The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Wanted : People’s Police

    The job of the police is well cut out. It is to maintain law and order. In so doing, the police are expected to be up and doing, proactive and be ahead of criminals. The police, though not spirits, are expected to be everywhere in order to nip crimes in the bud. In societies where the police know their duty, they discharge their functions with the best of intentions. They leave no room for the people to doubt their integrity. How I wish our police could be like that.

    Don’t get me wrong, the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) is trying within its limited resources. We know its constraints but those are not enough for it not to rise to the occasion when the need arises. Our police do certain things which the larger public finds worrisome. They tend to pander to the whims and caprices of the powerful. The downtrodden have no chance with the police even where they are the aggrieved. It is very easy for the police to turn them to suspects suddenly and before they know it they are behind the counter.

    Getting out of the counter entails the greasing the palms of the policemen at that station. If they don’t pay in time, they may end up in court as accused in matters they know nothing about. Where they are lucky not to be taken to court, they pay through their nose because the longer they are at the station, the more they pay. The sins of our police are many. They arrest people at will and engage in extra – judicial killings. They also know how to perform what the late Afrobeat sensation, Fela Anikulapo – Kuti, called ”government magic”. They can turn blue to white and green to red in a twinkling of an eye. When they do such things, I wonder if our policemen have conscience.

    What do you make of the killing of a man, as it happened some years ago, who sought refuge in a police station at Mafoluku in Lagos. The deceased had been driven to the station by a taxi driver, who returned the following day only to be told that his customer was nowhere to be found. The driver, who suspected foul play, raised an alarm. It was later found that the deceased, who returned late from abroad the previous day had been killed because of the foreign money he was carrying by those who should naturally have protected him. Can those involved in such bestial act be called policemen? Many years after that unthinkable act, we don’t know what has become of the case. Were those involved dismissed and tried? In what court were they tried? Is the case still on or has it been concluded? Are the policemen still in service?

    We need to know all these in order to know how to reform our police, which do well when on peace missions outside the country. How can that be, you may wish to ask, when they treat us their compatriots like nonentities back home. Is it a function of those ”I know I can treat anyhow and those I don’t know I must respect”. We, the people, deserve all the respect we can get from our policemen to enable them discharge their job well. The police also deserve our respect. But with the hostile attitude of some of them, they have alienated themselves from the people. Many Nigerians will think twice before they help any policeman because they believe he does not mean well for them. But it should not be so.

    The police and the people should work in sync for their mutual benefit. The police leave room for suspicion when they engage in acts in which ordinarily they should not be found. Like Caesar’s wife, the police should be above board in whatever they do. When the story of the N255 million bulletproof cars broke, the police were not involved. Up till now, I cannot say if they are investigating the matter which involves the Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Oduah. Now madam is not a small fry. Remember, she was the brain behind Neighbour2Neighbour, one of the groups that worked towards the election of President Goodluck Jonathan in 2011. The group, it was learnt, is waiting in the wings to reenact in 2015 what it did in 2011. The bulletproof cars will become handy then, sources said.

    Although the princess has since denied that the cars were bought for her use by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), the police and her henchmen appear to be manufacturing a reason why she should have such cars, if not now, but certainly in 2015 when she will again be in the forefront of the president’s campaign. How do I mean? The THISDAY, in its lead story on Tuesday, reported the police as confirming that there was an attempt on Oduah’s life in Abuja on Saturday night. She was said to have escaped the attempted assassination because she was not in the Escalade Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV), with registration number FST 914 BL. The paper forgot to tell readers if the SUV was bulletproof. According to the paper, a report of the incident was lodged at the Mabushi Police Station at 5.35 p.m., on Monday, that is about 48 hours after the attack.

    Now I can smell a rat. Those behind the story know what they are doing. With the House of Representatives indicting Oduah over the bulletproof cars, they believe that now is the time for them to act to save the minister’s neck before the president looks that way. The administrative panel set up by the president has also submitted its report. We know the content of the lawmakers’ report, but we don’t know that of the administrative panel. The House, which indicted Oduah, asked the president to take a decision on the issue because the penalty for the offence is three – year jail with N100,000 fine option. The president may not act on the House report, but since we don’t know what his panel recommended, we wait to see how he will handle the matter.

    But Oduah and her people are not waiting. They are moving fast to whip up public sympathy for her. This is why we are now suddenly getting to know that an attempt was made on her life last Saturday. Let us take the THISDAY report verbatim from here : ”The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Commissioner of Police (CP), Mr Femi Ogunbayode, through his Public Relations Officer, Mr Athine Daniel, a Deputy Superintendent (DSP), said what was found inside the car after the shooting was a mettalic object, which the police are investigating. The driver of the vehicle, whose name he withheld, was not injured, he added.

    ”Also speaking to THISDAY on the phone, Mr Joe Obi, the Special Adviser, Media to the minister, said the incident occurred on Saturday along the Nnamdi Azikiwe Road by Banex Bridge, Ministers’ Quarters, Maitama. He added that unknown to the gunmen, Oduah was not in the car at the time of the attack. He said the driver was lucky to have escaped the assassin’s bullets. Also, photographs of the Escalade provided by the Federal Aviation Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) spokesman, Yakubu Dati, showed that it appeared to be riddled with some bullet holes, but the reference to the bullet holes was inexplicably missing in the statement provided by the police on the attempt on Oduah’s life”. ‘’Inexplicably missing’’ link? No. Their lie caught up with them.

  • Anambra State governorship election

    Last week’s governorship election in Anambra State ended in utter confusion and chaos. According to press reports, voting did not take place in many of the voting centres. Voting materials arrived very late in many of the centres. In many places, voting registers were either not available, or displayed. Where they were available, many of the voters could not find their names in the register and could not vote. There were huge protests by those who were thus disenfranchised. The whole thing was farcical.

    Of the five political parties that presented candidates for the election, four, including the APC and the PDP, have denounced it as highly flawed and fraudulent. They have called for the outright cancellation of the results of the election. The Chairman of INEC, Professor Attahiru Jega, has admitted that the election was badly flawed and that there will have to be fresh election in Anambra State. Specifically, one senior electoral officer has been apprehended and handed over to the Police for suspected complicity in the massive electoral fraud. The whole sordid affair is being investigated by an INEC panel. The security agencies, particularly the police, have been accused of complicity in the massive electoral fraud in the state election. Many voters were allegedly denied access by the police to the voting centres. Some who were thought to be in support of the opposition parties were manhandled and not allowed to vote. This is one more reason why the creation of state police should be considered as necessary. The federal police have become increasingly partisan in support of the ruling party.

    Now, it is really a shame that after 53 years of our independence, we still cannot hold free and fair elections in this country. The result of every election in Nigeria has been hotly disputed with some justification. Elections have been successfully held in other African States with none of the rancour, bitterness and violence that mark our elections here. Only last year, Ghana successfully held its presidential elections, which were adjudged by most foreign observers to have been free and fair. Even in Kenya and Zimbabwe, the presidential elections in those countries were considered by observers to have been free and fair on the whole. There is absolutely no reason, except greed for office, why we in Nigeria cannot hold free and fair elections. In the last few years, the courts have had to over turn electoral results declared by our INEC in several states, on account of blatant fraud and electoral malpractices by INEC officials.

