The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tuesday

  • Sylva at 50 to rise and rise

    Sylva at 50 to rise and rise

    Yesterday, Monday, July 7, Chief Timipre Sylva turned 50. It is a milestone mark for which glory and honour must be given to the good Lord.  As a mark of respect for the Muslims observing the Holy Month of Ramadan, there were no elaborate celebrations. Instead, a small committee, comprising family, friends and political associates, decided to put together a public lecture in his honour in Abuja titled, “The Challenge of Democratic Governance” slated for mid-August. The lecture will be delivered by the Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), under the distinguished chairmanship of former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mohammed Lawal Uwais (rtd.).

    The occasion of Sylva’s golden jubilee presents another opportunity to reflect on the political profile of this ever-rising star on the political firmament, a man whose life and politics continues to leave a positive and lasting effect on efforts to expand the frontiers of democracy.

    He left the governorship of his native Bayelsa State in January 2012, inexplicably denied a second term ticket by his former party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in collusion with the presidency under Dr. Goodluck Jonathan. But then, he remains the main issue in the state’s politics. It is either you are for him, as symbolizing the politics of emancipation and progress, or you are against him as representing the politics of collusion and reaction.

    On the national scene, rather than diminish in the face of relentless persecution, and in spite of the plots of his traducers, Sylva has continued to rise in political prominence. The zenith was his near emergence as national chairman of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) at the June 13-14 national convention of the party.

    A frontline candidate for the national chairmanship position, Sylva’s decision to step down was the highpoint of the epoch-making convention. Out of personal sacrifice, he had stood down for the greater good of the party and the country, despite being backed by a key segment of the party.

    It was a rare act of national sacrifice.

    It would be recalled that the former Minister of Education, Obiageli Ezekwesili, had in her keynote paper at the APC summit in March pointed out:  ”Is it not time for all of our political leaders to pay that utmost sacrifice of leadership – lay down their personal gain for the good of the people they wish to lead? Leadership is not the office, the title, the authority, the mansion one occupies. Leadership is the sacrifice offered that others may thrive.”

    That was exactly what Sylva did. He laid down personal gain for the collective good. It did not matter what he got. For him, what was paramount was getting Nigeria back to its feet. The task of facilitating Nigeria’s recovery from its present social and political troubles is one that Sylva is wholly committed to. He demonstrated that commitment by giving up his personal ambition of becoming the APC national chairman, a popular ambition among the party members, in order to serve the greater interest of the party and the country.  Contrary to views that he lost out at the APC convention, he really did not lose anything. He actually gained by deciding to put the collective interest and objective of salvaging Nigeria’s situation above personal gain. This is the quality of a great leader.

    While, like many Nigerians, Sylva believes President Jonathan did not create Nigeria’s problems, it has become clear to all honest and self-respecting Nigerians that except Jonathan’s tenancy in Aso Rock ends, the country cannot even begin to address its enormous problems of security, corruption, energy, critical infrastructure, national integration, and others.

    Sylva’s decision to join APC, contest for the position of national chairman, stand down, and remain a faithful party member, coupled with the persecutions he continues to suffer, has placed him at the centre of Nigeria’s politics. Anyone who seeks to take over power from Jonathan in 2015, therefore, must necessarily see the former governor as a dependable asset.

    Admittedly, however, the maltreatments Sylva has suffered at the hands of haters of democracy and free choice are the typical fate of those who turn out to be their peoples’ brightest hopes.

    All through history, great leaders in Africa are known to have suffered persecution. Just in May, Peter Mutharika took the reins of the southern African country of Malawi, despite facing trial for treason, a charge many believe to be trumped up. The late President Nelson Mandela of South Africa lived the most part of his adult life under the shadow of political and legal persecution and incarceration. But at the end, he became South Africa’s first post-apartheid democratic president. Yoweri Museveni also suffered bitter harassment at the hands of Uganda’s past dictators before he became that country’s president.

    Back home, the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, was a victim of serial persecution by elements who wanted to rubbish his political career. They failed, with their harassments even lionising him and helping to endear him more to his people. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo suffered the same fate, when he emerged from an ungodly imprisonment to become the first Fourth Republic president.

    What these indicate is that a great political career lies ahead of Sylva. If those who had illegally excluded him from running for an office he was suitably qualified under all our laws to vie, and have continued to persecute him thought they were destroying his political career, they are daily being proved wrong by the rise and rise of his political profile.

    Sylva remains a great patriot as he has always been. In spite of all that was done to him, his faith in democracy has never been shaken. For him, democracy remains the best form of government. He believes people have the right to decide who would govern them.

    In Bayelsa State, the leadership Sylva gave to his people has remained unparalleled. Those who persecuted him and used strong-arm tactics against him just to usurp power, rather than govern with all the powers they have, have continued to misbehave and pursue shadows.

    At 50, Sylva should certainly be happy with himself, secure in the knowledge that today he stands at the centre of our national politics. For him, the promise of politics is the limitless possibilities it offers humanity to reinvent society on the path of progress and prosperity.

    Happy Birthday, great patriot!

    • Buokoribo is Media Adviser and Private Secretary to Sylva .
  • Ekiti: So much for stomach infrastructure

    Ekiti: So much for stomach infrastructure

    When a colleague said it sometime last year I thought he was joking. It couldn’t be true, I said. That one can just walk into any beer parlour, as we call it here, anywhere in Ekiti State and chant osoko and green bottles would start to flow free of charge, courtesy, Ayodele Fayose, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the just concluded gubernatorial election in Ekiti State?

    I immediately dismissed it as one of those talks by ‘enemies of progress’ to bring down the person of former Governor Fayose and probably ridicule the good people of Ekiti State. Haba! In the land of honour, with more professors per household than anywhere in Nigeria; how can such motor park tactic bring support for a candidate, particularly one seeking the office of the governor of the state? I didn’t even give a second thought to it.

    But as elections day drew nearer, more people started to talk about it as well as other efforts including distribution of foodstuff and throwing money at people on campaign grounds, by Fayose to win votes. This must be a joke, I said and I hope Ekiti people would not allow this man hoodwink them a second time.

    As these things were going on signs were emerging that there could be a surprise in Ekiti; some hitherto respected people started speaking from both sides of their mouth and the PDP hierarchy including President Goodluck Jonathan started beating their chest and the police in Ekiti state started misbehaving; I knew something was going to happen.

    My mind quickly went back to 2003 when Fayose first came in as elected governor of Ekiti state defeating the incumbent Niyi Adebayo of the then Alliance for Democracy (AD) party. In the run up to that election, Fayose among other tactics went about with water tankers supplying water to the people; and he won their hearts; they voted for him. Two years or so down the road before he was booted out, some say illegally, it did not occur to him, I think, to provide every household in Ekiti with potable water, if he did that with what will he campaign the next time?

    I told myself, lightening will not strike twice in the same place, Ekiti people would not allow it. But I was wrong; lightening did strike twice and with venom too. Fayose’s campaign with no tangible achievement of his first tenure to point at and no promise of a better future to hold on to, swept away, like a tsunami, the incumbent, winning in all the 16 local government areas, defying all logic.

