The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • The humbling of Sanusi

    The humbling of Sanusi

    From the outset, everything about Project Cure, Mallam Lamido Sanusi’s much vaunted pill for restoring the naira, was defective. But he didn’t think so. That is the problem with this our almighty Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor; once, he makes up his mind on an issue, getting him to see reason with others who disagree with him becomes a fight, especially that variant called roforofo by the late Afrobeat icon, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.

    Since Sanusi had decided on the so-called restructuring of the naira, there was no looking back for him. He was set to roll whether or not the people knew what he was talking about.

    He obtained President Goodluck Jonathan’s approval, no doubt, before unveiling his Poject Cure, but it should have occurred to him that it was an exercise that would generate heat because of the issues involved. Sanusi’s CBN was planning to, in one fell swoop, convert 50kobo, N1, N5, N10, N20, N50, N100, and N200 notes to coins.

    It also proposed to change polymer notes to paper notes. The big one was the printing of the N5000 note, and the mere mention of its coming irked the populace. The questions came pouring out in torrents as the people questioned the rationale behind its coming.

    The people were expecting Sanusi to educate them on why an economy like ours should be talking of having a N5000 bill considering our level of economic development, but he was not forthcoming on this. Rather than embark on enlightenment, he took to abusing and calling those opposed to the idea names.

    In a poverty stricken country like ours, what value will the N5000 note add to the life of the people. There were arguments that as part of the functions of money, it will enhance the measure of value of the naira. Good, but what about enhancing the value of the people. What value will there be in a currency, which cannot be accessed by majority of the people.

    Even, as of now, only a few people can access the N1000 note, but it is a manageable means of exchange compared to the N5000 note. This was why no two economists agreed on the planned introduction of the note before the president asked Sanusi to shelve the proposal to allow for wider consultation, something that the CBN should have done without being told in the first place.

    But because Sanusi was determined to have his way after clearing with the president, he gave no thought to the people who will be affected by the policy. The planned restructuring of the naira, he wanted us to believe, was for the economic good of the country.

     Hear the bank : ’’When the CBN introduced the N500 note in 2002, inflation dropped from 16.5% to 12.1% in 2003. Similarly, when the N1000 was introduced in 2005, the inflation actually dropped from 11.6% to 8.6% (single digit) in 2006 and dropped further to 6.6% in 2007″.

    But it forgot to tell us what the economic indices were then. It also forgot to tell us that there had never been an over 5000% increase in the oldest highest denomination and the new one as being contemplated before the proposed N5000 bill was stopped. We may be no economists but we are no fools. Likewise, Sanusi may be a good economist, but he is a bad mind reader, everything being equal.

     Without doubt, Sanusi is an arrogant man and he has been exhibiting his arrogance since he came to office. My problem with those who are haughty is that they tend to look down on others, including those superior to them. It is this attitude that led him to introduce non-interest (Islamic) banking without any feeling for the religious sensibilities of others.

    Then, he went to Kano to play Father Christmas with our money under the guise of helping those attacked by Boko Haram elements, again without caring for the feelings of many Nigerians. Sanusi’s supporters tend to say that he is highly misunderstood. I beg to disagree with them.

    He is not a misunderstood person; he just likes listening to his own voice whether or not he is making sense. Being CBN governor is not a licence to run one’s mouth. We have had CBN governors before and we know how they comported themselves. As CBN governor, Sanusi is not expected to talk any how, unfortunately, he does. Sanusi talks more like a politician than an economist.

    We know good economists through their thoughtful and profound policies and not harebrained remarks against those opposed to their ideas. What did former President Olusegun Obasanjo say to warrant his taking the general to the cleaners the way he did? Is it a sin to disagree with the CBN’s plan to introduce the N5000 note? What did Obasanjo say about the bill that had not been said before by others?

    By abusing Obasanjo, Sanusi was indirectly throwing barbs at all those opposed to the N5000 bill as ‘’very bad economists’’. Who are we to disagree with this Thomas Malthus of our time? But then, it takes a bad economist to know one because Mallam Sanusi’s Project Cure was not only bad, it was incurably bad ab initio. Let him return to the drawing board and do what is right and proper.

     Who killed Ozuah?

    The late Ugochukwu Ozuah’s

    story is one that touches the heart. Here was a man, who got married on September 15 and five days later, he was killed. What is worse; the circumstances of his death are now enmeshed in controversy. The late Ozuah was said to be in the company of his friend, Irikefe Omene, when the sad event happened. He was said to have driven Omene to the bus stop to take a cab. On their way, according to Omene, they were stopped by the police.

    The late Ozuah, he said, was trying to park the car properly when he was shot by a policeman. The policemen, he said, took off after the shooting. Omene then returned to the deceased’s home to inform the wife, Joan, who became a widow after five days of her wedding.

    By the time Omene returned to the scene, a crowd had gathered. Instead of rushing the late Ozuah to the hospital, they just milled around discussing the tragedy. Meanwhile, he was lying there on the ground in a pool of his own blood.

    The Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of Anthony Police Station had also arrived, following, according to him, a phone call. He said he was called by those who heard the sound of the gun shot. Omene in whose presence his friend was shot claims that the police pulled the trigger. The DPO disagrees, saying Ozuah was killed by robbers. I find it difficult to agree with the DPO that robbers killed Ozuah.

    Has the DPO concluded investigation into the case as to arrive at that conclusion? What gave him the impression that Ozuah was killed by robbers? Was there any report of robbery near that scene? Who were the robbery victims? At what time were they robbed? If those who killed Ozuah were robbers, what did they take from him? Was his friend, Omene, also robbed?  Why are the police so sure that it was a robbery? It is just as well as saying that it was an assassination without any prior investigation.

    I don’t think the police should discountenance Omene’s statement that Ozuah was killed by the police. His statement is worth investigating. I don’t see any reason why he would say the police killed his friend if it wasn’t so. What would he gain by making such a claim? For now, it is too hasty to conclude that Ozuah was killed by robbers or even hired assassins without thorough investigation of the incident.

  • Massacre of miners in South Africa: The price of liberty

    Massacre of miners in South Africa: The price of liberty

    Nigeria invested a lot of time and resources in the liberation of southern Africa and I personally was involved in this process. It is therefore reasonable for Nigerians to be concerned about development in South Africa. South Africa is the biggest economy on the continent while Nigeria has the second biggest economy in Africa south of the Sahara. There is no way the African Continent will realise its economic potentiality without a symbiotic relationship between the two countries. There is of course healthy rivalry between South Africa and Nigeria and there is nothing wrong with that. This rivalry as long as it is healthy should not disturb the amicable relations between the two countries. As a Nigerian, I would of course like us to represent the continent and black people in the most important forum of international organisations in the United Nations Security Council. Whether this pious hope will be realised in the future is in womb of time.

