The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sanya Oni

  • Looters’ list and other matters

    Talk of the most effective way to advertise the impotence of our institutions. Imagine the frenzy over the so-called looters list released few days back. That’s supposed to be the federal government’s response to the challenge thrown to it by the opposition PDP.

    So what’s new, if I might ask, aside that routine advertisement of institutional impotence, the open confession of utter helplessness by an administration that rode into office on the chariot of anti-corruption, or citizen’s indifference if not plain cynicism as a result of which most citizens could not be seen to interrogate the list for all it’s worth?

    After three years of combing the books for corrupt elements, it must be discomfiting that we can’t seem to get pass the roadblock of securing simple evidence to get things moving. Clearly, if Looters 1.0 was a joke; the 2.0 was a farce. And we are supposed to be expecting Looters 3.0. The circus goes on and on; I mean the national orchestra of shame and the unending of finger-pointing.

    Can’t we get serious, for once? Surely, the APC federal government can, and must do better. For while I would agree that it has done fairly well to bring the issue of corruption on the front burner, the result, unfortunately does not seem to have matched the efforts.

    The PDP’s right to cry foul. The looters list is a disappointment. It goes against the grain of process. The accused is after all presumed innocent until the courts say so. For no matter our feigned outrage at what the ravaging gang of yesterday has done, the law demands that facts are properly assembled for lawyers on both sides to sift through. Part of the beauty of process is that weights are attached to evidence so gathered after which they are placed on the scale of law to enable our judges come to a verdict. That is what justice is all about – a task that continues to prove impossible here.

    But then, that position is only a refuge for the legalistic. Indeed, while it seems understandable that PDP’s sensory organs would be deadened to the engulfing putrefaction after 16 years of mindless looting of our patrimony; no so the latest cry of innocence in its ranks particularly in the situation that many of its members accused of filching the cookie jar have done little else than mount drama at trial venues which in the end, not only delays the process but end up frustrating same.

    So, do we pretend that Dasuki-gate never happened? Or that billions recovered from the thieving Generals are pure fiction? Or that the Goodluck Jonathan administration did not turn over the treasury to party hacks only because the judiciary has not so pronounced?  Of course, there is a world of difference between permissiveness and folly; Nigerians may tend to the former; certainly not the latter!

    No doubt, we have a problem. The executive branch is ineffectual. Terrible. The legislature is hopelessly indifferent. Tragedy. The judiciary has become a hollow shell of its once vibrant self. Disaster. Between them, a nation’s destiny is being tossed around like a piece of leather ball on a sprawling beach front.

    So, what is the place of name and shame? Shame – where? It has long taken flight from our shores. Does it work? Extremely doubtful. Let’s draw example from those who stole our banks dry. Today, they are walking free; never mind that a badly haemorrhaged nation had to cough out some six trillion naira to clear the mess they left behind. The same with the PDP folks; they may deem themselves innocent before the law; the nation is yet to fully repay the cost of their profligacy, and so the cloud will remain permanently hanging until they sought things out – one way or the other.

    To that extent, the looters’ list is not entirely useless. At least, it reminds us of who did what and when. While it may not equal the wage of conviction, it helps that things are kept in focus.

    Back to the judiciary. Today, the simple truth is that the nation wobbles because there is no consequence for impunity and crime. To the extent that no other institution is charged with pronouncing on crime, the judiciary must be seen as carrying the greater burden of institutional dereliction. Caught between a judiciary that is frustratingly irresponsive to the point of being outright irresponsible and a shameless cohort that insists on wearing criminality like a badge of honour, isn’t it a shame that the rest of the civil society is caught in the crosscurrent of smouldering emotions?  Never mind that lawyers in other climes see themselves as ministers in the temple of justice; it is often the case that our so-called learned fellows would rather to play the obstructionist game to defeat the course of justice. Instead of being seen to preserve the sanctity of the judicial institution, many have been known to defecate – figuratively speaking – in the communal pond for the filthy lucre, taking their institution, in the process, to the abyss.

    The result:  a castrated and impotent judiciary.

    It’s alright to blame the politicians for sundry crimes; for sure, they are the devils we love to hate.  As for the enablers who make criminal enterprise appear like a noble preoccupation, isn’t it about time we begin the process of stripping them of their pretensions to royalty?

  • Nigeria first!

    Not a few a Nigerians, as it appears, are still ruing President Muhammadu Buhari’s refusal to serve the country the sweet poison described as the African Free Trade agreement. To Olusegun Obasanjo for whom the aspiration to continental statesmanship borders on obsession, the refusal comes to an unforgivable sin: “That President Buhari didn’t sign the free trade agreement in Kigali is disappointing. I hope he signs it before it is too late. Egypt started the discussion on the formation of Organisation of African Unity but didn’t conclude it and Nigeria took over. Nigeria was also central to the discussion of the free trade agreement, but I am surprised that the country withdrew from signing”, he said.

    For now, President Buhari thinks the issue is not open for discussion – at least not yet hence his famous tweet –”Our continental aspirations must complement our national interests”.

    To go back in time, the idea of African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) dates back to 2012 when African Heads of State and Governments resolved to have a single continental market for goods and services, free movement of business persons and investments, and ultimately, a single currency. Consultations and negotiations commenced in June 2015 during the 26th Ordinary Session of the AU Assembly Heads of State and Government in Johannesburg, South Africa. The March 21, agreement during which 44 African governments finally put pen to paper – never mind the refusal of the two economic powerhouses of South Africa and Nigeria to follow suit – can truly muster as the turning point.