    Free and fair elections are crucial for the success of any democratic society. Where the integrity of elections is subverted, as is the case here, then this is a direct challenge to the stable and democratic society we have been trying to develop since our independence from British colonial rule in 1960. After the long period of military rule, it is time for Nigeria to fully embrace the tenets of democracy, particularly the holding of free and fair elections. A State in which elections are so blatantly rigged cannot claim to be democratic.

    Admittedly, the political stakes involved in elections in Nigeria are very high. Political offices ensure instant access to undreamt of wealth and social preferences. In a poor society, many people are only too willing on financial inducements to sabotage the electoral process. Many are driven to politics, not for public service, but by the attraction of wealth and position. This is no justification for the blatant manner in which our politicians act desperately to subvert the political process by rigging elections. This is why the so-called elected politicians are regarded in the society with disdain and scorn. Electoral rigging and fraud by our politicians alienates the electorate from participating fully in the electoral process, as it lacks any credibility. In most cases, the voters believe that the outcome of elections in Nigeria is predetermined and that there is no point wasting valuable time to exercise their civic duty and right, when they know how they vote is of no avail.

    In 2015, Nigeria will hold its presidential elections. There will also be elections in several other states. These elections will be crucial for Nigeria’s political future. From what transpired in Anambra, we can expect that the elections will be marred by violence and electoral fraud. In many cases, the results might not be conclusive, as in last week’s election in Anambra. We may be without any legitimate government for weeks, if not months.

    If there is a political vacuum, this could prove to be a fatal temptation for the security forces to again claim a greater role for themselves in Nigeria’s politics. Nigerians have never liked military rule. They fought against it for decades until the military were forced to step down by strong and unrelenting public opposition. We prefer civilian democratic rule to military rule. But many are beginning to wonder whether the badly divided political class can hold this country together. There are far too many political uncertainties. Many now fear that, as predicted by the American CIA, 2015 may indeed prove to be Nigeria’s apocalyptic year.

    Whether, or not, Nigeria survives 2015 is in the hands of the politicians. If the 2015 elections are massively rigged, or the outcome is not clear, then there will be a great danger of the country breaking up. The strains of carrying on will, in the circumstances, be too great for the people of Nigeria. They might then come to the regrettable conclusion that Nigeria can no longer be saved as it is. Many who have shown much faith in the unity of Nigeria will then be forced to join those calling for the peaceful break up of the country. This would be a pity. But it would be far better than having to go to war all over again.

  • Mike Okhai Akhigbe

    I had heard rumours that Vice-Admiral Mike Akhigbe was ill, but I didn’t know it was unto death. When I was travelling out of the country on September 30, I saw a young man and his wife and daughter in the British lounge in Lagos and this young fellow looked remarkably like Mike Akhigbe and I am one 100 percent sure that this guy must be his son. I wanted to call him and ask if he was Mike’s son, but on second thought, I didn’t ask, because young people these days are unpredictable. He could have said buzz off! Although not very likely.

    I first met Mike Akhigbe I believe in 1984 when I was Professor and Dean of Arts at the University of Maiduguri. I was a member of a committee set up by the Buhari administration to turn the Ojukwu Bunker and the surrounding buildings in Umuahia into a war museum. My former teacher and friend, the late Prof. Emmanuel Adiele Afigbo was also a member of this committee. We had a seminar in Umuahia on the history of Nigerian military in both pre-colonial and colonial Nigeria. A lot of the bright people in the Army, Navy and Air force either served on the National War Museum Committee or came to attend the conference. This was how I first met Commander Mike Akhigbe. Since then, I grew to know him more and more as a highly cerebral and intelligent man who was more at home with academics than perhaps officers in the Armed Forces. When the Babaginda administration came in, the young Mike Akhigbe was made the Governor of Ondo State. I was outside the country at that particular time in 1985, attending one conference or the other. He left words for me that I should kindly get in touch with him immediately I came back to Nigeria. He wanted me to be involved in his administration, but I was not inclined to do so, because I was afraid of local politics. Because of my sad experience with Nigerian politics in the 1960s arising from my Brother Chief Oduola Osuntokun’s equally unhappy experience, I never wanted to be involved in politics, whether military or civilian. Nevertheless, Mike Akhigbe kept in touch with me and I remember his meeting with Ondo State citizens in Lagos and Ibadan, and asking us to ask Babaginda, the then President to give us our due because at that particular time we did not have any representation in government and yet we were the ones producing the cocoa on which the economy of Nigeria rested before the advent of crude oil.

    I believe it was through the pressure led by Mike Akhigbe that a citizen of our state eventual became Secretary to Government. Mike Akhigbe became not only a champion of Ondo State rights, but also a patron of the state. He was more emotional about the state not getting its due than even those of us who came from the state. I remember him leading us to a meeting with the then Minister of Agriculture, Lt. Gen. Alani Akinrinade, Brig. Oni who is from Ekiti, was in this informal meeting in Gen. Akinrinade’s house somewhere in Ikoyi and one of the things that Mike Akhigbe wanted us to argue with the General was the abolition of the Cocoa Marketing Board. This was a carry-over from the old Western Region when the marketing board was created to stabilise price of cocoa in the local market. The marketing board usually bought cocoa from the farming community and their agents, then sold this in the world market at price usually higher than what was paid locally, and kept the excess. These excess was used to cushion the price of cocoa whenever it went down in the world market so that local farmers were not affected by any sudden deep depression of prices. The result of this process was that farmers never really got what was due to them and sometimes up to 60 percent went to the marketing board. So in order for the farmers to enjoy the fruit of their labour, we wanted the Cocoa Marketing Board abolished. The other side of the coin was that abolition could create instability of prices for the local farmers. Mike’s opinion was that the farmers should hold their destiny in their own hands. To cut a long story short, through the force of character and arguments, Mike Akhigbe led us to prevail on government to abolish the cocoa marketing board and this immediately led to increase in cocoa production because farmers got what they deserved. This was vintage Akhigbe. He was never afraid of anybody and even as a military man, he never followed orders blindly, he always spoke his mind and he surely must have gotten into trouble because of his forthright character. He was a great friend of mine. I never socialised with him, but he related with me as a gentleman and as an officer and as a great friend. When he came to Lagos as Governor, he asked me if I would want to serve in the Governing Council of Lagos State University as a member and he appointed me to that council and I remember that one great thing that council did was the appointment of the late Prof. Jadesola Akande as the second female Vice-Chancellor in the country, second to Prof. Alele Williams in the University of Benin. I believed I played a pivotal role in Prof. Jadesola Akande’s appointment and I am proud of it.

    I continued to maintain contact with Mike Akhigbe when I was Ambassador in Germany and when he rose to the pinnacle of his profession as Chief of Naval Staff. He subsequently became the Number Two man after Abacha died, and I believe he assisted Gen. Abdusalami Abubakar in transiting from Military dictatorship to democratic governance in 1999. Mike Akhigbe was a great man in many respects. Some would regard him as brash and hot-tempered but he received as much as he gave, and whenever he spoke, he spoke the truth. He did not throw his weight around as others would have done. I remember him complaining to me about a colleague who was disrespectful to his wife, who was one of our graduate students in the University of Lagos. If he had wanted, he could have used his position to make my colleague uncomfortable, but he never did, he merely complained to me. He himself at a particular time was a student of the University of Lagos and he studied Law and graduated as a lawyer while his wife graduated with a PhD in Education. This must have given him tremendous joy because I believe that if he had had the opportunity as a child, he himself would have gone into academia rather than the military and I believe he had the temperament, the ability, the grey matter to excel in any field of human endeavour. He would be surely and sorely missed both at home and in the Nigerian society. My heart goes to his wife and children and I pray that they know that anybody who lives in the hearts of others cannot die. So it is with Mike Akhigbe. Adieu.

