The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tuesday

Corruption: The EU to the rescue

The Jonathan Administration must feel sorely disappointed, if not mightily frustrated, that despite all its ringing declamations against corruption in public life and the valiant measures it has taken to curb it, the pestilence has shown no sign of abating

Well might the situation remind Dr Jonathan himself, a keen student of international literature, according to unimpeachable sources, of the Red Queen’s race in Wonderland, in which a participant has to run twice as hard just to stay in the same place. What makes it particularly galling here is that the place in question is not the head of the pack but the bottom of the league.

And every December, Transparency International (TI) drives home the point with pitiless monotony. In its survey for 2013, it ranked Nigeria 144th out of 177 nations under review, a slippage of two percentage points below the 2012 mark, when it was bracketed with Cameroun and Central African Republic. Earlier TI surveys going back to 2006 had placed Nigeria alarmingly close to the bottom of the world’s most corrupt nations.

Now, reprieve and redemption have come from the least expected source — the European Union, no less.

Corruption in the 28 countries of the EU is costing European taxpayers about €120bn (£100bn) a year, the equivalent of the Union’s annual budget, its Commissioner for Home Affairs, Cecilia Malmström, revealed in Brussels last week.

“There are no corruption-free zones in Europe,” Ms Malmström said. “We are not doing enough. That’s true for all member states.”

To phrase the matter in a lexical context that the attentive Nigerian audience will understand, corruption is a cankerworm that has eaten deep into the fabric of the European Community.

And what does the EU plan to do about it?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Malmström noted that declared intentions to combat corruption in EU countries had not produced concrete results, and that the political will to eradicate it was lacking,” but added: “We do not propose any sanctions at all. Or laws.”

So, there you have it. The EU is teetering under the weight of corruption, to the value of its entire budget for one year. But it cannot bestir itself to come up with the appropriate sanctions.

And yet, its representatives in Abuja are forever lecturing Nigeria on good governance and accountability and transparency and all that. At the slightest provocation and often with no provocation at all, they are asking awkward questions about what Nigeria has done with financial and other kinds of aid from the EU and about how business is done in Nigeria, the object being to uncover evidence of corruption.

When next EU officials go sniffing around Abuja or asking awkward questions, the Presidency’s most combative spokesperson – Prince Dr Doyin Okupe, where have you been? – should say again of the EU what U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said the other day while criticising the Union’s dilatoriness on the crisis in Ukraine.

Ordinarily, this column would not counsel a resort to expletives, this being a newspaper for the entire family, enjoined to dwell only on whatsoever is of good report. But the EU has to be told clearly and unambiguously that Nigeria will no longer put up with its carping, especially in this year of our Glorious Centenary.

Nobody denies that corruption is a problem in Nigeria. Yes, there are no reliable studies to go by. But not even the nation’s most unyielding critics have ever suggested, much less asserted as the official investigation into corruption in the EU has done, that the equivalent of the entire federal budget in Nigeria is lost to corruption. In fact, according to the best authorities, only a negligible slice of the federal budget is lost to corruption

So, what can the EU teach Nigeria about transparency and accountability?

Even in the much-maligned petroleum industry, the most jaundiced estimates put the volume of production lost to theft and other forms of corruption at no more than 40 percent of total output. That is a far cry from the equivalent of the EU’s budget for a whole year that is lost to sleaze.

Consider, next, petroleum revenues, an issue that has been generating heated controversy lately. First, Central Bank governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, claimed that U.S. $49.8 billion in oil receipts was “missing,” presumably stolen. Through painstaking reconciliation by all parties concerned, that figure was whittled down to a mere U.S. $10.8 billion, roughly one-fourth of the original figure, nothing remotely close to the 100 percent of its annual budget that the EU loses to corruption.

It turned out that even this smaller amount was never missing. It represents operational costs and is duly accounted for in records that anyone can inspect – anyone who can read a ledger, unlike Malam Sanusi and his fellow alarmists at the Central Bank.

Even if the U.S. $49.8 billion he reported “missing” is actually missing, that would still not be justification for all the hectoring from the EU. For it amounts to only a piddling fraction of total revenue for the reporting period, not the totality of NNPC’s earnings, much less the entire federal budget for a year.

And whereas the EU has decided to make peace with the corruption choking it, Nigeria has been tackling the problem frontally and with iron resolve. Wherever a hint of corruption has been uncovered, it has been thoroughly investigated; the findings have been subjected to further investigation, and the recommendations have been reviewed by panel after panel, to ensure the utmost transparency.

If you do not follow the highest standards of transparency while investigating corruption, you merely perpetuate corruption. That is the error they fall into – those calling for the dismissal of the Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Oduah, on no firmer ground than the alleged purchase of two armoured limousines for her personal use, allegedly with public funds.

Left to such people, the Minister should have been dismissed the moment the allegations surfaced more than four months ago. But a government sworn to transparency cannot do that. It chose the infinitely more transparent course of entrusting the preliminary investigation to one panel, the substantive investigation to another panel, and the definitive investigation to yet another panel.

Right now, unknown to all the agitators, a panel is collating the results of these investigations, the findings of the National Assembly investigating panel, and the report of the anti-corruption watchdog EFCC. Thereafter, another panel will review the collated report and forward it to the panel that will ultimately send it up to the Presidency.

That is just one example of the determined manner in which Nigeria is tackling official graft. The EU could learn a thing or two here if it were not so closed-minded.

The same procedure is being followed in the investigation of the accounts of the NNPC, and of what some unimaginative reporters have called subsidy-gate, through which some misguided individuals and corporate bodies – the kind of persons that abound even in the EU — reportedly collected billions of Naira as payment for imported gasoline that was allegedly not supplied.

These things take time. The important thing is that, unlike the EU, Nigeria is not folding its hands in abject surrender to corruption.

February 11, 2014
Ige: 12 years after

Just as well Prof. Isaac Adewole, vice chancellor of the University of Ibadan, caused it to be announced that he had no hand in shutting the event from Trenchard Hall, the advertised venue. It eventually held at the Students Events Centre, the university’s old central cafeteria.

The story was that first, Trenchard Hall; then, the UI Conference Centre, were denied the organisers of the two-day events marking 12 years after the assassination of Chief Bola Ige, SAN. That political colossus, UI alumnus and former federal attorney-general was killed on 23 December 2001.

Trenchard Hall was to host the symposium on February 4 after the showing, at the UI Arts Theatre the previous evening, of Ofin-Ga, a film written by Prof. Akinwunmi Isola, famed scholar, cultural activist and Yoruba language purist.

Prof. Isola chaired the symposium, with twin topics: “Impacts of Unresolved Political Assassinations on Future Elections and on Nigeria’s Security” and “National Conference according to Bola Ige’s Dream”. The Bola Ige Centre for Justice, anchored by Awa Bamiji organised the event, in concert with the university’s Students Union elements.

The story, therefore, was that not a few hearts skipped, among the university’s management, at the horror of the event turning explosively political, with the Jonathan Presidency getting hit.

