The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tuesday

That $1billion loan

When the Independence building opposite the Tafawa Balewa Square, Lagos went up in smoke during the General Ibrahim Babangida’s regime, not a few were shocked that the headquarters of the Nigerian Armed Forces could burn for hours with the military high command helpless.

Though the multi-storey building then housing the Ministry of Defence was eventually saved from total ruin, the effect of the fire did expose the toothlessness of our military in defending itself. I remember one top Iraqi diplomat in the country then expressing surprise that the so called giant of Africa could not fight common fire outbreak at its Defence headquarters, wondering what would happen if there was an enemy attack on the building, or may be the country.

As a defence Correspondent for National Concord newspaper at a time during the Buhari/Idiagbon regime in the 80s, I was part of the annual Naval Week and was privileged to be there when then Head of State and Commander-In-Chief, Major General Muhammadu Buhari in company with the Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters, Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon, service chiefs (can’t recollect seeing then army chief Major General Ibrahim Babangida there) and a host of other top military chiefs came for the ceremonial Fleet Review by the C-in-C. The flag ship NNS Aradu, with the full compliments of its helicopters, was there leading other battle ships and boats. I remember a happy Fleet commander of the Nigerian Navy, Commodore Allison Madueke proudly showing his fleet to the Commander In Chief. Everybody was happy and proud of our Navy. NNS Aradu was reputed to be one of the best during World War II and there was none like it in Africa, with perhaps the exception of then apartheid South Africa.

But as we were beating our chest, tragedy struck; one of the boats, the one ferrying the Commander In Chief caught fire and within a twinkle of an eye, Buhari and his team were moved to another boat, the fire put out and the fleet review continued. We again applauded the Nigerian Navy.

Contrast this with the Defence headquarters fire narrated above which happened much later, and you begin to appreciate the progressive decline that has been the lot of the Nigerian Armed Forces over the years. As I write this piece, I doubt whether NNS Aradu is still sea worthy. One after the other its three helicopters crashed under Babangida’s watch and I am not sure they were ever replaced. And if the flag ship is bad you can imagine the state of the entire fleet and the Navy itself.

As Aviation Correspondent much later on, it was with pride that my colleagues and I used to go the Nigerian Air Force hangar at the Ikeja airport to see our C-130 transport aircraft fleet, the helicopter fleet; they were many. Each time our soldiers were going on peace keeping missions around the world under the UN blue helmet, it was the Nigerian Air Force that was flying them there with pride. Our military planes were flying all over the place, either supporting our soldiers in ECOMOG in Liberia/Sierra Leone (delivering supplies or bombing Charles Taylor rebels) or taking part in joint military exercises with the Nigerian Army and the Navy.

Years after, especially after the failed Vatsa coup against Babangida, the systemic decimation of our Air Force it does appear began and today the Nigerian Air Force is a shadow of itself. I remember then Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Ibrahim Alfa (late), lamenting the sorry state of our military at his flying out ceremony saying it is a military of anything goes. Not much has changed since then, and if anything did change, it was for the worst. The Air Force that supposed to be the teeth of our armed forces is today lying prostrate while Boko Haram terrorists move about at will killing and maiming Nigerians especially in the north east region. We’ll come to that later.

I can’t say much about the Nigerian Army because I’ve had very little or no contact with them in my over three decades of practice, but the little relationship I developed as a reporter tells me that is just a shade better than the rest of our armed forces in terms of operational capabilities and meeting the modern day threat to our existence as a nation. If the experience of that fire at the then defence headquarters is anything to go by, I don’t think much has changed; Boko Haram has proved it. And Musiliu Obanikoro, the Minister of State for Defence seemed to have confirmed this in his interview with journalists this past weekend.

The truth of the matter is that as things stand today, there is a serious doubt about the capabilities and abilities of the Nigerian Armed Forces as an effective fighting machine. If there is a serious threat to the territorial integrity of Nigeria as a country today, very little from the look of things can come from our military. That is the truth; though not palatable. And if in doubt, ask yourself why Boko Haram is still waxing stronger more than three years after we declared war on the terrorists, or rather the terrorists declared war on the rest of us?

The problem with our military cannot be laid at the doorsteps of one person, definitely, not President Goodluck Jonathan, but he cannot exonerate himself from the sorry state our armed forces have found themselves today as the Commander-In-Chief. Years of neglect and looting of the massive financial resources allocated to the armed forces in our national budgets have left our military just a shade better than Boys Scout. Poorly kitted, badly armed, maybe not properly trained, and now ethnically and religiously divided, what better thing can we expect from this bunch of people? The officers and men are not to blame though as the leadership of the country, both political and military has failed them, it has let them down. The question is where did all the money appropriated to the military over the years go? Why did we require another $1billion (N160billion) loan to equip our armed forces to be able to confront Boko Haram and other threats?

I am not against Nigeria taking the loan being requested by Jonathan, but before the Senate approves the request, serious questions must be asked and adequatae answers given as to what happened to all the billions appropriated to our military in the past. If this is not done the loan might just be money in the pockets of Jonathan and his PDP to fight the 2015 general elections. And if the Ekiti experience is a pointer to what is to come in 2015, with more ‘legitimate’ money Jonathan can and will buy the military, don’t forget his Ijaw kinsman is Chief of Army Staff, deploy them to ‘enemy’ (APC) territory, terrorise the opposition, distribute bags of rice (even if expired) to the ‘hungry’ voters and spread some cash too and you capture their votes. I hope this is not what the $1billion is meant for. David Mark’s Senate must do its work here and Nigerians must ‘shine their eyes’.

July 22, 2014
Is Tinubu the problem with Nigeria?
These past weeks have not been any different from the past months; Nigeria has been stumbling from one crisis to another, from one killing to another, from one scandal to another from one distasteful act of impunity to more disquieting acts of impunity and so on. In all of these there is no hope that things will quieten down anytime soon or indeed that we have seen/heard the worst. Things happen with such varying degrees of absurdity and at such frenetic pace, that it is not feasible for any ‘breaking news’ to grab our attention for any length of time. The military clampdown on some media organizations and seizure of their newspapers is distant memory. The infamous tragicomic only you waka come rendition has had its screenplay hijacked and adapted only for pure comedy away from the horror show that it so cruelly depicted. The Chibok saga is still in the news thankfully because of the #Bring back our girls campaign. Even at that, the fact that Onyeka Onwenu and Kema Chikwe both frontline national women leaders publicly doubted the fact of the Chibok abduction is faint memory.