  • INEC’s great shame

    By now, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) under the leadership of Prof Attahiru Jega is expected to know better when it concerns elections. Elections are no small matter in this country. They are seen as war by other means by our politicians, who go to any length to ensure that they win. When former President Olusegun Obasanjo spoke about a ‘’do or die’’ election, he knew what he was saying. Baba was telling us the uninitiated that it is not the best candidate that wins an election, but the one that is ready to play dirty.

    By his statement, he was telling us that other extraneous factors come into play in deciding who wins an election. If the contestant is in power as we have seen in recent times. the contest is a walk over. Where other contestants see evil being perpetrated during the election, all he sees is a well organised election, even when many voters are disenfranchised. Our politicians fight elections with all they have. They make use of money, men and materials.

    Those who don’t have money are ready to borrow, with the hope that on winning they will repay the debt in tenfold. By now, Jega and his men should have become wise to the ways of our politicians, but it seems he has learnt nothing from all the elections he has so far conducted. Jega has integrity, he has honour and he is well respected as a man of principle. These are attributes that a man in his position should have. But what is the essence of having these qualities when they cannot come into play when it matters most : election period.

    It is during elections that the strong character of an umpire should stand him in good stead. It is during such period that the world should know the umpire as a no – nonsense person. An umpire who will look the contestants in the face, no matter who they are, and tell them that this is a contest in which the people’s votes will determine the winner, no more, no less. Of course, without saying so, we know that elections are won by the highest number of votes.

    The Electoral Act puts it succinctly : ‘’In an election to the office of the president or governor whether or not contested and in any contested election to any other elective office, the result shall be ascertained by counting the votes cast for each candidate and subject to the provisions of Sections 133, 134 and 179 of the Constitution, the candidate that receives the highest number of votes shall be declared elected by the appropriate returning officer’’. Experience has shown that the problems of our elections come from the electoral officials.

    In most instances, these officials are compromised and they do everything to favour the one paying them. Having spent three years in the system, Jega cannot claim ignorance of how our politicians use his men to do their bidding. Jega may be honest and sincere but can we say the same of his men? With what happened in the Anambra State governorship election last Saturday, there is no doubt that Jega still has a lot of house cleaning to do, if he wishes to walk the streets with his head held high after leaving the INEC job.

    What he should know is that there are many among his officials who will do anything to soil his hard – earned name for a mess of porridge. He is the only one that can stop them from doing so by making a scape goat of those black sheep. He cannot wait until these people bring shame to him during elections before he moves against them. Anambra is one state and if INEC cannot handle election in only one state, can it be trusted to hold free and fair elections nationwide in 2015. The Anambra election did no do INEC’s image any good. It was a disaster of an election.

    Having seen the handwriting on the wall early in the day, Jega should have moved swiftly to stop the election. It was a miscalculation on his part to have waited until the exercise was over for him to tell us that there is nothing he can do. He can do a lot. The election was ‘’inconclusive’’ long before the returning officer, Prof James Epoke, declared it so on Monday morning. The election was bound to end up that way when thousands of voters were disenfranchised. It was at this stage that Jega should have stopped the election if he was truly for a free and fair exercise. He had all the opportunity in the world to do that, but he lost it.

    Should we be made to pay the price for this error in judgement? The electorate should not made to pay such price by foisting a fait accompli on them. Jega and his men should carry the can for their shoddiness. Throwing the book at us that INEC can no longer do anything about the election after the declaration of result is bunkum. This is the more reason why he should have acted fast since he knew that INEC’s hands will become tied once the returning officer releases the final result.

    INEC is looking for an easy way out by asking the aggrieved to seek redress in court. This is the style of our politicians who rig elections and wait for their opponents to challenge their ‘victory’ at the tribunal. We should not allow INEC to get away that easily without clearing the mess it created. It is sad that an election in just one state ended like this. Can INEC be trusted with the 2015 general elections?

     

    The possessed governor’s convoy

    Big men in our country like to move in style. They go about with a retinue of security aides, who clear the road for them and prevent people from getting close to them. These overbearing guards act as if they are possessed. Whether the big man is a politician, a businessman or a musician, they are noisy in their public movement. On such occasion, a lot of damage is done as we have witnessed in Kogi State Governor Idris Wada’s case.

    A former pilot, Wada moves on ground as if he is flying. When his convoy passes by it does so with jet speed. His convoy does not care about other road users. Does it even care about its master? The drivers do not. If they do, they would not have driven the way they did last year that led to an accident in which Wada broke a leg. His Aide – De – Camp (ADC), Idris Mohammed, died.

    Having recovered, he has gone back to his old way of speeding as if he is in a race. Last Tuesday, his convoy was at it again. It was involved in a fatal accident with a vehicle conveying some Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) officials to Kano in Banda village, on the outskirts of Lokoja, the Kogi State capital. The lone casualty was former ASUU president Prof Festus Iyayi. The driver, according to sources, did not stop to see the damage he caused. He sped off like a mad man. Really, if the drivers of these convoys are not mad will they drive the way they do? Why should a governor’s convoy be the one involved in fatal accidents virtually all the time?

    Are these convoys not subject to traffic rules? Shouldn’t there be a speed limit for them? Does being a public officer confer on one the power to drive recklessly on the road? Shouldn’t these convoys show respect to other motorists? Since Iyayi was killed in that unfortunate accident, we have not heard about the arrest of the driver. Are these convoys above the law? Does it mean that a convoy can just kill and go? We cannot afford to continue to lose people to avoidable convoy accidents.

    All that is required to prevent such accidents is to ensure that the drivers are sane while on the road. This is where the police and the road safety come in. These institutions have an enormous role to play in calling these convoys to order while on the road. If the police and road safety can harass other motorist why should they shy away from doing their jobs when it concerns convoys? Tall order, eh!

  • Opeyemi Bamidele and his PDP promoters

    It is hard to understand the ways of a Nigerian politician. That, he is a complex entity whose actions defy logic, we have the authority of a veteran politician, Ebenezer Babatope, once a fire-eating radical, now a PDP stalwart. He recently said something to the effect that ‘to us politicians, two plus two may not always be four’. He went on to assert that President Jonathan is not just the best Nigerian leader so far, but the one that embodied all the combined virtues of all our past heroes.

    I have consulted those who are close to Opeyemi Bamidele to get an insight into the complex character of this daring, self-assured and smart young Nigerian politician without success. But one thing that is not in doubt is that Opeyemi, with a degree in religious studies from our great Ife backed up with a law degree from a foreign university, is an extremely intelligent and smart politician. We need no further proof of this than his membership of the inner circle of young professionals working for Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a leader who worships intellect and surrounds himself with only the best brains available in his environment and reaches out when circumstances demand special experts as he did during his epic judicial battle to retrieve the stolen mandates of Mimiko of Ondo and Aregbesola of Osun from PDP interlopers.

    Honorable Bamidele, representing Irepodun-Ifelodun Constituency and until recently leader of Ekitit State caucus in the House of Representatives wants to contest the 2014 governorship election in Ekiti on the platform of his party. The party’s position is that the incumbent should be allowed to go for a second term because of his acknowledged performance in terms of infrastructural development and bringing peace to a state that was for three years, besieged by PDP gangs who settled intra-party feuds through assassinations. But Bamidele is said to be daring his party leaders insisting he would seek accommodation in another party.