For one, Bamiji, who goes by the pre-fix “Comrade”, was likely to attract starry-eyed ideologues and fire-blazing cadres from the students’ Aluta column, irreverent folks who love to work themselves into a lather mouthing socialist slogans, denouncing the extant “decadent” order.

For another, the twin topics were explosively suggestive: one amplifying the notorious fact that Bola Ige’s killers have still not been brought to book, some 12 years after; and the other suggesting the imminent National Conference was the latest fakery, contrasted to the classic Sovereign National Conference (SNC), which Ige and kindred spirits espoused.

But thank God the vice chancellor was trenchant he was no part of the alleged Trenchard conspiracy. The rumoured reason was scandalous: that it could turn political; and some presidential folks could be embarrassed.

It would have been embarrassing that after 66 years, UI, Nigeria’s premier university, had not evolved a culture robust enough to handle partisan political exchanges, without top management hearts quacking. That simply cannot be true! Every university ought to allow equal opportunity access to all shades of political opinions, making it a hub of ideas.

But the organisers’ odyssey was not limited to alleged administrators’ nerves. Aside from Osun Governor, Rauf Aregbesola, who sent a representative, Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG) Chairman, Wale Oshun, one of the guest speakers, represented by Comrade Laoye Sanda, and Prince Tajudeen Olusi, who also sent a representative, none of the advertised political heavyweights showed up. Even for a Bola Ige memorial, governance was enough distraction!

None of the biological Iges was there too.

But neither of these dampened the zest of the organisers nor the admirable commitment to the memorial, by the cultured old guard, led by the taciturn Prof. Isola, the chairman at the symposium, whose cultural activism nevertheless shone through, as he challenged speakers who could, to make their presentations in Yoruba, as Bola Ige would flawlessly have done if he had wished!

Indeed, the mix was quintessential Bola Ige: cultured old folks and aspiring young Turks, all fired by the ardour for progressive thinking, the zeal for a cultured society and the drive for governance devoted to the social welfare of the mass of the people; and total commitment to the Jeremy Bentham credo of the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

Indeed, the parade was intimidating in its cultured temper: Prof. Isola, Retired Methodist Archbishop, Ayo Ladigbolu, Baale of Ekotedo, Ibadan, Pa Taiye Ayorinde (who, in response to the compeer addressing him as “chief”, insisted the nearest English equivalent of Baale was Duke, since the Baale installs chiefs; but added Baale was Baale and would rather be addressed by simply that!), Prof. Kola Ogundowole, ace Yoruba poet, Chief Tunbosun Oladapo, Dr. Wale Okediran, the famous medic with literary blood coursing in his veins, Comrade Moshood Erubami, Comrade Laoye Sanda (who represented Hon. Wale Oshun), Princess Bisi Sangodoyin and Comrade Gbenga Awosode, among others.

At the film show, the previous evening, were Prof. Ishola, Prof. Oladapo Akinkugbe, emeritus professor of medicine, Dr. Tony Marinho, medic and The Nation weekly columnist, and Prof. Ogundowole among others, despite the film showing at the forecourt of the Arts Theatre, and not inside as advertised.

Of course, the students too came in numbers, both at the film show and at the symposium, a fitting tribute to Ige’s memory, for he was not only a perpetual friend of the youth, he was also their exemplar, to which not a few aspired. Indeed, at the symposium was an Aluta column of students, shouting “vic-to-ry” and whipping up comradely fists.

Still Ige, near-beatified since his tragic death, was all too human.

Like the literary tragic heroes, he fell to no one but hubris. It was hubris that drove Ige to break ranks with his Afenifere family for felt betrayal, after the Alliance for Democracy (AD) caucus presidential primary that rejected him for Chief Olu Falae. That drove him into the conservative camp, which signalled the beginning of the end.

Even more tragic, it was hubris that made him shunt aside the dire warning, by a loyal aide, Alhaji Kayode Adekojo (who spoke at the symposium), that death lurked that night, if Ige slept in his Ibadan home.

Alhaji Adekojo claimed he had seen Ige’s killing in a trance; and tried to dissuade his boss from sleeping at home or, if he insisted, offered to serve as spiritual bulwark against the would-be killers. Ige dismissed both offers, despatching him instead to distribute Christmas turkey to Governor Lam Adesina and some other local VIPs. Less than two hours after parting between boss and aide, however, Ige’s first-born and daughter, Funso, reportedly called Adekojo that his dire dream had come to pass!

Still, that was Ige, the human. In Ige, the near-divine, all the tragic dross of human foibles is gone. What is left is the quintessence: the one that is dead and yet lives; a true hero whose essence transcends his immediate family; and is proudly owned by a doting community, for generations to come. That is indeed the fundament of greatness.

As to be expected, therefore, the bitterness that Ige’s killers still walk free remains undiminished; and resonated all through the two-day event.

But there is great comfort — and that comfort is not cold at all! — that though Ige died but still lives, those associated with this murder live but have long died!

So, as the Nigerian state lumbers to fish out and punish the killers, and secure justice for its own attorney-general and minister of Justice, let those who believe in the Ige essence champion those ideals he and his progressive Palladium stood for: quality education and health paid for by the state, and an equal-opportunity, just society and a truly productive federal Nigeria.

Nothing less would immortalise Ige.

February 11, 2014
A racist turn in India

The Africans — Nigerians, Ghanaians, Ugandans — began leaving my neighborhood in New Delhi around December. Each week, more and more families exited. Some went to parts of Delhi considered more accepting of Africans; others to areas where the residents were thought to be less interfering in general. I have heard that some of the Ghanaian families had gone back to Africa, but I don’t know that for sure.

For years, they had been a part of the swirl of cultures, languages and races that makes up this part of the capital. The Nigerian women in their bright dresses out for evening strolls and the Cameroonian family with the curious-eyed baby at the ice-cream van had made a life for themselves alongside the Afghans, Tamils and Iranians.

On October 31, about a month before the departures started, a Nigerian national, rumoured to have been in the drug trade, was found dead in Goa. Nigerians in the coastal state protested his murder as an act of racism, while posters read: “We want peace in Goa. Say no to Nigerians. Say no to drugs.” One state minister threatened to throw out Nigerians living illegally. Another equated them with a cancer. He later apologised, adding that he hadn’t imagined there would be a “problem” with his statement.

The controversy has reverberated across the country, including in Delhi, 1,200 miles away, where the tolerance of African neighbours has turned into suspicion and even hostility.

One night, a police constable rang my doorbell. “Have you seen any man from the Congo entering and leaving the building?” he asked. “African man,” he clarified. He said he had received a report that a local resident was friendly with Africans, and he wanted to know, was this true? The question surprised me; neighbourhood battles here are waged over water and parking spaces, not over ethnicity. Now neighbours had become nervous of neighbours.

Once the African communities had been singled out, complaints against them bubbled up like filthy water, in Jangpura, in Khirki Extension, in the alleyways off Paharganj, anywhere in Delhi they lived.