    Some have put his victory down to the incumbent governor, Kayode Fayemi losing touch with the common man, not being one of them, staying aloof and speaking ‘too much grammar’; his records of outstanding achievements in all sphere of governance notwithstanding. Fayose was the man of the people whose name could bring out several litres of beer at the local pub; who would go to‘paraga’ joint to ‘jolificate’ with his people; who would throw wads of naira notes at people or stop by to buy banana or groundnut from the roadside hawker. He could do these things and more and the people ‘loved’ him for it (he was literally putting money in their pockets, food on their table, beer in their tommy, even if they had to struggle to pick the money on campaign grounds) and they rewarded him on June 21, with the key to the government house in Ado Ekiti for another stint at governance.

    For and in all of these I have no grudge against Ekiti people even if I am disappointed. They have made their choice; a people deserve the leadership they get. Life itself is dynamic. The majority have the right to be wrong; even at that, it is too early to say the majority in Ekiti was wrong in that election. So, those who were disappointed like me should sheath their sword and allow Fayose to govern, after all he says he is a changed man now, wiser and has learnt from his mistakes. The next four years should prove that. Only time would tell if a leopard can change its spots.

    Though some people have raised eye brows over whether it was possible for the people of Ekiti who benefited so much from Governor Fayemi to so reject him massively at the polls and questioned how that huge figures were recorded, my worry is not so much about that but the bad example the Ekiti election is setting in the way the electorate judge and reward performance with their votes.

    My fear is that any desperate first term governor or president with an eye on a second term could abandon physical infrastructural development of his community and the human capital development of his people for populist programmes that would put money in the pockets of the electorate in the immediate at the expense of their future. And if the Ekiti example is anything to go by any such tactics would succeed especially in a poverty ridden society as ours.

    Our politicians we know are desperate, only few of them have genuine programmes that could take the country to the next level and are prepared to stick with such programmes no matter the odds. For what he did in Ekiti, which even the people have acknowledged, Governor Fayemi must be praised for not dancing to the tune of those advocates of stomach infrastructure even if his people have punished him with an electoral defeat. Even if he didn’t mean to take it this far, discerning Nigerians, including a lot of Ekiti people know the course he had taken was the right one and time would vindicate him.

    One good thing we have been witnessing in the South West where the All Progressives Congress (APC) has been in near total control of the states is the unprecedented level of infrastructural development that had been going on in the past three years. The people appreciate this, and the APC should not out of panic and in response to the Ekiti setback abandon this for cheap political gains. Nothing good comes easy. After all, the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the founder of the modern Yoruba society didn’t find it easy implementing the free education programme in the then Western Region for which everybody has continued to praise him. He saw the future of Yoruba in education for his people and he stuck with that programme, even though at a point he suffered electoral losses, he never wavered.

    The rest of Nigeria should not go the way of Ekiti in next year’s elections if truly the people there voted for stomach infrastructure; the PDP, particularly President Jonathan should not trick Nigerians into going that way just because it wants to win election in 2015. It is a route that leads only to destruction.

    We cannot talk of curbing corruption if we expect our politicians to bring the money out for us to share; we cannot expect our roads to be good, our hospitals to be better and schools to be world class if all we are interested in is stomach infrastructure. Let us decide on what we want and live with the consequences Ekiti people have made their choice, let nobody cry for them.

     

     

     

  • Ekiti 2014: A post mortem

    Ekiti 2014: A post mortem

    Eleven days on, it seems we haven’t done nearly enough of the post mortem on Ekiti gubernatorial polls, and certainly not least, the President Goodluck Jonathan’s ‘guided’, garrison democracy which formed a major part. Long after the incumbent Governor Kayode Fayemi of the APC conceded defeat to his opponent, Ayodele Fayose of the PDP, pundits of different shades and hue, would appear far from done with theorising on how the battle was won and lost. Just like a good friend from the Land of Honour tried, over the weekend, to ‘sell’ the so-called ‘Zimbabwe model’ now spreading like wild-fire, I confess that some of the emerging theories have opened vistas in political sociology that yours truly cannot claim to be schooled in, and hence thoroughly ill-equipped to even comment upon!

    The much that I can aver at this time is that the election appears to have validated the rather disturbing thesis that a passable electoral outcome should suffice to render the means – fair or foul – legitimate. I refer here to the build-up right up till the election day, particularly the widely reported cases of intimidation of APC’s Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, and the grounding of the aircraft which would have ferried Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State to join his colleagues in the Ekiti State capital – all on the eve of the election.

    Taken together with the estimated 30,000 boots unleashed on the people in an election in which barely half a million actually voted, the nation is at once let into the into the inner sanctum of the Jonathan’s guided process. That is why I couldn’t agree more with The Nation’s columnist Gbogun Gboro when he described the exercise as ‘tainted’. I would in fact wager that it was worse given what I consider as the needless show of muscle by the security agencies. In this, the good people of Ekiti at least have a lot to be thankful for that no heads were broken by the invading army.

    All said and done, the people of Ekiti can reasonably claim to have made their choice. What remains ‘live’ is the debate as to how our compatriots from the Land of Honour could have fallen to the seduction of a supposedly morally-challenged individual over an incumbent generally credited with sterling performance.

    And if it counts for anything at all, the dominant thread appears to be that the people have resolved their preference for the democracy of the stomach as against development.

    To begin with, I do not want to be uncharitable as to join in the stomach infrastructure-trumps-good-governance chant. First, I consider the explanation not only reductionist, but one capable of undermining any real prospects of understanding of the other factors behind poor electoral showing of APC in the poll. Here, my main concern is whether the APC as a party is prepared to understand the message underlying the loss outside of that one-liner explanation of ‘stomach infrastructure’.

    This is where last week’s intervention by Governor Babatunde Fashola has become relevant particularly his rather interesting attempt to frame the dillemma in terms of stark choice between development and the seduction of populism.

    This was how the governor framed the dillemma: “Developmental work is difficult to initiate and to execute. And developmental work that brings on change which is what every election ask for, will also from time to time occasion debates and policy thrust. And which legitimately must be criticised… But it must be a very dangerous message to simply suggest that once you give people money then this is the way it will happen. It is frightening for me in a democracy”.

    He then asked: “Should we just be giving money and when people ask about security, we say that we have given you money, go and rent your own security? When people ask for healthcare, we say that you have collected money. Is that the model for development?”

    And finally: “But to simply suggest that All Progressives Congress (APC) states where a lot of development is taking place; the road to winning power and we want to keep power and I am not pretentious about that. We want to remain in power but to suggest to us that in the aftermath of this, that the way to do that is to give money, for me it is a very worrisome lesson to learn”.

    Let me start by saying that I find nothing fundamentally disagreeable with the premise of Governor Fashola’s dilemma. However, as attractive as it seems, it certainly would amount to a grave misunderstanding to frame the Ekiti issue within the narrow alley of development versus stomach infrastructure – even if one concedes that the latter indeed, played a good part in the election. This is where I find the spirited attempt to rub the matter of “wrong” choice on the voters as not only unhelpful but capable of breeding resentment for the party among the people.