    He has however assured his peace loving people that he is “a child of God who would never seek power like those who have sold their soul to the devil’ or ‘step on blood to rule’. “God sees my heart”, he recently declared, “the only reason I am involved in Ekiti politics is to serve and help the people; I do not have any reason to be desperate”. He claims he is responding to the pressure from his Ekiti people. He is however yet to say if those who earnestly want him to run include those in Ekiti currently celebrating Fayemi’s achievements or those referred to a few days ago with howling newspaper headlines “Opeyemi Bamidele gets the support of USA based Ekitis”

    Contained in his manifesto is his plan to provide water closets for houses that rely on the use of pit latrines and those who still rely on nearby bushes to defecate’, provide ‘Pipe borne water for houses that still rely on well and fetching water from nearby streams’, speed up ‘access to the use of gas and electric cookers for houses that still rely on the use of firewood to cook their meals’. He also intends to come to the rescue of the blind, the deaf and those with speaking defects as well as the disable who will be provided with mobility and the mentally sick who will be taken off the streets.

    Part of his argument has not been that Fayemi is not addressing these problems but that he made Fayemi a governor by literarily dragging him down from Abuja where he was busy writing speeches for the presidency to Lagos where he was introduced to Tinubu, his godfather. While we may not be privy to the secrets between him and his friend, there is no doubt that they have been close allies who were in the trenches together for three years fighting PDP mandate-snatchers. They were both victims of violence when the state was besieged during PDP’s illegal occupation of the seat of government by assassins and kidnappers who routinely ferried prominent Ekitis including Obas to adjoining states for ransom.

    But today, Bamidele says Fayemi is a man of violence who masterminded an attack on his person in Igede while visiting their common PDP friend whose son Fayemi recently appointed a local council caretaker. And he has found support from of all places, PDP, their erstwhile tormentor. Senator Ayo Arise has decried “spate of political violence in Ekiti state in recent times”, a development he said called for urgent attention”. From Abuja came a press release by PDP’s acting National Publicity Secretary, Barr. Tony Caesar Okeke attacking Tinubu: “it is extremely wicked and undemocratic for Tinubu to order Hon. Opeyemi Bamidele, to forget his governorship ambition”; such “smacks of tyranny and outright disdain for democracy”; “it is a display of despotic tendencies and utter disdain for democratic process”; and finally, PDP is urging the Ekitis “to rise up to the occasion and defend their rights by rejecting the usual practice of allowing godfathers to select their leaders for them”. And for a good measure, they reminded the people that Tinubu is not from Ekiti.

    I am not sure if labelling a kettle black by a pot, which is exactly what a fractionalized PDP is doing, will help Opeyemi in his current futile attempt to upstage a performing governor, who also happens to be his close ally. And I also think it is doubtful if the people of Ekiti, who according to Professor Akintoye, are the most educated and informed group in Nigeria and Africa need the help of PDP to identify who their true leaders are. If others have forgotten so soon, it is doubtful if the people of Ekiti will forget so easily how President Obasanjo imposed an Ayo Fayose whose role model was Adedibu the head of Ibadan thugs as replacement for a polished, cultured and well educated Niyi Adebayo, who was rigged out as governor of the state. Obasanjo who introduced the culture of “if a mouse cannot eat the beans, it pours them in the sand” into Ekiti, went on to supervise a flawed election that saw disgruntled members of AC emerge as senators and members of the Lower house.

    That is not to say Bola Tinubu is also perfect. Because he loves the bright and smart, Bamidele can do no wrong. When the Ekiti caucus of the lower house, who know those they represent expect them to call a spade by its name, removed Bamidele as their leader not too long ago, they were over ruled. As a very discerning group, the Ekitis don’t hold those who think they are smart in high esteem. The story is told of a professor who became a federal minister and in character with PDP, erected an imposing mansion in his village. The people who know the worth of their “omowe and ojogbon (Doctors and professors) beyond mansions gleefully show visitors a mansion built by a PDP smart professor.

    Ekiti is an enchanting land of undulating hills, meandering rivers and waterfalls, a land of honour inhabited by men of character. The Ikogosi spring where warn and cold spring water oozes out of the same source and flowing side by side symbolizes the peaceful coexistence of the people. Of course that does not signify absence of conflict. In fact after their 16 years ‘kiriji’ war of independence, the Ekiti ran a confederacy of 16 kingdoms presided over by the 16 first class Ekiti Obas who met once a month during ‘pelupelu’ to resolve conflicts. And once a consensus was reached, their word was their bond.

    Ekitis are known for loyalty to friends. Fajuyi demonstrated that by dying with Ironsi his guest. It is not in our character to be subversive. Ekitis have never been known to be active participants in coups in the country. Ekitis never deny their benefactors. Their love for Awolowo even in death is without measure. We never discountenance the advice of elders because we have been taught to appreciate that no matter the size of a young man’s wardrobe, he can never have as many rags as adorned an old man’s wardrobe.

  • Election rigging in the Yoruba Southwest is poison to Nigeria

    A major part of the reason for Nigeria’s growing failure is that we do not respect the unique cultural character of each of the many nationalities of our country. In a shallow and unthinking manner, those who control power in our country are forever striving to impose cultural uniformity over Nigeria’s many nationalities – as if, in all situations of human life, what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

    This integrationist bungling is many-faceted. The federal government subtly pushes an educational programme aimed at suppressing the languages, and even the cultures, of Nigerian nationalities. Ardent Muslim chieftains, when in control of the federal government, seek to use federal power to make Nigeria a radical Muslim country. The rest of us, when a Northern Muslim state adopts Sharia Law, cry foul. Recently, federal legislators from a nationality whose culture accepts the marriage of under-age girls pushed through the National Assembly a resolution making the marriage of under-age girls law in all of Nigeria. Quite often, the integrationist bungling spills over into the realm of the absurd.

    But, worse still, they often provoke resistance – sometimes violent resistance akin to insurrection – as well as inter-group conflicts. Sudden explosions by Muslim indigenes in the towns of the North, resulting in mass killings of non-Muslims (mostly Southerners), started mostly in the years since the hot controversy over whether the Sharia should be enshrined in the Nigerian Constitution. The determined opposition from the South naturally gave the Northerners the fear that non-Muslim Nigeria was up against the way of life of the Muslim North. That fear launched an era of spasmodic eruptions by Muslim folks in the North. Islamic fundamentalist terrorist gangs and terrorism were later developments on those mass eruptions.

    It is not usually recognized that mass eruptions in the Yoruba South-west, following upon blatant rigging of elections, are also a form of culture-based resistance. About 1000 years before the coming of British rule, the Yoruba nation began to build towns and kingdoms, in which they evolved a unique political system of their own. That system was based upon the principle that power belongs to the people. From that general principle, the Yoruba developed the various details of their system. For instance, unlike the citizens of other kingdoms in the world, the Yoruba did not accept that a king should be succeeded automatically by his son, without any say by the people. Rather, the citizens of each Yoruba kingdom selected their king from the pool of their eligible princes. Usually, a standing committee of high chiefs did the selecting on behalf of the citizens; but, it was the rule that the citizens, as individuals or as groups, could freely lobby these high chiefs, and that the chiefs must be available and listen to the people. In essence, the selection was done by the people. In some kingdoms, the practice was that, after the high chiefs had decided the selection, they would stand at the palace gate and announce to the crowd of citizens, “We have given you your king” – meaning, we have chosen for you the prince that you wanted the most.

