The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sanya Oni

  • Youths, BBN and #EndSARS

    Youths, BBN and #EndSARS

    Just as one would imagine, Nigerians have said all that needs to be said about the just-ended reality show BigBrotherNaija. Merely by the wave of denunciation that trailed the programme from take-off to the final moments when the Grand Prize of N85 million was awarded the winner; not least the cash rain that has attended its aftermath and the media blitz it spawned; one would be tempted to reduce everything about the show to the Achebean Trouble with Nigeria.

    Now, if one understood the subtle angst underlying a show in which young adults will be locked up in a closet under the eagle eye of a roving camera and all the temptations that came with it for mere lucre; certainly not the sanctimoniousness and hypocrisy of a few moral policemen in our midst who not only seek to determine what is right and pure but will seek to rain the fury of Armageddon on contrarians. Here is a country where millions of youths are idle with nary a prospect of getting their hands dirty on productive or even rewarding work; yet that hypocritical segment would descend on the few considered ‘eccentric’ merely for the crime of daring to live out their passions!

    It is not exactly that one does not see the point of those who would rather use the barometer of Big Brother Nigeria to measure all that is wrong with our youths. Once upon a time, a certain Catholic priest Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Ojeifo of the Archdiocese of Abuja had asked of the BBN: “What values are we transmitting to youths today, in a society where immorality and stupidity are rewarded with big prizes?

    “We cannot continue to nurture a society that places a premium on iniquitous shows such as BBNaija and expect to groom a generation of cultured, disciplined and morally upright leaders…The promoters of this immoral show must ask themselves what they intend to make out of it; they must ask themselves what values and morals they are projecting to the larger Nigerian society.

    That was during the 2017 edition. Three years on, the debate of continues. And so, has interest in the shown by those who would ordinarily been indifferent. If in doubt, ask the ordinary market woman or the cobbler next door about a certain Laycon, they will most likely regale you with a story of a boy made good by Providence; if you care to stay attentive and long enough, you’ll probably hear muffled supplications about some miracles which they hope will hopefully berth in their corners too!

    But then, the same moral arguments may well apply to the world of beauty pageants, the Nollywood and not least the growing counter-culture of expression and protests through music and the arts. As in these cases, the real problem, as it appears, is the penchant to hold on to a past that has long faded like Grandma’s Kente cloth. While like every Nigerian, one often worries about the terrible choices our youths are called to make in a society the keeps pressing them to the margins, the irony is that we can’t even seem to find some accommodation for that segment that dares to be different in their own different ways.

    Today, if there are some Nigerians still claiming to be unaware of a certain Naira Marley, it seems most unlikely that they would not have come across a tribe called Marlians! So potent is the force of the movement that their chief priests’ signature tune – T’esu mole – alongside its gyrations are rendered in our sacred religious enclaves!

    Pornography. Immorality. Alcoholism. Nudity. These are familiar labels that have been used to describe the show. And these tags from people who, probably like me, never bothered to watch the show. Reminds me of a story of a priest who ran into a young woman in the course of a journey. At a point, the duo got to a stream of fast flowing water. The lady, obviously scared at the possibility of being swept off by the angry torrent turned to the priest for help. And what did the priest do? Off he simply went, muttering that he, as a man of the cloth, could not be expected to touch an unclean thing! A few minutes later, another stranger who was probably too much in a hurry to cross would be approached by the lady, and almost without thinking, the man pulled her skirt up to keep it from getting wet, after which he carried her on his back across, and moved on. Meanwhile, the priest from a safe distance watched not without some unimaginable thoughts swirling in his minds even long after the good Samaritan had departed!

    Now, let’s take a look at the array of the BBN 2020 contestants. The youngest of them, Rebecca “Nengi” Hampson is 22; her bio describes her as an entrepreneur. The oldest, Timmy Sinclair “Trikytee” described as creative artist and storyteller is 35. Then of course is Olamilekan “Laycon” Agbeleshe, the ultimate winner who is 26 and is a singer and rapper. Far from being in the teeny club, these are largely full-formed adults who already had some things going for them. None made pretences about who they are or even the values they represent – very much unlike many of the hypocritical mob. In any case, the contestants made clear that the show was for them a launch-pad for bigger careers in show business.

    No matter how objectionable some might find shows like the BBN, there will always be places for such in every society. That is what globalization and technology has brought. Moreover, it is in the very nature of capitalism. What responsible government’s do is regulate the content – which in this case – has been done with the tag ‘adult’. And then, being on the DSTV bouquet means that those not so inclined to the show could hit on the remote-control button. The same thing with the uproar about the reward system under which a so-called idle, unproductive spell of 70 days in a madhouse will yield a cool N85 million for the winner. It’s the way the world is wired. It’s the reason why Nobel laurates are not on the Forbes list; the same reason why our egg-heads are never in contention for creativity! I guess this is where those accusing Dapo Abiodun of misplaced priority miss the point. The fact that one is given high recognition isn’t the reason the other came short. Much as I would concede that such gestures reflect a society’s choices of priorities, it must come with the understanding that the terrains are worlds apart!

    And now my final point about Nigerian youths. Thanks to the #EndSARS protests – we are probably on to Nigeria’s Spring of Discontent. For the youths, it appears to be the moment of their arrival – a testament to their desire to get their voices heard. Only those who fail to the read the signs correctly will deny the reality of the raging fire.

  • PMB and PENCOM

    PMB and PENCOM

    By Sanya Oni

    Trust Senate President Ahmad Lawan to wish to shrug it off as mere ‘storm’ in a teacup, it’s hard not to see the signals of a looming battle as the Senate moves to confirm Aisha Umar as the Director General of the Pension Commission in the coming days. For those who might want to finger the Senate Minority Leader Eyinnaya Abaribe as setting off the strange fires, they only need to go back in time to 2016 when President Muhammadu Buhari took out the board of PENCOM and put a sole administrator in charge.

    Expectedly, Abaribe’s grouse was that Aisha Umar, from the Northeast, was picked to replace Chinelo Anohu-Amazu from the Southeast. Citing Section 20(1) and (2) of the National Pension Commission Act 2014 which read: “in the event of a vacancy, the president shall appoint replacement from the geo-political zone of the immediate past member that vacated office to complete the remaining tenure”, he insisted that the president’s action should be deemed as ultra vires.

    Now, let’s go back a little bit. In December 2012, Anohu-Amazu was appointed into that position in acting capacity. That was after the exit of pioneer helmsman Muhammed K. Ahmad. It would take a year and few months for her to be confirmed as substantive DG in 2014. Interestingly, that process itself was not without a tinge of controversy chief of which was that shed lacked the cognate experience for the top job as the position required 20 years of working experience – which she then lacked. In the end, the Senate in its wisdom had to lower the age requirement from 20 to 15 years the amended law if only to pave the way for her appointment.