The bombings in Abuja have receded from our memory to be replaced for now with the apprehension of where next. The Ekiti election has come and gone and any messages, if at all, drowned out by contrived public commentary which very much mirrors a situation where a commentator watching a football match at Onikan Stadium will be commentating on a basketball match at National Stadium. If the election itself is distant memory, then talk less of the interview, Senator Ayo Arise gave, penultimate day to the election, on national breakfast television where with the typical arrogance of ‘today’s people’ he boasted of certain victory. His deep insights included the fact that the President, Dr Goodluck Jonathan had made money available to the Fayose campaign and so they will outmatch the APC cash-wise! That kind of talk has not been worthy of any further analysis, not even in the short-lived post-Ekiti debate.

The polarization of the country has obviously fractured every institution and every profession and it takes the deeply discerning to have a fair idea as to what is really going on because in most cases reportage or public discourse is only the end product of serious back room strategy by various interest groups. So when in the past few weeks, personal attacks and ‘damaging’ reviews, overviews and opinion pieces started appearing regarding Senator Bola Tinubu, my senses went into auto alert. When the brilliant Rudolf Okonkwo of Sahara Reporters joined the fray, I knew the onslaught was akin to the Ekiti election, ‘operation blanket cover’ and like the Ekiti version with seamless execution – no blood, only tears which dry very fast!

Many commentators even blame Tinubu for the APC Ekiti ‘loss’, tracking his overbearing godfatherism as responsible for the revolt of the Ekiti people. The line of argument being that Ekiti people do not want to be ruled from Lagos. Presumably the security cover for the election was provided by proud independent Ekiti people. Also the money referred to by Ayo Arise did not carry any ‘foreign’ stamp. Indeed the argument stretches to cover the proposition that the Ekiti loss is the signpost of APC’s impending death because of an overbearing godfather, which has suddenly become exclusive to Tinubu and a cardinal sin in Nigeria’s politics! What confuses me further, is deciding whether to be persuaded whether Governor Fayemi lost because of Tinubu’s unpopularity or Fayose’s popularity in Ekiti? In my view a marriage of both positions is contradictory and will remain so even in this era of same-sex marriage. Still more confusing is the general, albeit grudging admission that Governor Fayemi governed Ekiti conscientiously and prudently and transformed Ekiti State even if not to the level of ‘uncommonality’ but definitely beyond the scope of the states resources. So if Ekiti was being run from Lagos, are we also insinuating that Tinubu should be seen as the non resident architect of that rare example of good governance? At times I wonder what to make of public discourse in Nigeria; it gets too complicated and confusing.

Excuse the digression, but in truth that is what this piece is about. It is about our inability as a people to correctly tune in and stay focused on issues for any length of time, the issues that affect our overall well being as a people. It is so easy to divert our attention and I give it to the strategists of the government, they are getting better at the art. How can we in all good conscience analyse the Ekiti election without analysing the fact of misuse of military power and its bearing on our nascent democracy. So in a boxing match if one boxer is tied to one spot and consequently pummelled to submission by his mobile opponent, we should take the view that the restraint was not important because being smaller in stature and lacking crowd support he would have lost anyway! Or perhaps that his coach was too overbearing! Why do we not surmise rather that the people who put the restraints are not fools and that if victory had been assured they will not have resorted to such absurdity? If Fayose and PDP were so popular, and Fayemi, APC and Tinubu so unpopular, why the resort to all manner of crudity? I know Fayose may be rough but is not foolish, PDP may be ‘anything goes’ but is not a stupid party and my dear president Jonathan is clued up on winning elections.

Tinubu has been accused of many things and not having sufficient information, it will be foolhardy for me to attempt any defence. That is also not the objective of this piece. It is a notorious fact that Tinubu is living large today and being a party leader of a formidable party in the Nigerian setting, with the attendant ‘responsibilities’. I will not argue with anybody who takes the view that his stint as governor and now party godfather has conferred other benefits for which many will not mind the attendant sleepless nights!

My view though is that the ruling party sees Tinubu as the single most significant factor that can threaten its continued dominance of power in Nigeria. His energy and organisational ‘never say die’ determination has in their view been allowed to go too far. So time to take him out. Take him out and the opposition will fracture and evaporate. So there is a concerted effort not only to criminalise opposition politics but also rubbish Tinubu the arrowhead and even blame him in crocodile tears fashion, for his party’s simulated impending death so as to create doubt and confusion in the ranks of its supporters and other opposition politicians. In Nigeria’s fickle and monetized political culture, it will take genius, guile, money, luck and superhuman perseverance to overcome the desperate antics of a party with no qualms about using every trick in its huge divisive bag of tricks.

All the talk of godfatherism and definition of who is or not a progressive are just to goad the opposition to restructure APC into another National Conscience Party, a party populated with only progressives but which is yet to win any election. Of what use are all the progressive ideas in the world and saintliness of operators if the result is not access to the power required to effect those progressive ideas?

What seems to scare the PDP is the realization that APC also understands Realpolitik and that Tinubu a product of the NADECO struggle who survived, Babangida, Abacha and later Obasanjo has a few tricks up his sleeve too and may just lead APC into Aso Rock by road whilst the PDP machinery is deployed at the airport!
- Ukpong, is a Lagos-based legal practitioner
July 22, 2014
When success breeds terror

I always suspected that there was much more to the terror that has been convulsing Nigeria in the past four years than the facile rationalisation that all the analysts, domestic and foreign, have brought to the matter.

How, I have been musing: How can the desire of an extremist sect to Islamise Nigeria, the marginalisation of adherents and sympathisers of that sect, the corrosive poverty in Nigeria’s Northeast and the historic indifference of the authorities to it, plus Nigeria’s military contribution to the international effort to crush the revolt of the Touaregs in Mali – how can these factors, mere allegations at best, have led to the depredations and the devastation that have now become the fearsome signature of Boko Haram?

Is this line of reasoning not the product of the kind that led some commentators who were so caught up in the foam of events that they could not see the decisive element in the recent Ekiti governorship election – the stomach infrastructure factor that lay just beneath the surface in several precincts and was literally screaming at them in the others?

The whole thing just doesn’t add up. An explanation that can stand the most rigorous analysis will have to be sought. And it would most likely come from the nation’s most accomplished social scientists, I concluded with resignation.

Little did I know that our own Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, whom no one has ever accused of psittacism, has not only been seeking but has actually found such an explanation.

In the finest tradition of scholarship, his thesis is at once testable, parsimonious and heuristic. It is engaging and elegant, and it has the great merit of deriving from longitudinal perspective, as opposed to the snap-shot approach that is the standard fare of much social research.

Best of all, it explains the relationship among the component variables, it is predictive, and it serves as a reliable guide to action. In fact, I am almost prepared to say that it is the stuff of a genius.

Stated simply, Laban’s thesis, postulated at an interview in Lagos the other day, is that there is a direct correlation behind the series of terrorist attacks in the country and the various landmarks recorded by the President Goodluck Jonathan administration.

