It is even more disheartening to see us adopt as a favourite past time, the pillorying of our elders and the rapacious ruling class. Many a Nigerian youth love to prophesy the worst about our fatherland thus it is never surprising to hear the average Nigerian youth pronounce with emphatic pessimism and relish that “This country is doomed,” and “Nigeria is finished.”

    The Igbo youth laments his persistent marginalization from the scheme of things/bounties. He believes Nigeria is skewed to work against him and fellow Igbo because his peers from other ethnic groups are wary of his towering acumen, industry, courage and political savvy. The Hausa youth believes he has inalienable right to statutorily and heavenly accorded rights to reign supreme and lord it over his peers irrespective of merit. And the Yoruba youth, goaded by sentiments of his higher wisdom, towering depth in diplomacy, culture and politics believes that he is entitled to the best the country has to offer, on a platter of gold.

    Every youth desperately perpetuates his sense of victimhood and entitlement. The idea is to keep whining until he gets lucky and corners an immense portion of the proverbial national cake – with minimal exertion and at no cost.

    We used to be regarded as the promising youth, the gifted generation that would rescue Nigeria from the brink of irredeemable ruin. But that spell of hopefulness has dissipated now. Our “wasted” elders have seen through our noise and bluster. They know we are increasingly handicapped by greed and lack of creed. By creed, I mean a coherent and specific set of goals, a consistent series of norms according to which society is to be remade.

    Since we have learnt to blame the ruling class for everything, what is it that we want from the ruling class? We don’t need their permission to make something of the world where they have failed but we still live our lives seeking their permission to evolve positively and maturely.

    It takes courage and an enormous reserve of decency to evolve a humane ideology and establish it. We haven’t the courage and the will, and this interferes with our ability to accomplish progressive change. More worrisome are our violent attempts to be radical; eventually they resonate too feebly as a kind of rudderless activism.

    We identify all that is wrong with our society but we are never specific about what must be done to correct them. It is relatively easy to join a picket line and tirelessly castigate our elders and ruling class for everything that is wrong with our lives but these actions, while they demonstrate frustration, in some instances even heroism, deal generally with symptoms of· our problems and not the solutions. All the picket lines in the world will not resolve the maladies of fraudulent and impatient youth, perverted values, greed, racism, disillusionment with scholarship and substandard education.

    A broad wave of disillusionment and darkness persists above the silver linings we desperately wish to succeed our darksome clouds. Yet with precision and unfaltering devotion, we work ourselves up into such a state that we can only see the volcanic flare of our destructive acts as glitters of grandeur.

    We have perfected the art of standing on barrel-heads to spout and be seen, while we engage in pursuit and acquisition of mostly unearned wealth and greatness. Eventually, we luxuriate and spread out like a green forest with sour fruits and severed roots.

    Apparently, we suffer a throwback to the 70s – the era that launched a trend in which Nigerians became preoccupied with themselves more than the survival of the nation. Self preservation has become an inexorable obsession of many youths seeking to escape the slow, steady path with its craters of mishap and socio-economic vagaries.

    What Joshua Lubin identifies as the “Me” decade has indeed, recoiled inward rather than concern itself with crucial national issues, like national progress and ethical rebirth. Therefore, popular culture attracts dubious labels such as “narcissistic” and “decadent” from critics and the “wasted” older generation.

    The Nigerian youth has become so self-involved that almost every action and train of thought perpetuated by him serves as an instrumental resource to situate this generation in historical context, as perfect illustration of the much-hackneyed and over-exploited “Lost Generation.”

    Our inordinate quest for self-fulfillment further establishes us as the worst that could possibly happen to a heavily endowed nation like Nigeria.

    But we aren’t actually so bad. If we could look inwards to summon latent will and channel it towards the rejuvenation of outdated mores of morality and simple decencies, our lot might yet change, for better. It shouldn’t hurt to evolve faith and be steadfast in it. If we could discard our sentiments about the lifestyle of Tuface Idibia, we would find in the musician some worthy anecdote about the quality of faith.

    Tuface Idibia believed in his dream of stardom. And he relentlessly pursued it through the stark streets of Festac, the wilderness of hunger spasms and institutional adversities to become whoever he is and whatever he is today. If I had used Soyinka, or Late Babatunde Jose, many would claim they grew up when Nigeria neither smothered dreams nor murdered hope. Hence my choice of Idibia, the minion who managed to become a poster icon for generations of Nigeria’s music hopeful.

    Yet many would read this and consider it “Pollyannaish.” To this lot, any hearty lunge at hope or belief in a brighter tomorrow manifest as blind optimism and a pathetic attempt to be patriotic even while it’s absolutely idiotic to do so. They would love to see the nation ruin in order to justify their inordinate cynicism and yearnings about the pointlessness of the Nigerian dream. They continually affirm their ill will and prayers of doom for the nation by tirelessly projecting separation and insurmountable bleakness on the Nigerian state. Individually, their contribution towards nation building is virtually non-existent or abysmally low, they are amazingly adept at sowing seeds of doubt and disillusionment amongst their peer and younger generation. But they love to be seen as heroes of truth and the new world.

  • The magic of figures

    The magic of figures

    FIGURES never cease to fascinate me. They conjure in me some powerful images that often make me ponder over the wonders of man’s fecund imagination.

    You draw a small circle and have zero. Two zeros take you to hundreds. Then thousands and millions and trillions. Just keep adding the zeros. The bigger the figure, the more dramatic the image it conveys. Wonderful figures.

    Consider a night guard earning below the minimum wage for his nocturnal exertions hitting the jackpot. First a feeling of utter disbelief and then the tears, tears of joy rolling down his weary cheeks. In a few minutes, he writes in his mind his grass-to-grace story. More tears. And smiles as he thinks about the millions, trying to figure it out.

    The feeling is different when there is an accident and people die. The sheer number of the dead clothes us in a garb of sadness. We suddenly realise how vulnerable we are as human beings. When robbers strike – as they often do here – we are gripped by shock and fear as the cash loss is announced, usually in millions (when they strike at banks). Ever seen a robbery with any impact without the number of the victims and their often huge losses?

    The birthday of a septuagenarian or a nonagenarian is an occasion for revelry and some indulgence, particularly when the subject is seen as an achiever, not only in terms of material acquisition but in character. Speaker after speaker will extol his virtues and see him as a good reason to crave longevity. But, it is not always true that the number of years is indicative of a good life. A fool at 40, they say, is a fool forever. Now, many have adjusted that saying. A fool at 100, they insist, is a fool indeed.

    The centennial, Nigeria’s biggest party, has been on in Abuja. The world came to wine and dine with us only to see a huge and complex contradiction. Hours before the show, the incorrigible Boko Haram stormed the Federal Government College, Buni Yadi, Yobe State, set the hostels on fire and shot pupils who tried to escape the cauldron. No fewer than 43 died. Many were shocked that the centennial party still went ahead.

    In one week, Boko Haram has sacked at least three villages, killing hundreds of innocent Nigerians who do not understand what the madness is all about. The sect’s bountiful harvests of blood in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe have been aided by a cocktail of ailments – ill-motivated troops, who seem to think that Nigeria is not worth dying for (they see the nonsense going on in Abuja) , bad neighbours who are either envious of Nigeria or disappointed in us and corruption. There are others.