The fragile hospitality gave way to a familiar litany of intolerance: They were too loud, exuberant and dirty; the women were loose, the men looked you directly in the eye, they were drug takers and traffickers, and worse.

Residents of Khirki Extension, whose rambling lanes had seen an influx of artists, journalists and migrants, conducted their own investigation of their African neighbors, which they called the “black beauty” sting.

Coinciding with the city’s darkening mood, the newly elected Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi started a wave of cleanups as part of its mission to control “lawlessness.” The city’s law minister, Somnath Bharti, led a raid into Khirki Extension, claiming to be acting on residents’ complaints that Nigerians and Ugandans were involved in prostitution and drug trafficking. Media reports suggest that on the night of January 15, he entered Africans’ homes with a group of vigilantes, without a warrant. In the fracas, a Ugandan woman was allegedly forced to give a urine sample, on the street, in the middle of the crowd. After she filed a complaint, Delhi’s court ordered the Police Department to pursue her case against Mr. Bharti.

These recent events have awakened dormant prejudices against Africans in India, aggravated by our tendency to prize fair skin over dark. “Habshi,” derived from the word “Abyssinian,” has become a common epithet for people of African descent.

So, on one hand, the racist turn in Delhi and Goa is unsurprising. On the other hand, we have a long, and neglected, history of cross-migration with Africa. While Indians have been settling on that continent since at least the 15th century, African roots in India run even deeper. Africans were brought over in numbers around the 13th century as slaves, but also as generals, guards, merchants, bodyguards and craftsmen. Many never went back. Now tens of thousands are here to study, and others work as chefs and in the garment and textile businesses, among other industries.

Despite our close ties and the shared history of colonialism, Africa doesn’t figure on the Indian map of curiosity and desire. Our admiration of China’s economic prowess is commonplace and unabashed; we are obsessed with the West, in terms of education, ideals of beauty and economic might. But Africa is invisible. Racist views can be spouted without consequence. Africa simply doesn’t matter.

There will be few repercussions for the Aam Aadmi Party if it continues with blanket policies against Africans. The party won on the promise of change, yet here it is, proving that it shares the same blindness as other, older parties.

These days, the Afghans and Indians stroll in my neighbourhood park, enjoying the winter breeze. The Ghanaian and Cameroonian families moved away when their landlords doubled the rent only for them; the young Nigerian women left after one police visit too many.

Delhi’s residents say that the city belongs to everybody, because it belongs to nobody. As Bangalore and Mumbai became insular possessions, with political parties often driving out anyone who was from elsewhere, the capital claimed that it had room for all kinds of migrants, expats and outsiders. If the Aam Aadmi Party continues the divisiveness that older parties have excelled at, we’ll soon find reasons to go after all the people who live differently from “us,” who don’t belong here, who should go back to the places they came from.

February 4, 2014
Aregbe-phobia?

Caveat Emptor: Ripples is friendly to Osun Governor, Rauf Aregbesola’s causes. But that friendship, putting it with a dramatic metaphor, is not carnal.

It is rather based on shared ideals: politics of development, governance of vision, sheer courage of conviction, the grit to think and the passion to do.

But he is no enemy of The Punch newspaper. That, in any case, would be decidedly stupid: how could anyone wilfully block self from a rich spring of news and allied fare?

And vain: who is a mere columnist to contend with the all-mighty Punch, which editorial roar sends presidents diving, governors trembling and ministers grumbling?

But much more than admitted friendship or perceived enmity, Ripples is adamant on good faith, fairness, and decorum, even as the Fourth Estate takes on the other three estates of the realm — no easy chore, to be sure, as many on the other side are simply too stiff-necked, like the annoying Biblical Israelites — on burning national issues.

With profound humility, therefore, and with all due respect to its awesome mental power, The Punch did not manifest much of good faith, fairness or decorum in its latest tango with Governor Aregbesola, by its January 21 editorial: “Aregbesola’s misguided church project.”

Perhaps, the newspaper was well meaning. But by its bad temper, its puritanical air and its dismissive ire, it relegated itself from the majesty of correction in good faith to hectoring in bad faith.

Yet, The Punch was spot on, when it argued that Governor Aregbesola, if he commits public funds to building a Christian worship centre, could not in all good conscience demur if other religious blocs insist on similar treatment. That is a good point which the governor and his advisers would do well to ponder.

Still, there is evidence that The Punch did not fully understand the issue before entering the fray, thereby opening itself to legitimate charges of culpable bias, if not outright spite.

And by sheer ironic justice, look no farther, for this evidence, than Niyi Akinnaso, its own back page columnist, whose piece, “Aregbesola and the political economy of religion”, appeared on January 21, seven days after The Punch editorial.

Mr. Akinnaso demonstrated a more nuanced understanding of the Osun religious ecology and its trinity of faiths: Christianity, Islam and African Traditional Worship, their age-old practices and their staunch adherents; the motive of turning the calling of Osun’s many prophets and pastors to stimulate a repressed local economy; and even a subtle imperative for equal opportunity access to the trinity, in the best tradition of Yoruba religious tolerance and best convention of a secular Constitution serving a multi-religious polity.

If the gods in The Punch Editorial suite would just climb down from their celestial plane, they just might hear the gentle rebuke in Mr. Akinnaso’s concluding sentence: “This puts a major burden on reporters to always look beyond the controversies surrounding well-intentioned projects and not allow their reports to merge with those of the opposition.”

With Mr. Akinnaso referring to previous controversies of an alleged Aregbesola Islamist agenda in Osun and the schools reclassification brouhaha, on which The Punch wrote nay-thundering editorials; and tracing the genesis of the Christian centre in the current excitement, the verdict was genteel but dire: newspaper editorials ought to be driven more by sobriety; less by controversy.

Still, it does not mean that The Punch was wrong in the present case and that Mr. Akinnaso was right — or vice versa. It only means that The Punch and Governor Aregbesola stand on two different pedestals regarding religion and the state.

The Punch — and for good reasons too, given the Nigerian contemporary experience — is short-fused at any state intervention in religious matters. That is legitimate and fair enough.

On the other side, Governor Aregbesola takes an activist view: everything — even religion — needs constructive engagement. That is hardly illegitimate and unfair!

In the case of the Hijra holiday, it is the state bowing to legitimate cravings by Muslims, who first of all are citizens. The same logic holds for the Isese public holiday. Traditional adherents too, the most repressed in Nigeria’s religious cosmos, are first of all citizens! Religious chauvinists could cringe from both holidays. Dogmatic media may thunder their opposition. But none can deny the holidays underscore citizens’ multi-faith rights in a secular republic.

In the tripartite praying sessions at state functions, it is equal access and equal opportunity to all faiths. In the present case of promoting a Christian worship centre, it is the economic motive of using religious activity to stimulate local business.