Whenever the Jonathan administration has had cause to celebrate an achievement – which happens all too frequently, I might add — bombs explode to distract Nigerians and portray the government in bad light, the highly cerebral minister was reported to have said.

This is no fanciful thesis. The empirical evidence Maku adduces is overwhelming and irrefutable. Hear him: “Immediately we rebased our economy and it was now confirmed that Nigeria was the largest economy in Africa, there were bombs at Chibok. Immediately they learnt we were going to hold the World Economic Forum, there were bombs in Abuja and its environs to make sure Nigeria does not get the economic benefits of hosting the World Economic Forum and discourage the world from coming here and to make the attack the centre point of international and local media. We also noticed that immediately after Ekiti, the bombs started raining again.”

I must here enter a word of caution to those who are ever so quick to jump to conclusions – usually the wrong conclusions. Maku’s thesis implies no causality. It posits no cause-and-effect relationship between President Jonathan’s achievements, coruscating as they are, and the barbarous exploits of Boko Haram and its confederates in murder. It merely establishes a direct correlation between them, the exact magnitude of which my sources say he is planning to reveal to the World Press next week.

From the thesis, it follows that the frequency of terrorist strikes in Nigeria varies directly as the accomplishments of the Jonathan administration in transforming Nigeria. It may even be the case that the volume and intensity of terrorist strikes on Nigerian soil also correlate directly with the magnitude of the central government’s accomplishments, but that is an investigation for another day.

For now, it is sufficient to know that each time the Jonathan administration chalks up another glittering achievement, another terrorist strike can reasonably be expected.

The policy implications of this seminal finding should not be lost on the Jonathan administration, the security services and the public.

Given the indissoluble association between new government accomplishments and terrorist strikes, it follows that if the authorities are truly minded to curb terrorism, they would have to freeze with immediate effect any project or activity that might lead them to proclaim success of any kind or move Boko Haram to suspect that the nation is moving forward.

The authorities would have to curb their predilection for taking the thought for the deed and for celebrating mere intent as glorious achievement. In short, they must stop creating the illusion of momentum, for that only incenses the Boko Haramites and drives them to murderous rage.

This means tamping down all those claims about the wonders that the Transformation Agenda and the Industrial Revolution and the New Automotive Policy and the New Agricultural Policy and the Cassava Revolution and the Rice Revolution and the New Rail and Water Transportation Policy have wrought, not forgetting the zillions of jobs they have spawned of will spawn.

It means the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its agent, the Federal Government, not winning another election, Ekiti-style.

It means not staging any international conference.

It means desisting from re-basing the economy again, no matter the provocation or the benefits; it means restraining all those rating bodies from ranking any Nigerian among the world’s richest people; it means not calling global attention to the largest fleet of executive jetliners in Africa and one of the largest in the world, is owned and operated by Nigerians, as President Jonathan has been doing.

It most certainly means summoning those overzealous Transformation Ambassadors to modesty. It means ordering them to desist from placing Dr. Jonathan in the same league as Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Lee Kuan Yew and Barack Obama.

Armed with Maku’s hypothesis, the security forces can now calibrate with greater confidence the national threat level and accordingly mobilise first responders. Whenever yet another epochal achievement is being proclaimed from on high, they know it is time to sound the alarm and deploy their anti-terror machine against the Boko Haram strike that is sure to follow.

Residents of cities prone to terrorist attacks now have a reliable warning system: Take cover when the Minister of Industry declares that the all-Nigeria automobile that compares favourably with those built in Japan, Germany and South Korea and costs much less is about to roll off the assembly line. You know then that Boko Haram must be lurking in the neighbourhood.

July 15, 2014
Tackling Abia’s housing challenge
It is an axiomatic that a considerable segment of world’s population cannot afford comfortable housing. Worst hit is Africa with overwhelming population, bad governance and stark poverty. Of the three basic human needs of housing, clothing and foods, housing has remained a recurring problem in Nigeria since Independence. The cost of housing has continued to skyrocket in the face of poor economic growth. There are insufficient houses for Nigerians to lay their heads. The available ones are not affordable.

After the second-world war, the British government in their wisdom built more than two million houses. That is why till today in Britain, people do not look for where to build houses, but houses that they will buy and the houses are always there for sale because they are enough to take care of the accommodation problem. This is, unfortunately, not the case in Nigeria because successive governments have neglected the development of the housing. They have found solace in the argument on whether private sector should take over the sector or the government should continue to get involved – an argument some state governments have hid under to abandon the sector completely in their developmental agenda.

That is even when in developed economies of the world, governments are still deeply involved in housing programmes to make them affordable as against leaving it in the hands of private investors whose main motive is profit.

If the Second Republic Governor of Lagos State, Alhaji Lateef Jakande had bought into the puerile argument that government has no business in construction of housing estates, he wouldn’t have constructed several housing estates in Lagos then. Today, the estates have provided succour to so many residents of the state at affordable price. They have remained reference point many years after and Jakande has always been remembered and eulogised for the vision.

On assumption of office in 2007, Abia State Governor Chief Theodore Orji was passionate about putting roof on the head of the residents of the state at affordable price. Just like Jakande, Orji’s government embarked on the housing projects in the state with target of 3000 residential housing before the end of his second term in 2015.

Presently some housing estates have been completed in Aba and Umuahia the state capital by the state government. At Aba axis, the some buildings have been allotted to some people at the Unity Garden Estate at Osisioma Several houses have been completed and occupied at Amauba, Adelabu Street/ Amaokwe, Otobo and Isieke Ibeku housing estates.

At Adelabu Street/Amaokwe Estate located in the heart of the state capital, there are 65 duplexes already completed and occupied. Also completed and delivered by the government are 300 housing units, comprising of 225 three-bedroom bungalows and 75 duplexes and modified duplexes at Isieke Ibeku housing estate.

Close to the Ubani Ibeku modern market is Trader’s Estate comprising of 500 housing units nearing completion. Under construction also is the 8,500 housing unit for the residents of the state especially the civil servants. Finishing touches is being put by the government for the commencement of 3000 units of three and two bedroom units in IBB phase 1 and 2 as well as 1500 units of three and four bedroom bungalows in Amakamma and Ohiya Housing estates, respectively

Apart from residential housing, there are also some non-residential housing projects being undertaken by the state government as part of its developmental agenda. Some of them have been completed and handed over while others are nearing completion.