    The quest is not entirely without justification. Last year for instance, trade within the continent came to barely $170bn – some 15 percent of the continent’s trade as against 67 percent with the European Union and 58 percent with the Asians. If that is any revealing, worse is the lack of reciprocity in the form of which 60 per cent of African exports to the EU are primary products compared to the continent’s 70 per cent imports chiefly manufactured goods.

    In the opinion of free trade advocates, removal of trade barriers will make it easier for the countries to develop regional supply chains and export more finished goods as against present preoccupation with raw materials exports. London’s Financial Times in fact quotes UN’s economic commission on Africa as forecasting a boost of some 50 per cent in trade volume in the following five years.

    Not everyone appears enamoured of the idea or the rosy projection. From the umbrella body of manufacturers – the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, MAN, the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, to the Nigerian Employers Consultative Association, NECA, theirs have been unequivocal urge for caution; they cite the relatively poor state of the manufacturing sector, and the absence of such guarantees about the elements of such trade being truly African among the reasons for which care is indicated.

    Frank Jacob, president of MAN, puts it rather succinctly: “We are afraid that the rules of origin cannot be adequately enforced because goods from the EU can find their way into one of the African countries that have bilateral agreement with the EU… When the goods get into the African country, they can repackage them, change the label from made in Europe to that of the African country”. He thinks the goods will surely find its way to Nigeria – “the main target market for the EU’’.

    Yours truly could not agree more. To the extent that a good number of African countries are a little more than satellites of the erstwhile colonial masters, it seems inevitable that the question would usher a new wave of deindustrialization.

    Picture a country like Nigeria that manufactures next to nothing seeking to be enlisted among the club of value-creating nations in the name of free trade; a country that is at best an exporter of primary products with nary a value addition; a country whose neighbours offer ready sanctuaries for smuggling and other forms of illicit trade. Just imagine the country pushing for open borders at a time of unprecedented youth unemployment and in the age of terrorism. Only in the context can one begin to grapple with the danger that the so-called free trade portends.

    No one denies that trade is good; the issue is reciprocity. We are certainly not there yet. For a country that has made a business of denominating its external reserves in terms of many months of import cover it can fetch, it seems to me that the starting point ought to be elementary lessons in value addition and the imperative to ensure that its so-called infant industries do not go into total oblivion. That is common sense. And that is my understanding of President Buhari’s position which I consider not only informed but nationalistic given our current realities. Those urging us to be holier than the Pope only need to cast their glances at what leading globalists of Western Europe and Americans have done with their duplicitous clampdown on immigration while encouraging unfettered influx of their goods?

    Sometime ago on this page, I had written about the anachronism of the 43-year old sub regional body called ECOWAS in the age of Brexit, Donald Trump and the resurgence of economic nationalism. My position is simple: globalisation – or globalism – or the idea that goods and persons can move freely may have worked for some, the benefits are far from equitably shared. Those who think it can work for us only need to imagine the mindless destruction being wreaked on Nigeria’s economy under the so-called ECOWAS treaty.

    Two examples would suffice. December 2016, some 500,000 metric tons of rice were reportedly blocked from coming into the country. Again, in November last year, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo would alert Nigerians about three ship loads of 120,000 metric tons of Thailand rice headed for a neighbouring country but which in fact has Nigeria as the ultimate destination. His words: “It is very clear that the rice is meant for Nigeria because they don’t consume parboiled rice in that country; they consume the white broken rice…Our neighbours do excellent business with allowing rice to come into Nigeria.” Never mind that they collect the customs duties and other port charges, leaving the Nigerian rice producer ruing his loss. The same is true of smuggled chicken, turkey and assorted domestic products.

    A reader of this page once urged Nigeria to demonstrate the true stuff of leadership by closing its borders on recalcitrant neighbours. Much as that might seem drastic, there can be no question about whether or not the situation demands drastic actions. As for the quest for free trade, that should be out for now.

  • Made in Nigeria heist

    So much for the national outrage ever since the most distinguished Senator Shehu Sani opened the lid on the outlandish perks awarded by our lawmakers to selves. Now, everyone seems to be falling over themselves in the wake of the so-called revelation if only to be reckoned among the counted. Even the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) – the somnambulist agency in charge of fixing salaries and allowances has woken up from its slumber to join the orchestra.  The senators’ N13.5million monthly running cost, it said, is outside of their purview. The executive branch has been quite characteristically mum since; ditto the National Assembly management – which of course leaves the issue of its justification and authorization hanging. Remember, we are talking of funds whose expenditures are guided by the strictures of Financial Regulation and the General Orders.

    Hopefully, the office of the Accountant General of the Federation will, at some point, step in to resolve the riddle.

    Now that the lawmakers have been called out, shall we now go a step further to do what the irrepressible lawmaker from Kaduna has asked the rest of the moral majority to do –that the executive and the judicial branches open up their own salaries and perks for all to see? Fair, after all, is fair. Even at that, Senator Sani seems to have left out the bureaucracy – that cranky machine that somehow manages to serve itself first before any thought for the rest of us; I would rather the institution is added considering its place as the engine room of the bazaar we call governance. For much as the political actors – given their brash and ostentatious lifestyles – are the bad boys we love to hate, it seems to me that we pay too little attention to the viperous brood: the anonymous players in the rank of the public sector. They include the messenger whose salary, although cannot take him home yet manages somehow to put a decent shelter in the sprawling suburbs of the capital cities; the middle level bureaucrat with their fleet of gleaning SUVs who somehow manages to put up half-dozen apartments in choice areas; and the top echelon with their luxury homes in Europe and Americas, whose wards travel executive class and attend the best schools in the world. They have one thing in common: lifestyles inversely related to their earning power!

