The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tuesday

  • What is Boko Haram?

    What is Boko Haram?

    This is not a good time to be an expatriate Nigerian.

    No, I take that back; this is a particularly bad time to be an expatriate Nigerian, given the steady flow of bad news, bad news and more bad news out of the country. Even the rebasing that has catapulted Nigeria from the doldrums to the world’s 26th largest economy overnight has not translated into equanimity for the expatriate Nigerian.

    Our political and diplomatic strategists will have to take a cue from the economic strategists to rebase the national image.

    The latter drew on Nigeria’s burgeoning home video industry Nollywood to boost the Gross Domestic Product by a full percentage point and some. The former will have to factor in Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, JP Clarke, Christopher Okigbo, Niyi Osundare, Femi Osofisan, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, the Super Eagles, Ben Nwabueze, Kenneth Dike, JF Ade Ajayi, Claude Ake, Yusuf Grillo, Bruce Onobrakpeya, Demas Nwoko. Simeon Adebo, Jerome Udoji, Peter Lassa, Ali Akilu, Afigbo Adiele, Bala Usman, Gani Fawehinmi, Ben Enwonwu, the Brothers Ransome-Kuti, Abubakar Imam, Ayodele Awojobi, DO Fagunwa,Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Cyprian Ekwensi, Mokwugo Okoye, Jelani Aliyu, and others too numerous to list, in rebasing the national image.

    Surely, the country that produced these luminaries and others too numerous to name here deserves a better appellation than the land of Boko Haram and rampaging “Fulani herdsmen.” “Rebranding” was the name Dr Dora Akunyili’s gave this heroic but ultimately futile undertaking when she was Minister of Information. That was then.

    Now, in keeping with the times, the effort will have to be re-launched, the goal being to rebase Nigeria’s foreign image, the image that follows them wherever they go, defines them and often haunts them, an image they can never shed nor escape from.

    Their green passports or the line in their foreign passports naming Nigeria as their country of birth literally proclaims that image at foreign ports, assuming they survive the indignities that come with applying for a travel visa. From then on, the passport holder is put through the formidable challenge of proving that he or she is not guilty of the crimes and misdemeanours now associated with being a Nigerian.

    To this discomfiting experience we must now add the prospect of being regarded as a national of a country infested by terrorism, and of quite possibly being perceived as a covert sympathiser or enabler of bomb-throwing Islamists and throat-cutting “Fulani herdsmen” or a close relation of theirs.

    Each time I enter the coffee room or a class, I hold my breath, hoping fervently that my faculty colleagues and students will not bring up the latest bulletin on Boko Haram’s and Fulani herdsmen’s running orgy of bestial violence, however obliquely.

    Even the most basic question on the matter would stump me, namely, what is Boko Haram?

    More than three years after Boko Haram hit the front pages and the headlines, I still cannot claim with confidence that I know what it is. If pressed on the matter, I can only say that it is a malignant, nihilistic affliction on the body politic. But that is describing the manifestation rather than defining the essence.

    Only its masterminds and its denizens know what Boko Haram is. The security agencies do not know, and neither does President Goodluck Jonathan. He is on record as having admitted that much and adding, as if to deepen the mystery, that for all he knew, some members of his cabinet and advisers who met and dined and wined with him every day could well be members of Boko Haram.

    Whatever Boko Haram may be, it is not a monolith as is generally supposed, according to a source I cannot identify. There is the political Boko Haram, which carries out large-scale operations like blowing up churches and motor parks and police stations and prisons and other public facilities – the one whose masked operatives toting Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenades race in Hillux vans through desert shrubbery to distant outposts, their grisly errands to perform.

    Then there is the mafia-like Boko Haram, which specialises in criminal extortion and is not above being hired by aggrieved persons to settle scores. If the twain are related, it is not clear what the relationship consists in, my source tells me.

    In the North, nobody talks about the one or the other, for fear of murderous reprisal. It is as if the subject is haram, forbidden. The fear of Boko Haram is the beginning of wisdom – and survival.

    If I don’t know what Boko Haram is, I can hardly be expected to know what it wants. I don’t. Nobody knows for sure what Boko Haram wants. Is their goal the islamisation of Nigeria through terror, as some commentators have claimed? If that is the case, why is it that they do not spare fellow Muslims in their murderous rampage?

    Is it to make Nigeria ungovernable? They certainly have made a swathe of North-eastern Nigeria ungovernable, but reducing the entire country to that condition seems a goal too far. Even if that goal is attainable, what purpose would it serve?

    To provoke the military into taking over, perhaps, and thus terminate Dr Jonathan’s effete administration?

    Which military? The one that can’t even protect its own facilities and personnel against the insurgents? The one that claimed to have rescued more than 100 girls abducted by Boko Haram from a secondary school in Chibok, Borno State, only to declare without fear and without shame when it was challenged that it had been “misled”?

    “Misled” by whom? On how many other crucial issues has it been “misled,” and with what consequences?

    The military in which a unit can be suborned by a junior cabinet minister, a minor politician with no following, to halt by force of arms a housing construction project being lawfully undertaken by the government of his state, and in which the same minister can deploy soldiers to subvert the electoral process in another state?

    Again, if pressed by those seeking to learn more about the phenomenon known as Boko Haram, I cannot explain why none of its stalwarts has been brought to justice. At the scene of every Boko Haram outrage, President Jonathan vows solemnly that the perpetrators would not go unpunished. The next week brings another outrage, which draws another solemn vow from the President. And then the next.

    Nor can I explain why President Jonathan, the nation’s comforter-in-chief, headed to Kano while the public was still trying to grasp the full measure of the carnage at Nyanya Motor Park in Abuja for a ceremony to welcome a defector back to the PDP.

    Since this was a party affair, could it not have been postponed as a mark of respect to those who were still counting the dead? If the rally must hold, could the PDP national chair not have been dispatched as the featured guest?

    Did he have to trade abuse on the occasion with Kano State Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso who belongs in the political opposition? Such pusillanimity, it is necessary to insist, ill becomes the person and the office of the President. Entertaining the party faithful to a jig while Nyanya was still smouldering made Dr Jonathan come across as unfeeling.

    Even his trip to Ibadan the same day to attend ceremonies marking the Olubadan’s 100th birthday was at bottom a re-election ploy inexcusable under the circumstances.

    If Dr Jonathan cannot rise to the high office of President of the Republic, must he cut it down to fit his own modest profile?

  • Nyako’s play of the giants

    Nyako’s play of the giants

    Not even in the wildest stretch of democratic licence could one have fathomed the on-going macabre dance between the Jonathan presidency and Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa coming days after the carnage at Nyanya. Indeed, only in the engulfing climate of ethical regression – or better still – environment of leadership vacuity could one begin to make sense of the brickbats between two foremost institutions of the Nigerian state at a time of grave national calamity.

    To begin with, there is a lot to say of an 71-year old ex-governor, ex-three star general, one-time chief of the country’s Navy, recipient of two of the nation’s topmost honours – GCON, CFR, who currently occupies a gubernatorial office waking up to do a letter to his 18 northern counterparts alleging grievous crime of genocide against the central government on the basis of claims without a shred of evidence. We are talking here of an individual, who by all qualifications, should ordinarily qualify for the elite club of statesmen, making dangerous, unsubstantiated claims against the state.