    And talking about corruption. Before Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi was hurled into suspension in controversial circumstances, he alleged that $20billion oil money was unaccounted for. The first time he claimed that $49billion was missing, a panel of government experts hurriedly cobbled together went into the matter and returned with a verdict that only$10b was unaccounted for – not missing –. Before they could find the cash, Sanusi had raised another allegation – that $20billion was missing. For the government, it was time to stop the show. Enough. Sanusi was put on the rack.

    Enter the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRCN) report, which claimed that the CBN spent N38.223billion to print bank notes in 2011, N3.1billion on promotions and N1.3billion to feed policemen and pay for private guards, among other allegations. The President has asked the FRCN to audit the CBN’s books. I hope Sanusi will be allowed to defend the expenditure of funds before the figures begin to leap at us on the pages of newspapers.

    No matter how hard those pummeling Sanusi in the media try, there is one question that won’t ever go away: where is $20billion oil cash?

    Soon, Abuja will be hosting another jamboree. Some 492 delegates will be sitting at the National Conference for three months. They will be housed in posh hotels, fed from the federal purse and driven round the beautiful city in exotic cars. The bill, a mere N7billion. For an exercise whose outcome lacks no force of law, the investment – in time and cash – seems obscene. But the gains – to its architects and their collaborators – will be enormous. Some of our leading lights will be fully engaged in some guided verbal gymnastics, just talking while the government has the time to forge ahead with its transformation agenda, 2015 and such matters. No distractions.

    As preparations for the conference got under way in Abuja, there were reports that the Budget Office overshot its vote by N2.6 trillion. Under the Service Wide Vote – a provision for emergencies – N4.7trillion was spent between 2004 and 2012 as against N2.1 trillion approved by the Presidency, a House probe was told. Who authorised the extra spending? Why? What emergencies did we have to tackle?

    The National Teachers Institute (NTI), Kaduna had N791million credited to its bank account on December 31, 2012 by the Budget Office from the Service Wide Vote. It never asked for money, said NTI bursar Abdulkarim Affo. After fruitless inquiries on the depositor and what the cash was meant for, it was returned to the treasury.

    Could this explain how officials pile up financial fortunes at the public’s expense?

    There is also the controversial spending of N331billion on kerosene subsidy by the NNPC in 2012. The money, a House probe was told, was for 4.229billion litres of kerosene imported between 2009 and 2012. Despite the ocean of kerosene, there are long queues of women and jerry cans at filling stations. And the price remains high as against the N50 per litre official price. Where is the subsidy?

    After a long while, petrol queues showed up in cities last week for some dubious reasons. Some said importers were yet to get the go-ahead to bring in fuel. Others said marketers demanding payment for old supplies shut the tap. To resolve the jam, NNPC said, it poured 33million litres into the market. We are yet to feel the effect. The truth is that the scarcity was contrived by some roguish officials to cause panic and arm-twist the NNPC to spend money. Until we have a complete overhaul of the industry, fuel scarcity shall remain a potent weapon for bargaining by corrupt officials and their accomplices in the private sector.

    Trust Nigerians; they have found some humour in the suffering. I got this message from a friend yesterday on my phone: “Dear NNPC, please forgive me and other Nigerians for helping you look for your missing $20billion instead of minding our ‘own business ‘.We were misled by the following :

    “1. Sanusi; who said ‘your money’ was missing when you, ‘the owner’ has not said ‘your money’ is missing.

    “2. APC, who said the money must be accounted for when you ‘the owner’ is not complaining.

    “3. The House of Representatives, who said you should account for all your income since the past five years.

    “Now that you’re angry with us and we have felt your anger at the petrol stations (fuel scarcity) , the three groups that put us in this problem with you have not said anything and don’t have any alternative.

    “We have no other choice but to ask you for forgiveness. Please give us fuel.

    “You are aware that your sister, PHCN, is also angry with us for how she was sold and has since refused to give us power. We promise not to ask you about ‘your missing money’ again if you can resume fuel supply.

    “Truly yours, Nigerian Citizens.”

    States are crying that their allocations keep tumbling, even as oil prices are rising. External reserve is down to $39.7billion from $42.85billion. A friend of mine asked the other day: “Who is spending the cash?” “Why don’t we just withdraw it all and share?” Naivety. Should the government be magnanimous enough to let all Nigerians have a taste of the action, how much will each get? If $20billion is shared by say 140million Nigerians, how much will each get? If 33million litres of fuel are shared among Lagos motorists, how many litres will go to each? Will the queues disappear? If Nigeria is a company and its promoters – fed up with some irredeemably corrupt directors who are plundering the till – are set to wind it up, how much will each investor get?

    Please, send me the figures. Magical figures.

    Bolaji Abdullahi: Politics floors service

    AFTER months of procrastination, President Goodluck Jonathan has finally summoned the courage to release Sports Minister Bolaji Abdullahi. It was a miracle that Abdullahi, a journalist, survived for this long in that circle of sycophants to whom service means nothing and politics is everything.
    He is accused, according to sources, of being close to Senator Bukola Saraki and not identifying with the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Abdullahi is leaving behind a record of sterling achievements. The Eagles won the Cup of Nations – for the first time since 1994. Nigeria’s flag will be flying at the World Cup in Brazil in June and the ever-restless Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) is now at peace. Our Under-17 soccer stars won the World Cup.
    Sacking Abdullahi is no valourous action but a display of timidity and peevishness in which politics has defeated competence. Those who should go – those who have messed up the economy – are sitting pretty on their seats while Nigerians are groaning. Jonathan should show courage and sack them. Can he?

  • Agenda before the Constitutional Conference – 2

    We would also have to agree on what form of government, whether presidential or parliamentary. There are advantages for both. The presidential system embraces the principle of separation of powers whereas in the parliamentary system separation is not clear cut. This is because the cabinet is chosen from the legislature and the prime minister wields power in the legislature and the executive. But the parliamentary system is cheaper and a bad government can easily be changed without crisis of impeachment and from our experience in Nigeria, the president acts like a poobah in whose hands too much power are concentrated. At the end of the day, it is not the constitutional architecture that will guarantee good governance, it is those who operate the constitution but we can prevent dictatorship through devolution of powers and strengthening institutions of the civil service and the judiciary. These are the issues that would have to be agreed upon at the coming conference.

    We should have no problem agreeing on individual rights and freedoms and the third level of division of power at the centre. Where intense negotiation would have to take place is at the group or nationality levels. Once we agree in principle who owns the land, then the whole issue of fiscal federalism and resource control becomes a simple matter. These are the issues to be negotiated and agreed upon and if we are serious we should be able to do this quickly. The current situation whereby states exist at the mercy of the federal government would be done away with because the zonal governments will now have to fund the federal government from royalties, custom dues, excise duties, but not VAT and the issue of creation of states and local governments within the zones would have to be determined by the people who live there and would not be the business of the federal government. These negotiating principles if adhered to would remove acrimony and bad blood among conference attendants.

