The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tuesday

  • Not yet executive desperation

    Not yet executive desperation

    Some people are saying that President Muhammadu Buhari’s request for emergency powers to fix the nation’s ailing economy smacks of executive desperation.

    What do they know about the subject?

    I should take them to Indonesia in the 1960s, at the time of its charismatic and fun-loving president, Dr Ahmed Sukarno.

    The economy lay prostrate.  Inflation ran into three digits.  Even if they had struck oil then, it would have made only a marginal difference to the 70 million inhabitants of the more than 1000 islands in the archipelago, for it had not become the black gold.  Nor had OPEC begun to exact a realistic price from the Western nations that had built an industrial civilisation on obscenely cheap oil.

    Sukarno tried all the prescriptions, the classic remedies in the pharmacopoeia of the economists, from Adam Smith to John Milton Keynes.  None worked.

    Then, he hit upon a bright idea.  He would offer a ministerial appointment to, and vest with sweeping powers, any Indonesian who thought he or she could fix the economy.  But there was a catch.  If the economy had not improved significantly at the end of one year, the minister would be executed by a firing squad.

    That was executive desperation at its starkest.

    There were no applications.

    Since then, I rarely stopped wondering what would have happened if that same offer were to be made by the federal authorities in Nigeria.  My relief came some three decades later, from a source I could never have conjured up, when the economist and one-time Vice Chancellor of the University of Benin, Professor Tijani M. Yesufu, volunteered a variation on Sukarno’s proposition that was even more stringent.

    That was the time of SAP, when the Nigerian economy was going through the same kind of discontinuities that had driven Sukarno to executive desperation. The black gold that had always seen the country through adversity had turned into black dust.   Approaches that had worked splendidly elsewhere seemed doomed to failure in Nigeria’s peculiar circumstances.

    The difference was that, unlike Sukarno, Babangida did not panic; he did not lose his equanimity.   On the contrary, he said he was astonished that the Nigerian economy had not collapsed, given all that it was going through.

    This was the context in which Professor Yesufu re-wrote Sukarno’s Proposition, offering to put the economy back on a solid path to recovery within one year if he was appointed Minister of Finance, failing which he would voluntarily submit to execution by a firing squad.

    The Babangida regime spurned the offer, just as it had spurned every offer to present an alternative to SAP.  The speculation then was that acceptance of Yesufu’s offer might create the pernicious impression that the economy was about to collapse when, in fact, the surprise in official circles was that it had refused to collapse.

    But there was a far more important reason for spurning Yesufu’s offer.  Given the regime’s oft-repeated declaration of commitment to upholding and respecting the fundamental rights of Nigerians, it could not in good conscience acknowledge, much less accept, Tijani’s offer.

    Back to my earlier question:  What would have happened if Sukarno’s proposition had been made to Nigerians on Nigerian soil?

    I believe that a good many of our compatriots would have jumped at it, and the authorities would have had a hard time winnowing their ranks and settling for the most plausible candidate.

    Some will accept the job and its terrible conditionality as a way of demonstrating that they are prepared to make any sacrifice for the nation.  Others will see it as an opportunity to obtain, at long last, their share of the national cake.  For such persons, the penalty for failure would be but a small price for a chance to telescope into one rollicking year all the fun they never had, and by  the same stroke, make up for all the material deprivations they had suffered.

    One thing is certain:  There will be no dearth of applicants.  It is just as certain that the successful applicant will contrive to escape execution even if the economy actually deteriorated during his tenure.  If he – pardon my sexism, but I doubt whether a woman would apply for the position – if he is truly a Nigerian, he will have taken fool-proof measures to guarantee safety for himself and his family.

    Half-way into his term, he will arrange an overseas trip for a loan or grant that only he can negotiate on behalf of the government. But as soon as he reaches destination, he will apply for political asylum.

    If the minister is barred from foreign travel during his tenure, he could sneak across the border in any number of guises or disguises.  He could use his new-found wealth to engineer a coup or an uprising –anything that can destabilise the government or keep the authorities so busy trying to maintain their hold on power, calculating that the ensuing turmoil will give him a chance to wriggle out of his Faustian bargain

    The more creative minister will resort to litigation as the surest way of staying alive.  In the tenth month of his tenure, he will seek a court order voiding, for any number of reasons, the agreement under which he was appointed minister.  If he fails at the court of first instance, he will appeal all the way to the Supreme Court, and thereafter to the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

    The process could drag on for several years, by which time the political and economic climate will have changed to the point of rendering the matter moot.

    Nor do these steps exhaust the possibilities.

    The minister will seek to employ what has become the most important weapon for evading restitution in Nigeria:   a perpetual injunction restraining the authorities from putting him on trial or executing him or inquiring in any manner whatsoever into any matter relating to his appointment to the cabinet.

    If that fails, he will file for a perpetual stay of execution (no pun intended).

    The whole thing will be messy and interminable, and a circus to boot, like the corruption trials now mired in contrived procedural issues.

    President Buhari knows this all too well and has wisely chosen, despite the great challenges of the times, not to riff on Sukarno’s Proposition.  The desperadoes out there expecting him to do so will be sorely disappointed.

    There is no sympathy for them in this corner.

    August 27, 1985: Why they struck

    After decades of studied silence, President Buhari recently spoke up about the motivations of his colleagues who toppled his military regime.

    One of them, General Aliyu Mohammed (Gusau), was to be cashiered for improperly obtaining an import licence and trading it for valuable consideration.  To save his friend, the aforementioned Aliyu, General Ibrahim Babangida led a group of officers to stage the August 27, 1985, coup, Buhari said.

    But that claim is incompatible with Babangida’s coup broadcast, which resonated as a study in high-mindedness, selflessness, and high patriotism.

    Was the coup just an elaborate pretext, then, and the coup broadcast a fudge?

    Babangida may well have struck to save a friend.  What is not generally known, according to an unassailable source, is that he struck to save himself as well.

  • TSA and its many myths

    TSA and its many myths

    Some 15 months after it kicked in, virtually every Nigerian you meet would seem to have a thing or two to say – I suspect more bad than good –about the operations of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) – the financial policy introduced by the federal government to consolidate all inflows from the country’s ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs). It’s like one might expect of a subject which Nigerians decide to take more than a passing interest: just about everyone would claim to know enough to qualify as an expert!

    The other day, it was our Abuja lords suggesting that the Federal Government use the TSA to fund the budget amidst the liquidity crisis arising from the slump in global crude oil prices. I recall watching our vivacious finance minister Kemi Adeosunactually struggle to convince lawmakers in the federal parliament that the money in the TSA actually belong to different agencies of government who also had the right to access the funds, and sonot available to fund the budget!