    Agreed, some would argue that there is probably more to say about a pathetic, blundering presidency that has failed to rally Nigerians behind it in the war on terror. A presidency that has far too meagre results to show for the humongous resources deployed to the war; one that couldn’t find the words top connect with our hearts in the aftermath of the most gruesome calamities that has befallen us, and one under which an emergency national security meeting to review the security situation would overnight transform to a conclave of PDP governors on security! Add that to the pathetic PDP stridently seeking to pin the tag of terror on the opposition and the picture of an engulfing anomie emerges.

    However, I believe that the situation is bad enough without another rabid, partisan “elder” coming in to further muddle things up for us. For not even in the hate-filled politics of the current time would the attempt by Nyako to stand facts – and logic – on their heads wash! Merely by his letter, any hopes by the younger generation that the Nyako generation – in whom the nation had invested heavily – would somehow rise to the challenge of the times would have by now dissolved into a mirage. They are evidently a major part of the problems for which the nation is currently in quest of solutions.

    But then, the trouble with the Nyako’s of this world is that they are living in the past. When he talks about the Jonathan federal government as being the chief sponsor of the Boko Haram, or fingers the administration in the daily mass murder of innocent Nigerians, including the rampant kidnapping of young boys and girls; or the attempts on the lives of prominent northerners like Senate President David Mark in Imo State, Governor of Benue State Gabriel Suswan and himself or even prominent northern traditional leaders like the Shehu of Borno and the Emir of Kano, of course, they are not only meant to sound good to the ears of his “fellow northerners”, they are designed to deflect from the well-known culpability of the region’s leadership in the festering of the monstrous terror machine. Guess it is part of that living in denial that the pervasive insecurity– whether it is the Boko Haram carnage in the north-east, or the frequent the clashes between the nomadic Fulani and farmers across the middle-belt and north central – are alien imports aided and abetted by the federal militias!

    The fact of the matter is that Boko Haram is real. The bases are in the North. Perhaps the only area of dispute is the extent to which the menace has mutated. Not even Governor Nyako’s version of reality can change the fact that the Boko Haram has since transformed into a global terrorist network with ties with the Al-Quaeda in the Mahgreb.

    Terrorism, on the other hand, is a relatively new challenge to the military, the same way that intelligence has remained substantially an alien culture among Nigeria’s population. The talk of winning the terror war without active citizen engagement is sheer bunkum. But then, how could one imagine possible collaboration when leaders appear to denigrate the efforts of the fighting men?

    What was Nyako’s cry of genocide meant to achieve? Hardly about getting the best of the fighting men; at least not with the military – a branch of which Nyako once had the privilege of leading – increasingly presented as an occupation force to the people. Surely, it’s not about tasking the field commanders about the need to observe scrupulously, the rules of engagement, or calling those known to have breached the rules to account. I prefer not to deal with the grave charge of genocide alleged by Nyako which I consider at best opportunistic and cheap.

    It is not even about the ordinary people – the hapless victims of Boko Haram’s butchery – who genuinely desire an end to their agonies.

    No, it is a re-enactment of the long-running play of giants!

    In the circumstance, his reference to an exit strategy for the current state of emergency would appear an after-thought!

    I guess it is fine to consider “Northern Nigerian Amnesty to the culprits and consequently squarely address all other matters connected with the Amnesty and Boko-Haram syndrome”.

    So also is his proposal “to support maximally all those who have been adversely affected by ‘Boko-Haram’ to sue the federal administration to court for full compensation for any loss of life and property as per existing Laws of Nigeria including those enacted from 1915″ fine. Indeed, the idea of a Trust Fund to address the matter would be most welcome.

    The question is – would the proposed restitution also apply to other victims of state-sponsored injustices in other parts of the country particularly those predating the Boko Haram? Or is this an extension of the specious definition of ‘justice’ that has brought the nation to this sorry pass?

  • How not to fight terror

    How not to fight terror

    The horror of yet another attack and killing of innocent and ordinary Nigerians by the terrorist group Boko Haram was brought closer to the seat of power Monday when an explosion believed to be bomb rocked a busy motor park at Nyanyan near Abuja leaving scores dead and many more wounded.

    The early morning attack on the victims, most of whom were travelers either heading out of or coming into the Federal capital was coming on the heels of a travel advisory by the Department of State Security (DSS) to some prominent and high profile Nigerians not to travel to the north east region, the hot bed of the Boko Haram insurgency.

    Former Heads of State Generals Mohammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida, Abdusalami Abubakar, second republic president Shehu Shagari, Governors Rabiu Kwankwaso and Shettima of Kano and Borno States respectively, former Governor of Borno, Ali Modu Sheriff, the Sultan, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar and Emir of Kano Alhaji Ado Bayero are among a host of other Very Important Personalities and high net worth individuals the DSS say are on the hit list of Boko Haram should they venture to visits any area in the north east. And if they must go there, they must get security clearance and be provided with adequate security to ward off any likely attack by the terrorists.

    While recognizing the need to keep our leaders past and present away from harm, leaving the ordinary people open to such attacks as Boko Haram is capable of carrying out raises so many questions as to the ability and capability of our security agencies to protect life and property in this country.

    If the DSS could, through its network of spies learn of the plot by Boko Haram to harm these eminent Nigerians, how did it fail to know that the terrorist group was going to strike at Nyanyan and as such warn the people, especially the hundreds of travelers that use the park on a daily basis to either stay away or be very careful?

    Proving security anywhere in the world is not error proof, but one would have expected that Abuja being the federal capital and indeed all our major cities should be properly protected to such an extent that the kind of attack at Nyanyan would be impossible for anybody or group to not only contemplate but also carry out. We return to Nyanyan later.

    The main point here is the travel advisory. Issuing it or even making it public looks to me like victory for Boko Haram. Now the terror group knows that mere threat from it would be enough to send our security agencies running helter scepter, especially in the direction(s) it wanted. Who knows, the so called hit list could be a ploy by Boko Haram to divert attention from its intended targets giving it enough time wreck havoc and inflict pains on the largest number possible. The hit list could be a diversion to clear the way for such attacks as we’ve just had at Nyanyan.

    What lesson can we draw from here?

    First we should learn from those that have traveled this route before. How has Israel been able to cope all these years in the face of relentless attacks or planned attack by the Palestinians and their allies? Two decades ago or thereabout, I had cause to be part of a team of Foreign Affairs editors invited by the Israeli Embassy in Lagos to interview former Prime Minister Shimon Peres. The security arrangement was so tight that one was left wondering who would be after Israel or Israeli interest in Nigeria, but you never can tell. May be they had information about a threat of attack, yet Peres was still allowed to travel to Nigeria without any noise being made. By that, if there was any planned attack, it was only known to the planner(s) and perhaps Israeli security. To the outside world, it was business as usual.

