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Category: Tuesday

June 12 annulment: A calendar of infamy

By the time Justice Bassey Ikpeme delivered her first pronouncement on the petition of the Association for Better Nigeria (ABN) on June 7, 1993, it was clear that the presidential election scheduled for the following Saturday, June 12, was headed for a debacle

ABN, the shadowy but well-funded and highly-connected organisation that has in recent times emerged as a major vehicle for consummating military president Ibrahim Babangida’s hidden agenda, had gone to court to seek an injunction restraining the National Electoral Commission (NEC) from conducting the presidential election.

Why?

Because, as claimed by the wily and mercurial Arthur Nzeribe who never championed a cause without bringing it into disrepute, 25 million Nigerians do not want the election to hold. They want General Babangida to continue as president for four more years. The petition, Nzeribe claims, is backed by the signatures of those 25 million Nigerians.

Justice Ikpeme, about whom little was known until that day, was impressed enough to order NEC Chairman Professor Humphrey Nwosu, Federal Attorney-General Clement Akpamgbo and President Babangida to appear before her the following Wednesday to show cause “why the election should not be stopped.” She reserves ruling till Thursday, June 10.

That ruling, delivered in the dead of night, follows closely her pronouncement at the first hearing, her language is just as exorbitant, and her conduct just as heedless. The election must not hold, she rules, but NEC is free to ignore her order.

For the next 16 hours or so, there is no clear indication that the election will hold. It is well past lunchtime on Friday, June 11, when NEC finally announces that the election will go on as scheduled, Justice Ikpeme and the ABN notwithstanding.

The Federal Government’s affirmation that the election will hold comes indirectly, in response to a statement by the United States Information Service, in Lagos, to the effect that any postponement of the election would be “unacceptable to the U. S. Government.’’

The elections hold on Saturday, June 12, as scheduled. Minor hitches are reported here and there, the type that can be expected even in the best-ordered poll. For the most part, NEC and everyone connected with the election gets high praise for a job superbly executed.

By late Sunday, intimations of a grand sweep by the Muslim-Muslim ticket of Chief MKO Abiola and Babagana Kingibe, of the Social Democratic Party, are all over the place. By lunchtime on Monday, June 14, victory songs are in the air in the SDP. The NEC has authenticated the returns from 14 states, and returns from the remaining 16 states are being “collated.” It names a chief electoral officer, an indication that it is set to declare a winner. The National Republican Party (NRC) is putting the finishing touches to a statement conceding defeat and pledging to work with the SDP in the country’s best interest.

By the next day, Tuesday, the NRC is singing a different tune, following a telephone call to its candidate, Bashir Tofa, from Aso Rock. The NRC, per Nduka Obaigbena, publisher of the defunct newsmagazine ThisWeek, who had made an unsuccessful run for the Senate from Delta State, the NRC charges that SDP candidate Chief Abiola had gone to vote on election day attired in a dress on which was embroidered a stallion, the party’s symbol, in breach of the electoral rules,.

The penalty for such a breach, they hint darkly, is a huge fine or a two-year jail term, or both fine and imprisonment. They assert that the breach raises questions of “morality;” that the entire poll stood fatally tainted, and should therefore be voided.

Meanwhile, NEC has stopped announcing results, while apparently continuing the “collating.” But the results from all except two of the 30 states are everywhere at home and abroad. For just N200, you could at Oshodi Bus Stop, in Lagos, purchase a set of documents detailing how Nigerians had voted ward by ward and precinct by precinct. They show unequivocally that Abiola has won a decisive sweep.

Unencumbered by NEC’s order forbidding publication of “raw scores,” foreign correspondents covering the election had filed the results with their media back home. Even the national press has all but called the election. So, why all the fuss, especially when the results that had been authenticated tallied in virtually in every aspect with the figures earlier circulated in Nigeria and abroad?

A clearer but more troubling picture emerges as the day progresses. Another high court in Abuja Federal Capital Territory, Justice Dahiru Saleh presiding, grants a petition by the ABN to stop further announcement of election returns. Attorney-General Akpamgbo orders NEC, first, to comply with this order, and second, to show cause why it should not be punished for discountenancing the order of Justice Ikpeme, aforementioned.

The following day, Wednesday, June 16, the New Nigerian, wholly owned by the Federal Government, and the Daily Times, in which it holds controlling interest, come out with editorials expressing diametrically opposed views. The Daily Times hails the election results a “people’s triumph.” The New Nigerian denounces the entire poll and calls for its cancellation, even while proclaiming that it had been won by a “third party,” presumably the ABN.

How so?

Because, says the New Nigerian, the 25 million ABN members who did not vote outnumbered 2:1 the 13 million Nigerians who had voted.

That day, NEC chairman Nwosu fails to address a scheduled press conference. Also missing action is NEC’s director of publicity, the voluble Tonnie Iredia. An assistant director, about whom little has been heard previously reads out a convoluted statement saying NEC would seek legal clarification of Justice Saleh’s clarification. It is being bruited that Nwosu has offered his resignation, to no avail.

It comes to light the following day that Yakubu Abdul-Azeez, editor of the New Nigerian, has resigned over the editorial attributed to the paper and by implication to him. He is quoted as saying that he is quitting because he cannot continue to affix his imprint on a newspaper being used to pursue policies that can “lead to Nigeria’s disintegration.”

Throughout all this, there has been no word from the Presidency, save a statement by Chief Press Secretary Onabule, to the effect that the Federal Government had in no way interfered with the election and that NEC had not complained of any difficulties.

Everything stands still until Monday, June 21, when NEC rises from the stupor into which it had been lulled by the events of the previous week and files a petition before the Kaduna High Court against the ruling of Justice Ikpeme, a certified copy of which it has not been provided, and against the ruling of Justice Saleh. None of NEC’s officials is in circulation. Professor Nwosu is reported to be ill, with an undisclosed ailment. The appeal is scheduled to be heard two days later, on Wednesday.

Just as NEC is filing its appeal, Justice Saleh who had barred NEC from announcing further results, swings back into action in Abuja and declares the presidential election of June 12 null and void and of no effect whatsoever, on the ground that it had been conducted in violation of a restraining order.

The order under reference is Justice Ikpeme’s. She had issued it fully acknowledging that NEC was not obliged to heed it, since the court had no jurisdiction in the matter. Justice Saleh now says that since NEC had disregarded that order, the election is null and void.

Two days later, on June 23, the Federal Government strikes a blow that leaves everyone practically breathless. It cancels the presidential election, suspends NEC, and repeals the law governing the final phase of the political transition programme that had been eight years in the making. By that singular move, it also terminates all court cases relating to the presidential election.

The statement announcing these measures is not signed and not dated. Typed on plain paper, it was issued on behalf of the government by Nduka Irabor, press secretary to the Vice President, Admiral Augustus Aikhomu. The statement says the government has taken these sweeping measures to ensure that a judiciary that has been built on a sound and solid foundation is not “tarnished by the insatiable political desire of a few persons.”

This stunning announcement comes a few hours before the National Defence and Security Council is scheduled to meet and deliberate on the crisis. Can it be that the Council had met earlier than scheduled, or is the announcement designed to present the Council with a fait accompli?

The Council disperses only after a brief meeting, ostensibly for what Information Secretary Uche Chukwumerije calls “wider consultations.” It is to convene the next day.