    In a country where,traditionally, top operatives of government agencies operate financial fiefdoms, answerable only to the man at the top and to a lesser still, the supervising minister, such confusions or gross misunderstanding, borne of the distorted fiscalism are perhaps expected. The only shock here is that these are no ordinary mortals but individuals who not only make our laws – including those governing the arcane world of public finance –persons who in law and practice are the custodian of the treasury; that they couldbetray such unpardonable ignorance of the basic element of public accounting and accountability no doubt speaks to a grave national tragedy.

    Today, many are the tales woven around the operation of the piggy bank – which by the latest estimate is said to have hit N3.7 trillion – that the ordinary Nigerian cannot but wonder about the mystery account now called the TSA which no one dares to touch.

    From the indulgent bank elite who, not contented with biting more than he can chew but would go as far as eating his seeds; the big shot in the parastatal who has lived all his life on arbitrage with all the powers that being in a big position confers. All of them can afford to chant the dirge. Trust the rest of us to follow with the tale about TSA being the next thing to Lucifer’s plague.

    Time and time again, the question keeps popping up – why keep the nation’s funds in a TSA when there’s so much need for the funds? Why borrow to fund the budget when the executive could simply have turned to the TSA to get the job done? Or this – why maintain a single treasury account – an idle account at a time our banks – ever distressed –needs to stay afloat so they could lend to the productive sector?

    It is a tricky questions no doubt, a legitimate one at that.

    Let me attempt the last question this way. Nine banks are currently in trouble; right?

    Their offence: Failure to return a total of $2.334 billion of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)/Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Company dollar deposits to the TSA account as directed by the presidency last year; right?

    First, that is whole lot of dollar holdings more so at this time. But then, that’s not the story. The real story is the huge outlay of public funds in foreign currency withheld by private entities at a time economic activities are slowly grinding to halt mainly on account of the forex crisis.In short, we are talking of something ordinarily beyond the pale of routine infraction to something as serious as economic sabotage.

    Need the particulars? First, the fund keepers opted to keep the funds for whatever reasons – against the instruction of the fund owners even when the prerogative of fund owners to recall their funds at any time is ordinarily given. The second ‘crime’ is what actually happened to the cash. Now, don’t ask me what these entities did with the cash! Did they lend to the real sector? Where are the records? Did these funds end up – as many suspect – in the usual trove – the black marketwhere those pretenders in the corporate suites actually rule? Isn’t that precisely how the so-called black market derives their sustenance, the reason they won’t die?

    More importantly, why bother to do real banking when there is such of government funds floating all over the place – funds that could easily be re-lent to the same government at premium?

    Ha! And some people are talking of forbearance! Nigeria! Does anyone still wonder why some people are up in arms over the TSA?

    Now let’s turn to our operatives in the public sector. Their cries, I guess, may not have reached the heavens yet. Never mind the appearances, the façade and all the works; it’s their season of grief. However, trust the artful fellows to outsource the dirty job to their buccaneer compatriots – the political class. Soon enough, we expect motions after motions to be tabled on how TSA has become the silent killer that the country can do without. By the way, is it mere coincidence that supposedly informed citizens have continued to moan that TSA is the reason why the activities of government have stalled; the reason why nothing is moving?

    Time now to strip the masquerade.

    What is TSA? Like I said before, it is the government account which merely seeks to consolidate all inflows from the MDAs through commercial banks into a single account at the apex bank –funds belonging to the federal government. Now, these are not income of the MDAs but rather of the federal government!

    On the other hand, the agencies of government, by law are required to prepare their annual budgets alongside with that of the federal government and this to be submitted to the National Assembly!By the way, some of these agencies budgets are known to exceed those of several states of the federation.

    This is where, I guess, the gross misunderstanding about the TSA comes in. I have checked the books; from the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (As amended), to the Civil Service guidebook on spending – the General Orders and Financial Regulations; in none of the books did I find authorization for a dime of public money to be spent without the authorization of the parliament! To be sure, one of the more bizarre anomalies of our time is the assumption by revenue agencies of both the custodial role and the authority to do as they please with the funds in their charge.

    Now, if we agree, I don’t think we should not, that these agencies are not autonomous agencies so to speak, but creations of our laws, why should it be difficult to accept that their day to day operations should be subject to the strictures of appropriation? What is more injurious to the nation – the TSA or a situation where top officials of government are allowed to play the Russian roulette with the funds belonging to the commonwealth?

    I conclude. I agree that the operation of the TSA could be streamlined to deliver better results. WhatI will disagree with is that things are this bad because of the TSA. As against the TSA, our problem is the irresponsible elite that would rather reap without as much as bothering to sow.

  • Rio 2016: Musings on the XXXl Olympiad

    Rio 2016: Musings on the XXXl Olympiad

    However you judge it, Brazil and Rio de Janeiro will have to be accounted the biggest winners of the XXXl Olympiad just ended.

    Not in the quantum of medals and athletic accomplishment in which the United States, to no surprise, came out far ahead of every other national contingent, its traditional rival Russia having put up only a skeletal representation, its team decimated by a comprehensive ban on account of programmed doping on a scale almost behind belief.

    Brazil and Rio defied all the odds, real and contrived, to win big-time.

    The Western media said the host nation was not ready.  Construction lagged far behind schedule and was unlikely to be finished in time for the Games.  Brazil’s economy took a pounding from the crash of the international oil market and the income stream on which Brazil was relying to stage the extravaganza had almost dried up.

    The country was wracked by turmoil as the President, Dilma Rousseff, successor of Luiz Inació Lula da Silva, the former shoe shiner and trade unionist-turned politician and architect of Brazil’s economic revival and political rejuvenation, faced impeachment on corruption charges that seemed more apparent than real.  In the end she was suspended from office and had to watch Olympics from the sidelines as an unacknowledged observer when she should have by tradition declared the games open from a global spotlight.

    And then, there was zika, the mosquito-borne virus which spread fear and panic among pregnant  women or women who might become pregnant on a scale that has not been seen since the 1960s when the widespread use of the morning-sickness pill thalidomide resulted in the births of hideously deformed babies across Europe.

    Who would risk going to Brazil for the Games, when that risk involved the distinct possibility of having a baby with a small head and the pathologies associated with that condition:  very poor health, and early death?

    Television pictures of babies afflicted with that condition and their mothers struggling to cope with the trauma and stigma could not have done much to reassure those who thought the chance was worth taking.

    Rio, the host city, fared no better in the reporting. Its mean streets festered with crime and were dangerously unsafe, and you did not even have to venture near the favelas to get mugged.  Raw sewage emptied non-stop into the very waters in which some of the Olympic contests would be staged.

    When the water in the swimming pools turned green after a day of two of competition, the fear peddlers wasted no time in saying:  “We told you so.”  When the pools turned aquatic blue soon thereafter, they barely took notice.

    For the two weeks during which global attention was concentrated on Brazil as never before, no major crime was reported in the Games Village or its precincts.  The American gold medal-winning swimmer Ryan Lochte who confected a stick-up by gun-wielding police with two of his colleagues was unmasked and shamed, thanks to diligent sleuthing and closed-circuit television (CCTV).

