The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Is it still a numbers’ game?

    In politics, you must be popular to get people to your side. Politics is all about people. It is people that play politics; it is also people that vote in elections. Without people, there is no politics and without politics, there may be no government. In essence, democracy is a derivative of politics.

    This is why democracy is defined as government of the people by the people for the people. So people, politics and democracy are inseparable. The way we play politics in our country is a matter of concern because it goes against the grain of what is obtained elsewhere. In our own democracy, we do things upside down in order to win elections at all costs. Our politicians hate to lose an election. To them, they must win every contest come what may.

    Now, election is a contest of numbers. The winner is usually the person with the highest number of votes. In every democracy, that is the norm. The reverse is the case here. The winners of our elections are not those with the highest number of votes, but those with the lowest score. Did I hear you sigh heavily? Don’t be shocked. What else can one say about our politicians’ attitude to elections, which they treat as do – or – die? They go into every election with a mindset that they must win and in case they lose, they do everything to reverse the outcome or get it annulled if they don’t have their way.

    In the present dispensation, certain persons should be the leading lights of democracy, but what do we have? They are the opposite of the special status their positions confer on them. I am talking of some of our governors who want to bring the country down simply because of who leads them. The governors, for the first time in the history of their 14 – year old Forum, went to the poll last month to elect a chairman. In the past, it was done by consensus and whoever was picked, the others simply followed him as their leader.

    But like everything Nigerian, highwire politics crept into the simple matter of who becomes the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) chairman after the expiration of the first term of Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi last month. Why did this become an issue, you may want to ask? It became an issue because the Presidency thought Amaechi was nursing presidential ambition. Now, if you ask me, that is not a sin. But to the supporters of President Goodluck Jonathan, it is a mortal sin. To them, anybody nursing presidential ambition apart from Jonathan, should be crucified. This is what they want to do to Amaechi.

    They went all out to stop him from returning as NGF chair, but the governors stood their ground that Amaechi remains their man. In an apparent move to stop him from retaining the job, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), with the largest number of members in the group, formed the PDP Governors Forum (PDPGF). The party’s calculation was that with its 23 governors in the Forum, it could easily have its way on any issue, including who becomes the chairman, once the caucus, which is what the PDPGF is, so decides. Its calculations failed because it didn’t reckon with its governors’ resolve to swim or sink with Amaechi.

    The party thought that through the Presidency, it could browbeat the governors to dump Amaechi and create an easy passage for the anointed Plateau State Governor Jonah Jang to become NGF chair. A month before the election, they were made to sign a document backing Jang for NGF chair. Nineteen of them signed that document, but last month when the election took place, only 16 voted for Jang. The 19 ‘votes’ that were prerecorded for Jang became the number of votes that did the magic for Amaechi. Do you see how Providence works? The election was held on May 24, but since then, the nation has known no peace and the Presidency is not helping matters.

    Rather than weigh in on the matter on the side of justice, the Presidency is bent on dealing with Amaechi. The governors, as it were, have spoken with one voice that Amaechi is their chairman, but the Presidency does not agree with them. Despite its initial denials, it is now obvious that the Presidency wants to kill the NGF all because of its ‘’problem’’ with Amaechi. When on May 25 the papers reported that Amaechi floored Jonathan in the NGF election, the Presidency did not take kindly to the report. It issued a statement that since Jonathan did not contest the election, there was no way Amaechi could have defeated him. Yes, Jonathan did not contest the election in person, but he did so through his proxy, Jang.

    Latter day events showed

    where the president’s heart

    lies in this matter. At a Family Dinner he hosted to mark Democracy Day in Abuja on May 29, Jonathan, in his introductory remarks, recognised Jang as NGF chair. The president referred to Jang as ‘’the chairman of the NGF’’. That was all Jang needed to dig deeper as ‘chairman’ of the Forum, knowing full well that he did not win the May 24 election. From his attitude, the president is up to something, but he should be careful not to bring the country down in his desperate bid to cling to power beyond 2015.

    I am not against his seeking reelection if he so wishes as he has the constitutional right to do so, but what I detest is the sly manner he is going about it. He told us he wanted to face governance, but is he doing that today with all these problems staring us in the face right, left and centre? There is crisis in his party, all because of his 2015 ambition; the governors are at war, all because of him and we have security challenge, all because the man at the helm does not seem to know what to do.

    Come to think of it, is Jonathan really the man we need in 2015? With his performance so far, he should go home and rest after 2015. I don’t see him doing that though because of the many political jobbers who are pressing him to seek reelection. Well, let him try his luck again, after all his name is Goodluck, but he should let the election be free and fair just like last month’s NGF election. And that is my fear, will he not reject the result as his anointed candidate Jang is doing after losing the NGF election?

    When Dame came to town

    I still remember. Those days when former Head of State Gen Yakubu Gowon and his wife, Victoria, were passing by, we used to line the streets to joyfully wave at them and they, in turn, acknowledged our greetings with smiles. These days, it is not so. When President Goodluck Jonathan or his wife, Dame Patience is coming to town, the people always panic. You know why? Because the whole place will be, to use the popular American phrase, locked down. There will be no vehicular or human movement because the president or his wife is around. If we understand that of the president, what can we say of his wife? Must the airspace or road be closed because of the First Lady’s movement? The people do not think so, but our leaders will not accept that. About two months ago, Dame was in Lagos and the metropolis was shut down as people were held in traffic for hours. Some even spent virtually the whole day sweating and cursing in traffic.

    Last week, Port Harcourt in Rivers State went through the same thing because Dame came for a wedding in her home state. Both ends of the street where her house is were blocked. Residents went through hell accessing their homes. Motorists could not drive past easily as heavily armed policemen stood menacingly on the road. Governor Rotimi Amaechi, who she took to the cleaners on Saturday at the wedding reception, also could not go out. Just imagine, a governor being treated like a commoner! If that is not a show of power, please tell me what it is. But what kind of power show is this, that brings nothing but suffering to the people? that is my fear, will he not reject the result as his anointed Jang is doing after losing the NGF election?How long will we continue to suffer like this? How long? We see how presidents and their wives move in other countries without treating their compatriots like nonentities.

  • PDP, corruption and betrayal of democracy

    Father in heaven, you always provide for all your creatures so that all may live as you willed. You have blessed our country Nigeria with rich human and natural resources to be used to your honour and glory and for the well being of every Nigerian. We are deeply sorry for the wrong use of these your gifts and blessings through acts of injustice, bribery and corruption, as a result of which many of our people are hungry, sick, ignorant and defenceless. Father, you alone can heal us and our nation of this sickness… We beg you; touch our lives and the lives of our leaders and people, so that we may realize the evil of bribery and corruption and work hard to eliminate it. Raise up for us God-fearing people and leaders who care for us and who will lead us in the path of peace, prosperity and progress….”

    The above is the Catholic Prayer against bribery and corruption in Nigeria. We have dutifully recited the above every Sunday in the last 16 years counting from around 1997 when Abacha the maximum ruler literarily took custody of the key to CBN fault. But while stealing was a secret act perpetrated by Abacha and some of his ministers, today, corruption appeared to have been legitimized by successive PDP administrations who since 1999 presided over the sharing of our national patrimony among their members. Contracts are awarded by the executive and even by the National Assembly to phantom companies and contractors are paid in advance. We saw this practice in Osun State in the dying days of Oyinlola’s illegal administration. When the Alaafin of Oyo complained about sharing of Oyo State choice properties among privileged members of government, Adebayo Alao-Akala, the then outgoing governor justified it by claiming senior civil servants presided over the sales to civil servants. Children of PDP stalwarts allegedly forged papers to fraudulently steal billions from government. Government itself is now seen by many Nigerians as an accomplice in the rape of Nigeria.