    This, to me is perhaps one of the best ways to catch any would be terrorist; make them believe you have lowered your guard or even unperturbed by their threats and in the process, lure them into your trap. Now that these people have been warned from going to the north east, Boko Haram would not only feel big, we might not be able to get whoever among them capable of carrying out such an attack on the life of any of these eminent Nigerians.

    How do you think the world would react if President Barrack Obama or any of his predecessors or even Senators were to be advised publicly by the CIA not to travel to let’s say Afghanistan, Iraq or even Syria because of the threat of Al Qaeda.? I am sure the reaction is better imagined. You don’t fight terror by running away from it or getting scared; far from it. You fight terror by confronting it. Yes, there is the need to take sensible precaution but not to the point of behaving cowardly. So if tomorrow the DSS gets credible intelligence that Boko Haram was planning to kill all head teachers in the north east, would the Service advise them not to go to work?

    By the way why is Boko Haram still this powerful and seemingly unbeatable in spite of the resources both human and material deploy to the north east by government to fight the insurgents since the insurgency began? This is the question we should be asking ourselves. We created a new division of the Nigerian Army for that region yet all we get is massacre of innocent and defenseless people by the terrorists and yet our security forces tell us they are on top of the situation; on top of which situation? Some students on the way to writing last Saturday university matriculation exams (JAMB) in Borno State were killed by insurgents; what are we talking about?

    It’s about time an audit of how the military and other security agencies have been fight this war on terror is carried out for us to know whether we are making progress or not. Millions of dollars are allocated to the security forces to fight Boko Haram yet the boys on ground complain of poor motivation and inadequate equipment; so, where have the money gone into? Some of our commanders and their bosses at HQ are alleged to be making money out of this misfortune called Boko Haram; we need to look into this and punish the culprit(s) if any severely. As long as this is going on, the boys out there will not be motivated to fight and Boko Haram would be encouraged to continue the killings.

    For the Nyanyans of the world and other such soft targets, the people patronizing these places also need their own travel advisory and protection from our security agencies, after all we are all Nigerians and no Nigerian is more important than the other.

     

  • `Xenophobic Lagos

    `Xenophobic Lagos

    Xenophobic Lagos — quite a mouthful, isn’t it?

    But it sort of echoes Victorian Lagos, a book by ace poet and literary critic, Prof. Michael J. Echeruo, on the Lagos of new settlers: Europeans; and repatriated former slaves from Sierra Leone and Brazil, from mid-19th century; as against the aborigines of Eko.

    The inspiration for this piece came from Femi Macaulay, co-columnist of The Nation, and scion of the Macaulay family of Lagos, one of those 19th century settlers.

    In two straight offerings, “From megacity to metacity” (March 31) and “Fashola and fallacy of failure” (April 7), Femi beamed his searchlight on the 6th Herbert Macaulay Memorial Lecture and Merit Award, held on March 22 in Lagos.

    Creeping xenophobia, by Lagos indigenes, oozed from both pieces, like some bad blood from a painful boil. It all issued from alleged marginalisation of Lagos indigenes, who complain of being elbowed out of opportunities in their own land.

    The March 31 piece was a pan-Eko complaint of marginalisation. The April 7 piece was an intra-Lagos partisan manoeuvre, hiding behind Lagos nationalism, to twist Governor Babatunde Fashola’s rallying cry: “Eko o ni baje” (Lagos won’t go to seeds) to “Eko o ni baje ju bayi lo” (Lagos won’t degenerate beyond this point); suggesting the governor has done nothing to improve Lagos. The absurdity of such a claim is patent. But then, politicians must play politics!

    Still, the irony of xenophobic sentiments issuing from a Herbert Macaulay merit award was clearly lost on the participants — the key words being “Macaulay” and “merit”.

    This is because back then in Victorian Lagos, the mainly Anglican Saro stock of the Macaulays, Sierra Leone returnees, who had their bastion at Olowogbowo; and the denizens of Popo Aguda, the mainly Catholic repatriates from Brazil, in the neighbourhood of Campos and Lafiaji, had a running battle with the aborigines of Isale Eko.

    Indeed, literatures back then dismissed the Saro, notorious for copying British attitudes, as “parasites”. The Eko aborigines accused them of double parasitism: parasites on the British, for culture (names, speech, dress mode and attitude); and parasites on the natives, for trade. And in that anti-Saro trade resentment, you could feel the Eko natives’ economic xenophobia.

    Indeed, Holy Johnson, the inimitable Bishop James Johnson, a prominent Lagos Saro, was caught between the crossfire of his Ijebu nativity and his Saro evolution.

    Echeruo quoted the no-nonsense clergy as testifying to the “stubborn dislike of my country men (the Jebus) to the Gospel and to English customs, particularly to long trousers, shoes and socks; and to umbrellas, which last I suppose only Royalty carried.”

    So, as the present-day Lagos Olumegbons, Oluwas and Bajulaiyes, Macaulays, Johnsons and Leighs, Damacios, Da-silvas and Perreiras rally in xenophobia, in an apparent economic resentment of non-natives, let it be known that they had not always been a happy and merry phalanx.

    If however, the Macaulays and Da-silvas have morphed from resented “parasites” of yore to earn the great Herbert Macaulay the platform of the Association of Lagos State Indigenes (ALSI) Memorial Lecture and Merit Award, it is because of the sheer quality they had, over the years, brought to the table. That is the spirit of Lagos.

    Perhaps, at this stage, Ripples’ Lagos bona fides are imperative. Born at Lagos Island Maternity, bred in the Lafiaji area of Lagos Island where he attended St. David’s Anglican School, by parents of Mojoda stock in Eredo, Epe, he is as Lagosian as anyone can be.

    So, this is no “atohunrinwa” (Yoruba for settler) voice, trying to claim Eko scalp as economic trophy. It is rather a voice for merit and excellence: for merit has built Lagos; and if it hopes to excel as a megacity or even meta-city, merit must continue to be its cornerstone.

    Still, some caveat. The claim that Lagos is a “no man’s land” is as patently idiotic as the claim that Mungo Park discovered River Niger. No matter how many settlers economic opportunities have drawn to Lagos, Lagos remains the jewel of native Lagosians.

    And those who, in the context of the United States, mistake Nigerian citizenship for ownership of Lagos, simply because they are long-time residents, wilfully miss the point. Whereas the United States is basically a settler country, Nigeria is basically a country of native communities.

    So inasmuch as Nigerian citizenship is to be treasured with all its rights and privileges, citizens have the responsibility to respect native rights, if equity and justice are the issue.

    No less misguided are Lagos natives who harp so much on Lagos’s insularity — with their “gedegbe L’Eko wa” mentality. Lagos is linguistically Yoruba, and cannot, in all good conscience and sound logic, be insulated from the Yoruba South West. That is the whole essence of South West integration which The Nation continues to champion but to which, some short-sighted Lagos elite continue to show discomfort.

    In Lagos — and indeed, other parts of the country — therefore, respect for native rights must be the starting point. Still, native rights do not translate to wilful denial of contributions of the so-called settlers.