    No major scandal was reported.  There was no outbreak of disease.  The lights never went out. The taps never ran dry. The public address system rarely faltered.  Political officials took the back seat and allowed the accredited organisers to run the show.

    In that vast assemblage of people of different races and tongues and creeds and faiths, nothing happened that could remotely be construed as a terrorist incident.  A single such incident would have played right into the hands of the demagogic and xenophobic Donald Trump, the Republican candidate in the U.S. presidential election.  He would have seized it to bolster his campaign theme that America succeeds best when it keeps out those who look or talk or worship differently.

    Maybe he was just being sarcastic.  You can never bet on The Donald.  As one American satirical writer remarked the other day, if Trump ever had his finger on the nuclear trigger, he could just squeeze it and explain later that he did so for sarcastic effect.

    Based on superb execution against all odds, I would still have adjudged Brazil the biggest winner of the XXXl Olympiad.  But then, the nation’s soccer squad, led by Neymar, he of the mesmerising nimbleness of foot and shots that call to mind the trajectory of a guided missile, won the only gold medal that matters to the host nation, the prize that it had never won in all its soccer glory.

    That feat was more than victory on the soccer pitch:  it was national redemption.

    In the World Cup semi-final two years ago, at the same fabled Maracanã Stadium, the German national team had done the unthinkable:  it had handed Brazil’s Selección a 7-1 shellacking.  That drubbing stuck in Brazil’s collective craw.  Rio 2016 offered a chance for a redemption of sorts.

    The final was not between the teams that had squared up in 2014.  The teams were not even drawn principally from the 2014 sets. It was a closely-fought duel, the outcome of which turned on penalty kicks and could have gone either way.

    Still, who is to begrudge Brazil its euphoric feeling of national redemption?

    I hope I will not be charged with harbouring low expectations when I say that, in this corner, the Nigerian soccer team was also in a significant sense a winner, even though it clinched only the bronze medal.

    The team was stranded in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States, and made it to Rio for its first match just seven hours before kick-off, with nary a chance to decompress.  Yet the players showed no hint of fatigue or despair when they took on Japan.  The fatigue did not show until well into the second half when Japan turned what seemed like an impending rout into a redeeming 4-5 loss.

    But take nothing away from our boys.

    Now, you would think that a team that had come this far would have all its anxieties assuaged.  But that is not the Nigerian way.  The boys had to threaten to boycott their quarter-final match, against Denmark, unless their earned bonuses were paid

    Commentator after commentator was smitten with awe by artistry and athleticism of the Nigerian players.  The team’s potential would be so much greater, almost limitless, they said, if it was backed by more purposeful organisation.

    That is the story of Nigeria in a nutshell.  So much potential; so little delivery.

    There was a time when, to our delight, the N in Nigeria used to be tagged on to the acronym BRIC, in which B stood for Brazil, R for Russia, I for India and C for China, emergent global actors.

    Not anymore.

    The challenge is to get it back in there in real terms, not with the jiggery-pokery of the Goodluck Jonathan and  Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala years.

  • The change we voted for?

    The change we voted for?

    Is this the change we voted for? Yes it is!That was Garba Shehu, the President’s spokesman’s riposte to the growing street broadsides in the aftermath of the vicious storms that have devastated the nation’s socio-economic landscape while turning most households destitute.  That the response took some 1,700 words would seem to suggest the extent to which the deeply the anguished cries of Nigerians have managed to penetrate the thick, legendary impervious walls of the villa. As one would imagine, the media, ever the whipping boy, could not escape the firing line:  “Boko Haram terrorist leader, Shekau or the pipeline vandal form the Delta region”, saysShehu, “is more likely to get newspaper front pages today than the Minister of Labour, Governor Emeka Ngige or the Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun talking about jobs creation in the economy”. Friendly fires are of course permitted!

    Whether anyone likes or not, the substance of the change, as sold to Nigerians by the Buhari administration, has since become the defining question of our day. Whereas our fathers may have eaten the sour fruits, we the children’s teeth are the ones set on the edge! The story everywhere is country hard.

    It must therefore be said that the presidential spokesman merely acknowledges the validity of a raging debate that goes on in every street corner at a time of terrible economic difficulties. Unfortunately, while it is also now all too fashionable to accuse Nigerians of exaggerated expectations, the penchant by hierarchs of the administration to either lapse into needless defensiveness when their policies – or lack thereof – comer under intense scrutiny, or as is now fashionable, the constant reminders about the locust years of the PDP and how things could have been worse (as if these were not the reason Nigerians elected to bring in fresh hands)would appear as part of the budding national pathology.

    Is this the change we voted for? In an environment that has witnessed interminable reforms; where talks about “progress” and “strong economic fundamentals” have come to mean nothing else than deepening poverty; a land where governance activism continues to deliver at the very best, extremely dubious outcomes, the question is as legitimate as it is reasonable. It is hard to deny the reality when the signs are all too visible for all to see.

    Of course, the question means no disrespect to the bold determination of the Buhari administration to turn things around. For instance, warts and all, corruption is being fought heroically by the administration; Boko Haram is in retreat although the menace of the Fulani herdsmen persists; so also is the restiveness in the Niger Delta. Clearly, I will go as far as to argue that the administration is doing its damned best to clear the mess left by the PDP’s misrule of 16 years just as I would also agree that the administration deserves more sympathetic hearing in the face of current challenges.

    I say this because the problems are daunting enough – and that is putting things mildly. That is why I am often in wonder when Nigerians either talk glibly or understate the problems that are as structural as they are deep. Whether it is the hydrocarbons sector where Nigeria struggles to pump 1.6 million barrels of crude per day – as against this year’s budgetary projection of 2.2 million barrels; or the tragedy of a nation fated to spend a whopping 40 percent of its monthly forex outlay on fuel import which is not only at the heart of the current crisis but has since forced a most unproductive debate on the value of the naira; need one add the unrelenting spate of factory closures that has reduced Nigeria to a net importer of all manners of imported goods conceivable; and of course the breakdown that has brought on the fiscal paralysis in most state capitals.  In all of these, there is almost a universal rejection of the notion that a good number of the problems that the nation is currently afflicted with would take time to solve. Indeed,it is like the broad section of Nigerians actually believes that a magic wand exists somewhere to solve all of the problems at once.

    The issue at stake is that these problems are hardly new. There were there in 1999; 2003; 2007; 2011; and 2015. Of course, with the way things are, there is in fact the possibility that they could again be the talking points when the electioneering season kicks off in two years’ time given that administration is yet to offer practical short, medium and long-term solutions to some of the problems after more than a year and half in office.