    Perhaps, the fault lies as much with the media as it is with the Ekiti political elite which appear to have promoted the choice as one between the two. As one governor that has blazed the trail in matters of development – and who has since supplied a worthy template for other APC governors to follow – Fashola is probably entitled to be disappointed as many Nigerians, including yours truly, who believe that Governor Fayemi deserves a reward – and not a censure – for exemplary performance. But then, that is what democracy is all about – the right to be wrong!

    In the situation, what should be more paramount at this time is the understanding of what went wrong! Surely, by every account, the governor did well. Indeed, the general opinion is that his administration delivered real value for every kobo spent. Was it a case of governance leaving the electors behind? Was it one of alienation of the organs of the party? Or communication, as some appears to suggest? There is great merit in finding out.

    Hard as development is to define, it is even harder to achieve. Ask Lee Kuan Yew, the man credited with Singaporean miracle. If his country is pejoratively described as nanny state, it owes mostly part on the tough choices forced on them by Yew and co. Today, Ekiti, Edo or Lagos, the APC has demonstrated that it is both capable and willing to make the difficult choices needed to make a difference to the lives of Nigerians. That is what makes them different. And that is what gives hope.

    Rather than occasion despair, the Ekiti experience might actually be a blessing of sorts – an opportunity to take stock. If only for its sake and the sake of the nation in dire need of rescue, we can only hope that APC finds the language to communicate the message without compromising its mission.

  • Babalakin @ 54…of philanthropy and modesty

    Babalakin @ 54…of philanthropy and modesty

    I had heard a lot about Dr. Bolanle Olawale Babalakin, SAN, as a lawyer with a very substantial legal practice whom young lawyers flock to in cutting their teeth in the profession. I had been told that Babalakin & Co has over 60 lawyers in chambers who are very well-paid and some of whom have risen to the highest echelon of legal practice through the active support of BOB as his colleagues in the firm fondly refer to him.

    I had also been told about his acumen for business that is largely intellectual. I was told that Babalakin is not a trader. He does not buy and sell commodities. He believes that sort of business belongs to others who may not be willing to task their intellect for more demanding issues. The Muritala Muhammed Airport 2 (MMA2) which was constructed seven years ago by Babalakin’s Bi-Courtney Ltd, remains a testimony to faith, courage, confidence and scholarship. Seven years after the MMA2 was commissioned, there has been no attempt to replicate this beautiful, yet very fruitful structure, in the real sense of the word.

    However, the Federal Government in total contravention of the law has attempted to rehabilitate the General Aviation Terminal (GAT). The rehabilitation effort reflects a total lack of vision. The whole project is an embarrassment. It is development in reverse. There is nothing there that compares with MMA2 and obviously there is nothing on ground that shows that the erstwhile leadership of the Ministry of Aviation, which prosecuted the project with misguided fervor, had any vision. The resources of the State have been expended in creating unpardonable imitations parading themselves as renovated airports in Nigeria.

    Apart from the GAT which should have been left as provided under the Agreement to Bi-Courtney to develop, the former domestic airport in Abuja has even been described as a classical example of poor workmanship. The quality of the tiles used and the floors remind one almost vividly of the houses belonging to Stella Oduah (the sacked Minister of Aviation) in Lagos. At the Abuja International Airport, she strangely replaced enduring and expensive tiles with very low quality cheap ceramic tiles. It is only a matter of time before all these projects of hers turn out to be a caricature of what an airport should be like. In any case, the nation is now being informed of how she plunged the ministry into needless huge debt.

    Lest I be distracted by the abysmal state of the Ministry of Aviation. I was discussing the quiet philanthropy of Dr. Bolanle Olawale Babalakin LLM, PhD (Cantab), Commonwealth scholar, and a Senior Advocate in the legal Profession. I was at his conferment of honorary doctorate by the Ebonyi State University a couple of years ago when some of his good deeds were reeled out. The University orator mentioned that Dr. Babalakin had built an 80-bed hostel in the University of Ilorin more than six years ago. He had also built an 80-bed hostel in Ibogun to support the Faculty of Engineering Students in the Ogun State University. In addition to this, he had donated a 500-seater auditorium at the Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta, which was commissioned by Governor Gbenga Daniel during one of the convocation of the institution. This auditorium was named the Ramat Ibironke Babalakin Theatre, affectionately after his late mother.

    The orator also mentioned that at some point in time when the office of the public defender in Lagos was razed to the ground, BOB refurbished and furnished it for the benefit of the people of Lagos State who derive immense succor from the service of the institution. He received a plaque from the Director of the program, Mr. Akindele, now the Hon. Mr. Justice Akindele of the Lagos State High Court.

    At a time too, he arranged the best set of eye surgeons to come to Gbongan in Osun State for free eye check-up and treatment of people in his home town. It was a resounding success as many surgeries were carried out while a large number of glasses were also distributed to the needy. This was replicated in Owo Local Government under the auspices of the Olowo of Owo, Oba Tola Olateru Olagbegi III. More than 4000 patients were treated in Owo for the benefit of mankind. So many people today owe the existence of their sight to the magnanimity of Dr. Babalakin.

    This uncommon trait must be a function of Pedigree.

    Babalakin was born into the highest strata of the Nigerian society. His father, still alive was an outstanding legal practitioner who became a Judge of the old western State in 1975.  With the exit of Kayode Eso JSC, Babalakin senior is the only surviving Judge of western State. As we all know, Western State trail-blazed the development of the Judiciary in Nigeria. He retired as a Supreme Court Judge in 1992 with a series of distinction including chairing the FEDECO tribunal, the Bauchi riot tribunal and the Presidential Election tribunal in 1993.

    His mother trained as a nurse but her versatility and courage led her to set up a hospital in 1967. She became one of the pioneers of hospital ownership in Nigeria and definitely one of the first three women to own hospitals in the old western State.

    Dr. Babalakin was not numbed or made complacent by his privileged background. Rather, it propelled him to strive harder. He left Sacred Heart Private School in 1970 as the best student and proceeded to the prestigious Government College Ibadan in 1971. In Government College Ibadan, he came first in the first examination in the school and won the Banjo prize 1971 as the best student in the Grier House Test.

    By 1978, he was on his way to University of Lagos where he graduated in 1981 as one of the best three students in the University. He was called to bar in 1982.

    He proceeded to Cambridge University for an LLM program and did outstandingly well to be allowed to proceed to his doctorate program in the same University. In Cambridge, Babalakin blossomed as an academic. He became a commonwealth scholar in 1984 having been one of the three Nigerian Students chosen for that program in that year. In the same year, he was appointed to the PHILOLOGUES by the Master of Corpus Christi College. The philologues are 12 students chosen from the entire college who have shown outstanding skills in academic and leadership roles.