When it finally convenes, it members are reported to have taken far-reaching decisions on a new agenda that could include the appointment of a prime minister to serve along an unelected military president, formation of more political parties, and the un-banning of all those who had been kept in political purgatory during the transition. Field commanders, principal staff officers in military formations, and the police hierarchy, are to be briefed the next day, Friday, followed by a national broadcast by Babangida.

Friday ends without the promised broadcast, which is now rescheduled for Saturday, June 26. But it does not take place at mid-day as the public has been led to believe, nor an hour after mid-day as announced in a revised schedule. It does not take place at 7 p.m. as rescheduled again.

It takes place, finally, two hours later, at 9 p.m. Even more than the benumbing events of the previous 12 days, the content is beyond belief. It provides proof, were any still required, that the “hidden agenda” was not the invention of cynical commentators.

The broadcast, a tissue of self-serving lies and fabrications and evasions and rationalizations, eviscerates the promise emblematized by June 12, that one nation might emerge at long last, from the plethora of nations inhabiting the Nigerian space, and it locks the country even more securely into a debacle.

Its place is assured in Nigeria’s calendar of infamy. So also is the political and judicial debauchery of which it was the culmination.

June 11, 2013
June 12 and ghost of MKO

In the beginning, he bawled while others hee-hawed: “Abiola won fair and square.” That was 1993. Before the latest crisis, contrived by power greed and cant, he also thundered: “There would be consequences!” That was 2011.

Between 1993 and 2011, the damning voice of Mallam Adamu Ciroma, clear, loud, harsh, austere but honourable, hangs over a polity that prides itself for infamy.

It is the living equivalent of the ghost of Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola, the man who won the one and only true pan-Nigeria presidential mandate, in Nigeria’s troubled political history. That ghost still ravages this country, exactly 20 years tomorrow, after that historic election – and shows no signs of abating.

O yes, Goodluck Jonathan also claims a pan-Nigeria mandate of a sort. But from the intra-Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) legerdemain that preceded it and the electoral gerrymandering that hallmarked the 2011 election, it is clear Jonathan’s claim is only history repeating itself as mere farce.

The irony must be clear: a consummated pan-Nigeria mandate ought to lead to a can-do release, a derring-do spirit that liberates and pushes the nation, like reeds in front of sweeping winds, into happy and unbridled development.

But Jonathan’s mandate has produced the exact opposite: a vast slaughter slab that aptly captures the 21st century equivalent of Thomas Hobbes’s state of nature, where life is hard, nasty, brutish and short, even when many an ardent Jonathan backer screams “political Boko Haram!”.

MKO won a clean presidential mandate – the cleanest in Nigerian history. But he spent his whole four-year term in gaol, between 1994 and 1998, in Sani Abacha’s gulag. When MKO’s gaoler suddenly expired, not reportedly in the most honourable of circumstances, MKO too had to pay the supreme price, as a so-called “equaliser”, to finally settle a contrived power crisis that had lasted the whole of five brutish and bloody years!

Seriously, how can a country boast such swashbuckling injustice, against a citizen whose only high crime was winning a free election, and not expect dire consequences?

The latest consequences of that long running injustice is the Boko Haram scourge, for which many an excitable mind would love to conk Mallam Adamu as some Northern irredentist, set against the emergence of a “southern” president.

How Ciroma’s open stand against injustice, against his own people (as was clear from the summary repudiation of the PDP zoning formula that propelled Jonathan himself into the vice-presidency), in a federal Nigeria rippling with fierce competition for power, can only emerge in a Nigerian polity that ripples through and through with lazy thinking.

But emotive demonization or no, the severe beauty of Ciroma’s stand lies in its consistency.

Prof. Omo Omoruyi, director-general of the Babangida-era Centre for Democratic Studies (CDS), verily believed a northern-inspired “geo-ethno-military-ruling-clique”, with its pre-1993 power arrogance, masterminded the June 12 presidential election annulment. But Mallam Adamu cried foul, even if his moral protest could not stop the evil and its terrible aftermaths.

So, when a constellation of southern power hustlers, led by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, self-proclaimed “father of modern Nigeria”, bore false witnesses for Jonathan on the PDP presidential zoning policy, to deny the North of its right, was Ciroma supposed to keep mum? He rightly pressed his right to be heard. With the total crisis that is Goodluck Jonathan’s uneasy tenure, he has been painfully proved right.

But much more instructive for a power-drunk northern elite, who pushed their luck too far on June 12, thus pushing with it, into the Atlantic Ocean, their British-aided illicit power domination: Adamu Ciroma is a living witness, and indeed protested, against his kith-and-kin, when power waywardness pushed them to the June 12 harakiri.

Now, his golden voice is still here, pushing their right to clambering back into the power chamber, if the latest and desperate tenant of Aso Rock allows. Even then, it must be clear to all that the untrammelled lollies of pre-1999 power halcyon years are gone for good!

It is all the making of MKO’s ghost, the latest karma on the Nigerian political plain!

Even before MKO’s death, karma was already reaping bountiful harvest of those who, for real-politik, betrayed June 12.

Gen. Shehu Musa Yar’adua would stake some claim to a martyr of Nigerian democracy, dying in controversial circumstances in Abacha’s gulag, after conviction for trumped up coup charges. But had his People’s Front (PF) faction of the victorious Social Democratic Party (SDP) not conspired to sign away MKO’s mandate, Yar’adua probably would still be alive – and perhaps consummated, after an Abiola presidency, his ambition to become Nigeria’s elected president.

Yar’adua is dead and rests in peace. But not so many, who live long but hardly happily ever after, in the rank of the political living dead, after the June 12 crime.

Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, since his “step aside” after the do has found out he could not possibly ever “step back”, no matter how long he lives – and may Allah gift him long and healthy life yet. He would bear, to his grave, the guilt of June 12 and its subsequent but avoidable tragedies.

Olusegun Obasanjo and Anthony Anenih are a serious study in passive and active political irrelevance, two gerontocrats yoked to the same fate, all thanks to their role in the June 12 saga.

Obasanjo, the other day, took a swipe at Jonathan, his estranged godson, that whoever could not perform as president should give way; an eerily similar putdown, almost word for word, he gave luckless Umaru Musa Yar’adua, on his fatally ill bed. But just as Obasanjo was pushing the cause of Jonathan at Yar’adua’s expense, he is now pushing the cause of Sule Lamido, Jigawa governor, at poor Jona’s expense!

But not many people remember that Lamido, as SDP national secretary, was complicit in signing away MKO’s victory. It could well be superstitious, but it would appear the MKO ghost that has pushed Obasanjo into passive irrelevance of spiteful endorsement, when his previous endorsements have been absolute disasters, is waiting in the wings!

Anenih, the SDP national chairman that signed away MKO’s win, is busy at his own active irrelevance, prescribing antediluvian, anti-democratic theories of automatic tickets for a party about to break up. Clearly, Pa Anenih is stuck in the past: the same old strong arm tactics that clearly made the fixer, is set to finally fix the fixer!

But in the latest PDP rumpus, Anenih is in good company: the fixer as party undertaker, in cohorts with a desperate president as party undertaker! The ghost of MKO may yet smash the PDP, a retreating military Trojan horse, wilfully installed to sell a democracy dummy and dispense raw power and impunity, in lieu of the real thing that June 12 epitomises.

Still, to avert a president as party undertaker doubling as a president as country undertaker, another word of wisdom from Prof. Omoruyi: “The death of Chief Abiola ought to lead to a renegotiated Nigeria to make a true federal system.”

That is the way to go for a Nigerian rebirth in the spirit of June 12.

