The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sanya Oni

  • Labour’s teachable moment

    Labour’s teachable moment

    For Ayuba Wabba and company, last week’s fiasco must be something of a teachable moment. For a strike that was advertised as a Mother of Strikes, to say that it ended even before any shots were fired would pass for an understatement. It was simply a non-event.  Sunday’s announcement by the Nigeria Labour Congress “to suspend the strike with immediate effect” was for all intents and purposes, superfluous if not entirely face-saving.

    A revelation in labour’s vulnerability; its apparent disconnect and hence poor reading of the national mood; its fixations with old ways and means. Add these to an increasingly cynical and distrustful citizenry – what you get is a perfect recipe for a disastrous outing.  That was exactly what labour got.

    Looking back now, it seems doubtful that Wabba and company took time to read the mood of the people they elected to lead to battle. Had they taken the trouble, they would have realised how far the top rung of the body lagged behind their supposed followers – a case of the falcon being far too gone to hear the falconer.

    Of course, it wasn’t that Nigerians were not aware of how terribly bad things are at the time the federal government announced the new petrol price: the soar away inflation and shrinking real incomes, business foreclosures and the spate of layoffs as indeed the pervasive air of despondency that have reduced the Nigerian landscape to an outsized scrap-yard.

    The problem was the attempt by Labour to recreate 2012 #OccupyNigeria not minding that the terrains have changed. For much as the hike is no less burdensome than the one that provoked the 2012 protests that shook the Jonathan administration to its foundations, a number of intervening variables have since played out between then and now which should ordinarily dictate a more measured approach by Labour.

    First is the crash in the price of crude. At the current price of barely $40 a barrel for our crude, only labour can afford the luxury of pretending about what the grim numbers represent – which is quite unfortunate for a most enlightened body. In this, Nigerians would seem in better appreciation of the situation than labour would care to know.

    Like I noted severally on this page, the simple truth is that the country cannot afford the subsidy bill even if it wants to – much unlike 2012. Imagine the federation account being forced to shell out N1 trillion naira to fuel marketers to the defray cost-price differentials on petrol at a time some 27 states cannot pay wages of their workers! And to further imagine that that was what our activists wanted!

    The second is the context. Agreed, the Jonathan administration attempted to do exactly what the Buhari administration has just done but was frustrated by the 2012 Occupiers. I must confess that I have heard not a few leading commentators charge erstwhile protagonists of the movement with hypocrisy for not supporting the latest strike. Let me put it this way: When the contexts of both situations are factored in, the difference comes out stark clear.

    Nigerians may wish to recall that at the death of former President Umaru Yar’Adua in 2010, the entire annual subsidy bill was no more than N300 billion. Barely six months after President Jonathan took over, the bill shot up to a humonguous N1.9 trillion. In other words, consumption rose dramatically by more than a multiple of six under Jonathan!  That puzzle, unfortunately has remained unresolved till today. My understanding, ( and I am entitled to be sincerely wrong), is that the 2012 Occupiers didn’t risk lives and limbs because they loved subsidy anymore than the idea of shelling out billions of naira in subsidy payouts. It was not so much because they loathed the increasingly amorphous concept called deregulation; rather, it was to protest the licenced robbery that the payouts to Jonathan and Friends Inc. had become!

    By way of contrast, the issue with the Buhari administration is what to do with the subsidy baggage. Clearly, its earlier vacillation on the issue – in the face of the hard numbers – may have been unpardonable, what the administration cannot be accused of is juggling the figures. More importantly is that the administration did not provide a dime in the current budget for the subsidy. Of course, with fuel imports gulping 40 percent of the monthly import bills, and with the reserves barely able to cover four months of imports, only Labour can afford to live in the illusion that the situation was anything but desperate.

    No wonder Nigerians were more sympathetic to the federal government as against Labour that opted to live in denial. Moreover, for an industry that had for all practical purposes ‘self-regulated’, the charge by labour that the federal government sprang a “surprise” can only be described as amusing because the ‘prices’ had long been deregulated by the marketers across the federation – with perhaps the exception in Lagos and Abuja.

    Last week’s outing was therefore predictable.

    However, Labour may have lost the battle; the war far from over, has only just begun. To start with, a multiplicity of importers is not necessarily a guarantee that players will play by the rules. Trust our marketers weaned on the diet of entitlement, they will seek to abuse the system by all means fair and foul. For instance, contrary to earlier assurances that the marketers will use autonomous funds to bring in their products, the feelers are that they are already knocking on the federal government’s doors seeking forex from – you guessed right – official sources! And to imagine that the N145 per litre price agreed was based on autonomous funds rates! That’s how terrible the system has become. Vigilance, both on the part of labour and civil society as indeed the ordinary citizens, will certainly help in the days ahead.

    Secondly, it is time to do away with the current rent-riddled fuel pricing template in use. A starting point is to look at the countless charges on the template that tend to reward wastes and inefficiency. Labour, in may view, has the capacity to undertake this. One of the sore points on the template is the Petroleum Equalisation Funds which seeks to ensure price parity across the board. If you ask me – I’ll say that law has become anachronistic. It is most certainly incompatible with the current move to deregulate the sector. Labour will do well to make it one of the talking points of its negotiation with government if it truly seeks to address some of the distortions afflicting the industry.

    Last word: Was the schism within the labour movement part of its dialectics – a sort of inevitable moment of its own transition? Just wondering.

  • Before #OccupyNigeria II

    Before #OccupyNigeria II

    Moments after Nigeria Labour Congress and its allies served notice on the federal government to either revert to the pre-Wednesday price of N86.5 per litre or have a #OccupyNigeria on its hands, I went into the archives to fish out my earlier thought on the matter if only to demonstrate how very little has changed –in terms of the substance of the subject and citizens appreciation of the precarious times that the nation has found itself. The piece, published in November 24, 2015, titled – Subsidy- Time to let go, was itself an update of an earlier piece published on May 19, 2015. Never mind the well-worn fixations or the semantic exertions which they give rise, the issues have remained practically the same.

    Enjoy.