Among the already completed include four dormitory blocks at the state National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) orientation camp in Umunna, Bende Council Area; four new duplexes for commissioners at the Commissioners’ Quarters, the new ultra modern workers secretariat, four building complexes for the School of Midwifery at Amachara General Hospital and a modern students’ dormitory at Santa Crux High School Olokoro. Others include Abia Broadcasting Station Complex, the state Customary Court of Appeal, two-storey building at Ministry Of Justice, Abia State Planning Commission complex, Abia State Environmental Sanitation Agency (ASEPA) Complex, Abia Specialist Hospital, and others.

Nearing completion is the 3,000 capacity International Conference Centre with large parking space. The centre has four underground lounges and backup light for events. The finishing works at the centre is at advanced stage and superb with quality materials. Others include the new Government House,

On the argument by some people that estate developers would have been engaged in developing the estates, the state government has before now lamented on the challenges of getting credible developers that will deliver according to specifications and set deadline with affordable limits. Truly, we have had cases of estate developers collecting money from people without delivering the house to them as agreed. That is why instead of giving the housing estate projects to developers that would start and abandon them halfway, the state government is undertaking and completing them as at when due.

In order to ensure proper maintenance of the estates after completion and handover to beneficiaries, the government has established the Estate Maintenance Management Systems. This is to avoid ugly experience in the past where some estates built by governments across the country are left unattended to or not maintained. In such situation, some of them ended up as economic waste even when majority of the people have no houses to live.

Already people in the state are opening mortgage accounts to qualify them for mortgage as the state government has concluded arrangements with some financial institutions to assist buyers under a mortgage scheme.

Under the Site and Services Scheme, the state government has, rather than build and sell houses, gone into allocation of the lands, determining the type of house an allottee can erect within a time frame.

With the scheme, if a land is allotted to somebody, such person has a specific time frame to start development as failure to do so allows government to reclaim the land and re-allocate it. The scheme has brought about rapid housing development in the state, especially at Ogurube layout, the new Umuahia which is now a construction site.

It is therefore no surprise that the state governor was recently awarded the Housing Governor of the Year at Eight Abuja Housing Show at Nicon Luxury Hotel Abuja. The Programme Coordinator, Festus Adebayo, said the award to the Abia State Governor was in recognition of his laudable achievements in the housing sector.
- Onyekwe, an architect wrote from Okigwe, Imo State
July 15, 2014
Man of brilliance and character at 70

About everyone Prof. Olatunji Dare has taught almost always enthuses: we owe him a debt of gratitude. The academic, famed columnist and editorial writer, turns 70 on July 17.

Lekan Sote, a columnist with The Punch, encountered Prof. Dare, then a graduate assistant, as a fresh man at the University of Lagos Department of Mass Communication in 1975. Those were the closing years of the golden age of Nigeria’s academia.

“The man taught me three things,” volunteered Mr. Sote, “how to write, why you must attend classes because you always pick up something new and how to network.”

The networking lesson came after Mr. Sote came asking his old teacher for a job reference, even after he never asked after the don for many years. The professor, feigning anger, threatened not to write the reference; but eventually, he did. The moral: ask after people; nurture your network.

Learning how to write was a routine teacher-student ritual, though it was no less refreshing. It was no less refreshing because the young Sote would, via rejoinders, critique Dare’s newspaper contributions. The teacher, after reading Sote’s piece would invite him over, commend him on his strong areas but still draw attention to weak areas that could make the contributions more logical than emotional.

But the imperative to attend classes came at a stiffer cost. Mr. Sote admitted some measure of truancy because he felt he was brilliant enough to always pass his examinations. He passed this one, all right.

Still, the professor gave him a reference, just to teach the hard lesson of intellectual modesty. Harsh? Unfair? Maybe. Maybe not. But Mr. Sote admitted that single lesson stripped him of his near-contempt for class instructions — and he always picked up something new!

From the same golden 70s of the Nigerian academia comes the golden testimony of Joke Omotunde, another former student of Prof. Dare’s, a staff of the United States Information Service (USIS) for 23 years now.

Mrs Omotunde’s first testimonial is to the rigour and brilliance of Dare’s teaching. “For me,” she said, “he was my lecturer at the University of Lagos in the late 70s, a meticulous mentor to the core whose ‘grammar for journalists’ has helped me tremendously on the job I now do.”

But in this age of brilliance without character, it is her testimony to the solid character of her teacher, even by a foreigner, that blows the mind, en route to her taking up the USIS job.

“He was one of the three referees whose names I submitted when I was applying for the job of an information specialist,” Mrs. Omotunde recalled. “Not knowing then which organisation I was applying to, the then Public Affairs Officer of the USIS shortlisted me because a prolific writer, an upright journalist, Olatunji Dare, was one of my referees. I scaled through the series of interviews because, to the American officials, a student of Olatunji Dare would be ‘worth employing’. It is 23 years now, and I am still on the job!”

In 1985, another student, Azubuike Ishiekwene, former editor of The Punch and now managing director of Leadership, drank from the Dare spring.

Now, between 1975 when Mr. Sote was a freshman; and 1985 when Azu was, the Nigerian academia had rapidly declined, with the flux of the river of Heraclitus, which flows so rapidly you cannot “step in the same river twice.”

The military barbarians were on overdrive, cannibalising the glory of Nigeria’s tertiary education; and, with maniacal zeal, implanting the rust iron that would blight its future; thus condemning the best of Nigerian intellect to a Diaspora brain drain.

But even with all that storm, Prof. Dare would appear to have retained his essence: a strict but fair and conscientious academic — again, not unlike Parminedes, who contrary to the ever-changing theory of Heraclitus, his Greek philosophical cousin, insists nothing ever changes.

Azu gave his impression of Dare in “The debt I owe”, published in his column in Leadership on July 11: how the professor disabused the mind of his freshman class of 1985 on fantastic notions about journalism; how Dare, with Chief Ajibola Ogunshola, the man who brought The Punch back from the dead, directed his uncharted steps at crucial junctures of his education and journalism career; how his old teacher pooh-poohed a piece of writing the student felt he could crow about but highly praised an improved later piece, encouraging the writer to get it published in a newspaper — his first ever!

Azu’s experience is not that different from yours truly. Ripples had, with a flourish, rounded off a Language Arts first degree at the University of Ibadan, and set his mind on being some future wordsmith.

Again, it was the first class; and the then Dr. Dare asked his PGD Mass Communication inaugural writing class to do an essay on anything that caught their fancy. Ripples conceitedly blurted, in the piece, his dream: wordsmithery.

The script literarily bled: “Wordsmithery for what?” the teacher queried. “Have you ever heard the saying: scratch a journalist and you will probably find a social reformer?” The moral: wordsmithery is useless, if media writing does not improve society.

Over the years, these were the fine ideals Prof. Dare taught his lucky students. More importantly, these are the ideals he pens in his writings.