June 11, 2013
June 12: Old habits die hard

June 12, 1993, about 14 million Nigerians trooped out to cast their ballots in what became the watershed as the freest and fairest elections in the nation’s electoral history. The Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate, the business mogul Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, received over 8 million votes, and won in 19 states and the Federal Capital Territory. His National Republican Convention (NRC) counterpart, Alhaji Bashir Tofa got over six million votes and won in only 10 states. The SDP candidate’s victory was resoundingly comprehensive as he clinched almost 60% of the total votes cast. Only in two states of Kebbi and Sokoto did Abiola fail to obtain at least one-third of the votes.

That was the result before the June 16, 1993 order by the Abuja High Court suspending further announcement of the results. The order was of course as good as superfluous given that the result, under the existing rules, was already available to the world. We know what happened later: the election was annulled by the Ibrahim Babangida junta.

The intendment of the annulment was in effect, to deny that the exercise, in which more than 14 million citizens freely exercised their franchise, never really took place! The description of the criminal annulment as a military wonder of procuring an abortion after the arrival of the baby could not be more apt!

But then, no less revealing is the attitude of a section of the political class. Some actually insisted that the election, in which they freely took part, could not have been valid mainly on the strength of a spurious judgment procured at midnight! Losers on their part would not even find the grace to concede victory to the winner just as some would threaten to bring the roof down should the result of the non-controversial election be recognised. In the end, the pan Nigerian mandate was effectively scuttled. As they say, the rest is history.

But then, we are talking of an event that took place two decades ago. How well has the nation fared 14 years into the so-called democratic journey? No doubt, its quest for democratic consolidation has been a mixed bag. Whereas the experience has ranged from the outright confounding to the ridiculous, the nation can at least point to one major blessing that the democratic order, with all its dysfunctions, is at least theoretically, still in place!

Now, let’s go back. Twenty years ago, the nation had what one might call, a passable electoral process. Warts and all, the Modified Open Ballot system – better known as Option A4, at least guaranteed some degree of credibility to the process. The requirement was simple. Voter registration was elaborate. Accreditation of voters, although tedious and cumbersome was at least open and transparent. The collation process, although fraught with some challenges, was generally seen as credible and reliable.

What do we have today? If in 1999, the process was passable, subsequent years have been an exercise in steady regression. If citizens thought that no election could be worse than that of 2003, they could not have imagined what became of the 2007 elections. In the South-west, it actually took the active intervention by the judiciary to return to the winners what the electoral robbers had stolen as we saw in Ekiti and Osun states! And the source of the trouble: the electoral machine that turned losers into winners and vice versa.

That was the background which informed citizens’ faith in the Attahiru Jega-led INEC. And what did we get? At best a distinction without a difference. Today, Nigerians can’t even be sure that any system let alone a fool-proof one is in place. Despite the song made by the electoral umpire about deploying modern technology to its activities, the last exercise ended in utter disappointment, unfortunately, for an exercise that the nation had invested so much faith and resources. In the end, not only was the outcome suspect, all the promises of an error-free, biometric system simply disappeared with the wind.

But then, the problem with the political system isn’t always that of the architecture of the elections. It seems to me that we have a greater challenge to deal with in the attitude of the players in our electoral politics. It starts with their basic understanding of political concepts and extends to their disdain for the rule of the game. In 1993, a section of political players would insist on not making the distinction between the military-ordered cancellation of party primaries and the annulment of a national election. It’s like not finding the difference between the candidate that was prevented from writing an exam and another that sat and passed for an exam but for which the examiner would nonetheless insist never held!

Again, that was 1993. It is a measure of the regression of our national politics that the same old daemon of delinquency is back. Evidence: May 2013, a so-called “consensus arrangement” among players is deemed as superior to an election in which parties willingly took part, and of which the result would run contrary to their expectations of their ‘consensus’. And that is an election in which only 35 voted!

One is talking here of the Nigerian Governors Forum election of May 24 which Rotimi Amaechi, the Rivers State governor won with 19 votes, but which the consensus group now claims that their man, Jonah Jang won with 16. I watched Olusegun Mimiko, the Ondo state governor struggle to make the case that the election held against the grain of expectation. Did he say that the election did not take place? No, he didn’t – only that the incumbent ought to have stepped down in deference to their rules. Did he vote? Was his vote among the 35 counted? At this time, it’s even pointless to talk about bad losers who instead of accepting defeat gracefully would rather invoke God as if He, and not them, scripted the confusion.

Where is the nation headed? It’s not difficult to tell. Let me however make this point: the virus of political delinquency would kill this democracy faster than anyone might ever think. The point is – it’s easier to fix the bolts and the nuts of the electoral machine than one would deal with the delinquency virus. What delinquency does is gnaw slowly away at the soul of the democratic spirit. Now, tell me, whoever heard of a being without the spirit?

June 11, 2013
Before we end the emergency rule

The federal government seems to be enjoying a rare moment of success in the war against terror and President Goodluck Jonathan is feeling on top of the world. There are even talks in government circles that the state of emergency imposed on Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states might not last its full six months course.

Even the National Assembly, particularly the Senate has caught the bug of victory over Boko Haram “in sight” that is pervading official and military circles in Abuja. President of the Senate David Mark recently echoed President Jonathan when he said the emergency rule would soon be over.

But amidst this optimism lies the danger of dropping our guards and allowing Boko Haram a way back and causing more havoc. And that seems to be the case in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital last weekend when some members of the terrorist organisation sneaked through the security cordon within and around the city, hiding their guns in a coffin to gain access to where some informants were staying and shot them dead.

The president seems to be under some pressure to end the military action and declare victory albeit prematurely and that would be dangerous for Nigeria. If he succumbs to the pressure from both within and outside the Peoples Democratic Party, the Boko Haram insurgency could become like a snake cut into half, when it strikes, it would be more deadly.

For the first time President Jonathan seems to be doing something right. The military action seems to be heading for success and Boko Haram look certain to fizzle out or retreat into neighbouring countries. This looks good, but then with 2015 elections near the corner, the politician in the president is inclined to wanting to reap the success too quickly and risks destroying the gains. As was the case with former United States president George W Bush when he declared victory over Iraq in the second Gulf war prematurely, any hasty withdrawal of the military from the theatre of operation against Boko Haram could prolong the insurgency and harm Jonathan’s political future. Not that he has done well overall to deserve another term in office, but if he could restore peace and security to the north east and other trouble spots around the country may be he could have a chance.

Supporters of the military action. I guess they are more in numbers, want peace everywhere in Nigeria not just the north east, just as critics of the military action. They would support every action by the military to bring about peace and security but not high handedness and crimes against the innocent as the military in states under the emergency rule are being accused of. Every criticism of the military in this regard is often seen by the government and the military high command as an attack on Nigeria by “enemies” of the country. Even media reports are seen in this light. This is rather unfortunate. The other day Aljazeera reported certain atrocities against innocent civilians and the government’s only response to it is to condemn the report without any evidence to disprove it. Now the government is hyper sensitive to every seemingly negative report of the military action in the north east almost to the point of paranoia, yet no effort has been made to take Nigerian journalists to theatre of action to see things for themselves. Telephone communication to most parts of the region has been cut, so getting first information on what was happening is pretty difficult,so the Nigerian press is left to publish/report handouts from either the military high command in Abuja or what foreign news agencies could glean from their contacts in Nigeria.