    “The fuel queues are back – as if you didn’t know that already. The tragedy isn’t just that OPEC’s one-time sixth largest exporter of crude has again suffered another crushing relapse of the familiar plague of dry pumps – no thanks to the feud between fuel importers and the finance ministry – it’s like the nation has come under a spell of some ancestral curses!

    Trust Nigerians for their inventiveness; guess they have since moved on while we are back to the same old wearisome arguments about whether or not the subsidy exists. Our go-go nature appears to have gotten the better of us. Majority – call it the silent ones if you like – it would appear, could no longer be bothered with either the economics or even the semantics of fuel subsidies, they have since swallowed the full pill of deregulation – this time through the back door. Scarcity or not, I know for a fact that you could purchase fuel in some stations in Lagos without as much as breaking a sweat – so long as you are willing to part with N140 for a litre in the deregulated market downtown! Seems one moment when Nigerians wouldn’t mind to cut their noses – even if temporarily – to get going!

    Truly, the subject of fuel subsidy never ceases to fascinate. As in the round leather game of football, it is one subject that every Kasali, Chinedu and Usman would claim, with some air of certainty, some degree of knowledge if not expertise. You know why? Everybody is involved – from the jerry-can clutching vulcanizer to the barber next door; what about the welder or even the ubiquitous taxi driver all of whom the liquid gold has come to mean the difference between life and death?

    Yes, everyone is involved.

    Agreed, subsidy is a touchy subject. I have seen otherwise brilliant minds relapse into some wild, witless garbage when the subject is fuel subsidy. Many would rather be politically correct than risk ruffling feathers. And so argument persists that simply because oil is of nature’s finest gift to us, we can continue to dispense with the niceties of economics!

    I have looked at the contending arguments; it seems to me that the difference between the most vociferous proponents of fuel subsidy removal and their opponents is actually more shadow than real substance! Forget what the marketers and their hordes of middlemen say; the truth is that they want the subsidy regime to continue; it is their surest route to unearned wealth. What about the bureaucrats, the men and women wielding awesome powers over our lives? It is their surest guarantee of raw, invisible power – without control. As one would imagine, the politicians want it for a different purpose; for them, it is a fascinating subject for politricking any day.

    Did I hear the “ogas at the top” describe the subsidy regime as “unsustainable”? What their lucre-addicted lordships meant to say is that they could do with more of freshly-minted wads in the piggy bank to do as they please.

    The irony of course is that a section of the hoi polloi actually believes the lie that the petrol and kerosene subsidy – together with its impregnable infrastructure of graft that services it – actually comes close to their share of the proverbial national cake! That for me is the most tragic part of the raging debate.

    Is there really a subsidy? I have heard the question over and over again. To the question I say – we wouldn’t be who we are if we are not found debating whether or not the weekend May 14 Platts reference price of $718.49 per metric tonne (that is N105.55 per litre) is real! Note that this is not yet reflective of distribution costs as well as the marketers’ margins!  With petrol price officially pegged at N87 per litre, the above should ordinarily solve the arithmetic.

    Next question – why can’t the federal government build new refineries? Or its variant – why can’t the government compel the International Companies (IOCs) to build refineries in the country? Or still, get the private sector to build new refineries? Good question – all of them!

    Let me proceed from the known to the unknown. Again, as if we don’t know, the reality is that OPEC’s leading crude oil exporter refines only a miniscule fraction of its domestic fuel needs. Daily requirement for petrol is said to range from 40-45 million litres daily of which the four refineries combined is said to deliver a miserable 10-15 percent. To bridge the gap, we rely on imports at deleterious costs to our foreign reserves and the larger national economy. From an ordinarily hefty subsidy bill of barely N250 billion in 2011; the nation has since the literally broken the banks – spending close to a trillion on kerosene and petrol alone annually!

    So why can’t the government build new refineries? The answer: the same reason the government is unable to bring back the national carrier; it’s the same argument about government’s inability to fix the multiplicity of our roads; the reason the power sector is considered as jinxed! I daresay here that the old cliché about the government not being good at business is true only to the extent that our government lacks both the means and the discipline to run a modern enterprise! The tiny Island country of Singapore is a living exception to that rule!

    As for getting the IOCs to build new refineries, it seems rather too easy to overlook the terrible effects of government’s meddlesomeness on the downstream sector. Does anyone still remember that the first refinery in the country was actually built not by government but by Shell? It seems aeons ago when the motorist in Lagos bought fuel at a different price from his compatriot in Maiduguri! That was when market ruled – long before our leaders pronounced that money was not our problem but how to spend it!

    To my main point. There comes a time in the life of a nation when citizens just have to make hard choices. The current season would appear such a time. The simple truth is that the nation cannot afford, even if it wants, to sustain the current regime of price support called subsidy. Something simply has to give. Moreover, I have stated elsewhere that the subsidy regime is unfair to the extent that the burden is regressive. In short, it is time to let go! Agreed, it is not the end; it’s one sure step on the path to dismantling the infrastructure of fraud currently sapping the nation’s vital juices. That done, with supporting policies, the goal of local refining might actually be closer than many would dare to imagine. I rise!”

    Need I say more?

  • Enter Bailout 2.0

    For federal and state governments, the month of March would herald a new low on their fiscal calendar. With a total N299.75 billion available to be shared for the month – the lowest allocation in more than five years – the fiscal crisis had clearly gone beyond pelting showers of rain to an overwhelming deluge.

    With 27 states in arrears of between three to five months, and with the piggy bank showing no signs of imminent recovery (the figures for January and February were N370.4 billion and N345 billion respectively), we may have finally arrived at that proverbial tipping point.

    Here is what I wrote on the looming wage crisis nearly a year ago: “Somehow, everyone seems to imagine that a bailout therapy would do some magic. Here, the argument goes that the Federal Government, as lender of last resort, can always get the Central Bank of Nigeria to use the traditional tool – ways and means – to fix the problem in the short term. So what happens in the medium to long term? Put the affected states on the life support until things get better? And how far can we go in the use of the ways and means instrument which is basically about printing new notes without going the way of Zimbabwe where you require a glistening one hundred trillion dollar bill to pay for a lunch pack for two?”

