The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • Our Girls; JAMB: No disadvantaged states; ‘He died in a Pothole made by thieving politicians!’

    Our Girls; JAMB: No disadvantaged states; ‘He died in a Pothole made by thieving politicians!’

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15 2014. Where are they?

    The cell phone can become be the saving grace of many potential victims of all types of crime around the world. We all remember the Naval Ratings who beat up a female driver some years ago. Across the world such videos, live or streamed on social media later have helped victims of police brutality and provide irrefutable evidence of the mechanisms of police murder and brutality. Unfortunately the I-Report message has not been given to law enforcement near you who are too slow to take on human rights as a right of the citizen to be protected, not ignored. Many of us have seen the video of, and many are aware through friends in the uniformed ranks, of the brutality meted out to military and police recruits and ‘other ranks’ by their training officers. This violence must stop. Teaching endurance and discipline is not by physical beating and such evil is only transferred to the citizenry.

    More JAMB palaver! How can we still have EDUCATIONALLY DISADVANTAGED STATES so long after free primary and free secondary education and so long after JAMB and UBE and SPEB have launched serial annual avalanches of funds at buying books and equipment and sports equipment and child and teacher friendly? Publish what each state has received during the last 30 years against spending on education, number of primary and secondary students and performance at primary school leaving certificate and NECO and WESC and GCE Level. There is no longer a single educationally disadvantaged state. There are disadvantaged students, abandoned victims of massive chronic systematic political and state education ministry corruption involving inflated unpurchased procurement and bribes for booklists. What manner of sovereign responsible country, not at war, with supposedly mentally normal people in power, parents all, would entrench a lack of books and chairs and desks in pigsties for schools as the norm for the children of their state? The Bible says it is better for a millstone to be tied placed around your neck and you be thrown into the sea than you harm one hair on a child’s head. And Parent Teacher Associations are silent. We have therefore bred a generation of mostly reactionary undereducated youth and we are already reaping the ‘rewards’ from such youth. Do George, Ogunlewe, Obanikoro and a host of former Federal Government surrogate spoilers not owe our children an apology and be prosecuted for anti-state activities on account for their negative antics?

    A country in which the best buildings are well known corrupt bank buildings but not the Museums and Exhibition centres built for the children is designed to fail. Too few have built anything for the people since 1999; PZ Cussons Educare Trust Youth Centres is one! During that time, I was begging publicly that the LGAs and the billions wasted on ‘Instant Millionaire’ philosophy could have set up ONE YOUTH CENTRE IN EACH OF THE 16,400 WARDS, the political unit of Nigeria to empower the youth locally. The money is misplaced and even now stolen!

    The Vice-President Prof Osinbajo has expressed a marked reluctance to endorse ‘national restructuring’ and the subsequent redistribution of the ‘assets and authority’ of the Nigerian estate among the three tiers of government. This need was so eloquently and vociferously articulated during any opportunity most recently at all national conferences. This is an unfortunate executive ‘death blow’ where other corrective efforts have fallen to corruption at every level, repeatedly.

    The sad comments reported on the condition of Atan Cemetery are so for almost every government cemetery across Nigeria. Like private education institutions, the private cemeteries have sprung to our rescue but Ikoyi Cemetery has as many problems as Atan Cemetery in terms of layout and lack of access.

    The political class, of every political party and manifesto, at every level, is dwelling in a self-aggrandisement that has brought financial and economic ruin to Nigeria and prevented her hard-working Nigerian institutions and professionals from dragging it into the 21st century democratic environment. Yes Nigeria is in turmoil, financially and economically, food, jobs, power and potholes to name a few. But why do many Nigerians place the current troubles at the doorstep of this government?  Surely they should look over their shoulder to see where we have been coming from –increasing oil prices, increasing corruption, but hardly a single real people’s project executed since 1999 for the trillions earned and spent. Common potholes still kill, murder or maim on almost every expressway in Nigeria including the Lagos-Ibadan expressway. We as a country inherited ‘PWD TEAMS FOR INSTANT POTHOLE FILLING! But we prefer to allow roads to decay so that we can have chop-chop ‘contract awarding ceremonies’  to flag off the ‘Corruption of the Contract’  rather than the emergency life-saving measures like the job-creation action of having 10,000 TEAMS OF THREE MEN AND A WHEELBARROW AND SOME TAR AND A HEAVY ROLLER. EVERY POTHOLE LIVES NEAR A VILLAGE WITH VILLAGERS EASILY TRAINED AND PAID AND MOTIVATED TO DO LOCAL MAINTENANCE WORK. THIS IS THE CHANGE WE EXPECTED AND IT HAS NOT COME YET!