While it might look unpatriotic to rely on foreign wire reports to get information on the military operation, the hand out from the military cold also be suspect, as the military cannot be relied upon to day the whole truth. So, as it is done elsewhere, it wouldn’t be out of place if the military should arrange “embed” some Nigerian journalists as part of the military media team covering the military action against Boko Haram. If the local journalists are there live, the tendency to want to rely on foreign wire report would be reduced and trust the Nigerian journalist to also be patriotic.

The federal government it does appear gets annoyed only when these reports and criticism of some perceived excesses of the military in the fight against Boko Haram doesn’t favor it. Each time the United States had something not too good to say about the military action and even the activities of Boko Haram, the federal government was always on the defensive, and at times abusive.

At a point the US was to classify Boko Haram as a terrorist organisation but Abuja kicked against the move, but last week President Jonathan finally came to terms with the reality that what we had on our hands was a gang of terrorist and has so acknowledged and classified the group together with its sister organisation, Ansaru. What this points to is a simple fact that these foreign countries and/or international agencies couldn’t possibly have anything against us other than the best interest of the country and the international community.

Now that we seem to be getting on top of the Boko Haram insurgency, the need to engage our neighbouring countries in the fight is imperative. Some of the fleeing terrorists have found their way to Niger Republic in particular where they recently attacked a prison in an effort to free some of the inmates who are members of their organisation. The Ghanaian president recently called for a regional approach to the fight against terrorism in the sub region. A coordinated effort supported by the rest of the international community would go a long way to rid Nigeria and indeed the West African sub region of threat and menace of these terrorists.

The war against terror is not one in which victory can be declared, it is a long one to be fought over generations and must not be left to the military alone. We are all involved.

As PDP presses the self destruct botton

Not picking your national chairman’s call could cost you your membership especially if you are a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). At least that seems to be the reason behind the suspension of the Sokoto State governor Alhaji Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko last week from the party. Alu, as the governor is fondly called was the second governor elected on the platform of the party to be suspended by the leadership under the guise of instilling discipline in the party.

Remember Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State is still on suspension to ostensibly instill discipline in the party. At least that was what we were made to believe by the Bamanga Tukur led executive of the party but Nigerians are not deceived. All is geared towards clearing the way for a Jonathan candidacy for the presidency on the platform of PDP again in 2015. To achieve this, all real and perceived obstacle must be removed. Well let’s see how far Jonathan and Tukur can go.

How many more “recalcitrant” governors would be suspended to achieve this remain to be seen but it does appear that some people in the party would stop at nothing to return Jonathan to the presidency even destroying the party and possibly our democracy. But Nigerians are watching. May be we need the PDP to self destruct to save this democracy. Time will tell.

June 11, 2013
The tower of PDP

As we marked another democracy day, it is natural to review our democratic journey in the Third Republic so far with a view to forming an opinion on the journey itself and the road ahead. In the event that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has governed the country uninterrupted since 1999, it is the dominant influence of our democracy and as painful as it is, the bitter truth is that our fortunes as a nation are decided by the PDP. So it is only sensible to look at the PDP, the drivers of our national vehicle in order to see where the drive is headed.

Many commentators point to the uninterrupted 14 years of civil rule and the handover in 2007 from one civilian led government to another as evidence of deepening democracy in Nigeria and conclude that it has in fact come to stay. This conclusion is without sophistication in as much as it does not recognize the fact that a transfer from one PDP government to another is not a handover, it is a hand-in.

For different reasons and especially because of recent dramatic events in the PDP, anytime happenings in the PDP assault my space, the biblical story of the Tower of Babel comes to mind. For those unfamiliar with the story, the people of the world at that time had only one language and were very skilled in construction. So conceited did they become in the greatness of their own abilities that they decided to build a tower to reach up to heaven. God realising the possibilities attendant to unity of purpose decided to confuse their tongues and the builders started speaking different languages. Unable to understand each other any longer, the project collapsed and ended in failure.

The lesson of the story for me lies in the wisdom of recognising that with unity of purpose, great things are possible. Unfortunately, the fact that a thing is great does not make it good and therefore with unity of purpose even ignoble things can be attained. The PDP has ruled Nigeria for 14 years. It has not been years of glory for our nation but for members of the PDP. Whilst the rest of the country is being crushed under the suffocating weight of corruption induced poverty and insecurity, they are in their own cocoons. That is why a country with a GNP that is less than that of the West Bank and Gaza is the same with a staggeringly disproportionate high demand for armoured vehicles, private jets and champagne!

The PDP has captured and retained power for 14 years, but that is not the real story. The fact is that power has been retained by a combination of brute force, election rigging, intimidation and politics of divisive tribalism and religion. Unfortunately as a people we have been outmanoeuvred by PDP’s ignoble but clever use of divide and rule propaganda. So even when things are being done wrong, the identity of the perpetrator and his tribe and religion become more important than the effect of the wrong doing on the larger society. A good friend and otherwise very sensible gentleman and also from the South-south agreed that things were not going well in Nigeria but chastised me for blaming or criticising President Jonathan, our ‘brother’ ( I am not Ijaw and neither is he). He angrily proclaimed that he did not care if Nigeria spoils and in words that are forever etched in my system – “others have spoilt Nigeria before- it is our turn to spoil Nigeria! After we have taken our turn then we can pay attention to doing things right”! A pure but sadly prevalent case of impassioned irrationality of the many that have been fooled by the divide and rule propaganda. This same friend of Urhobo extraction, when asked whether the governorship in Delta State will rotate to Delta North who have never held the position – angrily reminded me that democracy is a matter of numbers and so the minority Delta North should be democrats and perish the ambition! Such is the self-serving hypocrisy of a traumatized citizenry. In Akwa Ibom State, the Eket senatorial district is laying claim to the governorship in 2015 on the basis of rotation and fairness. PDP stalwart and Senator representing Uyo senatorial district, Ita Enang has proclaimed on behalf of the party that zoning, which he described as unknown to democracy has never been applied in Akwa Ibom! The Eket people have started reminding everyone, increasingly aggressively, that being the producers of the entire oil wealth of Akwa Ibom State, their quest to govern the state is not only meritorious it is also not negotiable! Sounds like a familiar narrative and if memory serves me right I remember my friend Senator Enang making the startling disclosure that northerners control 80% of Nigeria’s oil. I wonder how much of Akwa Ibom’s oil is controlled by non-Eket Akwa Ibomites!

Forgive the detour of the above examples as it is necessary to illustrate the latent inconsistencies that have become part of the PDP and hence national fabric; inconsistencies manifested by the surfacing of strange tongues.

Recent events in the PDP, especially the Rivers State situation, playing out in the recent Nigeria Governors Forum election and spiralling out of control is a manifestation of the irredeemable confusion in the party. It is my humble opinion that this is a signpost for the liberation of a hapless citizenry from the clutches of a power-crazed locust ruling elite. Nigerians have been speaking in different tongues and have been rendered unable to forge a common front to make the ruling elite subservient to the peoples wishes and interests. We have been kept divided because the ruling elite have forged an unholy unity in a quest for their own self-protection and selfish interests. Nothing signified this unholy unity of purpose more than the existence of a cohesive governors forum. The Rivers situation has resulted in the collapse of the governors forum. We the people should rejoice because although an unintended consequence, our freedom is nigh. That is the law of nature, confusion among our captors means we are able to break the shackles of induced divisions and re-establish the supremacy of peoples power. As K O Mbadiwe may have said – they are disuniting to unite us!