    This is why I felt very sad when 34 hapless miners were murdered by South African Police in Marikana Mines belonging to the London Group, Lonmin one of the largest producers of Platinum in the world. A tragedy of this proportion happening in the new South Africa is simply unbelievable and unacceptable. This is why critics of the new regime refer to it as a Neo-apartheid regime and that nothing has changed in South Africa except that a few black leaders have become stinkingly rich while the vast majority of the people remain in abject poverty.

    South Africa like Brazil manifests the reality of the first and third world living side by side in the same country. It was very sad to hear that ownership of the platinum mines involved in this tragedy is shared between the London group and family members of the ruling elite including even the grandson of Nelson Mandela. This is why Julius Malema, the outspoken former leader of the ANC Youth wing has been calling for nationalisation of all mines in South Africa and also redistribution of wealth. More than a decade after the ANC took over government, Black South Africans are still living in shacks and shanty towns and are at the margin of society. The incidence of crime is very high and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome in South Africa is the highest in the whole world and many South Africans are dying in drones of either violence or disease.

    The President of the Republic, Jacob Zuma is not providing the right leadership that South Africa requires rather he is indulging in sexual pleasures of renewing his harem regularly. It will be extremely sad if South Africa were to go the way of other African countries after independence. In terms of total GDP, South Africa is not doing badly but GDP per head is considerably lower than expected because of the unequal distribution of wealth – unfortunately along racial lines. While I will not support nationalisation of mines and other sectors of the South African White owned economy as advocated by Julius Malema, there has to be a concrete effort made to alleviate the suffering of the vast majority of the South African black population. Nationalisation is not the way out; we in Nigeria know the havoc the indigenization decree of the Yakubu Gowon era did to discourage foreign investment in Nigeria. I remember advising Thabo Mbeki, when the apartheid regime in South Africa was on the verge of collapse, that he should ensure that they did not make the same mistake of nationalisation as was made in Nigeria. He of course said ANC did not have that plan but no one would have believed that an ANC government would be murdering African people living under a so called non-racial majoritarian democracy.

    To make matters even more painful, after 34 striking miners were struck down in cold blood, 100 of their striking colleagues were rounded up, detained and taken to court to face charges of murder under a spurious old fashioned apartheid law of “common purpose”. This law says that demonstrating workers knew that they could be killed by police and by demonstration they had caused the death of their colleagues. Enforcing this rather insensitive code was met by criticism all over the world to the embarrassment of the South African government which quickly withdrew the cases from court. As a face saving measure, Jacob Zuma the President has now set up a judicial commission to probe the massacre of the 34 miners. After closing the mines for more than five weeks, the miners have returned to work with a raise of 20% in their salaries but at the cost of several lives.

    This wildcat strikes has now spread to other mines in South Africa thus threatening the extractive industry on which the South Africa economy depends. One hopes that all the issues will be amicably resolved and South Africa will once again take its rightful place among the BRICS countries.

  • Oyinlola: Testimony of a PDP governor at work

    Something new, beautiful or ugly always comes out of the old South-west. The West bred NADECO or “Agbako” if you prefer Diya’s nomenclature. It equally bred the self-styled Abacha‘s ‘new realists’, headed by Ebenezar Babatope who told us Abacha was the best to have happened to Nigeria. His other fellow travelers include Elder Wole Oyelese, Dr Walter Ofonagoro, and Wada Nas.

    It was also the western Abacha administrators that constituted the vanguard of what they termed ‘Abacha historic mission’. Leading the pack was Colonel Olagunsoye Oyinlola then of Lagos, under the assault of man-made plague-broken roads, UN cleared refuse dumps and Abacha state sponsored violence. Other ignoble members of the Abacha fraudulent ‘historic mission’ were administrators Nwosu of Oyo and Ahmed Usman of Ondo among others.

    But the Fourth Republic has lived up to its reputation by throwing up the ugliest of the wild, wild, West. No matter how PDP governors from other geo-political zones tried, it will be difficult to beat the records of James Ibori described by a London court as ‘rogue in state house’, or that of Lucky Igbenedion who earned the same appellation from a Benin court. Ayo Fayose of Ekiti, Gbenga Daniel of Ogun, Adebayo Alao-Akala of Oyo, all accused of squalid conducts in government houses still have dates with the court. The West produced more firsts. It produced Olusegun Agagu of Ondo, Professor Oserheimen Osunbor of Edo, and Segun Oni of Ekiti and Olagunsoye Oyinlola of Osun who were indicted by the courts for stealing others’ mandates.

    For those who may be wondering about how South-west PDP governors have been able to chalk up such unenviable and unsavory reputation, the defence put up by Oyinlola, before the Prof. Femi Odekunle-led six-member panel of inquiry set up to investigate the circumstances surrounding the procurement of an N18, 38b loan and other major financial transactions by his government between May 29, 2003 and November 27, 2010 provides two possible explanations – incompetence or greed or both.

    First Oyinlola, swore he was motivated by service to his people to take the loan of N18.35b which exposed his state to ‘huge monthly repayment of a sum of N615 million to service a loan that by all accounts had no viable source of repayment’. He has told us that faced with a situation where “salaries of civil servants and pensions consumed 90 per cent of the earnings of his state” following “a reduction in the federal allocation to states in 2009, when the crises in the Niger Delta affected oil production” he was left with no other choice but to seek the help of the leadership of his state House of Assembly which in his words “advised us to take the loan at interest rate of 13% to address germane issues of 2010 Budget.”

    After obtaining the loan, his “administration used part of the loan to award contract for kits for the use of pupils in primary and secondary schools because of the poor performance of students in science subjects and Mathematics”.

    We have no reason to doubt Oyinlola’s genuine concern in this regard. But the question is how come it took the loan for an administration that had been in office for over seven years to realize the ‘poor performance of Osun state students in science and mathematics’? How was the decision to award contact arrived at? This question is relevant because we are not going to invent the wheel. Obama has just proposed in his next year budget a huge sum for the training of about 100,000 science and mathematics teachers to enable America catch up with China. But here it is a lot easier to award contracts than train teachers.

    A big chunk of the loan also went into the six stadia projects; the governor claimed was not even the idea of his government. According to him it was ‘the youths of the state that called the attention of its administration to the development of sports, during one of the open forum programme organized by his government’. We were not told if this youth-initiated policy was subjected to rigorous debate by the cabinet or the rubber stamping house. But the ex-governor saw in the borrowed idea, an opportunity to spread infrastructural development through the location of a stadium in each of the six zones across the state.

    But the question again is does Osun need six stadia in a situation where Lagos that harbours millions of enthusiastic football and other sports fans until recently had only one? And if Oyinlola’s administration was persuaded that six stadia were needed, should the contracts be awarded less than a year to the end of his term? What is the time frame for the completion of the projects? These questions are also pertinent because ex-governor Oyinlola also disclosed to the panel that some of the contracts his government awarded for roads rehabilitation were not implemented by the contractor. He has had to seek the intervention of Ooni of Ife because cancelation of the contracts was not a viable option since Osun state according to him ‘stands to lose about N500million’.