    The murderous potholes, powerlessness, salarylessness, nairavalulessness, secondNigerbridgelessness, joblessness, pensionlessness, politicalleaderlessness all add up to stressfullness. We are in the era of ….’lessnessnesses’. Nigerians must stop dying in potholes. For how long will Nigerians tell God and their grandchildren ‘He died in a pothole made by a thieving NASS’?

     

  • ‘Nexit’ and the illusion of an ethnic paradise

    It’s the season of the separatist. For several months Biafra-seeking agitators have held boisterous and sometimes fatal demonstrations across the South-East.

    A few miles down the road, a rash of militants led by the so-called Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) have upped their demands from resource control to agitating for a ‘Niger Delta Republic.’

    When a dyed-in-the-wool member of the political establishment like former Vice President Atiku Abubakar comes out to forcefully back ‘restructuring’, you know something serious is afoot. To be fair to the man, I should point out that his own idea of ‘restructuring’ may not be as radical as that envisaged by the militant agitators down south.

    If the advocates of restructuring or separation were not getting the sort of response they expected – given that President Muhammadu Buhari keeps retorting that the unity of Nigeria is not negotiable – they received a boost from the historic Brexit referendum.

    If Britain could peacefully exit from the European Union after 43 years, who says a Biafra or any other group so minded cannot do likewise? We can’t we just copy the Europeans and have an amicable divorce they ask. An exit from Nigeria, ‘Nexit’ if you like.

    Such arguments ignore the fact that what happened with Brexit was a sovereign nation voting to leave a regional bloc. It wasn’t a vote to dissolve Great Britain. The sentiment for separation had been tested the year before with those who wanted Scottish independence losing out. But people will interpret these things in ways that suit their agendas.

    I do disagree with Buhari when he says Nigeria’s unity is not up for discussion. Negotiations never stop within a nation state. It is those negotiations that altered the nature of our federation over the past 56 years.

    At some point we have the three regions, which later became four. As a consequence of the civil war 12 states were created. That number rose to 19 and today we have 36 states.

    It is those negotiations that restructured revenue sharing such that today oil-bearing states receive 13% on the basis of derivation. It was not always so. Who knows what the possibilities are if our people keep on talking?

    Beyond the headlines there are sufficient reasons to doubt whether these agitations are truly deep-rooted. Scratch the surface and you quickly find evidence that they may be no more than the outward expressions of a frustrated political elite.

    The regions where the agitations have been most vociferous are those which lost more in terms of economic and political opportunities when President Goodluck Jonathan lost power. Although not Igbo, he calculated correctly that retention of the South East was vital to his winning a second term and assiduously courted the region.

    While he was in office that there was no Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) or Radio Biafra because he took care of the South East elite in the power equation. His loss was therefore their loss.

    Yes, MASSOB existed, but at best it was just some people’s idea of staying relevant. It was never a serious threat to the country and by the time of the 2015 polls, along with the likes of the Oodua Peoples’ Congress (OPC) had been reduced to street demonstrations demanding ‘Jonathan must win.’ A supposed separatist organisation had become a trumpet for the perpetuation of the structures of the Nigerian state.

    I can understand the historical background of Biafra given that the people have one language and live in a contiguous territory. We also have the fact that the entity actually existed for a little over three years until its eclipse in 1970.

    The same cannot be said for what the Avengers claim they want. If they are asking for an Ijaw Republic I can understand, but the notion of some kind of Niger Delta Republic embracing the units which currently make up the South South zone, is a joke. While the name may be an apt description of the territories clustered at the exit of the Niger to the Atlantic, there’s no comparable political reality to back it up.

    General Sani Abacha’s national conference and the constitutional reforms it produced threw up six states with different political journeys into an artificial South-South zone.