Indeed, the sheer label of “Christian” or “Muslim” or “pagan” (African religion is no paganism, except in the jaundiced eyes of Western colonisers) is a veritable scarecrow. But what if Osun targets a pot of Diaspora gold from cultural tourism (as indeed, it does); and that is hinged on a calendar of traditional festivals, worship and artefacts, does a parallel Christian or Muslim tourism not make a lot of sense?

And from such tourisms, if the economy takes a healthy jab in the arm and the locals reap the ensuing prosperity, what is wrong with a government making strategic investment in such ventures? The answer perhaps would still be a hideous controversy. But it does not negate the economic sense in strategic investment, even if its emotive face is “religion”.

So, the emotion of religion is sheer dynamite. But not so the reason of it. Therefore, even if The Punch’s radical opposition is hardly illegitimate, it borders on dogma: that penchant to promote a belief to an article of faith and flatly dismiss any contrary view. But history is full of unfair victims of orthodoxy, which nevertheless turned out no more than combative ignorance.

Take Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). In 1632, Galileo declared that the sun, not the earth, was at the centre of the universe. The papal court back then screamed heresy, and sent Galileo to papal Coventry until he died under house arrest in 1642.

But it so happened that Galileo was right and the Roman Catholic Church was wrong. That prompted a Pope John Paul II apology to Galileo in 1992 — three centuries later! But the irreparable harm was done.

The Punch may mean well in its Osun campaigns. But its seeming but disturbing default-setting of presuming Governor Aregbesola means ill by his policies, and rushing to pronounce dire judgment in the most arrogant of tones, even if its editorials betray lack of full understanding of the issues, can only open it to legitimate charges of Aregbe-phobia.

Aregbesola is not totally wrong any more than The Punch is totally right. Both sides can learn a lot from each other by mutual respect and proper understanding of issues.

But perhaps Ripples is too friendly to Aregbesola gubernatorial causes to appreciate the points The Punch espouses. But maybe too, the newspaper is too hostile to give the governor’s policies fair hearing!

February 4, 2014
Whose budget

Against the background of the directive by the leadership of the All Progressive Congress to its members to shun the consideration of the 2014 Budget, our Sunday columnist, Idowu Akinlotan, aka Palladium, had in his usual inimitable style, submitted that the directive by the party was not only wrong-headed, but would at best, supply a cheap alibi for a document that has hardly ever worked, and one which for all practical purposes, is designed to fail.

He simply couldn’t understand why the party would want to be blamed for the farce that was presented in the name of the national budget.

I beg to disagree. I do not accept that simply because money bill is involved, Nigerians cannot be persuaded of the need to appreciate the larger governance issues which underlie the directive. In any case, what the experience of the last 14 years has taught – at least as far as the budget and the budgeting process is concerned – is the need to shun all pretences about the exercise as anything but farcical.

What the APC has done may seem to many as no more than a mere fly in the ointment at this time – an unwelcome distraction to those whose egos are threatened; it seems to me as not just a symbolic but a necessary step to halt the steady descent to fascism. In due season, it might well be part of the effort to locate the budget conundrum within the larger conversation on the polity. It is therefore not a question of settling for a half loaf when there are no guarantees that the loaf on offer is not laden with toxins.

Now, to Budget 2014. I have tried to scan through the 1820-odd pages of the 2014 appropriation bill with planned expenditure of N4.642 trillion of which N3.53 trillion is for recurrent and the balance of N1.1 trillion is for capital spend. Perhaps, if we hadn’t been at this ritual in delusion to the point of making it our lifestyle, we’d probably just ask our lawmakers to do whatever they please while we move on with our lives. Unfortunately, it seems that not a few Nigerians still live in the delusion that the PDP budget would perform the magic that the previous years’ couldn’t hence the uproar.

No doubt, a lot has been written about the profile of the national budget as been out of sync with the demands of an economy that is said to be rapidly modernising. As it is, no longer is the need to pretend about the virtual regression of the exercise into a placebo. Even if we veer off the annual mismatch between recurrent and capital estimates, we are still left with the bizarre assumptions, the in-built entitlements and layers of earmarks that leaves little imagination as to whose interests the document is supposed to serve.

I look at the provisions for the Presidency for instance. At this time, we are supposed to have gone past the need for the 11th super jet for the Presidential fleet for the Big Man under whose watch the economy is said to be growing in leaps and bounds, and yet have left far more people at the margins. How about adding the purchase of canteen/kitchen equipment expected to gulp N131,750,000?

By the way, there is a minor provision for massaging bed – N2.1 million.

This year, the Vice President’s kitchen will also wear a new look with N8 million equipment earmarked in the budget. Also provided for is a state of the art laundry equipment expected to cost taxpayers N23 million. Never mind that the State House Clinic, designed to deliver first aid before sick officials get evacuated abroad also get N105,731,002.

You think the Presidency’s officials don’t read? There is provision for library books and equipment that comes to a princely N10,740,600. This year, computer software acquisition at the seat of government would take a chunk of N105,670,000; this is different from the a provision for the upgrading of accounting packages for the State House headquarters in Abuja, Dodan Barracks and Marina for another N50 million. And if I may add another, the Hyperion Enterprise Performance Licence (the public sector budget planning software) on which the nation would also spend N55.67 million.

So much for their love for e-governance.

To be honest, I couldn’t resist the thought that the service-wide votes earmarked for software acquisition and licences would actually suffice to start our local Silicon Valley. My little arithmetic actually put the annual spend on them to be in multiples of billions; amounts that could be retained not only to boost local software development efforts, but to kick-start the revolution in the sub-sector.

This is what officials who are more often than not, vendors for foreign software firms would rather ship abroad in dubious acquisition and licensing fees!

I guess it’s no longer fruitful to press the point that whereas a comparatively lean Presidency would get N33 billion in allocation, and the National Assembly N150 billion, the works ministry, whose business is to fix our pot-hole-infested roads is allocated a mere N128 billion (the capital estimate is actually N100 billion).

The same goes for the Police commands in the 36 states and the federal capital; they are supposed to make do with N292 billion of which a huge chunk of N285 billion goes for recurrent expenditures.

While the ‘paltry’ vote for the works ministry answers to the question of why the Lagos-Ibadan expressway may not be fixed despite the fanfare of its flag-off by President Goodluck Jonathan, the police capital vote, which comes to a mere N6.7 billion would seem at the heart of all that is wrong with the police institution.

The issue, in the circumstance, is hardly one of making sense of an exercise so revealing of the crass opportunism of our rulers. Rather, it is whether we should dignify a process that has become everything that a disciplined exercise should not be.

That, to me is the crux of the matter. Today, despite the denials, we know that the economy is in deep trouble. Unfortunately, that has very little to do with the global price of crude; neither is the nation currently experiencing insecurity on such a scale as to threaten oil production. We are simply told that the nation cannot pump enough crude to fund its budget – no thanks to oil thieves said to hold the nation by the jugular. End of the matter. As if that is not bad enough, the nation’s finance minister, has been issuing all manners of waivers and concessions to party hacks and all manners of men.