    Only last week, ‘Madam Due Process’ Obiageli Ezekwesili, a co founder of Transparency International and former minister of solid minerals and later education, all in Obasanjo’s PDP administration, wanted the National Assembly to ask the president why it has suddenly become his duty and that of the Federal Executive Council to hold meeting over award of contracts when there are statutory bodies responsible for such duties.

    Whilst urging us to keep on reciting our weekly prayer against corruption, the Catholic Bishop of Ekiti Diocese, Most Rev. Felix Ajakaiye, last week said ‘corruption among Nigerian leaders has become a source of embarrassment to Nigerians living outside the country’.

    For maximum effect, it was at the Ekiti Government House Chapel during a special thanksgiving service to mark the 50th birthday of the wife of State Governor. The Bishop probably expected Fayemi, an acknowledged decent governor to pass the message to them in Abuja.

    Perhaps the Bishop should have added that even friends of Nigeria are equally embarrassed by the hypocrisy of our leaders over their lip service towards fighting corruption.

    Donald Cameron, Prime Minister of Britain where many celebrated Nigerian felons have had encounters with the British judicial system had late last year, tongue in cheek, asked our leaders to account for over 10 billion pound sterling, an amount he said was more than all the aid to sub Saharan Africa, which they squandered in the last two decades.

    Corruption is the major reason the name of Nigeria, the giant of Africa was not listed among countries to be visited during President Obama’s oncoming African tour.

    But what do our leaders ask of God when they pray in Abuja church where they sometimes justify their actions, inactions and even sometimes make policy statements amidst presidential palace church congregation? Or is it that the jet flying prosperity prophets, regular visitors to the presidential palace only beseech God to rain thunder and fire on the perceived enemies of the president’s 2015 yet to be announced ambition? Do the people in Abuja and their pastors really give a damn about fighting corruption?

    Our second reading last Sunday is from the second book of Samuel where Nathan gave God ‘s message to David “I anointed you king over Israel, and I deliver you out of the hand of Saul, and I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the land of Israel and Judea, and if this were little, I would add to you as much more…you have struck down Uriah the Hittite with sword and have taken his wife to be your wife…”

    Our presiding priest, Father Ogunniyi reminded us that God was speaking to all of us including him. That the message is that sin is ugly. And that is why we often try to cover them up by committing more sins just as David did. But my mind kept straying to Abuja. Do the professional praise singers and prosperity prophets allow our president to remember he was a shoeless boy who became deputy governor, governor, vice president and president with little or no personal input as others fought his battles for him? Did they allow him to remember we all voted for him because he told us he understood our pains? How come there was no Nathan among the jet flying prosperity prophets in Abuja to remind him that those who expended massive funds on his election, only wanted to cover the massive theft of about N1.7triilion by forcing him to declare war on Nigerians through imposition of fuel tax?

    The second reading was about Jesus Christ, the teacher from Nazareth’s encounter with a very sinful woman in the house of Simon the Pharisee. If he were a true prophet, Simon thought, he would have known the woman was a sinful woman. But the Teacher from Nazareth told the woman of the world that her sins were forgiven.

    Father Ogunniyi once again told us, the great teacher from Nazareth was addressing all of us. Jesus was only asking of what value is our much touted virtue if we are unable to forgive others. It is only through love and acceptance that we can win people to our side.

    Once again, why there was no doubt we are all guilty, my mind drifted to Abuja. How come there are so many disharmonies among PDP family members? In Ekiti, Oyo, Osun, Ogun and Lagos, and elsewhere in the country, prominent PDP members have lost their lives trough assassinations. Timipre Sylva, Rotimi Amaechi and Wamako are beleaguered members of PDP riotous family. But do they really pray in Abuja? Is it possible for those at war with their family members to love outsiders?

    As I left the church last Sunday, I could not but reflect on Edmund Burke, the 18th century British parliamentarian, political thinker and philosopher founder of modern conservatism’s scepticism about democracy where ‘wishes, opinions, business’ of electorate should ordinarily take priority over the ‘repose, pleasure and satisfaction’, of the elected representative. But precisely because democracy also allows ordinary people with limited knowledge to be elected, ‘their dangerous passion often lead to violence and the confiscation of property’ of others. In place of ‘order, justice and freedom’, democracy promises, our nation has fallen into Burke’s “antagonist world of madness, discord, vice, confusion and unavailing sorrow”.

  • Niggers with attitude (1)

    Today, we struggle to turn white or some blurred pallid shade of the British or American. Some desperately seek to turn French, German, Ghanaian or South African even as you read. Nobody wishes to be Nigerian. Nobody seeks to be a Nigerian; and the few instances that we think we do are irredeemably marred by our conscious and desperate bids to perpetuate base sentimentality and cosmetic norms as the essence of the Nigerian spirit.

    What is the Nigerian spirit? What culture of humanity best codifies the core and immutable individuality of the true Nigerian? Who is a Nigerian? Today, we live in the world of the Nigerian nigger. Niggers occupy our public offices and worship houses. Niggers parade our corridors of power and lord it over us with condescension and élan reminiscent of ‘slave-making ants’ on 17th century western cotton fields and sugarcane plantations. Niggers constitute our ruling class and with unabashed silliness and arrogance, they treat us like lesser niggers on a slave plantation.

    And don’t we just love to be less than? Even when oppressed and irresponsibly shortchanged, we choose to be docile, bending over unquestioningly before the brute force of fellow niggers treating us with disdain. I am not a nigger. I do not know about you but being a Nigerian nigger has made it possible for most of us to get insulted in places where the average American “Negro,” or to be politically correct, “African-American” could never be insulted. Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Mali, USA, United Kingdom, Brazil Greece, Ghana, South Africa, Algeria, Mauritania,, Kenya, Cameroun, Botswana and Ivory Coast to mention a few have learnt to mock and scoff at the Nigerian nigger.

    Being a Nigerian nigger is more humiliating than it seems, but we who are the objects of ridicule have grown to cuddle disdain like a day old babe. We have learnt to love it. Being a Nigerian nigger means trying to smile when you want to cry. It means clinging with relish to life amid psychological death. It means watching your children grow up with palls of inferiority in their mental skies. It means committing cultural and mental hara-kiri and then wandering about dissatisfied as a tormented ghost.

    Being a Nigerian nigger also implies being the one that inflicts such hurt and untold hardship on fellow nationals. It means spewing webs of brilliant and not-too brilliant arguments, materialism and ethno-religious mayhem “in the interest of our nation,” according to the intent and designs of our “concerned,” and covetous neighbours.

    Being a Nigerian nigger means fretting over such inconsequential things like an American President’s refusal to visit Nigeria. There is no sense in fretting over President Barack Obama of USA’s deliberate snub of Nigeria on his recent visits to Africa. But we choose to fret over it anyway. Many a columnist and soapbox critic have blown it out of proportion and still labour desperately to incite apprehension and outrage over the decision of the American President to ignore Nigeria.

    President Obama has every right to snub Nigeria. In fact, I hope Nigeria suffers many more occurrences of such perceived disregard by many more powerful leaders of the world. Perhaps it will inspire us all to get our acts right and conduct our affairs in manners that would make us deserving of patronage and recognition rather than the pathetic wimps we have become, craving and demanding for unearned greatness and attention.

    Beneath our terror over President Obama’s snubbing of Nigeria subsists a shameful reality; the desperation for unearned acclaim and approval of Western superpowers. This smacks of prevalent inferiority complex and insignificance of the contemporary Nigerian.