    In their towns, Yoruba people lived in large family compounds known as agbo-ile, each of which housed tens of families. The chiefs (below the king) were domiciled in the biggest and oldest family compounds. When a chief died, he was not succeeded automatically by his son; all the people of the family compound held meetings and selected one of themselves as the next chief. This process always resulted in competing candidates, factions, meetings upon meetings – and then, ultimately, the selection.

    In short, the Yoruba people have, for more than 1000 years, elected their rulers. That is their political culture. It was very important to them that their selections of kings and chiefs should be handled fairly and with integrity. That was the way they maintained order and stability in their towns. In the course of hundreds of years, fairness in the selection process became like a religion to them.

    Then came British rule, and then the British system of election of rulers – in self-governing and independent Nigeria. There is not much difference between the British system and the traditional system of the Yoruba, and the Yoruba people expect the new system to be as fair, and be done with as much integrity, as their own traditional system. Yoruba people can be very passionate about this.

    Between 1952 and 1960, the Yoruba expectations over elections were considerably well met. The party that managed to win our first regional election in 1951 and to control the regional government, the Action Group, did not try thereafter to use governmental power to manipulate or rig elections. The opposition party too, the NCNC Western Region, did not try to manipulate or rig elections. Usually, the two were close and the races were tight. Many people forget today that the NCNC actually beat the AG narrowly in the 1954 federal election in the Western Region. That is how competitive the elections were – and yet neither party (all Yoruba leaders and all Yoruba candidates) tried to cut unfair corners. Yoruba culture reigned triumphantly, and the Western Region gradually evolved into a solidly democratic modern society.

    But then came Nigeria’s independence in 1960, and a determined federal-cum-Northern determination to dominate all of Nigeria, including the Western Region. The emergence of a new party in the Western Region as a subordinate ally of the party of the Northern Region opened doors for those who sought to dominate the region. So it was that in the 1964 federal election, we in the Western Region experienced, for the first time, the kind of massive election manipulation and rigging that we had long faintly heard of from the North. Because we had never experienced these things before, we were too confused to respond adequately.

    But then the 1965 Regional Election came, and it was even more blatantly rigged in the same ways. The insult was now too unbearable, and we the youths of the Western Region refused to accept it. We erupted all over our region. And we continued to fight and resist until we dragged down all order in Nigeria – and until the military seized power.

    The youths of the Yoruba nation have had to fight the war of resistance against election rigging again and again, and in various forms, since then. They fought a shockingly bloody one in Ondo State in 1983 that again paved the way for military take-over in Nigeria; and a series of technologically sophisticated ones in 2007 – 11.

    In short, Yoruba people just cannot, and will not, tolerate the horrendous cultural insult that election rigging represents. Today again we have persons elected at our pleasure ruling our six states. We know that this kind of situation has usually tempted those who want to rig election in our land. Those who control federal power in Nigeria refuse accept that, in political culture, the Yoruba nation is different from most of the other nationalities of Nigeria. In spite of the fact that the noise over the National Conference supersedes all other things right now in Nigeria, the South-west is not careless. If there are any persons thinking of rigging in the elections that will soon be due in the South-west, they should be reminded that rigging elections in the Yoruba South-west is usually a bringer of bad news for Nigeria and Nigeria’s federal rulers.

  • Honours 2013

    Honours 2013

    We almost forgot it. Who wouldn’t, considering the evil that stalks the land all through the year, leaving little room for the clarity of thoughts that such an intellectual exertion demands. Boko and all the other harams. Plane crashes. Communal clashes. Robberies, Kidnapping. Assassinations. Extrajudicial killings. And more. I wonder how President Goodluck Jonathan still sleeps.

    Only last week, 25 people died in a stampede after a church programme in Anambra State. A few days before then, Boko Haram – o my God; what a scary name – attacked a wedding party, killing 30.

    Under such circumstances, you will agree with me, it is easy to forget all those remarkable achievements – politicians call them giant strides – we have made in the course of the year.

    A long preamble? Well, I just needed to make the clarification. Any notebook worthy of its name, needless to say, should put every issue it discusses in perspective so as not to be accused of obfuscation. Or grandstanding.

    Now, dear reader, welcome to Honours 2013. Remember this is the platform on which we recognise excellence, those rare feats by our compatriots which may have gone unnoticed, either because of some deliberate plots –envy, if you like – or sheer ignorance by the authorities. It is not in any way to be confused with the contentious and sometimes divisive national honours. No.

    Where else to start than politics where we have many nominees, whose giant strides –pardon the cliché, please – will confuse even the most painstaking of panellists. In other words, there are so many who deserve to carry the day. Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, the national chairman of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has succeeded where many giants failed. Before he took office, the largest party in Africa – its ignorant detractors will always ask scornfully: what does that mean; is size a yardstick of performance; size sans sense? – was infested with that morbid disease that has killed many areas of our public life, indiscipline.

    Today, I am happy to report without any fear of contradiction by those pseudo historians who hide under the dubious nomenclature, social analyst, that Tukur has brought discipline back to the party –at a great personal risk.

    Only seven of the 23 PDP governors are threatening to leave the party for what they call its resistance to reforms, the very virtue that Tukur has brought bountifully. No more the slackness and hedonism of the past. A governor was suspended because he did not return the chairman’s call (bad enough to have missed the call in the first place- for whatever reason). Another was slammed for watching while the House of Assembly suspended a local government chairman. He refused to stop the lawmakers, claiming to be respecting the separation of powers between the executive and the legislature, according to the charge. Now, those who are still in doubt of the new dawn in the PDP will soon have their properties demolished. Should they attempt to hold any unauthorised meeting, the police will be sent to smash such gatherings.

    Not even the courts can protect any party member. The other day, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola was brandishing a court judgment that nullified his sack as national secretary. He said he would like to return to his desk. The Tukur leadership, apparently defending party supremacy as against the rule of law under which many arrogant members hide to weaken the system, resisted Oyinlola’s move.

    For all these feats and others that are too many to enumerate here, including the acceleration of the PDP’s plan to rule for 60 years –in the first instance – Tukur is the ‘Politician of the Year’.

    It was difficult picking the ‘Minister of the Year’, considering the array of cabinet members who are fit and proper and worthy in character and action to get this prestigious prize. For a long time, people were dying in accidents on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. A company won the concession to rebuild the road – Nigeria’s busiest – but for one reason or the other it could not do the job. There is also the East-West road, another killer highway. Both seemed abandoned until Mike Onolememen mounted the saddle. Now, President Jonathan has cut the tape to signal the commencement of work on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, but skeptics are asking: when will work start?

    But the prize is not Onolememen’s, despite his exceptional deeds. Neither is it Agriculture Minister Akinwunmi Adesina’s – for making cassava bread the king on all breakfast tables. Nor is it Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s – for all those esoteric figures which, to her, mark a remarkable leap in the economy’s growth, even as many go to bed hungry and the jobless queue is growing.

    Aviation Minister Stella Oduah is ‘Minister of the Year’. All our airports are sparkling, courtesy of multi-billion contracts that many poor students of arithmetic can’t just figure out, saying they are shrouded in secrecy, as if contract details should be pasted on town hall notice boards. There have been just a few crashes – thanks to Ms Oduah’s safety-first policy, which states that safety should not only be an all-flight affair. The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has bought two BMW bulletproof cars at N255m for her safety. The ‘Transaction of the Year’ has raised so much dust, in a manner that has confounded safety experts who know the value of a minister’s life. A young fellow who knows a Cabinet source told me the other day that he learnt the safety-first policy would soon be adopted by all ministries, who will be required to “do the needful” by getting more sophisticated armoured vehicles. Prices? Keep guessing.