Never, it seems, has the nation’s economy known this scale of aided fall.

February 4, 2014
New auto policy, needless yoke for Nigerians

The auto industry was recently hit by the news of the federal government’s auto policy which states that import duties/levies on automobiles will be raised by 100% to discourage importation of cars. According to this new policy, vehicles will henceforth be assembled in the country.

While a few hail the government for this move which they claim would be a boost to the economy, one has to closely analyze the would-be after effects of this policy and how it would affect the average Nigerian on the street. In a country rife with challenges and obstacles, it is pretty obvious that this policy which is supposed to kick off in the early part of 2014 will face some serious challenges.

There is no doubt that the ill-timed, ill-thought and rushed policy is flawed and will have far-reaching consequences, not only for the rattled auto dealers but also for Nigerians who have plans to become car owners in the future. One immediate valid concern and fall-out of the new automotive policy is that car buyers in Nigeria will be paying more for both new and used cars from 2014.

One of the so-called advantages that the policy boasts of is that it would create employment for skilled and unskilled labour force. This advantage can easily be faulted as the stipulated time frame is not enough to get skilled local hands within the country. To get the policy up and running especially within the short period of time, foreign hands will have to be employed which in the first instance defeats the entire purpose of creating jobs and reducing unemployment.

An important question that needs to be asked is if the Nigerian socio-economic climate environment is indeed ready for such a drastic move. There are lots of issues that need to be sorted before the auto policy can eventually be carried out. Issues like the epileptic power supply, inadequate water supply, basic infrastructures and other issues like low productivity, weak competitiveness are a few daunting challenges that business owners battle daily and subsequently, all these will equally haunt and greatly affect the so called proposed assembly points.

Another critical issue is how the lifestyle of Nigerians will be affected. Due to the haste in implementing this policy, Nigerians currently working in the automobile sector might soon be out of jobs. The high importation tariffs would require employers to save costs and the most logical way would be to make a significant number of staff redundant. Loss of jobs will complicate the livelihoods of many families with serious multiplier effects. As a result, a large number of Nigerians will be left without jobs and would have to seek alternate sources of income. In a country where unemployment is already an issue, this is not something to look forward to.

That smuggling will become the order of the day is simply stating the obvious. Prior to the new auto policy, used cars are already being imported from the Republic of Benin and other neighboring countries. Hence, with the introduction of this policy, smuggling will reach a new height as cars will be purchased at a relatively cheap rate. Not only will it compound the problem of smuggling, there will be several instances of bribery and corruption as palms of custom officers at the border will have to be greased to turn a blind eye to the activities of these smugglers. In implementing this policy, the government will inadvertently be encouraging smuggling as vehicles will cost less in neighboring countries. This would ultimately bring about loss of funds fromthe government coffers, a development which will be going in direct contrast to the ‘plans’ to increase revenue and grow the economy.

Furthermore, with the new duty regime, it is most likely that prices of imported new cars currently hovering between N3m and N5m will skyrocket to between N4.8m and N8m while used cars currently being sold for a minimum of N800, 000 will go for a minimum of N1.5m. Sadly, this would greatly affect the purchasing power of the average Nigerian who might not be able to afford a car anymore. In the long run, it would lead to a rise in theft of vehicles and vehicle parts for those who have the financial power to purchase these vehicles. There will also be a rise in cost of auto parts for the vehicles. By fact, a large number of Nigerians earn about 1.2 – 1.8 million per annum and with the contending high cost of housing and general living in Nigeria, the chances of buying a new car for the young Nigerian is extremely slim.

The entrepreneurship dreams will gradually be killed as the risk-factor will become higher. Operating costs will also definitely be higher for many small and medium businesses as their cost of purchasing utility vehicles will go high. This rippling effect will not only affect the cost of running businesses in the country, but the living costs of the working Nigerian. There will be higher transportation costs which will affect cost of products and services, unconsciously raising the cost of living within the country. Movement of goods and services will become more expensive and inflation will set in. The current transportation system in place has its share of challenges and will not be able to handle the pressure that will most likely arise due to high cost of transportation. Instead of encouraging entrepreneurship, the auto policy serves to kill it by making life difficult. All of this comes together to have a negative effect on the Nigerian people.

Frankly, the automotive industry is not ready for such a drastic step. The policy which kicks off early thisyear does not give ample time for industry stakeholders to prepare for the change that this policy will bring. Though the policy might seem to help the economy in the long run, there is no clear roadmap or plan for the sustainable execution of this policy, especially in the short period of time. As it is, the Nigerian society poses different challenges to business owners, challenges which will equally be faced by whoever will spearhead these assembling points. In light of these factors, one has to seriously consider whose interests this policy protects. Nigeria is a country with a history of failed schemes and white elephant projects like the famous Ajaokuta Steel plant to name a few. One cannot help but wonder if this is going to be one of those policies that gets swept under the rug and forgotten. We are yet to achieve little triumphs in the areas of constant electricity and provision of basic amenities. The Nigerian government aims for lofty goals without thought of finding solutions to the existing problems we currently face and the attendant effects of the policy. What will be the hope of Nigerians in the face of yet another policy that is geared to boost economic development? While we ponder, Nigerians will continue to bear the brunt of this policy, a heavy, painful burden to the masses.

For a policy with critical implications and credibility issues, the federal government really needs to be more transparent, fair, consistent and free from vested interest cleavages to grow the economy and enhance the living standards of Nigerians. In a society where the average income earner does not earn enough to meet his basic needs, and the government does not encourage equal opportunity for all, corruption is inevitable as a consequence, especially in the face of the new automotive policy.

The truth is that, even if the government has good intentions with the new automotive policy, the tempo of implementation is rather too hasty and arbitrary. Unfortunately, the enabling conditions like skilled human capital, constant power supply, functional and reliable supporting industries, and so on are yet to be in place for the new policy to succeed without disruptive consequences for Nigerians.

• Nnakais an automotive consultant in Abuja.

February 4, 2014
Dangers of mixing politics with religion

Please stop anti Jonathan and anti PDP. Your Muslim party APC will fail woefully in Osun and Ekiti. Idiot

I got this from a reader with telephone number 08067661180 in response to last week’s edition of this column. The reader did not sign it for reasons best known to him or her.

I was thinking about the upcoming National Conference and the modalities for the proposed confab as spelt out by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Anyim Pius Anyim when this SMS came in. That President Goodluck Jonathan would have so much influence on who gets chosen as a delegate was of so much concern to me that I was alarmed when this supporter of the President and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) quoted above, chipped in the issue of religion as we move towards the next round of general elections beginning with the Osun and Ekiti States gubernatorial polls later this year.

It is no longer hidden that one of the campaign strategies of President Jonathan and his handlers in their bid to retain power post 2015 presidential election is to present him as not just a Christian, but a Christian candidate, who would represent and protect Christian interests better. And in doing so, the opposition is to be presented as representing Muslims and Muslims’ interest and as such most likely to be against Christians and Christians’ interest if voted into power.