    Whatever they agree upon should be the grundnorm of Nigerian constitution and no government or national body should alter a word in it. This should be sent to the National Assembly as a presidential bill and becomes law after the assent of the president. Then this new constitution would come into force immediately following the holding of another set of elections at state and zonal levels. The present states would then become administrative units within the zones and they can either be increased or reduced as the zonal government decides. With coming into force of zonal governments, the current elaborate state structures would have to give way and governance at local levels would have to be on voluntary and non-stipendiary basis and the local governments would of course be restructured based on what is suitable for every zonal government. And there may be need for members of parliament at zonal and federal levels to be on part-time basis or as the zonal governments may decide. We may also need a constitutional provision stipulating that capital and recurrent expenditure at all levels must be on the basis of 70% capital and 30% recurrent so that government will not be seen as a cash cow as it is presently the situation. In other words, emphasis would be on development and not just on administration. This hopefully will put an end to the current prebendal politics operating in Nigeria.

    There are two critical issues that the conference must tackle, these are; federal finance, and national security. Having argued for fiscal federalism does not mean that one is totally oblivious of the need for even development in the country. This means of course that the federal revenue would have to be spent in such a way as to guarantee that there is an irreducible minimum of development below which no part of the country should fall. In spite of fiscal federalism, revenues accruing to the federal government from customs and its share of royalties as well as post and telegraphs, aviation and immigration and federal taxes should be sufficient to fund the federal government while the states or zones retain revenues derivable from their soil as well as Value Added Tax (VAT) which is a consumption tax and those consuming should benefit directly from this consumption tax which is currently distributed across the country in a rather unfair and inequitable way.

    The other important point is national security. As much as possible, every device must be made to constitutionally isolate and insulate defence and security forces from politics. The present mode of recruitment into the armed forces based on state or zonal basis should continue but at the same time, martial aptitude should be factored into the recruitment. It is not everybody who wants to join the armed forces on the basis of federal character who has a stomach for military service. The history of the world is replete with people who have special martial ability and who are pre-disposed to military service like the Gurkha in Nepal who have made military service in difficult situations a unique attribute of theirs. My study of the Nigerian military and the military profession globally gives me an advantage to pontificate on this particular subject. Some have argued for organising the Nigerian military on the basis of ethnic territorial forces like they do in England where you have Welsh, Scottish and Irish territorial forces, I do not think Nigeria is ready for this. The present military organisation and postings should not be tampered with. In any case, once the military is totally insulated from politics then we should have no fear of coup d’etat in which an ethnic group or groups manipulate the military for political advantage as was the case in our recent past.

    But on the police, we have to completely reorganise the system of policing of this country along modern lines. In most countries, there are usually several layers of police, starting from city and county police to state police and federal police. The advantage in local policing is that people with knowledge of the local environment including the language are better in controlling crime at the local level. Language competency should determine recruitment at the local, city and state levels. There is no point for example in making a Yoruba man Commissioner of Police in Kano and vice versa. People should be recruited to police their own areas. This is what is done in all federations from the United States to Australia and even in small Switzerland and Belgium. But there will always be room for federal police that will be responsible for inter-state crime as well as policing the federal capital territory.

    Whatever constitutional architecture we arrive at should be informed by our recent political experience in the last 53 years of independence. After a century of experimentation, we ought to have learnt some lessons if we are smart enough to know what works and what does not work. What does not work is over-centralisation and this is why there is an absolute necessity for political and economic devolution. The tendency even in places like Canada, Australia and the USA that are classical examples of federation is for federal political power to aggrandise at the expense of states. We must guide against this and the only way to guide against this is to have an iron-clad constitutional device to prevent this. This is the only way to have peace in this country by moving apart a little and coming together at the centre. As a Hausa proverb says “no matter how good a dancer may be, he is bound to bump into another person when dancing in a crowd”. This is what we have to avoid by embracing the policy of devolution.

    • Concluded

  • The Boko Haram terror

    Since the beginning of the year, the country has known no peace from Boko Haram, which is daily terrorising the Northeast states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa. The attacks reached a frightening height last Tuesday when the sect hit the Federal Government College (FGC) in Bunu Yadi, Yobe State, killing no fewer than 43 pupils. Many of the pupils are still said to be missing. A search has begun for them. Hunters are leading the search sponsored by the state government.

    The Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Ahmed Goniri, told reporters in Damaturu, the state capital, on Monday that the collaboration with hunters became necessary because ”many parents are still complaining of not seeing their children after the attack. We decided to make this contact with the hunters and some herdsmen in the area because some parents have come up to lodge complaints that they have not seen their children since the attack.

    ”Though, we have not received a report of any student found in the bush, we are working on the assumption that some of them may have run into the bush for dear lives. We have also contacted vigilance groups to give information to the village heads and religious leaders for rapid action.” Over one week after the dastardly attack, we are still talking of missing pupils, yet Boko Haram is all over the place, killing, maiming and looting. The killing of the pupils was a bestial act taken too far.

    For God’s sake, these were defenceless children sent to school by their parents, who thought they would enjoy the government’s protection. When they needed that protection most, the government failed them. I feel that as a nation, we collectively failed these children. Why? We knew all along that Boko Haram takes delight in harming school children. The insurgents had struck not once, not twice, but thrice in schools in Yobe before last Tuesday’s attack.

    So, we should have anticipated Boko Haram before it struck at FGC, Bunu Yadi, last week. Rather than do that, our intelligence agencies went to sleep and only woke up from their slumber after the insurgents struck. Before last Tuesday’s attack, they should have been able to put in place measures to protect pupils in all schools in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, especially the boarders among them, since the insurgents like to strike at ungodly hours.

    They may have chosen such hours to perpetrate their murderous acts because they know it is the only time they will have a free rein to operate as people will be asleep then. But it is the same hour that we expect the troops, who are deployed in these three Boko Haram attack-prone states, to be hyper alert. Unfortunately, on each occasion that the insurgents struck, our troops have been caught flatfooted. They are not always around at such times. We are told that it is that time they go on patrol.

    Isn’t something fishy there? Why is it that it is when Boko Haram attacks schools that our troops are on patrol? Must all the troops go on patrol at the same time? Can’t they go on patrol in batches, that is some are left to secure a place, such as these schools, while others go on patrol? From what is happening these days, Nigerians have become cynical about the role of our security men in the Boko Haram saga. We cannot blame Nigerians for feeling this way.

    The government declared a state of emergency in these states in order to contain the activities of Boko Haram, but it seems the emergency is not working. What is the essence of the emergency if Boko Haram can still come and go at will? Or is the process being sabotaged by those who do not mean well for the country? Those at the helm should not take offence when some of us talk like this; it is because we are pained by what is happening. If children can be killed virtually under the nose of soldiers then something is definitely wrong somewhere. Or doesn’t the government think so?

    He who wears the shoe feels the pain. So, Governors Kashim Shettima and Ibrahim Gaidam of Borno and Yobe states should know what they are talking about when they speak on what has befallen their domains. I do not think that these gentlemen can still sleep with their two eyes closed with the way Boko Haram is running roughshod over their states. Who is that governor that will sleep in such a situation? Only a person without blood running in his vein will sleep in that condition. Of course, a Doyin Okupe will because he is about 845 kilometres from the scene.