    The Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) did not mean much to many, until President Jonathan got involved in its politics. An election to elect its chairman became a fratricidal strife that consumed its integrity. Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi won the election with 19 votes against Plateau State Governor Jonah Jang’s 16. Jang, goaded on by Akwa Ibom State Governor Godswill Akpabio and others of controversial democratic credentials, declared himself winner. His proof: there was an unwritten understanding among his colleagues that the job was his for the asking. Those who did not understand such a gentleman’s agreement in politics said His Excellency was naïve. Off to the Villa he went to show off his prize and to church to thank God for the victory.

    For believing in the strange logic that 16 is bigger than 19 and doing his all to defend it, Jang is the ‘Governor of the Year’.

    Besides Inspector-General Muhammed Abubakar, no other police officer is as popular as Mbu Joseph Mbu, the cantankerous Rivers State Commissioner of Police. The more he cries that he is a professional and not a politician, the more he gets immersed in the bitter politics that has split the state along two main ideological lines – those Amaechi variously calls thieves and looters and those crying for change, their leader being Education Minister Nyesom Wike. Mbu has banned public gatherings, tear gassing innocent people who he thinks have flouted the order. The road to the Government House was once blocked against Governor Amaechi and his guests. When the state government complained to Abubakar, he found nothing wrong with Mbu’s actions. In fact, Mbu got a pat on the back.

    Step forward Officer Mbu, our ‘Policeman of the Year’. To many, you are a good example of a bad policeman, an officer but not a gentleman and a pugnacious fellow who lacks respect for constituted authority. To the IG, however, you are a fine officer. Isn’t this the real testimonial?

    Dangote Group President Aliko Dangote would have easily gone home with the ‘Businessman of the Year’ Award. After all, he is still Africa’s richest. Besides, he is listed among the world’s powerful men – and women. But what took Dangote years of toiling and sweating has taken some young fellows a few months to achieve. They have become billionaires overnight, without sleepless nights. This award is for the fuel subsidy merchants- many insist they are fraudsters- who had made it big long before the government woke up to the fact that we were being massively swindled.

    More awards will soon be announced. Watch out. To all our awardees, I say congratulations.

    Iyayi and a governor’s killer convoy

     It was devastating. Festus Iyayi, university teacher, writer, unionist and rights activist, died on Tuesday when a vehicle in the convoy of Kogi State Governor Idris Wada rammed into a bus in which some officials of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) were travelling. Sad.

    If the government had kept an agreement it signed in 2009, perhaps Iyayi would not have needed to travel. Why is Wada’s convoy so accident-prone? He got a broken leg the other time when his convoy crashed. What is the mental state of the governor’s drivers? Are convoy drivers above the law? Is the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), which is expected to enforce speed limits, helpless? Will Iyayi die in vain?

    With the death of Iyayi, the Nigerian state has succeeded in murdering another star. Many, stifled by the rot Iyayi and the others are fighting against, have long relocated overseas. May heaven accept Iyayi’s soul and console us all.

  • Salami : A postmortem

    For over two years, he was denied his right. Though he fought hard to regain what truly belonged to him, he was frustrated by the powers that got him out of office as president of the Court of Appeal on August 18, 2011. Justice Isa Ayo Salami is a principled man and he displayed this throughout the years he was on unjust suspension. They wanted him to jettison his principle for filthy lucre but he refused and stood firm to the end. Such men of courage and conviction of their actions are rare in our society.

    Justice Salami was treated like a non – entity because he refused to do the bidding of those who wanted to ruin the judiciary, which is the last hope of the common man. Politicians and some senior members of the Bench wanted to sell the judiciary to the highest bidder, but he said no. What did Justice Salami get? He was slammed with an unjust suspension. The few men of conscience in the society spoke against the suspension, demanding that Justice Salami be recalled. President Goodluck Jonathan, who in the first place should not have intervened in the matter, pretended not to have heard.

    If the president had not wielded the power he did not have by suspending Justice Salami at the behest of the then much compromised National Judicial Council (NJC), things may not have turned out the way they did. The president, his Minister of in(Justice)Mohammed Adoke and his party were on the same page on the Justice Salami saga. Their plan when they found that they could not get the man to sell his integrity for a mess of porridge was to look for ways to push him out of office. They succeeded in retching up wild allegations about his alliance with the then Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), which defeated the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in court in some governorship election cases.

    The Court of Appeal voided the governorship elections in Osun and Ekiti states, among others, to the annoyance of PDP. Since it is the party in power at the centre, it hatched a plot to get the president to deal with Justice Salami as head of the court for refusing to play ball. His refusal to play ball, a euphemism to turn a blind eye to what is wrong and allow injustice to prevail, cost him his job. Justice Salami found himself in the cold because he allowed the court he presided over to uphold justice. A judge’s oath to which he swore is all about being fair and firm no matter whose ox is gored. A judge, who cannot dispense justice without fair or favour, is not worth his seat.

    Justice Salami proved that he was worthy of his position. If those against him had found any thing against him, he would have been mince meat by now. There was nothing they did not do to nail him, but his honesty and sincerity stood him in good stead. We have many like that in the judiciary. My fear is that with what happened to Justice Salami these judges may start having doubts about standing by the truth come rain come shine. Won’t Justice Salami’s experience affect them negatively? Will they like Justice Salami abide by the conviction of their action when the chips are down? A society gets the kind of judges it deserves. With a corrupt political leadership, the judiciary cannot be expected to be incorrupt, except by the grace of God. This is why today our judiciary stinks. What happens at the customary and magistrates’ courts is a just a tip of the ice berg.

    What goes on at the courts of competent jurisdiction, that is, the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court is something else, going by the stories we hear. It is a case of if the head stinks, what do you expect of the body? It is a shame that we cannot boast about our judiciary because of the conduct of some judges, who believe that they must use their exalted position to make money, while doing what is wrong. Our society has become the worst for it. The few upright judges cannot do anything or else they will be ostracised. A judge, a good judge, deserves the protection of the state. A state, which believes in the rule of law, must not allow its judges to come to ridicule under whatever guise. Unfortunately, a state like ours believes in disgracing its honest judges.

    It allows the corrupt ones to go

    scot free because they are at its

    beck and call. They are the ones used to do the dirty jobs, which conscientious judges refuse outright. Must a judge be afraid of those in power? A judge, who knows what he is doing should not fear the political leadership, as clearly shown in the case of Justice Salami. If Justice Salami had skeleton in his cupboard, he would not have been able to stand up to those who wanted to drag his name in the mud at all cost. He has shown that a judge, who is above board, has nothing to fear but his conscience and God. Justice Salami should be happy with himself that he upheld his oath of office faithfully. This is what saved him in his fight with the forces of darkness. His joy should be that the same cannot be said of his antagonists.

    This is why today he holds his head high in retirement. They only succeeded in getting him out of office two years before his retirement, they did not succeed in killing the values of discipline, hard work, fairness and firmness, which he cherished. He has left the Bench, but he left something behind, which those still in office must ensure does not die and that is the integrity of the judiciary must not be compromised come what may. If Justice Salami had soiled his hands, he would not have left in glory as he did last week. From every part of the country people gathered to honour him; to tell him that they stood by him during his travail but could not do anything because they lacked the power to right the wrong done him.