For some four decades now — in his classroom and in the public space as columnist and analyst — Prof. Dare has stuck to his principles; and demonstrated how to match brilliance with character, with stylistic panache and devastating rigour.

Incidentally, the week that started July 13 opened with a flourish of birthdays, of truly iconic Nigerians, all in their winter years: Prof. Wole Soyinka (80, July 13), Chief Ajibola Ogunshola (70, July 14), Prof. Dare (70, July 17); and on July 10, Chief Henry Odukomaiya, famed newspaper technocrat and manager, had turned 80.

But should one laugh or cry? To be sure, a harvest of laughter is assured for these senior citizens who, in individual accomplishments, have shown their country what it could easily have been but has not — no thanks to a unceasing relay of third-grade rulers.

But there might be some cry too. For starters, Wole Soyinka in his poem, “Abiku”, proclaimed the “ripest fruit” the “saddest”. Even on the personal level, this makes some sense, since old age comes with frailty.

But it is in the sociological level that this sadness becomes more acute, with the Nigerian education system in a shambles. The temper that produced these titans, despite an indifferent Nigerian leadership over the years, appears in real danger.

So, as we toast these senior citizens, role models all, are we seeing the last of the titans? As far as Nigeria’s education and academia go, is this the last dance of the golden generation — even if Prof. Soyinka famously dismissed his generation as the wasted one, before the advent of the real wasted generation?

Happy birthday to Prof. Dare, a man of brilliance and character. May his protégées continue to uphold his legacy of banner without stain.

That, in Azu-speak, is the debt we owe!

July 15, 2014
If Segun Osoba had failed…
When Sir Alex Ferguson was retiring as the manager of English football giants Manchester United after a remarkably unprecedented term spanning 27 years, he handpicked fellow Scot David Moyes to succeed him. Moyes was a middling figure, alien to trophy-winning ways. His years at Everton were barren, neither capping the season with laurels nor moving the club into Europe’s lucrative Champions League glare.

How the departing coach and the Malcolm Glazer family that owns Man United expected Moyes to succeed the success of the old Scot would remain a debate for a long time to come. For, to consummate a succession, the successor must either sustain the good work of his predecessor or surpass it. We can’t talk of a transition as a fait accompli if upon the handover of a baton, we observe a drop in fortunes in the state of affairs.

We may describe what Ferguson did as a radical shot. But alas Moyes did not follow up by radicalizing the club, by properly connecting and converting Ferguson’s move into thunderous medal-gathering goals Man United was use to. He failed and paid the supreme penalty: an embarrassing sack!

Here in Nigeria years ago, it was not so with one professional godfather and his protégé. In the 70s when it was time for Alhaji Babatunde Jose to make changes at Daily Times Nigeria Limited (DTN), where he was the lordly chairman and Editor-in-Chief, he took quite earth-shaking steps that saw him bring in Segun Osoba his godson as the editor of Daily Times, the company’s influential flagship, bypassing others perceived as deserving of the office.

There were other appointments. But it was the unfortunate chain reaction to Osoba’s that sparked the inferno that eventually consumed Daily Times.Godfather Jose meant well for godson Osoba and the newspaper group, just as Ferguson did for Moyes and Man United. I don’t think there is any doubt about this.

The ball would always be in the court of the protégé to play, not in the court of the godfather. Moyes let down his benefactor most woefully and gave rise to mischievous remarks questioning Ferguson’s skills in boardroom decisions.

It was not so in the case of Jose and Osoba, although we have an apt analogy in two godfathers influencing the upward positioning of their mentees.

Jose did what he believed was right for the DTN group, with his mind far into the future, even if the changes he put through were thought to be punitive. Given the success he had achieved for DTN, he reasoned this could only be maintained by someone like him. That future could only be guaranteed by Osoba who had proved highly successful through his industry, discipline, professionalism and loyalty in his work as a reporter and editor, following in the footsteps of Jose.

Even when Jose had left Daily Times group and the government of the day wanted to reorganize the media house, they approached Jose. This is what the godfather said about what transpired: “…in advising on the reorganization of the Daily Times, the man my mind went to was Segun Osoba as managing director. And I could justify it. I made him editor of the Daily Times and some people said it was a hazy, hasty decision. He did for a while. Then another publishing organization, though smaller in size, the Herald, appointed him general manager at a stage when they were just developing. He built up the company. Then the Sketch wanted the man. He also developed the Sketch and turned it into a profitable company. So, I said time had proved me right. Of the young people I knew, worked with or groomed at the Daily Times, Segun is a man who has proved himself and proved me right. I recommended him and he was appointed managing director of the Daily Times. As managing director I think he took after me”.

Jose speaks in radiant terms about Osoba because the latter succeeded as a journalist, manager and governor. So partly, Jose’s record as an acclaimed journalist and administrator stemmed from Osoba’s success. Viewed from the reverse, if Osoba had failed, he would have mired Jose as Moyes did Fergie.

For Osoba to be seen as a remarkable professional he apparently needed to meet the expectations of both his mentor and those he worked for. But what was weightier: satisfying the mentor or your constituency (those you are accountable to)? I think both reflect one and the same pursuit: the mentee can only please his mentor by posting a good performance, this being the trademark of the successful mentor himself. There is only a change of personalities; there is no displacement of excellence. One good actor leaves the scene, expecting the incoming one to earn the applause of audience through his own outstanding achievements.

This essay is a tribute to senior colleague, elder statesman and ex-governor Segun Osoba as he marks his birthday today. I am compelled to see him as the reappearance of the patriarch Ismail Babatunde Jose.

Classical German philosopher of the 19th century Wilhelm Hegel said that great personalities in history appear twice, as it were. Several years later, Karl Marx, his compatriot of a more radical persuasion, ran a cynic’s post-script. According to him, Hegel forgot to add that when history so resonates, the first apparition is a tragedy and the second a farce.Jose wasn’t a tragedy; nor Osoba a farce.

Happy birthday, Aremo Segun Osoba!
- Ojewale is a media consultant and writer in Ota, Ogun State.
July 15, 2014
Once upon another C’wealth Games

The ongoing World Cup in Brazil has so gripped Nigeria that I will not be surprised that not many in the audience of the usually attentive are aware that the Commonwealth Games are due to start in Glasgow, Scotland, in two weeks.

Games officials and indeed all Glaswegians must be heartened that the event has not been foreshadowed by the kind of political issue that doomed the 1986 edition held in Scotland’s premier city, Edinburgh.

It was a sham and a financial disaster.

Of the 59 countries eligible to participate, only 27 showed up, just four of them – Botswana, Malawi, Lesotho and Swaziland — from Africa.

Thirty-two countries stayed away. Revenue projections based on broadcasting rights and sponsorships and spending by teams and visitors collapsed, plunging Edinburgh into huge debt.