    Her problem, as it turned out, had only just about begun. Indeed, her tenure was marked by allegations of conflict of interests, breaches and violations of Public Procurement Act as a result of which the House of Representatives joint committee on public procurement and pensions caused a probe to be instituted. But then, there were also parallel running stories about her presumed obstinacy, particularly when according to some reports, she and her board fobbed off an attempt by the finance ministry and those of the Debt Management Office to grant the federal government a princely N3.5 trillion loan to execute the 2016 budget.

    What is noteworthy here is that the president at some point decided that her cup as indeed those of her board, were not only full but running over. End of the story. In the event, the president duly exercised his powers under Section 18 of the Act under which any member of the board, including the DG could be removed, if he “is satisfied that it is not in the interest of the commission or in the interest of the public for the person to continue in office and notifies the member in writing to that effect”.

    That was in 2017. The woman, fortunately has long moved on – this time to Akinwunmi Adesina’s African Development Bank (AfDB) as head and senior director of the Africa Investment Forum.

    Good riddance, no? To who?

    Unfortunately, if the same Act expected the president to go the full hog to fulfil the law in naming a replacement, this time an individual from the Southeast, this was not to be; instead, two nominees – Dikko Aliyu Abdulrahman (Northwest) and Funsho Doherty (southwest) suddenly came up from the presidency to the Senate for confirmation for the offices of DG and chairman of the commission respectively.

    Sensing mischief if not outright disdain for the law establishing the commission, the then senate would have none of it – hence it threw out the request. Its argument was simple: the nominations were in “absolute breach” of 21 (1) of the PRA 2014, which states that: “In the event of a vacancy (for the chairman, DG or other members of the board), the president shall appoint a replacement from the geo-political zone of the immediate past member that vacated office to complete the remaining tenure.”

    That “replacement” did not happen in the whole of the following three years. However, suffice to say that while that aspect of the Act was kept in abeyance, Mrs. Aisha Dahir-Umar from the Northwest was named, in the interim, as DG in acting capacity. And now as if bidding for the tenure of the past board to lapse, the same individual who has been on the seat ever since, has been nominated by the president for the substantive office and for the next five years!

    Now, the point has been made that the nomination, rather than being in breach of any known law, is actually what the law requires the president to do. After all, Section 19(3) of the PRA 2014 provides that the chairman, the Director General and commissioners be appointed by the President subject to confirmation by the Senate – which in this case is what the president has merely put into motion.

    A friend actually told me in the course of a discussion on the matter at the weekend that the outrage surrounding Dahir-Umar’s nomination was misconceived. To summarise his position: to the extent that old things represented by the former board have since passed away – the expectation is for all things brand new! Really? Anyway, my response was that although the wound created might seem innocuous at this time, it seems only a matter of time for gangrene to set in!

    Which of course takes us back to the position of Senator Abaribe on the matter.

    Law or not, I do not think his position is difficult to understand. His premise is as simple as it is unassailable: whereas the tenure of the last DG was aborted mid-way, the law made provision for her replacement from another individual from that particular part of the country. The other point, although not so stated is that there was just enough time to do that considering that this happened barely midway into tenure!

    Is it that the same people whose responsibility it was to ensure that this was done but failed to act appropriately cannot smell the hypocrisy of sheltering behind the law while ignoring the equally weighty matter of equity? Classic a case of law trumping equity and morality!

    Still want to ask me what I think of the development? Political immorality couldn’t have a better description. It will ceretainly take more than Lawan’s senate to deodorise the stench!

     

  • Nigeria@ 60

    Nigeria@ 60

    Sanya Oni

     

    “DASHED hopes, failed promise’s – was how my colleague, Tunji Adegboyega puts it in his reflections on the nation’s odyssey in the last 60 years of its independence. Guess that has become the standard definition of all that the country once touted as the pride of the Black race is, and will unfortunately continue to be, in the foreseeable future particularly in the hands of the cartel of undertakers called leaders.

    Moreover, in a so-called independence week that has since become a hollow, meaningless ritual, trust Nigerians to rail and wail about just everything under the sun – from the bizarre political arrangement with its ingrained injustices to the unimaginable level of poverty; the hopelessly mismanaged diversity and not least an economy that has become the buccaneers delight – all of which combined have turned us into a tribe of wailers!

    Progress, I am often wont to say, is what you make of it. In other words, the question of whether the Nigerian cup is half-full or half-empty is a matter of opinion. For instance, I can recall that my first salary, post-NYSC in 1985 was N400! With that I could afford to take a loan of N3,600 to purchase a 1500cc Volkswagen Beetle even as the more adventurous among my friends thought a brand-new Peugeot 504 was more befitting! Three decades after, it would require my breaking a leg to buy a 10-year foreign used car! Talk of progress in reverse gear!

    That some progress has been made is undeniable.  Just about the time the Union Jack was being lowered in 1960, Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product and per capita income were $4.20 billion and $93 dollars respectively. Fifty-nine years after, GDP and per capita were $448.12 billion and $2,230 respectively.

    It is also noteworthy that in the 10-year period which marked the end of the civil war in 1970 – both the GDP and per capita actually rose to an impressive $12.55 billion and $224 respectively. That was the turn when Nigeria’s leadership, apparently drunk on petrodollars, announced that money was no longer a problem but how to spend! With oil money gushing without the concomitant rigour of hard work, the economy was allowed to go haywire. From ‘Cement Armada’ under which hundreds of cement-laden ships arrived en masse at the Lagos port, creating severe multi-year-long congestion, to the FESTAC, Leyland and other associated scandals, Nigerians were assured that we had enough funds to buy the moon should we so wish!

    But that was merely for a season. Ever since, the economy has known little else than regression in real terms. From an all-time high of GDP $164.48 billion and per capita income of $2,180 in 1981, the economy went on a steady climbdown from which it has never truly recovered from. Indeed, eight years after, both the GDP and per capita plunged to $44 billion and $474 respectively only to hit the nadir in 1993 when they fell to $27.75 billion and $270.

    Unfortunately, if our leaders were ever so mouthful about the need to diversify the economy given the uncertainties that inhere in monolith economies, they did even far less to anticipate the infrastructural imperative on the basis of which a serious foundation of industrial development could be nurtured. From the ill-conceived Structural Adjustment Programme of the 80s advertised as one to correct inherent anomalies said to have plagued the economy at the time, we have moved round in cycles of an unending structural reforms which have not only rendered citizens poorer, but the national currency worsted and ultimately the economy in tatters.

    Of course, with successive cycles of booms and busts being their lot, Nigerians have over time come to associate such fangled phrases as “austerity” “belt tightening” or even “adjustment” to the afflictions of their benighted leadership.