    How did his tormentors feel, seeing him standing tall before a quality gathering in Abuja last month? They would have given anything to exchange places with the eminent jurist. But such privilege does not come cheap, it is earned. To earn it, every public officer must be God fearing, diligent and above board. But these are words many of them do not wish to hear. Politicians got Justice Salami not because he was “too rigid” as some are wont to say, they got him because his people were not with him. A man’s enemies are his own relations. This exactly was what happened to Justice Salami. “My colleagues, friends betrayed me”, he said at the valedictory court session for him in Abuja on October 31. The previous day at the presentation of a book : “Isa Ayo Salami : Through life and justice”, written in his honour , encomiums were showered on him for being the quintessential judge.

    All the speakers spoke glowingly of the man whose last two years on the Bench may in future be a research topic for law students. Why did the NJC act the way it did? Why did the president intervene in an issue in which he is not constitutionally empowered to act? Why did he not ignore the NJC recommendation to suspend Justice Salami? Why did he not reverse himself when the NJC subsequently asked him to recall Justice Salami? Can a president, who defied the court in suspending Justice Salami, hide under the same court in not recalling the judge? These are some of the posers law students will seek to unravel in future. It is painful when brothers and friends betray one. Such betrayals are felt in the marrow.

    This, perhaps, was what Justice

    Salami’s reflection was all

    about at his valedictory. Hear him : “The last three years of my career were dogged by travails which are not dissimilar to the fate of Joseph in the book of Genesis in the Bible. As his brothers conspired to destroy him by throwing him into a well and selling him into slavery, my learned brothers and friends in the legal profession planned and executed evil against me. The NJC created by the Constitution to protect me, nay any judicial officer, was in the vanguard of my travails. The NJC failed in its duties and thereby surrendered its functions to the Executive arm of government, thus ingratiating itself to the Executive…

    “…The NJC having cleared me of any wrongdoing, following the recommendation of CJN Aloma Mukhtar’s committee, ought to have recalled me ito office without asking the president to exercise the power that he does not possess, on the flimsy excuse that it had earlier referred the matter to him”. Milord, all is well that ends well. If they had not acted this way, we won’t have known the kind of friends they are. With friends like them, you don’tbo need an enemy. Happy retirement sir.

  • PPPRA’s insensitivity

    The Executive Secretary of the Petroleum Products Price Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, Reginald Stanley says that the agency with a staff strength of 249, supervised by an unwieldy 22-man strong board, earning a scandalously whopping salaries and allowances of N57.9 billion per annum is a blessing to Nigeria. For him the company’s monumental achievement in the last one year as a result of selfless service of the staff and the quality of leadership provided by the minister of petroleum calls for celebration. PPPRA, according to him has become so transparent in the last one year that only unpatriotic elements and enemies of progress will fail to see such self evident achievements. Indeed, for him, if there had been any criticism of PPPRA at all, it could only have been the work of “fifth columnists who are out to spread odium, hatred and campaigns of calumny” because of the body’s “resolve to support the minister of petroleum resources to make the difference’.

    Last week, during a Channel Television programme, he had in a tone soaked with patriotic fervour, declared: “No amount of intimidation or smear campaign can make us to derail in our resolve to serve our fatherland with integrity and honesty of purpose”. He then went on to remind Nigerians that “the minister of petroleum resources has put measures in place that consistently prevented corruption in the downstream sector of the oil industry in recent years”. He did not however tell us if “recent years” covered 2011 when through acts of omission of the minister and Ahmadu Alli, former chairman of PPPRA, a whopping N1.7 trillion was, according to House committee probe report, allegedly stolen by those with close links with PDP and government.

    But nonetheless, he went ahead to reel out what he considered unmatched achievements of PPPRA in the last one year: Bringing sanity to the downstream sector of the oil industry; reducing the level of fuel consumption by Nigerians from 60.25 million in 2011 to 39.66 litres in 2012 and pruning down of the number of fuel importers from unwieldy 128 in 2011, to 39 in 2012″

    He ignored the House Committee report that dismissed the level of consumption claimed by PPPRA as false and the fact that it was the reckless decision of the minister and the then chairman of PPPRA that saw the number of fuel importers moved from less than a dozen to 128 all in effort to spread patronage among PDP members and sympathizers.

    Stanley also wants Nigerians to congratulate PPPRA for reducing the N2.1 trillion the body fraudulently claimed it spent on phantom subsidy in 2011 to less than one trillion in 2012. He pretends as if we don’t have the ongoing court cases arising from National Assembly probe which recommended some leading light of PDP and their siblings for prosecution for allegedly forging documents to claim fuel subsidy when in truth they, to borrow a phrase used by Audu Ogbe, a former PDP chairman, “never imported a bottle of fuel”.

    And finally, in what amounts to an unprovoked assault on our sensibilities, the PPPRA Executive Secretary said we should all celebrate PPPRA and the minister of petroleum for “bringing integrity, creating system, processes and stability in product supply”. How much more can a people take from a group of self-proclaiming patriots who treat all of us as if we are all kindergarten pupils? It is incredible how some government officials who in other climes should be in court defending their integrity freely apply pepper into our eyes, and ask us to laugh instead of crying.

    Beyond puerile attempt by civil servants with no ambition beyond serving political office holders to hood wink us, a closer focus on the emergence of PPPRA itself will show it was like the monetization policy, an ingenious creation of PDP new breed politicians designed to confiscate our common wealth. In other words, policy formulation and policy implementation have become instruments of corruption to further impoverish our people.

    By strange coincidence, PDP assumption of power in 1999 was greeted with long queues at the filling stations, a development not brought about by market forces of demand and supply but mainly due to manipulation of the market to create artificial scarcity. Cynics say it was a strategy by cash-strapped PDP’s newly elected politicians to recoup their investments following their public confession that they sold private properties to fight the 1999 election.

    As parts of achieving this objective, contracts for the refurbishment of the refineries were awarded to politicians instead of multinationals that built them. The refurbishment exercise failed as was planned.

    As if working to answer, President Olusegun Obasanjo set up the Petroleum Products Pricing Committee which in turn recommended PPPRA with a mandate to “liberalise the downstream sector of the petroleum industry, privatise the refineries, deregulate and liberalise the imports of petroleum products and, generally, make the products available at reasonable prices”. The Bill for the establishment of PPPRA was promptly passed into law in February 2003 and assented to by Obasanjo in May 2003 because PDP had vested interest. (PIB has been pending for over five years}

    But PPPRA’s assigned functions turned out to be mere duplications of functions of Pipelines and Product Marketing Company, (PPMC) which was set up in 1988 to “profitably and efficiently market refined petroleum products in the domestic as well as export markets, especially in the ECOWAS sub-region, provide marine services and also maintain uninterrupted movement of refined petroleum products from the local refineries.”

    For those behind PPPRA, the end justifies the means. Not even the existence of the NNPC Act 1977 which saddled the minister of petroleum with the responsibilities of “regulating and fixing petroleum product prices and supervising the MPR/DPR that has sole regulatory authority over technical standards, refining, and logistics in the sector”, was going to stop them.

    Today, 10 years down the line, PPPRA has served only the interest of those who set it up. The lot of the poor is worse today than it was 10 years ago. They still cannot afford the cost of cooking gas while the so-called subsidized kerosene sells for about N140 naira outside NNPC filling stations.