    That was before Bailout 1.0 which came via the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) special intervention fund of N300 billion to help the states to defray their backlog of salaries; also in that package was a debt relief programme coupled by the Debt Management Office to help the states restructure their commercial loans put at over N660 billion.

    Unlike the first package which involved cash handouts, Bailout 2.0 came vide a ‘gracious approval’ by President Muhammadu Buhari of the recommendation of the 66th meeting of the National Economic Council, NEC for the suspension of the deductions from the allocation for March. The gesture, expected to pool some N10.9 billion into the states’ coffers would give the states a breather of sorts to enable them grapple with the crisis fostered by dwindling oil revenues.

    As  Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun would explain: “We (federal government) are not able to guarantee that all states will be able to meet their salary obligations, as each state’s situation is dependent on its own cost profile and other obligations it may have; but this initiative is to better position them to do so.”

    While letting it be known that there are  ‘conditionalities’ attached, subsequent deferrals of loan repayment obligations, according to the minister “would be subject to the agreement of a Fiscal Restructuring Plan to be prepared by each state with clear measurable objectives”. Underlying this is “Enhanced financial transparency by the publication of audited accounts and submission of debt profile…”

    I have argued that bailouts, in the circumstance in which the nation has found itself, is sensible and pragmatic. The alternative is to let the states drown in the fiscal crisis and hence risk street riots. For while we can make all the fancy arguments about the fiscal recklessness of some of the governors as being substantially responsible for the crisis, the pervasive air of despondency accross the states is such that makes doing nothing impracticable. This is even more so for a federal government sworn to reflate the economy, and to get things working again. At the moment, the choice is unenviable: most certainly, it cannot afford to have 27 out of 36 states locked in the current fiscal mode without risking the collapse of the economy; but then, it cannot be seen to reward the club of errant governors whose bad decisions threw the states into crisis. There is a third reason why the government cannot afford inaction. It is the farce – the cespit of corruption – that the public service has become.

    I understand that any talk of rationalisation of the workforce would be regarded as satanic at this time. The reality however is that the number of active-ghosts on our payroll are perhaps as just as many as the number of on-duty workers. Of course, this is as true in the federal bureaucracy as it is of the states. Across the board, the story is the same of ghost workers, ghost pensioners and perhaps ghost parastatals – all of them drawing their sustenance from the public till.

    Some examples would suffice. Today, it is public knowledge that the verification in the federal civil service yielded  312,000 ghost workers! Yes, the same federal government currently imposing conditionalities on the states!

    Another interesting example comes from the first round of the bailout. Some states, according to reports, for obvious reasons, were alleged to have padded their payrolls perhaps to get more of the bailout fund.

    And then this from Kogi State, which has just concluded a verification of the workforce ordered by its interim governor, Yahya Bello. Although I have not verified, I am told, that the exercise yielded 973 fake schools spread accross 20 out of 21 local governments. One local government alone is said to have generated 142 fake schools!  All of these schools, I presume have principals, vice principals, teachers, messengers/cleaners etc. That in a state with miserable internally generated revenue. That obviously is the level to which our public service has sunk.

    Having brought the situation on themselves, the states deserve to swallow any bitter pill that the federal government may deem fit to impose. Harsh? May be!

    Still want to know the way out? A good start is to determine those who claim to be working for us as against the ghosts sucking our blood. That should not require rocket science.

  • Workers seek not yet repose

    Workers seek not yet repose

    With virtually all socio-economic indices showing red, it was expected that this year’s Workers Day celebration would be a particularly sombre one. At a time some 24 or so of the 36 states are in arrears of payment of salaries to their workers, and coming barely a week after their Excellencies congregated in Abuja for the second round of bailout to settle workers wages, the situation would ordinarily demand no less.

    Unfortunately, if one expected the grim background to have reflected in this year’s observance of the workers’ day, this was barely evident. As in previous years, no aspect of the festivities was missing; not the talk shops which have increasingly become hollow year upon year; the march-pasts, parades and photo-op sessions; certainly none of the annual ritual of presentation of the shopping list of workers demands to employers was missing. Not even the fact that this year’s anniversary fell on Sunday – Christendom’s worship and hence work-free day – made any difference; workers all – public and private – got a freebie with Monday, the next day, declared work-free in a nation that is for all practical purposes, permanently in holiday mode!

    For me, the high point was last Wednesday’s formal demand by Labour for a new minimum wage of N56,000. At this difficult time?

    At a news conference on Wednesday in Abuja, Ayuba Wabba, the NLC president had announced: “I can say now authoritatively that as of yesterday (Tuesday) we made a formal proposal to the Federal Government of N56, 000 to be the new minimum wage”. Acknowledging that the economy was not doing well, the labour chief nonetheless insisted that “the law stated that wages for workers must be reviewed after every five years”. “The issue”, he said “must be looked into by the Federal Government and workers should not be seen as sleeping on their rights.”

    On the surface, the position of Labour is unassailable even if, less understandable at this time. By serving notice on government, Labour has, of course done nothing outside the law or its own conventions. By citing the provision of the law which allows for review every five years, it merely reminds that it is not acting in any way, arbitrary. When it cites the impact of inflation and hence the cost of living which has made nonsense of the N18,000 which it negotiated some five years ago, Organised Labour most certainly couldn’t be accused of acting outside its mandate of advancing the interests of the workers.  After all, the minimum wage which was then US$163.6 at the then exchange rate of approximately N110 to the dollar is today less than a third of that value – at US$56.25.

    Even at that, the above is only one aspect of the progressive devaluation of the Nigerian worker as indeed the average Nigerian citizen. Across the board – whether in education, health and general social welfare, Nigerians continue to suffer not just a severe degradation of the quality of life, but all the consequences of general regression on developmental indices. In that context, labour as indeed every Nigerian – whether employed or not – deserves much more than they are currently getting.