    At this point, we can only imagine what could have been. Truth is Nigeria has never been lacking in grand plans. Peugeot. Steyr. ANAMMCO. Volkswagen. Nigerians surely remember these names. They are names which they not only once took pride but had actually begun to pin their hopes of a thriving automotive industry. We had Exide, the conglomerate in Ibadan producing auto batteries; Isoglass in Ibadan churning out vehicle windscreens; Michelin and Dunlop tyres – all a carefully designed industrial synergy.

    And this is not to talk of the steel mills – the flagship being the Ajaokuta complex in Kogi State designed to receive its chief raw material – iron ore from next door Itakpe Mines. To complete the cycle are the rolling mills in Katsina, Jos and Osogbo. By the way, we even had a machine tools industry – to service the needs of industries in high-tech spares.

    Where are they today?

    What about the paper and allied industry? I mean Iwopin Paper Mills and Products; Jebba Paper Mill and of course the Oku Iboku Newsprint Manufacturing Company all of them designed to meet the paper needs of the country – from bond to art paper, stationeries and exercise books, to newsprint. The idea was not just to save the country the huge foreign exchange required to bring them in but also to create jobs.

    Again, imagine how things would have been were these conglomerates in operation today. We wouldn’t just be talking of billions of dollars of forex savings but of millions of jobs and a thriving economy to boot.

    And the power sector? That is another story. From Electricity Corporation of Nigeria (ECN) to National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) and later Power Holdings Company of Nigeria (PHCN) we have had the utility company morph only in name but nothing else. The reform-minded Obasanjo came in with the Power Sector Reform Act – to provide the institutional framework for the power sector’s transformation – but in the end blew $16 billion to achieve nothing! The threat by his successor, Umaru Yar’Adua to declare an emergency became something of an alibi – and a joke. As for President Goodluck Jonathan, he probably thought the sector was too much trouble to dabble into! At a point when the nation recorded some modest improvements under President Buhari, we were told to look for the magic in the President’s body language!

    Far too much have been written about the nation’s four refineries with combined refining capacity of 425,000 barrels of crude per day. It’s the same old story of abandonment by successive administrations. But then, like the government with its worn argument on subsidy removal, one line that Nigerians would also never be tired of telling our leaders is why they cannot see through the folly of shelling out some 40 per cent of our entire forex earnings on fuel importation!

    And so, here we are in year 2020 debating whether the country should subside fuel consumption or not in the absence of domestic refining capacity; an ill-served citizen being forced to bear the brunt of the inefficiencies of a moribund power sector in what our taskmasters in the Breton Woods Institutions elegantly dub as cost recovery. And all of these at a time the nation is fighting a war on terror; a time when poverty and unemployment are at the highest levels ever.

    It seems to me a lesson of how not to learn at 60!

  • Fallen, failing or failed state?

    Fallen, failing or failed state?

    By Sanya Oni

    If the Buhari administration had somewhat harboured the expectation that the irritations from Nigeria’s foremost letter writer will at some point peter out, or at least lose traction to be taken any seriously, the pointless overdrive by the administration’s hierarchs which followed can only be a measure of how the famed Ota-farmer’s testimonials means more to it than it is willing to admit.  For far beyond the lexical exertions about whether the country has failed, is failing or has fallen, and who is more culpable, the real matter – which is whether the current administration has lived to its promise since 2015 when it took over the coveted mantle of leadership – would appear to have been conveniently buried in the rubble.

    But then, as they say, the stats – or if you prefer, the unflattering indices, has like the open sore– has not only refused to go away despite the administration’s growing irritation just as the haunting has become too much to ignore. In this as indeed many theatres of the nation’s life on which majority of Nigerians have sought to remind the administration of its promise of change but which has disappeared like the smoke, reminding of how bad things are have become – quite frankly – superfluous.

    Which is not to say that Obasanjo will not rather be Obasanjo in hypocrisy; which means that those expecting him to hold his peace or even use such routes said to ordinarily avail men that have occupied the lofty office of president either pretend to be oblivious of his character, or like the same OBJ of whom they love to hate, are just as insufferable!

    Let’s begin with the pot shot which ignited this latest fire of the presidency:

    “I do appreciate that you all feel sad and embarrassed as most of us feel as Nigerians with the situation we find ourselves in. Today, Nigeria is fast drifting to a failed and badly divided state; economically our country is becoming a basket case and poverty capital of the world, and socially, we are firming up as an unwholesome and insecure country.

    “And these manifestations are the products of recent mismanagement of diversity and socio-economic development of our country. Old fault lines that were disappearing have opened up in greater fissures and with drums of hatred, disintegration and separation and accompanying choruses being heard loud and clear almost everywhere.”

    Like our own Nobel Laureate Prof Wole Soyinka would say of the OBJ jibe, the statement will certainly be true in every material particular – excepting that in the opinion of our big men at the presidency and their hired hands – the imprint of a certain St Mathew domiciled in Ota – makes it false in its entirety!

    I don’t know of your take: I personally need to validation from OBJ to know how bad things are. Neither do I need the perennially unending reference to the Failed States Index of which Nigeria is said to sit pretty 14th place among the countries with potentials to sunder. Why should that big deal? Wasn’t Nigeria in 2009, some 11 years back, ranked 15th on the same index out of a total of 177 countries?

    Guess the same could be said of our crowning of as the poverty capital of the universe which some Nigerians now tout as evidence that things have gone bad. Really? What could be new or even novel about that in a country where, in the last decade and half, some 12+ million kids are perennially out of school? And this does not even include the Almajiri caste, the luckless group of pre-teens who only recently came into the radar, when our northern governors, in some feigned concerns about public health, imagined that the best way to deal with the menace is to either ship them in truckloads into their states of origin.

    The same could also be said of OBJ’s other charge – the so-called mismanagement of diversity and how this has hampered our socio-economic development.  Again, nothing in the charge can be said to be new. What would be new is if the administration suddenly shed its signature insularity and clannish predilections to harness our diversity for the common good.

    Currently, the joke out there is that President Buhari promised to bring the naira and the United States dollar into parity. That the then aspirant, one-time petroleum minister once said that nothing of the so-called fuel subsidy exists; that a serious government could fix the refineries and the power sector in a matter of months! And those are on the records. Did I hear someone say memories are powerful!

    I return to the regular, day to day, testimonies of Nigerians who, suffering the scourge of incompetent state apparatus, are least prepared to suffer the semantic indulgence as in making the distinction between “failing or failed” states.