    You say these are exceptions rather than the rule? Perhaps. But why condemn one while seemingly condoning the other?

    The public sector is unfortunately not alone in this. Wait until you know what the fat cats in the so-called private sector award themselves in the name of executive compensation. I do not here refer to the board-sanctioned performance-based (or lack-thereof) compensations which are legit – or the corporate freebies that makes players outside the corporate suites green with envy; but rather of the countless gravies massed below the scrutiny of the boards and regulators in the name of entitlement.

    Want to check out companies’ annual reports? What do they reveal? Not much – you say?

    Well, those who know can easily point to the single line item called “management expenses” to underline the alliance of the corporatist class against the rest of us. In an era of below par services, shrinking accounts and out-of-control redundancies, there seems to be no stopping the upward spiral of those perks! That is how our self-help republic runs! The few who can manage to extort some privilege from the system consider it their lot to take maximum advantage of things even that means blowing up the ladder for the coming generation. The rest merely bid their time hoping for when their chance will come to repeat the cycle.

    We sure know how greedy the political class is. Theirs’ however, is not any worse than those of other actors in the system hence the Hobbesian struggle that now defines our national lives. If the truth be told – our lawmakers, hardly the only sinners, merely reflect the reality of the self-help culture; the pervasive failure of our institutions – an indictment of the unthinking brood running the affairs country.

    And so it goes: between the overpaid lawmaker and the low level messenger, the difference is hardly about the greed quotient as it is about their access to power and privilege. Both relish the good life and could be expected to act one way or the other to get there. Whether it is in the do-or-die politics; the cheating, the mindless killings and the wave of cultism, they merely express what the American Sociologist, Robert Merton eloquently explained as the typology of individual adaptation when faced with limited means to reaching socially approved goals. This is where institutions become necessary – to create pathways (means) to socially-sanctioned goals and to punish bad behaviour. Here, we not only suffer dearth of institutional capacity, those charged will fixing the problem will rather suffer the indulgence of cornering available opportunities for selves and cohorts. There, in short, lies the tragedy of Nigeria’s myopic elite.

    In our self-help republic, patience is everything. For the politician, it comes to understanding that the four year electoral cycle would barely suffice to create the war chest for the next cycle of elections. The salary being paltry needs an augmentation that only a fat running costs and contractor-tied constituency project can offer.  Why bother to think about overhauling the mortgage system, the credit system and other quality legislative work when there is so limited time to take care of their individual life insurances?

    For the young, out of school graduate being uncharitably described as unemployable, there will obviously enough time to offer endless platitudes. For those brimming with ideas and can’t get finance to push their ideas off the ground, all they need do is wait for the time when the distinguished fellows announce the next round of poverty alleviation schemes. For the budding entrepreneurs who, somehow manage to pass the front door of finance houses and told to bring wife or mum – or both – as collateral, they are well advised to do as they are told; never mind the usurious charges and interests he would be called upon to pay in the end. Same for those lucky to get a reasonably-paying job and needs to pay two years rent upfront to get an apartment, including those desirous of a used car for which they are expected to cough out princely millions, the can find succor either in the word – patience or miracle! For sure, either helps in the Shithole republic. So much for their legitimized heist – and tragically, so much for a country in dearth of leadership.

  • Police: Another peek in the mirror

    With the revelations emerging from the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation in the aftermath of the implementation federal government-ordered Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), it has become clear that the rot in the Nigeria Police is actually deeper than we thought.  Before now, the nation was led to believe that the trouble with the Nigeria Police was the disproportionate number of its men engaged in extra-regimental duties – that aside the rank corruption, impunity and mind-boggling inefficiency that have come to define police operations in these parts.

    By the former, I mean the astounding stats of a 400,000-strong police meant to cater for the policing needs of 180 million people – a quarter of which are deployed to guard our big men – the so-called  VIPs. To think that yours truly only very recently drew attention to the racket on this page!

    Well, I am told that the racket remains alive and thriving. President Muhammadu Buhari may have handed out his order to get the men back on their police beats since August 2015, both the Ministry of Police Affairs and the Police Service Commission are yet to know what to make of his order three years after. As if to remind us of how ineffectual the order by the President is, the incumbent Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, just like Ogbonnaya Onovo and Solomon Arase before him, has since issued his own version of “immediate withdrawal” order on all police orderlies attached to private individuals and companies. The latest is that order that has since been suspended by one month.

    What is the strength of the Nigerian Police?

    Like the public service of which it is only a branch, the actual number has, up until now, remained in the realm of guestimates.  Now, thanks to the federal government-ordered Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), the riddle appears to have been resolved – finally. As against the 400,000 figure often bandied, we now know that police strength currently stands at 291,685. But then, that is only one half of the puzzle. The other half is that some 80,115 ‘ghost officers’ are also on the payroll – drawing monthly salaries and emoluments up till – we are told – February this year!  Now, that is one ghost officer to four living policemen – including those on VIP escort duties!

    Imagine fellow citizens worrying about 100,000 – a mere 30 percent – offering their services for elite protection – and additional ghosts accounting for 25 percent on the payroll? Imagine further that between the 30 percent on VIP duty and the 25 percent on ghost-duty, the luckless 180-something million citizens are left with barely 150,000 policemen to watch their backs! Shouldn’t that itself qualify for a place in the Guinness Book of Records?