    Though he only picked up squash in Cambridge, he was the best player in Leckhampton for many years and played for Corpus Christi College in division one for most of his stay in the College. In 1986, on the eve of his 26th birthday, he was awarded a doctorate degree in Law, probably the youngest recipient of that degree in Law till date.

    On his return to Nigeria in December 1986, he joined the esteemed firm of Chief Rotimi Williams as a youth corps member. He has always described the firm and the icon of the firm, Chief Fredrick Rotimi Alade Williams as the harbinger of his fierce love for legal practice. The late Chief Williams’ brain was massive yet infectious and in the words of Babalakin, he was probably the most resourceful lawyer he ever engaged with.

    Isn’t it amazing that such a phenomenal scholar and a considerable businessman would still find time and resources to donate effortlessly to the people? Nigeria requires men of good heart to help their country develop. I urge Dr. Babalakin not to relent at all in his activities. His current travails, which are demonstrably a witch-hunt, should not deter him. His position is unassailable and the Almighty God will rise up for him and subdue all the evil-doers who are trying desperately to dent this icon of Nigeria.

    Many that I know fondly refer to him as “Alaanu”’ to underscore his large heart and generosity of spirit. Without doubt, not a few will bear testimony to this laudable trait of his on his birthday today and I’m sure throughout this holy month of Ramadan.

    • Lewis is a Lagos-based entrepreneur

     

  • Vote-harvesting, then and now

    Vote-harvesting, then and now

    Back in October 1991, a tantalising new delicacy was added to the already formidable menu of the nation’s political cuisine.

    It made a grand entry at the governorship primaries in Lagos State, a crucial benchmark in the stultifying and merry-go-round that self-anointed Military President Ibrahim Babangida called a transition to democratic rule.  Provisional, because the confection owes nothing to the great Murtala Muhammed, who must have been too busy tending his garden after-hours to have any time left for baking.

    The seductive delicacy was in fact the imaginative invention of one of Babangida’s newly-bred politicians, but my attorneys had warned that I would be dancing dangerously on the edge of defamation if I named the product for its inventor.  I was inconsolable because, when the product (sandwich) is prefixed with his name, the whole thing has a cadenced, alliterative ring.

    I can now reveal that its inventor was Dapo Sarumi, who failed in the election aforementioned, but went on to serve as Minister of Information during President Olusegun Obasanjo’s first term.  I can also now call it by its proper name – the Sarumi Sandwich.

    The recipe was simple.  Get a fresh-baked loaf of bread. Split it at the top with a sharp knife. Gently insert into the slit a crisp N20 note (that was the Murtala, or “Muri” connection), then put the loaf in a cellophane wrapping and seal.  It did not exactly come with an advisory that it was tastiest when served oven-fresh on Election Day, at the precincts of a polling centre, with the candidate looking out from a not-so discreet stance for those who “obtained” the sandwich but failed to deliver. But the message was clear.

    Detecting inconstancy was easy. That, remember, was the era of the Open Ballot System, in which voters lined up behind their candidate’s portrait and cast their ballot for the candidate in full public view. And many were the voters who paid dearly for their inconstancy.

    There were several variations to that theme.  As told me by my driver at the time, the landlord would on the eve of crucial elections summon all the voting-age residents of his sprawling tenement to a meeting in the courtyard, announce his candidate, and hint broadly that he expected them to vote for his choice.

    They were of course perfectly at liberty to vote the otherwise, he assured them solemnly, just as he too, a committed democrat, was perfectly at liberty to determine their tenancy if they ignored his preference.  For good measure, he positioned himself close to the polling booth well before voting started and remained there until voting closed, checking off each tenant on a master list as they did his bidding.

    To return to the Sarumi Sandwich:  shortly after the entry of that treacherous victual into the political scene, Prof. Humphrey Nwosu’s National Electoral Commission swiftly banned the sale, display, storage, distribution or consumption of bread in any guise or disguise, and by whatsoever name called, within a 200-metre radius of a polling centre. The same rule applied to biscuits and fruit, but apparently not to cake.

    Nwosu took no chances.  If the usual suspects had tried to evade the law by offering a Sarumi Cake in place of the eponymous sandwich, Nwosu would have moved the Federal Military Government to promulgate a decree forbidding its baking, display, sale, consumption or distribution in any form a full week before Election Day.

    Our sociologists may well assert, then, that what is now being called the “infrastructure of the stomach,” the cultivation of which turned the recent Ekiti governorship election for the populist challenger against the donnish incumbent and made the voters appear as if they cared more about their stomachs than their future and the future of their children, had as its antecedent the Sarumi Sandwich.

    Ekiti Governor-elect Ayo Fayose emerges from the foregoing as a serious student of the political sociology of Nigeria.  He had entered the 2003 governorship race with virtually no political assets – certainly no name recognition, and no godfathers.  But he had somehow edged out an incumbent who had all the right assets, even if not a sterling performance record.

    True, Fayose had pulled it off with help from a sitting president desperate to show that he was not without significant following in his geographical home base and an Arch-Fixer, whose specialty is turning victory into defeat and defeat into victory.

    But he also catered, even if indirectly, to the infrastructure of the stomach.  In parts of the state where water was scarce, he sent in tankers to distribute the precious commodity free.  He also supplied free kerosene at a time when its price had risen beyond what ordinary consumers could afford.

    In his latest outing, his approach was more sharply targeted, less nuanced.

    You showed up at his campaign headquarters, and were rewarded with 2.5kg parcel of parboiled long-grain rice in a package bearing his portrait and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) umbrella, plus cash that, by some accounts, ranged from N2, 500 to just N500.

    But there was a catch.  You had to present a current Voter Card, probably as an indication at the very least, of an intention to vote, though not necessarily for him.  He was not prepared to waste             the provisions bounteously furnished by Abuja on people who were not in a position to deliver even if they had the best will in the world.

    That was exactly what those starving polytechnic students discovered when they stormed Fayose’s campaign headquarters in expectation of free rice and some pocket change.  No current voter card, no free rice and no free money.

    It does not follow, I should add, that his sweeping election victory resulted directly from the freebies.  You could still obtain the freebies and vote against him or abstain from voting.  You could obtain and still exercise your democratic franchise freely.

    Perhaps that was why Prof. Attahiru Jega’s INEC had no problem with that approach.

    Say it for Ayo Fayose, that a person credited with few intellectual skills, is single-handedly rewriting the theory and practice of electioneering in Nigeria, and perhaps globally.

     

  • Ekiti: The morning after

    Ekiti: The morning after

    It is all over now in Ekiti, bar the wailing and the gnashing of teeth in Governor Kayode Fayemi’s camp, and the exuberant rejoicing in Governor-elect Ayo Fayose’s circle.

    There is no way to finesse or spin this one:  Fayemi and the All Progressives Congress (APC) took a comprehensive shellacking.

    No major public affairs analyst, among whom I number myself, saw this coming. This will therefore have to be accounted one of the most egregious failures of perception in the annals of political journalism in Nigeria.