    Unfortunately, the reality out there is grimmer than labour would care to admit. Indeed, merely broaching the idea of a wage review at this time would seem to suggest something fundamentally wrong with labour. It tends to give out the group as completely out of touch with the reality; one steeped with its old ways and methods.

    Talk about the current economic realities, it is obvious that not even the private sector is spared the general meltdown. At the moment, capacity utilisation in the manufacturing sector continues to shrink – no thanks to the generally inclement environment, the legendary lack of adaptability of the sector and lately, the restrictive monetary policies of the apex bank. With every passing day come real prospects of more factory closures and layoffs. As if to underscore the grim prospects which lies ahead, the same week that Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) were serving notice of the new minimum wage, one of the nation’s top lenders, First Bank announced plans to cut about 1000 jobs citing an 82 per cent slump in profit in the 2015 financial year as reason. Much earlier, Royal Dutch Shell had announced its plan to cut global staff strength by 10,000 within the current year. Back home in Nigeria, the company also announced that it would defer its final investment decision (FID) on the Bonga South-west deepwater project in Nigeria, citing the need to cut operating costs and capital investments. Other oil majors have similarly announced plans to shed jobs while also reportedly putting new investments on hold – again of them blaming falling commodity prices and rising costs.

    At this time, a general, across-the-board upward review in wages at this time would be the surest recipe to disaster. It would end up as a case of cutting one’s nose to spite one’s face. First, the strains would further plunge the system into trauma. Second, given the possibilities of job losses, the development will spiral into another round of crisis that would take years to solve. Above all, it will certainly not address the fundamental issues of falling real incomes, and the downturn in general socio-economic welfare.

    I must say that had labour been less stuck on the old ways and means, we would be talking of more creative and less disruptive means outside the episodic demand for higher wages (which employers have increasingly proven to be unable to afford) to enhance the welfare of citizens.

    I will cite some examples.

    Today, for ill or good, the Contributory Pensions Scheme has become a revolutionary development in the nation’s pension management. As those under the scheme will readily testify, not only are the days of endless verifications gone forever, the contributor can rest in peace assured that his contribution is far beyond the thieving hands of some bureaucrats.

    In the same vein, Labour can push more aggressively for a complete overhaul of the nation’s mortgage system to enable their members’ access cheap funds to build their homes. The reason is simple: an overhaul of the mortgage sector, aside holding the key to unlocking the vast treasures in the housing sector, is one sure path to relieve the workers of the pressures of getting their homes.  Second, Labour can partner with the federal government to ensure broader coverage for the National Health Insurance and hence make health services more accessible.

    These, in my view, would be far more beneficial than stuffing workers pockets with more naira notes whose purchasing power are not only increasingly suspect, but are more often than not, guaranteed one-way fare to the labour market.

  • Malami and Kogi crisis

    Malami and Kogi crisis

    After procuring an interim government for the people of Kogi State, it would seem inevitable that President Buhari’s Attorney General and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami, SAN would go the extra mile to avail every prop to the contraption described as government strutting the Lugard House. After all, one of the established novelties about the current occupancy of the Kogi Government House is that the number one law officer, rather than the electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC (certainly not the electors ) – actually helped to bring it into being by its strange ‘advisory’ of midnight substitution!

    After perusing the letter by AGF Malami addressed to the Inspector General Police, Solomon Arase on the on-going crisis in my dear state, one needed to look no further to know who the piper calling the current tunes in the state is! The hand may appear like Esau’s; there can be no doubting that the voice is that of Jacob! The masquerade, finally, has been unmasked right in the market square.

    Months after, and with the substantive issues surrounding the so-called “inconclusive” elections that brought a ‘stranger’ to the APC ticket still unresolved by the nation’s courts, Nigerians would no doubt remember that it all started from one man’s unsolicited advisory.

    They would certainly remember that on November 21, 2015 Kogi voters had trooped out to vote to elect a new governor. And also that the poll returned 240,867 votes for the APC ticket of Abubakar Audu and James Abiodun Faleke and 199,415 for Idris Wada and Yomi Awoniyi of the Peoples Democratic Party.  And then, Audu died.

    That in a rather bizarre twist to an election that was as good as concluded, a vacillating INEC had declared the poll ‘inconclusive’ AFTER an ‘advisory’ from the nation’s chief law officer, Malami.

    Yes, Malami it was that decreed the substitution of the APC ticket, letting in all manners of opportunistic developments on which the destiny of the state and its people is now hung!

    First, it was Yahya Bello – a runner up in the APC governorship primary, pronounced candidate without a running mate. Then, an Audu/Faleke ticket ordinarily seen as good to go – with 240,867 votes –later declared ‘technically’ voided. And finally a governor riding into the gubernatorial mansion with barely 6,000 votes!

    Some have argued that the AGF’s initial intervention, against the run of equity and fair-play is what has plunged the state into the current crisis. They are probably right. But then, it is the courts that have the final say on the matter. The fact however is that neither the party – APC nor the government it purportedly gave birth, have known peace ever since that intervention hence the current situation in which the state is not only at war with itself but a governing party torn right through the middle. Presently, the state lawmakers are set upon themselves with a group of five lawmakers, supported by the executive, not only driving the majority – described as G-15 – out of town, but have since assumed the functions of the whole house!

    In a new twist, APC leaders in the state went for broke penultimate week: they passed a vote of no confidence on Governor, Yahya Bello in what marks a new phase in the fratricidal war.

    It may well be that the travesty currently playing out at the Kogi State House of Assembly is nothing novel. After all, in 2009, Ogun State, under former governor Gbenga Daniel saw a group of minority lawmakers not only sack the majority, but went as far as daring them to come near the precincts of the parliament building at the risk of lives or limbs! It also happened in Ekiti, where Governor Ayodele Fayose led a group of six renegade lawmakers to sack the majority of 19 lawmakers. It played out in Rivers State, where six members with the backing of former President Goodluck Jonathan and wife, Patience, took on 27 lawmakers while purporting to remove the elected speaker, Otelemaba Amachree.