    There are more questions: “Why was the entire loan fully drawn by the PDP administration prior to the commencement of projects, even when the construction periods of the various projects for which it was meant were between 12-24 months? Oyinlola’s admission that only N10.1billion was drawn down does still not answer this question.

    Whose interest was being served by lodging the loan in an account with the same bank without accruing any interest while the state simultaneously made payment of N615 million as interests and charges .?

    Whose interest was served by an administration that spent over seven years in office, had N67.3billion excess free oil windfall to play around, and yet left behind a legacy of suffocating N615 million loan monthly repayments?

    How for instance was Osun state whose total IGR under Oyinlola never exceeded N300m going to survive with a monthly loan repayment of N615 million spread over 13 years?

    Aregbesola no doubt has an axe to grind with Oyinlola who stole his mandate for close to four years; but he has in my view tried to rise beyond the bitter politics of the state by merely describing his predecessor’s scandalous action merely as ‘running foul of simple rule of sound financial management’.

    The truth of the matter is that Oyinlola and his state House of Assembly have not behaved differently from other South-west PDP governors who have been indicted or facing charges in court for squalid behavior arising from unimplemented contract bazaar they dished out just to satisfy the greed of PDP members.

    In a more decent society, Oyinlola who was shamed by Marwa’s superlative performance after his dismal Lagos outing would never have been presented for an elective office by a political party worthy of its name. But in character with PDP philosophy of service to members only, Oyinlola , after another scandalous outing in Osun State, and an indictment for electoral fraud by an Appeal Court, has moved up to become national secretary of the PDP.

    As part of our continuing nightmare, PDP which in itself is deficit in honour and morality following the indictment of nearly all its past party chairmen is moulding our nation in the image of some depraved ex-governors, ex-Senate presidents, and ex-Speakers of the Lower House and committee chairmen.

  • The nature and dynamics of insurgencies (II)

    The nature and dynamics of insurgencies (II)

    This religious and sectarian insurgency emanating from the Arab world has now spread to Nigeria where, since 2009, the government has had to face the growing security challenge posed by Boko Haram (Western education is evil) to its authority. Before then, very little was known of the existence of this sect and its objectives. It was preceded by the activities and operations of the militants of the Niger Delta, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) that posed a grave security threat to Nigeria’s oil installations. Here, the grievances were mainly local and economic. Through dialogue, the federal authorities have been able to reach an agreement with the militants involving training abroad for them and some generous financial compensation. But even this can only be a partial solution to a problem that is deeply rooted in the political and economic history of the Delta region.

    The nature of the colonial legacy is responsible to a large extent for the emergence of political instability and the consequent emergence of insurgency in Nigeria. The Boko Haram sect is the product of a political and social process that failed to ensure an even development in the country, with the North lagging far behind the South in economic and social development. The insurgency in the North is a symptom of a deep seated malaise going back to the colonial area during which colonial policies adopted led to the North, the largest and most populous part of the country, falling behind the rest of the country in virtually all respects. Boko Haram is the direct consequence of the failure of northern leaders to invest in the education of their people. It is this failure, and not mere religious differences, that accounts for the deep seated grievances of the Boko Haram insurgents in Nigeria. The process and pace of modernisation in the North have been much slower than in the South. This situation creates frustration among the northern youths who find themselves unable to compete with their southern counterparts in all respects, even in the North.

    Northern Nigeria had been politically restive for some time. Before 2009 when Boko Haram first emerged there was the Maitasine rebellion which the Obasanjo government succeeded in putting down, largely through the application of force. But the underlying problem that produced Maitasine in the North was not really addressed. Boko Haram is the direct successor of Maitasine. Most of the northern states have since come under the savage attacks of the Boko Haram insurgents. There is now a serious danger that the insurgency may extend to other non-Fulani parts of northern Nigeria. Plateau State is the new target of attacks, though the competition for land between Fulani herdsmen and the indigenes in the region is also a major factor in the ethnic clashes there. Plateau State, part of the old Middle Belt, has a large Christian population as well. Its people have always historically been at logger – heads with the Hausa-Fulani who want to dominate the area. So, here the battle is for the control of this mineral rich part of Nigeria. It is both economic and political.

    A recent country report on global terrorism by the State Department of the United States showed that in 2011, 136 attacks were carried out in northern Nigeria by Boko Haram resulting in the death of 590 people. In terms of the global number of casualties in the Boko Haram attacks, Nigeria was placed fifth, after Afghanistan (3,353), Iraq (3, 063), Pakistan (2,033), and Somalia (1,103). It was reported that in 2011 there were some 978 terrorist attacks in Africa with Nigeria alone accounting for over 20 per cent of those attacks. The report stated that the sect was more deadly and vicious in its attacks in 2011 than in 2010. In 2010 only 31 attacks by Boko Haram were reported by the media. This figure increased in 2011 to 136. This year the number and frequency of Boko Haram attacks are likely to be even higher as the sect has increased its tempo during the current year. Already, it is estimated that Boko Haram attacks have resulted in the death of over 1,000 people in northern Nigeria since 2009.

    A former head of the Nigerian Army, Gen. Danjuma, has publicly expressed concerns that Nigeria may become a failed state like Somalia which has integrated on account of a long drawn out insurgency. Many northern leaders have also condemned the sect and blamed it for the situation of economic paralysis in the North There is increasing public concern that the sect seems to execute its vicious and bloody attacks so easily and with almost complete impunity. Despite its best and brave efforts the Joint Task Force, comprising the Army and the Police, has not yet been able to evolve a strategy to effectively tackle and contain attacks by the sect. Vast swathes of northern Nigeria have been rendered ungovernable and ‘no go’ areas. In the states that have been hit by Boko Haram, economic activities have been totally paralysed. The Plateau State has been one of the main targets of these attacks. It has suffered more casualties from the Boko Haram attacks than other states in northern Nigeria. The attacks appear religious in nature as most of them have been targeted at churches and Christians in northern Nigeria. Christian leaders have been restrained in their response to these attacks, but have warned that they may be obliged to urge their people to retaliate as the government has been unable to offer the victims of these random attacks any protection. A few mosques have also been attacked. But these attacks are directed against Muslims who are thought to have fallen behind in the strict practice of the Islamic doctrine and have fallen for the trappings of Western civilisation and way of life that the sect considers evil and unacceptable to strict Islamic doctrines.

    The Boko Haram phenomenon and the emergence of terrorism in Nigeria have to be considered as one of the unsavoury consequences and legacies of colonial rule in Nigeria. British colonial rule in Nigeria sought to create a new state by bringing together under a single colonial administration a country of such wide cultural and ethnic diversity. The central historical fact of Nigeria is that, like most of the other African states, it owes its existence as a nation state to European imperial ambitions in Africa. Lord Lugard, the first colonial governor of Nigeria, and the man who carried out the amalgamation of Nigeria, admitted at the time that Nigeria was ‘a mere geographical expression’ of this new British dependency. The territorial boundaries, the political institutions, and the images of these African states, are the result of European ambitions and rivalries in Africa. But colonialism was both a factor of cohesion and a source of friction. While it brought under one rule people with different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, it did very little to integrate them into one nation.