Designed to celebrate the diversity and common purpose undergirding the largest political organization –I exclude the moribund Non-aligned Movement – the Games ended up as a competition among white athletes for the most part, bereft of the colour and the gaiety and the grit that athletes from Asia and Africa and the Caribbean usually brought to the event.

Never in its 56-year history had the quadrennial competition witnessed such a spectacular flop.

Few now remember, and fewer still ever knew, that the discussion that triggered off the massive boycott of the Games originated in Rutam House, in the Conference Room of the Editorial Board of The Guardian Newspapers, one sultry Thursday in July 1986, two weeks to the competition.

Back then, meetings of the Editorial Board were largely unstructured. Members in attendance suggested subjects or issues meriting editorial attention; the urbane and intellectually-formidable Stanley Macebuh presiding, entered the topics on his yellow notepad, and discussions followed. If you brought up an issue judged worthy of an editorial, you ended up being assigned to write the editorial.

The Nigerian contingent to the Games was counting the days to its departure for Edinburgh. That, remember, was the time of Structural Adjustment, when goods, consumer goods, were scarce or unaffordable or both. A foreign trip, all expenses paid, with pocket money for athletes and hefty allowances for officials in the almighty British pound, would go a long way in easing the pains of the benighted programme.

That was also a time of ferment in the anti-apartheid struggle within South Africa and the wider world, particularly in Africa. In the Commonwealth, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher stood imperiously alone against the tide of history. She not only resolutely opposed any plan to impose comprehensive economic sanctions against the racist regime in Pretoria, she branded Nelson Mandela a terrorist and M’konto We Sizwe (MK for short), the military wing of the African National Congress, a terrorist organisation.

To undermine the exclusion of South Africa from competitive international sport, Thatcher’s government had processed in record time papers granting South African marathoner Zola Budd citizenship to enable her compete in the 1984 Olympics under the British flag and perhaps add a medal or two to what was sure to be a modest haul for Britain.

Given Thatcher’s – and Britain’s – duplicitous role in a matter that touched every African at the core of his or her being, should Nigeria participate in the XIII Commonwealth Games?

That was the question before The Guardian’s Editorial Board that sultry Thursday, two weeks to the Games.

The answer was unanimous: No. And I was asked to find the words to affirm that conclusion and the reasoning behind it for publication the following Saturday.

Officials and athletes set to fly to Edinburgh for the Games were aghast, and they registered their disenchantment with The Guardian in various ways.

In the policy establishment, however, the reaction was different. Back from his rounds at the Ministry of External Affairs the following Monday, The Guardian foreign editor Ejiro Onobrakpeya told us that the editorial had resonated powerfully and that the Federal Government would most likely order a boycott of the Games.

The next day, The Guardian reported pointedly that, based on a directive from the Federal Government, Nigeria would not take part in the Games. The official announcement came only the day after.

The effect was galvanic.

By the end of that week, virtually all member-countries of the Commonwealth in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean had announced that they would be joining in the boycott, thus effectively sealing the doom of the Edinburgh Games.

References in the global media to “the Nigeria-led boycott” of the Games must have pleased military President Ibrahim Babangida and External Affairs Minister Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi, emblematising as it did, not merely a foreign policy triumph, but a resurgence of Nigeria’s waning leadership role in Africa.

In Rutam House, however, we felt somewhat cheated. We had lit the fuse that literally consumed the XIII Commonwealth Games; the Federal Government had merely accepted our well-argued recommendation. And yet, everyone was calling the result “the Nigeria-led boycott” when they should be calling it “The Guardian-led boycott.”

All the same, we dutifully congratulated the authorities for adopting our principled advocacy. And for long thereafter, we playfully indulged ourselves in the conceit that we ran the world.

The credit belongs elsewhere

At the bottom of this page, you will find a feature labelled “Hardball.” It carries a conspicuous notice, a disclaimer in effect, that it is not the product of the writer whose column is posted above it.
Yet I often find that I am credited with its content. A recent scholarly volume assessing the Jonathan administration did just that, with footnotes to match.
I would not have said some of the things posted under that rubric, or would have phrased them differently. However, this is not to disavow its robust, often irreverent but always scintillating tone and content, merely to say that the credit belongs elsewhere.

July 8, 2014
These are mad dogs

Public transportation in Lagos metropolis has remained a major source of concern for successive administrations in the state. With a population estimated at close to 20 million most of who reside in the metropolis, moving from one point to another could be hellish especially at peak periods of the day.

And to ease the pain commuters go through on the road while they pursue their daily bread, the state government has over the years put several schemes in place especially with regards to public transportation.

Gone are the moving ‘coffins’ called Molue buses that used to typify public transport in the emerging mega city, replaced by BRT buses that provide reasonable comfort for the commuters. And to make the BRT buses attractive dedicated lanes were created by the government to allow these buses move unhindered and unaffected to a large extent by the ‘crazy’ Lagos traffic.

These dedicated corridors called BRT lanes, crisscrossing the major roads in the city, are forbidden to every other road user and violators face certain punishment according to the law setting up the scheme.

The novel idea which began about a decade or so ago has brought huge relief to commuters especially the car owners who have been lured away from putting their cars on the road all the time, thus reducing the number of vehicles on Lagos roads especially during peak periods. The success so to speak must have encouraged the government into putting more of these buses on the road as well as opening up more BRT routes.

Considering the assertion by some that Lagos perhaps harbor the worst set of drivers anywhere in the world, seeing the BRT lanes empty while there is a heavy traffic jam on the other lanes gives one the joy that most Nigerians are law abiding and self respecting. However there is a tiny few who have chosen to disobey the law. Among them unfortunately are those people entrusted with the maintenance of law and order.

Our law enforcement agents are the number one law breakers in this country and I stand to be corrected. They are closely followed by those so called VIPs whom late Afro beats legend Fela Anukulapo-Kuti rightly called Vagabonds In Power. They see themselves as super Nigerians, superior to the rest of us. To them, the laws are meant for the rest of us to obey. They make the laws; they break the laws, but we must obey.

Every little traffic congestions you hear their drivers blowing the siren to clear the road for them to go. They always want to have the right of way, even driving against the traffic. To them in Lagos, the BRT lanes are legitimate routes, as long as they get to their destinations at their own time.

Among this class of lawless Nigerians, especially here in Lagos unfortunately are a few members of our armed forces, including the police. Not contented with having a free ride on commercial buses (you ask them for transport fare at your own peril), these uniformed personnel (I must confess they are mostly Non-Commissioned Officers) always want to be given the right of way every time they are on the road even when they were wrong, and any argument with them could attract a slap, a punch, a severe beating with belt or horsewhip, or even you being hit with the butt of their gun. If you are lucky to escape you go home and lick your wounds. Complaining to their superior officers could be a waste of time and even dangerous as ones woes are likely to be compounded with more punishment. So Nigerians, I mean the rest of us have learnt to avoid them at least here in Lagos. But what do you do when they thrust themselves on your path and you can’t avoid a clash with them?