    Worried by what I considered as denial of the grave emergency that the problem has assumed and the typically casual approach of a government that gave them so much hope at the beginning, I had tasked the administration to seek counsel from foreign jurisdictions when serious troubles loomed. I drew attention to the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States and how the Americans came up with the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to rid the country’s financial system of toxic assets. I reminded the administration of the Economic Stabilisation Act 1982 passed by the Shagari administration in the wake of the economic crisis of the 80s, and the bailout of the banking sector that cost the nation an initial N620 billion in 2009.All of these being to underscore the fact that extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. That was barely two weeks ago. Today, it must come as a big relief to Nigerians that the federal government has finally come round to admitting the dire emergency and the need for such extraordinary measures as reported by some newspapers including The Nation, yesterday.

    Would the measures necessarily address the problem? A lot of course depends on the content. However, to the extent that the administration now accepts that its hitherto snail-paced approach to the current problems is flawed, the sign is no doubt positive.

    Which takes us back to the question:Is this the change we voted for? My answer is that we have some two years more to find out. To the hierarchs of the administration asking us to substitute the fleeting aroma for the pleasure of the fulsome broth served fresh and hot – and this at a time of rumbling bellies – I urge patience! I tell them: Let us begin to see the concrete results in those areas that particularly make living bearable for Nigerians. I guarantee them: the same Nigerians being accused of exaggerated expectations today would descend to the valley of low expectations when they see modest results delivered.

     

     

     

  • His Lordship, the mariner

    Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the English Romantic poet it was, who wrote, “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, poetic tragedy of a sailor, assailed by the albatross of a past misdeed.

    Were Nigeria to boast a contemporary equivalent of Coleridge’s mariner, it would sure be Justice Dahiru Saleh; for his infernal role in the voiding of the June 12, 1993 presidential election victory of Basorun MKO Abiola.

    MKO would die five years later in the Abacha gulag; but under the watch of Gen.  Abdusalami Abubakar, self-decided stop-gap head of state, after Sani Abacha himself had sensationally expired, in rather strange circumstances, that many Nigerians happily hooted was “divine intervention”.

    That crisis cost MKO his life.  But it also consigned most of the principal plotters as living dead.

    Justice Saleh appeared dead in limbo — until he bobbed up, via some newspaper interview.  Still, he cut the sorry picture of the Coleridge ancient mariner, with the June 12 albatross hanging heavy on his neck!

    The big difference though is that whereas Coleridge’s mariner got redeemed for his crime, after enduring the emptiness of the living dead, this unfortunate Nigerian version appears beyond redemption.  Even from his limbo, he grandstands in provocative vacuity!

    He voided June 12, he claimed, out of the best of intentions, fired by a fair and forensic mind.  He can tell that to the marines!

    Psychoanalysis, in basic psychology, dubs it ‘Freudian slip’.  But the scriptures insist such slips could either edify or mortify, warning however that what destroys you is not what you eat, but what you say.

    His Lordship, the Mariner, therefore, tries himself so mercilessly in the court of his own words, even 23 years after the judicial crime.

    You could feel the full sear of his juristic(?) mind: combustible power politics laced with ethnic animosity, to brew a subversive verdict that ignited a fire that almost consumed the polity.

    “The Yorubas wanted Abiola to become president …” Justice Saleh claimed, sounding as if he had a problem with such a proposition. “But he couldn’t be,” he crowed — in triumph?

    “While the political blame must be on President Babangida,” he admitted, “Babangida did nothing of the sort to stop him [Abiola], using my court.”  Maybe.  Maybe not.

    But did a Yoruba legitimate yearning jar against Abiola’s lawful mandate, a resounding  pan-Nigeria one that cut across tribes and tongues, to necessitate a criminal annulment of the freest and fairest election ever in this country?

    His Lordship would appear to think — and merrily brag so.  Hear him: “I have no regrets; none whatever. No regrets. I would repeat the same thing now.”

    His Lordship clearly relishes playing the judicial Judas, despite the ruin his verdict brought upon his country.  Still, such unconscionable crowing, over glaring injustices, has been Nigeria’s bane.

    But from His Lordship, the Mariner, to His Excellency, the General, another spinner of long-running marine tales: first naming himself “military president”; then ruining himself with the annulment; and now, in his winter years, warring in vain against himself, just to validate those marine fibs!

    After all the power, and all the glory, and all the vanity, and all the vacuity, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, who Justice Saleh fondly hid behind a finger to cover his June 12 transgression, would appear a much subdued man.

    Unlike Justice Saleh who still appears unfazed by his judicial villainy, self-abnegation appears IBB’s 75th birthday wish, after the bluff and bluster of his earlier years, starting with his ‘Evil Genius’ moniker, much relished in those halcyon days of untrammeled authority, courtesy of not only being in government but also in power.

    “I am not the evil genius that quite a lot of people consider me to be.” IBB deserves congratulations, for that glorious epiphany!

    Still, given his self-crowed love to dominate his environment, as a master in the theory and praxis of violence, laced with his sheer Machiavellian tactics, not a few would be stunned by this disclaimer.

    Nevertheless, IBB sounds positively downbeat, from known obscurity, in his commemorative interviews at 75.  Alas! Everyone knows IBB is still there.  But no one seems upbeat about him!

    Yeah, his Maradona-speak appears intact — that bit about making legislation a part-time job: coming from a man whose government was clearly the most spendthrift, after President Goodluck Jonathan.

    And, of course, the old fox’s last-minute essay at defiance: that bit about being misconstrued, but choosing not to worry.

    Still, there is a certain yearning for reconciliation and understanding playing out in the new IBB persona.

    Now, what is that?  An albatross of guilt over MKO, pretty much like the Coleridge mariner that wilfully killed the albatross that piloted him and his crew from a storm?

    Or, an old man, after the follies and bombast of youth, finally readying himself to meet his maker, in his best possible conduct?

    Only IBB knows!  However, it appears a classic case of public guilt weighing heavy on private conscience, in a milieu where apologies, even from flagrant wrongs, appears a sign of weakness.  That would explain Saleh’s shameless bragging.

    That is why that judge, after a fleeting bobbing up from the limbo of the living dead,  promptly returned there.

    Even while still living, he appears a complete reject of history, if good conscience, justice and fairness, which ought to come with the judicial territory, are the issues!

    Well, if Saleh appears beyond redemption, given his posturing at his interview; is that what IBB also wishes?  That is doubtful, given his rather conciliatory posture at 75.

    That is why he should shun needless pride and apologize to Nigerians that voted on June 12, for purporting to cancel their will, though criminally sustained.

    Then, he should apologize to the MKO Abiola family, for the grave injustice his annulment did to their patriarch, MKO; and matriarch, Kudirat; who both died in the heat of the crisis.

    MKO perhaps would stand as eternal witness against contemporary Nigeria, the military segment of which IBB dominated like no other.  Though he was no angel, all he did was show compassion to his compatriots, Christian, Muslim or traditional worshipper.  He made as many as possible happy.