    Imagine further that the humongous wages and emoluments for the 80,000 ghosts actually end up – not in any celestial account – but a local account operated by a living person. And finally, think of the tragedy that the operators of the accounts, despite the Know-Your Customer rule mandated by the apex bank, will never be known to the anti-graft bodies for a just restitution! That is the summary of the revelation from the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation on the status of the police personnel payroll.

    By the way, who remembers a certain Senator Isa Hamma Misau that thinks the he has the problem of the police all figured out? The senator from Bauchi – himself a former cop and son to an ex-AIG – it was who insisted that the problem with the police is not so much about lack of funds but the top brass that insists on feeding fat on the misery of the rank and file?  Remember his reference to the pay-as-you-go racket starring the police top brass, the banks and oil companies said to rake in billions that are neither part of police appropriation nor accounted for in the books? Where is he today? The last we heard of him was being dragged before the courts to answer charges for the high crime of opening his mouths too wide!

    For sure, Nigeria is an incredible country. Here is a country that would not take care of little things yet would insist on getting people into Mars. And so it goes that a country whose public service is riddled with ghosts would have far less to worry about than a vain pursuit of restitution by the thieving band that sees itself as the leadership class.

    How much have been saved? Billions – we are told. How about an audit or forensic trail of where the humongous monies went? You bet; it won’t happen. For Minister of Finance Kemi Adeosun, it probably suffices that billions have been – or are being – saved. And so the farce called public service reforms goes on and on.

    As for the rest of us, condemned to the daily deprecation of the activities of the men on patrol, their unprofessional obsequiousness and beggarly disposition in the course of duty, it seems only too convenient to ignore the activities of the shadowy players ensconced in the cozy offices responsible for bringing the police institution to ruin.

    For me, I verily believe that the average policeman deserves more understanding than the angry, frustrated public is often willing to give. Now, that is saying a lot about the activities of operatives who prefer to act the bully when civility would simply do. But then, the truth is that the ‘crimes’ of these little men pale into insignificance compared with the pillaging being done in their name by a privileged few.  Seems about time citizens focused on the activities of the thieving band.

  • Sinators and their wages

    Never mind what his colleagues may do or not do to him in the coming days, Senator Shehu Sani has done a public duty of opening the lid on how much our lawmakers take home every month. Now we know that in addition to the over N750,000 monthly consolidated salary and allowances of each member of the Senate, there is a special provision for running cost which bleeds the treasury by a whopping N13.5 million per senator each month.

    In a country where treasury receipts could be obtained for few thousands of crisp naira notes, one imagines the cost of procuring the variegated bundles sufficient to retire N13.5 million expenses on monthly basis. Now we know why the folks in the old Gutenberg business, despite the biting economic recession aren’t exactly complaining. Just imagine the volume of monthly requisitions for receipts covering such provisions as “inconvenience allowance” and other such allowances for all sundry purposes under the sun all of which combined, makes the job of lawmaking such a risky business. All of this representing the printers’ share of Abuja cash hauls on monthly basis. As it is, there is no hazarding what the operators in the lower chamber take home; most probably, the figures will be in the same range. Trust me; it is only a matter of time before one disgruntled rank-breaker steps out to supply the other half of the figures leaving the rest of us with our tongues wagging.

    Couldn’t our lawmakers have thought of a better way to reflate the economy?

    By the way, the tidy sum does not exclude the so-called constituency fund the vote of which the senators peg at N200 million for themselves.

    Here is how the most distinguished Senator Sani puts it: “You will be told that you have N200 million with an agency of government for which you will now submit projects equivalent to that amount. And it is that agency of government that will go and do those projects for you.

    Guess it’s not meant to be all pork: “Now, the corruption comes when the projects are not done and the money is taken. But right now, it is difficult to do that because NGOs and transparency groups have come into it. They track every allocation made to you and where they are being used…So, it’s becoming difficult for what used to happen in the past to happen now.

    “But I can tell you that I would love a situation where we do away with running costs, constituency projects and leaves senators and members of House of Reps with salaries”.

    Well said. That was Senator Shehu Sani last week. Senate spokesman, Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi obviously thinks that the Kaduna senator has said nothing new. To him, it suffices that “various line items like travelling, medicals, consultancy and the rest were captured in the budget”! And so for the love of our senators, they are supposed to live large even at the risk of running the economy aground!

    We can debate the figures from now till eternity; the sheer obscenity and immorality of the provisions in a country where the least paid worker takes home N18,000 after 30 days of exertion. Those minded of the economics of law-making can go as far as computing the unit cost of the meaningless resolutions, the countless self-serving bills that in the end provides no respite for a floundering nation, not to mention that associated absurdities which continue to assail the rest of decent society; in the end, the rest of us can only gape in horror at the proclivities of the pillaging band. It is a far cry to imagine the folksy leopard changing its spots. It won’t happen; at least not until it is made to happen.

    The scandal of course is that the figures are supposed to be set by law – and so are deemed lawful. In other words, every item of expenditure is supposed to be captured in the instrument of appropriation called the budget. Now, you understand why the instrument is such a secret document with access restricted to a few; the basis of the yearly ‘territoriality wars’ between the executive and the legislature over non-issues; and the farcical process under which a vital public duty is reduced to a hollow, meaningless charade.