    I am not sure the name Modupe Oyetoso will ring any bell. Ordinarily, it should, at least in a different sense were things to be as they should be. Her story aptly captures the Hobbesian state into which Nigeria has descended. On her way to her farm in Lanlate, Ibarapa East Local Government of Oyo State, some hoodlums waylaid her car, snuffed out the life of her fiancé who was on the wheel at the point, after which they took her into the bush until the distraught family was able to raise a hefty ransom for her freedom.

    We are talking here of a young lady who ordinarily deserved to be celebrated for trying to make good on her passion – farming unlike many youths of her age pounding the streets in our cities for non-existent jobs. And that was some few months back!

    Let’s consider another testimony from the half of the world since long surrendered to the hoodlums, the north-western state of Zamfara. As captured by an online medium TRTWORLD –Citizen Muhammed Usman had boarded a bus from Gusau, the Zamfara State capital en route to see his family in Dangulbi, a small farming community said to be about 50 kilometres away only for the bus to be confronted with an 18-man fully armed gang who shot sporadically at it. Instinctively grabbing the child who sat next to him and covering him with his body, he discovered only after gunfire stopped that the child had died in his arms. There were other casualties including the child’s mother. Still, that did not stop the hoodlums from taking the 50-year-old primary school teacher into captivity in the woods. He would be released 18 days after but only after a ransom of N1.5 million was delivered.

    These are typical, day to day realities that Nigerians face. Now, if that is not a symptom of a failing state, the widespread offer concession to terrorists and other terrorist elements cannot be anything but be pointers to the declining capacity of the state. Describing the situation as failed, failing or failure would therefore seem a matter of opinion. Too bad that an administration that once described the Jonathan administration as incompetent when the Boko Haram not only sacked 17 local government headquarters in Borno but hoisted its flag there has suffered a strange form of paralysis in dealing with the monstrosity of banditry and kidnapping!

    That to me is hardly the way to be in charge!

  • Subsidy? Not again!

    Subsidy? Not again!

    By Sanya Oni

    Times without number in the course of the past week, I got drawn into this debate as to whether the Buhari administration has not only finally lost its humanity but its touch with reality merely by its timing of the ‘twin evils’ of ‘punitive fuel price hike’ and ‘iniquitous cost-reflective’ electricity tariff. While public anger may not necessarily be nearing the boiling point; there is certainly a lot to say of current moods to suggest a growing irritation with an administration that came with a bag of promise but has delivered very little. Imagine yours truly in the midst of all of that, trying to remind some fellows that the deregulation train actually set out a while back. Refer them to the new pricing dynamics which saw the fuel price regulatory body bring down the price from N133.29/litre to N113.28 in March and then to N108 in May as presaging the long awaited dawn of the market forces era in fuel price determination, and get branded an administration apologist – whatever that means; then you are told that the so-called cost recovery nonsense should be the last thing on the government’s mind in the season of Covid-19.  So much about winning arguments; that is how dangerous the current time can be!

    Whether it is the question of the contentious fuel subsidy or the other long-running squabble over the so-called cost-reflective tariff, I do understand why the government, even with the best of arguments, declarations and pious intentions, is unlikely to win the heart of the common folk on the matter. To begin with, if the irony of the economic argument seems long lost to the government itself whose best case has been that the local gasoline price should take its cue from Rotterdam prices which it sets as standard, and insists that the luxury of paying for the cost/price differentials which are in large part derivatives of the current folly of wholesale fuel importation – now belongs in the past; why should the citizen not also insist that the government also set local wages along the same international parameters if only to make all things whole?

    Talk of the other business of electricity tariff, which if you ask for my opinion, would seem a lost cause in the hands of the current bunch of clueless operators. It’s the same story of the government, which, long after it shirked its responsibility of delivering the public good, seeks some magical remediation through a one-sided, inequitable pricing mechanism! Precisely the reason we are back to the wearisome debate about subsidies and all of that; or even more appropriately, the question of whether the government, in the current atmosphere of poor and inequitable standards of service delivery should, in fact be talking about hiking charges!

    But then, these, if I may borrow the language of former Emir of Kano, Lamido Sanusi, these are at best moral – not economic – arguments.

    I have followed the arguments of those who accuse the government of choosing a wrong time to administer the latest potion. They are right – at least in a sense. This is an impossible season.  Today, we know that Covid-19 has taken everything out of joint. The economy in particular, has been terribly hit. The nation’s GDP, once projected to grow at 2.6 in the current year is now expected to shrink by some six per cent. As for, unemployment, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), puts the rate at the end of the second quarter at an unprecedented 27.1 per cent. If you add those described in street lingo as ‘managers’ but who are more appropriately under-employed representing another 28.6 per cent, you get a more representative figure of 55.7 per cent of able bodied Nigerians who can’t find something productive to do! And then of course the other reality – of biting inflation, exampled by the fact that 50kg bag of rice, which at this time last year sold for N18,000 now goes for anything between N25,000 to N30,000; the latest hikes could in fact pass as measures of an uncaring government.

    But fuel subsidy as elixir at this time? And for how long? And where will the funds come from? From the underperforming oil revenue or taxes? Can we begin to talk of new taxes at this time? Let somebody educate me how a government currently pressed for cash can be expected to take on the additional burden of fuel subsidy. By the way, I assume here that the debate on under-recovery is now somewhat settled, and that Nigerians have seen through the lies of denial of the differentials of the landing cost and the price of fuel at the pump and by extension the rent economy and not least the associated corruption which became its derivative. Or is someone still living in denial of the differential?

    Let’s talk about the electricity sector. I believe that Nigerians have sufficiently made the point to the operators. As it is, I am not aware of anyone being in denial of the need to review tariffs; the sticking points have always been the twin issues of service delivery and value for money! This is where Nigerians expect the government to drive the bargain with the operators hard – through firm and effective regulation. In any case, the government has done well to assure that there will be no change in tariff for the most vulnerable especially those consuming 50KW or less and those receiving less than 12 hours of supply.

    Now, let’s put the focus where it matters most. Too many Nigerians are suffering. Too many are out of work. The numbers of the poor are growing in uncontrollable numbers. Our industries need all the help they can get to keep jobs. The federal government needs to prioritise its spending to ensure that Nigerians get the value for every kobo of public funds spent. Our infrastructure needs continuous upgrades. It’s time to take a hard look at the structure of the bureaucracy, the compensation for public office holders particularly those disguised perks which come to a huge chunk in the expenditure outlay. It may yet find in them elements that are just as toxic as the subsidy on fuel.

  • Before MAN takes Emefiele to Golgotha

    Before MAN takes Emefiele to Golgotha

    Sanya Oni

     

    Two new measures – rolled out in quick succession by Godwin Emefiele’s apex bank last week – to quell the forex storm have shown how desperate things have become. The measures, coming after two earlier bouts of devaluation, although predictable, can best been seen in the context of the fierce urgency of the moment.