    Why would any columnist or soapbox critic belabor the American President’s snobbery of Nigeria? That many of us proficiently personify the hopelessness and dire inconsequentiality of cowed American niggers indeed excites some ponderous metaphor; yet any conscious attempt to stimulate our wildly weak and untamed minds is tantamount to igniting a ravenous and uncontrollable fire. Need it be emphasized that any progressive effort at impeding our rudderless enterprises is to incite our volatile minds to a harvest of violence and bloodletting in defense of the status quo. What can I say? We are simply wired to self-destruct.

    Like Akin Akindele rightly observed in his ponderous literature, “The Military Franchise,” “the west has succeeded in conscripting most of the world to revolve around it” and we Africans, Nigerians particularly, have sadly settled to play “third” fiddle, in shameless actualization of our label as a “third world nation.” This shamefulness continually manifests in daily, in our approach to governance and determination of national affairs: Nigeria has become so politically and socio-economically inept that we have made the nation a dumping ground for all manners of perverseness, substandard products and corruption. From the touted legitimization of homosexuality to substandard goods and food items, Nigeria has evolved into a latrine for the worst of western-european rot and perversion

    I am not saying that there is nothing to learn from our western neighbours but we are equally in position and even stand at better advantage to teach them so much. It’s the way the universe is ordered; every race has its role and significance to world civilization. But despite the fact that the Egyptians – though Egypt has been reduced to a puppet state – succeeded in putting Africa on the world map, no other African nation, not even Nigeria, the delusive “Giant of Africa” has succeeded in distinguishing itself as a worthy propagator of a particular civilization.

    By resigning to our current role as a global pawn and toilet paper, we have inadvertently shunted our race into playing “third” and disposable fiddle, like glorified eejits eternally strung to minister on to the desperately justified ego of the western-european. Even more appalling is our moral claim to western civilization. Many amongst us, the so-called intellectuals particularly, continually argue that we have as much stake in the western-european wealth and civilization. And to drive home this fact, they attend the best of western-european schools in pursuit of over-hyped Ivy League education that has so far enabled and empowered a “globally distinguished rare breed” of scholars, administrators and economists to administer the most savage policies on to our defiled and battered nations of the “third world.”

    Being chic and modern means being unashamedly western or european. That is why our three arms of government persistently embark on wasteful and disgraceful trips abroad to learn western-european techniques of governance – I do not know the purpose of these idiotic ventures as they usually come back backward and even more inured in their brand of ‘sophisticated ignorance;’ apology to the presidential nigger who popularized the term ‘sophisticated ignorance.’

    Worrisome as it is that we naively project cosmetic norms and culture as the core of the Nigerian civilization, it’s more amusing to see our women burn their souls and burn their hair as they hide both under scalding strands of western-european feminism, ‘Brazilian hair’ and animal hair in their desperate bid to look caucasian. Even we men are still overwhelmed and haunted by the inferiority complex that plagued our forbears that we still pass it on from one generation to the other. We are hostages to cultural debriefing by alien civilizations.

  • Five jobs I won’t take

    Five jobs I won’t take

    THE President’s job is no easy task.

    There must be times Dr Goodluck Jonathan will wake up in the morning, frown his boyish face, scratch his greying head of hair and murmur: “Isn’t there an easier way of earning a living?”

    He came into the office with tremendous goodwill. When the late President Umar Yar’Adua was gravely ill, Jonathan would just have stepped into the office of president, but a conclave of power mongers ensured that he had a tough time. They smuggled in the ailing president in the dead of the night and began to issue strange bulletins on his health. A massive protest to ensure that the right thing was done was launched. Jonathan became acting president. When Yar’Adua passed on, Jonathan mounted the saddle.

    In no time, the reality of the situation was laid bare. First, Niger Delta militants expanded their field of operation to Abuja, disrupting the Independence anniversary celebration with bombings in the heart of the city. Jonathan was damn too sure the militants were not responsible for the morbid job and he so announced. No investigations; no consultations.

    Enter Boko Haram. The ghoulish activities of this fundamentalist sect is well painted on the wide canvass of blood that is spread across the Northeast, with some strokes in Abuja, Kano, Kaduna and some other parts of the North. Boko Haram, which means western education is a sin, has ensured that schools and churches remain closed in many areas as it pursues its wild dream of Islamising Nigeria. Many homes have been destroyed. Businesses have been shattered and life has become a game of chance.

    To Boko, add the other harams, such as armed robbery, kidnapping for ransom, primitive ritual killings for money, cultism and political assassinations. Spice them up with the massive pension fund scam, the collapse of infrastructure and the inability to draw a line between politics and governance, which continues to raise tension, overheating the polity. What do you have? A mess. A cocktail of problems.

    There seems to be a feeling of despondency in the land. The Jonathan presidency is buffeted by bitter criticisms of its activities as it continues to fumble and wobble, smoking and clanking like an old locomotive. Now, some of the critics, who insist that this administration has no clue to any of our numerous ailments, are saying that we never really knew Jonathan, the former teacher who became a deputy governor, governor and president – all by default. Legendary luck, some say. He himself told of his early days in the creeks of Otuoke, the hitherto unknown town that has suddenly found itself propelled high into the sky, most likely beyond the dream of its progenitors, how he had to struggle through it all, walking barefoot to school. The slogan now is: Never trust with power a man who wore no shoes to school.

    On May 7 in Nasarawa, a team of security agents, including 46 policemen and 10 Department of State Security (DSS) men, were killed in an ambush. They were said to have been on their way to arrest the spiritual head of a group, Ombatse, Baba Lakyo, who looks like any other old man having a nice time in a quiet village. Baba Lakyo said he was told that Governor Tanko Al-Makura ordered the security agents to bring his head. He was, according to him, away in a nearby village when he heard that Lakyo had been invaded, adding that his god killed the invaders who he claimed were drunk.

    How will Inspector-General of Police Mohammed Abubakar resolve the mystery of losing so many men in one operation? How many did the other side lose – assuming that the unlucky security agents fought against human beings and not Baba Lakyo’s god, as he claimed – in the battle? Was there no exchange of fire? When will Nigerians know what actually went wrong with that doomed mission? Abubakar has been railing that the killers of his men would face justice. When? How? Have they been found?

    Before the Nasarawa incident, 12 policemen had been killed in Bayelsa State. Boko Haram makes the task of seizing police stations and setting them on fire such an easy venture, like kids playing in the rain. It smashes prisons at will, setting inmates free to join its army.

    With all this, who would like to be an IG?

    These days, governors are the subject of all manner of jokes after the election of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF), which has raised fears about the feasibility of a free and fair election in 2015. There is this newspaper cartoon in which a dad asks his little boy: “Son, which is greater, 16 or 19?” The son replies: “Dad, I’m not sure.” “Why?” “I saw our governor on television, shouting that 16 is higher than 19.” The dad says: “Don’t mind him. Follow your teacher, 19 is greater than 16. You know the governor is a politician.”

    In the embarrassing election, of the 35 governors who voted, 19 were for the incumbent chairman, Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi and 16 for Plateau State Governor Jonah Jang. But, instead of conceding defeat and embracing Amaechi in the true spirit of sportsmanship, the Jang faction, apparently emboldened by the Villa, rejected the result and declared its candidate winner. It carried on with the joke as if it had won an Olympic gold medal, showing off its dubious prize at the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) secretariat and the Villa. It then went on to open a secretariat. Amazing. Amusing.

    Then the video of the election hit the internet. One local television station also beamed it.

    How does it feel to be a governor on the other side that is widely seen to be a bad loser?

    For a governor, it is not enough to perform well on the job and be hailed by the people. If you stand on principle and justice, the Villa may come after you, turn your friends against you and seek to embarrass you in whichever way it deems fit, no matter how contemptible. A plane that has flown you for long may just be discovered to have no valid documents or the pilot has not filed a manifest and, suddenly, you are grounded. Or you may just wake up to find that some oil wells –if yours is an oil producing state – belonging to your state have been ceded to another. Or you may just find that the party structure has, with little legal gymnastics, been snatched off your hands and you have all manner of allegations hurled at you. Among such allegations are those that are so nauseating, such as being disrespectful to the president, and nebulous as well as ridiculous, such as insubordination. Then, you get suspended from your party.