    Yet, all he got paid was death, in detention, after five years; for winning a free election.

    But MKO’s memory left nothing but love and awe: for by his wealth and association, he was the least candidate for political heroism.  Besides, he has found peace with his maker.

    Not so, the June 12 conspirators, living or dead!   By their terrible deed, they cloaked themselves in disgrace and disdain.  And each time the June 12 anniversary echoes, their villainy  ricochets anew in the polity.

    IBB is the best known of this unenviable company.  But he can still mitigate the harsh verdict of history, by penitence followed by a public apology.

    As for His Lordship, the Mariner, he was simply a happy pawn in villainy.  Just as well he is unrepentant.  He deserves his place of rot in history’s dustbin.

     

  • They remember their Commandant

    They remember their Commandant

    Once in a while, you read an obituary that makes you wish you knew the subject and had interacted with him closely.

    That was how I felt on reading the obituary notices and the tributes that have been paid to the memory of General Timothy Babatunde Ogundeko, whose remains were buried this past weekend in his hometown Ijebu-Mushin, in Ogun State.

    The one thing that shines through them is that they stemmed more from conviction than from duty.  The picture that emerges is of an exceptional figure.

    President Muhammadu Buhari said Ogundeko ”will be long remembered for his towering role as an educationist and public administrator, who immensely contributed to the procedure and processes of training potential leaders in security and socio-political environment of Nigeria.”

    To General TY Danjuma, the former Chief of Army Staff whom no one has ever accused of being extravagant with praise, Ogundeko was “simply the best Direct Commissioned Officer that ever served in the Nigerian Army.”

    Danjuma, who should know, recalled that “all the professional soldiers who served with Timothy remember him as a mature and seasoned teacher who transformed the Nigerian Army Education Corps through his foresight, dedication, determination and diligence.”

    The former Chief of Army Staff also remarked how Ogundeko facilitated the establishment of the Command Secondary Schools to meet the needs of the children of Army personnel, a feat soon copied by other armed services.

    What is even more remarkable, Danjuma credits Ogundeko with changing the attitude of the officer corps toward continuous learning and the pursuit of knowledge.  In this respect, it can be said that Ogundeko was ahead of his time, persuaded that the army of the future had to be a knowledge-based institution.

    Previously (1962-1972) Ogundeko had served as Commandant of the Nigerian Military School, Zaria, where he also taught chemistry.

    Given his profile, and how heavily the ruling military regime was invested in the project, Ogundeko seemed an obvious choice to head the Nigerian Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, Plateau State, at its founding in 1979.

    That was a time of heady optimism in Nigeria, where everything seemed no merely possible but splendidly attainable.  Money was no problem; the problem, as General Yakubu had formulated it, was how to spend it.

    Ogundeko retired from the position of Director-General and from the Army on health grounds – his eyesight was failing – in 1981.  He was aged only 49 years.  Though brief, his tenure can be regarded as a substantial part of the glory days of NIPPS.

    Nomination to its well regarded Senior Executive Course for ranking military and police officers,  civil servants and officials from the organised private sector was highly prized.  Certification from the Institute, which had some of the nation’s best academics on its faculty, was a mark of achievement.

    Over time, NIPPS became a haven for coup plotters and a half-way house to retirement for public servants who had minds of their own (Nuhu Ribadu, former chair of the EFCC, is one of the more  notorious recent examples). Funding shrank to the point that, like the universities, NIPSS is now a shadow of what it used to be.

    Command at the Nigerian Military School, Transformation of the Nigerian Army Education Corps, establishing the Command Secondary Schools and guiding NIPPS to a good start and nurturing it through its infancy:  These were achievements enough, but they were not what made Ogundeko exceptional.

    What made him truly exceptional is to be found in the full page obituary in this newspaper (August 10, p. 32) placed by students of the Nigeria Military School, Zaria, where he taught chemistry and served as Commandant before going to head the army’s Education Corps.

    Signed by “Senator (Dr) David A.B. Mark, GCON, President of the 6th and 7th Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria” for and on behalf of 50 living and 22 deceased “ex boys” of the NMS Class of 1966 – a troubling attrition rate, by the way — the tribute recalled how, even as a Major, well before he became the school’s Commandant, Ogundeko was a “father figure.”

    At the time of the January 1996 coup, Senator (Dr) Mark recalled on behalf of his contemporaries, there were “strong rumours” that the NMS was going to be attacked.  Here, in Mark’s own words, is his testimony of how Ogundeko reacted:

    “In his characteristic fatherly role, he gathered all of us in a classroom and said ‘anybody who wants to attack the School has to kill me first.’  He remained with us for two days.”

    Mark described Ogundeko as “a role model who led by example” and as a patriot whose patriotism was “beyond reproach.”  And Ogundeko’s wife was just as solicitous of the well-being of NMS students, laughing with them when they laughed and crying with them when they cried.

    Nor did Ogundeko’s fatherly disposition towards his students end when they were no longer under his charge.  Here again is David Mark:

    “(Ogundeko) followed our progress very closely, monitored and mentored us while we were in the Nigerian Defence Academy and as commissioned officers.  He continued his fatherly role long after we retired and until his last day. . . He was always willing and ready to listen to complaints and assist us as much as possible.”

    It was fitting indeed that at their 2009 reunion, the NMS Class of 1966 honoured him as a Patriot. I hope they did more than that.  I hope they asked on that occasion and thereafter what they could do for their esteemed teacher and father-confessor, not what he could do for them.  Ogundeko was unlikely to have made such a demand of them anyway, given that he lived, according to Mark, “a simple and contented life.”

    But come to think of it, why should a teacher not gently pull aside those former students who are forever seeking letters of reference or introduction or an endorsement or professional advice or assistance in finding a new job:  Why can’t one gently pull them aside and say to them slowly and deliberately, with due acknowledgement to President JF Kennedy’s gifted speechwriter, Ted Sorensen:   Ask not what your former teacher can do for you; ask what you can do for your former teacher?

    To my former students reading this piece:  Don’t say I didn’t give you fair warning.

    Back to Ogundeko:  For his labours, he was named an Officer of the Federal Republic (OFR), the nation’s fifth highest honour.  They did well to remember him but he deserved better in a country where higher national distinctions are routinely conferred on public officials, not for any great or even significant achievement, but for holding certain positions at the right time.

    There are probably hundreds, perhaps thousands of Ogundekos in Nigeria today.  It should not take an obituary by those who know them well to make us appreciate the exceptional service they rendered when they lived among us.

  • Ilese: Return of the natives

    No prize for guessing right: the credit for this headline goes to Thomas Hardy and his novel, Return of the Native.

    But unlike the grim story of Clym Yeobright, the Paris, France-returnee to his native Edgon Heath in England, this is a gaily “annual convocation of Ilese-Ijebu people”, in the very words of the commemorative brochure, to mark the 12th Ilese Day celebration, which started on August 7 and climaxed on August 13.