    The roots of the current insurgency by Boko Haram also lie in the fragility of the political institutions that Nigeria inherited at its Independence in 1960. Post-colonial Nigeria has remained a weak state. The post-colonial political and economic systems were far too weak to contain the centrifugal tendencies in the country. The federal system of government agreed upon at Independence was unbalanced. It failed to provide an equitable distribution of power at the centre. It is this quest for a more balanced political system that has been at the centre of Nigeria’s post-colonial political history. The post-colonial framework was itself the product of the nature and style of the British colonial administration in Nigeria. It created huge divergences in administration in northern and southern parts of the colony.

     

    •To be continued

     

  • Kindergarten god (1)

    The saliva in his mouth probably tastes sweeter than fresh dates. That is why he opens his mouth like one who has gotten drunk on his own saliva. Yet for all his cheek and bluster, you have to give it to Sanusi Lamido Sanusi; somewhere within his mass of vanity and sense of worth subsists that proverbial patriot who could be hero.

    Hero is probably too trite a word to encapsulate the patriot that he was meant to become. Now that the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) is desperate that he becomes President, shall we belabor why he is not yet ripe to become President?

    The man who is supposed to be anything and everything to us has become a brute in our recurring nightmare. Bet this is the moment he swallows spittle to summon a sharp retort; who cares? I couldn’t really care even if I tried; it’s healthier to damn what he thinks of this just like he damns what we think of his oppressive policies and actions.

    We have gone from people who do not understand him enough, to ‘dimwits’ who couldn’t appreciate all his “patriotic” gestures, even if the benefits stared us in the face. Beats me incessantly at times, but then, I remember that he is only human, and the mysteries begin to disappear, and his mutation attains some exposition of sort.

    Nobody knows what it feels like to be Sanusi Lamido Sanusi. Nobody knows what guilt unmans him or what passion inflames his soul in his dominion over our fatherland but going by his antecedents till date, there is little he could get from us in understanding and empathy.

    Just yesterday, he joined ballsy and cocky Okonjo-Iweala to force the bitter pill of fuel subsidy removal down our throats.

    Stuck in his element, he dished out “economic facts and figures;” “truisms” and then insults, tongue in cheek and self-righteously. According to him, the argument is never about “ideology but about simple basic economics and common sense.”

    For a presumably brilliant economist, he is yet ideologically confused – despite identifying himself as a pragmatic Marxist, reality depicts him as a pathetic illusionist. In the thick of his confusion, Sanusi has perfected the art of mounting the soap-box, at any given opportunity. “The bulk of government spending is revenue; revenue expenditure. That is a big problem; 25 per cent of overhead of Federal Government goes to the National Assembly. We need power; we need infrastructure. So we need to start looking at the structure of expenditure and make it more consistent with the development initiative of the country,” said the CBN Governor in the heat of his spar with the National Assembly.

    Lamenting further, he said, “Very often, you look at the problems of the country and you look at the powerful vested interests that are benefiting from these problems and you think that the problems cannot be resolved, let me tell you one thing; stand up to them, face them, the country belongs to you and we must claim it.”

    If his words are meant to pack a punch; they do. It doesn’t matter that they reverberate like cheap shots; Sanusi is the next best thing Nigeria has to a truth-sayer, within the ranks of our ruling class. But of what calibre is he? How dependable is he in the light of his ‘honesty?’

    Nigerians won’t forget in a hurry the promises he made in the wake of the fuel subsidy controversy. He claimed that the N1.3 or more trillion saved by removing fuel subsidy will be used to develop other sectors of the country. They won’t forget the conceit with which he made his awfully valid points. Fuel subsidy has been removed and Sanusi has suddenly lost his voice even as Nigeria smarts from absence of the economic palliatives promised all.

    Few weeks ago, he incited another controversy with the planned restructuring of the naira. Trust Sanusi, his approach was hardly different from that by which he conspired to force the bitter pill of fuel subsidy removal down Nigerians throats.

    Clearly unperturbed by criticisms of his plan, at a press conference in Abuja on August 23, Sanusi told journalists that the CBN would, as from 2013 introduce N5,000 note, while N5,

    N10 and N20 notes would be converted to coins. According to Sanusi, the redesigned N50 and N5, 000 notes will be introduced in early 2013. He explained that the naira was being restructured to encourage the use of coins, curb inflation, enhance the quality of bank notes and promote cashless economy. And backing him predictably in his bid is the ruling class and the crème of the nation’s aristocracy.

    How realistic is Sanusi Lamido Sanusi? How intelligent is the CBN Governor? How dependable is he? The answer lies as much in his utterances as his deeds. Are his utterances and deeds the characteristic of an exalted intellect, something which Nigeria’s incumbent ruling class pitifully lacks? Does he possess that towering immensity of tact and strength of character that remains prime attributes of a progressive leader?

    Is his lust for controversy and acclaim reflective of an awfully preadolescent wile? Could he be said to be ruling or serving Nigeria in his current capacity? How immune is he from ghastly manifestations of self love, wantonness, and sense of worth?

    By his utterances and deeds, Sanusi demands to be heard and taken serious at all costs. But to what do we owe such reverence of him? Some would say it is his brilliance and oratory. Anyone could be brilliant and outspoken from time to time but wisdom is what a leader has to affect all of the time. Is Sanusi Lamido Sanusi a wise man?

    That, I cannot tell, but I know that the CBN Governor is an orator. I know he is a pragmatic CBN Governor. I know he was courageous enough to call Nigeria’s lawmakers on their shameful fiscal indiscipline. I know his enthusiasm for economic rejuvenation of the country is undeniable and infectious.

    I also know that he only pays lip-service to the plight of the average man on the street. I know he is far removed from the realities plaguing Nigeria’s poor such that his mantra about subsidizing domestic production and creating job opportunities smacks of insincerity, and a wantonness to play to the working class’ gallery even as he emasculates it.

    I know he is yet to evolve such ideals that would make him mature into that purity of being that scorns egocentrism and narcissism. But no matter what anyone thinks, Sanusi does not have to apologize for being privileged to anyone. He does not have to be ashamed of his pedigree in order to be politically correct.

    Yet if he is to be judged by what Greek philosopher, Pythagoras, deems the human measure of all things, he shan’t fare excellently. Not yet. And that is because he is still an ordinary human sound bite. He is yet to evolve into that purity of being that makes a leader, despite all of his flaws, iconic.

    But it isn’t too late for Sanusi Lamido Sanusi. It isn’t too late for the one who gets drunk on the sweetness of his own saliva?