    I admire the eloquence of Minister of Special Duties Kabiru Taminu Turaki, chairman of the Presidential Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of Security Challenges in the North. He and other members of the committee have been going about the assignment with great enthusiasm, believing that when the guns stop to boom, the gladiators will surely come to the table for talks. In him you see a rare passion for a mission. But imagine the minister and our own Prof Bolaji Akinyemi, red bow tie and all, sitting across the table with Abubakar Shekau – massive, black beard and dashing eyes – an AK- 47 rifle slung on his shoulder. What language will they speak? Arabic? Hausa? English?

    A few days after the committee hit the road, the government unleashed a state of emergency on three states – Borno, Yobe and Adamawa. The full might of the military has been brought on the insurgents. Is this to soften up Boko Haram before the eventual dialogue? Where will the Turaki Committee find Shekau – he has a $7m bounty on his head – to talk to?

    When the government talks about cracking the power problem nowadays, Nigerians laugh. Today, there is a plan to hit 10,000 MW by December; tomorrow, the 3,000 or so MW we are sharing crashes and there is outage. Many thought with Barth Nnaji, the professor of Computer Integrated Manufacturing and Robotics at the helm, we were going to get it right. Then he was forced to quit a job he did with so much zest. Now, many are asking: Who is the Minister of Power?

    It’s too late for me to be a policeman; I’m above the age qualification for the Police College. I can’t be Power minister; it is not in my line of trade or my training. I don’t want to be a governor – the intrigues, sycophancy, cowardice and lies. Do I want to be president? No. I don’t want to be told that because I had no shoes in school I have developed a great passion for shoes, not just to beautify my feet but to kick my critics in the groin. No.

  • Fire on, Fayemi

    Fire on, Fayemi

    The Supreme Court’s decision over the gubernatorial conundrum in Ekiti State has finally rested the issue of the gubernatorial election in Ekiti. Even to a non-legal person like myself, it was clear to me that the decision of Segun Oni to challenge the judgement of the Appeal Court on the electoral malfeasance which culminated in his being illegally declared as governor was unchallengeable constitutionally. This is because all electoral disputes terminate at the Appeal Court. Appealing to the Supreme Court on the grounds of violation of fundamental Human Rights should have been known to be legally dicey. Lawyers have to eat and no lawyer would tell his client that his case is unwinnable. Of course, in the corrupt environment of Nigeria, some people would have goaded Oni in taking the case to the Supreme Court with the assurance that the judgement can be politically influenced. This wild expectation was of course conceivable in the Nigerian environment where anything goes. Mercifully, justice prevailed and the status quo ante remains in Ekiti. The incumbent governor is governor in fact and indeed as well as in law. He is not only in government, he is also in power.

    I have said this before about Segun Oni that he appears to me as a gentleman and when he was governor of Ekiti State, a highly respected friend of mine, an academic colleague and a former boss asked me to support Oni and wondered what I had against him? My answer then was and is that I had nothing against him, but that he was in the wrong party. Of course I do not have more than one vote and I do not want to be arrogant that my opinion counts seriously, politically, what I can say with all modesty is that I have played some part in the educational and diplomatic development of Nigeria. I also played some part in the struggle against Abacha which earned me six months detention and which led to the late Chief J.A.O Odebiyi and Baba Archdeacon Alayande wondering why I did not offer myself for position of Senator in 1999 on the grounds that service deserves its reward. My nephew Akin is a politician and I was not going to have a situation where two politicians are fighting in the same mother’s womb.

    Thirdly, the Osuntokun brand in Nigerian politics is not inconsequential and I can say without any fear of contradiction that the role of my family in the political evolution of this country would remain imperishable. These, I believe are my credentials that made it necessary for my support to be sought. Now that the battle for the governor’s position has been fought and won, I advise Oni to move on and to support the incumbent Governor Fayemi for the benefit of Ekiti State if he really loves the state and I have no doubt that he loves the state. In any case, there are so many ways of serving the state than being governor. If he offers to serve and genuinely means it, Fayemi would accept the offer. This was clearly stated in the governor’s broadcast to the state after his victory. The governor said he was prepared to forget all the shenanigans that took place when Oni was governor and wipe the slate clean. This should be regarded as the highest form of magnanimity in victory.

    Since coming into the saddle in the rulership of Ekiti almost three years ago, Fayemi has demonstrated how prepared he is for the job. Unlike political leaders in other parts of the country, he had a well planned agenda of development which he has scrupulously followed up till date. He did not wait until he was in government before developing his programme. This is why he was able to hit the ground running with his vision and mission. His emphasis on infrastructural development is based on the well thought out belief that any state or country that is not in constant motion is dead. This is why he has crisscrossed the state with excellent roads. His greatest impact in this regard is at the capital city itself. I spent nine of my formative years in Ado-Ekiti and it is now impossible for me to recognise anywhere because of Fayemi’s magic touch. He is not restricting the transportation revolution to Ado-Ekiti alone, he is even building a virgin road to connect my town of Okemessi with Ido-Ile, where there was no road before. I cite this example as a demonstration of how comprehensive his development agenda is. I have been in education, apart from forays into diplomacy, all my life. I was a director of the National Universities Commission (NUC) and I know a bit about higher education and education generally. This is an area in which Fayemi has excelled and would still excel. His consolidation of the three universities in Ekiti into one is a masterstroke. This is because the state is not in any position to fund one university adequately, not to talk of three. We were deceiving and fooling ourselves under Oni by having two specialized universities, one on Education and the other on Science and Technology. With our gross revenue of less than four billion naira a month, how three universities could have being inflicted on us beats me. Fayemi saved us the embarrassment of this delusional ambition. I must say here that since the history of higher education in Ekiti, it is the Fayemi administration that has ever released substantial amount of capital vote for physical development.

    His funding of education is not limited to Ekiti State University; the college of Education in Ikerre-Ekiti has also undergone phenomenal development and transformation. In a discussion with the governor when I was bemoaning the fact that Ekiti State is not rich because we don’t have oil, the governor was clear in his mind that the intellectual solidity of our people is more than millions of barrels of oil. As if I did not know this, officials of DFID, in a private conversation with me said the same thing that in terms of people, Ekiti is the richest state in Nigeria and it is my belief that when Fayemi has finished with us in Ekiti, we would donate him to the centre, so that other Nigerians can be beneficiaries of the programmes of this intelligent young man. It is the quality of one’s mind, rather than the amount of natural resources one commands that matters. The highly developed economies of Germany and Japan with their little or no natural resources with stupendous intellectual prowess and brain power prove this.

    This is incontrovertible because I bear testimony to it. He has recognised the nexus between primary, secondary and tertiary education and this is why he has expended a lot of money on computer literacy at the lower level of the educational ladder. I remember my nephew bringing his young Anglo-Nigerian children on holidays to Ekiti and staying in Ikogosi, Hot Spring Resort. I was pleasantly amazed and pleased by the comments of these young people about the environmental beauty of Ekiti and how they would continue to come to Nigeria on holidays to enjoy the goodness of the Ekiti natural environment. I hope and pray that the tourist attraction of Ekitiland would be properly harnessed beyond Ikogosi. All these would require funding and I know our cerebral governor must be addressing himself to this.

  • A lion in winter

    By the time Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990, he had become a legend, a status he attained by his dogged fight against apartheid. To become a legend while alive is no mean feat. Only a few people are so labelled in their lifetime and it derives from their exploits, crusades or struggles. These exploits are not for their own personal gain but for the collective good of the people.