    When we placed Fayemi and Fayose on the scale, we saw in the one an incumbent whose record spoke eloquently for a second term, as did his overall approach to the business of governance:  deliberative, steeped in the detail and nuance of policy, goal-oriented, and unobtrusive for the most part.

    In the other we saw a challenger who had had his chance as governor and blown it spectacularly, a showboat and a con-artist whose idea of governance consists in stagingstunt after tawdry stunt, given to cheap populism and not a little demagoguery, and withal not foresworn to violence as a means of winning and retaining support.

    When we surveyed the field, we saw an electorate populated for the most part by sophisticated and discerning men and women of much learning – several holders of university degrees in every home, plus a formidable array holders of doctorates in every specialism under the sun, to say nothing of professors, of whom, household by household, Ekiti probably boasts the largest number in Nigeria.

    Given a choice between Fayemi and Fayose, surely, the learned, sophisticated and discriminating people of the “Fountain of Knowledge”, who know only too well the antecedents of the twain, would heartily renew the mandate of the one and indignantly reject the advances of the other.

    The only problem was that we analysts attended for the most part to people like ourselves; we read for the most part what they wrote and heard for the most part what they said.  So that, for all practical purposes, we did not see what was out there; instead, we saw only what we wanted to see, heard only what we wanted to hear and believed only what we wanted to believe about the candidates and the electorate.

    We were not “on ground,” to employ a peculiarly Nigerian coinage.

    That feeling first struck me when I saw the picture of the mammoth crowd at Fayose’s campaign rally with President Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP’s grandees. Given Fayose’s reputation for pulling all manner of stunts, it was tempting to dismiss the throng as a rented crowd.  But if it was indeed a rented crowd, it must have taken a great deal of organisation and resources to put it together. And the people behind it could not be dismissed as inconsequential.

    As I drove through Ekiti en route Kogi six days to the election, the feeling that we analysts might have misread the Ekiti political terrain stirred somewhat. Many campaign billboards with pictures of the candidates had been vandalised. But billboards bearing Fayemi’s pictures seem to have been marked for special treatment. Was this the work of commissioned thugs, or an indication of public feeling toward him?

    But perhaps the clearest indication of the situation “on ground” came from a resident of Ekiti in the early stage of the vote count.  Fayose was going to win and win big, he said with the utmost confidence.

    What of his less-than-savoury first coming, especially the scandal-plagued Integrated Poultry Project that gulped billions of Naira without producing an egg, and the rusted remains of which are strewn over the countryside?

    “The people have forgotten,” he said.  “Those who haven’t forgotten don’t care.”

    By “the people,” he obviously meant the okada bikers, artisans, street vendors, shopkeepers, motor-part touts, unemployed persons who don’t know where the next meal will come from, or when, and of course rural dwellers.

    But Fayemi has transformed Ekiti through building new infrastructures and rehabilitating the old ones.

    “The people are yearning for infrastructure of the stomach,” he rejoined.

    What of the murder rap he is facing, arising from the killing of two political opponents?

    “Even if Fayose were to kill off one-half of the population, the other half would still vote for him,” he said.  “They love him.  They adore him.”

    Fayose himself would confirm this mysterious hold on “the people” when he said at his post-election interview that if he raised his hand high, they would cheer vehemently; if he lowered  the hand, the cheering would subside. And if he pointed in one direction, they would go in that direction.

    Is this what they call charisma?

    By whatever name, it is at once fascinating and disturbing. It was missing entirely from our analyses. And now, we have mud on our faces.

    We should be prepared for the taunts and the jeers of the other side, given the triumphalism arising from the Ekiti verdict and the vindictiveness that is their trademark.

    One of their standard responses is to dismiss whatever I write as the bidding of a “paymaster,” by which they obviously mean Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, feigning ignorance of the well-advertised fact that I earn my living as a university professor in the United States and need no “paymaster,” real or imagined, to practise my art and craft.

    Personally, I will not be surprised if, henceforth, they reflexively dismissed those of us who got Ekiti wrong as “failed analysts,” or even more damnably as “failed and discredited analysts.”  Some of them may pivot on the build-up to my 70th birthday to excoriate those “spent old men who should have long ago left the serious and exacting business of journalism to younger and fresher minds.”

    I hear you all.

    If there is any redeeming grace in this matter, it lies in recognising that the right to comment on public issues – indeed, freedom of speech itself – implies the right to be wrong, so long as one is not deliberately and irresponsibly wrong.

    I do not believe that those of us who called Ekiti for Fayemi were deliberately and irresponsibly wrong. We were wrong all the same; flat-out wrong.

    The Ekiti people have spoken. Those who do not like what they said must in the spirit of democracy respect their will, as must those who regard it as the triumph of style over substance.

    Fayose’s return to power eight years after he was disgraced out of office is one of the most amazing political comebacks not just in Nigeria but anywhere.  He deserves to be congratulated.

    His challenge is to prove as adroit in governing as he has been in vote harvesting.

    With Ekiti now back under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) umbrella, President Jonathan should for once redeem his pledge and unleash the Federal Might on the state, its transformational magic to work.

     

     

     

     

     

  • SLS vs. GEJ: He who laughs last

    SLS vs. GEJ: He who laughs last

    It may have come as a huge shock to many, but not to the methodical few, who been key watchers of the drawn battle lines in Nigeria’s recent political history, must have just chuckled and laughed. I refer to the emergence of the erstwhile Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, as the new Emir of Kano. At the announcement, a certain eerie silence enveloped the country, and immediately, I tried to imagine the atmosphere that must have taken over the Presidency at the news; I tried to imagine the presidential confusion that must have almost immediately seized Aso Rock and the frenzy with which the so many lieutenants of the President must have been falling over each other to ascertain the veracity of the report and to reach Oga for a reaction.

    Just when the Presidency must have thought it had done a clean job of getting rid of the Sanusi nuisance, all of a sudden, the stubborn Sanusi resurfaced in a more powerful position, throwing the Presidency into another round of confusion. If anyone had thought that the Office of the CBN Governor that Sanusi once held was one powerful office, then such a person may now be forced to have a rethink. Certainly, this newest episode in the fight to finish towards 2015, has thrown up even newer questions and not just ordinary questions, but very difficult questions capable of sending unimaginable reverberations across the country.

    Let us begin by interrogating the more easy questions. Should we not start by saying that with Sanusi’s newest seizure of power, what now happens to the catalogue of court cases cum legal attacks from the corridors of the Presidency, flung all over the place? What happens to the ongoing Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria’s kangaroo probe into Sanusi’s tenure as CBN boss, a probe which is now virtually in limbo? What happens to the continued seizure of Sanusi’s passport by our very eager and able State Security Service (SSS)? Are we going to see a new drama in which the passport of a high-ranking emir remains locked in the SSS Headquarters or should we just conclude that by now, the SSS would have set machinery in motion to save its face by quickly asking for a presidential directive to do the right thing?

    It would have been better if the above were just the only questions, given that they all of course appear easily surmountable, since resolving them may not after all involve the President acting personally. Unfortunately, the more difficult questions apparently are those not yet asked. Let us start with this, how will President Goodluck Jonathan congratulate Sanusi on his new office, as it is a matter of strict protocol that the President must do so and not a matter of discretion?