    The way Okupe talks leaves

    a sour taste in the mouth.

    He likes to talk before he thinks, all to be in the good book of his paymaster. He tends to forget that he will not be in power forever. When he leaves office won’t he come to live in the midst of the people? What will he tell them was his achievement? That he was able to make more enemies than friends for the government? What did Shettima say for him to have descended on the governor the way he did the other day?

    The governor, while assessing another Boko Haram attack in his domain in which hundreds were killed, submitted that it seemed ”Nigeria is at war”. Okupe took offence at Shettima’s statement, pointing out that the governor could talk that way because ”he is a civilian”. So, Okupe is now a military man, who knows how civilians talk. It is not Okupe’s fault. It is the office that he is occupying that he has got into his head. When some people find themselves in positions of power, they become another thing, forgetting where they are coming from. It should not have been Okupe talking like that. But then as the Yoruba will say, people like him only know of what they are chewing at a particular point in time. If tomorrow, he no longer serves President Goodluck Jonathan, he would stop seeing something good in the man.

    Dr Jonathan, who should be more temperate, was even harder on Shettima than Okupe during the Presidential Media Chat to mark the centenary celebrations. Berating the governor for saying Boko Haram is better equipped than the army, Jonathan said if he should withdraw the military from Borno, ”we will see what will happen. He won’t be able to stay in his government house”. Haba, Mr President. See what happened in Bunu Yadi, some six hours after you spoke, even without the troops’ withdrawal. What is the big deal about their withdrawal then? Even without their withdrawal, are the people safe? The answer is no and this is why Boko Haram finds it easy to strike at will, killing, maiming, looting and kidnapping.

    Our military chiefs have told us that they have the capacity to tame Boko Haram. I agree with them. The time for them to bring Boko Haram down is now. We should not wait until the group decimates the entire Northeast before we do the needful. My heart goes out to the families of the slain school children. May their killers know no rest.

     

  • Centenary awards

    For the uninformed African leaders who believe Africa was indeed the white man’s burden, Basil Davidson long ago proved that we were all at the same level of development as at the time the Europeans came to disrupt our society. They left behind seeds of social dislocations that will guarantee our continued dependency. Here they set the north against the south. In Congo their legacy after over 300 years were about five university graduates, 600 priests and a Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba with only three years of formal schooling and of course the country final descent to anarchy.

    All the same, the celebration of our enslavement and continuous post-colonial exploitation by leaders who lack sense of history has come and gone. Not even some of the legacies of colonial occupation such as the mindless killings of about 59 innocent school children in their dormitories at the Federal Government College, Buni Yadi area of Yobe State, the death of about 90 by car bomb in Maiduguiri and scores of our soldiers through ambush by Boko Haram insurgents dampened the enthusiasm of a desperate government bent on giving false impression that all is well. It was all pomp and pageantry as we played the ostrich celebrating unity in Abuja far away from the theatre of wars going on in Maduguiri, Yobe and Adamawa; restive Niger creeks and the killing field Jos has become.

    The highpoint of the event was the public recognition of 100 recipients of Nigerian centenary award. The purpose of this contribution is not to belittle the great achievements of some of the recipients. But because Nigerians suffer from collective amnesia while our hip hop new generation of impatient youths have no patience for history, we all need to remind ourselves that many of those currently being celebrated were in fact the architects of our current crisis of nationhood as a result of some of their personal failings as leaders. It is also aimed at telling the current leaders that ‘If gold rust, what shall iron do’? Those that have pillaged our land in the last 14 years will surely not escape the judgment of history because leadership is a privilege that carries great responsibility.

    First, lacking a sense of history, we gave pride of place to the British Queen, Lord Frederick Lugard and his mistress who coined the name Nigeria. As it was under slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism, our current leaders still cannot see that globalization which allows some people to decide what we eat, the water we drink, the road we traverse and the education we receive and our economic policy is but another name for slavery.

    But let us turn our attention to inheritors of power- Sardauna and Balewa favoured by Britain, Zik, dismissed as untrustworthy and Awo, despised as a communist. The four political rivals got their awards as nationalists. But nationalism itself is not often motivated by altruism. We can ask in retrospect that if indeed their struggle was driven by selflessness, how come they destroyed the house they jointly built out of egoism barely three years after the departure of the colonial masters?

    Let us start with Awo, a leader whose admirers considered sinned more against than sinning. Yes the sage was a great leader, the ‘best president Nigeria never had’. But then Awo like most leaders became an oligarch forgetting that compromise is the ‘greatest badge of honour’ in a democracy, which for all intents and purposes, is synonymous with ‘rule of gangs’ with conflicting interests. Akintola was Awo’s scourge against the British and his closest ally in his exploits in the western region between 1952 and 1959. But let us imagine for a moment that Awo had been able to manage his success and recalcitrant deputy; we probably wouldn’t have had an illegal state of emergency by vindictive federal government of NPC and NCNC, the 1965 rigged western regional election, the mayhem that followed as the youths of the West resolved to make Akintola who sowed the wind, reap the whirlwind.

    Similarly, the seeds of today mutual suspicion was sowed by his two other awardees – Balewa and Zik who out of greed for power destroyed the West. Let us imagine for a moment that Zik and Balewa had allowed the West to constitutionally resolve its intra-party problem, that Balewa did not encourage the federal police to stay aloof while a few Akintola supporters realising the game was up, started breaking heads with chairs; that the duo did not manipulate the parliament to approve illegal declaration of state of emergency in the West, that a kangaroo parliamentary did not sit to retroactively upturn the Privy Council ruling that confirmed Akintola was constitutionally removed from office, that Balewa who approved illegal declaration of emergency in the West did not choose to play the ostrich, celebrating with visiting commonwealth leaders while the West had descended to anarchy, perhaps there wouldn’t have been a coup by five ideologically confused majors, the elimination of the leadership of the North in January 1965 and the mindless killing of Igbo military officers in July 1966.

    I similarly do not begrudge Shehu Shagari, Generals Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida, Olusegun Obasanjo, and Abdul-Salami Abubakar, for the honours bestowed on them by President Jonathan. But let us imagine Shagari’s administration had not embarked on gluttonous consumption that erased the foreign reserve left behind in 1979 by Obasanjo in less than three years and did not go ahead to rig the 1983 election. And we can also look back on what could have been if Buhari, who took over, had not behaved like a reactionary military wing of the then ruling National Party of Nigeria; if his regime had not clamped professor Ambrose Alli, Olabisi Onabanjo, Adekunle Ajasin, Lateef Jakande and others in the opposition who expended their allocations more on free and compulsory education, and establishment of new universities while NPN and NPP governors who took foreign loans for unexecuted projects were let off the hook.

    As for Ibrahim Babangida, let us also imagine what could have been if he had not embraced IMF liberalisation economic policy that finally destroyed our naira and budding industries, did not fraudulently take us through eight years of ‘transition without end’, finally annulling the most credible election in our nation’s history and arrogantly handing power over to a quisling he put in charge of a contraption called Interim National Government. Of course Abacha, another celebrated centenary award recipient has been described appropriately by our Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka ‘as a psychopath under whose regime assassinations became routine and torture and other forms of barbarism were enthroned as the norm of governance’; and a leader ‘who placed this nation under siege during an unrelenting reign of terror that is barely different from the current rampage of Boko Haram.’