This was the situation last Friday in Lagos when two soldiers on a motor bike decided to disobey the law by riding on the BRT lane on the ever busy Ikorodu road. There are different versions of what actually happened. While one account had it that the soldiers were knocked down by a BRT bus and one of them died in the process, another said the soldiers were riding their bike on top speed and ran into a BRT bus that broke down about two days earlier and had been abandoned on the BRT lane. There were other versions, but one thing was common to all of them, a soldier riding a bike died while on collision with a BRT bus on a BRT dedicated lane. What happened afterwards was beyond imagination.

Some soldiers from the 81 Division of the Nigerian Army descended on Ikorodu Road and unleashed mayhem on motorists and passersby around Palm Groove area. Their targets were the BRT buses and no fewer than four of them were burnt down to avenge the death of their colleague which they blamed on the driver of a BRT bus. In addition, camera phones, I-pads of people who attempted to record the reign of terror by the soldiers were seized and smashed. Some were even roughened up.

While the mayhem lasted, the few policemen around folded their arms and watched the show of terror by the irate soldiers. Some reports say that the soldiers were egged on by a senior officer who felt the only way they could avenge the death of their colleague or get recompense for the injury their colleague suffered was to destroy public property.

While the action of the soldiers is totally condemnable, equally worthy of total condemnation was the attempt by the Minister of State for Defense, Musiliu Obanikoro, a Lagos indigene to exonerate the soldiers blaming instead, the usual suspect, Area boys.

For far too long, the officers and men of our armed forces have seen themselves as being above the law and have been conducting themselves as such. No society that prides itself as being a democracy would tolerate such disdain for the law by those who are supposed to ensure adherence to the law. The soldiers wouldn’t continuously do things like this if such had been severely punished in the past, but unfortunately the military high command seems to be tolerant of such practices by its officers and men.

Recourse to self help is not the prerogative of uniformed armed men alone, if this acts by a few bad eggs in our armed forces are not checked and punished, what stops others either in uniform or not from avenging whatever wrong they have suffered in the hands of (who knows who) by taking out their anger on the general public.

The ‘Unknown Soldiers’ that burnt down Fela’s Kalakuta Republic during General Olusegun Obasanjo regime in the late 70s are yet to be identified and punished, so also were the ‘Mad Dogs’ in the Nigerian Air force that assaulted late Bashorun MKO Abiola under the military dictatorship of General Ibrahim Babangida. The soldiers that burnt down the police barracks at Surulere, Lagos are yet to be identified. For how long shall we continue to harbor these mad dogs in our military? It is about time they are shown the way out. Enough is enough.

July 8, 2014
Jonathan: neither brilliance nor character

The Goodluck Jonathan presidency is neither brilliant nor boast much claim to character. For evidence, look no further than its continuous bungling of the Chibok affair.

Dr. Jonathan’s is an especially noxious strain of presidential parasitism. Not for it, the presidential chore of freeing the Chibok girls, despite the arresting voice of the Oby Ezekwesili-led free-the-Chibok-girls lobby. But all for it, the prospect of presidential lollies for four more years.

By their body language, the president and his team would wish everyone forgot about Chibok; so they could “move on” to the far more important task of campaigning for — and winning — the 2015 presidential election: and why not?

The man that romped into office on the vacuity of good luck is eager, willing and ready to make his second term case on the vacuity of bad luck. Sympathisers to emotive vacuity abound!

It is, after all, the high season of demagoguery, cynicism and spite. Hard, rigorous thinking has since taken a flight of fancy!

With its latest manoeuvre on the Chibok affair vis-a-vis electioneering for 2015, the Jonathan presidency’s indifference to honour just boiled over.

The Nation, on July 3, reported a pressure group, which called itself GEJITES (which somewhat rings of Kegites, the merry palm wine drinkards club in Nigerian tertiary campuses), invaded the precincts of Unity Fountain, Abuja, with giant billboards of a smiling pair of President Jonathan and Vice President Namadi Sambo, virtually beaming down on Nigerians with their “good news”, these past four years.

But Mrs. Ezekwesili’s comments on this latest manoeuvre is instructive: the fountain was a public facility. All the BringBackOurGirls lobby wanted was the preservation of its constitutional right to free assembly and protest. Well and truly said.

The offence, therefore, is not really GEJITES supporting or opposing anyone. Like the Ezekwesili group, it is their constitutional right.

It is rather the cynical symbolism of trying to occupy the high shrine of the Chibok protest, and crowding out its message with some Jonathan tinsel; even as the president continues to show shocking impotence more than 80 days after the kidnap.

Meanwhile, at the same precincts, the Chibok advocacy group were holding a press conference marking the 80th day of the girls in Boko Haram captivity, a message the president and his men are clearly loath to hear!

So, from the First Lady’s Dia ris God o burlesque on live television, to suspected hired thugs smashing at peaceful Chibok protesters, to a lawless commissioner of Police outlawing what the Constitution has guaranteed, to the Police fending off save-our-girls protesters from Aso Rock, and now, billboard invasion of Unity Fountain claiming a phantom past and pledging a future of mirage, the trend is stark: the Jonathan Presidency lacks the brains to crack the Chibok kidnap conundrum. But it also lacks the grace to admit its glaring handicap.

Its forte? Neither brilliance nor character.

Still, which one is more comical: the fond attempt to blot out Chibok or the implausible deniability over GEJITES?

Again, GEJITES did no wrong by supporting Jonathan. The awry thing was their attempt to blot out a grave presidential failing which, in saner climes, would be fatal to Jonathan’s second term.

So, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) could tell to the marines its claim not to know GEJITES. That would be as plausible as Sani Abacha claiming not to know Daniel Kanu’s Youth Earnestly Ask for Abacha (YEAA), or even a first-term Jonathan claiming not to know Neighbour-2-Neighbour!

To stamp Chibok from public consciousness, knowing that the girls’ parents (innocent Nigerian citizens that have the right to state protection under the law) are inconsolable over the tragedy is bad enough. That is a clear presidential failure.

But even more pernicious is hushing up Chibok as symbolism for grand cynical manipulation, as electoral strategy. Just as the Jonathan presidency is trying to blot out the Chibok cries from public consciousness to hide presidential incompetence, the federal ruling party appears bent on its new-patented demagoguery.