    One thing is clear though; the budget is meant to be a disciplined business. Carefully applied, it can make a world of difference between life in shithole and one in modernity. It begins with formulation – a step by step activity that starts with justification, costing; it extends to consideration by relevant authorities and eventual passage into law by lawmakers after which it reverts to the Ministries, Departments and Agencies for implementation – with every step guided by regulations. Implementation in particular is further subjected to the rule of process; in fact, disbursement is supposed to be governed by the strictures of extant regulations – the General Orders and the Financial Regulations, and the Procurement Act – all of which constitute the Bible for all operatives in the public service.

    Thanks to Senator Sani, we now know that such niceties no longer exist in the public service; imagine paying each senator N13.5 million upfront, and en bloc– a freebie to be covered by multiple invoices even when no justification is made apriori nor services expected to be delivered. Picture also the constituency projects, inserted at the lawmakers’ fancy and allocated the block vote of N200 million per member – only because those overpaid fellows insist on retaining the power to alter the vote. Now you understand the cat and mouse play under which the budget never gets passed on time and implementation fraught with bad faith.

    To start with, it takes a terminally diseased public service to subject the discipline of our extant financial regulations to the whims of ill-tutored political operatives. However, it needs to be said also that it takes a morally delinquent, but privileged few, to unleash the kind of carnage on the scale being wrought by our lawmakers. And to imagine the greater tragedy of the men and women elected to make laws for the rest of us being no more than lawless operatives.

    Even if we agree with Senator Abdullahi that his colleague, Shehu Sani revealed nothing new, it does nothing to remove the stain of being the most spendthrift and arguably the most unproductive law-making chamber in the entire universe. Not that it matters anyway to the insular fellows.

  • Thai tears and other fables

    Thai tears and other fables

    Even without the online medium, The Cable disproving the claims by Minister of Agriculture Audu Ogbeh that the Thais have been in lamentation ever since Nigeria put a lid on import of rice from the country, I could have sworn that the avuncular minister goofed – big time. Seven giant rice mills – the minister famously claimed at a meeting of the Presidential Fertilizer Initiative (PFI) and leadership of the Fertiliser Producers and Suppliers of Nigeria (FEPSAN) held at the Council Chamber of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Friday – have shut down because Nigeria’s import has fallen by 95 per cent on rice alone.

    “Just like two weeks ago, the ambassador of Thailand came to my office and said to me that we have really dealt with them”, he reportedly told his guests.

    “But I asked what did we do wrong and he said unemployment in Thailand was one of the lowest in the world, 1.2 percent, it has gone up to four percent because seven giant rice mills have shut down because Nigeria’s import has fallen by 95 percent on rice alone”, he was further quoted to have said.

    Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information and Culture, would add another dimension to the issue when, during a tour of some rice farms in Kebbi State also at the weekend stated: “As we speak today, Thailand rice growers are making passionate appeal to the Federal Government. What they are doing now is that they want to set up rice mills in Nigeria, which means we have won”.

    Won?

    To start with, if anyone needed any proof of how little has changed in the rice equation trade, a trip to any of our urban markets will far more disprove claims about overnight capacity than a thousand fact-checking could ever do. Except the two ministers would have us believe that those foreign branded rice in the popular Daleko – Mushin, or Isale Eko as indeed any of our local markets are actually local rice re-bagged as foreign, only then can they convince anyone that the Nigerian rice has truly arrived! For while the Nigerian rice may seem very much in vogue at this time, the claims about availability remains more of fantasy than reality!

    Again, thanks to The Cable for laying things bare – so to speak – the medium actually reported that Thai exports of rice in January rose by 17.6 percent just as exports grew to 37.2 percent year-on-year – a trend which clearly suggests that things are actually looking up – not down – for a country said to be in mourning over the loss of its Nigerian market. And so it goes that if we excuse the ‘alternative facts’ so presented and which flies in the face of hard facts as one of those pardonable lapses in one momentary ecstasy in the aftermath of a bountiful harvest, shouldn’t the ‘realities’ which the minister admitted to at the meeting have tempered his claims?

    This, in my view is the crux of the matter. By this I mean the minister’s reference to the terrible havoc being wreaked on this nation by our ECOWAS neighbours under the liberalisation policy. Here is how the minister framed the issue: “…we have to take one strong measure against our neighbour to the West. The smuggling is really compromising our capacity on our result.

    “Too much rice, too much fake fertilizer is still coming across the borders into this country in spite of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) we have with them they are not listening.

    “Maybe if the Federal Government takes one tough action, they will come and renegotiate the terms because good neighbourliness means reciprocity… We can’t be allowing them to survive at our own expense and I believe that we will do something about it,’’ he said.

    Had the minister not earlier on, proceeded to cart home the trophy before the game was over, we would, while conceding to him as being spot on, see him as offering an important perspective to the current quest to get the nation’s rice value chain up and running. For much as many are wont to see the minister’s claim about the impact of the curb on rice imports on the Thai economy as somewhat exaggerated, undeniable is that our quest for local sufficiency – whether of rice or any other commodity for that matter – would ultimately be won or lost at the nation’s borders – with Bangkok, in the case of rice constituting a major factor in the equation. Despite pretensions to the contrary, and as troubling as the proposition appears to be, it is a reality that we have to live with for a long time to come.  I do verily believe that ECOWAS Big Brother will do well to pay attention to the permissive, inter-border trade, which aside killing our economy actually puts our national interest in grave jeopardy.

    By the way, did Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo not warn us in November last year about three ship loads of 120,000 metric tons of Thailand rice said to be headed for Nigeria? Did he not also inform his guests that Nigeria in December 2016 blocked about 500,000 metric tons of rice coming into the country?