    If we thought that such travesties and barefaced impunity was gone with the PDP administration, the spectacle playing out in Kogi and the curious intervention by the AGF would seem to indicate that nothing really has changed!

    The issue is of course whether both arms of the National Assembly acted right in taking over the state House of Assembly. On this, it is expected that opinions would be divided.  However, what is not in dispute is that the state legislature was factionalised; neither is there any contention that the activities of the members had gone beyond mere legislative bickering to constituting a grave threat to the peace of the state. Or that a minority, G-5 with the active support of the police and the governor, had created a situation in which the lawmaking business could only be strictly on their terms or perhaps such other terms as dictated by the conniving but floundering executive!

    Be that as it may, AGF Malami would have us know that there was no “sufficient legal basis” for the National Assembly to have taken over the lawmaking responsibilities of the state legislature. That “sufficient legal basis”, according to him, would only happen when the entire state is on fire!

    How about the AGF’s ‘consequential order’ that “the determination by the National Assembly that the alleged impeachment of the Speaker of the House of Assembly by ‘five members of the House of Assembly’ was ‘null and void’ was an exercise of judicial power by the Legislature, contrary to Section 6 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended)…?

    I thought the courts, rather than the AGF, held the power to review the actions of the National Assembly, including the executive branch!

    Or this – that the National Assembly’s description “of the alleged action of the Nigeria Police Force in purportedly providing protection for five persons as an act that was tantamount to ‘subverting the provision of the Constitution’ as matters of constitutionality that are issues for judicial determination”?

    Interesting times indeed!

    I am not a lawyer and so cannot claim to comprehend Malami’s specious jurisprudence. What is perhaps least expected is that the nation’s chief law officer would become a facilitator of the absurdity going on in the state. But even more worrisome is that the AGF has not proven to be an uninterested party in the sordid affair that has thrown the state into limbo.

    For me, last week’s mumbo jumbo by IG Arase is an eye opener; I can’t wait for the time when the AGF finally makes his appearance before the parliament he so derided. It promises to be an interesting encounter.

     

  • Buhari in China

    Buhari in China

    By the time you are reading this, it will be Day 2 of President Muhammadu Buhari’s five-day visit to China. A major highlight of the visit is the signing of a $2 billion package to finance some critical infrastructure. Although still sketchy, the details, we are told, include a brand new railway from Lagos to Calabar and from Lagos – Kano, in addition to sundry projects ranging from agriculture, mining, electric power generation and road construction.  Call it the fruits of the earlier visit in February of Buhari’s Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun to Beijing, the projects are expected to give practical effect to the change agenda.

    We have certainly been there before. If anything, Nigerians must be wondering if there is some magic in China that makes it mandatory for successive Nigerian leaders to worship in the Far East country’s altar of “agreement”. Recall that in April 2005, President Olusegun Obasanjo was guest to Chinese President Hu Jintao. The 2005 visit, his third to the country, ended with signing of some cooperation documents. Both countries, we were told, had “agreed to establish a strategic partnership within the framework of South-South cooperation and to enhance political and economic cooperation”.

    What followed in October 2006 was the signing of an $8.3-billion contract for the construction of a railway line from Lagos to Kano. At the signing, President Obasanjo gleefully announced to Nigerians that the “new standard gauge track, north-south line was only the first phase of a modernisation programme that would cover two major longitudinal lines”. The second, he said, would link Port Harcourt with Jos and “five latitudinal lines that would also link all the 36 state capitals in Nigeria”. Under that first phase, about 1 315km of standard rail line was to have been constructed –to be financed by the $2.5-billion loan facility granted by the Chinese government.

    July 2013, it was the turn of President Goodluck Jonathan. In a visit that spanned four days, an accord to facilitate $1.1bn in low-interest loans for much-needed infrastructure was also signed. The loan, according to Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Jonathan’s finance minister who also coordinated the economy at the time, was part of $3bn approved by China at interest rates of less than three percent.

    The foregoing is to show Nigerians are no strangers to the Chinese. They are, to put it in local parlance, our customers. Just as they are also no strangers to railway modernisation that successive administrations have continued to sell as dummy – or the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) – a company that has proven in time, as the undertaker of the Nigerian railway system. Didn’t the same CCECC undertake the Sani Abacha-era modernisation that did little to improve the railway system?

    And where are we today? Like the moribund power sector that continues to gulp billions and billions of taxpayers money with less and less electric power to distribute, the truth is that the billions of dollars sunk into the rail sector – a good chunk of which were borrowed funds – have neither transformed nor adequately serviced the Lugardian contraption bequeathed to us by the colonial authorities.

    The Obasanjo modernisation project, despite the noise, practically achieved nothing. In fact, no sooner than the late President Umaru Yar’Adua assumed office than he ordered what was later described as “scoping” of the project – a euphemism for scaling down. At issue was the opaqueness of the contract. Specifically, the contract was said to have been inflated from the original $5.billion to $8.3billion; it also reportedly fell short of due process.

    The Jonathan-era revitalisation of the Lagos-Jebba rail lines which reportedly cost the treasury over N12 billion was no different. Today, few Nigerians remember the incident of a coach careering off the tracks moments after commissioning.  Same for the rehabilitation of the 2,119 kilometres Eastern rail lines which reportedly cost N67 billion; it turned out be one of Jonathan’s re-election projects.

    Not even the flagship modernisation project, the Abuja-Kaduna fast train, funded with US$500 million dollars concessionary loan from China Exim Bank and SURE-P funds is without its fair share of controversy. The last time, the Project Manager of the constructing firm – the Chinese Civil Engineering and Construction Company, Etim Abak, told the Senate Committee on the Federal Capital Territory that “former President Olusegun Obasanjo awarded the Abuja Rail Project in 2007 without an engineering design or a Memorandum of Understanding”. He alleged that the Minister of FCT and current governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, “signed the $841.645,898m contract based on an uncalculated estimate”. Nigerians also heard that the contract, which covered 60.67-kilometres, was inflated by $10million per km and that the length was later reduced to 45km without refund of the cost for the 15.67 km that was hived off from the project!