    Many of us are familiar with the story of South Africa, a richly endowed country where the Whites settled and never wanted to leave. The minority White in South Africa turned themselves to tin gods and resorted to suppressing the Blacks, the owners of the land. For years, the Blacks were made slaves in their own land. They lived in slums, while the Whites stayed in posh houses. Everything about life and living were skewed against the Blacks.

    It was just a matter of time before something gave in such a society where people were born into struggle. From the cradle, a black South African child had to fight for his rights and other basic necessities of life which his counterparts in other parts of the world took for granted. Blacks fought for their right to life; right of association; right to education; right of worship, you name it. They could not enter certain places because they were designated for Whites only. Some bars, schools and residential areas were closed to them. It was so bad. One had to be a Tom Quisling to access such places.

    It was hell on earth being a black South African because they were treated as sub-human. In no time, the people learnt to fight and fend for themselves in defiance of their tormentors. The Whites made the Blacks to become freedom fighters, a trait which is being passed to the younger generation today. The Mandela generation did the spade work for their offspring, who today are also no pushovers when it comes to standing up for their rights. The struggle, it seems, is in their genes.

    ‘’The struggle’’, Mandela says, ‘’is my life’’. Indeed, for the nonagenarian, it has been a lifelong struggle. Even at the ripe old age of 94, Madiba is still struggling, but mercifully not of the hue of the apartheid era. The lion is today struggling for life. If Mandela goes today,something which many of us do not pray for, he would not have died in vain. The outpouring of emotions since he was hospitalised on Saturday shows that he is a man well loved. How many of our leaders today will enjoy this kind of sentiment if they were in Mandela’s shoes?

    I cannot really point at any. Instead of a show of love and concern, the people will be cursing and wishing them dead by now. Isn’t there a lesson in this for them? There is, but will they ever learn? It troubles the hearts of many to see Mandela weighed down by a persisting lung infection. A man, who in his heyday was a Trojan, who looked even the most fearsome of men in the face, lays bedridden in hospital, battling for life.

    Mandela is a fighter; his fighting spirit saw him through his 27 years in prison under harsh conditions from which he probably might have contracted this lung problem. This is not an obituary on Madiba but an ode to a man among men; a man of character and principle, who has shown the world that it is better to wage peace than war. Mandela may be fighting for his life today, but we will forever remember his struggles against injustice not only in his home country but also in other parts of the world.

    The African National Congress (ANC) on which platform he was elected South Africa’s president in 1994 was founded in 1912, six years after his birth in 1918. Mandela was not among the founding fathers of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC), which transformed into ANC in 1923. He and people of like minds like the late Walter Sisulu and the late Oliver Thambo joined the ANC in 1944. Mandela, a lawyer, was destined to become not only ANC but South Africa’s leader. His imprisonment for life for treason on June 12 (that date again!) 1964, was to prepare him for the task ahead.

    When he became president four years after his release from jail, he showed that he had learnt a lot about life. If Mandela went to prison a bitter man, he came out as an apostle of peace. There was no bitterness over his persecution for all those years. The fighter had transformed in prison, though the fire still burned in him; the fire to make every South African feel at home in his country, no matter his colour or creed. This has been Mandela’s mission since he left prison 23 years ago at 71.

    No wonder this man of

    peace jointly won the

    Nobel Peace prize with F.W de Klerk in 1993, three years after he regained his freedom from prison. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela may be down today as a result of age, but his lights are not yet out and we pray that they will not go out soon. But if they do, the world will remember him for good because he taught us how to forgive even though we may not forget. Contrary to what many thought of him in the days of the struggle that he loves ‘trouble’ because his middle name, Rolihlahla means “trouble maker”, the circumstances of the time shaped the man.

    How many in his shoes would have stood by and watch their people being oppressed by a minority group all because it has the means to do so. Thank God, the man has put that behind him. As he struggles on his hospital bed for life, we pray that he pulls through because we still need him around as a father figure. ‘’I can rest only for a moment for with freedom comes responsibilities and I dare not linger for my walk is not yet ended’’, Madiba said in his classic book: Long Walk to Freedom. Madiba, your walk has not yet ended because we don’t want you to go now. It is not time to say goodnight.

    But if the Lord says otherwise, who are we to question Him. If that happens, we all know that ‘’you have fought a good fight; you have finished the course and you have kept the faith” and the good Lord shall reward you accordingly for showing the light for the world to follow. Get well soon, Madiba.

    June 12, 20 years on

    Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the June 12, 1993 presidential election won by the late Bashorun M.K.O Abiola. It is certain that as long as Nigeria remains in existence, the June 12 saga will never be forgotten until we do what is necessary in memory of this democratic icon. The democracy we enjoy today was brought about by Abiola’s sacrifice. If Abiola had not laid down his life in the struggle to actualise his mandate, chances are that we will still be under military rule. Abiola died so that democracy will thrive. Even though, former President Olusegun Obasanjo refused to recognise his late kinsman for his democratic efforts, it is not too late for the government of the day to give honour to whom honour is due. Let us put behind us last year’s fiasco in naming the University of Lagos after him and look for a more enduring way to honour him. By so doing, we will be sending a message across to our compatriots to always stand up and fight for their rights no matter what they go through. If we don’t honour Abiola now, it will look like he died in vain. No, this should not be the lot of a man, who left his large family and chains of businesses to seek an improvement in the welfare of the masses. His campaign slogan was ‘’farewell to poverty’’, I am sure that if his election had not been annulled, we would have sung the nunc dimitis of lack and want by now. Is it not an irony that the businesses and the home that this man, who wanted the best for the poor of his country, left behind are being made to suffer today? Most of the businesses have even collapsed all because he is no longer around. And the battalions who depended on him have been abandoned. Abiola may be dead, but his legacies will endure because he was a man with a large heart. He touched lives. This is why in death, he has become larger than life. Nigeria is the worst for his death

  • PDP’s intolerance of criticism

    Some of our highly esteemed readers have raised issues about what they term ‘fixation of this column with PDP’; incessant criticism of President Jonathan administration in spite of his acclaimed achievements and ‘arrogance and disdain of the Yoruba political elite for political parties and political leaders’ that did not take root from the South-west. Let me first remind our readers who are eminently entitled to their views that a newspaper is a market place of ideas and are therefore free to send in their rejoinders instead of name-calling.

    But let us start first from the last. Our experience since 1999 does not support such a thesis. Political tendencies in the Yoruba nation stress from extreme left to the extreme right. Yoruba can therefore lay claim to joint ownership of PDP. Indeed ex- President Obasanjo defined whatever the coloration of PDP is today. He is the very personification of the party’s anti-democratic tendencies, its lack of internal democracy, ‘do or die election’, rule of gangs, and disdain for the judiciary and the legislature.

    Among the PDP leaders, Ahmadu Alli and Bamanga Tukur, the past and the current chairman of PDP have their parallel in the South-west. If Ahmadu Alli once nominated his son and wife for board positions, Obasanjo and his buddy, the late Lamidi Adedibu ensured their children became senators. If Tukur’s son was fingered for alleged involvement on the fuel subsidy scam, so was Arisekola’s son. Akala, Oyinlola, Daniel, former speaker Dimeji Bankole Fayose are as vicious as their other PDP young Turks from the north or elsewhere in the country. The point is that PDP is PDP, whether from the north, east or west. They all suffer from a common affliction-greed. If PDP has become a national malaise, its criticism where ever it is coming from will appear to me a patriotic act.