    Take the case of Lagos Television (LTV), which at its earliest stages, pioneered 24-hour TV, through its Lagos Weekend Television (LWTV). The brain behind that innovation would appear Taiwo Alimi, a journalism elder and Ogun native, who Governor Lateef Jakande poached from NTA. But when the LTV brand found its feet, some Lagos elements suddenly discovered Alimi was not from Lagos!

    Contrast LTV to the defunct Eko Today, formerly Lagos Horizon, Lagos government-owned newspaper. The foundational editors, all ex-Daily Times, led by the late Tunde Odesanya, saw the paper through its teething stages. But when a native with a sense of entitlement took over, the newspaper went under.

    The impact of Rauf Aregbesola, now governor of the State of Osun, on Lagos infrastructural renewal of the Bola Tinubu years, is still there for all to see. He was no native. Yet, as Works and Infrastructure commissioner, he left indelible marks. Contrast him to Adeseye Ogunlewe and now Musiliu Obanikoro, natives who returned as federal ministers, to wage virtual partisan wars on their Lagos!

    Fortunately, Governor Fashola has, by his stellar performance, shown native Lagosians can boast the highest quality. So, this is not about demonising Lagosians and lionising non-Lagosians.

    It is rather about the inherent danger of xenophobia: for behind that patriotic fear hides blatant mediocrity, powered by a sick sense of entitlement and the resultant irresponsibility. That is a one-way road to decline that Lagos would take at its peril.

    So, let native Lagosians, as of right, take the best of opportunities of their land. But they must be the best men and women for the job. That is the Babatunde Fashola model.

    The narrow road to this destination is conscious and deliberate determination to train Lagosians to be the very best. Xenophobia, on the other hand, is primordial cry for lowering standards for those who cannot compete.

    What Lagos needs is merit to trump the rest, not xenophobia to block their way. That is the spirit of Lagos.

  • Banks’ 2009 stress test in retrospect

    Banks’ 2009 stress test in retrospect

    Sanusi Lamido Sanusi understood the Nigerian psychology particularly their love to bay for blood. After alerting bank customers that banks were about to collapse and that they would lose their monies if nothing was urgently done, he ordered a stress test on banks. In the end, some bank CEOs were pronounced guilty of stealing depositors’ funds.

    This was at a time of global financial crisis. Our stock market had crashed, and Nigerians were genuinely worried about their deposits in banks. Overnight, he became a cult hero of sorts, dealt with the banks as he pleased, and in the end, demonising the system he inherited.

    Here is what a respected columnist in one of the nation’s leading daily newspapers wrote at the time: “But towards the end of Soludo’s tenure, rot and lethargy had set in, and horrible insider abuses held sway. Owners, directors, managers and operatives of banks started looting depositors’ funds unchecked.

    When Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi arrived in June 2009 as the new CBN Governor, he showcased exploits of a two-edged sword. Coming from risk management background, he sacked a number of errant bank executives. He separated some banks from their founders who committed some of the most monumental acts of thievery on record at that time.

    To save the banks from collapse he supported them with public funds and later sold them to new investors. But he also set up the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria, (AMCON), to arrest the incidence of non-performing loans in our banks. In other words, he was able to provide the cure to the disease that had set into the banking industry under Soludo…”

    How did this columnist come to this conclusion? Based on what Sanusi’s CBN said? Which Editor or Financial Journalist can stand up to say he/she saw the comprehensive report of the audit on banks as we did with the 13-page report of Financial Reporting Council on CBN’s 2012 Accounts? Where in the world (except in Sanusi’s CBN) do you do an external audit of a bank or quoted company and there is no audit query to respond to the examiner’s findings?

    The attention of Nigerians should be drawn to a statement credited to the suspended CBN Governor, on November 6, 2009, at the Annual Bankers’ Dinner where he stated that there was no crisis in the nation’s banks since they were still all performing their obligations to customers. He further stated that it was the sacked bank CEOs that were in crisis.

    Hard-hitting Renaissance Professionals, the combative group that took on Sanusi had reminded Nigerians that the CBN under Sanusi moved against the eight banks it took over “on the basis of a financial stress test which it claimed to have carried out which showed that these banks were in a bad shape and would collapse if the CBN did not take over their management. The CBN did not make the result of this stress test public. The stress test was carried out by CBN-appointed examiners. No independent review of this stress test was done. What Nigerians know about this stress test and the result is what the CBN has told the public. The public has believed what the CBN says because it is assumed to be true.

    However, the public should also note that the former CBN Governor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo recently wrote an extensive article and while defending his tenure in office, said that before he left office, he conducted a similar stress test on the banking system and the result showed that 65% of the banks in the system had a “satisfactory” rating. He said he stood by the result of this initial stress test of the Nigerian banking industry. We leave it to the public to decide who they want to believe, the current or former CBN Governor.”

    They wrote the above piece in 2011.

    In fact, on March 30, 2009, then CBN Governor, Professor Soludo gathered captains of industry, media owners and editors, and Bank CEOs, including Sanusi, then First Bank chief executive officer at Eko Hotels, and presented the picture of the nation’s banking industry, problem resolution plans, etc, but urged caution and restraint especially on the part of the media because of the sensitive nature of the industry.

    The speech was significant because it was delivered at a time of intense global financial crisis. As the CBN governor at the time of the speech, it was important that he clarified how vulnerable Nigerian banks were to the emerging crisis.

    In his speech, Soludo laid bare his evaluation of how exposed Nigerian banks were to the global economic crisis and what the CBN, under him was doing to counter it.

    First, he emphasized the fact that “Nigeria cannot afford a bank crisis”. His reason was simple: “The non-deficit part of the FGN budget in 2009 is less than banks’ capital; hence the totality of FGN budget cannot recapitalize the banks if the system should collapse. With the drying up of global finance, and non-bank investing public still nascent, the scope for funding any bank bailout in Nigeria was slim— except by ‘printing money’!”

    That was Soludo’s conclusion.

    But Soludo did not deny that the Nigerian banking system was under pressure. He however listed the different measures that the CBN under him was taking to ensure that the global banking crisis did not affect Nigerian banks.

    But just three months down the line, Sanusi came into office and clamped down on “eight bad Bank CEOs” and Nigerians clapped for him.

    In his petition to President Goodluck Jonathan, as published in the media, the former chief executive officer of the defunct Intercontinental Bank Plc, Erastus Akingbola stated that “till today no report of the examination has been made available to me, the management, or the Board of the bank. We had no opportunity to learn how the CBN came to its decision, nor were we given an opportunity to respond to the examination report, as is the usual process.”

    Akingbola made further allegation concerning how Intercontinental Bank after his removal wrote off a loans to the tune of N8.115 billion, in a bank that they were meant to be rescuing. He also alleged that the banks CBN, under Sanusi took over are yet to receive any examination report from the CBN to show areas of deficiency, and therefore requested that the allegations against him and other bank CEOs should be independently investigated because it is curious “to first send off all management staff before accusing them of wrong doing.”

    In the light of the disputable actions during his tenure; his statements with respect to unremitted NNPC’s revenues, and the alleged sleaze in CBN under his tenure, isn’t it time to subject his stress test of banks in 2009 to proper scrutiny?