    Ilese is a community contiguous to Ijebu Ode, in Ogun State.  According to unofficial figures, the town boasts a population of some half-a-million people, a good chunk of which are youths, many of them students of the Ogun State College of Health Technology, sited in the town.

    But that population excludes Ilese-Ijebu natives, living and driving their businesses outside the town.  As a tool of indigene mobilization, township development and sheer civic pride, the “Ilese-in-exile” would appear the ultimate target of Ilese Day.

    It is, so to say, the communal end-and-of-year bash, and start of another; when indigines, many of them having made good outside, come back home to felicitate and party, crowing Kennedy-speak: ask not what your town can do for you; ask rather what you can do for your town!

    That appears the message from the KK (formally, Otunba Kunle Kalejaye, SAN)-chaired Ilese Day Planning Committee; and Mr. Popoola Ojikutu, secretary, under the umbrella of the Ilese Development Council (IDC), chaired by Otunba Segun Demuren and Omo’oba Segun Adebanjo, secretary.

    With the massive turnout by indigenes, and the festive and carnival-like atmosphere the town wore throughout proceedings, particularly in the last two days, that message appeared to have resonated well

    Still, the Planning Committee put together a carefully calibrated programme of events, part-service (what your town can do for you); part-duty (what you can do for your town); and general business/financial education for personal use, viz: free medical check-up, free eye test, an Annual Enterprise Development Seminar for 2016, a grand finale quiz competition, football competition among youths, Woro traditional dance, a cooking competition for Ikokore, the Ijebu special cuisine, beauty pageant and music performance extravaganza, the Ilese Day Grand Finale carnival, which featured five groups and a band of stunt-pulling Okada riders, and a gala nite to round off the celebrations.

    Among performers at the music and showbiz extravaganza, Terry G Plkin (real name, Michael Ogunyomi), a student of Tai Solarin University of Education, Ijebu Ode, stood out, with his unique stripping and teasing act.  He stripped off no less than 30 clothes, starting with an Aladura (white-farment church) soutane!

    But the grand finale carnival garnished the celebrations with a pan-Nigeria mix.  Sappers Barracks, a military formation, is located in Ilese.  Though based in Ilese, members are from different parts of the country.  The Sappers performance, therefore, pushed a subtle lesson: every Nigerian domiciled in Ileseland was an integral part of that community.  To boot, the Sappers came with three Eyo masquerades!

    Otunba Kalejaye made that telling point, when the Sappers, in their glorious maroon colours, made their grand entry: with the barracks community part and parcel of Ilese, there is little chance of any communal violence.  Other communities nationwide ought to take a huge lesson from that spirit of community amity and integration.

    Ilese Day is necessarily youth-driven.  For one, the town is host to a tertiary school.  For another, the college has conferred on the town some élan, associated with youths flouting their educational status.

    Yet, the Beauty pageant — and indeed, the youth funfair nite, where perhaps too many strutted, sang and danced to thrill the appreciative audience, in a town hall packed full with hollering youths — was a thoughtful mix of business and fun, laced with Ilese history and civics.  Miss Oluwafunmi Imoleayo Ayeni, a graduate of the local College of Health Technology, Ilese, emerged winner from a packed field of 14.

    What most would see in that funfair nite was fun.  But behind that fun was business, hard core business.

    For starters, to enter for the pageant you buy a N5, 000 form.  But the winner’s prize is a car.  That is no unattractive prospect!  But standing between application and winning is the rather hard part of mastering Ilese tradition, history and contemporary civics, to answer rather tricky questions at the quiz segment.

    So, to triumph, the winner must invest in and study a book on Ilese, specifically rolled out to prepare the contestants.  But the beauty of that is the youth are motivated to learn about the local history and culture, with a glittering prize in view.

    Then the carnival proper!  Imagine the costumes of some 600-strong youth: the design and tailoring, all offering boom times for the local guild of tailors and fashion designers!  That would appear a pocket-friendly — and fun-filled way — to re-flate and energise the local economy, get local enterprises productively busy and empower local entrepreneurs.

    Then, the local food vendors!  The parade grounds, for the grand finale carnival, offered an excellent mart for all sort of players, small and medium, to sell their wares and offer their services.  Of course, alongside is the souvenir business: commemorative hats and other branded gifts.  All help to boost the local economy; and put money in the pocket of the enterprising.

    So, when the guild of Ilese tailors was publicly toasted for sewing, free-of-charge, the giant banners dotting strategic parts of town, before announcing; and after thanking those who attended and calling for an encore in 2017, the gesture was an excellent show of community recognition.

    Even then, the business part of it would appear not so hidden: the guild perhaps was so charitable because of the business boom the festival yearly offers it!  Talk of win-win!

    But still talking of charity qua charity, the 2016 Ilese Day also offered excellent opportunity for local philanthropists to show compassion for the less privileged, with the launch of the Rufus Olukayode Odusanya Foundation, with a rather striking acronym of ROOF, with its self-set mandate of providing “bursary awards to students attending secondary schools established in Ilese” from 2016; and, by 2017, “provide bursary awards to students of underprivileged parents that gain admission into university”, harnessing funds from “interested community supporters and interested donors”.

    Still, again, the business cum empowerment part of this charity is not far away.  The livewire for the charity is the Catland Microfinance Bank Limited, the community-owned microfinance bank.  “Catland”, by the way, is the English translation of Ilese, “Ile Ese” (Ijebu for “home of cats”).

    Now, if the Ogun government is watching, it may not be a bad idea to structure the yearly  Ilese Day into a state-wide calendar of tourist destinations to be vigorously marketed, after the famous Ojude-Oba festival, which the neighbouring Ijebu Ode hosts every year, after the Muslim Ileya (literally in English: time to go home) festival.

    Ojude Oba, Ilese Day and such festivals may well gift Ogun a belt of cultural tourism, from which the state can reap quite some cash, in these times of dwindling revenue.

     

  • Legitimate padding?

    Legitimate padding?

    By the time we are finally done with theYakubu Dogara/Abdulmumuni Jibrinroforofo, we ought to be well on the way to removing the last veil on ourso-called Appropriation Act as anything but a hybrid of farce and fraud.Aside the ostentatious play on semantics and legalese that has charmed many as much as it has left a good number equally bewildered in the wake of the animosities, one of the more  interesting asides is the current pretense about the annual exercise of rolling out appropriation figures as anything but an elaborateruse. So, whileNigerians may not have been better educated on the concept as has been bandied in the wake of the storm in Dogara’s House, the same cannot be said of their awareness of the element offiscal accommodation described as padding which continues to make nonsense of the country’s projects and plans – the same way that Nigerians are only too aware of the shoddiness that has become the defining character appropriation process since the fourth republic berthed.