    Today, Nigerians have stopped wondering where zillions of dollars contracted in their name under the guise modernisation went. As in all things public, it has simply gone with the wind.

    So what do we expect this time? Not much difference I guess. First, the Nigerian officialdom, the scourge of many an otherwise well-conceived projects, is alive and well. Although the usual culprit is the nation’s number pathology, Corruption Incorporated, there is however more in the benign pathology of bad faith, bungling ineptitude and the benumbing incompetence that makes the Nigerian public service the circus that it has become.

    Think of the controversies that have dogged Budget 2016 as only a symptom of a deeper, malignant affliction. It explains why the power sector is prostrate; why the highways have become hell-ways; it explains why our aeroplanes sometimes fall from the skies. It is called the Nigerian factor. Picture, at a time of grave emergency, something as ordinary as preparing a budget and its associated process of passage eventuating in virtual lockdown! And we are not talking of implementation time when the vultures would come swooning for their share of the N6 trillion pie!

    As President Buhari gets down to sign the dotted lines of his $2 billion package, he would do well to remember that the battle is on two fronts: the Nigerian daemon and our Chinese friends.

    Far from defeated, the Nigerians daemon is  only in the waiting mode. In the circumstance, the battle is not even half won. In contending with them, he will surely have his hand full.

    So also are our Chinese “friends”. The President will need to shine his eyes well well! In a world where rabid self-interest rules, there is no such thing as a friendly enemy; either a friend or a foe. As they say, half bread is better than none – only if the bread is not laced with poison! President Buhari would also do well to inform his Chinese hosts that dumping of fake and substandard goods is not only hurting our economy, it is  killing Nigerians in record numbers. Of course, we need help, the type that would lift our material conditions as opposed to those that would enslave.  Nigerians know what I am talking about!

    Once again, Mr. President, you will do well to shine your eyes. Have a safe trip, sir!

  • Budget and its myths

    Budget and its myths

    With the reported passing of the budget by the National Assembly last week, the game of endurance to which Nigerians have been subjected would appear to be over. Barring that the issues raised by the President on the budget becoming another occasion for mutual recriminations and needless showmanship, Nigerians can heave a sigh of relief that the balm in finally at their doorsteps.

    Thanks to the enduring myth that everything begins and ends with what government chooses to do or not to do, the ritual of budget and budgeting have come to acquire the character of a fetish. The manufacturer, we are told, needs to know the direction government is headed before plodding on; same for our flight-by-night portfolio investor friends – they can’t seem to find the nerves to do anything until the budget is passed! Even the farmer, we are told, has learnt to hold back his cropping plans for the fear of the government magic called the budget! Hopefully, their nightmares are over!

    Agreed, the budget is an important document. Not only does it lay out the government‘s financial plan, the statement embodies its philosophy and its priorities in a given year. To that extent, it is very important. My point of departure is when the instrument is elevated to the level of fetish – in which case it becomes an alibi for doing nothing!

    Let me state that this year’s budget is important in more ways than one for the Buhari administration. First, beyond the fact that it is the administration’s first budget in office, the wave of expectation that swept it into office makes it a defining one.  Added to that is that the budget is coming at a particularly difficult time – a period of low oil revenues at a time of massive infrastructure gaps, worrisomely low industrial cum manufacturing capacity and low consumer spending. Indeed, those understandably were the challenges Budget 2016 sought to confront. Expansive in ambitions, it coming was to herald the proverbial crossing of the Red Sea.

    I have argued elsewhere that the N350 billion set aside for capital spend in the 2016 Budget is a huge amount by any standard. Even by Nigeria’s profligate standards, it represents a haul, which, well applied could go a long way to make a difference to the parlous infrastructural situation – even if, as we know, that the tidy sum, in the hand of our thieving cabal may be no more than ‘chicken change’ to service their idle fantasies. This is where the long-suffering Nigerians who have in the past few weeks endured the sweltering sun in vain search for fuel to buy, the citizens currently under the throes of insomnia from the unbearable heat after being sucked into the evil devices of the utility companies, and for whom the administration had promised relief, would need to pray!

    Let me proceed by setting out some of the myths that have endured about our budgets against the backdrop of what the budget cannot do. First is the idea of the budget as cure-all pills to our many troubles. It is certainly not! As a financial statement, what it does is set out parameters for what is achievable in a given year – and this to the extent that the constraining variables would allow. This is where the ritual of shadow-boxing comes to me as a great distraction. If you ask me, I’ll say that the time spent picking needless quarrels on the budget details would be better saved to ensure that citizens get value for every kobo spent!

    I have looked at Budget 2016. I have no reason to see it as more of the same as some critics are wont to do. The intentions are certainly grand as the motif is fascinating. For the throng out there who see government as catalyst, the expansionary budget should resonate in a positive way. The truth however is that the 2016 Budget outlay is at best a tiny droplet in the ocean of the nation’s infrastructural needs. For instance, in June last year, this newspaper quoted Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD) 2011 Report as estimating that Nigeria required sustained spending of $14.2 billion per annum over the next decade in order to address the infrastructure challenge. That is some 45 percent of the entire 2016 Budget – to be spent exclusively for infrastructure upgrade alone! And this at a time we are celebrating 30 percent capital votes as great achievement!  The newspaper also quoted former Finance Minister and Coordinator of the Economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as putting the sum needed for road upgrades, bridge repairs, the energy sector, hospitals and schools at a whopping N10.63 trillion ($67 billion). Again, if we compare with the entire 2016 Budget of N6.06 trillion; the stark reality of what we face comes very clear.

    I do not deny the potential impact of a well structured budget intervention can make. By this I mean the direct impact of the upgrade of the infrastructure on the cost of doing business and the multiplier effects of the massive spending at this time. It is however a different matter to pretend that we are anywhere near the Eldorado when we are in fact a long way from home!

    The above scenario comes to one basic truth: government’s role comes to a minor scratch given what is needed to turn things around. The crux of the challenge is how to meet the funding gap. In this, we certainly have a good idea of where to turn to help – the private sector. This is where the government needs to put more efforts.