    • Barrister Ehigiator is a Public Affairs Analyst

  • Insights from a rebased economy

    Insights from a rebased economy

    It is amazing what great transformation a little recalibration – beg your pardon, rebasing – has wrought on the profile of the Nigerian economy.

    For two full decades, we tormented ourselves with guilt that the economy was underperforming, what with a GDP that stood at a piddling $283 billion. Following the re-basing, we now know that the GDP actually stands at a roaring $510 billion, pushing South Africa to a distant second in Africa in that department and sending powerful warning signals to the world that the Nigerian juggernaut has finally arrived.

    Our consuming desire, which seemed more an exorbitant declaration intent than a remote possibility, was to enter the ranks of the world’s largest economies, the so-called G20, by the year 2020. Every indication now is that Nigeria will hit that milestone several years ahead of projection. Our planners will now have to rebase Vision 20/20:20 itself.

    Several decades ago, the per capita GDP was a paltry $1,500, which placed Nigeria in the same unproductive bracket as India and Ghana. As if that was not bad enough, some misguided Nigerians developed the pernicious habit of holding up the economies of those two countries as models of growth and stability.

    Now we know that Nigeria’s per capital GDP stands at $2,989, places it well outside their league. The acronym BRIC once designated the rising global economic bloc comprising Brazil, Russia, India and China. Then, it was enlarged to BRICS, to accommodate South Africa and, it would now seem in retrospect, to spite Nigeria.

    With the galloping profile of Nigeria’s economy as revealed by the recent rebasing, global leaders of economic thought are set to drop South Africa from that league and replace it with Nigeria, which they consider more worthy of the distinction. With that change, and in the interest of euphony, I gather from the best authorities that the league will henceforth be known as BRINC.

    Good riddance, then, to South Africa, the upstart that was always thumbing its ungrateful post-apartheid nose at the Big Benefactor up North. Living well, it has been said, is the best revenge. So out with BRICS, and in with BRINC.

    For decades, the conventional wisdom was that the manufacturing sector in Nigeria was in great distress if not positively doomed, and that some industries were relocating to Ghana where the business climate was allegedly more friendly. Everyone blamed the epileptic power supply for the poor state of manufacturing

    The rebasing shows indeed that manufacturing has suffered a decline, but not to the extent of validating the conventional wisdom that the power supply, especially electricity, is a cardinal factor in the calculus of economic growth and development. .

    In the United States where power supply is guaranteed round the clock except in the face of the direst disasters, Wall Street erupts in champagne-drenched celebration and the stock market index rises sharply if the economy manages to record a 2 percent growth.

    But in Nigeria where power is severely rationed if and when it is available, the economy has been growing at a pace more than three time faster than that of the United States. And whereas manufacturing is in precipitous decline in the United States, in Nigeria it has taken only a 50 percent tumble.

    Meanwhile, following the rebasing, it has come to light not merely that the economy has all the while been growing at a dizzying, superheated 7 percent a year.

    It follows, then, that the importance of electricity has been vastly exaggerated.The question must now be asked: Who needs a steady power supply when the economy is growing at such a furious gallop?

    Conventional wisdom has also been upended in many other areas of the economy, following the rebasing. The rate of employment used to be considered an indication of the health of the economy. Employment increased as the economy grew, they said. But the Nigerian example shows conclusively that jobless rate can actually increase sharply or stay stagnant even as economy expands.

    So, why make a fetish of job creation? Why take up all that trouble and expend so much imagination cooking numbers reflecting progress in job creation when the economy is doing just fine without it? Why the national lament that more than half a million persons subjected themselves to accidental death crippling exertions to fill 4,000 advertised positions – why bemoan this when the economy is growing at such a breath-taking pace?

    Again, they used to claim that you cannot build a strong economy without a good road network and sound transportation system. But our rebased economy has just debunked that claim by building the world’s 26th largest economy without freight trains and without anything that can be called water transportation, propelled only by express passenger trains that take a whole day to travel the roughly 240km from Lagos to Ilorin?

    Who really needs all that infrastructure? Certainly not the economy.

    Consider yet another factor that economists are always trumpeting as indispensable to growth and development: stability. As far as I know, nobody has ever accused Nigeria of pursuing, much less attaining, stability. Everywhere you turn – in the neighbourhoods, on the highways, in the professions, in the universities, in the policy establishments, in the motor parks, in police stations and army barracks and even in the precincts of the Presidential Villa, instability reigns.

    To cite practical examples from the policy establishment: One day they are banning rice imports to conserve foreign exchange and encourage local industry. The next day, they undo the ban, saying that only big-time smugglers are profiting from it.

    Again, one day they ban wheat imports and declare that cassava bread will replace wheat bread as the favourite item on the nation’s breakfast table; the next day, they launch a national wheat-production programme.

    But the really exciting thing is that, far from acting as a brake on economic growth, instability has actually been a spur.

    There is no other way to explain the robust expansion the rebased economy has witnessed in two decades of acute instability. It will come as no surprises if it turned out on further rebasing that the North-east and the Plateau-Bauchi axis constitute the fastest-growing and most productive regions in Nigeria.

    In light of these profound insights that rebasing the economy has yielded and many others that I cannot do justice to in this piece, economists will have to rework – beg your pardon one more time — rebase, recalibrate, readjust or re-whatever their old theories and revise the standard texts.

     

    From Himself the Igodomigodo

    “My Own Big Brother,

    “I called your line yesterday to show my cornucopious appreciation to you for your munificent words and the very nice things you said of me in your hebdomadal pantagruelian and yet dialectical didactic (pardon my alliteration) column (“To Patrick Obahagbon, from a kindred soul,” April 7, 2014).

    “The panegyrics coming from a literary avatar and a sui generis lollapalloza that I have admired his inimitable, intrepid and polyvalent style for a period of aeon was an anodyne for me.

    “I thank you for everything and may your utilitarian pen never suffer any hiatus or atrophy.

    “Thanks my Senior Brother. I will keep in touch.”

    Say it for the Hon Patrick Obahiagbon. He never disappoints.

  • NIS tragedy and our faltering democracy

    Despair. That’s the stomach churning feeling you get when you hear terrible news. Despondency, anguish and misery are other appropriate words. When you hear of young men and women being trampled to death under the soles of their compatriots, it sucks the hope out of you like a vacuum connected to your innards. If your imagination is vivid and automatically stimulated, you immediately imagine the scene, the screams, and the horror. If you are obligatorily empathic, you put yourself under the shoes- the tennis shoes, the ’Nikes’ and the boots. You feel them on your back and in your eyes, in your crotch and on your knees. You realize you are dying but you wonder what will kill you- would it be the feet cracking your skull or the bodies falling on you and trapping the air in your lungs. You start to shout and that’s the last mistake you will ever make.

    Without attempting to speak for most people, it clear that the varying reactions by the different arms of the Nigerian government so far, to the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) tragedies fall short of the ideals of democracy and are therefore unsatisfactory. At the risk of sounding like a typical bad belle Nigerian who never sees anything right in the actions of those in power, I am going to explain my continued discontent.