Even though nobody in Jonathan’s camp is ready to admit this, the 2015 presidential race is gradually panning out to be like that and the presidency is happy to shape it that way.

Ordinarily this like this don’t bother me but the way and manner and intensity with which the President’s supporters like the reader quoted above are using religion to define their candidate and divide the voters is beginning to cause concern among well meaning Nigerians.

Recently a former member of the PDP who served as a Minister in the Obasanjo presidency and now a member of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) revealed that some church leaders are already subtly campaigning for President Jonathan by branding the APC as party of Muslims. For the record, that former Minister is a Christian.

And in matters that concern this government and this presidency, some Christian leaders have been speaking in such a manner as to suggest that Jonathan is their own and any criticism of him and/or his actions is against Christians and Christianity.

The issue of faith has never really played any significant role in the politics of this country especially when it comes to choosing our leaders until now. When late Abubakar Tafawa Balewa became Prime Minister in the first republic, I don’t think Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe was chosen as the ceremonial President because he was a Christian, like wise President Shehu Shagari did not pick Dr Alex Ekwueme as his running mate in 1979 because he is a Christian.

I think the choices then were based purely on geographical consideration. The north had always been going into alliance with the east in national politics/elections and because the two regions are heavily populated by Muslims (north) and Christians (east), whoever would come out from such arrangement naturally would belong to different religion.

And to test that Nigerians place little premium on the religion of their leaders, two Muslims, one from the south west and the other from north east were voted president and vice president on June 12, 1993 before the election was annulled. And when President Olusegun Obasanjo was being brought in 1999 ostensibly to placate the Yoruba for the denial of their son Chief MKO Abiola of Nigeria’s presidency in 1993, nobody said he should not come in because he is not a Muslim like Abiola. And I believe the choice of Obasanjo’s running mate in Abubakar Atiku was due more to political pragmatism than his religious leaning.

When Jonathan was paired with President Yar’adua in 2007 for whatever reasons, those who brought them had other motive and consideration than religion. And as was the case in the past, Jonathan running with Vice President Sambo was more of geographic/ethnic balancing than any other consideration. Even though after the Abiola/Kingibe aborted presidency the presidential pairing had always been Christian/Muslim or Muslim/Christian, no candidate or presidency has been seen, portrayed or act as representing a particular religion the was Jonathan presidency is. And I believe it is share mediocrity and incompetence to hide under religion or ethnicity to ask for support for public office especially the presidency of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

By portraying him as a Christian candidate, Jonathan’s handlers and supporters are not just setting a bad precedent but also alienating the Muslims who ordinarily would want to vote for him. Islam and Christianity are well rooted in Yoruba land, south west Nigeria and are about evenly spread among Yoruba. The bulk of Jonathan’s votes in 2011 came from Yoruba land, meaning he got votes from both Christians and Muslims from the south west in large numbers. And in those states in the north where his PDP won, the Muslims there voted for him. So, if anybody now wants to present everybody opposed to Jonathan or the opposition party as Muslim or Muslim leaning just to paint them black before Christians and secure Christians votes for him in 2015, then they are not being fair to those Muslims who voted for him in 2011 and are still likely to vote for him if he became a candidate in next year’s election.

Most important however, they are not being fair to this country. If they love Nigeria they would not pander or be pandering to religious sentiments. In those countries where the people have not risen beyond religious sentiments, anything religion has always brought crisis especially when there are sharp disagreements. Lebanon is a good example of how religion mixed with politics can destroy a nation. There are unarguably more Lebanese outside of Lebanon than within, not just because of the small size of their country but also the seemingly unending sectarian violence that has almost turned the once beautiful country into ruins, the fact that the Lebanese are mainly Arabs notwithstanding.

Those nations that have developed and making waves in the world today have no room for religious considerations or sentiments, whatever they do are always based on what is best for their country, their people and humanity in general. Why should our own be different?

Those who want to turn Christians against Muslims or vice versa in Nigeria because of Jonathan’s presidency or anybody’s ambition will not succeed by the grace of GOD. And President Jonathan also has to be very careful and he should rein in his supporters especially those fanning the embers of religious and ethnic divisions. The President knows them; he should call them to order. While awaiting his choice of delegates to the National Conference, it is hoped that his choice(s) would be guided by the best interest of Nigeria. Even though I have my doubts about his conference and to what use he wants to put its reports, I wish his and the 492 “wise” men and women best of luck.

February 4, 2014
Now that IGP Abubakar has woken up

Getting to know the truth is becoming more difficult nowadays especially if you listen to the spin doctors of the main political parties.

Last weekend rally by the Save Rivers Movement at Bori in the heart of Ogoni land in Rivers State was a huge success if you are getting your information from the spokesman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the State Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze.

But if you have been listening to Jerry Needam, spokesman for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers State, Ogoni people boycotted the rally and Governor Rotimi Amaechi was only addressing himself at the event. But as they say pictures don’t lie and the truth stands somewhere between their statements.

Attempting to call white black would only damage the reputation of whoever was peddling lies and whatever he stands for or represents as the people of Rivers State certainly know the truth and who is fighting their cause.

The size of the crowd at the rally is not even the issue here; the fact that it went well without any of the mayhems that had attended two previous rallies of the SRM, one in Port Harcourt and the second in the same Bori showed that whoever was behind the violent disruptions of the two previous rallies of the Movement loyal to Governor Amaechi had the support of the Nigeria Police.

At the Port Harcourt rally where a serving Senator, Magnus Abe an Ogoni man and ally of Amaechi was hit by a rubber bullet shot at him by the police, it was glaring that the State’s commissioner of Police Mbu Joseph Mbu and his men were at work. Though the CP denied any bullet, rubber or live was used in dispersing the SRM rally, the public condemnation of the brutality of the police in Rivers State under Mbu and the partisanship of his men in the political crisis that has pitched the governor against the coordinating Minister of Education Nyesom Wike,(acting on behalf of President Goodluck Jonathan and his wife Patience) had forced the police to retreat from their onslaught on Amaechi and his supporters ahead of the second SRM rally at Bori.

When the Movement gathered for what was essentially a pro-Amaechi rally, hoodlums and armed militants, allegedly paid by Wike and his group violently disrupted the gathering, injuring many and destroying cars and other property in the process. While all this lasted the police folded their arms. And while those behind the mayhem had not been arrested by the Rivers State police command, two local government chairmen from Ogoni land loyal to Governor Amaechi were picked up by the police for no other offence than being supporters of the governor.

Of course the public condemnation of the police grew louder and finally the noise got to the ears of the Inspector General of Police Mohammed Abubakar and the country’s chief police officer had to order his Commissioner of Police in Rivers to allow another rally of the SRM planned for Bori to go ahead and also provide protection. And the rally went peacefully. Now do we need any soothsayer again to tell us who has been behind the violence that has recently engulfed Rivers State?