    To be continued…

  • Why should the soldiers be withdrawn when I now have electricity?!

    it would be difficult to support the call that soldiers be removed from manning power stations when we are still having it so good

    I don’t know about you but in my city, many people have now been reporting that they have been experiencing some steadiness in electricity supply to their houses for some time now. When I asked what magic could be responsible, I was told that soldiers are now manning the power stations. Hurray, I thought, that makes sense. Soldiers manning power stations, unemployed youths manning traffic posts and civil servants manning the seas. Now, who mans our security posts, fishermen? What a penkelemesi!

    I’m just joking. It’s not the best thing to have soldiers doing anything other than soldiering but I am very happy indeed to welcome electricity once in a while now. You just can’t imagine what joy it gives one to return from a hard day’s work, turn into one’s street and be able to complain joyfully that some of one’s neighbours have once again forgotten to turn off their security lights! You see, after being so used to lighting our ways in the house alternately with Aladdin’s lamp, Luggard’s bush lantern or some smoke-belching generator and being afraid of every shadow because no one could see quite clearly, we can now run around corridors with our eyes closed and leave security bulbs on all day. What a warm glow that gives one.

    The problem with this country is that the government enjoys watching us all not doing our work with too lazy or sleepy an eye. Perhaps, because it does not do its own work, I don’t know. All along the government knew that the billions and billions of naira it doled out to provide a steady stream of electricity currents to my house (I honestly don’t know about yours) have, somewhere along the line, disappeared. While complaining very loudly about the problem (if only because the suffering populace will not let them sleep), the same said government had known all along where the problem was. Instead, it simply equipped its government houses, including Aso Rock, with the most powerful generator sets in the neighbourhood. Yet, the engineering manpower in PHCN can, if they connect their heads together, conduct enough electricity round Africa and the world if the rest of mankind would not mind. So, where was the problem? I am told that the problem is the Nigerian factor, and I just hate that.

    I cannot begin to count here many of the unconscionable things I am told PHCN field staff have done. I, writing this, have been present though when a then-NEPA staff told a woman he had been sent to cut off her electricity supply for not paying a crazy bill but he would hold off if she was ready to bring a certain amount of money. She accused him of being hardhearted; he said she was stingy and should stop wasting his time because he still had many houses to visit that day. So, he just upped on the tree and cut her off, just like that, one snip. Yet another now-PHCN group held off connecting a businessman’s hotel to the grid for the simple reason that he had failed to ‘see them’. I have listened to so many tales about electricity company workers and connections. What I have failed to understand, however, is why I had electricity constantly when a then-NEPA staff member lived in my neighbourhood; and when he moved out of my neighbourhood, the constancy moved with him. I just cannot figure out what changed.

    My take on this whole lot is that the government is to blame. It has been too slow on justice, just like our Almighty. Someone once said though if the Almighty were not slow on justice, where would I be? Touché! But just think, the government is not our Almighty; powerful yes, but not Almighty, so it has no right to be so slow. Otherwise, it should have drafted in the soldiers decades ago to man our power stations. Just think what unnecessary headache, heartache and whatever else ache I would have been spared when all along, it had the solution. And what a solution!

    So, are the PHCN people really serious about asking the government to withdraw those wonderful soldiers? I mean as in serious, serious? Has it ever occurred to these PHCN people that people do not really like them? The businessman and the woman I talked about do not and I also don’t. I don’t know how many articles I have written on them on this page and elsewhere but they have remained adamant like an adamantine stone. So, that makes three of us that I know, and I’m still counting. Now, how on earth do they think people can support them?

    Worse, the NLC now wants to sponsor them in a strike. I sincerely hope that that otherwise serious body will not attempt to test their popularity once again by sticking their necks out too far. They would just find themselves swallowing humiliation down a long throat after the head has been cut off. You know what our problem is? Our problem is that we lack a sense of history. I was going to leave this subject for another day, but we might as well tackle some of it now. The place of history is so clear that, right now, only the blind of this nation are seeing it clearly. The sighted are going around blinking like an owl and asking, where on earth did we leave our personality? You know how I know? Secondary school pupils do not take history any more.

    When I asked a recently graduated SS pupil if he did history, he wrinkled his brow and queried, history? It was clear he had forgotten what on earth that was. Another one said he did not take it but he thought one or two people offered it in their school. Then he laughed. It was clear he thought that those two must have been a little wanting in the head.

    The beauty of history is that it helps us evaluate our position at all times. By keeping us in constant touch with our ancestry, our hopes, desires and aspirations may remain in sight. What has evolved into this modern Nigeria from the ancient ruins of old Nigeria would be a sore disappointment to our ancestors were they to wake up into our midst right now. The only thing is that we would all run away from them as if they were ghosts (oh yes, they would be ghosts!). We do however still venerate their names. They, on the other hand, would throw stones at some of our names because we have turned their dreams into ashes. It would be a case of the dead casting out the living. Someday, we will still talk about history.

    The great members of staff of Nigeria’s power company have had their day. They have failed the history test because rather than move the nation’s generic dreams forward, they have hurled the country down spiral staircases of loss, regret, hopelessness and destruction. Ask people who have lost relatives to generator blow-outs, fumes or in hospitals. Ask people who have been laid off work because companies could no longer afford the overhead. Ask …

    Yet now, these same people want the nation to care because they perceive that they are being cheated. How can we when we are still chaffing from their tyranny? Few will support any attempt to deny any group of workers their entitlements, but it would be difficult to support the call that soldiers be removed from manning power stations when we are still having it so good. I’m not sure how long this arrangement will last but as I am writing this, I have electricity for the first time in a long time. That should count for something.

  • Re: Sons and fathers

    Re: Sons and fathers

    A reader of your column in The Nation of Thursday August 23, excited by your generous comments about me directed my attention to your piece entitled“Sons and Fathers” of that date. I thank you for the said comments and salute your courage for expressing them even as a regular columnist in The Nation.

    However, permit me to react to some of the facts, opinions, and conclusions expressed in the said piece. In an attempt to justify Tinubu’s imposition of Fashola as governorship candidate for Lagos and the imposition of candidates that is the order of the day in ACN today, you said Tinubu was only following in the footsteps of AD elders who “handpicked” him as AD governorship candidate for Lagos in 1999 when “it was general knowledge that Tinubu was already campaigning for the senate.”

    As the National Chairman of the party at the time, I state categorically that nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, you are being unfair to Tinubu when you said he was handpicked to be the governorship candidate of the AD in Lagos in 1999 when the truth is that he contested and won a three-cornered fight at the primary with Senator Kofo Bucknor-Akerele and the late Funsho Williams. It is true that the late Funsho Williams (backed by the late Alhaji Ganiyu Dawodu the Lagos State chairman of the party and also one of the AD elders) disputed Tinubu’s victory claiming Funsho Williams’ votes had been short-changed by not adding the results of polls at Ebute-Metta Mainland and Ikorodu constituencies. The electoral body from Oyo State set up by the party to supervise the Lagos State primaries rebutted this explaining that their representative was not present when the polls in the two constituencies were counted. The leader of Afenifere at the time, the late Pa Abraham Adesanya ruled that the results submitted by the party supervisors should be upheld. I was therefore directed as the National Chairman of the party to forward Tinubu’s name as the party’s candidate to replace Funsho Williams’ name which had earlier been forwarded to INEC by Alhaji Ganiyu Dawodu in his capacity as state chairman of the party.