A key component of democracy is elections and the acceptance of the majority rule. From the governors forum election, it has been clearly demonstrated that this is at variance with the PDP ethos. For them, it is either the way of the cabal or everything scatters! I will boldly predict that although PDP controls Nigeria, our dear country will not scatter, it is the PDP that will scatter! The boast of ruling Nigeria for the next 100 years (with or without our consent) is akin to building the tower of Babel and God having seen our helplessness has come to our rescue. That is why Governor Jang believes God made him the chairman of the governors forum, he is correct! And Nigerians should thank God! The history of Nigeria’s democracy when told in many years will feature PDP prominently, sadly for our country; it is episodes like the post election drama and the abduction of Governor Chris Ngige amongst several other shenanigans that will be of most interest.

• Ukpong writes from Lagos.

June 11, 2013
Jang and his gang

Almost two weeks after 35 of Nigeria’s 36 state governors met in Abuja to elect a new set of leaders for their association, the Nigeria Governors Forum, and we are nowhere near knowing who actually got the nod of the governors to be their chairman.

Though a winner (Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State) was announced at the end of voting, the loser’s camp led by Governor David Jang of Plateau State is claiming victory.

But while the result declared by the returning officer showed that Amaechi got 19 votes as against 16 for Jang, no other result has been produced, so far, to show that Jang and not Amaechi was duly elected.

So, apart from the usual noise of rigging that we often hear from losers after every election in Nigeria, no concrete evidence has been put in the public domain by Jang and co to back their claim. The allegation of rigging has not been proven either. And his response to a video recording of the event now on YouTube was a tame condemnation that it was immoral for whoever made that recording to do so; the facts contained in the video he could not fault.

And in the face of all this, Jang went ahead to open an office for his faction of the NGF which he says is authentic and even had the gut to lead his gang to the presidential villa in Abuja to pay homage to President Goodluck Jonathan who not only received them but met with them behind closed doors, an action that could only mean his official endorsement. So in the eyes of the president 16 is higher than 19 and the candidate with the least number of votes can actually be declared the winner as long as it helps his own cause. That sadly appears to be President Jonathan’s understanding of democracy.

The implication of this for our democracy is quite obvious, but for those who chose not to see it, giving victory to the loser in an election without recourse to the court or going through due process of challenging the outcome can only mean one thing for our democracy, disaster. What becomes of the time tested dictum that the majority carries the vote?

Next week will mark the 20th anniversary of the June 12 election, when Nigerians voted in a presidential election but their votes were not allowed to count.

With the majority clearly in favor of a particular candidate that the ruling military junta was not comfortable with, the powers that be then would rather annul that election than allow the majority to carry the day. And so the election of Bashorun MKO Abiola as president and commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on June 12, 1993 was annulled by military fiat and with it went the 3rd Republic. The will of the majority was subverted and Nigeria went into crisis. You know the rest of the story.

It does appear that we have learnt nothing from that experience. No matter how imperfect an election was the outcome must be respected as long as that was the wish of the majority. If the military had allowed Abiola to assume his mandate, it was possible Nigeria could have fumbled and wobbled then (but definitely not crumble, as the anti June 12 forces then wanted us to believe) if he didn’t perform well, but the people would only have blamed themselves for that choice and would have changed him at the next election. We lost that opportunity and it took us a long time to get it back in 1999 and now we are toying with it again.

The NGF election might look small and may be insignificant in the context of the larger politics, but the message we are sending by this long drawn dispute over who won the chairmanship portends danger for our democracy. If in an election involving only 35 electors and we are still alleging rigging then what happens when there are 70 to 80 million voters? An election among state governors who are supposedly members of the political elites and yet we are still disputing the outcome?

All the state governors have been a let down in this matter and they should be ashamed of themselves. What are they teaching the rest of us ordinary mortals? But the greatest let down here is President Goodluck Jonathan. His denials notwithstanding, the whole furore over the NGF election is all about his second term bid. He feels that a Rotimi Amaechi led NGF would be injurious to his ambition to return to office in 2015. How he arrived at his conclusion is still baffling. What can Gov. Amaechi do if Nigerians believe Jonathan deserves another term in 2015? But does the President deserve another term? Has he done enough to earn our votes again in 2015?

I think Jonathan is just a failed president looking for someone to blame for his failure. Trying to cast Amaechi as the stumbling block to his second term chance, if he has any chance at all, is simple escapism. Jonathan should ask himself this basic question. Are Nigerians better off now than they were when I took over? If he answers in the affirmative, then he should ignore the NGF, both Amaechi’s and Jang’s factions and throw his hat into the ring for the 2015 presidential election and wait for the people to decide. If he deceives himself by saying yes when he knows that he has not measured up to expectation, he will definitely fail at the polls. Nigerians would reject him and nothing will happen, the threats of Asari Dokubo and his fellow thugs notwithstanding.

But before we get to that election the president and his group have to be very careful about what they say and what they do. Lest they plunge this nation into further crisis. Parading Jang and his gang as the real NGF and threatening any PDP governor that refused to fall in line is not the right way to go. If truly Jonathan is the leader of the country, instead of meeting with a faction of the NGF, he should call a meeting of all the 36 state governors and sit down with them to resolve the crisis in the Forum. This will serve not just his interest but the larger Nigerian interest.

For Governor Jang much more is expected of him as an elderly person and he should apply the wisdom of an old man and not lent himself to being used to cause the downfall of this democracy. He should not be a tool in the hands of Jonathan and wife to fight their ‘enemy’ real or imagined. He should let Jonathan carry his cross, fight his battle. If the NGF goes down, Nigerians will neither forget nor forgive Jang. If truly Jang won as he insists, then he should provide the evidence, if not he should keep quiet and not heat up the polity unnecessarily. As for the rest of his gang, particularly Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State, I reserve my comments. Those who know him well say he is just behaving true to type. They say he is a serial betrayal; a man of low or no principle; a fair weather politician. What can one say other than to watch, hoping he doesn’t end up destroying himself politically. Yoruba can forgive anything, everything and anybody, but not betrayals. He should ask the Akintolas. Yoruba don’t forget, and the time would come one day when questions would be asked about his conduct in this present dispensation. That time is near. And as we say here, a three year old pounded yam can still burn the finger.

The Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi would also do well by reaching out to the other 16 governors who for one reason or the other did not vote for him. I am sure the founders of the NGF adopted the consensus option in choosing the chairman of the forum in the past to avoid this kind of division that an election, especially among a group of equals could bring. Now we have seen the wisdom in that and can appreciate it better. But that is not to say that electing the chairman was a bad idea, after all we are in a democracy, but governors are expected to be mature enough to rise above the kind of pettiness that often accompany election disputes in Nigeria. We expect a lot better from them and Amaechi should show that he is or can be better by extending a hand of friendship to the other camp, including the President’s and prove that the trust of the majority of his colleagues who preferred him to Jang and indeed that of millions of Nigerians are not misplaced.

The NGF must rally together and remember what brought them together; fighting for the interest of their people. Anything less will only bring the forum public scorn and hatred, irrespective of who the chairman is.

June 4, 2013
Echoes of June 12, portents of 2015

The May 24 Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) election, lost (by President Goodluck Jonathan and his storm-troopers) and won (by Rivers Governor Chibuike Amaechi and his coalition underdogs) has sent dangerous ripples through the polity: echoes from a reckless past; portents of a dire future.

The usual culprits? Cavalier injustice and brazen impunity. Add Governor Amaechi’s suspension from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), after routing the presidential forces, and you view, in full Technicolor, the face of avowed non-democrats running Nigeria’s pitiable democracy!