    As for Abdul Salami Abubakar, let us reflect on what would have been the fate of our nation if he had not, through act of omission or commission, allowed the winner of the 1993 election, MKO Abiola who spent four years of his expected presidency in prison to be murdered under his nose. Of course we would not have had an Obasanjo presidency imposing an ailing Yar’Adua and ill-prepared President Jonathan and his politics of subterfuge, intolerance of dissent and disregard for rule of law.

  • What Nigeria expects from President Jonathan

    From all appearances, President Jonathan strongly desires to win re-election and have another four-year term. All his actions and political manoeuvres point indubitably in that direction, and there is no systemic reason why he could not seek re-election. The constitution of the land allows it. Those who are threatening that they would respond to his candidacy with mayhem are talking nonsense, and the rest of us must tell them so. As I have repeatedly said in this column and other places, those who do not want Jonathan to win a second term have only one legitimate recourse – to organize and campaign to beat him at the polls. One group called APC is already doing just that and knitting together a huge political machine with which they hope to defeat President Jonathan and the party he belongs to at the polls. That is the honourable way to play the game. Terrorist threats are not part of the equation.

    However, from the perspective of a nation builder, there is a problem with President Jonathan’s intention to bid for re-election. President Jonathan has raised a lot of hope by initiating, and planning for, a National Conference – and he owes us the duty of considering what most of us Nigerians hope and expect from the National Conference.

    Long before President Jonathan became president, our country had been virtually wrecked. He inherited an all-controlling and unrestrained “federal” government that had become an agency for disorder, confusion and corruption, and a manufacturer and dispenser of poverty, insecurity, and conflicts. Because he hails from the Delta, the homeland of the leading armed warriors against the excesses and destructiveness of the federal government, most of us naturally expected that his presidency would be a historic turning point in our country’s history. Shockingly, for more than three years he did nothing towards change. He even seemed to be arguing for a preservation of the hated status quo. But, happily, a few months ago, he suddenly showed a change of heart – as Shakespeare might have put it, “consideration, like an angel, wiped the offending Adam out of him” – and he began to take steps about a National Conference.

    For us Nigerians, this is the long-needed, long-awaited, opportunity to do something to straighten up our country, to put her on a sound footing, and to steer her onto a new path of order, sanity, and progress. No doubt, for some of the representatives going to the National Conference in Abuja, this is just an opportunity to go and live in what they see as the Sodom and Gomorrah of modern Africa for a few months, and to revel in, and benefit from, its intoxicating corruption and dissipation. No doubt also, some representatives see their going to the National Conference as a chance to go and serve partisan political purposes of their own or simply to help the 2015 electoral bids of this or that party or presidential candidate. But such folks as these are heading for a shattering disappointment – because most representatives are going to Abuja for a very serious business of national reconstruction, and most of the 170 million of us who will remain at home in most parts of Nigeria will be watching intently and pushing irresistibly for the changes that we have long desired for our country. No matter what President Jonathan originally intended the National Conference for, it is important that we all must now recognize that the National Conference has acquired a life, a momentum, and gravitas of its own, a life, a momentum and a gravitas that can beautifully remould Nigeria and restore hope to Nigeria – or that can, God forbid, break Nigeria.

    In such a circumstance as this, what President Jonathan owes his country is clear. He owes us the duty of giving all his attention and energy to the National Conference, with the patriotic and sincere objective of seeing it through to the fulfilment of its mission. Side by side with this patriotic and historic duty, President Jonathan’s personal political ambition – his quest for a second term – pales into insignificance. What we are urging him to do is to recognize and accept this, and to bow in utmost loyalty to this call of duty.

    Another presidential term of four years for President Jonathan, as long as the present conditions of our country prevail, can add nothing of real value to our country, to the quality of the life of Nigerians, or to the place of Nigeria in the world. It has no foreseeable chance of changing anything. By 2015, President Jonathan would have been president for six years. Sure, he is legitimately entitled to seek one more term of four years – which would then, if he wins, make him president for 10 years. But how can anybody sensibly choose those four more years and turn away from the chance of becoming the master architect of a new Nigeria, away from the chance of acquiring an immortal name for himself, his posterity, and his Ijaw people, for pulling Nigeria back from the throes of death and giving her a new lease of vibrant life.

    Two choices, then, face President Jonathan. I am sure that most who really support him expect him to choose the infinitely bigger one. Many Nigerians abroad and at home, since the door opened to the presidency for Vice-president Jonathan (after the passing of President Yar’Adua), have supported him out of principle, without any partisan considerations, and without any desire for personal gains of any kind, and in spite of his foibles and vacillations. When the question was raised about who should succeed Yar’Adua, many patriots insisted that there was no question at all, and that the constitution must be adhered to. After he became president, they welcomed the fact that a citizen from a minority nationality had at last risen to the highest office in the land – a major step forward for our country. They also welcomed him because, as I said before, they were hopeful that, being an Ijaw man, his presidency would mark the beginning of greatly needed changes in the structure of our federation. And now that he has initiated a National Conference, we all expect the best for our country from it, and he can be sure of very dedicated and resolute support in this welcome path. On the other hand, if President Jonathan tries to play down or defuse the National Conference, or to manipulate it to serve the ends of his electoral politics, he risks titanic losses of support in this country –losses so massive as to drown his electoral chances and political future. He also risks the dissolution of Nigeria on his watch.

    President Jonathan’s people, the Ijaw people, own the credit for being, since independence, the front-liners of militant demands for a rational federal structure. They must not now let their voices become muted in the struggle – simply because they want to support their son in his desire for a second term. No. They must give him the right counsel and support. They must remain stoutly in the struggle and ultimately earn the honour that they deserve in the history of Nigeria and of the Black race.

  • Frittered chances, lost April

    Chances are that some amply corrupted youth would read this and surmise that the writer is afflicted by a Karmic delusion of sort. Chances are majority belong to such youth bracket and probably think, it would be wrong to aver that all wrong-doing shall be punished, in some future dispensation.

    You would probably consider it silly to daydream of a Nigerian epoch in which gross and wanton perversions shall beget the harshest of punitive measures. I would not fault you if you did nor would I deny the fact that this dispensation, as all others, we totally got it wrong.

    An “Honourable” Speaker was impeached for embezzlement of public funds; today, that Speaker emerges from the doldrums of dishonor. That thieving “Honourable” of yesterday is today, an informed choice for ministerial appointment. That shameful “Honourable” is exonerated and venerated as a fine stateswoman by the same assembly that dishonoured her.

    A party chairman was prosecuted for dipping his hand in the public till and he was issued a sentence that even now resounds as a pat on the back. A thieving Governor robbed his State senseless and he is let off the hook in an astonishing act of political expediency.

    A dishonest bank chief was caught stealing poor customers’ savings to service her vanities and those of her rich clients and she was issued a punishment that even now resounds as a modest and enjoyable vacation.