    Please check to confirm the above facts from Asiwaju Tinubu, Senator Afikuyomi and Mr. Dele Alake. From the above facts, therefore, Afenifere elders could only be accused of following “Due Process”. It would be certainly mischievous and uncharitable to accuse them of handpicking Tinubu as AD governorship candidate in 1999.

    With respect to your statement that the recent attendance of Afenifere leaders including myself at Governor Mimiko’s second term declaration rally at Akure “was informed more not by love for the acclaimed hardworking Mimiko but by disdain for equally successful Tinubu and ACN”. You state as reason in support for this charge that although I acknowledged the good work being done by Fashola yet I have not led a solidarity visit to him even after his successful performance in his second term.

    But Jide, Governor Mimiko specifically invited me and other Afenifere leaders to attend his rally. In fact, he pleaded that I should arrive the night before with comfortable accommodation provided for me. On no occasion has Fashola invited me to any of the government functions since he has been in office. On the contrary, I have challenged him on more than two occasions why I was not being invited to his government functions. One such occasion was when I met him at Senator Biyi Durojaiye’s house when both of us were on a condolence visit to Senator Durojaiye when he lost his wife. I remember on one occasion I told Fashola “Bi ko ba si eni ana ko ni si eni oni” (meaning literally “Without yesterday’s men there will be no today’s men”).

    On more than two occasions, I also have sent him text messages to congratulate him on his performance during television interviews such as when he painstakingly explained his role as head of government and that of Tinubu as leader of his party and that there was no clash of authority. Fashola acknowledged none of the text messages. May I ask, when I am not invited to any of Fashola’s functions, how can I then demonstrate my support for him? At my age Jide, you will not expect me to attend any functions I am not duly invited. The Yorubas say “Omo ti o ba na owo e ni iya re ma gbe” (meaning “a child who stretches forth his hands is the one the mother will lift). Mimiko appreciates and acknowledges the political leadership of Afenifere leaders but this cannot be said of Fashola and ACN leaders. In fact the body language of ACN leaders is to keep Afenifere leaders at a distance when they cannot spite us. They forget that a river that forgets its source will certainly run dry. Afenifere leaders’ attitude to ACN leaders can aptly be illustrated by the Yoruba adage which says “Ewure o ni oun ko ba aguntan tan, Aguntan lo ni Iya oun ko bi dudu”, literally meaning, “the she-goat does not deny her relationship with the he-goat, it is the he-goat that says his mother has no black child”.

    I don’t know your source of information that I ever supported Oyinlola against Aregbesola. This would certainly be inconsistent with what you quoted me as saying in your article that “I feel proud that the ACN have done well…For instance I feel proud that the ACN has succeeded in taking power from the PDP in the South-west. If I have to make a choice between the evil of the PDP and ACN, I will choose the ACN. PDP is an evil in this country.” As a matter of fact I sent congratulatory text messages to Aregbesola after his victory in the court. Ditto to Dr. Fayemi who acknowledged his own text but Aregbesola did not, but confirmed to me that he received the message when I met him sometime later.

    As for Afenifere”s solidarity visit to ex-governor Gbenga Daniel of Ogun State, our visit as we stated then was to dissociate ourselves from the newspaper trial and conviction of Daniel on the allegations leveled against him. We went to hear his own side of the story and as we stated then, we were satisfied with his explanations and would not join in condemning him until the court makes its pronouncement. On our part we so far feel vindicated as the EFCC after over a year’s trial has failed to get Otunba Daniel convicted on the charges originally leveled against him, but rather has reduced the charges of fraud from a whopping sum of over N58 billion to N200 million.

    Finally, you inferred that our visit to Daniel was informed more by an attempt to further fuel the secret rivalry between Tinubu and Daniel who were once political allies in AD. This is rather unkind to put it mildly. As elder statesmen, Jide, what do you think Afenifere stands to gain by fuelling the rivalry between two eminent sons of Oduduwa? If you know our pedigree, you would recognize it is not in our character to fuel rivalry among our children but to reconcile them for the progress of Yoruba land.

    I believe your criticisms and observations in the piece “Sons and Fathers” were written in good faith. Some of the issues raised are indeed of public interest. I will therefore appreciate it if you don’t deny me the right of reply by giving this rejoinder adequate space and publicity in your paper in order to keep the records straight.

    NOTES: The son knows the father and the father the son. I am not one of the privileged few that know intimately the highly revered fathers or their illustrious sons. Mine was therefore an opinion of an outsider, a labour undertaken in good faith, as part of the freedom guaranteed by our highly developed culture, to look at our leaders in the face and ask questions without prejudice to the fact that they earned their positions. I hope Pa Adebanjo’s clarification reassures those who are nervous about the present schism between fathers and sons.

    • Jide Oluwajuyitan

  • The oil marketers’ revenge

    The oil marketers’ revenge

    For weeks, many outlets were running skeletal services, using only one or two pumps to dispense fuel. They knew what they were doing. It was a dress rehearsal for a full blown scarcity of petrol. Whenever filling stations start to behave like that, an alarm goes off in my mind.

    The alarm went off a few weeks ago when I started noticing some funny behaviours in some outlets and I consciously made it a duty to  always have a full tank. But I was afraid for my wife because I knew that she would not pay attention to such ‘’little things’’. So, last weekend, I did a small test for her after checking the fuel gauge of her car, which as expected was a bit below half tank.

    After my check, I asked why she did not fill her tank when there are signs of an impending fuel shortage. She disagreed, saying that the filling stations are selling,‘’ how can there be scarcity?’’.

    I looked at her and laughed. I told her that all the telltale signs are there of an upcoming scarcity. I reminded her that for sometime the filling station on the road leading into our estate has not been selling fuel regularly. ‘’What does that tell you?’’ I asked her. She could not answer. When she went out on Sunday, she saw things for herself. Queues had built up all over Lagos, heralding the coming of another fuel scarcity.

    Many motorists, at least those who are not vigilant, were caught napping by this sudden development because it did not follow the usual pattern of tanker drivers threatening fire and brimstone or labour calling workers out on strike to protest one government policy or the other. The scarcity crept in like a thief in the night last Sunday, causing anguish and pains for many people. There is nothing that disrupts people’s lives more than fuel scarcity.

    Once, there is fuel shortage, everything virtually grinds to a halt. In a commercial city like Lagos, things are even worse. Moving around becomes a problem as the roads are choked up with vehicles queuing for petrol. There is chaos on the road; at homes and offices things are not better because we need fuel to power our generating sets.

    Nigerians run a mini-government of sorts in their homes, providing their own light, water and security. We have a government, yet we don’t see the effect of government in our lives. There were abundant signs that this scarcity was on the way, but the government did nothing to nip it in the bud.