    A proper place to begin will be to tackle the opposition. In a working democracy, the role of the opposition goes beyond shouting criticisms; it includes displaying alternatives and proffering solutions. There are several states run by opposition parties in this country yet all states have equally dire levels of unemployment and underemployment. Since job creation is not only the business of the federal government, states that are equally failing to provide jobs clearly lack the moral standing to criticize the federal government.

    More disheartening is the response of the National Assembly. The peculiar case of the Nigerian legislature can be illustrated with the example of a certain businessman having two employees. The first earns eight million naira for every eighty thousand earned by the other but they somehow end up doing the same work. This example describes the ridiculous inefficiency displayed by the National Assembly when it responds to multiple manslaughters by investigation. Why would the National Assembly have committees carrying out investigations that should be carried out by purpose trained policemen and for much less? Why have they taken the jobs of the police and left their main duties of legislating unfulfilled? Investigations are necessary because they could result in justice for the deceased; however appropriate legislations which could prevent likely reoccurrences are equally important.

    We need new laws, urgently, quickly and with lightning speed. We need comprehensive laws regulating the practice of recruitment in Nigeria. In spite of the abysmal organization of the tragic NIS interviews, the situation was made far worse by the several thousands of graduates who in spite of not being invited to the interviews, made their way there. The law should also proscribe the practice currently prevalent of employers inviting sometimes as high as 50 times more interviewees for the position needed. A situation where 90% of persons attending an interviewing have no chance of getting the job, means 90% of those people will have spent time, money and hope on very poor odds. Can you imagine being unemployed for over two years and part of that 90% forty times, How desperate will you be? Job seekers in Nigeria deserve better.

    Reluctantly I write about the executive, as reluctantly as a teacher will speak against that nice student impeded by cognitive disabilities. The federal government’s attempt at ‘placating the mob’, is of the regretfully funny variety.

    The basic rule of natural justice is a man should not be a judge in his own matter. This simply means that in any situation where one party is both the accused and the judge, what results cannot be called justice. Therefore, when through direct actions of the executive, young Nigerians die, how can anyone applaud the attempts of the same executive at adjudicating the matter?

    Inherent in a democracy are checks and balances; executive corruption or negligence cannot be tamed by that same executive in a working democracy. If the President wanted to resolve the issue speedily out of the respect for the deceased, the appropriate response will be admitting fault (civil responsibility) and then referring affected persons to the courts for identification and compensation. The courts are more equipped to determine what constitutes appropriate and sufficient compensation. The executive attempt is poorly thought out and has added more confusion to the system.

    Fellow Nigerians, for the love of all that is sane, when did automatic employment become a method of compensation? We have gotten ourselves in these quagmires as a country, as a result of people being in public positions for reasons other than merit. This has to stop. Death of a family member is not enough reason to deny better qualified people the jobs they deserve. We cannot encourage excellence when our system does nothing to reward it. How can we encourage our children to be their academic bests when every other reason but merit is the criteria for employment?

    More importantly, there are several principles guiding the award of damages/compensation in cases of wrongful death. Imagine that one of the deceased was an only child; can employment given to three family members of that family have the same effect as another family with seven unemployed children? Imagine again that one of the deceased was educated up to PhD level and another was an SSCE holder; is justice served if both families get the same compensation? There are many more questions the executive is not equipped to consider let alone answer. This is the job of the judiciary.

    However, the real culprit in all these, the agent of the state worth picketing is the Nigerian police. When citizens of a country die obviously non-natural deaths, it should go without saying that such deaths be investigated. Investigation should uncover cause and criminal responsibility. Every individual whose act or negligence caused those deaths should be held accountable; everyone from the officer/consultant who planned an exercise with such soaring levels of disregard for public safety, to the officers who whipped people with belts allegedly setting off the stampede. This is why we have laws and a police force.

    Democracy is beyond elections no matter how free and fair. It is a system with basic principles and specialized institutions. Demanding excellence and precision from our institutions is the only way to strengthen democracy. Our current political situation is in the truest sense the Kantian barbarism, worse, it is an elected barbarism. The ‘democracy’ of ants in a colony is ten times more admirable. This is the sad truth.

    • Ms Abraham a lawyer, lives in Abuja

     

  • To Patrick Obahiagbon, from a kindred soul

    To Patrick Obahiagbon, from a kindred soul

    This correspondence has long been in contemplation.

    Taxonomically, we cannot be classified as ornithological specimens. But you and I nevertheless share an identity of plumage in the sense that we have an abiding passion for the word, whether scripted or merely verbalized. This shared identity inclines us ineluctably, as the saying goes, to congregate in the same proximity.

    I take the opportunity of this long-delayed correspondence, then, to impart the intelligence that I have long been captivated by the lexical dexterity, the hyperpolysyllabicsesquipedalian magniloquence that distinguished your orations on the floor of the House of Representatives in Abuja and other platforms.

    The National Assembly building, vaguely evocative of the architecture of Augustan Rome, was supposed to radiate the aura of that epoch and capture something of the oratory for which it was justly celebrated. But that was for the most part a forlorn expectation.

    You were the singular exception. In oration after oration, you mesmerized not just the House but the entire nation with your penetrating insights on a catholic range of issues, employing locutions that at once delighted, befuddled, entertained, instructed, and titillated.

    Imagine, therefore, my discombobulation when, as a result of one of the perversities often thrown up by the process that is the preoccupation of psephologists, we found ourselves bereft of your perorations from that hallowed Assembly.

    Since that lamentable discontinuity, nary a lexical spark to has been uttered on the floor or in committee to animate proceedings or galvanize the Assembly to rousing ratiocinations on the issues convulsing the polity. I harbor not the slightest doubt that a tracking poll would have registered a precipitous fall in public interest in the proceedings of the House from the moment it was deprived of your inspired and inspiring contributions on account of the perversity aforementioned.

    Since then, you have only fleetingly and all too rarely favoured us with those breath-taking flights of oratorical virtuosity that distinguished you from your pathetically earth-bound contemporaries in and outside the Legislative Branch.

    Drawing only on my personal recollection, I would say that you have rendered us very few such favours since the January 2012 public uprising against a phantom oil subsidy the Jonathan Administration, laboring under a misapprehension and hobbled by its overweening profligacy, asserted that it was going to eliminate.

    Such gratuitous provocation surely warranted a comprehensive deployment of the biggest artillery pieces in your lexical depository, and you delivered magnificently in a spirited intervention that transported one right back to those halcyon days in the House.

    “I have read with acatalectic disgust, governments asinine and puerile ratiocinations attempting to justiceate the proposed removal of subsidies from petroleum products,” you declared. “It has asseverated that its intentions are guided by the need to checkmate the odoriferous excesses of a Machiavellian and Mephistophelean cabal and I have said to myself, what a shame? What a self- indicting admittal of the failure of governance? What a hocus pocus? What an anathematous disdain for its citizenry?”

    Exactly my own cogitations on that vexatious issue.

    Those who cannot disentangle the rich layers of this lexical package to savour its even richer content can only excoriate themselves for committing their time and leisure to less ennobling pursuits than total and sustained immersion in a standard dictionary of the English language.