When people point accusing fingers at CP Mbu for being partisan they get accused as being Amaechi supporters. But just for once that the IGP and his CP decided to act as impartial officers of the law, there was law and order. So, what this means is that if the police in Rivers State act in accordance with the law and in the overall interest of the state and the country, the crisis in the state would not be and would not have been.

As his tenures draws to a close, IGP Abubakar would do well to leave a legacy of a disciplined, well trained and apolitical police force that would only do the biddings of Nigerians and not the powers that be. Abubakar started well and the only blot on his score sheet so far is the police in Rivers State under Mbu. Wherever the courage to stop Mbu came from, he should continue with it.

Since the Rivers crisis began, so many stories have been flying around that CP Mbu rather than take orders from Force Headquarters in Abuja, go to the presidential villa for his briefs. It was even rumoured that he doesn’t take the calls of his IGP any longer preferring either Wike or even Madam Jonathan to give him directives.

For the purpose of this argument, I want to believe this as one of those beer parlour rumours and the fact that when the IGP gave his orders to Mbu publicly, they were obeyed should be enough to put the matter of where Mbu takes his briefs to rest. But to further reassure us that he is in charge of the entire Nigeria Police, including the Rivers State Command, IGP Abubakar should henceforth be giving his orders to CP Mbu in particular publicly, so that if he refused to obey his IGP, then Nigerians would know who truly he is.

But could the threat by the main opposition party, the All Progressives Congress to all its Senators and House of Representatives members to shun discussions and debates on the 2014 federal appropriation bill and all other executive bills including confirmation of Service Chiefs until the Rivers crisis is resolved have anything to do with the thaw in the crisis rocking the state?

Those who are blaming the APC for this directive and labeling the party and its leaders as unpatriotic should rather see the Rivers u-turn by the Federal Government and its agencies (security) as a positive fall out of the APC’s threat.

It shows that a virile opposition is needed to put the ruling party in check and on the path of sound democracy and the rule of law. With the balance of power shifting in favour of the opposition in the National Assembly, the PDP Federal Government and in particular President Goodluck Jonathan no longer has room to maneuver and take Nigerians for a ride again.

Nigerians have tolerated the PDP for so long and the party has proved itself unworthy of our trust and support. If it would require threats from the APC to make the government to do the right thing, so be it. Nothing bad in that! And by the way, what is the business of the opposition if not to bring down the government in power to pave way for it to form the next government. As long as it was done within the ambit of the law and in accordance with democratic tenets let it continue. Nigeria does not belong exclusively to PDP and its leaders alone. All the parties and indeed all Nigerians have equal stake in the destiny of this country. Enough of this PDP noise.

January 28, 2014
And now, waiver-gate!

Last week’s disclosure by the Nigerian Customs Service, (NCS) of the quantum of import duty waivers granted under the Jonathan presidency must have come as a ‘relief’ to the House Committee on Finance currently locked in a duel with Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Relief because, the service may have helped frame, in no small measure, the underlying issues so terribly muddled up in the 50-odd questions which the committee had sought answers in writing from the minister last December.

More certainly, the customs expose has for good measure laid bare the duplicity and lies that has been the hallmark of this presidency.

By way of preliminary comment, I don’t think that there can be any running away from the fact the House Comitteee on Finance did little credit to its image as a serious body with those awkward, unwieldy questions handed over to the minister. I honestly believe that a sizeable number of the 50 questions were at best sophomoric –clearly lacking in rigour of articulation as one would expect from a committee charged with oversight on public finance. The question of why the lawmakers would bundle the disparate questions which tended to betray astounding lack of knowledge in areas over which they had sought to take on the executive is best left to the members to answer. Suffice to state that the committee actually came off the entire episode as one on a mission to pick a fight with the irascible minister at all costs and for undisclosed reasons.

Having said that, it is a different matter to suggest that the generous excoriation by the minister could be justified in the circumstance. I refer here to the minister’s characterisation of the lawmakers as being uninformed; her query on whether the House committee had “a coherent policy agenda for our nation’s development”, and her subsequent wonder “whether these questions are simply meant to stir confusion and detract us from the Transformation Agenda of the current administration.”

Nigerians obviously know better than to dwell on the minister’s outsized ego. After all, what is a super-minister without the self-serving advisory to the lawmakers that “such protracted exchanges are a distraction to the executive and ultimately a disservice to Nigerians” and tutorial that “We would recommend more measured and civil exchanges in the future, which are informative for Nigerians and also enable the executive to focus on its goal of implementing programmes and projects across our nation?”

The point is, Nigerians have far more to worry about the activities of officials who say one thing and do exactly the opposite; grandmasters of the dubious agenda of promoting private as public interest; arch-stewards of laissez faire governance.

As I said in the opening statement, the issue today is last week’s confirmation by the NCS, of the existence of N1.4 trillion import duty waivers racket involving the finance ministry. Of course, when the news was first broken by an online medium few weeks ago, the ministry had dismissed the report as the handiwork of its detractors – the cult who do not see anything good in the activities of the Jonathan administration.

Now, we know better. The NCS whose responsibility it is to administer the waivers has finally spoken: as against the minister’s claim of N170.7 billion, there is actually a racket, all of them executed in the last three years under this presidency. The breakdown comes to a princely N480 billion apiece in 2011 and 2012 and N474 billion in 2013. And as the NCS has further clarified, more than 65 percent of the beneficiaries actually received waiver grants for goods not approved under the applicable guidelines. You ask how? All that the ‘political importers’ needed to do was wave the so-called Negotiable Duty Credit Certificate, NDCC to the men of the customs at the point of payment for import and excise duties to qualify for the bazaar!

And now this: a new memo signed by the Minister of State of Finance, Yerima Ngama dated December 11, 2013, has since expanded the scope of the NDCC to cover “other goods,”. “Other goods? You guesed right: Bullet-proof automobiles a la Oduahgate; rice, fish etc. Never mind that the customs think that the ‘other goods’ are those that can hardly contribute to the growth of the economy. It’s a lucractive the bazzar for all concerned – minus Nigerians, who are supposed to be the beneficiaries.

Seriously, I don’t think anyone should be surprised at the revelation which first came to light last year when the leadership of the customs appeared before the Senate. By the way, it should not surprise if a hurriedly assembled reconciliation team is put together to ‘retire’ the difference between the figures. After all, the administration already has set a precedent in creative accounting over the missing $10.8 billion, now retired and passed off by the NNPC and the federal government, as “expenses”.

Of greater interest to yours truly is that the minister and the customs cannot be right at the same time. It seems to me a case of Nigerians being misled by the minister rather than one of gross failure of arithmetic. Or, could the customs department – a parastatal of the finance ministry – have sexed up the figures to embarrass the minister? Could it be that majority of the waivers were recycled – again – a la Oduahgate when a waiver granted to the Lagos State government became an open-ended one?

Don’t forget, we are talking here of a variance in excess of N1.2 trillion over a three year period –allegedly lost to the whims of some fat cats in the finance ministry. Did I hear someone scream waiver-gate!!