    It preferred to wait for the problem to come before adopting its usual fire brigade measures to address the challenge. This scarcity wouldn’t have hit Lagos, if the government had moved swiftly to tackle the problem when it reared its ugly head in Abuja and other parts of the country. Although the government may have been lax in addressing this fuel scarcity, we should not blame it too much for the problem.

    Marketers are the brains behind this scarcity, as they have always been, and it all boils down to their greed for money and more money. With little investment, they want to reap maximum profit. Where is that done in the entire business world? You know the answer already, it is Nigeria.

    The present scarcity has its taproot in the January 1 ill-advised hike in the price of petrol from N65 to N141 per litre before President Goodluck Jonathan graciously (don’t chuckle please) brought it down to N97.  Since then, marketers, who bought products based on the then prevailing rate of N65 per litre, but sold at the new price of N97, have been looking for ways to disrupt the process again for them to make another killing. They are not satisfied with the huge profit they made in the heat of the January fuel crisis.

    This is why today, they have resorted to the old argument of subsidy payment to cause another untold hardship in the land. Must we continue to be at the mercy of these oil sharks? Can’t the government do something about checking the excesses of these marketers? For long, we have been held to ransom by these marketers, who use all sorts of gimmick to perpetrate fraud under the guise of fuel importation?

    Should fuel importation be the sole business of these marketers? Is there no other area of the economy that they can play in to aid the growth of the oil industry? From all indications, they are, for now, only interested in importation where there is easy money to make rather than be burdened with the serious business of  drilling and refining.

    Marketers are a curse to the oil industry and until the nation is able to call their bluff, they will continue to ride roughshod over us. In our bid to do so, they will want to fight back, which should be expected, but we should not allow them to gain the upper hand. No matter how powerful they may think they are, they cannot take on the nation and expect to win and they know this too well. But to be able to fight them and go the distance, the government must be on the people’s side.

    Once the government decides to join forces with the people and not their oppressors the battle is won. Will the government ever be on the people’s side? I doubt if it will, but we must never give up until we force these marketers to treat us as human beings and not as mere numbers that should be added to their balance sheets.

    Shouldn’t they first balance human beings before balancing their books? To marketers, people count for nothing, they are tools to be used to achieve the businesman’s selfish goals. This is why they pay peanuts, but cart away huge profit at the end of every business year. But then they seem to forget that human beings count in the business equation. Without the people that they so despise, they cannot be making the huge profit that has got to their heads and made them believe that they are now tin gods. Nobody knows when the scarcity will end, with the Federal Government’s silence so far.

    There were signs yesterday that the scarcity had started easing. On its part, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) seems confused. It is blaming the vandalism of its pipelines at Arepo in Ogun State for the scarcity.

    If NNPC wishes to be sincere, it must know that, that is not true. I do not believe that the vandalism of those pipelines is the major cause of this scarcity. The major cause, I say with all emhasis at my disposal are the marketers, who have refused to import fuel despite an  agreement reached with the government last month. The pact followed their threat not to import fuel until they are paid their outstanding N200 billion subsidy. The government has since paid N42 billion out of the money, but the marketers are insisting on full payment to save their businesses. Since a labourer is worthy of its hire, the  government should pay them, but such payment must come after an audit.

    This means that the marketers must have done genuine business. Woe betide them if their hands are not clean, that means they will not be entitled to a kobo. Let them refuse to import fuel from now till thy kingdom, the government should not be moved to pay them except there is ample evidence to back up their claims. Any one of them found involved in any shady business should be made to face the music. By the way, what happened to the trial of those indicted in the fuel subsidy probe? Their trial should go on to its logical conclusion.

    The marketers will fight back, as they are doing now, but we should be ready for them. We should all remember that nothing good comes easy and cheap. It is at a price, which we should be prepared to pay or else remain in perpetual bondage.

  • ACN’s quest for Internally Generated Revenue (IGR)

    ACN’s quest for Internally Generated Revenue (IGR)

    One of the basic responsibilities of a citizen is payment of taxes. Classical Athenian democracy divided responsibilities within the state. Citizens enjoyed participation-direct democracy while slaves and non-citizens did most of the work. But by the time of Pericles, citizens not only participated in decision making but also paid taxes and defended the state under the pressure and example of Sparta. Military service became one of the hallmarks of citizenship. When representative democracy became the norm, taxation became the rite of passage of citizenship. The United States arguably the oldest democracy in the world was founded on representation and taxation. The 13 American colonies rebelled against King George of England III because he imposed onerous taxes on the people without their being represented in government. Since then taxation has become a necessary condition of citizenship.

    In Nigeria, the history of taxation dates back to as far back as the 14thCentury in the Hausa states. By the time Usman Dan Fodio took over and established the Caliphate of Sokoto, he was able to systemize a form of taxation which still exist till today. This was the Jangali-(Cattletax) and also poll tax on farmers. These taxes became the nucleus of the so called “Native treasuries” or Beit-el-mal during the heydays of the indirect rule system of Sir Fredrick Lugard and Sir Richmond Palmer. This system was extended to Yoruba land with the fulcrum around which a native treasury was built. Attempt to extend the system into the acephalous societies of Igbo and Ibibio met with resistance and rebellion. Even in Yoruba land revolts in Okeho and Iseyin in 1916 and a much bigger revolt in Egbaland in 1918 followed the imposition of taxes. The levying of taxes succeeded without problem in the Islamic North, but in the non-Muslim areas of the North, it was rebellion all the way. This long introduction is necessary to prove that people in Nigeria except in the Muslim North do not like paying taxes. The Tiv area throughout colonial times and after, was up in arms against the regional government partly because of the people’s opposition to taxes.

    The Action Group government in Western Nigeria lost the federal election in 1954 because it was portrayed as a tax and spend party. The Agbekoya revolt of the late 1960s was a tax revolt by farmers who felt they were not getting anything in form of development for the taxes they were paying. The revolt did not end until those taxes were abolished.

    I examined a PhD thesis in the University of Ibadan some years ago and the conclusion of the student was that we have not witnessed a people’s revolt in recent times because people in the villages and on the farms are more or less excluded from paying taxes. The import of this conclusion is that government must move gingerly in imposing taxes on the poor people particularly, in the villages and yet before people can become stakeholders and take interest in their government, they must at least pay taxes. One of the reasons why the elite has gotten away with rampant corruption and thievery is because the money being stolen is not tax money but commissions and corporate tax skimmed off the petroleum industry.