To be sure: no political party is free of demagoguery, if it can get away with it. PDP tries to manipulate the electorate; and abuses “federal might”, as it did in Ekiti. The All Progressives Congress (APC) too is not immune to playing to the gallery. Politicians would try any trick to steal one on the electorate.

Still, the debacle of Ekiti — short-term debacle for the losing APC, which may yet turn long-term debacle for the polity — and its aftermaths are well and truly scary.

The APC lost though there was consensus Governor Kayode Fayemi delivered on his mandate. So, if a governor “performed” but still lost, what is the future motivation to perform?

On the other hand, the victorious PDP swept the polls on a virtually empty agenda. If President Jonathan, with his jumbo resources, had run Nigeria the way Governor Fayemi, with his meagre resources, is running Ekiti, Nigeria would not be in the present terrible pass.

If Governor-elect Ayo Fayose had done any innovative thinking and quality project implementation in his first coming, there would have been little need for the Fayemi aborted Ekiti renaissance, which Prof. Niyi Osundare, an eminent Ekiti son himself, sorely lamented in his trending poem, “The People Voted Their Stomach — Blues For An Arrested Renaissance.”

Yet, the Ekiti voters thrashed Fayemi, with nary anything to look forward to in the Jonathan present, or to glorify in the Fayose past — except, of course, short-term emotiveness. What is this then — the advent of an irrational electorate?

Again, the build-up to the Osun August 9 election is even more instructive. If Mr. Fayose pulled off a win in Ekiti, without articulating any superior ideas to the incumbent’s record, Iyiola Omisore is also fancying his chances, against demonstrable performance by Governor Rauf Aregbesola.

True, Mr. Omisore’s stiff play at the “man of the people”, ala Fayose, is well and truly comical: hiking Okada around, scowling down at two cobs of maize on a campaign romp, and buying popcorn at the corner stall, even as a sinister masked gunman hovers behind — and in a country of law!

It is tribute to the Jonathan presidency’s lack of scruples, when the matter is winning at all costs, that not his CP in Osun, nor anyone, is calling Mr. Omisore to order, as his masked gun people trail him on electioneering. What sort of election would it be, were everyone to invest in masked gunmen? A civil war by another name?

And for the elite of spite busy demonising infrastructure and innovative thinking, selling the emotive masses the illogicality of “stomach infrastructure”, simply because their own politics of the belly is not at all assured, what the polity risks is even more massive poverty — for which economy grows without sound infrastructure?

True, demagoguery ala Fayose’s Ekiti would thrive. But what is democracy without development?

Still, such self-destructive illogic would be a fitting tribute to the Jonathan presidency, which boasts neither brilliance nor character.

July 8, 2014
Aganga: more questions on auto policy

These days, it’s hard to tell whether Olusegun Aganga is a minister of the federal republic or the head of a powerful lobby of auto-makers. In a clime where patriotism – or if you like, economic nationalism – is seen as the exclusive preserve of public office holders and their business class allies; and where reforms – at best hare-brained economic experimentations – are measured by the number of international awards as against their impact on the Main Street, we will do well not only to understand the motivation of our high-minded reformers but what constitutes their staying power.

Now, the subject here is Olusegun Aganga’s dream Nigerian auto. Like a man seized of the messianic bug, he seems determined to leave no stone unturned in his bid to see the dream come to fruition – which, if you ask me, is not necessarily a bad idea in a nation where everything – from tooth picks to our high officials’ fanciest toys – are routinely allocated fat portions of our foreign exchange.

The issue is that the minister is yet to communicate to Nigerians as to whose interest he is serving.

Let’s even admit that the minister means well – when he says that Nigeria can no longer afford the $3.4 billion annually sunk into importation of vehicles – used and new; or the need to curb the influx of the terrible contraptions regularly shipped in by those in the vehicle trade in their bid to satisfy Nigerians’ transportation needs.

How about his punitive composite levy of 70 percent for daring to bring imported or foreign used cars all in just one year to bring the changes desired about? To punish potential car owners even when the capacity of the local assembler remains unproven? How does that help the local car assembler who, under Aganga’s proposed package, already enjoys import duties advantages ranging from zero to 10 percent duty on knocked down parts; and who, according to Minister Aganga have free rein to bring in two new cars for one assembled locally at 35 percent duty? Could there be a better illustration of a case of private interests adorned in public interest garb?

What about the operability? Will the local assemblers sell the two at the same price? In other words, how does the differential in duty play out in price determination –I mean the fact that Completely Knocked Down (CKD) components attract zero percent duty as against Semi-Knocked Down (SKDs) whose duty range from five percent duty to 10 percent? I ask: why not make things simple – as in, for instance, settling for a flat import duty rate – to leave little room for manipulation?

That, obviously is not way things run here; the more the business is made prone bureaucratic shenanigans, the higher the returns to the fat cats in the system.

Today, even without the policy in full bloom, another round of import duty racket is said to be back at the ports. Ask any clearing agent who has undertaken the business of clearing a vehicle at the nation’s port in the last month. They have enough tales to tell of their ordeal under the so-called auto-import regime.

But I digress.

Let’s look at the grand idea – which is to assemble vehicles locally. In an environment where purchasing power has been on steady decline, and the cost of doing business is on rise, the question which our policy wonks have hardly bothered to address is whether the nation can actually sustain a competitive auto-industry at this time. The problem here isn’t so much the desire to return to the “good old days” of Peugeot in Kaduna, Steyr in Bauchi, Leyland in Ibadan, and ANNAMCO in Enugu but whether the conditions responsible for their exit are any different today than what they were in the 80s.

This is where those like Aganga, who insist on diagnosing of the problem as one of the love for foreign automobile which must be kept at bay with punitive tariff even what is presented as ‘local’ has barely taken off. And what qualifies for an assembly line to enjoy Aganga’s generous rebate? Wait till when your neighbourhood garage shows up with verifiable proof of transformation to an assembly line. It’s after all Aganga’s world where Nigerian autos would soon be king.

We must worry that a minister of the federal republic cannot make the critical distinction between good intentions and sound policy – or worse, when he is shown to betray such awful understanding of sociological issues involved in the making of policy.

You know what I think: this policy is dead on arrival. First, in the absence of critical infrastructure, it is simply a non-starter as far as competitiveness goes. Think of it this way: with no machine tools industry to boot, no critical skills pool support; add this to the absence of the still-in-the-works financing infrastructure; what you have is a policy guaranteed dead on arrival. As for our big-time car dealers, trust them to smile to the banks even when there are no guarantees that the auto-industry would ever receive any appreciable boost. Who buys new cars anyway? The same government officials who can afford to buy at any price? Trust the smugglers to have a field day as Nigerians – determined to own their choice autos –find a way. All of these to Aganga’s hubris and needless experimentation.

July 8, 2014