Still wondering about what to make of the ill-tempered 100-page epistle put out by the minister who obviously couldn’t imagine the indignity of being questioned by a group of ‘unlearned’ lawmakers? The nation’s treasurer who only a short while ago played the gloater-in-chief over Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s so-called spurious claims of vanishing $49 billion, now on the verge of being docked for terrible crimes ranging from ignorance, bad faith, to figure fiddling? Truly, Nigeria’s wheel of malfeasance spins at the speed of light!

If you ask me, I think the Lower House may be on to something big here. Big of course is an understatement. Scandal would be a better word. For now, the House should just forget the issue of revisiting the 50 questions. The job at hand seems as easy as plodding from the known to get at the unknown. With or without the theatricals, the exercise promises to be an exciting one. The customs have done a good job to tell us how much has been lost. The puzzle is – to who? The beneficiaries should not be hard to trace; just as their contribution to the economy should not be difficult to evaluate against what they claimed as rationale for obtaining the waivers. Over to you, Messrs Abdulmumin Jibrin and co, of the House Committee on Finance.

January 28, 2014
Eusébio: The colonial conundrum

Another poignant scene in the unending drama of empire took centre stage in Portugal with the death five weeks ago of the soccer legend Eusébio — Eusébio da Silva Ferreira, to identify him by his full name – three weeks short of his 71st birthday.

A deep sense of bereavement swept the entire nation. The Portuguese government declared three days of national mourning. Grieving crowds thronged Lisbon’s Stadium of Light to view the flag-draped casket bearing his remains. Outside the stadium stands the imposing bronze statue of the maestro who scored a phenomenal 679 goals in 678 official appearances to lead Benfica FC to 11 league titles and five national championships. Thousands lined the route of the cortege to bid him farewell in a funeral fit for a king.

But in Mozambique, where he was born to an indigenous African father and a Portuguese mother in 1942, his death hardly caused a stir. Many a soccer fan in Mozambique may have experienced a sense of loss, but it was probably no deeper than that felt by the attentive soccer audience in Nigeria. In Mozambique, it did not register on the national consciousness.

For all practical purposes, Eusébio was Portuguese, and Mozambique was not going to contest the matter.

It is not true, by the way, that he had been “abducted” from his native land at age 18 by colonial headhunters seized of his vast talent and promise, and thereafter pressed into service for Benfica, A proper contract had been executed, Eusebio insisted, and he was free to return to Mozambique if things did not work out.

Whether true or not, the “kidnap” story accords perfectly with the rapacious nature of Portuguese colonialism: Cart away to the metropolis as much as possible, secure the rest for the minority settler population, and the natives be damned.

In whatever case, Eusébio never went back to Mozambique. What followed was a dazzling career during which he was awarded the Ballon d’Or in 1965 as Europe’s player of the year. Subsequently, he won the Golden Boot in 1968 and 1973 for being the top scorer in Europe. In 1998, he was voted one of the ten greatest footballers ever by a FIFA panel comprising 100 international experts.

But it was Eusébio’s magical exploits in the 1966 World Cup that stamped his name indelibly on the beautiful game.Portugal had knocked out perennial favorites Brazil but was three goals down in the quarter finals to surprise qualifier North Korea and seemed all but finished.

Eusébio scored three goals to erase the deficit, and one of two more goals to seal Portugal’s victory and earn it a third-place finish in a competition it had failed to qualify for in six previous attempts.

That feat made Eusébio a national hero and led Portugal’s dictator António de Salazar to declare him a “national treasure.” The designation meant that Eusébio could not explore more lucrative playing opportunities elsewhere in Europe or indeed anywhere.

He did not need to. Nowhere else could he have experienced the adulation and idolisation, the canonical stature he enjoyed in Portugal. But the same Portugal that heaped honours on him was at the same time waging a brutal war of subjugation against the very people from whom Eusebio was descended, the land where his prodigious talent first found expression.

This incongruity is best understood in the context of Portugal’s colonial policy of assimilation. If you had the talents or potential the metropolis valued, you were assimilated into Portuguese society and were for all practical purposes Portuguese, with all the rights and privileges appertaining to citizenship. Your skin colour was no longer a disabling factor. So, enjoy all the good things the metropolis has to offer; leave the unwashed masses in the jungles back home to fend for themselves as best they can.

Given the fame and fortune Eusébio found in Portugal, he could hardly be expected to resist incorporation into that kind of society.

French colonialism also had an assimilationist streak. Its colonies were extensions of the metro-polis, and generations of children were weaned on school books that spoke glowingly of “our ancestors the Gauls,” and those colonial subjects, the évolués who acquired the qualities the French prized, were guaranteed easy passage into French society.

Thus it was that Félix Houphouët-Boigny who went on to lead Côte d’Ivoire to independence , once served as a deputy in the French National Assembly, and former President Léopold Senghor of Senegal went one better, serving as a cabinet minister and being inducted into the prestigious French Academy, the ultimate French distinction.

Britain’s class society was less accommodating. If the colonial subject got carried away to the point of forgetting where he came from, the system reminded him at every opportunity of his origin and did not hesitate to send him back if he would not stay in line.

Many accomplished colonial subjects in Mozambique, and in Portugal’s other territories of Angola and Guinea-Bissau could have made peace with assimilation and lived happily ever after. But they rejected the thought on the threshold and took up arms instead – men of an intellectual cast of mind who would have been catapulted by their accomplishments to the highest ranks of Portuguese society.

I am thinking of Dr Eduardo Mondlane, the social anthropologist who founded the liberation movement FRELIMO in 1962 and led it until he was assassinated by agents of the Portuguese government in 1969. I am thinking of Dr Agostinho Neto, the talented poet and physician who helped found MPLA, the liberation movement that ended Portuguese colonial rule in Angola. He went on to become the country’s first president at Independence in 1975,

I am also thinking of Dr Amilcar Cabral, the agronomist and cultural theorist, founder and leader of PAIGC, the armed liberation movement that ended Portuguese colonial rule in Guinea –Bissau and Cape Verde. Dr Cabral did not live to see the Promised Land, however. He was assassinated in 1973 by agents of Portugal’s fascist state outside his home in Conakry, in the Republic of Guinea, where he had his party headquarters. His brother Luiz took up the mantle and led the struggle unto victory,

Eusébio was neither politician nor scholar. He was not as grounded in the brutal realities of Portuguese colonialism as were Mondlane, Neto and Cabral. All he had were his preternatural skills, and those skills took him to dizzying heights that he could not have reached in his native Mozambique. He made the most of the opportunity and endeared himself to all on and off the soccer arena by his exemplary graciousness. He had no cause to assert, much less seek to reclaim, his African heritage.

To dwell on all this is to take nothing away from the great man. It is to try to explain why his death plunged Portugal into national mourning but hardly registered in Mozambique, the land of his birth, why he was a national hero in the one and in the other a native son that few remember.

More crucially, it is to re-examine the political sociology of Portuguese colonialism, its contents and discontents.

January 28, 2014