    If taxes have to be imposed, they would have to be restricted to the cities and municipalities but not the villages. This is why IGR involving direct taxation would have to be restricted to the cities only. In most countries of the world it is easier to collect revenues through consumer tax-value added tax (VAT) because most people do not even realize that they are being taxed when they pay VAT. It is a pity that VAT in Nigeria is collected by the federal government. In a federation, VAT should be state tax. Imagine if Lagos can get all the VAT collected in the state, it would not have to levy the present onerous land use charge it imposes on all and sundry. It is this land use charge that the ACN states having seen how it has boosted the IGR of Lagos to N20 billion a month now want to extend to all of them. Whether they would succeed is a moot question. Edo State saw this being used by the PDP against Adams Oshiomhole in the last election which he handily won. But there may be problems introducing land use tax outside Lagos. I am in support of it. But it must be done in such a way that old people and people living in their homes would not pay much and that the bulk of the taxes would be paid by corporate bodies, industries, institutions and houses rented out. But everybody should pay something perhaps graduated from as low as one thousand to one hundred thousand.

    Now that we are talking about constitutional review, this is the time the VAT collected in states should belong to where it is collected rather than first sending in it to Abuja and later distributing it to all the states. This should be a case for constitutional review. The ACN leaders outside Lagos where the land use charge has succeeded must educate the people before levying them. Success in Lagos of the levy does not automatically guarantee its success in all the states under the ACN administrations. It is safer to impose a state VAT in addition to the federal tax than a land use levy which may elicit some opposition.

  • Of fuel and other crises

    Of fuel and other crises

    POOR Dr Goodluck Jonathan.

    I wonder what the President will be telling Nigerians on October 1, the National Day. Will he deliver a message of hope to a people who are weary of tightening their belts and enduring more of the pains they are feeling? Will he reel off a long list of achievements – laced with cold statistics and esoteric figures – which the average Nigerian cannot identify with?

    In vain have I searched the neighbourhood stores for a loaf of the cassava bread, which has become regular on the presidential breakfast table since it made its debut a few months ago. Those who have been privileged to have a bite tell me the taste is great, but the question remains: when will ordinary folks get the loaf? The You Win – what a name – programme may be a revolutionary tool for addressing poverty among women, but where are the beneficiaries?

    These and more may be on the list of the administration’s achievements, but one item that has regularly featured will, without doubt, be missing this time. Fuel.

    From Abuja to Sokoto and Kontagora; Calabar and Lagos to Umuahia, the queues are lengthening. A litre costs about N150 in Ekiti and Ondo states. In some parts of the North, it is about N200. Incredible! The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) says the scarcity is artificial, caused by inscrutable people who vandalised a pipeline. An attempt to repair the pipeline that was ripped open in Arepo, Ogun State, was resisted and three engineers were killed, the NNPC said. Now, it is using trucks to move fuel.

    But, the popular thinking is that the corporation has not told the truth. Our refineries, old, often sick and vulnerable, cannot supply all that we require. And now, marketers who import fuel to bridge the gap are not paid.

    The bold attempt to expose and punish those who have turned the subsidy regime into a bazaar of fraud and robbery – every young man with a glittering briefcase and a sharp Oxford Street suit is an oil and gas executive – has somehow compounded the pains it was supposed to remove. The Petroleum Product Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) has done a lot to separate the original from the counterfeit, but the Ministry of Finance is yet to pay those who have passed the PPPRA test . The banks are holding such marketers by the throat and there is no cash for them to import more fuel. This is where the problem lies.

    Marketers are being owed some N100 billion. The debts, according to the Ministry of Finance, are being verified. Can this go on ad infinitum? Do we really have the cash to pay? If we have exceeded the budget for subsidy because we under projected, why won’t Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala go back to the National Assembly to ask for more money? Ego? The fear of what the World Bank will say, having warned about budget deficit and balancing to bring down recurrent expenditure and shore up capital expenditure?

    Whatever the situation may be, we need not go back to those days when men slept at filling stations. No. Those who have been found to have defrauded the system should face the law and those whose bills have been verified should be paid right away. Nigerians do not deserve another fuel crisis, considering its agonies.

    It is unfortunate that the government blames everything on everybody except itself. Just on Tuesday in Abuja, the President, in a remarkable flashback, blamed the Occupy Nigeria fuel subsidy protests of January on a particular class who he accused of manipulating the crisis. I disagree. When petrol price jumped from N65 a litre to between N138 and N200 on New Year’s Day without a corresponding increase in workers’ pay, the masses didn’t need any prompting to resist what they saw as an act of crass wickedness.

    As it was then, the subsidy removal argument remains puerile and galling. The government said it spent N1.3tr on fuel subsidy last year. The cash, it said, should have gone into reviving our dead infrastructure, but it went into some people’s pockets. To end the robbery and make fuel smuggling unattractive, fuel price must go up. Some strange logic. The public kicked, saying: why don’t you go after the fraudsters?

    The government, as lethargic as ever, seemed reluctant to seize the suspected criminals. As it dithered about it all, the National Assembly moved in. It set up a probe of the subsidy scam. The exercise has spawned more scandals.

    As I was saying, Dr Jonathan recalled the fuel price protests. He said: “There was a demonstration in Lagos…somebody was giving pure water that people in my village don’t have access to, well packaged bottled water, expensive food that ordinary people in Lagos cannot eat. They hired the best musicians to come and play and the best comedians to come and entertain in that demonstration.

    “Are you telling me that demonstration is coming from the ordinary masses of Nigeria who want to communicate something to their government …?”

    What message was the President trying to pass on? That a spontaneous mob action that will result in cataclysmic losses of human and material resources is better than a peaceful rally to appeal to the government’s conscience that it should never be against the people? That even with the senseless price increase that would have resulted in higher prices of goods and services the people had not had enough?

    Didn’t the demonstration achieve its aim, with the roll back of the fuel price and the subsequent exposure of the subsidy cartel? Is it true Otueke – host of a huge construction site that is a federal university, among other projects – folks do not have access to sachet water ? Haba! Mr President, spare us the hyperbole.

    The government must look inwards for its enemies – remember the President said Boko Haram had infiltrated the government – instead of blaming every headache and catarrh on the opposition. If the opposition keeps quiet, even as the government fumbles and stumbles, where then will be the place of politics? If Dr Jonathan thinks he is going to get some peace from the opposition, that is building a castle in the air; they will keep pummeling his actions and inaction. He is the one who should convince the world that he has a strategic vision to address all that ails this beautiful country of confounding complexities.

    The infrastructural deficit remains as staggering as it was at the inception of this administration – safe for some jump in power supply, which some hawks in high places are trying to reverse with their greed and mercantile disposition.

    Apparently tired of it all, lawyers in Abia State, launched a unique protest on Tuesday. They designated the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway a “valley of death” and challenged the state and federal governments to wake up to their responsibilities. The lawyers, decked out in rain boots and their customary black-and-white court dress, marched in Aba right on some of the bad roads. Can it be more bizarre?

    Health workers in federal institutions are on strike, pushing for better pay and a more conducive working environment. In aviation, thousands of jobs are gone, even as the government sets its priority on building 11 more airports. What for?

    The Jonathan presidency may be remembered not for its creative approach to resolving the numerous problems that assail Nigeria, but for its capacity to –perhaps innocently or deliberately or ineffectually – create more trouble. Perhaps.