    Perhaps I need to make the distinction here: I do not here refer to the oft-touted portfolio investor who have long mastered the art of reaping without really sowing, the throng that is loudest in promoting and adorning sundry in-equities under the garb of liberalisation; the club ever so ready to hit the wires at the onset of trouble.

    I am here talking here of genuine investors who truly appreciate and are willing to take advantage of the nation’s vast potentials to invest. Trust me: with the right ambience and incentives, they’ll come trooping in!

    Finally, one thing which the budget will never address is the fuel crisis. Today, the crisis has not only reached the boiling point, it has metastasised to such an extent that the nation current chaffs under its debility. I refer here to the 40 percent of the entire forex outlay spent on fuel importation. Picture the difference it would make to the naira if we didn’t need to spend that amount on fuel importation. Can anyone imagine the other countless possibilities from that prospect? We need those kind of multipliers fast!

  • Kachikwu lays an egg!

    Kachikwu lays an egg!

    Reading the flurry of responses to the statement credited to the Minister of State Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, on the lingering fuel crisis last week, I must confess to struggling to understand what it is really that irked Nigerians the more: an alleged inscrutable arrogance in the face of damning failure; or the momentary candour of admitting that the extravagant placebo, or if you like, the outsized artifice which the Buhari administration had sought to count upon to deliver on the promise of stabilizing the fuel supply situation, is as unworkable as it is patently dated!

    Confronted by a battalion of reporters to tell them when he hopes the nation would get out of the latest cycle of fuel crisis, the minister, who doubles as the helmsman of the national oil corporation reportedly blurted out: “One of the training I did not receive is that of a magician, but I am working very hard to ensure some of these issues go away”.

    How, he didn’t say.

    The minister would nonetheless go on to remind the newshounds that: “… for the five or six months we have been here, NNPC has moved from a 50 per cent importer of products to basically a 100 per cent importer and the 445,000 barrels per day that were allocated were to cover between 50 and 55 per cent importation…So it is quite frankly by sheer magic that we even have the amount of products at the stations. We are looking to see how to get foreign exchange input; the President and I discussed extensively on how to get more crude directed at importation”.

    So much for the exaggerated self-score by the minister; the fact is that we are here: citizens of OPEC’s six largest exporter of crude can’t get fuel to buy at the pumps. From North to East, West to East, the story is the same – petrol has become the latest essential commodity to be procured at great pains. Officially, it is supposed to be selling at N86.50 a litre; now you’d be lucky to buy at N150. A friend in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital told me he bought at N200 a litre. That is the way it is. And to imagine that this is happening under an administration that promised change.

    By the way, it is no small matter that a minister of the republic, a supposedly first rate one, would dare to link the current situation with the calling of the practitioners of the high art of magic – going as far as to suggest that it is “sheer magic that we even have the amount of products at the stations”! Or his self-serving statement about two months waiting period for which Nigerians must necesarily endure after which fuel will thereafter flow ceaselessly! Can we ever get serious?

    There is certainly a sense in which the minister’s momentary candour – minus the hubris – could in fact be far more ‘beneficial’ than Nigerians could have imagined. I mean the carefully constructed edifice of make-believe, the castle of denials and the blame-game that have sustained the industry in the past months right up to the point of spawning a culture of abdication; all of these unravelling to the embarrasment of all and right before our very eyes. The development, if anything, comes to one basic but uncomfortable truth: the new NNPC team –headed by Kachikwu, has done practically nothing different on the basis of which it expected things to have changed! And this is despite being in office for more than six long months!

    This is why his resort to blaming the fuel crisis to dollar shortages, moribund refineries, and alleged misallocation of fuel imports by the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), at best efforts at rationalization, is unlikely to impress Nigerians. While it is a long way from when we were required to throw up our arms in mock surrender to the the usual culprits: the ubiquitous pipeline vandals said to have practically brought the downstream sector to its knees; the club of marketers said to have made a habit of feeding feed fat on Nigerians’ misery, the latest development challenge us to focus on the lingering inertia as well as the criminal lack of responsibility by the NNPC and its principal, the Federal Government, which have fostered the current climate of despondency.

    Clearly, Nigerians didn’t expect the administration to work magic – and certainly not in six months. That is if magic means overhauling the extensive pipeline network, the disused depots and their ancillary infrastructure, the re-streaming of the moribund refineries – all of these within six months to even a year. Even at the best of times – and most Nigerians would readily agree that these are not the best of times – it would ordinarily be a tall order – to get these done. Of course, given the years of neglect, Nigerians certainly understand that it would take some time for changes to become apparent at least in these areas.

    Point is – Nigerians have learnt to see beyond appearances, the self-glorification of officials particularly when they mount the high roads to hold imaginary saboteurs responsible for what is essentially structural problem of inadequate supply; they are able to appreciate genuine efforts when they see one. At the moment, what they are being served daily is a menu of placebos that falls short of what is needed. The earnest expectation of Nigerians is that they will be served the real stuff soon.

    Are the latest supply hiccups inevitable? Only if the NNPC can convince that there are elements in the supply chain that are either unknown or unknowable or that Nigerians have suddenly found new uses for the liquid gold. Dollar shortages? Haba – NNPC! Moribund refineries? Since when did we begin to rely on the refineries for local supply? And now this new one – an alleged misallocation of fuel imports by PPPRA!  Would there ever be an end to the tale? Is Kachikwu no longer the supervisory minister for the PPPRA? The truth is, none of the activities as far as we can see, are unknown or incapable of being anticipated. We have a fair idea of our daily requirement of fuel; the same with the import cycle. To the extent that the situation didn’t happen overnight, there is sufficient lead time for the federal government to have taken action.

    This is where an apology instead of self-justification would have done the magic. But then, our minister, not being a magician, is unlikely to offer Nigerians the benefit of that simple but efficacious therapy.

  • Agatu: Our march to self-help republic!

    Agatu: Our march to self-help republic!