    And as for the president’s outstanding performance, I think it is not the duty of the press to give awards to institutions it is expected to keep on their toes as it has done with disastrous consequences in recent years. If the president has wares to sell, he has many paid through the public purse already doing that. They had an outstanding outing on May 29 when every minister that spoke praised the president for his outstanding performance. We saw then during the PDP family carnival that followed when professional praise-singers earnestly pleaded with the president not to abandon grateful Nigerians in 2015. Their outpour of emotion was only comparable to that of North Korean Generals who often weep publicly in show of support and love for their leader.

    Besides there is the president’s minister for information and the duo of highly competent and gifted, Abati, the author of ‘The president they don’t know’ and Okupe, who expressed preference for the nomenclature ‘attack lion’ as against ‘attack dog’ which his critics said he was during Obasanjo’s presidency.

    But perhaps what those who are complaining about fixation with PDP have failed to realise is that PDP apart from the military has been the most important institution in our society since independence. It has since 1999 defined our present and future. It has ruled for 14 years and has sworn to rule for the next 60 years. Only last week, the Political Adviser to the President, Ahmed Gulak demonstrated PDP’s desperation when he said “As long as the people who are gathered at the banquet hall of the presidential Villa are alive, we will not let governance slip out of our hand in our life time”.

    In pursuit of this dream, this is a party ready to exploit all the divisive issues in our polity, from ethnic differences, opposition political parties and even religion. Governor’s forum is polarized with government supporting losers of an election. A faction of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) is today seen as a spiritual arm of PDP. PDP has also been alleged to be sponsors of both the Niger Delta militants and North East Boko Haram insurgents. Government has integrated the leadership of the former with mouth-watering contracts while government is on the verge of granting amnesty to the later.

    Besides political intrigue, there are other reasons why closer attention must be paid to PDP. In the last 14 years, most of the items under the exclusive list have been abused. The federal government controls education, yet unlike the political parties of the first republic that built public schools, PDP government is under-funding public schools while its leading members are busy building private schools charging outrageous fees that drive our children to move in droves to neighbouring countries in search of university education.

    Insurance is on the exclusive list, the party sold NICON, a national asset to their member. Airline is on the list, leading members of the party became airline operators. Construction, alteration, and maintenance of federal roads, are on the exclusive list, budgets on roads were allegedly diverted to fighting elections, while the nation’s network of federal roads have collapsed. Railways is on the list, yet after Babangida’s fraudulent railway revolution, promoted more on the pages of newspapers, successive PDP administrations have been awarding contracts after contracts that are often derailed by members of the party because of greed. Monitoring of quality of local produce and imported goods are the responsibilities of the federal government, yet, substandard goods and fake drugs flood our markets. The federal government controls the police, the police not only remain poorly paid, ill-equipped and ill-motivated, their pensions funds were stolen by civil servants right inside the of the Head of Service in Abuja. Prison is on the exclusive list. That perhaps explains why it is relatively easy for Boko Haram insurgents to move around unchallenged, liberating prisoners in the North-east of the country. Annulment and dissolution of all marriages are the exclusive preserve of the federal government. Even if the president and his PDP escape the charges of being responsible for increase in the rate at which old marriages are collapsing, they cannot escape responsibility for the failure of our youths to get married. Marriage is perhaps the last thing in the mind of a jobless youth.

    These are serious issues to be addressed by President Jonathan who is instead seeking protection from his Ijaw ethnic nationality. But the president must know he is as much a captive of the Yoruba. Obasanjo imposed him. The Ijaws were nowhere to be found during the constitutional battle over the rights of Jonathan who himself went into hiding while the Yoruba fought to secure for him the position of Acting president. Besides, the Yoruba, except Ogbeni Aregbesola and his Osun people who probably consulted Ifa divination before the 2011 election massively voted for Jonathan.

    If no one else, the Yoruba owe the nation a duty of preventing the president from escaping with false claim of being the most criticized president in the world over socio-political and economic problems that predate his ascendancy. He must be reminded that in similar circumstances, Barack Obama, his counterpart in America who inherited a suffocating $16 trillion dollar external debt piled up on two senseless wars by his Republican predecessor, unprecedented level of unemployment, accepted criticism with philosophical calmness claiming he understood the frustration and anguish of the unemployed. He was humble enough to admit it was in fact because of those problems he was elected by American people.

    President Jonathan already has too many professional praise-singers massaging his ego. While they continue with their highly rewarding enterprise, critics of government must not be discouraged by name-calling. The press has contributed more to our national development and stability of our nation than any other institution. It survived the colonial masters and their draconian laws, as it did the military with its obnoxious laws and will survive PDP current attempt to exploit divisive issues of religion and ethnicity to undermine the integrity of its critics.

  • Readers’ parliament 23

    Once you’ve solved your current problems, you will be rewarded with a whole new set of harder problems,” I have not read a crisper, more honest stuff in a long while. We have a youth population with a searing reality of intellectual poverty, folks reeking of pleasure inebriation and materialistic rum. Thus even hollow orations sound off as extraordinary, demanding the spectacle of mentally barren youths. You rock! 08035711153.

    Olatunji, Expensive Folly is wonderful and thought –provoking. Problems don’t have prototype solutions. I am sorry for we hapless unemployed (often tagged: unemployable) youths of this country that get ripped off those so-called motivational speakers. 08063656865. Dan. Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

    You have addressed a matter which bothered my heart greatly. Celebration of motivational speaking is founded mainly on the get-rich quick malady of our time. The lack of depth by most of them is reason why they cannot even tailor foreign opinion to meet present challenges. Motivation works for those who have found their bearing; it is not for the blind. How do you motivate a young man who has no vision but wants to be a millionaire? This is part of the decadence of our time. 08037128706. From Steve Aiyanyo. Abeokuta. Ogun State.

    Mr. Olatunji Ololade, I have just finished reading your piece on motivational speakers. I enjoyed it for the bitter truth contained therein with regard to our misguided youth who are forever looking for shortcuts and props rather than face the realities of life and living. It’s a must read for my students next week. 08034027080. From LKJEJE, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile Ife, Osun State.

    Yes sir, most of the motivational speakers are shallow but no sir, they shouldn’t be done away. You are clearly not an entrepreneur so won’t be able to understand that a modicum sometimes will make the difference. Please advocate instead for regulation of the trade. Ultimately, a five per cent success rate is okay. 08186054747. Funso Patrick. Abuja.

    Expensive folly…just gone through your write-up. With people like you around, there is hope for Nigeria. Keep it up. 08037943652. Sunday.

    Olatunji, thanks for your article today. I have never trusted my faith in motivational speakers at home and abroad. They are worse than used-car salesmen. Listening to an Aliko Dangote for instance can only encourage me better. There are too many unknowns in this world for mathematical deductions to be trusted. I tell my children: Work-pray-work hard. 08033246068. Engineer Tunde.

    Very good write-up, many true facts but not sensitive to others’ views and religious inclination. You ended with describing favourite pastors’ literature as some retrogressive crutches, that’s not good enough. Read through some of the books and you will be shocked at the depth. Do better next time. 08033398515. Dr. Silvanus Owei.

    Ololade, you spoke my mind in your column. I thought I was the only one that was concerned with the fraud that the so-called motivational speakers are committing in Nigeria. All they do is regurgitate quotable quotes from foreign stars and they make money for this. I pity young Nigerians that fall for this cheap fraud. 08061198625. Suraj.

    Hello mate! Quite a while! Very good outing…just going through. Please keep it up. No disagreement on this. 08063521699. Dr. Omotoso SIB.

    Expensive Folly refers: simply put, you are gift to the nation by transcendental enlightenment and liberating courage. I only wish our drowning youth would ever read and accept your precept. I have written you before when you wrote about what should be the true honour our women should seek. Hope to meet you some day. 08131927550. Chris. Auchi, Edo State.