    I recall what he said of the shipment at the occasion of the Sixth Presidential Business Forum in Abuja: “It is very clear that the rice is meant for Nigeria because they don’t consume parboiled rice in that country; they consume the white broken rice…Our neighbours do excellent business with allowing rice to come into Nigeria.” He could not have been more emphatic: smuggling of agricultural produce into Nigeria, constitute an existential threat to the country’s agricultural sector.

    So much for the spirit of ECOWAS – the 43-year old sub regional body that has become something of an anachronism in the age of Brexit and Donald Trump, our neighbours would rather play transit for goods destined for the Nigerian market – goods they do not consume but nonetheless constitute a major element of its sustenance – a case of the parasite feeding on the blood of the host with the latter permanently anaemic?

    I guess it’s time Nigeria moved to review the terms of the sub-regional treaty. After all, what the Holy Book says is love your neighbour as – not more than – yourself!

  • The burden of change

    The burden of change

    Call it two lethal blows to the solar plexus – it must have been a hard time for an administration that swept into office on the chariot of change to watch everything it has labored so hard for vaporize at the speed of light.

    On Monday, February 19, Nigerians woke up to the terrible news of the abduction of 110 Dapchi schoolgirls by suspected Boko Haram militants. The insurgents, said to be dressed in military camouflage reportedly stormed the Government Girls Science Technical College (GGSTC), Dapchi, Yobe State in two 4-wheel drive vehicles painted in military colour. Firing into the air to create an atmosphere of bedlam, the hapless girls, most of who, ran into different directions for safety, were said to have run into the Boko Haram militants posing as helpers. In the siege said to have lasted for two hours, 110 schoolgirls were ferried into the unknown.

    And so here we are being forced to relive the horror of Chibok some two months into the fourth anniversary of an abduction that shook the entire world. Of course, that five and half score schoolgirls could vanish without trace has only showed how very little has changed in any real sense as far as the insurgency war raging in the northeast goes. Not only has the myth of the invincibility of the fortress occupied by the Boko Haram despite the military’s claims to the contrary persisted; the possibility of our dear country, Nigeria, still harbouring vast, ungoverned spaces, far beyond the reach of the military has again been reinforced.

    If anything, that knowledge ought to provide citizens something to chew upon for a long time.

    So also are nearly half-a-dozen uncomfortable truths. Of course, the governor, Ibrahim Geidam, has since apologised for misleading Nigerians about the occurrence. While that is pardonable considering that the governor could only have echoed the information supplied him by his aides, but then, his attempt at finger-pointing merely exposes the age-long hypocrisy of his ilk.

    His words: “I blame the whole attack on Dapchi on the military and the defence headquarters who withdrew troops from Dapchi. The attack occurred barely a week after the military withdrew the soldiers from there… Before then, Dapchi has been peaceful, there was never such incident. But just a week after they withdrew the troops, Boko Haram came to attack the town”.

    Well said.

    The governor unfortunately has, up till now, not told us why no lessons appears to have been learnt by his government – nearly 10 years into the battle that has engulfed a huge chunk of the territory under his watch. None of basic structures of intelligence appears to have been in place not to talk of security architecture to match for a region that has been volatile all this while. Nothing of the synergy between the local authorities and the security and intelligence communities as one would expect given the peculiar security challenges facing the state as indeed the entire northeast. Yet, the governor could talk of the billions of naira spent to assist the military.

    The point certainly bears stating: Had basic structures of intelligence been in place and so appropriately nourished over time, it would seem inconceivable that the chief security officer of the state would be in the dark for the whole of the two hours that the siege was said to have lasted. One can only therefore presume that the huge sum said to have been spent precluded investment in critical intelligence.

    If the truth must be told, the situation, more tellingly, speaks to the calibre of men occupying our various government houses, their understanding of the rationale of governance and their fitness for the office.

    Which takes us to the role of the military in the entire saga. Expectedly, the military has since denied that there were any soldiers stationed in Dapchi before the attack. The closest military outpost, according to Defence Spokesman, John Agim, a brigadier-general, is about 30 kilometres away. Now, even if we take the statement by the military on its face value, and if we agree that the military cannot be everywhere at the same time, it still does not excuse the slow response time, the inability to track the movement of the terrorists several days after, and its appalling overall intelligence.

    Finally, the only point that needs to be added is that, the Buhari administration, in announcing that the Boko Haram has been vanquished, apparently rejoiced too soon. Far from being over, the war has merely revealed how far the armed forces have to go to modernise itself as a fighting force, particularly one suitable for these difficult times.

  • Transparency International’s verdict

    As if by uncanny coincidence, two days after the Dapchi abduction, Transparency International (TI) released its verdict on the anti-corruption war showing that the country, despite the heroic efforts of the administration, actually plunged 12 places down on the overall corruption indices compared with the preceding year when it ranked 136th place. By way of contrast, Kenya, rated as more corrupt than Nigeria in 2016, has now overtaken Nigeria moving from 145 to 143th place.

    Just as one would expect, hierarchs of the Buhari administration have not only dubbed the verdict a travesty, they have gone on the overdrive in the attempt to showcase their achievements in the anti-corruption war. The administration, they insist, has blocked leakages for corruption through the rigid enforcement of the Treasury Single Account (TSA); recovered N738.9 billion was in just two years of the Buhari administration; recorded more than 140 successful prosecutions and signed international agreements to recover the proceeds of corruption and to block the laundering of stolen assets abroad by public officials, and many more.