    So much for its “sail into definitional labyrinth”(to borrow the words of The Nation’s ever perspicuous columnist, Idowu Akinlotan), Nigerians know better than to expect anything more than a perfect storm in a teacup at the end of the current animus – beyond of course its entertainment value – thanks to the ruling All Progressives Congress.

    Such as been the massive play on words – a swing from the semantics to legalese – in what has become a futile effort to explain a practice rooted in avarice.  Imagine being seduced into thinking that the whole business was about some finer points of constitutionalism, the most cherished principles of separation of powers between the executive and the legislature, or some pretense to fiscal rectitude? Those are obviously far from the contemplation of Dogara’s House. Rather, we are talking essentially of pork –projects packaged and delivered as constituency items in the budget; projects of extremely dubious utilities whose chance of execution often tended to zero.

    Dogara is right though. There can be no argument about the constitutional provision that “to money shall be withdrawn from the Consolidated Revenue Fund or any other fund of the federation except in the manner prescribed by the National Assembly…. And that the budget is a law and nobody can object to the fact that only the legislature can make law, so it is only the parliament that can conclude it”. But then, he is damned wrong to imagine that he and his coterie of principal officers can do as they please with our commonwealth. Moreover,  the allegations by Jibrin, to the extent that they strike at the heart of the integrity of the appropriation process as indeed the integrity of the House over which he presides would seem to be deserving of full attention of the full plenary than the principal officers of the House are willing to undertake. That is why Nigerians are involved.

    Let’s us be clear in this. No one is as yet pronounced guilty. Indeed, as far as I can see, the whole notion about padding being either a crime or whether it is a justiciable matter is particularly contestable.

    As for definition, I have checked not a few dictionaries. One of them, Dictionary.com defines padding as “to expand or add to unnecessarily or dishonestly”. Although the definition, as pejorative as can be, would suit Jubrin and Company poised to do Dogara in, it seems doubtful that it would help their cause in any significant way beyond of course the moral issues already in the public domain.

    Nigerians however need to know whether indeed the principal officers acted in good faith; whether the clean copy of the document presented to President Muhammadu Buhari was the one the House actually endorsed, or as is being alleged, the principal officers introduced some new elements before its transmission to the president.

    Is‘padding’necessarily unlawful? Maybe not; it is however not necessarily right. Depending on how it is carried out, it could in fact be wrong. I guess that was the point that Lagos Lawyer, Wahab Shittu sought to make last week. Writing on the subject in The Nation August 9, he agreed that “the National Assembly is entitled to reduce or increase expenditure for projects earmarked for execution by the president in the budget preparation”, the caveat being that the National Assembly is NOT entitled to add its own projects to the budgetary estimate presented by the President. In his opinion, “if the National Assembly is interested in any project, it may consult with the executive who may then add such projects to the budgetary estimate prepared by the president as part of the president’s developmental agenda for the country”.

    Hopefully, Nigerians would yet see a more definitive pronouncement on the matter by the courts in the nearest future. The debate continues.

    For now, the point which no one should be in denial is that padding – legal or not –has become a cancer that must be rooted out of the budgetary process. To the extent that it has constituted the perfect– albeit illegitimate – mechanism through which privileged officials –elected or appointed – secure unearned privileges at the expense of the rest of us, it simply has no place under a regime sworn to transparency.

    Restoring integrity to the budgetary process is therefore way to go. It is a tough job no doubt. Of course, the National Assembly is not the only sinning party. How do you deal with the hordes of bureaucrats, those anonymous  fellows sworn to juggling up the figures from year to year? What about the administration’s appointees, the men who, although have their fingers in the pie, and yet can’t be seen to do any wrong?

    Where do we begin? Any ideas?

  • ‘June 12’: Dahiru Saleh’s self-immolation

    ‘June 12’: Dahiru Saleh’s self-immolation

    Apart from military president Ibrahim Babangida, those elements still with us who had connived in the annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election, have by and large lain quiet in their malignant dens, resigned to featuring at best as despicable adjuncts to history.

    Not Justice Muhammad Dahiru Saleh, formerly of the Federal Capital Territory who, in two rulings, provided the judicial cover for the annulment.

    In the first, which he gave when every indication was that the Social Democratic Party candidate Moshood Abiola was set for a decisive victory, was an injunction restraining the National Electoral Commission (NEC) from announcing further election returns.

    Separately, Akpamgbo ordered NEC to comply with Justice Dahiru’s ruling, and NEC’s chair Humphrey Nwosu to show cause why he should not be punished for discountenancing Justice Ikpeme’s convoluted ruling against staging the election.

    Justice Saleh’s injunction followed a petition filed by Arthur Nzeribe’s phantom Association for Better Nigeria (ABN), which was not a juristic person and therefore lacked locus standi to bring the petition or any petition for that matter before any court in Nigeria.

    On the eve of the election, and pursuant to a petition filed by the ABN, Justice Bassey Ikpeme, of the Abuja High Court, had in the dead of night set the stage for the bewildering events that turned what was supposed to be the high noon of Babangida’s transition programme into a nightmare.

    Pursuant to a petition filed by the misbegotten ABN seeking to pre-empt the poll, Justice Ikpeme  had acknowledged that the court’s jurisdiction had been ousted by a subsisting decree, but had granted the ABN’s request all the same, with reckless disregard for the consequences.

    The election must not be held, but the NEC was free to disregard the court’s order, since the court had no jurisdiction in the matter, she added.

    It was reportedly the very first case she was assigned, following her recruitment to the Bench from Akpamgbo’s law practice.  She never handled another case thereafter, and was never seen in public again.  She died in mysterious circumstances in a German hospital about seven years ago.

    To the chagrin of ABN and its sponsors in uniform, the election took place as scheduled.  And instead of the stalemate they had envisaged, a clear winner had emerged.  The game plan had  to be redrawn and the transition deck had to be shuffled; hence a fresh petition to the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Justice Dahiru Saleh again presiding.

    Ever so obliging, Justice Saleh declared the presidential election null and void and of no consequence.  It did not matter that NEC’s appeal against the Ikpeme ruling was pending before a superior court in Kaduna.

    Babangida quickly latched on to Justice Saleh’s ruling to void the presidential election, suspend NEC, and repeal the law governing the final stage of his transition programme.  By that singular move, he also terminated all court cases relating to the presidential election

    The foregoing developments occurred within 10 breathtaking days, and their consequences have continued to haunt Nigeria.

    Justice Saleh now wants Nigerians to believe that he acted out of fidelity to the rule of law and nothing else, and that if he was presented with another chance, he would void the election again without hesitation and without remorse.

    He went on to blame it all on the immediate victim, Moshood Abiola.  It was all Abiola’s fault because Abiola did not appeal the rulings, Justice Saleh said. But Abiola was not a party to any of the petitions. He never figured in any of them either as plaintiff or as respondent. So, on what would he have grounded an appeal? Besides, in the atmosphere I sketched above, to which court could he have appealed even if he was minded to do so?