    I just read Expensive Folly (1) and I can’t help but agree with everything you said. It’s high time we youths stopped searching for relevance where there is none. 08064941239.

    RE: Expensive Folly. You are not just a writer, you are an institution sir. Our main problem in Nigeria and Africa is not corruption, but “quality” ignorance across board. 08032070130. ART.

    You are ahead of this generation. Your lingua and lexical gusto is immense. Just hope more people appreciate this talent. We need more of you in journalism. 08033385566.

    Please my friend, your Expensive Folly (2) on the stable of Reality Bites is wonderful. Are you aware that those motivational speakers are also in churches as pastors? There, they deceive the congregation that prayer in tithe is the only ingredient to actualizing their earthly dreams. A girl who lacks those essential matrimonial qualities runs to a church with the belief that such pastors can command husbands from the sky for her and pathetically, the pastor accepts the role knowing full well that it’s not possible. Don’t you think this is another religious fraud? 08037750540. Victor. Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

    Thanks for revealing the ultimate realities of life. As for the youth…those that have ears, let them hear. Keep up the good work. God bless you. 08036626976.

    Olatunji, you forgot to add to your list of fraud: modern day “pastors” in various “churches” who preach prosperity daily as if that’s the sole reason for which Jesus came. 08023071877. VIC IBE.

    Your article, Expensive Folly is the best I have read in a while. You spoke the hard truth. I hope other Nigerians will get to read it. Keep up the good work. 08099666230. Nwachukwu. Ibadan, Oyo State.

    Great write up. I appreciate it. 08185808210.

    Blame it on gullibility being a prominent aspect of the Nigerian culture. 08037285269. S.A. Alawode.

    Dear Olatunji, your write-up is the gospel truth in the face of the reality we have on ground in our present day Nigeria. I believe every individual has a path in this life, it’s just for him to trace the path and pray for God’s guidance and protection every step of the way. Life has no manual. 08035744872.

    Hello Olatunji, your article exposed a group of fraudsters and “foetal adults.” But I know that our young ones and even many mature adults suffer from “Hurried Life Syndrome” and this must be addressed. I think that Robert Frost calls on all who really want to make a contribution to humanity to choose to service and live with universal and timeless principles. I think there are genuine and authentic trainers who live their talk…It’s ridiculous to see a young person talk about life when he hasn’t seen anything. Well, I guess we will always have the tares and the wheat growing together, and like you said, life itself is the greatest teacher. Keep up your good work until we meet. Yours for the best of humanity. 08033912712. Mrs. Ofovwe.

    Re: Expensive Folly (2). Before now, I thought I was the only one that saw the danger in what these so-called motivational speakers are doing to the society. Thanks. 08032644356.

    Olatunji, thanks for your rescue mission. I hope all the parties involved in the “Expensive Folly” could find time to read your piece. Though I just read the second part of it, I think you did not go the full hug by noting that these “life coaches” have permeated the churches. You now hear “everything you want, He will give you” with no room for God shaping your life the way He wants. 08069394351. Pastor Chudi.

  • State of the economy

    State of the economy

    After nearly 30 years of economic reform and financial orthodoxy, the economy is growing. But a new economic strategy is now needed to create more jobs.

    The Minister of Finance, Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, is upbeat about the state of the economy. In her report last week on the economy she reeled out figures showing that the economy is doing quite well. Current growth rate is 6.5%, the highest in recent years. Inflation is down to 9.5%, the lowest for nearly 30 years. Foreign reserves have increased significantly to nearly US$48 billion. There is greater stability in the exchange rate though the naira is gradually weakening against the US dollar. Non-oil exports are doing quite well. Earnings from this sector have increased to 30% of total export earnings, up from 10% for decades. Despite the grave security situation in the country, FDI has recorded its highest growth in recent years. The economic fundamentals appear quite strong and impressive. The economic reform programme and a large dose of financial orthodoxy in recent years have paid off. Altogether, there is macroeconomic stability and this should prime the economy for faster and higher growth in the short to medium term. All the multilateral financial institutions, including the WB and the IMF, have endorsed the favourable reports on the state and efficient management of the economy. And all this was achieved during a global recession and its negative consequences for the world’s economy. It has ravaged many of the rich and industrialised countries.

    But there is a flip side to these impressive economic figures that the Finance Minister is upbeat about. First, the impressive economic growth rate has not translated into more jobs for the vast number of the unemployed graduates from our tertiary institutions. The unemployment rate is still far too high for an economy that appears to be growing. The lag between economic growth and job creation has taken far too long. Second, there is very little evidence of the trickle down effect on incomes and the improvement in the general quality of life that economic growth should bring about. Average per capita income may have improved slightly, but the existing income inequality is widening. The rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. The nation is economically and socially increasingly polarised. In fact, very few people believe these impressive economic figures when all they see around them is seemingly greater poverty. Poverty levels in our country remain unacceptably high with devastating social consequences for our nation. This remains the Achilles heel of the economy. Average income levels remain lower than in many other African countries. There are still far too many unemployed youths in the country to justify the optimism of the Finance Minister on economic strategy and management. New jobs will come from more local and foreign investments in the economy.

    Job creation should remain the top priority of a sound rate structure with the huge arbitrage between savings and borrowing does not encourage lending for productive investments. The two rates will need to be better realigned to reduce the gap between them. The current interest rate structure is a disincentive to local investment in the economy.

    What is responsible for this slack in job creation despite the impressive economic growth rate and macroeconomic stability? Why do we have such a vast number of unemployed youths when the economy seems to be growing so impressively?Apart from the existing massive public corruption which constrains growth, the obvious reason is that current private sector investments are directed more towards capital intensive rather than labour intensive projects. In addition to an imperfect market the domestic economy has to contend with a wasteful and imperfect government as well. Of course, it would be wrong and counterproductive for the government to intervene directly in this regard by forcing private sector investors to invest more in labour intensive projects. This will turn them away. But this objective can be realised in two ways. First, the government can improve on the existing incentive structure by granting investments in labour intensive projects, such as agriculture, better incentives, including better access to loans. Labour is quite cheap and readily available in Nigeria. The future economic growth and prosperity of the nation depend on our ability to take advantage of these comparatively low labour costs particularly in manufacturing. This will make our domestic economy more competitive globally. This was how the NICS, such as China, India, South Korea, and Brazil achieved their impressive economic growth rates. Nigeria should learn from these countries’ hugely successful economic strategies by concentrating more on labour intensive projects for job creation and exports. The vagaries of the oil market make this strategy imperative. Already oil incomes are falling.

    Second, in view of huge resource constraints, public sector expenditure should focus more on sectors that have a direct impact on employment. Here, I am thinking of our woeful social and physical infrastructure which calls for massive investment. There is some ongoing attempt to reduce the budget deficits by cutting public expenditure. There is no objection to this as persistent budget deficits will impact negatively on inflation and this could undermine stability in the macro economy and future economic growth rate.

    But a dash of Keynesian economics through a modestly expansionary budget will, if appropriately utilised and directed towards the more productive sectors of the domestic economy, create more jobs and an even higher economic growth rate in the domestic economy. The financial orthodoxy, which we have practiced in our economic management for some decades now, with good effect, should be reviewed now and a new growth and exported oriented strategy involving higher public expenditure, particularly on the physical infrastructure, should be introduced. The economy will grow even faster and more jobs will be created if we invest more in developing public transportation, the roads, electricity, public housing, the ports, and other public utilities. But plans to start another national airline should be abandoned. It is wasteful. At the micro level it is this strategy of massive public construction that the Lagos State Government under Governor Fashola has pursued with astonishing success in terms of job creation. There is no reason why this strategy cannot be replicated by the Federal Government. A lot of financial resources are needed to upgrade these infrastructures. Some of these can be done through public-private-participation (PPP) to reduce the pressure on public spending. Whatever the attractions of a fiscal balance might be, it is vastly more important to keep the domestic economy running at an optimal level so as to create more jobs and overall prosperity in the nation.