    While these may be true, the officials, I must insist, miss the point.

    Transparency International’s work is not so much about the substance of the work being undertaken by the countries but more about the perception or what is more appropriately the optics of the anti-graft fight. Whereas the administration can imagine itself as doing the best in the current circumstances, there is certainly a whole world of difference between what it claims as achievement and the perception of the citizens about its efforts. Whereas the administration is wont to show facts and figures as proof of the efficacy of the war, the citizens are rather reminded of its sloppy handling of the fraud allegations against former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal, the Nigeria Intelligence Agency (NIA) saga, the embarrassing reinstatement into service of dismissed civil servant and fugitive Abdulrasheed Maina.

    If like most Nigerians, Transparency International appears unimpressed by the administration’s efforts, it could only sum up to the optics trumping the billions recovered.

  • Playing the ostrich – all over again

    Playing the ostrich – all over again

    Thursday last week, Minister of State for Petroleum Ibe Kachikwu – as if to remind Nigerians that fuel scarcity which sneaked into town in December is not about to dissipate any time soon – directed the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to ensure that petrol queues were cleared in Abuja before Sunday.

    The minister, as reported by Vanguard, also stated that the queues have been persistent because logistics and policy issues that could end the scarcity are largely unaddressed:

    “I can tell you behind the scenes, a lot of meetings are taking place because the fuel queue issue is both logistics and policy issues.

    “We will need to address fundamental policy issues to enable it go away especially in the area where the pricing is showing differentials between the landing and sales price.

    And then, as if to remind that our chief of state is not entirely indifferent to our tears and supplications, he would also add almost superfluously: “The president is obviously very committed to keeping the price of petrol at where it is because he realises and sympathises with the sufferings of Nigerians.

    Now, let’s take the issues one by one – starting with why the directive was specific to Abuja and not nationwide.

    The minister had a ready, interesting answer: The maiden edition of the international oil and gas conference and exhibition tagged the Nigerian International Petroleum Summit (NIPS) holding from Sunday February 18 to Friday February 23: “I will hate for my colleagues to come and see the fuel queues so my directive to NNPC would be to get these queues out of Abuja”.

    By colleagues, he meant the attendees at the summit most of whom, already too familiar with our literature of ineptitude, would hardly notice in any case. Never mind that this is what the ordinary citizen has had to put up with for nearly three months running; as far as the minister was concerned, the PR disaster of having the capital city of OPEC’s sixth largest exporter of crude suffer a weeklong lockdown while the summit lasted would seem by far more than the most of excruciating pains of an anguished citizens can assuage.

    So, over to you Abuja folks; enjoy the respite while it lasts! As for the rest of the country – with notable exception of Lagos where official price still bears the semblance of ruling the market, that is, if you don’t mind the inconveniencing queues at the filling stations –market forces have long been calling the shots with petrol in some parts of the country selling for between N200-N250 a litre.

    At issue is why the nation’s pumps have been coming in drips despite the so-called massive intervention of the national oil corporation, the heroic efforts of the duo of Kachikwu and Maikanti Baru, and the legendary empathy of the chief of state with the sufferings of the people. By now, we have seen enough of the maverick psych-ops of the men of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and their daily rounds of sealing fuel stations; the endless finger-printing between the leading actors in the fuel supply chain – NNPC, Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association (DAPMAN) and Independent Petroleum Marketers of Nigeria (IPMAN) as to who to hold responsible for the crisis. We are also familiar with the statistics routinely rolled out showing that the country has enough white products to last her many lifetimes, not excluding the calm assurances of those in the position to do so that good times are already at the door. Yet, the problem has not gone away.

    In fact, that the minister is still talking about “logistics and policy issues” three months after the symptoms of the familiar disease resurfaced would seem to indicate how far the government and the major institutions in the fuel supply chain would prefer to live in denial rather than put the cards on the table.

    Call the problem a good one if you may, it is a well-known fact that the current fuel price of N145 per litre was set when oil sold for $35 per barrel. Today, oil prices have since neared $70 a barrel just as the foreign reserve has been on a steady upward climb. At the last count, it was said to have hit $42 billion plus. Unfortunately, while exulting in the build-up of the foreign reserves, Nigerians may have shut their minds to the corresponding upward pressure on domestic fuel prices and consequently the steady relapse to the pre cost-recovery regime of fuel pricing particularly at a time of continuing reliance on imports.

    And so when the minister says that the president is “very committed to keeping the price of petrol at where it is because he realises and sympathises with the sufferings of Nigerians”, it can only be that the president is only too aware that the current fuel price math –elegantly framed by the minister as ‘differentials between the landing and sales price’, no longer adds up! The question here is what his administration has done to address the issue beyond playing the ostrich, hoping perhaps the problem will disappear by itself!

    To be sure, no one has yet called for a review of fuel prices. The much that has been said is that the situation is delicate – and so requires thoughtful, deliberate policy actions. This is even more so since major importers have long stopped the trade precisely because doing so at current price is as good as a one-way fare to bankruptcy. And the consequence? A space yielded exclusively to the national oil corporation – a burden that it has been unable to discharge – owing to twin factors of logistics and cash.  It certainly says a lot about the priorities of the administration that it has been practically Missing In Action (MIA) since the cost-recovery template was set in May 2016.

    That being the situation hardly merits a denial. But what do we hear? Denials and more denials from the NNPC and the federal government. Not even when the situation calls for the opening the treasury vaults to bridge cost-price recovery gap. Ostensibly for fear of giving anything away, the government’s price fixing agency – even the Petroleum Products Prices Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) has gone as far as yanking the price template element off its website as if doing so will restore things to normalcy!