    Political thugs, assassins, arsonists, executive fraudsters and murderous public officers are let off the hook in the wake of suspicious plea bargaining with the State. Makes one wonder what virtuousness we mute to accentuate our grotesqueness and disgrace.

    Contrary to cheerlessness the cynics accentuate, the end is hardly nigh for the Nigerian dream. This is just the beginning of our descent to infamy and disgrace. Current realities offer the clearest though not the only illustration of decadence of our wholly under-utilised intellect and mind. And the reasons are hardly far-fetched: for all our self-righteousness, the Nigerian society today, guarantees mindless profiteering off the State by public officers desperate enough to assure the continuance of wanton pilferage of State coffers to the detriment of the country.

    The extent of our perversion no doubt, is sufficiently illustrated in Nigerians’ seeming desperation to substitute virtue for vice and approximate the rewards for uprightness to loathsome ridicule and an insidious susceptibility to witch-hunt.

    This is not to imply that certain honest individuals do not subsist in our clime, more often than not, they are wholly repudiated and consumed by the same system they are committed to serve. Nigeria’s culture – despite her claims to probity – in fact, reveals a deeper evil than all that it wishes to repudiate.

    It reveals the extent to which pretentiousness, selfishness and greed erodes the average Nigerian’s capacity to grasp the over-utilised concepts of honesty, human rights and associated values. It reveals a culture from which the expectations and realities of humanity has been totally wiped out.

    The downside is that public officers we elect to serve as the means to the attainment of our various ends, consequently end up exploiting us as the means to their ends. The greedier we evolve, the more neurotic we become – as elected representatives and electorate – in our practice of leadership and citizenship “for the general good of society,” “for the good of future generations” and everything and anything except actual humankind.

    Hence the appalling recklessness with which we acquiesce to bestiality of all kinds, accept betrayal and the most atrocious mode of leadership indefatigably imposed by a treacherous minority on our despicably wanton and degenerate majority.

    A unilateral breach of contract characterizes the Nigerian leadership. Governance in Nigeria today, involves the most insidious form of tyranny exemplified by wanton disregard for human life and an indirect use of physical force. It consists, in essence, of one man or a group of men exploiting and monopolizing the material wealth of the entire nation, and then refusing to extend the benefits accruable from the exploitation of such resources – which is a cardinal principle of government by representation – to all.

    This privileged few ceaselessly appropriating by force and wile, the nation’s wealth to themselves can be likened to commonplace and contemptible fraudsters. The Nigerian leadership commits grievous acts of fraud and extortion utilising variants of an indirect use of force; which consists of obtaining material values, not in exchange for values, but by the threat of force, violence or other forms of unconscionable deterrents to any citizen courageous enough to challenge them and demand his constitutional right to equity incessantly promised as core dividend of democratic governance.

    Consequently, many Nigerians in desperate bid to be socio-politically correct, have perfected the art of moral subterfuge; the hallmark of which is the perverse inclination to aver that a thieving Governor actually means well or a light-fingered Speaker couldn’t help defraud the nation of hard-earned billions and dip his hand in the public till – because they were helpless pawns in the manifestation of a monumental rot the nation should be done with.

    There is no moral difference between a 20-year-old who resorts to armed robbery or advanced fee fraud to actualise his dream of owning a yacht, an expensive bar, penthouse and state-of-the-art Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV), and a Governor, legislator or President who in desperation to amass wealth and operate a Swiss bank account, advocates some grand scale public goal, without regard to context, costs and means – which are usually enshrouded in dense patches of venomous fog to hide the fact that millions of lives are devastated and national growth, grievously stunted, in the actualisation of such public goal.

    There is no excuse however, to justify the selfishness and greed of a Nigerian populace that persistently yields to cravings and temptations by which it loses its right to fair government and it’s much sought epoch of peace and abundance. Progress can only be achieved by a conscious effort to challenge the status quo and demand that among other things, a country’s leadership live up to promises it made at election time.

    Picture by what leaps our lot would improve if Nigerians did not involve in such abject perversions and evasions that spur them to delude that some criminally-minded and power-thirsty politician is motivated by patriotic concerns for the “public interest.”

    Picture what realities the nation could approximate if every citizen desisted from bartering their mandates for chicken-feed, rationalising and driving their minds into states of blind stupor, in dread of discovering that their favorite public officers are actually, mistaken or evil.

    The current generation of Nigerians will continue to plug away and die in preventable misery if they continue to wait for the plenitude incessantly promised by our democratically elected representatives who pleaded for our votes that they may afflict us with poverty and unmitigated misery.

    Democratic tyrannies and corrupt governments continue to thrive wherever the general populace chooses to barter their chances at change and progress every time opportunity beckons for the oppressed to improve upon the leadership they have, by changing it. We had our chance in April 2011 and squandered it. As 2015 approaches, let us not articulate misery and dissent like ones eternally programmed to self-destruct.

  • Sanusi: Estranged ally of a resentful government

    Sanusi might be everything supporters of president Jonathan’s apparent vindictive action against his five years ally say he is- Proud, reckless and unrestrained; strutting around like a feudal lord and lacking in grace to resign from a government whose policies he disagreed with. But then, Sanusi at the end is a Nigerian. And it is for this reason I think his comparison with central bank governors of other nations where the governors of their apex banks will not openly castigate their Government can be very odious. What we have in some of those societies is enlightened leadership governed by laws and restrained by established institutions from witch hunting their best including whistle blowers.

    But here as Saro Wiwa reminded us in his satire about the pervasive corruption in our land, ‘Africa kills its sun’. Sanusi in spite of his objectionable style was while in office our nation’s pride wherever he went in the world. He was a recipient of two global awards: the global award for Central Bank Governor of the Year, as well as for Central Bank Governor of the Year for Africa. He was also listed by The TIME magazine in its TIMES 100 list of most influential people of 2011.

    As it is always the case in Africa where leaders have no regard for public opinion and where leaders openly boast of their absolute power to sacrifice the messenger, the focus of Sanusi’s crusade-unremitted 20 billion dollar oil revenue, has changed to how much he deployed as promotional outlays, spent on private guards, lunch for police men, legal and professional fees, intervention projects and other unarguably questionable donations.

    And with shocking finality, the AGF has put an end to the debate. ‘NNPC is required to pay into the Federation Account the ‘net revenue’ as opposed to the ‘gross revenue’. He is “of the respectful view that only the net revenue from the upstream petroleum operations of the NPDC should be paid into the federation account by the NNPC. This is more so as the federating units do not contribute to the funding of upstream petroleum operations of the NNPC and its subsidiary.” Government is therefore free to treat NNPC account as ATM as an opposition leader has observed.

    The hunter has become the hunted. And part of the rough tactics of a government unnerved by Sanusi initial 49.8 billion dollars gaffe, was dusting up the eight months old Financial Council Report and other investigating bodies, which according to government “indicate clearly that Mallam Sanusi Lamido  Sanusi’s tenure has been characterized by various acts of financial recklessness and misconduct which are inconsistent with the administration’s vision of a Central Bank propelled by the core values of focused economic management and prudence”. Sanusi whose only curious ambition is to become the emir of Kano now has to fight for his integrity.