For bringing the name of God into clear fraud, mimic NGF ‘chair’, Plateau Governor, Jonah Jang, evinces the Biblical Jonah, snoring in the belly of the whale. But the whale of this Jonah, a former Air force general, would appear his military past, from where he pathetically jangles. Despite his high gubernatorial office, he becomes an embarrassment to everyone with his phantom NGF chair.

Wake up, Jonah! It is democracy, not military imposition! And in democracies, election winners assume office while losers stand down! Even as bad as June 12 presidential annulment crisis was, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida did not brandish loser Bashir Tofa as winner, after annulling MKO Abiola’s win. Yet, that is the phony throne Jang jangles about, invoking God’s munificence, in His very temple! Indeed, the Christian God is longsuffering!

What ails Akwa Ibom’s Godswill Akpabio, for proudly leading the gambit to turn winner into loser, and loser into winner? Gubernatorial megalomania powered by presidential impunity? The telling irony is clearly lost on the governor: a God’s will purporting to subvert the will of God for that of mere man. Is the voice of the people not that of God?

To purport to cancel an election the PDP Governors’ Forum chair and his gang lost was the height of impunity. To purport to install the loser in place of the winner was the height of insanity, bordering on absolute contempt for the mental health of other Nigerians. And to resort to empty bluff, brandishing a pre-poll signed list that rippled with fraud and forgery, was the height of power delusion. Why, even gubernatorial buffoonery should be made of saner stuff!

Of course, Ondo’s Olusegun Mimiko completes the triad. But then, when two or three are gathered; and the discourse is political intrigue, be sure Iroko would be there! His friends call the Iroko game real-politik: no friend, no foe, just permanent interest; and the end, to echo Prof. Wole Soyinka, must justify the meanness! But his foes counter it is nothing but seasoned perfidy.

With Mimiko, a losing NGF vice-chairman hilariously pronounced one by outgoing vice, Anambra Governor, Peter Obi; not on the strength of the election result but on the whim of bad losers, the real Iroko political persona storms out of the shadows.

Governor Obi himself is a tragic symbol on more fronts than one. But the irony is also clearly lost on him: how can a grand beneficiary of justice to reclaim his stolen governorship be such a proud votary of swaggering injustice in this NGF case?

But of course! If Mr. Obi could organise a nocturnal convention of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) to thwart an anticipated negative court ruling, it can be legitimately argued that his latest NGF posturing reflects the man’s true political essence.

But Governor Obi presents an even more troubling essence, both as déjà vu and as political symbolism. In raising Dr. Mimiko’s hands as the new NGF vice chair, sans election, Mr. Obi prattled about South East governors working together. That was no crime, except that the present “working together” for injustice echoed a dire past one.

During the June 12 crisis in 1993, South East governors, with the exception of Chukwuemeka Ezeife, the then Anambra governor, worked together to subvert democracy for clear infamy. Dr. Ezeife belonged to the victorious Social Democratic Party (SDP), while the others belonged to the defeated National Republican Convention (NRC). Indeed, so boisterous was Okwesilieze Nwodo, then Enugu governor, that he swore he would commit suicide should Abiola be installed president!

Twenty years after June 12, all South East governors, except Imo’s Rochas Okorocha, are proud and preening members of the united column of brazen injustice, purporting to deny Amaechi of his NGF win, on no less infamy. Why, even as the original June 12 gladiators manufactured post-election fibs about Abiola, this column of bad losers are manufacturing post-election fibs against Amaechi! Indeed, history is repeating itself as farce!

The South East provided some of the finest and most committed defenders of June 12: Eastern Mandate Union, EMU’s Arthur Nwankwo, former Lagos Administrator, Rear Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu, Olisa Agbakoba, SAN, and the late Chima Ubani of the Campaign for Democracy (CD), to mention a few.

Still, as it was with June 12, it is now with NGF: all the South East governors, except one, have jumped, without thinking, into defending brazen injustice. Why do a section of the South East political elite give the impression that, when the chips are down, they would rather go with expediency than side with equity and justice? And how does that penchant strengthen their hands to earn justice for their people, one of the most traumatised, in the hellish Nigerian state?

Reuben Abati, ex-Guardian and chief presidential spokesman, has claimed President Goodluck Jonathan had no hand in the NGF imbroglio. He can tell that to the marines! But even the marines must be interested in how Abati, the thundering Guardian columnist would have reacted to the claim of Abati, the thundering presidential spokesman! Still, Abati the presidential oracle has spoken. Who can say no?

But some questions: who was paranoid about Amaechi seeking NGF second term? Jonathan. On whose behalf did Godsday Orubebe fire the first shot? Jonathan. Who staked his presidential prestige on stopping Amaechi at all cost? Jonathan. Who told PDP governors he could no longer work with Amaechi as NGF chair? Jonathan. Under whose perceived charter is Akpabio, emergency viceroy to smash Amaechi, as emergency PDP Governors Forum chair? Jonathan. Who told the Kalabari to warn Amaechi to shun NGF second term? Jonathan. And who bosses the Police, so pathetically partisan in the Rivers PDP crisis? Jonathan!

A final question: is the NGF routing of the Jonathan troops a pointer to what will happen in 2015, if Jonathan is worsted in the presidential poll? Would the commander-in-chief, ala Kenya’s Mwai Kibaki, order the electoral chief to announce him willy-nilly, just as Akpabio and co are purporting to install Jang as winner of an election he soundly lost, even as the PDP threatens Amaechi, the winner, with impeachment or worse?

More darkly, would Nigeria split on account of Jonathan’s loss, as NGF has now split on account of the loss of Jang, Jonathan’s poodle?

These are troubling questions. But for a country of “anything goes” as Gen. Saliu Ibrahim a Babangida-era chief of Army staff described the army of his day, they are not illegitimate ones.

Everyone had better start girding their loins for the seemingly impossible!

June 4, 2013
Their ‘Democracy Day’

It was entirely in character that the ruling PDP and its cohorts celebrated their “Democracy Day” in the penumbra of a brazen evisceration of a fundamental tenet of democracy that calls to mind the annulment, with the active collaboration of some of the very elements that now constitute its hierarchy, of the June 12, 1993, presidential election.

They rejected the clear outcome of that election, just as they have now rejected the unambiguous outcome of an election for the chair of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum. The quisling they trotted out in 1993 as head of an Interim National Government they confected to supplant the democratic choice of the Nigerian electorate was again trotted out as one of the stalwarts of their democracy.

So was the civilian president who for just a little more than four years presided over a government so inept and corrupt that the military that had handed power to him after 13 years in the saddle felt obliged to topple him.

Their “Democracy Day” has as its foundation May 29 1999, the day a military that had exhausted itself and driven Nigeria to the edge of ruin handed over the reins to Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, based on a Constitution he had not seen and the content of which he did not know.

It was a false foundation, and since then, Nigeria has been struggling just to muddle through with rare instances of mastery, and a penchant for celebrating mere intentions as if they were actual accomplishments.

For the most part, President Goodluck Jonathan tried to keep that penchant in abeyance when he presented his Administration’s report card on the first two years of his four-year term and challenged his compatriots to issue their own report cards if they disagreed with the official assessment.

The verdict?

A solid pass on a wide range of metrics. And they reeled out all kinds of figures to back it up.

For the past two years, the economy has been nothing if not superheated, growing at an average. 7 percent yearly. The macro-economic and micro-economic policy environment has been stable, as has the exchange rate. Non-oil exports have almost displaced oil as Nigeria’s chief source of foreign exchange. Inflation has been kept on a tight leash.