    Despite our healthy foreign reserves, the Federal Government is resorting increasingly to foreign borrowing to finance infrastructure. The current debt stock is over US$15billion. At the same time it has created a US1billion SWF for foreign lending ostensibly to cushion the negative impact of a possible future decline in our oil income. But it hardly makes any economic sense for us to borrow abroad at a rate higher than what our SWF can earn in terms of interest rates. Why should we create a SWF when there is a crying and desperate need for more investments at home to modernise our woeful infrastructure? There is no reason why some of our healthy foreign reserves cannot be spent now in upgrading our infrastructure.

    The opposition parties are right in criticising the PDP Federal Government for the various contradictions in its economic strategy, particularly over the lack of job creation and the consequent deepening of mass poverty in our nation. But they should go beyond that and develop a credible alternative economic strategy that will remove some of the major constraints on job creation in the economy. At the moment it does not seem that the various opposition parties have alternative and coherent economic strategies that they can turn into an electoral advantage over the ruling PDP federal government. The failure of the Federal Government to create more jobs and the woeful infrastructure should be the central issues in the campaign for the 2015 elections.

  • May 29 fraud and carnival of men of all seasons

    Except for the PDP stalwarts and the chorus ‘men of all seasons’, who gathered in Abuja to celebrate both the 14 years of PDP brand of democracy that holds in disdain democratic principles of ‘liberty, justice and common decency’, and President Jonathan’s claimed two years of superlative performance, we all know all is not well with our nation.

    What May 29, the fraud PDP christened “democracy day’ called for was sober reflection about how our nation has finally descended into a state of nature where the law of the jungle reigns supreme; where elections become ‘do or die affairs’, where losers resort to self help; where a justice of the Appeal court for being loyal to the nation, is in chains while those indicted for rigging elections move to Abuja to preside over our affairs as senators or party executives where they use the desecrated judicial process to intimidate their victims; and a jungle where those who have access to power share our national patrimony, using proceeds therein to buy private jets and armoured cars for self protection.

    It was a day that called for a sober reflection on how the tragedy of our nation started with the arbitrariness of Babangida who cancelled the most credible election in our nation’s history; how MKO Abiola, the winner of that election died protecting the mandate given to him by Nigerians; how the scourge called Abacha later taken care of by God came upon the nation; how Babangida and other soldiers of fortune of ‘Nigerian Army of anything is possible’ along with self-serving politicians imposed Obasanjo; how Obasanjo lacked the grace to give honour to those who watered the current democracy with their blood; and how in turn, all he built in eight years, he destroyed with his own hands. Yar’Adua reversed his policies; Jonathan squandered the foreign reserves he built up.

    Even Orji Uzor Kalu, Abia State former governor, a man not known for moderation and a stakeholder in PDP family business that has yielded him as it did for other PDP buccaneers, dividends in hundred folds, it is time for sober reflection. For him, “Going by all that has happened in the 14-year history of our current democracy… Nigeria is a sick nation, suffering and bleeding under the weight of corruption, ethnicity, nepotism, crimes and religious fundamentalism.”

    But PDP men and their contractors, who are the main beneficiaries of the current anarchy, resplendent in their flowing agbadas and babarigas, gathered in Abuja last week. Without restraint, Okonjo-Iweala, the minister for finance celebrated government transformation agenda and growth in the country economy when in fact two weeks earlier, both the president and his CBN governor had lamented about growth without development which left in its trails a sea of unemployed youths and an impoverished society.

    A day later, there was to be further assault on Nigerians as PDP members along with others they had ‘invited to come and chop’ gathered at the banquet hall of the presidential palace for “PDP family dinner.” There men of ‘all seasons’ who believe in nothing, and doing what they know how to do best- reassuring Jonathan that he has no opposition for the 2015 race. Just as they had urged Babangida, ‘the prince of the Niger’ to hold on to power, just as they had earnestly urged Abacha to hold on to power with swag song ‘Abacha today, Abacha tomorrow and Abacha for ever’; and just as they raised billions to support Obasanjo’s failed third term agenda, one after the other, PDP leaders and the tribe of ‘any government in power’ like Tony Anenih, Ebenezer Babatope, Iwuanyanwu, Jerry Gana tried to persuade an apparent reluctant Jonathan.

    The Political Adviser to the President, Ahmed Gulak set the ball rolling: “As long as the people who are gathered at the banquet hall of the presidential Villa were alive, we will not let governance slip out of our hand in our life time. The foot soldiers are ready to work for you”. Concluding, he urged the president to ignore the allegations of the opposition because “Nigerians are satisfied with his performance”.

    As for Tony Anenih, who says ‘PDP will do what it knows how to do best when it is time for election’, his proposal is for an automatic second term ticket for incumbent president and governors who perform well in office. To Mr. ‘Fixer’, it counts for little that the former vice-president had said that ‘the rulings of the courts stated that the policy was alien to the PDP and the Nigerian constitutions’.

    Ebenezer Babatope, who claim ‘for politicians, two plus two could be four and could be 40 thousand, speaking for the South-west said, “My own leader Papa Obafemi Awolowo exactly 31 years after predicting in Bonny during a campaign tour that an Ijaw man would one day become president of Nigeria, Jonathan is now president. He combines all the heroes of our country into himself. We voted for you last time, we will repeat it again because you have been a very very good president”.

    I am sure Awo’s body would be protesting in his grave to see how an apostate is doing a great damage to his memory. Awo stood for justice, fairness, competence, and democracy. If Awo had made such a prediction, he didn’t make it as a prophet but as an avowed federalist. He wanted the Ijaw as well as other minority nationalities to be partakers in the Nigerian project. He was during the 1959 constitutional debate in London, the only man among our founding fathers, left standing for the minority’s right to self determination within the greater Nigerian nation.

    Speaking for the South-east, Chief Iwuanyanwu said: “We gave the highest vote to President Jonathan last time, we are very happy, we are not disappointed, and Jonathan is doing very well. He has given us our own share”. Iwuanyanwu might be right. ‘Getting our own share’ ideology of the Igbo elite seems to have been the bane of Igbo quest for the presidency. But now, PDP heavy investor like Uzor Kalu, currently a non partaker in the Igbo share, is presenting himself as a more authentic Igbo presidential candidate than Jonathan whose only claim to Igbo is his Azikiwe middle name and his marriage to Dame Patience Jonathan.

    Other hurrah men at the carnival that are worth not much attention include Professor Jerry Gana, who has been part of all governments since Babangida era. He, on behalf of North-central zone, told the president “I … salute you for the restoration of democracy and its sustenance for 14 years .The problem with Gana is not just that he is deficit in credibility, it is that the more credible Arewa Consultative Forum has accused the same President Jonathan of redefining democracy by his endorsement of Jonah Jang who lost the NGF chairmanship election.

    Ambassador Aminu Wali, who spoke on behalf of the North-west wanted the president to go for 2015 because of the attraction of unprecedented volume of direct foreign investment from China even after the president had said growth arising from such foreign investment had not positively impacted on the lives of Nigerians. In summary, all the hurrah men and women including Hajia Zeinab Maina, who spoke for the North-east and Senator Stella Omu who spoke for the South-south, the president must proceed in earnest to seek and another term.

    But there is an assurance we are all not suffering from delusion. The consensus of Mohammed Kudu Abubakar’s NTA panel of experts consisting of Basil Odilim , Lanre Adebayo and Abu Hamisu was that the midterm report was not only a sham but that the current route being traversed by government economic team cannot lead to economic salvation.