    Would the President be bold enough (maybe for the first time) to damn the foreseeable and unforeseeable consequences and congratulate Sanusi Lamido Sanusi personally, or will he just, as usual, send a Reuben Abati on another embarrassing and difficult errand? If that be the case, I try to imagine how the congratulatory message will be constructed. Will Reuben Abati be forced to say something like, “The Presidency would like to congratulate Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the Former CBN Governor who tried to pull down our Transformation Government by working for the Opposition…”?

    Pardon me, am just imagining. Or will it be a Doyin Okupe that will go on this shame-laden errand or the newly appointed Prof. Alkali? How will Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala be feeling right now, after tongue-lashing an Emir in waiting, all because he had the effrontery to ask for the simple where-about of  $20 billion of taxpayers money? Again I try to imagine, will the President be bold enough to attend Sanusi’s inauguration and if he does, will they shake hands? If and when they shake hands what will the President be saying? Again, my thoughts run wild and am wondering, maybe he will say something like, “Sanusi let’s just forget the past and move forward”, and perhaps, the Sanusi that we know in his ever unbendable posture would be seen replying, “Mr. Jonathan, find the $20 billion first, then we can talk about forgetting the past”. Again I tried to wonder, what will be the response of the international community who gave Sanusi hundreds of awards for a job well done in sanitising the Nigerian banking sector, only for them to be slammed in the face with his unceremonious removal?

    Will they shake their heads for the Jonathan government, or will they just prefer to concentrate on Sanusi’s seeming victory?

    The entire Sanusi affair, is a deep lesson in non-combatant political strategy and tactics, and surely is one to be recommended as a veritable case-study in any Political Science class. Much more, it is a deeper instruction in political intelligence and strategic thinking for any government that has it. At the moment, the Jonathan administration appears to be an abiding exception to this rule and here is the reason.

    Even though President Jonathan knew that there was nothing illegal about Sanusi’s continued antagonism of his government and vituperations while he was CBN Governor; even though the Jonathan administration should know that Sanusi as a Crown Prince of Kano, remains a dynamite in the hands of northern political strategists towards the next General Elections; even though President Jonathan ought to have known that the loss of Kano which is the commercial nerve-centre of the North is the greatest mistake made by his party by which further and better wisdom should have suggested a more matured handling of the Sanusi imbroglio; yet, notwithstanding all these dangerous signals, which in itself is not rocket science, the Jonathan administration willingly went ahead, in unguarded desperation and in the most thoughtless move in the current political permutations, sacked Sanusi Lamido Sanusi. Bewilderingly, and in a ghastly move that most leaders in political mastery must have been shocked at, the Jonathan group opted to behave like the proverbial dog, who already being pencilled down for roasting, simply decided to go have a good bath in a bowl of Palm Oil.

    Now that Sanusi is Emir, the Jonathan Group is condemned to swallowing its own vomit.  The President has been seen several times, stooping in a rather unbecoming fashion, before several Emirs of the North, all in a bid to appeal to a recalcitrant North, and try garner whatever acceptance is left in the region; now the same President is condemned to stooping before a Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, a man he once publicly disgraced, a man he still obviously loathes. Apparently, all of the rather belated ministerial deal with Shekarau is now nothing but a bargain marooned in Abuja, not with the new power-brokers in charge in Kano.

    • Adegbite, Esq. is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Law, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.

     

     

  • Between rhetoric and actuality

    Between rhetoric and actuality

    In parts, President Goodluck Jonathan’s speech before the All Nigeria Political Parties Summit held in Abuja last week is the stuff of the rhetoric of statesmanship.

    “Our roles should not be limited to the struggle to win elections and acquire political powers but also to handling the demands of patriotism and statesmanship and restoring hope to the Nigerian people,” he said with reference to the political class.  “In all this, it is pertinent that the actions, conduct and utterances of all political stakeholders reflect the highest level of commitment to the defence of our social cohesion, our political stability and our sovereignty as a nation.”

    This is the stuff of the rhetoric of high patriotism, rendered all the more rousing by its ex-cathedra provenance.  The President and Commander-in-Chief is nothing if not patriot-in-chief as well.

    And there is more from Dr Jonathan.

    “The conduct and utterances of leading politicians at home and abroad,” he said, are rapidly creating and spreading unnecessary tension in the country.  Such unguarded utterances on their part fester (sic) the embers of discord, bitterness and rancor.  Such unfortunate development plays into the hands of extremist elements waging a vicious campaign of terror against the state.”

    High-minded stuff indeed, in a long season of pusillanimity.

    “Our political parties,” he went on, “must remain positive and constructive in their engagements as we seek to build a virile and stable nation that can compete with other states  in the world.”

    Not even the most querulous commentator can find fault with these remarks.  They are indeed the stuff of the rhetoric of statesmanship, it is necessary to insist.

    When Dr Jonathan went on to warn of “very remorseless and anti-democratic forces operating in the political system, ever ready to exploit lapses in the management of our political and electoral processes,” and that some of these forces may during the forthcoming elections, “through their lifestyle, truncate the nation’s hard-won democratic liberty,”you could properly charge him with hyperbole, some scare-mongering even.

    The newspapers, circulating freely again after a four-day blockade imposed by the military officials in the name of “national security,” dutifully captured the President’s rather apocalyptic warning on their front pages or in their headlines.

    Samples:  “Jonathan alleges plot to scuttle 2015 polls” (The Guardian).  “Forces out to truncate democracy – Jonathan (Vanguard).  “Jonathan:  anti-democratic forces working against 2015 polls” (The NATION, on an inside page).

    You could point out that being ever ready to “exploit lapses in the management of business of the politically and electoral processes” is the main business of the political opposition, consecrated in the letter and spirit of the Constitution.  Any opposition party that fails to exploit such lapses ought to have its registration withdrawn.

    You could also ask how political actors could truncate Nigeria’s democracy “through their lifestyle,” of all things.

    But you would still have to situate Dr Jonathan’s warning in the context of the rhetoric of statesmanship that runs through portions of his speech.

    Taken as a whole, however, the speech lacks not just plausibility but moral force.  Dr Jonathan came across like the direction post that is always pointing somewhere but never going there.

    In his actions and utterances, he is first and foremost leader of the PDP, desperate to keep his party in power by all means and at all cost, and to secure another term. That preoccupation often trumps his office as President of Nigeria; rarely does he come across as a statesman.

    Take as an example, his declaration that terrorism, Boko Haram style, is convulsing only states governed by the opposition APC, whereas states governed by the PDP are models of good governance and orderly development.

    It so happens that the three North-eastern states ravaged by terrorism are indeed governed by the APC. But that is not the whole truth. The larger truth is that, until their governors defected to the APC some six months ago, those states had been under the control of the PDP since the end of military rule in 1999.  Plateau State, which has at its helm Jonah Jang, the chair of the PDP Governors Forum, is being daily ravaged by “Fulani herdsman” terrorism, with occasional Boko Haram intervention.