    Such people deserve no commiseration whatsoever. Let them make the dictionary their inseparable accoutrement as is your custom if they want to be worthy of your attention.

    There was also your posthumous disquisition of like vintage on the transition of the novelist, human rights crusader and stalwart of the university lecturers’ union ASUU.

    “The grand initiation of Professor Festus Iyayi is a lancinating loss of another stentorian voice, against retrograde and prebendal forces of primitive mercantilism. That he passed through transition on matters pro bono publico, bears eloquent testimony to our state of dystopia. Such is the evanescence of life. It’s all vanitas vanitatum.”

    No amplification is required here; res ipsa locutur.

    Between the misconceived effort to eliminate a phantom oil subsidy and the demise of Iyayi, a glut of occurrences, a concatenation that is all too emblematic of the Nigerian condition, eventuated. But the public could not avail itself of your profound insights, your unique summative skills and the forensic proclivities that would have illuminated the occurrences to the point of incandescence.

    To take as a point of departure the wanton provocation of attempting to eliminate a bogus subsidy: You will recall that, to assuage public denunciation of the galactic expenditure on the president’s foreign travel, Dr Goodluck Jonathan had solemnly covenanted to curtail his peregrinations.

    That has gone down as another vacuous vow. Since then, he has grown exponentially more peripatetic, to the point that the 10 executive jets in his fleet — Air Jonathan, as some call it — can no longer accommodate his wanderlust. How did we land ourselves with another walkabout president?

    Only a perspicacious commentator gifted with your formidable lexical and forensic skills can do justice to this executive restiveness and its attendant consequences.

    Then there is the case of the minister, since defenestrated in a cabinet shuffle, and the armoured limousines she corralled agencies under her supervision to buy for her private use. Sustained demands for her dismissal fell on Aso Rock’s insentient tympanum, despite all its orchestrated ululation about fighting corruption.

    Something tells me that your forceful intervention, delivered in locution that can move mountains, would have compelled the minister aforementioned to resign soon after the scandal broke, or driven Dr Jonathan to such high dudgeon that he would have convened a world press conference to personally announce her dismissal.

    You would have denounced in the most stirring anti-colonial, anti-neocolonial, anti- imperialist language that Kwame Nkrumah would have been proud to claim as his own the very thought of celebrating the centenary of the dysfunctional polity Lord Lugard’s mistress christened Nigeria. On Boko Haram, you would have exhausted the vocabulary on nihilism.

    On the Forest of Horrors recently uncovered near the Ibadan, just across from Nigeria’s busiest highway, and I suspect you would have dug deep to disinter from your repertory imprecations that would make those in the Old Testament sound like benedictions..

    Which brings me, finally to the on-going confabulation in Abuja that is now called, not from an excess of admiration, I hasten to asseverate, the Jonathan National Conference (JNC for short). What do you make of its omnivorous inclusiveness, its inchoate agenda, and the obscene financial recompense pressed on the participants, many of whom pass their time sleeping or bickering over free food?

    What is your construction on the “consensus” that is supposed to undergird decision-making at the confab? One commentator obviously lacking your analytical rigour and lexical acuity has called it “programmed gridlock.” I am sure you will have exploded, as only you can, the inanity of the whole thing and pointed out that if a consensus existed or could be fabricated on the key issues of national existence, there would have been no need for a conference

    It is deeply to be regretted that your on-going exertions as Chief of Staff to His Excellency the Comrade Governor of Edo State Adams Oshiomhole have bequeathed you scant amplitude to share with the public your reflections on the issues of the moment.

    Personally, I take consolation from the intelligence that you are keeping a private journal with your characteristic verve and lucidity, and that it will be made available to the attentive public as soon as you can extricate yourself from the labyrinthine bureaucracy of Edo State.

    Meanwhile, Igodomigodo, fraternal felicitations. Fraternal regards to the Comrade Governor.

     

  • 2015: Playing the religion card

    2015: Playing the religion card

    Getting to know how many we are in Nigeria is a big problem. Even after many head counts we still cannot agree on the true size of our population. Not even the Federal Government can say confidently the number of people occupying this vast expanse of land called Nigeria. What a shame.

    While the importance of an accurate census cannot be overemphasized, suffice to say that census is very crucial to any effective programme planning and implementation, especially by the government.

    Why we seem incapable of getting our population census right beats one’s imagination. And while several reasons have been adduced for this failure, the tying of resource allocation to states and local governments to the size of their population has been a big hindrance to accurate census. States and local governments are encouraged by this to inflate their population in order to get more resources from the federation account. You may take this as the economic reason.

    But there is also the political reason. The bigger the size of the population of a state the bigger the size of its electorate, and if you stretch it further, the bigger it’s political power, influence and clout at the national level, hence the perennial battle between Lagos and Kano States over which is the most populated in Nigeria. This could also determine the number of House of Representatives seat at the National Assembly allocated to each state.

    While the jostle for more money and stronger political voice by the states at the federal level, using population figures could be considered as ‘healthy’ the one that is most disturbing is the throwing of religion into the equation by politicians. The battle now is which religion between Islam and Christianity has more followers in the country. While some Muslim leaders say Islam holds the edge, their Christian counterparts believe they are in the majority.

    And you know why they are saying this? Just for political gain. The other day a delegation of Muslims were at the Villa to see President Goodluck Jonathan and one of their complaints was that Muslims (who according to them are in the majority in Nigeria) are being shortchanged in this country and they cited the composition of the ongoing national conference which they said was skewed in favour of the Christians. Some christian leaders, especially since Jonathan became president, have been shouting from the roof top claiming marginalization (of Christians) all this while (pro-Jonathan) and threatening all sort if the president was not returned in 2015.

    The latest of this dangerous religious card being played by politicians is the likely Muslim/Muslim presidential ticket the main opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) is being speculated as planning for the 2015 presidential election. The two national leaders of the party and its leading lights, Alhaji Mohammadu Buhari and Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu are Muslims and are both being tipped as presidential and vice presidential candidates of the party in next year’s election.

    The social media has gone into overdrive since the speculation surfaced in the main stream media over the weekend and from the tone of the discussion the neutrals might be inclined to think that Nigeria is on the brink of a religious war. Far from it. But I doubt whether their is anybody out there without a position on the likely presidential ticket of the two leading parties in 2015.

    While common sense dictates that the parties will strike a balance between Christians and Muslims in their choice of candidates to run for the offices of president and vice president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 2015, the elite who are fanning the embers of religious division within the polity should be careful lest they get consumed by the fire they are stoking.

    Rather than promoting ethnic and religious division among Nigerians, these self centered elite should be talking about good governance and which candidate(s) is/are best suited for the job at hand in 2015: leading Nigeria into the promised land.

    I don’t know what a Muslim/Muslim or a Christian/Christian presidency could do to improve the lot of the average Nigerian and indeed the entire country if the leaders so elected in 2015 turned out to be bad. What advantage accrued to Christians as a body with the Obasanjo presidency and what did the Muslims get exclusively under the Yar’Adua presidency? Those who benefitted were members of the ruling cabal (both in politics and business) drawn from the two main religions. For every Aliko Dangotes that was there during Obasanjo and Yar’Adua there was a Femi Otedola. Which common man or poor man did you see with them then? I am just using these two successful businessmen and their likes to illustrate the fact that our leaders are drawn together more by interest rather than religion and their decisions are made along that line. How to reverse this trend should be our concern.