    So much for the love of fatherland, it needs to be said at this time that the only crimes worse than denial is the secrecy and potential rip-off foisted by the current regime of under–recovery of fuel costs.  Perhaps, the government and the NNPC will yet inform Nigerians of the existence of a piggy bank permitted for such operations outside of the law. Until then, it stands to reason that someone, somewhere, may actually be breaking the law!

    And now I ask: Is the National Assembly MIA too?

  • Okiro, police and Nigeria’s big men

    Okiro, police and Nigeria’s big men

    Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr it was in the 1849 issue of his journal Les Guêpes  credited with the saying – plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose (the more things change, the more they stay the same). As it has become increasingly obvious, Nigerians may have sounded clear their preference for change when they voted in the Muhammadu Buhari-led APC administration in 2015, what they are getting in return is more of the same.

    Nothing better illustrates the notorious fact than the confession from the mouth Mike Okiro, ex-top cop and chairman of Police Service Commission that the directive handed over to the police authorities in August 2015 could not be carried out. President Muhammadu Buhari, then mint-fresh in office, had at a meeting with officials of the Ministry of Police Affairs and the Police Service Commission directed the Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arise and the same Okiro to scale down on the number of policemen attached to so-called dignitaries in the country.

    Some 30 months after, Okiro says the directive could not be carried out. Feigning frustration that the throng, numbering some 150,000 out of the 400,000-strong police continue to play guard duties to Nigeria’s big men, he told the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday in Abuja that things are still as they were. Although he stated that his commission in conjunction with the Nigeria Police Force had commenced the implementation of the withdrawal of police officers, but the exercise was stalled due to lack of fund!

    Imagine the bad mathematics of 150,000 guarding less than 100,000-odd fellows leaving the rest 250,000 to secure the 180 million people. For something so serious as to be deemed not just an emergency but an intolerable crime against the people, our one-time top cop, has, like in the manner of the praying mantis offering supplication to an absentee god, been crooning in supine, fruitless rhapsody to no one in particular: “We cannot afford to have more than half of the population of the police in private hands…the nation cannot be battling with shortage of manpower in the force while majority of these officers would be in the service of few privileged Nigerians”.

    Good heavens!

    The former number one policeman obviously feels entitled to our sympathy. After all, it is the way of the old brigade and their General Orders to rationalise why routine tasks are left undone; why simple instructions cannot be carried through with highly placed officials go shopping endlessly for alibis to deflect responsibility. Like the rationalisations that have made our public service the most irresponsive if not irresponsible in the entire universe, public service seems more like finding the goat on which to hang the crime than applying the intellect to solve an old problem. If truly money answereth all things; why not better put things to the old invisible daemon of cash without which nothing is deemed possible?

    Even at this, it seems to yours truly that Okiro and company betrayed an appalling ignorance of an equally old but handy template or manual if you like, that perhaps, would have at least excused him and others from the rigour of thinking since they appear unwilling to do so.  I refer to an earlier directive by the Federal Executive Council in March 2009. That directive, interestingly, left no one in doubt about the calibre of officials entitled to that privileged service: President, Vice President, Chief Justice of Nigeria, governors, deputy governors, Secretary to the Government of the Federation and Head of Service of the Federation. Included in the category are ministers, president of the Court of Appeal, justices of the Supreme Court, judges of the Court of Appeal, chief judge and grand khadi of a state, president of the Customary Court of Appeal, Chairman of a Local Government/Area Council, Vice Chairman of a Local Government/Area Council and Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC). So also are President of the Senate, Deputy President of the Senate, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Speakers of State Houses of Assembly and Deputy Speakers of State Houses of Assembly.

    With the list clearly established, Ogbonnaya Onovo, the then IGP merely put out a simple, direct and unambiguous memo: “All persons not approved to have policemen are hereby given seven days to release the police personnel attached to them, and to make alternative arrangements.

    “Such police personnel are also given seven days from today to report back to their commanders in readiness for training.

    “Heads of commands and formations whose personnel are involved are hereby warned to compile and forward the list of their returning personnel latest August 13, 2009. By this date, any policeman or woman who continues in such duty will be dismissed forthwith and delisted.”

    Okiro, rather than agree with the text thinks it is all about turning on the treasury taps,  or, if you like, finding new avenues for pouring public money into the bureaucratic sinkhole – which of course is nonsense. That the police establishment would claim to require tonnes of cash to get going for a task so simple obviously says a lot about quality of leadership at that level particularly at these changing times.

    This is far from saying that the police force does not need money. It sure does. I understand that the vote for running a Divisional Police headquarters for a whole month comes to less than N10,000. This is supposed to cover everything from fuelling, stationary and other incidentals – which more often than not, never gets to reach their targets – no thanks to the albatrosses of corruption and stifling bureaucracy. Far more than money however is that the police can do with fresh thinking. Today, we have an IGP in Ibrahim Idris, who would rather spar with his nemesis, a certain Senator Isa Hamma Misau than pour his heart and soul into the job of making the police a 21st century institution. And now as it seems to be the case,  a PSC boss thoroughly out of depth with the requirements of 21st century management that he couldn’t in nearly three years after a presidential directive was given figure out how to bring back home the crop of its men engaged in extra regimental duties.

    Now that the confession has been made, do we now need the president to restate the order for whatever it’s worth hoping that the police authorities will somehow find the sense to figure things out on or before 2019?