    By his unhelpful and utterly partisan declamation, Dr Jonathan effectively politicised what was hitherto an issue on which all Nigerians were united across party affiliation. And yet, in his speech, he could say with a straight face that “We must never politicise the fundamentals and core imperatives of defending the state,” since doing so would only “embolden” the terrorists and their confederates.

    Not yet done, Dr Jonathan publicly berated the former PDP governors who migrated to the APC, saying that they could not win elections in their constituencies.

    Even if that is true, it smacks of politics in its rawest form.  Dr Jonathan should have left that kind of talk to one of the dozens of political flunkeys at his service, or front organisations flush with slush funds from his alternative treasury.

    Take again the petulant vindictiveness with which he has pursued Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s ascendancy as Emir of Kano. Sanusi had served out his controversial suspension from the post of Central Bank Governor and his lawsuit challenging the ouster is before the courts.

    We have it from reliable sources that Dr Jonathan tried to block Sanusi’s preferment.  His party, the ruling PDP, even tried to pre-empt it by publicly congratulating one of the contestants who, it would turn out, had not been designated emir.

    When these shabby tactics failed, the police, acting on Abuja’s orders, blockaded the emir’s palace, claiming rather disingenuously that they were doing so to ensure the safety of its treasure of precious artifacts. It was as if the matter at issue were the throne of Emir of Nigeria rather than that of Emir of Kano. Meanwhile, denied access to the palace, the new emir had to take up temporary residence in Government House, Kano, as the Governor’s guest.

    The siege on the Emir’s palace was lifted only after Abuja had extracted an apology of sorts from Sanusi over his disclosure of wide gaps in the Federal Government’s financial reporting, and a promise to do nothing that would embarrass the federal authorities.

    There is no statesmanship here, only petulance.

    Finally, there is President Jonathan’s open and enthusiastic embrace of Ayo Fayose as his party’s candidate in the Ekiti gubernatorial election scheduled for Saturday.  Fayose once occupied that position based on a gravely flawed election and was impeached for gross misconduct and dismissed. He is a suspect in the investigation of the murder of two of his political opponents and the subject of an indictment for serious fraud.

    It may well be that Dr Jonathan could not dissuade his party from nominating Fayose. Still,            in another country, the President would have kept a very long distance between himself and a candidate so heavily tainted.

    Not in Nigeria. For there was Dr Jonathan the other day, enthusiastically presenting Fayose to the Ekiti people in a carnival atmosphere, with PDP chieftains and the mighty apparatus of the Nigerian state in tow. The only thing missing was Dr Jonathan’s trademark azonto dance.

    There is no statesmanship here, no thought about the next generation, only raw political calculation to serve the needs of the moment.

     

  • Ekiti: let the people win

    Ekiti: let the people win

    For the Ekiti and Osun elections, no prize for guessing the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) grand  strategy: Ayo Fayose would stage his adult delinquency stunts, Iyiola Omisore would scowl his sinister scowl and the petrified — and pacified — electorate would fall in line!

    It is bully tactics as perfect electoral recipe.

    A colluding presidency, pushing a failed president for second term, sure needs the destructive force of the twain, in its manifesto of fear and threat.

    It also fits perfectly into an historical pattern: whenever the South West is making progress, even amidst pan-Nigeria chaos, noxious forces, with their local office-seeking collaborators, would attempt a scuttle.

    It happened in the old West, shortly after independence.  It happened in the Second Republic.  Now, it is about to happen — in any case, the electoral invaders wish so — with President Goodluck Jonathan’s desperation to get a second term at all cost, using both Ekiti and Osun to establish some phoney toe hold in the West, despite a record of glaring presidential failure.

    The snag is: the first battle ground is Ekiti: happy graveyard of past all-muscle-no-brain federal vote fiddlers.  But the “invaders” are hardly fazed — for they have good, old “federal might” — illegal use of the police and other security agencies for partisan electoral ends.

    If you think this painted scenario is alarmist or even harsh, then you have not been closely following the Ekiti unfolding drama, in the run-up to the gubernatorial election of June 21.

    Flashback, June 8.  The local Mobile Police (Mopol) OC (officer-in-charge), one Gabriel Michael Selekenkere, reportedly threatened to “arrest” the governor, claiming “orders from above”.  His “orders”, specifically, was Vice President Namadi Sambo.  The VP was in town, the insolent policeman snapped.  So, the governor must dive for cover!

    But all of these are really not new.  Since Mopol junked its truncheon-and-shield for firearms, and assumed its notorious kill-and-go moniker under IGP Sunday Adewusi in President Shehu Shagari’s Second Republic (1979-1983), police pre-election rascality, in favour of federal electoral bullies, has become tales of the expected.  Even then, Selekenkere’s recklessness ploughed new depth in infamy.

    But there is also some satanic symbolism to it all, suggesting some inexplicable electoral death wish.  VP Sambo is the latest federal ogre.  But in 2009, it was VP Jonathan, then trying to earn stripes under Olusegun Obasanjo’s do-or-die electoral regime.  As Jonathan declared war on Ekiti then, Sambo is declaring war on Ekiti now.

    Still, between then and now, a lot has happened.  The 2007-2010 electoral conspiracy had come a-cropper, with Kayode Fayemi judicially regaining his stolen mandate.  Mr. Fayose, Ekiti’s enfant-terrible governor (2003-2006) had been thrown to and fro, out and in, and is now back gobbling his vomit as PDP candidate; and scowling face of unrepentant retardation in Ekiti.

    Olusegun Oni, principal actor in the 2007-2010 electoral judicial war, and dashing general of the fierce Ido-Osi re-run manoeuvre, has somewhat executed a Pauline conversion, back into the progressive camp.

    Not unlike Brutus who joined to kill Julius Caesar, not because he hated his imperious friend but because he loved Rome, many say Oni was part of that electoral steal not because he hated Fayemi, the winner, but because he loved Ekiti.  But saint or sinner, Mr. Oni is alive to the clear catastrophe of Fayose’s second coming, with its aridity of ideas, executive criminality and gubernatorial gangsterism.

    But alas, Opeyemi Bamidele, Labour Party (LP) candidate in Saturday’s election, appears headed in opposite direction as Mr. Oni.  The one heads for destruction; the other heads for redemption.

    Ripples’ frank opinion: the Bamidele defection is another manifestation of Nigerian progressives’ abject failure to manage prosperity, without falling upon themselves.  Mr. Bamidele was too rash.  Governor Fayemi and his court were too smug.  Things fell apart and the centre could not hold.

    Now, an election that ought to be a shoo-in, based on Dr. Fayemi’s demonstrable performance, is now the subject of some phoney speculation of “closeness”, because the proverbial wall has opened; and the treacherous lizard has entered.

    Still, on the electoral street, on both sides of the partisan divide, Mr. Bamidele is viewed much more emotively.  His LP is a PDP Trojan horse, a treacherous Jacob who voices progressive ideas but whose Esau arms are hairy and sooty with deeds of reaction and retrogress.