    It has also turned out that the argument of both Sanusi Lamido, the CBN governor and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Minister of Finance, that it was only the middle class owners of two cars and diesel engine generators who were beneficiaries of government’s so-called subsidy has been proved to be more political than economic. As a result of their false prognosis, many industries that depend on diesel to run their factories have all folded up. Those managing to survive cannot compete with fake and substandard goods flooding the market due to import licenses selectively allocated to party members. It was on account of this Dangote Cement temporarily suspended production not too long ago.

    Unlike, PPMC, PPPRA has shown more commitments to importation of refined petroleum products than making our own refineries work. Instead of using NNPC facilities or rehabilitating the over 4,000 kilometres of petroleum pipeline commissioned by Obasanjo in 1979, PPPRA depends on the storage facilities of members of Depot Petroleum Products Marketers Association (DAPPMA) (Obat Petroleum is reputed to have the largest and most modern storage facilities in the world). It also patronises Independent Marketers Company (NIPCO) that has invested billions in storage facilities and a jetty in Apapa. It also relies to some degree on the services of Oando and Zenon petroleum companies that jointly control over 200 trucks and a jetty owned by Zenon.

    We now know without consulting the duo of Sanusi and Okonojo-Iweala, that a government that expends so much of our resources through PPPRA to patronize parasites instead of buildings refineries serves not our interest but those of the parasites.

    PPPRA that guzzles N57.9 billion every year serves only the interest of those who set it up to recoup money spent on election. With N600 billion, we will probably build two medium refineries that will end our dependency on imported fuel and provide job for a few of our 29 million unemployed youth. Of course, it will force current beneficiaries of the so-called deregulation presently falling over each other to erect the largest storage facility in the world and rent to government that can neither manage existing refineries nor NNPC tank farms, to stop feeding on our blood.

  • The beast that we Nigerians must tame

    It the height of the Western Region crisis of 1962-6, the crisis that led to the collapse of Nigeria’s First Republic and the coming of Nigeria’s first military coup (of January 1966), a prominent Lagos lawyer, Femi Okunu, made a statement that became famous.  He said, “The power of the federal government has grown, is growing, and ought to be curbed”.

    Femi Okunu was speaking in an era when the powers of the federal government were still comparatively small and well-defined, and when our regional authorities were still the makers and movers of development and progress in our country.

    Today, what we still call our federal government does not operate as a member government in a federation; it rules all and dictates to all. We no longer have a federation; what we have is a chaotic jumble of ruins in which, and through which, a so-called federal government stampedes and rumbles at will.

    And herein lies the root of our country’s growing poverty and hopelessness.  Herein lies the ever escalating unemployment among our youths, the constant flight of our educated youths to other lands, the growing spectre of violent conflicts all over our country, the descent of some of our youths into aberrations such as Boko Haram and secret cults.  It is the root of that horrendous iniquity whereby we let the Delta lands that produce all our petroleum wealth become the poorest and most neglected part of our country.

    As natural resources go, our country is one of the richest places in the world. And as soon as our own leading citizens were given the duty, from about 1952, to manage most of our county’s affairs, we commendably began to strive to fulfil our country’s promise. In the context of our federation of three regions, we engaged in a lively rivalry for greater and greater socio-economic developments, and for constantly measurable improvements in the quality of the lives of our people. Our start-off resources for participation in the world economy were humble, consisting mostly of exports of a few crops – cocoa from the Western Region, palm produce from the Eastern, and groundnuts from the Northern.  But we made the best of what we had. Each region developed better and better programmes for supporting and encouraging the producers of its export crop, thereby helping those producers to earn more income and Nigeria to earn more foreign exchange.  Each region went on from this base to advance in its own chosen direction – free primary education in the West, ambitious industrialization efforts in the West and the East and, to a lesser extent, also in the North, and impressive infrastructural programs everywhere.

    Oh, sure, there was partisan politics. That’s the nature of modern democratic countries. But “development” was the big game in our country, and the regions were where most of the big game was played.  Each region commanded adequate freedom and resources to be able to play its own share of the game, and to be able to make its own kind of contributions to the overall growing prosperity of our country. That is how a federation is supposed to be.

    But, then, in 1962, the federal government took the insane step of trying to establish federal control over one of our regions – the Western Region.  That step unleashed a cataclysmic progression of events which ultimately brought our military into the management of our country’s affairs.  Trained for, and used only to, central command, the military turned our country into a centrally commanded country.

    Run-away corruption became a close companion of over-centralized governing.  In the hands of our military rulers, the growing volume of petroleum revenue only bred an almost sub-human species of greed, accompanied by a desire to control more and more.  The regional and local passions and energies that had pushed our country steadily forward were destroyed. Focusing all attention on petroleum, our federal controllers abandoned the nurturing of the other assets that had been building our country’s economy.

    Denied the old regional help and encouragement, our cash crop farmers lost morale and hope. The federal authorities made the situation worse by establishing federal “regulation” (that is, control) over the cash crops.  By 1965, Nigeria was still one of the largest exporters of groundnuts, palm produce and cocoa in the world. By 1980, Nigeria had ceased to be a serious exporter of any, and our farmers who had been luxuriating on the income from those exports became pauperized. Their growing poverty rapidly spread to the general fabric of our society. Economists say that tropical Africa’s earnings from exports fell dramatically during the 1970s, losing about $70 billion per annum, and that much of those losses were Nigeria’s.  The peoples of the former Northern Region suffered the most, because, unfortunately, serious droughts ravaged the distant North in these years, blasting farming and cattle rearing – at a time when our federal controllers just didn’t have any attention to give to anything other than the petroleum from which they were stealing large personal fortunes.

    Concerning the “regulation” of our cash crops by the federal government, I heard a frightening story in 1989 from the Managing Director of a Nigerian private company in his office in Isolo, Lagos. The said company was doing a growing export business in gum-Arabic from the North – but suddenly the federal government ordered them to surrender the export business to federal government agencies. And within a year, Nigeria disappeared as an exporter of gum-Arabic.

    Someday, hopefully, some bright young historian will delve into these matters and tell the world the story of how the Nigerian federal government, in its mad zeal to control everything, destroyed all regional and local development energies, turned Nigeria into a poor country, attracted most enterprising Nigerians away from truly productive enterprises into a life of hustling and sharing of public money, and turned a land of bright hope into a land of utter hopelessness.

    Look in any direction, and you will see the destructive effects of federal seizure and control everywhere – in the brutalizing of the intellectual excellence of our topmost universities and the drastic weakening of our educational system in general.  You will see it in the virtual elimination of our local governments as crucial factors in our regional development efforts, in the collapse of some aspects of our infrastructures (like roads and highways) and our pathetic failure to make sense of other aspects (like electricity). You will see it in the actual deliberate federal obstruction of the efforts of some state governments to do good things for their states, and in the political instability resulting from the use of federal power to manipulate state elections and to impose favoured persons on our states.  You will see it in the destruction of the integrity of our higher courts.

    To return our country to the path of sanity and progress, we Nigerians must join hands, peacefully reorder our country, curb the monster that is wrecking our country, and free our energies to go back to constructive work.  That is the only path of hope for our country. Whoever thinks that Nigeria can exist for much longer than now under the present chaos of federal control is seriously mistaking. If Nigeria breaks up soon, as many informed people are predicting, then it will be because we let the federal government continue to be the unruly dictator and master of all.