    The first was the directive to banks stopping authorized dealers to stop opening Form M for payments routed through a buying company or other third parties, followed by the riot act, 24 hours after, to exporters that failed to repatriate their export proceeds. The banks were told to submit their names, addresses and Bank Verification Numbers (BVN) for possible sanctions.

    The latter, an exemplification of the Foreign Exchange Manual which provided that exporters repatriate export proceeds back to the country to support the local currency and boost the economy, while the former seems to suggest that the apex bank had had enough of the activities of the middlemen in the volatile forex market.

    The memo under the hand of O.S. Nnaji, the apex bank’s director of trade and exchange read: “As part of continued efforts by the Central Bank of Nigeria to ensure prudent use of foreign exchange resources and eliminate incidences of over-invoicing, transfer pricing, double handling charges, and avoidable costs that are ultimately passed to the average Nigerian consumers, authorized dealers are hereby directed to desist from opening of Forms M whose payment are routed through a buying company/agent or any other third-parties”, the memo read.

    It then added: “Additionally, in line with best practices around the world, the CBN will be immediately introducing a Product Price Verification Mechanism to forestall over-pricing and/or mispricing of goods and services imported into country”.

    If one had thought that the measures were somewhat expected given the harsh reality of negative forex accretion, the response by the manufacturers’ body – the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) – was just as predictable and flat.

    Says MAN, the measure is “inimical to the survival of many manufacturing concerns that are not involved in any unethical practices, especially at a time when the nation is implementing gradual ease of the lockdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic”.

    Warning that the nation had better brace up for the worst as “most manufacturers, especially SMEs, deal with accredited agents for their supplies, as many Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) abroad do not sell directly to individual buyers”, MAN would further sound the alarm that “many companies had gone into contractual agreements via the procurement agencies for the 2020 financial year and, in some cases, beyond, hence, a default on the contractual obligations may result in expensive lawsuits across jurisdictions, bring disruptions to the production process and further undermine the resilience of the sector”.

    According to MAN President, Mansur Ahmed, “a phased approach should be adopted to enable companies to have sufficient time to re-organize and build the required relationships with original suppliers, which they do not currently have”.

    From being a measure of the Nigerian dilemma, it is also a reflection of how MAN typically behaves to type. The point here is that even the most elegantly worded contract has built-in clauses that recognise such unforeseen acts of nature such as Covid-19 –reason businesses put in the force majeure in contracts when things go awry. Why should Nigeria’s case be different? Secondly, in choosing to gloss over the apex bank’s current predicament occasioned by Covid-19 and the ensuing collapse of oil prices, MAN, in bandying the threat of “expensive lawsuits across jurisdictions”, merely plays up the issue of where its interests lie hence affirming the very underlying fears that led to the apex bank memo!

    By the way, one struggles to find anything in the CBN memo that could be deemed as spectacularly punitive save for the insistence that the Nigerian consumer, on whose behalf the policy is hatched, as opposed to the rentier class of middlemen, gets the best of value for his kobo’s worth!

    I do not blame MAN as indeed other members of the Organised Private Sector (OPS). Although the paradox is oftentimes lost, it is the way it’s always been. Their members buy forex from the weekly auction for sundry items ranging from raw materials to spares; in the end, the final goods produced are sold in naira in time for members of the body to embark on the next cycle of forex bidding to complete a recurring forex dependency cycle! And when things go wrong like it’s happening at the moment, they not only crow about not being carried along, attempts to ameliorate the situation becomes an occasion for dissension!

    By the way, don’t ask me if the CBN is only just coming to terms with the practices being targeted with the latest measures. It is an open secret that the bankers and their collaborators know only too well; it matters only now that things are no longer as they used to be!

    We certainly know the story of why, despite its proven availability, the Nigerian pharmaceutical industry cannot produce industrial grade corn-starch from the local corn. It is the same old paradox of an oil-producing country would rather import than refine enough crude for its domestic needs.

    Way back in 2017, the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) not only drew attention to this the anomaly, it warned that “unavailability of medicines and vaccines is a huge security risk to the Nigerian populace” even as it called on government and all relevant stakeholders to prioritize local production of drugs to ensure availability of medicines at all times. Of course, as it is in the pharmaceutical industry, so it is in the agro-allied sector.  I recall a visit, years back to the multinational Wilmer-PZ palm oil plantation in Cross Rivers and could not but wonder why the country would still spend a dime of its scarce forex on oil palm imports! It is the same way that a trip to the Machine Tool Industry in Osogbo, the Osun State capital cannot but leave one in wonder about how a multi-billion-dollar project that could have permanently changed the face of the nation’s industrial landscape is left to rot!

    So much for the fixation with forex, Covid-19 has not only brought home more forcefully, the extent to which things have gone wrong, it has dictated the need to see and act differently. Unfortunately, it would appear that the lessons are a long way from being imbibed. Which explains why bodies like MAN still prefer to see Godwin Emefiele as our own Jesus, who with a reserve of $32 billion of some five months of import cover, must feed the multitude of 200-odd million people. While they deny that backward integration is the way to go, like the Covid-19 pandemic that has caught the entire humanity unprepared, their nightmare may have only just begun.

  • CAMA: Of a city set on the hill

    CAMA: Of a city set on the hill

    By Sanya Oni

    In a clime where conspiracy theories have since become staple, the Buhari administration has certainly added some fuel to the fire with the newly signed amendment to the Company and Allied Matters Act (CAMA 2020). Like most things Nigerian, it would not be entirely surprising to find that a good number of those that have gone to town in strident opposition have not seen a copy of the new law beyond the snippets served in the news let alone perusing it. Because ours is a country where reason immediately takes flight where matters of faith is concerned, there are understandably, a large army out there, not just unwilling to give the government the benefit of the doubt as to its motives, but would in the same vein ascribe some fangled infallibility to mere mortals only because they adorn the clerical garb.

    And so, here we are AD 2020 still trying to figure out whether the religious establishment – the supposed moral exemplars – should provide the living the example in transparency and accountability both in words and deeds in their ordinary day-to-day business – which is really what the CAMA brouhaha is all about!

    If my memory serves me right, the last time the nation was dragged to this level was in 2016 when the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria sought to extend its code of corporate governance to religious entities.  Just like it’s happening now, a segment of the church – notably the Pentecostal wing of CAN – would have none of– something –and this is interesting – that most of the older, so-called orthodox churches are already doing! And then as if to appease the angry gods of that wing then baying for blood, the then FRCN helmsman, Jim Obazee – himself a pastor – had to be shoved under the bus!