    We must thank the online medium, Premium Times, for the other narrative of the events leading to the killing of some 300 villagers in Agatu, Benue State and sacking of their communities. The medium’s interview with the Interim National Secretary of Gan Allah Fulani Association – the umbrella body of Fulani associations in Nigeria – on the events leading to the tragedy now variously described on the nation’s calendar of blood-letting as “genocide”, “pogrom” or such stuff and which left the nation gawking in horror, does more than provide insight into why the problem has remained intractable; it certainly throws up issues which the nation can ignore to its eternal regret.

    By the accounts of the scribe of the Fulani body, the story actually began sometime in 2013 when a group he described as Agatu and Tiv militia, numbering 20, killed one Shehu Abdullahi, a prominent Fulani man inside his compound and carted away over 200 cows. In its aftermath, the police were said to have made some arrests among whom were four said to be carrying some of the meat on their motorcycle who were then taken to the police station. Assuring the Fulani leaders that they knew where 150 of the cows were kept, the Divisional Police Officer, according to him: “promised to recover and return the cows, but up till today, nothing has happened”. As if that was not tragic enough, three days after the murder of the said Abdullahi, another prominent Fulani leader, Ardo Madaki, said to have been invited to the palace of the district head of the area on the grounds that a solution was being sought to the problem was reportedly beheaded right in front of the district head.

    “This action” said Abdullahi “reverberated across all Fulani people in the whole of West Africa and the clamour for revenge began to grow strong. He comes from a very well respected clan and the Agatu sent the Fulani a chilling message with his murder…”

    Although he didn’t say when, he would further allege that the Agatu also killed over 300 of their people: “but because we don’t have people in government or the media, no one said anything when genocide was being carried out against our people”.

    The incident above happened in 2013 – some three years before the Agatu reprisals. You ask – where was the Nigerian state when all of these were happened? You want to know the answer? Missing in Action! The result is that criminals on both sides are living large – content to know that the long arms of the law will never reach them.

    For sure, we’ll hear the refrain again in the coming years when the Agatu refugees, currently scattered across some half-dozen make-shift camps return to their homestead to seek their own pound of flesh! Welcome to Nigeria’s self-help enclave.

    Question is – where does such developments lead in a nation where grudges are as diverse as they are complex; a nation where the nerves of the various components are literally on the edge 24/7? Where else but Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)?

    Now, the point really is that the crisis didn’t start in 2013 any more than the attempt to rationalise the heinous crimes that have thrown a huge security blanket over the entire country can be explained by one single incident of a reprisal attack in 2016. To accept that is to reduce the skirmishes between the Fulani herdsmen and farmers whether it is in Kogi, Enugu, and Anambra or wherever to incidences of reprisal actions – and thereby ignore the complex dimensions to the budding crisis.

    Is the issue really one of access to grazing lands or are there other things to it? Frictions between Fulani herdsmen and farmers are certainly not new; indeed, they predate the Nigerian state. As for the challenge of cattle rustlers threatening to reduce the Fulani herdsmen to an endangered specie, that is certainly grim enough. But then, that is the same challenge everyone else faces – poor, rich alike – hardly a justification for the ubiquitous AK-47 that has become the Fulani herdsman’s principal tool of trade. As for the invasion by AK-47-bearing marauders who neither recognise nor defer to the authority of the Nigerian state let alone the principle of peaceful cohabitation in their business of animal husbandry, would that also form part of the inevitable transition that Nigeria must go through?

    Really, can somebody explain what is going on?

  • Runsewe: Economy beyond oil

    Runsewe: Economy beyond oil

    At a time of massive shift in focus to non-oil sources to boost the nation’s revenue, it comes as refreshing that one of the foremost practitioners in the tourism sector, Otunba Olusegun Runsewe has offered the nation the benefit of his thoughts on a sector that holds so much promises for the nation’s economic revival.

    I refer to his presentation at The Telegraph Economic Summit with theme “Nigeria: Beyond Oil Economy” held at the Lagos Sheraton Hotel And Towers Thursday, March 17. Until like the now-familiar cant about the need to diversify the nation’s economy, Runsewe’s 3,649 words paper, titled Our Heritage, Our Destination in A new Economy  offers a fresh vista on the subject, locating what I consider the missing link in the search for the nation’s place as tourism destination.

    His resounding thesis is that our heritage – which embraces our landmass, ecosystem, culture and all those tangible and intangible attributes that define us as a people – when carefully harnessed and packaged, has the potential capacity to support a robust tourism industry that could serve as a major pillar and key player in a new economy.

    He argues, quite forcefully, that “our landmass of over 923, 000 sq kilometers stretching from the Atlantic Coast and the Rain Forest in the South through the Savannah to the semi-arid region in the North… a fascinating topography magnificently blessed by nature”…the diverse ecosystems manifesting in varying climatic zones, network of rivers, lakes, beautiful beaches, awesome caves, warm and cold springs and waterfalls all add to the beauty, glamour and vagrancy of Nigeria’s natural environment” – eminently predisposes us to a share of the big tourism pie which is reckoned to hit USD 2.0 trillion by 2020.

    His words:  “With over 350 ethnic groups, Nigeria is the most plural and most culturally diverse nation in black Africa. The richness of her natural environment and her culture and the diversity of her people readily make Nigeria a potential tourist destination of choice in Africa”.

    Like the veteran practitioner that he is – (he was former DG of Nigerian Tourist Corporation) – he saw the nation’s ecotourism resources as having the potentials to draw tourists from all corners across the globe; the various festivals such as the Argungu International Fishing and Cultural Festival  in Kebbi State, Nwonyo Fishing Festival in Taraba State and Osun-Osogbo Cultural Festivals in Osun State, the Religious Tourism all of which provide a rich diversity from which the world could pick from.

    If there is any single take-away for me; it would be the lesson he sought to draw from Dubai, the once remote, obscure desert that has today transformed to one of the foremost global tourist destinations. If I may paraphrase the singular lesson, it is that – tourism does not just happen; it has to be made to happen. Here is hoping that those in charge of the sector will care to listen to the admonitions of Chief Runsewe now that the nation needs all the help it can get!