    Religion is a very delicate and dangerous issue that our leaders should not mix with politics. Any politician or leader who loves Nigeria would not mix the two. While Christianity is very well entrenched in the Southeast/Southsouth and the Middle Belt regions, Islam is the main religion in the north while the two religions coexists peacefully in the Southwest. So much has been said about religious tolerance in the Southwest that some are recommending the region as a model to other parts of the country. The truth is that in Yorubaland our culture and tradition are considered sacrosanct almost above Christianity and Islam. Here religion is personal and one is expected to tolerate the other person’s faith as long as it does not affect the free flow of society.

    But this culture of religious tolerance is being stretched by politicians bent on grabbing power in the region at all cost and by all means. And this is dangerous for Yorubaland and may be Nigeria.

    Most of the states in the Southwest have majority Muslim population yet our leaders have been Christians and nobody cared. From Chief Obafemi Awolowo to Pa Adekunle Ajasin, Pa Abraham Adesanya, Chief Bola Ige et al, were all Christians and damn good leaders too. And the people followed them. Since the advent of democracy, the governorship of the states in the region has been rotating between Christians and Muslims while in a few of the states one religion has been in charge of the government house for a longer period. To the ordinary person on the street, this does not matter as long as the government is performing. But these desperate politicians are not seeing it that way; to them it is the turn of our faith to produce the next governor. This is the card some politicians are playing in Lagos State now as we move towards the 2015 governorship election in the state.

    The incumbent Raji Fashola, a Muslim is not eligible for re-election as he would be completing his two terms of eight years next year and there is a clamour for a Christian to replace him. There is nothing bad in that if you ask me but then the primary consideration in searching for his successor should not be religion. Who can sustain what is on ground in Lagos and even surpass Fashola’s achievements should be uppermost in the minds of those searching for his successor, if the person happens to be a Christian, fine, fantastic. There are Christians who can do it if the leaders search well and the electorate approve.

    Lagos has been a model in Nigeria in so many respect and should remain so. Nothing should be done to derail the centre of excellence. Need I say the health of Lagos is the health of Nigeria?

    Back to Abuja and the Jonathan’s national conference. It would be good if the delegates could resolve the issue of religion and it’s place in our national life. There is so much talk about Nigeria being a secular state yet our leaders still use state resources to sponsor religious activities. Pilgrimages should be a private affair, left in the hands of the religious bodies set up by the faithful. Government needs only to set up the guidelines and get involved only when consular matters crop up. The amount of money government spends on pilgrimages is one of the reasons these religious groups/bodies are clamouring for one of their own to be in government. If this kind of attraction is no longer there, may be the agitation would wane. May be.

     

  • Magicians of Abuja

    After the pictorial testimonial of March 15 showing hundreds of thousands of our youths swarming on stadia across the country for the Nigeria Immigrations Service jobs, I could not imagine any official treating Nigerians so soon to meaningless statistical platitudes on the economy let alone one seeking to paint a picture as distinct from reality as the latest one on the rebasing of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Not even the characterisation of Nigeria as a nation of anything goes would explain the wild exultations going on in Abuja over the routine statistical exercise which aside from changing nothing, actually adds pretty little to the knowledge on the Nigerian economy than is not already familiar.

    Courtesy of the rebasing exercise, it is like Abuja has suddenly struck diamonds. The economy of the giant in the African sun is not just pronounced as standing pretty tall at $432 billion, it is now deemed to have finally outperformed that of its nemesis -South Africa’s with the GDP of $370 billion. For this, we are supposed to owe a debt of thanks to the sleep-walkers at the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS), for rousing from their Rip van Winkle sleep to give Nigerians an updated GDP which matches their political masters’ version of the Nigerian Reality!

    No one should miss what is clearly at the heart of the current obsession with phantom growth by the African giant. It is called hubris. The pattern is by now familiar: the claim about an economy which has maintained a steady growth path averaging seven percent per annum for over a decade. To the Abuja magic has now been added the rebasing arithmetic of throwing the hordes of ‘under-accounted’ sectors like telecommunications, the entertainment and the broadcasting into the mix to give a more realistic sector of the whole package! Talk of wuruwuru to the answer!

    The charade must be seen for what it is – a fraud. First, if it is any revealing, it is quantum of catch-up that the managers have to do in terms of their ability to grapple with the dynamics of the Nigerian economy over which they claim to superintend; second is the ignoble agenda of turning what appears to be an institutional lacuna into some advantage.

    I could cite nearly half a dozen reasons why the hype and the needless ball in Abuja ought to have been more restrained – or better still – tempered. To start with, the investing world knows the Nigerian economy far more than the managers would care to admit. They appreciate the huge population size – the dormant potentials waiting to be tapped. They know the strengths and the weakness of the economy and the relative opportunities these present – the moribund state of the infrastructure; the harsh reality of doing business, the dearth of critical skills in the economy, the corruption, the red tape and the countless policies which impede business. They are familiar with the state of our agriculture and the difficulties facing the sector.

    Indeed, if the latest unflattering scorecard from the World Bank which ranks Nigeria among the countries harbouring the highest number of the poor on the universe is any instructive, it is to the effect that the world knows us more than we seem to know ourselves – far more than a dozen rebasing exercise could ever wash!

    I couldn’t therefore agree more with Bismarck Rewane – the chief executive officer of Financial Derivatives when he described the rebasing exercise as moving from reality to vanity. To that I may well add – delusion. Of all the reasons cited for the hoopla about the imperative of the rebasing exercise, the only one that appears to make some sense is that of the Debt to GDP ratio which is now evidently in favour of more ratcheting more debts as elections approach!

    All of this no doubt goes to show how far Abuja remains detached from the reality on the Main Street. Delusion is when a country like Nigeria with a population more three times that of South Africa but whose per capita income is barely a third of the latter claims to have its economy bigger in size. Ever heard of market without effective demand – or disposable incomes?

    Clearly, if the issue were simply about statistics, Nigeria ought to have arrived at the Eldorado by now. In the last decade, Nigeria has probably pumped more oil and sold at higher price than the two decades before it. Of course, the result in terms of how many has been lifted from poverty has been most disappointing.

    While our policy wonks in Abuja have been content to chase inflation, stable exchange rates – the real enablers of the economy, the critical pillars on which a modern economy can be erected have been left unattended to. Whether the issue is transportation infrastructure, power and aviation, the story of slow but steady regression is almost the same. Nigerians have no need for the dubious statistics of a rebasing than they are ready to make sense of the decade of growth without the human component of development.

    By the way, who wants the number one position in Africa anyway? A number one that imports anything from textiles to automobiles to basic consumer goods? A country where 80 percent struggle to make ends meet? A country whose educational sector lies in ruins? And where the young, in search of elusive jobs routinely end up in the morgue? Is that what Abuja magic all about?