    Four years after, we are back full circle. With FRCN rendered prostrate by the same religious establishment, the Corporate Affairs Commission has since taken up the gauntlet to ensure that NGOs are not only held to account on how they administer the trust but to mete appropriate sanctions where applicable laws are broken.

    I understand that the legalistic minded amongst us have drawn attention to aspects of CAMA 2020 they consider unacceptable. And this is not so much because they consider the essence as superfluous but for some perceived inadequacies in legal phraseology, (which is perhaps to be expected given that no law can be deemed as perfect). For an area that would pass as relatively as uncharted, there is, understandably, a sense in which aspects of the new law, which seeks to inject some transparency into the operations of NGOs under which the church is classed, would be deemed as somewhat intrusive.  Which is why it is not entirely surprising that one particular NGO – the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), has dared to question what it sees as the “overly broad and discretionary powers to arbitrarily withdraw, cancel or revoke the certificate of any association, suspend and remove trustees, take control of finances of any association…” fearing that such the powers “would be used by the authorities to exert extensive scrutiny over the internal affairs of associations, as a way of intimidation and harassment, which would eventually unduly obstruct the legitimate work carried out by associations.”

    Yet, salient as those observations appear to be, the truth that the provision is neither novel nor strange; in fact, they are mere elements of the best practices in the global corporate governance rule-book; in any event,  few Nigerians would have bothered to pay attention to such objections had the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) not enlisted in the fray in what is now its not-too-infrequent descent into the arena of opposition politics. In any case, whereas objections to any law might be deemed legitimate, not so, unfortunately, when such have a tinge blackmail which, if you ask me, would seem a measure of the waning influence of the once powerful bloc; a worrisome revelation of a moral authority in mortal decline.

    The point of course needs to be made:  CAMA is not so much about NGOs or even the church as it is about easing the process of doing business in the country. Section 839 –which now constitutes the casus belli, though important, merely seeks to instil some order and discipline into how the NGOs conduct their businesses. More than that, it simply demands that those charged with the public trust, whether in the secular or religious sphere exercise the duty of care on the assets which they hold in sacred trust on behalf of the others.

    To these, CAN leadership says: “How can the government sack the trustee of a church which it contributed no dime to establish? How can a secular and political minister be the final authority on the affairs and management of another institution which is not political? How can a non-Christian head of government ministry be the one to determine the running of the church? It is an invitation to trouble that the government does not have power to manage”.

    Really?

    So much for CAN’s pretensions to be the mouthpiece of the Christendom in Nigeria, the truth of course is that opinions on the matter would vary depending on which denomination that one is dealing with. For instance, I am aware that a number of churches have nothing against the law – in fact, they see it as the minima – below which the Body of Christ – so properly called should not dare to fall below! Chairman of Nigerian Christian Pilgrims Commission (NCPC), Reverend Yomi Kasali provides the perfect example when he says: “The law is not only for the church, it also applies to mosques and NGOs, so I think we should look at it from different perspectives before we start throwing tantrums and jumping up and down. They are not even deregistering churches; they are only saying they will remove the trustees…If for instance they find out that I, as a trustee of that church, have committed gross misconduct, financially; they find some terrorists’ money in my account or discover that I am laundering drug money, they have the right to remove me. Then, I would now go to court to challenge the government. But to say the government does not have the right does not make sense; that’s why they are government”.

    The truth of the matter is that CAMA is not a Nigerian invention. If in doubt, ask one or two of Nigerians churches that have run afoul of UK’s Charity Commission, the non-ministerial government department that regulates registered charities in the country. To be sure, in none of the cases did the presumed infallibility of the entities availed those found to have transgressed the law. Rather, Her Majesty’s Government sacked the board of trustees of the churches and appointed auditors to run the show while they mind the altar. Today, the Christendom remembers how in 2014, a certain David Yonggi Cho, the acclaimed leader of the world’s largest megachurch was convicted of embezzling $12 million of the church that he founded.

    Still in doubt as to the issues at stake? How about the American classic as captured by the Charles E. Blair in his book – The man who could do no wrong published in 1981? By the way, these were no mean men but giants in our shared faith – unfortunately consumed by hubris. In all of the cases, there was no debate about whether the government had the right to look into their books. It was sufficient, just like the story of the Biblical David as told in 1 Samuel 21:6, that they helped themselves to the consecrated bread – which the law strictly forbade!

  • What’s sovereignty worth?

    What’s sovereignty worth?

    Sanya Oni

     

    Words – so goes the African wise saying – are like eggs; when hatched, they have wings. Another version of the proverbs goes like – the spoken word, like an egg, once spoken it is impossible to put back together. Never mind the flurry of declamations, clarifications and the rather strident attempts to undo the damage, I suspect that Rotimi Amaechi, minister of transportation would still by now, be ruing those outlandish comments he uttered while appearing before the House of Representatives Committee on Treaties and Agreements last Tuesday.

    If Nigerians were ever in any doubt about the meaning, import and span of ‘sovereignty’ to those appointed to superintend over their affairs, never have we had it painted in such unedifying colours by one of the so-called leading lights of the Buhari administration.

    And the crux of the matter? House committee chairman, Nicholas Ossai, had alluded to certain clauses in the loan agreements conceding Nigeria’s sovereignty to China during the meeting with Amaechi. He cited an example – the agreement for a $400 million loan facility obtained for Galaxy Backbone, federal government’s information and communication technology (ICT) agency in 2018 which purports to waive irrevocably, Nigeria’s “immunity on the grounds of sovereign or otherwise for itself or its property in connection with any arbitration proceeding pursuant to Article 8(5), thereof with the enforcement of any arbitral award pursuant thereto, except for the military assets and diplomatic assets”.

    Clearly, if the lawmaker was flummoxed at the text of the so-called agreement, just as confounding, it would appear to him, was the knowledge that the National Assembly was not even carried along on the deal.

    And what did Amaechi say to all of these.

    First, he contends that Nigerians should not put so much big deal in the so-called waiver of sovereignty’; in other words, it is a non-issue’; second, that all that matters is for our officials to put pen on paper; the rest, including any study of the text of the agreement can follow much later; and third, that Nigeria, if it comes to that can, wriggle its way out of tricky agreements – never mind that the Process and Industrial Development (P&ID) deal has since proven otherwise.

    And fourth, when arguments fail as it apparently did that Tuesday, resort to subtle blackmail while insisting that the country should proceed post haste since time is of the essence!

    “Can we be allowed to get this loan?” An exasperated minister had reportedly asked the equally flabbergasted committee members.

    “Then you can summon us, not to start what you are doing and the whole process will then be stopped.

    “My fear is that at the end of the day, some sections of this country will suffer if they stop giving us loans; two projects that will suffer: the first one is Lagos-Ibadan (rail line), we have not finished disbursement.