A Sovereign Wealth Fund has been created to guarantee Nigeria a stream of revenue from investments. The commercial banks that were teetering on the edge just three years ago have been rescued and are now doing roaring business.

The trains that vanished more than a decade ago are back on the rehabilitated tracks, ferrying passengers and freight on the Lagos-Kano line, with shuttle services between major cities on the route. The re-furbished Kaduna-Port Harcourt line is expected to commence operation soon.

Work is to commence, finally, on rebuilding what used to be the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway but is now so cratered that long stretches of it might be mistaken for a moonscape. The East-West highway now has a better chance of being completed than ever. The nation’s inland waterways have been primed for resumed navigation.

Power supply regrettably still falls short of expectation, but that will soon be a thing of the past when the power stations being built are completed.

During the period under review, some 15 new public universities were established, and a good many of them are up and running. The favourable environment created by the Administration has also spawned several private universities, with more projected.

Agriculture is set for a major boost, what with new arrangements for supplying fertilisers directly to farmers rather than to rent-seeking middlemen, setting up industrial-scale rice mills all over the country to process the bounteous harvest expected from improved seedlings provided by the government.

And, yes, the war on official corruption is being waged earnestly and vigorously

And so on and so forth.

It is in the nature of this kind of report to be self-aggrandizing. Much in it belongs in the realm of aspiration. Some of the assertions fly in the face of the facts. The controversial pardon the President granted former Bayelsa Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, who was convicted in Nigeria of corruption and money laundering after fleeing from British justice does not square up with the claim that official corruption is being battled with vigour.

There is no denying, however that much in the report card qualifies as substantive achievement, for which Dr Jonathan and his Administration can justly claim credit.

At the same time, the matter has to be put in the proper perspective

The economy has been growing at a fast, almost dizzying speed. But who has been reaping the benefits? Certainly not employees whose wages have remained stagnant, or workers who go unpaid for months on end, or pensioners pining away in the forlorn hope of receiving their stipends. And most definitely not hundreds of thousands of thousands of qualified young men and women able and willing to work but unable to find work several years after taking their degrees and diplomas.

The trains may be back on the tracks, but they are shabby and ponderously slow, with the so-called Lagos-Kano Express taking two full days and sometimes longer to chug its way through the 1,020 km (700 miles) route. That train may be preferred to no train at all, but in the age of the bullet train, it is not the kind of transportation any government should be advertising as a great achievement.

In the First Republic, Prime Minister Abubakar Tawafa Balewa used to ride the train all the way from Lagos to Bauchi whenever he was on vacation. None of the government officials touting the return of the trains as a major achievement has boarded the train even for the short trip from Abuja to Kaduna. Not even the Minister of Transport.

Information Minister Labaran Maku has been going round the country on a “good governance” tour to showcase the achievements of the Federal Government. At every stop, he cites the return of the trains as one of its transcendent achievements. But he hops from one top to the next in an executive jet.

In a world of brute empiricism and economism, it is easy to lose sight of the question that really matters when the performance of any government is being assessed. That question is this: To what extent has public policy improved the human condition?

Growth is not enough. It is a measure of the perversity of economic science that the economy can show phenomenal growth even as popular misery deepens. Growth has to be matched by development.

According to the late British economist Dudley Seers, the questions to be asked about a country’s development are these:

What has been happening to poverty?

What has been happening to unemployment?

What has been happening to inequality?

“If all three have declined from high levels,” Seers wrote, “then beyond doubt this has been a period of development for the country concerned.”

Conversely, Seers continued, “If one or two of these central problems have been growing worse, especially if all three have, it would be strange to call the result ‘development’ even if per capita income doubled.” (emphasis added.)

This is the line of thinking that should concentrate Dr Jonathan’s mind and indeed the minds of all officials vested with political authority.

At the start of each day, they should ask themselves: What can I do today to improve the human condition in Nigeria? And at the end of each day, they should ask themselves: What have I done today to improve the human condition in Nigeria?

June 4, 2013
My Jonathan scorecard

If anyone needed evidence of the administration’s determined flight to fantasy-land, last week’s exaggerated self-score by President Goodluck Jonathan of his administration’s mid-term performance should be it. Nearly a week after, the hordes of Nigerians that have volunteered opinions on the self-score are still struggling to make up their minds as to what galls them the more: between the heaps of sterile statistics thrown at the faces of the bewildered populace, and the reality etched on the furrows of the ordinary man on the street that the administration emphatically deny.

Never has an assessment been so blatantly deficit in credibility as the exercise staged in Abuja Wednesday last week. Speaker after speaker spoke glowingly of the administration’s record achievement in two years just as statements were rendered et cathedra. Watching the whole charade on television, I struggled in vain to find the redeeming grave, at least a basic acknowledgment of the painful sacrifices made by Nigerians in the mission that has delivered more pains than gains. For the self-scorers, the Eldorado is here already!

Some samples of their Eldorado: an economy roaring at an annual 6.7 percent growth; the foreign reserves at a soar-away $50 billion; the Sovereign Wealth Fund with $1 billion seed money despite initial objections by some governors. Inflation (which the spendthrift administration is culpable in fuelling at every turn) is touted as being progressively won with inflation now down to 9.1 percent from 12.4 percent in May 2011. How about the claim of record foreign direct investment inflow at a time local businesses remain in coma? Add to these; the administration’s programme on power is on course; ditto its programme to rehabilitate the railways and the transportation infrastructure.

The administration is, without question, entitled to its claims of achievement – including those bordering on delusions. Nigerians of course have the duty to point at the hard facts either deliberately suppressed or glossed over in the larger conversation on the economy and by extension, the nation’s future. The issue certainly runs deeper than the administration’s book balances can ever reveal; which explains why the unceasing but cheap seduction by the Jonathan’s book-keepers to their narrow treatise with its distorted reality even when there are other authorities to turn for a more balanced picture has been particularly irksome.

Let’s consider the report of the anguished operators on the Main Street; the whining manufacturers whose operations are constantly threatened or are in the throes of shutdown for the same old reasons of inclement environment. Do they agree that the Eldorado is here?

Put in another way: Is the environment under the Jonathan administration, more clement than it was five, eight or even 10 years ago? Not even the Jonathan administration – in its widest delusions – would dare to suggest that the problems have disappeared. Just as the same old problems have endured, some have in fact metastasized; the only difference is the signature on the promissory notes.

Two weeks ago, I stumbled on an observation by the Senior Representatives of the IMF in Nigeria, W. Scott Rogers which I consider particularly relevant in framing the current debate on the economy. Here is how the IMF chieftain captured what he called the Nigerian “conundrum”: “Income per capita has gone up, yet poverty isn’t improving and we are having a difficult time understanding why that is, or how that could be”.

Now, the IMF couldn’t understand why poverty is on the rise at a time the nation’s per capita income is rising. Do our officials know? I bet – they don’t.

Well, I have some ideas to explain the so-called mystery.

The first is the bazaar of contractocracy at all levels of government. Today, the shortest route to unearned wealth is government business. Our government –at the federal level in particular – has become a huge procurement machine spinning contracts without delivering value. It can afford to spruce up far –flung airports even when there are no aircraft to fly; the same way it retains enough funds to erect monuments in service of the egos of those in power but never enough to fix the craters on the highways. Whoever thought that a government in this day and age could create a department to service the needs of certified deviants and their co-travellers in criminal delinquency? Of course, it can only happen in Nigeria. Under Jonathan presidency, the portfolio has not only enlarged, it has since assumed the status of an industry.