    The case of Sanusi who still insists ‘You can suspend an individual, but you cannot suspend the truth’ is akin to the proverbial man on the tiger’s back. For close to five years he has been an accessory to government assault on Nigerians through half truths, fraudulent theories and outright falsehood. Precisely because Sanusi has tried to provide credibility for government anti people policies, his reckless donation of huge sums of money to universities and victims of natural disasters which were outside his core area of banking was ignored just like his obnoxious mannerism.

    In the battle between the executive and the national assembly as to which arm was more corrupt, Sanusi was secretly hailed by the executive as he revealed to shocked Nigerians that the national assembly was gulping 25% of our annual budget while the later insisted there was much less to steal in its budget of N150b compared to an executive that presides over 50% of the nation’s budget.

    In his banking reforms, whatever was the motive behind the August 2009 Sanusi led Central Bank intervention in Afribank, Intercontinental Bank, Union Bank, Oceanic Bank and Finbank , the outcome was a tragedy for thousands of Nigerians who were rendered jobless and thousands more who lost their life savings and gratuities invested in shares of the affected banks. The major beneficiary of Sanusi ‘banking Tsunami’ turned out to be known PDP members and their friends. They reaped from the tragedy of helpless Nigerians by buying the banks after Sanusi’s injection of about 400 billion of public fund while ordinary investors with less than 200,000 shares were left with nothing. Until Sanusi unceremonious removal by government last week, he remained indifferent to the right of the public to know how much of the non performing loans were paid back by those who are closely associated with those in government.

    Sanusi was also solidly behind government fraudulent privatization of the downstream sector of the oil industry. After a near monopoly for diesel market had been created for a few government favourites, who in turn swiftly proceed to build the largest tank farm in the world, cost of diesel which should ordinarily be cheaper on account of being a mere byproduct of refined petroleum shot up to about N170 per litre. Sanusi and Okonjo Iweala justified government assault on Nigerians on the fraudulent thesis that it was only the middle class who use diesel- powered generators that would suffer from a government policy designed to impose hardship on Nigerians. As it has turned out, the carcasses of Michellin, Dunlop and others that collapsed partly because of energy crisis and the flooding of the nation with substandard goods by beneficiaries of government import licence and wavers policy attest to the monumental fraud of such bogus claims.

    Another government falsehood Sanusi dressed in garment of truth was the claim that the economy would collapse if the fuel subsidy was not removed. As it has turned out, it was all a ruse to cover up the theft of about N1.7 trillion by some of PDP appointed fuel importers who fraudulently forged papers to claim millions without importing a pint of fuel. It is on record that Sanusi staked everything as an economist to support this fraud in spite of the insistence of world class economists like the late professor Samuel Aluko that there was nothing like fuel subsidy but government imposition of petroleum tax on helpless Nigerians. Aluko drew a parallel between cost of imported Guinness beer from Britain and home brewed Guinness of the same quantity and quality to dismiss government fraudulent claim openly canvassed by Sanusi, Okonjo Iweala and other government apologists.

    It is dangerous and suicidal when friends fight. Sanusi has been part of Jonathan government for five years and they know how to hurt each other. Having attacked Sanusi’s integrity, the government that has so much to hide has equally becomes very desperate. The government only on Monday directed Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRCN) to audit the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). This is the same body whose report was said to be the basis of Sanusi’s suspension. This new probe is also coming shortly after an auditing by auditing giants, Coopers and Lybrand. Probing CBN whose 2013 audited account is ready afresh is far more important to government than NNPC whose account has not been audited for five years.

    And as to the ‘missing’ 20 billion dollars, as far as government is concerned, the AGF has provided an alibi. But these are clear signs of panic and desperation. Like my good friend Chief Mike Ozechome, one of the latest combative defenders of president Jonathan’s response to Sanusi irritation said on Monday, ‘he who comes to equity must come with clean hands’. I think that equally applies to a government considered as one of the most corrupt in our nation’s history.

  • Agenda before the Constitutional Conference -1

    I have said this before and I will say it again that it really doesn’t matter whether President Jonathan and his government are genuinely serious about the constitutional restructuring of Nigeria. But whatever end result comes out of the impending national conference would be on record as the decision freely agreed to by leaders of thought in Nigeria. I also personally believe that once the genie is released from the bottle it may be difficult to put it back. In other words, the conference may gather its own natural dynamics and it may be difficult to stop it from moving towards an unplanned end. It is an act of political sagacity for the APC to reluctantly allow participation officially by states under its control. This was the point Governor Kayode Fayemi was making during the announcement that the APC States will participate even though the APC as a political party is totally against the conference because it does not believe that those behind the conference are genuine and honest. Having said this, what should then be the national agenda before the conference?

    Politics is based on association with others to advance individual, group and national interests in that order. No country can be great if it tramples over individual and group rights of its citizens. A country based on coercion and force is built on shifting sand. We therefore need to design an architecture that will ensure the building of a solid house under whose roof we can all find shelter. This is why the issue of fundamental human rights must be the first grundnorm of whatever constitutional agreement arrived at, at this conference. We will need to spell out in a justiceable form the right to life, liberty, free political association, freedom from want, freedom of religion, and freedom from all kinds of persecution and freedom from all those things that are not in consonance with human rights and that are repugnant to good conscience. The Americans call this “the right to the pursuit of happiness”, under this rubric can be found rights to gainful employment and to education. All these rights must be guaranteed even though they may not be totally realisable. But the rights to freedom from persecution and arrest must be justiceable and the principle of Habeas Corpus must be adhered to as part of the judicial process. This would be at the individual level then we must move to the group level or nationality level. Within the state of Nigeria, we have linguistically distinct groups that number depending on whose definition between 250 and 350. Within this cluster of linguistic groups are to be found three large nations of the Yoruba, Hausa and the Igbo. These are nations on their own each numbering well over 30 million and inhabiting distinct territories and can survive on their own as independent countries. Other reasonably large nationalities that number over a million are the Kanuri, TIV, Ibibio, Izon (Ijaw), Fulani, Urhobo, Edo, Nupe, and the Igala. The remaining groups fall between a few hundred thousand and a million, or slightly more. Of all the groups mentioned, the Fulanis are in a unique situation because they are not associated with any particular territory. In the last few years, the Fulanis have found their way into almost every state of the federation. But most of the other ethnic groups in Nigeria can be identified with certain territories. All Nigerians, whether large or small, must be protected on their own lands. Even though people have moved around to other peoples’ territories the owners of the land must be respected and recognised and in the interest of peace, there must be constitutional device to acknowledge people’s ownership of their lands. Nigeria is part of an old continent and the facile comparison of Nigeria with the United States when discussing movement of people to other people’s areas and giving examples that one can move from one state to another in the US, and contest elections is not appropriate to Nigeria. I have lived all my life in Ibadan and I have a home there and I am even a Chief of the Alaafin, yet I will consider it unreasonable for me to aspire to be Governor of Oyo state without trampling on the rights of the indigenes. Residence and indigeneship are totally separate things. Residence confers economic rights and right to vote but not rights to political office. If because I am resident in Ibadan I am entitled to hold office in Oyo state as well as in my state in Ekiti. I would be exploiting the people of Oyo. This same logic can be extended to Lagos, Plateau, Rivers, Anambra etc, this is an irritant which we must solve at this conference so that the bad blood now existing among Nigerians can be over come. There is no need talking about citizen’s rights over riding indigene rights. We have enough troubles in the country we don’t want to add to it. This does not mean that Nigerians will be hindered in buying land or establishing industry and residence anywhere in the country but we must concede the ownership of land to the original owners and that originality of ownership of that land must be constitutionally protected and land ownership goes with political rights to offices constitutionally assigned to states. No one should have the right to be constitutionally elected in two sates of the federation.