    “We are asking for a loan to commence work from Ibadan to Kano. The day they (China) say ‘the government is not supporting the loans you people are taking, we are no longer giving you,’ that is the end of the project.”

    That is coming from a minister of the federal republic.

    Alarmed? Wait until you factor in the implicit suggestion by the minister that nothing (at least on the Nigerian side) is actually sealed; not even the Lagos-Ibadan segment of the rail project for which some have gone over the moon to celebrate and which, by the minister’s latest confession, only requires a stalled negotiation on the Ibadan-Kano segment for the brakes to be pulled!

    As for his earlier position on ‘sovereignty’, it is now a matter of what you make of the minister’s dubious semantics: “There is no contract without an agreement and that agreement must contain some terms and one of the terms that this one contains, is not that you’re signing away the sovereignty of the country. No country will sign away its sovereignty. What you do is, you give a sovereign guarantee; and I’m ashamed of those who interpret it the wrong way”.

    I do understand the eagerness of the minister, former speaker and two-term governor, to get the job done.  He might even feel entitled to a measure of arrogance – which is of course understandable given what his present role as minister demands as against his former imperial office where his word was once law; what he’s not entitled to is the right to insult those Nigerians who do not share his specious interpretation of the unambiguous text.

    Between Amaechi’s ‘sovereign guarantee’ and the cited agreement, there is of course a world of difference; even at that, Nigerians, couldn’t be blamed for raising hell about developments which, from all indications, offers them another one-way fare to debt peonage. In all, what is apparent is that those charged with the public duty of crafting and executing agreements have learnt nothing nor forgotten nothing – being either too blind to appreciate the nuances of international financial agreements or too consumed by their greed that they will not mind selling an entire country for the proverbial morsel of bread.

    Yesterday, it was the London and Paris club of shylock debtors. Under the duo, Nigeria reportedly took some $32 billion in loans under the guise of developing the economy. In the end, nothing of value was delivered; yet the country, in the end managed to pay a sum nearly equal the borrowed sum in penalties, charges and compounded interest even as the original loan sum remained untouched in the intervening years! That was the situation until the Obasanjo administration decided, under an equally odious settlement, to shell out $12 billion in one-off payment to escape the clutches of the debtor cartel.

    A decade and half after, that past appears to have caught up with us again. From the P&ID fiasco which would have seen Nigeria cough out a record fine of $9.6 billion, we have managed to land another swirling controversy on the Azura-Edo IPP project which seeks to put us in another $1.2 billion hole.

    And now we are talking of billions of dollars of loans from the Chinese – sums of which Nigerians have not only since lost track of, but whose sole justification – often falling short of the rigour of due process – is that the country could not have it any other way.

    Surely, that is not the way to go. If in doubt, ask Zambia whose airport, national broadcasting company and power plant ZESCO has fallen to the Chinese overlords.  So much for the hunger for the Chinese pie.

  • Missing in Action

    Missing in Action

    Sanya Oni

    If the report that Donald Trump’s America has bought the world’s entire supply of remdesivir, the antiviral drug produced by the US biotechnology company Gilead is any indication of the shape of the global supply chain post Covid-19, countries in the sub-Saharan Africa had better pay attention or prepare for another dark spell long after the pandemic subsides. Recall that the same United States had in March attempted to secure the rights to any coronavirus vaccine developed by German biopharmaceutical firm CureVac for its exclusive use.

    Mercifully, the company, while stoutly refusing the bid, followed up with a statement that it was developing a coronavirus vaccine to “help and protect patients worldwide”. The German government, ostensibly, in a fit of Euro-centric rage would add that it was “interested in ensuring that vaccines and active substances against the new coronavirus are also developed in Germany and Europe.”

    Before then, India, the world’s largest producer of hydroxychloroquine, actually sought a temporary export ban of the medicine in its bid to preserve domestic stocks. That was to be – until Trump –the same Donald Trump (ironically) – talked Narendra Modi out of the nonsense at the risk of a massive US retaliation!

    Trump’s words, although reeking of the typical arrogance of a supremo, left little imagination about what was at stake: “I spoke to him [Modi] Sunday morning, called him, and I said we’d appreciate your allowing our supply to come out. If he doesn’t allow it to come out, that would be OK, but of course, there may be retaliation. Why wouldn’t there be?”, he had stated rather icily.

    That was four months back. Between then and now, Covid-19 cases have continued to rise globally, but then, so has the race for the vaccine assumed a frenetic if not a desperate pace.

    It had to be. As at the last count, the entire humanity had lost 649,208 souls to the pandemic out of the 16,249, 165 cases; the global economy, meanwhile, has been roiling in the after-effects, which experts reckon would take several years– vaccine or not – to shake off.

    Mercifully, the countdown to the long-awaited vaccine has long begun. As at last week, there are, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 25 candidate vaccines in clinical evaluation with 141 others in preclinical evaluation. Yet, as fierce as the race to get the vaccine out, the scramble for access would appear even more deadly.

    The United States government for instance, has after pumping $1.2 billion, secured 300 million doses of the potential AstraZeneca vaccine. Apparently not to be outdone in the acquisition race, the United Kingdom, with three types of vaccine under development, has reportedly, signed a deal with the drug maker, Pfizer for 90 million doses of the latter’s potential vaccine, currently under trial. Germany on its part, in an apparent effort to fob off attempts by foreign interests to take over CureVac, the country leader in the vaccine quest, made clear its plans to take 23 percent stake in the firm.

    Surely, we know what this means for everyone. For the drug manufacturers, it guarantees billions of dollars in secured revenue and millions of jobs to be created across their countries vast logistical and manufacturing value chain. As for the rest of the world, they are, for now, free to scramble for whatever is left of the products of other peoples’ intellectual property!

    Don’t ask me the place of Big Brother Nigeria in all of these. You know some of the answers already. Whether on the testing front or the vaccine production front, we are, to put it mildly, missing in action. As at 5 pm yesterday, Monday, we have only managed to test 266,323 persons out of which 40,532 cases have been confirmed with 858 dead. This figure – which comes to a mere 53,000 on a monthly average – is supposed to be progress after five clear months into the business of testing!

    It is known to be much worse on the vaccine front. At a time when developed countries are already making plans to secure access to vaccines – never mind that these are still at various trial stages – our government, haven’t even begun the elementary process of planning how to access them! Is it, as some have suggested, that the government may be waiting for either the Covax Facility or its partner in the Vaccine Alliance – GAVI, to avail the long-suffering citizens of their so-called guarantee of ‘rapid, fair and equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines worldwide’?

    My finding on Nigeria’s place in the global quest for Covid-19 vaccine was even more confounding. With two flagship medical and pharmaceutical research companies – the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD) and the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), I had somewhat assumed that national vaccine research and development effort would be led by these two foremost institutions. Well, I was wrong!