    If Justice Saleh believes that he, acting alone and from the purest of motives annulled the 1993 presidential election, he is deluded beyond redemption.

    If he is the courageous, principled jurist he claims to be, if he was no actuated by a darker motive, he would have declined to entertain the ABN’s petition on at least two grounds.   Even if it was a corporeal entity — it wasn’t — the ABN was certainly not a juristic person.  Moreover, the Ikpeme ruling he purported to uphold had been given in contravention of a subsisting decree.

    So, far from upholding the rule of law, Saleh compounded its evisceration.  His claim that it was his principled ruling that annulled the election is hollow through and through.

    Babangida has a more plausible claim to that infamy.  In moments of contrived candor, he has  accepted responsibility for the annulment even as he claimed that the election was the freest and fairest in Nigeria’s history.  But he did not act alone.  The whole thing was from start to finish an orchestrated plot, the object of which was to perpetuate Babangida in office.

    Akpamgbo was one of Babangida’s principal strategists in the plot.  So was Arthur Nzeribe who, if you can believe this fellow who has never embraced any cause without bringing it into disrepute, claims that Babangida had promised to appoint him prime minister under a new Constitution to be modelled on that of France’s Fifth Republic if the plot succeeded..  By tacitly acquiescing in the annulment, the two official political parties – the SDP and the NRC – also aided and abetted it.

    Justice Saleh provided the legal cover for the annulment out of the subornation that was a fundamental objective and directive principle of Babangida’s presidency, not out of pure, disinterested legal reasoning or iron-clad fidelity to the rule of law. Babangida knew his man.

    The annulment shook Nigeria to its fragile roots.  Even today, it continues to animate public discussion and debate on the country’s future.  For Justice Saleh to claim, 23 years later, that it was his handiwork smacks of a perverse desire for immolation.  He needs help.

    Justice Saleh did not retire from the Bench honourably.  Rather, he was dismissed for conduct inconsistent with his status as a judicial officer.  Stripped of diplomatese, this means that he was dismissed for corrupt behaviour. His dismissal followed a recommendation by the Justice Kayode Eso panel set up to investigate widespread allegations of corruption in the judiciary. It was upheld by a review panel headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Bolarinwa Babalakin.

    So much, then, for Justice Saleh’s commitment to the rule of law and to propriety.

    As far as I know, the text of Justice Ikpeme’s ruling, if it exists, has never surfaced. I hope some enterprising reporter or researcher will invoke the Freedom of Information Law to ferret it out in the best tradition of public service.

  • For states, not yet a respite

    For states, not yet a respite

    With no end in sight to the crushing burden of workers/pensioners emoluments that has left the economies of most states in the federation prostrate, one of the more heart-warming developments must be the announcement by Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun on July 21 of a record haul of N559.03 billion into the federation account. Rising from the July meeting of the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC), the minister had announced that the amount, the highest so far this year, comes with a dramatic upshot in the gross revenue accruing to the federation by N301.32bn, also the highest in a long time.More significantly, she attributed the increase in revenue to efficiency in collection by the revenue generating agencies:  “The big cause of the increase is the improvement of non-oil revenue from FIRS. The FIRS improved its performance between last month and this month by N165 billion…there was also an improvement of N12.6 billion by Nigeria Customs Service…”

    Withthe cash haul probably no more than the proverbial tiny droplet in a swathe of parched land, it was no surprise that nearly all of the finance commissioners present opted to keep mum on the development perhaps for fear of raising expectations at their states.Yet, at a time many of our governors have thrown up their hands in surrender to the threatening insolvency, the achievement needsonly to be seen in the broadercontext of the current economic meltdown to be appreciated. Indeed, that appears to be the high point of the 135th Meeting of the Joint Tax Board held in Abeokuta – a week after the minister’s announcement. Speaking at the occasion, the executive chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, Tunde Fowler, let it be known that70 percent of the amount came from non-oil while only 30 percent came from oil sources (Never mind that, N79.27 billion represented gains made from exchange rate differential).

    If you thought that was remarkable, he would attribute the sterling performance to “massive new taxpayer registration drive, tax education and engagement through the establishment of the Federal Engagement and Enlightenment Tax Teams, FEETT, audit of five key sectors: banks and the financial sector, aviation, power, telecoms and oil and gas is beginning to yield result” just as healso disclosed at the forum that FIRS has added over 700,000 new corporate accounts in since he assumed office with a target to register at least 10 million additional taxpayers by December 31 – and this in addition to the cumulative figures of 10 million registered taxpayers from states Boards of Internal Revenue and the FIRS combined.

    Indeed, an elated Ogun State Governor, Ibikunle Amosun, would effusively tell the representatives of FIRS and other revenue generating agencies present: “Whatever you, Customs and others did last month that ensured that we ( federal, states, shared over N500 billion at FAAC, please continue to do it. It is good for the Federal Government. It is good for states. It is good for Local Governments. It is good for the nation’’.

    That admonition by the accountant governor, in my view, ought to have been directed to his governor colleagues most of whom have done little else than moan since the price of crude oil took a plunge. For many, governance has taken flight leaving an industry of excuses. If you ask me, the message to them at this time ought to be that they should put on their thinking caps to address the problems they were elected to solve. Topmost of the problem is the issue of unpaid wages and pensions.

    The import of the development is to see it as signposting the latent possibilities in taxation as a key driver of government, the promise of a new dawn in the nation’s quest to carve out a future less tied to the vagaries of oil. That FIRS is able to rake in that much at a time when economic activities are at their lowest ebb makes it even more remarkable.  While it might seem early to clink glasses in celebration given the vast grounds to be covered, there is certainlya lot to be said of the steady and remarkable transformation of what was once a laid-back revenue collecting agency of the federal government on the one hand, and the equally steady regression of the states’ Boards of Internal Revenue (minus Lagos) to such an extent that some of our governors have been reduced to whining administratorstoday.

    There would of course a few exceptions among the governors;  the overall picture however is a class that have since lost it: a class that has become an appalling spectacle in lack of preparedness and imagination; a revelation in the profound lack of understanding of the challenges of governance, and above all, a class lacking the will to tackle headlong the problems as they come.

    Evidence? Where else to look but the ritual of endless cleanup of payrolls in search of ghost workers –exercises that  are increasingly looking more like motions to buy time than anything else; the emergency embrace of placebos – which comes by the usual refrains about getting back to agriculture even when the policies that make such prospects promising have barely incubated in the minds of their promoters; variety of ill-thought measures that present appearances of something being done to the outright hare-brained ones such as the one proposed by Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State to reduce the five working days to three.

    To these we may add the endless supplications in government houses for a rebound in crude prices.

    It is perhaps trite here to counsel that the current problems will not disappear by mere wishes. The truth is that there is nothing in the problems in the states that cannot be solved by hard thinking and work. Time our governors sat down to work.