    At the level of the nation, we would need to agree to division and devolution of powers between the federating and constituent units in such a way as to protect individual and group rights. Our founding fathers in the constitution negotiated by the representatives of the people in 1959 agreed to a federal system of government. This was a system that guaranteed wide powers to the original three regions each of which had their own constitutions and anthems and even diplomatic representation abroad. At independence, the power of foreign representation was withdrawn from the regions and centralised in the federal government. That independence constitution must be the starting point at the forth coming conference. The federating units should not be this unwieldy thirty-six states. The federating unit should be based on six zones and as much as possible especially with the three nations in the country the boundaries of the zones must be coterminous with the group areas. In other words, all people speaking the same language must be under the same zonal government. The so-called Anioma people of present day Delta would have to merge with their Igbo compatriots while the Yorubas in Kwara and Kogi will have to merge with their Yoruba compatriots. And all the Hausa speaking states should be in one zone stretching from Sokoto, to Katsina, Kano, Kebbbi, Northern Kaduna, Jigawa, and parts of Bauchi. I will leave the cartographers to work out the details. All those who believe that sovereignty of all nationalities should be the basis of our political association will have to prove the viability of any political configuration they may seek to create within their own zones. As in any typical federation, foreign affairs, defence, finance, currency, policing of inter-state crime, the Supreme Court, immigration, aviation, shipping will lie within the federal jurisdiction. These enumerated powers would be constitutionally agreed upon by the majority of the delegates and powers not enumerated above will lie with the six zones. This will be regarded as residual powers in which the federal government will have no jurisdiction. For example, police, agriculture, local government, primary, secondary and tertiary education, judiciary, works and transport, railways, taxation, royalties on minerals, excise duties and VAT would lie with the zonal authorities. There would be areas of concurrent jurisdiction such as higher education, inter-state highways, railways and this will be so stated.

     

    •To be continued

     

  • Baggage for Jonathan

    Whether President Goodluck Jonathan likes it or not, suspended Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has become his baggage. If he had been a little more patient, things would not have been the way they are now. Sanusi has a few months left to complete his first five – year tenure, which ends in June and the man knows that there is no way he would have got a second term, at least not as long as Jonathan remains the president.

    Like a bolt out of the blue, he was suspended last Thursday for what the government described as financial recklessness. Now, I am not a Sanusi fan and readers of this column can attest to that. I have had occasions to join issues with him over the CBN donation to some Boko Haram victims in Kano, his home state, and some of his policies, which led to the crumbling of some big banks. But on this matter of his suspension, it seemed the president was not well advised.

    The president has for long wanted Sanusi out of the way and the last straw that broke the camel’s back was the suspended CBN governor’s letter to him on the missing oil money, which was purportedly leaked to former President Olusegun Obasanjo. In his own letter to the president, Obasanjo quoted the Sanusi letter and asked Jonathan not to watch while corruption is being perpetrated under his nose. Jonathan did not find the matter funny and he promptly asked Sanusi to resign. Sanusi refused, insisting that he could only be removed by the president, with the backing of two-third of the Senate.

    The battle line was drawn. The president and his loyalists must have thought who is Sanusi to talk to the number one citizen like that. There should be a way to deal with him no doubt. Apparently after going through the books, they came up with what they thought was their trump card – suspension. By suspension, the president would not have sacked Sanusi in the real sense of it, he would only have rendered him incapacitated. But does the law approve of such a “disciplinary action” to borrow the president’s word? On the special Presidential Media Chat (PMC) held on Monday as part of activities to commemorate the centenary celebrations, he said as part of his oversight functions on federal executive bodies he could suspend the CBN governor.

    The question is can CBN be referred to as a federal executive body when it is not so defined in the Constitution? The Constitution in Part 1 of the Third Schedule lists out the federal executive bodies as established by Section 153. They are : Code of Conduct Bureau, Council of State, Federal Character Commission, Federal Civil Service Commission, Federal Judicial Service Commission, Independent National Electoral Commission, National Defence Council, National Economic Council, National Judicial Council, National Population Commission, National Security Council, Nigeria Police Council, Police Service Commission and Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission. In law, these are the recognised federal executive organs and except the Constitution is amended to accommodate the CBN as one of them there is no way it can be classified as such now in order to satisfy the whim of the president.

    The thing is the CBN is a special creation and I believe it is a deliberate act to ensure its autonomy, not total independence, from the state as represented by the head of state. Globally, central banks are protected by their own laws, which shield them from undue interference by their countries’ leaders. Central banks are the economic livewires of their countries. They are not only the keeper of the treasury, but the treasury. So, they are insulated from the executive to avoid financial abuses. Although, the laws setting up these banks state that their governors or chairmen or chancellor or by whatever name so called shall be appointed by the head of state, they guarantee these bankers’ tenure by making their sack somewhat difficult for the appointor.

    No appointing authority has the sole power to sack a central bank chief without recourse to the legislature. This is why it is absurd that the president is saying that he can suspend Sanusi when the law setting up the CBN does not contemplate such an action. Call that an error of the law, may be. But it is more the error of those who drafted the CBN Act. There should have been a provision for the punishment of the governor, his deputies and directors for infractions, but the law is silent on that. Does that mean that the governor himself cannot discipline any of his deputies or the directors found wanting in the discharge of their duties? I do not think that is the intendment of the law. But where there is no such provision, can it be imported into the law?

    I understand the president’s dilemma over Sanusi. He wants to assert his authority as the person in charge, but in so doing, he should follow the law. No doubt, he has the power to hire and fire, but the CBN governor is not just any staff that can be fired at his whim without following strictly the provisions of the law. Yes, he has not sacked Sanusi. The handwriting is clear on the wall that Sanusi is not coming back to that job, with his replacement, Godwin Emefiele, standing in the wings to take over from him in June. Forget that, Emefiele will be cleared by the Senate, which has come out strongly on the side of Jonathan on his suspension of Sanusi. When will the Senate ever learn to stand for what is right?

    It is good that Sanusi is contemplating going to court to challenge his suspension. No matter how long the case takes, let him pursue it to its logical conclusion so that the judiciary can tell us whether or not the president can suspend the CBN governor. Such a pronouncement will go a long way in avoiding a recurrence in future. If only the court had decided the Justice Ayo Isa Salami case, perhaps, Sanusi may not have suffered the same fate as the former President of the Court of Appeal, who was suspended for almost two years before his retirement.