    If Mr. Bamidele fronts for LP and LP itself fronts for PDP (which just virtually yesterday ran Ekiti aground), even Mr. Bamidele and his new company would admit theirs is a treacherous enterprise which, given Mr. Fayose’s disastrous first coming and President Jonathan’s catastrophic current term, can only take Ekiti back to the Egypt it thought it had left forever.

    Of course, Mr. Bamidele’s foes in the Fayemi camp waste no time to trigger the Yoruba political cosmos of extreme saints and sinners, and put their former comrade-turned-antagonist pat in the hottest part of that sinners’ corner.

    Whatever happens, the notorious fact is that should the Ekiti election go awry, and the invading forces succeed to use the notorious “federal might” to rig the election, claiming a bogus victory but explaining the crime away with Mr. Bamidele, as a factor in splitting the All Progressives Conference (APC) vote, Mr. Bamidele would be installed on the throne of infamy which Mr. Oni just vacated.

    Still, the most annoying thing in all the electioneering hullabaloo is the PDP cynical posture that performance does not count; and that the electors are idiots.

    The president rode into town like some sheriff, his deputy bawling war, his police bullying everyone; implying such empty braggadocio is enough to sweep the polls.  But if Jonathan has ruled Nigeria the way Fayemi has ruled Ekiti, the country would not be in this mess.  Yet, there is so much hype about the partisan endorsement of a failed president.

    Mr. Fayose too blabs and roars.  But does he think the Ekitis would just forget four years of Fayemi’s systematic governance, and zombie-like, opt for the haphazard Fayose: his government by sub-human impulse and pedestrian thinking, which spectacularly undid them less than 10 years ago?

    From cynical water in 2003, Mr. Fayose has graduated to cynical rice and Okada bribes in 2014.  Some news sources, quoting Thai authorities, even claim the Fayose electoral rice is toxic.  If true, it becomes all the more interesting: Toxic candidate.  Toxic rice.  Toxic future!  It doesn’t get more diabolic!

    On Saturday, Prof. Atahiru Jega’s INEC has its job well cut out.  If it delivers free, fair and transparent election, the best candidate will win.  Ripples has no doubt that would be Governor Fayemi.

    But if it succumbs to the Anambra magic, and later turns round to rationalise brazen fraud, it would court untold trouble, given Ekitis’ past reactions to such shenanigan.  Federal electoral bullies, itching to use lawful force for lawless causes, had also better dust up their history books.

    Let the Ekiti people win on Saturday.  That is the only way to deepen democracy and ensure sustainable development.

  • Redefining the telecoms revolution

    Redefining the telecoms revolution

    Before he was appointed in July, 2010 as the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, Eugene Juwah, who holds a doctorate degree in Engineering from the University of Manchester was already a household name in the nation’s telecom industry as a strategic player in the private sector.  It was no surprise, therefore, to industry watchers that he topped the list among those recommended by the exiting Board of the Commission in accordance with Chapter II, Section 8(2) of the Nigerian Communication Act 2003 which states that: “The Board shall make recommendations to the President on suitably qualified persons for appointment as the Commission’s Chief Executive and Executive Commissioners and the President shall take the Commission’s recommendations into consideration for the appointment”. Furthermore, Section 11(2) of the Act states how such a vacancy shall be filled. It says; “A vacancy in the Board shall be filled by the appointment of another person to the vacant office by the President in accordance with section 8 of this Act, as soon as is reasonably practicable after the occurrence of such vacancy”.

    For a country rated as the fastest growing mobile market in Africa, nay in the world for five consecutive years, Juwah had his job cut out especially on matters of Quality of Service. He reeled out a six-point agenda that would signpost his tenure. This, he said, would help him sustain the momentum of the revolution. They are: Consolidation and Integration of mobile Wireless Services; Fixed Line and Broadband Deployment for National Development; Enhanced Competitive Market, Enhanced Choice for the Consumer; Vigorous Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement of Regulations and Directions; National Connectivity for Accelerated Growth; and Enhanced International Relations.

    For four years,  he has shown a strong desire to fight for the telecom consumer. Six things have stood him out in this regard: The banning of promotions and lotteries by operators; slashing tariff on text messages from about N10 to N4, the slashing of interconnection rates among operators which has a direct implication of reducing tariff on voice calls, the introduction of Mobile Number Portability (MNP) which empowers consumers to make a switch without changing their number, the successful auction of the 2.3 GHz frequency spectrum and the adoption of Open Access model as a precursor to broadband rollout.  These six bold moves, taken in context, have had the direct impact of improving quality of service, cutting the budget of consumers on both voice calls and text messages as well as improving the throughput of operators.

    For the avoidance of doubt, the Commission’s functions and duties are set out in the Nigerian Communications Act 2003 (the “Act”). Section 4 of the Act lists the Commission’s functions, which include the facilitation of investments in and entry into the Nigerian market for the provision and supply of communications services, equipment and facilities. It permits the NCC to ensure the protection and promotion of the interests of consumers against unfair practices including but not limited to matters relating to tariffs and charges and the availability and quality of communications services, equipment and facilities. The section also encourages the regulator to pursue the promotion of fair competition in the communications industry and protection of communications services and facilities providers from the misuse of market power or anticompetitive and unfair practices by other service or facilities providers.

    The last review of the interconnection rate was in 2009. Between then and now, a lot has happened in the sector including quantum growth in network throughput. Currently, Nigeria has over 113 million telephone lines. This has engendered more competition among operators but pricing of tariff still remains comparatively high.

    And if you throw into this menu of tariff slash, the introduction of Mobile Number Portability (MNP), what you get is a highly competitive marketplace where the customer is truly the king. Juwah recognizes that consumers make the network. In a media interview, he said: “At NCC, we realise that without the consumers, there would be no networks or service providers and without the service providers, the regulator has no job; so we will do all that is possible within the law to protect the consumer. Everything we do is geared towards the protection of the consumer but in doing so, we will also give room for the investors to grow their businesses”.

    Juwah’s four years at the NCC has translated to the sustainability of the mobile telecom revolution, improved infrastructure among operators resulting in improvement in quality of service, sustained aggression and strategic focus in the run up to broadband rollout, creation of more jobs, a bolstering of investors’ confidence in the Nigerian telecom market as reflected in the growing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the sector and a record contribution of 8.9 percent of the nation’s GDP by telecom alone.

    No doubt, Juwah may have taken up the job as a telecom regulator at a time quality of service was a red button issue, but he has manifested traits that clearly place him on the pedestal as a regulator who loves to fight on the side of the consumer. He has imposed fines on operators, he has closed the shops of dubious telcos who will not play by the rules and he has slashed tariffs all for the sake of the consumer. Juwah must stay the course. He must neither waver nor flinch. As he intensifies his evangelism on broadband rollout, he must do so with a consciousness that history waits on the wing of time. History surely will remember him as a man who came, saw and overcame. He has indeed redefined the telecom revolution.

    • Ugbechie, is a Lagos-based media practitioner