The obverse side of the government profligacy is the continuing asphyxiation of the real sector through the prohibitive cost of lending. Let me offer a simple explanation on why the government is the sole culprit in this. Today, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) rate which sets the benchmark lending rate has been kept at 12% for the MPC’s 10 meeting running. This is of course justified by the need to curb government’s unbridled spending – the expansionary fiscal activities of government at all levels. That, in turn, hikes the cost of borrowing to everyone – including the small and medium scale business. In other words, it is a case of getting them to pay for the sins of the irresponsible government! It is a vicious cycle.

Now, you know who to hold responsible whenever the real sector complains of prohibitive costs of funds. Does anyone yet see how costly the delinquency of the public sector can be? Is the Jonathan administration less culpable than those before it in this regard? As for those complaining about the current MPC rate, I say: wait till the third quarter of next year to see the rate head further north as politicians roll out their war chest as the race to 2015 hits the home stretch!

Related to the above is the unemployment situation. The statistics is simply frightening. As for youth unemployment, don’t even dare to go there – It has reached the tipping point. We herd our children to school hoping that opportunities will somehow open up after graduation. Our government talks about the need to expand the opportunities for youths but does nothing to create them. As it is in the labour market, so it is in the educational system. With only 520,000 spaces available for the 1.7 million candidates who sat for this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME), are we not preparing the nursery ground for tomorrow militants and Boko Haram recruits? Does that feature on the Jonathan scorecard?

I should not fail to mention another conundrum – our mounting debts at a time of unprecedented incomes. The Jonathan administration insists that the nation is presently under-borrowed. And what is their case for borrowing? That we should, just because we can? And at a time we are supposed to be growing the piggy bank called the Excess Crude Account?

They say the funds are cheap – unlike the Paris and London club of debts? So what? Should anyone be pressing to borrow at 15 percent while stashing away our reserves at JP Morgan at nominal interest of barely 2%?

So, where is the basis for the claim that the Jonathan administration is any different from those that have landed us in the present hell-hole? Only because more money is flowing in and hence it could afford to throw it around?

Still want my score? It would be a D.

June 4, 2013
Freedom of misinformation

Sir Mervyn King the outgoing Governor of the Bank of England has had a really tough time battling with a slew of financial scandals and audit failures. His Achilles heels are the dodgy economy of the UK and most of Europe (with even Germany having to struggle). The long and short of it is that the global economy is faltering and Britain has been caught in its slipstream.

Sir Mervyn still has three more months at the Bank of England, a recession at this time would have cast a dark shadow over his tenure even though his worst critics concede that it is the politicians who are to blame – they lost the plot and took their eyes off the ball. When David Cameron became Prime Minister in 2010, he took a huge gamble by launching a bold slashing of government expenditure. The pointsman was none other than the UK Treasury Chief (Chancellor the Exchequer) George Osborne. He insists that Britain’s economy is on the mend.

On CNN, he declared:

“We all know there are no easy answers to problems built up over many years, and I can’t promise the road ahead will always be smooth, but by continuing to confront our problems head on, Britain is recovering and we are building an economy fit for the future.”

At a special service to mark Workers’ Day on Wednesday 1st May 2013, the brand new Holy Father, Pope Francis 1 chose St Peter’s Basilica to deliver a special message of hope not only to workers but also the unemployed particularly those chartered accountants who have been protesting in St Peter’s Square against being deprived of their means of livelihood by the four major accounting firms.

The Pontiff urged them – one and all – not to lose hope.

The Holy Father urged them to remain optimistic and steadfast in their faith amidst record joblessness in the euro area as hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated across Europe against austerity and workers’ rights – in addition to the right of small audit firms to carry out a robust audit without the fear of being removed from office while the four largest accounting firm’s are only too ready to take over their clients. According to them, there is nowhere in the Ten Commandments poaching, snatching or enticement of clients are forbidden. You kill what you eat and eat what kill is the unwritten law.

The Pope’s message was straight to the point:

“I think about those who are unemployed (and auditors who have been replaced by Big Four) often because of an economic conception of society that seeks egoistic profit regardless of social justice.”

Vatican Radio devoted a whole hour to interviewing youths all over Europe and it would appear that the economic downturn has forced young people to reconsider the value of going to university and half of them think a degree is no longer worthwhile. The Future of Europe Project found the confidence of young people (particularly Catholics) has been badly hit. The majority aged between 16 to 24 do not expect to have a job for life.

The Vatican media can barely keep up with the vigour and freshness of the Pope. Indeed, Vatican Radio and TV have been feasting on the editorial of “The Nation” newspaper of March 23, 2013.

Headline: “POPE OF HOPE”

v “New Catholic Pontiff starts on a good note”

“The formal inauguration the new Catholic Pontiff, Pope Francis 1, on Tuesday, signaled the commencement of a new era in the history of the church at a most critical period. The galaxy of world leaders who graced the occasion as well as the global attraction it elicited indicate that so much is expected of the new spiritual head of the 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide, both within and beyond the Catholic communion. Pope Francis is the first Jesuit priest to become Pope.

An Argentine, he is the first Pope from outside Europe. He is the first Pope in living memory to occupy the seat when his predecessor is still alive as Pope Emeritus. He assumes office at a time of grave moral crisis in the church and critical socio-economic challenges confronting humanity. The new Pope’s early gestures indicate that he has the spiritual grace, humility and wisdom to help guide the church to a higher moral pedestal. Francis is in many ways a Pope of hope.

It is significant that the Pope has assumed the name of St Francis of Assisi, a monk whose commitment to the poor was demonstrated by a life-long vow of chastity, humility and poverty. This is an indication of his identification with the wretched of the earth’ that still constitute the vast majority of humanity in a world that has, ironically, evolved the technology and expertise to make poverty history. As it is well known, poverty is at the root of many of the problems – religious extremism, terrorism, rampant criminality and gross moral degeneration – that threaten the very existence of humanity today. The current economic crisis that afflicts most parts of the world today also underscores the gulf of inequality that separates a microscopic proportion of the opulent from the less fortunate rest of mankind.

Pope Francis was thus right on target in emphasizing the need to protest the poor and the environment in his inaugural homily. He called on Christians “to protect the whole of creation, to protect each person especially the poorest, to protect ourselves” saying further that “This is a service that the Bishop of Rome is called to carry out, yet one to which all of us are called ….. The vocation of being a protector, however, is not just something involving us Christians alone; it also has a prior dimension which is simply human, involving everyone. It means protecting the people, showing concern for people, showing concern for each and every person, especially children, the elderly, those in need, who are often the last we think about.”

These words of compassion have a special resonance for us in Nigeria, where society worships at the altar of crass materialism and man is no longer his brother’s keeper. Pope Francis is showing a worthy example to the Nigerian church, where the size of a person’s bank account has become the measure of the salvation of his soul and men of God fly private jets in the name of God, even as millions of their members wallow in hunger and deprivation…

As for the Seventy “Senior Elders from Nigeria” who have for almost six months kept vigil in St. Peter’s Square in fervent prayers for our beloved country – that it may not go the same way as Rwanda; Sierra Leone; Liberia; Egypt; Libya; and especially Somalia, the Italians and the Holy Father have proved to be generous hosts. We are being provided with free biscotti and coffee. Besides, our visas have been extended “indefinitely”. The message is clear – we are welcome to pray for as long as we like.

• Bashorun Randle, OFR, FCA writes from Ikoyi, Lagos

June 4, 2013