    What do I mean? I have, like other interested Nigerians, been tracking global developments in that particular area. Using the WHO list of contenders earlier referenced, the only Nigerian entity found was (to me) an unlikely one – a certain Helix Biogen Consult, Ogbomoso & Trinity Immonoefficient Laboratory, Ogbomoso, Oyo State, Nigeria – a wholly private entity! We are here talking of a list that has the National Research Centre, Egypt on it!

    I have heard it said that the Covid-19 pandemic presents countries with unique opportunities to re-set their development priorities. Very true. But then, this can only be true of countries not only prepared, but equipped to convert the challenges into opportunities. From the economy, to education, to health and to the science and technology sector, whereas the chant across the global community is that the world, after Covid-19, will be a vastly different one, our leaders from those in government, the private sector to the academia have done little else than recycle the same old excuses that brought us to this very pass.

    More than the scores of deaths and devastation brought on by the deadly pandemic, our inability to creatively respond to the emerging challenges might yet prove the greatest tragedy of the current season. Trust me, I do not even pretend to speak as a prophet!

     

  • Rumbles in the Niger Delta

    Rumbles in the Niger Delta

    Sanya Oni

    I got this WhatsApp message from a friend from the South-south as reaction to the roforo fight between Minister of Niger Delta Godswill Akpabio and the former acting managing director of the NDDC Joy Nunieh.

    His words, rendered in Ibibio which he subsequently interpreted, came to something like– you do not deploy the same hand used to catch a fly to catch a bee.

    By this of course he meant that his former uncommon governor, by his earlier opportunistic insinuation that his now out-of-favour NDDC amazon was not only a shrink case but a wayward one, has figuratively laid an egg!

    He was in essence saying that had the uncommon fellow taken the popular Ibibio proverb to heart, he would have restrained from casting the first stone, when as it now seems to be the case, that his abode, a gilded cage is glass-encased!

    On the other hand, Nigerians are supposed to figure out what the elegantly coded riposte by the former Acting Managing Director of the NDDC Joy Nunieh meant by the so-called Plan B and what it means to ‘come up on the Port Harcourt girl’ as indeed the place of the ministerial slap in the messy tango!

    Such is the tragedy that has befallen a people that their age-long misfortune has not only been reduced to one of contest between two oversized egos, but is on the verge of being eclipsed in the choreographed inanities.

    But then, this is to be expected in a country where corruption is regarded as staple and one which shame has long taken flight.

    President Muhammadu Buhari obviously meant well when September last year, he ordered a forensic audit into the operations of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDCC) covering the period 2001 to 2019.

    Citing persistent criticisms of the operations of the commission, the president had observed that what was on ground in the South-south region did not justify the huge resources that had been made available to the agency.

    He told the delegation of South-south governors’ an obvious truth: “With the amount of money that the federal government has religiously allocated to the NDDC, we will like to see the results on the ground; those that are responsible for that have to explain certain issues.

    “The projects said to have been done must be verifiable. You just cannot say you spent so much billions and when the place is visited, one cannot see the structures that have been done. The consultants must also prove that they are competent.”

    That was the big idea. What Nigerians didn’t bargain for was the inelegant contraption called the interim management committee (unknown to law) – a solution that has since proven worse than the original disease.

    The result: two acting managing directors all in the space of eight months and billions of naira in contracts for all manners of purposes under the sun.

    (Never mind that a huge chunk of the contracts fell short of the requirements of due process and appropriation).

    And someone is still wondering why the old virus has not only mutated but metastasized?

    The question is whether things couldn’t have been different. Remember, the NDDC was until October last year, under the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF).

    In moving it to the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, the president had told Nigerians then, that the measure underscored his administration’s “commitment to enhance the living standards of (our) communities in the Niger Delta, through coordinated and appropriate programmes’’.

    Recall also that the president had in the same October forwarded the list of his nominees to the NDCC Board which the Senate, had expeditiously confirmed.

    In a move that surprised not a few, some powerful forces would convince the president that an interim cleansing job was not only needed but that the job could not be done while a legally and properly constituted board was in place!

    Between the president’s good intentions and the riotous, putrefying process, they can only now shudder not just at the wide gulf but the debasement of the idea.

    Before now, the OSGF was said to be too busy tending to other cabinet office matters leaving the vultures in the commission to unleash mayhem; now Akpabio thinks little of treating the interventionist agency as anything more than a reward for loyal service hence the anarchy loosed on the commission!

    Nigerians are certainly familiar with sundry acts of impunity by those elected or appointed to serve the rest of us.

    We have heard revelations of NDCC headquarters building that would not be connected to the public electricity grid, because, it is alleged, the vendor supplying diesel for the commission’s generators is the girlfriend of one of the top guns in the ministry.

    Of contract-splitting and other acts of monumental corruption. Including the charge that funds meant to pay tuition for Niger Delta students studying overseas were paid into the private accounts of some IMC members.

    However, Nigerians luckless to have put up with Minister Godswill Akpabio’s testimony at the House of Representatives committee sitting on Monday could only come away with the feeling that the Buhari administration has substituted one principality for another monstrosity.

    Or how else could one describe a situation in which one powerful minister’s word was not only law, but could, through guile manipulate the entire FEC going by the revelations at the House panel sitting?

    Thanks to the House public hearing, it ought to have dawned by now that the president, not least the Federal Executive Council, was sold a dummy on the issue of forensic audit.

    That the IMC contraption could have ranged from being an instrument of ministerial gerrymandering or control but certainly nothing of the so-called intendment.

    Which explains why the minister, being the alpha and omega of NDDC would, on the strength of a dubious presidential authorisation, assert the privilege of appointing the forensic auditors, ensuring that everything about the transaction from pre-qualification to issuance of award letters to forensic auditors was overseen by his office; to add the greatest farce of all, ensuring that procurement was done in lieu of the appropriation!

    Thanks to PMB’s delegation by abdication, ministerial outlawry could not have been more perfect, or complete.

    These are certainly interesting times, both for the country and the good people of the Niger Delta. But then, the story is an old, familiar one.

    From OMPADEC to NDCC, Nigerians are only too familiar with the activities of the soldiers of fortune holding the Niger Delta region to ransom.

    One sample is the 657-kilometre East-West road project, awarded in 2006 by the Obasanjo administration, stretching from Calabar in Cross River State to Warri in Delta State initially valued at N726 billion which remains undelivered till date.

    Yes, the president means well; unfortunately, only a President Buhari could have imagined that the contraption birthed in a fit of ministerial conceit and iniquity, would deliver a spotless NDDC. It won’t happen.