    The old Bendel State – now Edo and Delta – used to be part of the bold Mid-Western State or Region, which in turn used to be part of a larger Western Region. Overnight it got thrown together with Akwa Ibom, Cross River and Rivers which used to be part of the old Eastern Region.

    In today’s South South zone the people are as disparate as are their political agenda. The Ijaws who are found in several states have a cat and mouse relationship with other groups like the Itsekiris and Urhobo. Imagine when they become one happy family in some ‘Niger Delta Republic.’

    Under Jonathan there were lots of rumblings with the South South zone claiming that he favoured his Ijaw kith and kin to the detriment of other groups. He was nevertheless always quick to call for Niger Delta solidarity when it suited his ends.

    In the South West, calls for separation are decidedly lukewarm. The most vocal tendency have favoured some form of regional autonomy at best – believing that this is a sure of replicating the glory days of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo. That said, the West has done fairly well within Nigeria and is certainly going nowhere.

    I believe that people of Buhari’s generation who actually fought in the civil war always viscerally reject any idea of a break up because of what it cost to keep the country one at that time.

    However, by insisting that breaking up is a no-go area, he and others who hold such views only make separation more attractive to the agitators.

    More than anything what is needed to today is an open discussion of the pros and cons of remaining one, or breaking up into tiny bits. Those who gleefully point to Brexit don’t mention that there were lots of Britons that voted to leave the EU, who only started googling the implications after the cost of exit became manifest.

    Many of those who talk glibly about a break up, or are jumping up down in some separatist street rally, don’t have a clue what they are asking for. Before we start printing passports and currencies we should give this matter deeper thought.

    Restructuring might just mean tinkering with our existing political arrangements, or it could be stretched to mean breaking up the entity called Nigeria. Whatever it means to you it is not an end in itself.

    In the end it isn’t just all about freedom and a sense of identity. Nations and their governments have a responsibility to provide their people with a decent life. Can we honestly say that these envisaged states that may emerge from our collective shipwreck would offer us and our children a better deal than what imperfect Nigeria currently does?

    There are many countries that exist as independent states, yet have failed in their responsibility of providing for the wellbeing of their people. The result are the overloaded boats of the desperate making the deadly dash from Libya to Italy only to perish in the Mediterranean Sea.

    Getting your own ethnic enclave is no guarantee that your people would get their dream of the good life. Speaking the same language is no guarantee of love, peace, unity or equity. In every region of this country people from the same ethnic stock are slaughtering themselves in communal clashes.

    Just as pro-Brexit campaigners sold their supporters many half-truths, those propagandists selling the separation pie-in-the-sky are only selling their people short.

    Truth be told, no matter how far we go with restructuring, neither Biafra nor a future Niger Delta Republic would be heaven on earth. In anger, some of the haters of today’s Nigeria refer to it as hell or a zoo, I suspect that the ethnic enclave they are preparing for their people may not be marginally better. A jungle perhaps?

  • Our Girls; Finance strike; Name potholes after politicians consuming National Carcass, not cake!

    our Girls are still missing since April 15, 2014 and no resolution.

    EFCC must investigate if the protest against the finance minister by her staff may be based on the ‘change’ cut off under President Buhari of the ‘chop chop‘ corruption gifts and envelopes the staff got from finance ministry customers, government and private.

    The President should be concerned if his appointments point to ‘change’ – reversal to ethnic arrogance and domination. The best man or woman should have the job but Nigeria has many ‘best’ ignored by ‘Presidential political federal ethnic expediency’. It is unbelievable that the old failed ethnic domination principle of ‘Head’ of everything is again part of Nigeria’s giant ‘change’. This is a needless unwanted ‘change’. President Buhari should yield to more inclusive Federal Character appointments.

    ‘Change’ should be change in attitude of ‘Nasty NASS’ on this malignant ‘IMMUNITY AND LIFE PENSION PRINCIPLE’. What self-serving people do we have? Let these 109+360 failing assembly men and women, name one citizen who supports their malicious Machiavellian Criminal Act trying to ‘legalise illegality’, yet another ‘NASS leadership theft’ from Nigeria’s stolen funds! Who are these supposedly nationalist Nigerian politicians who posture flamboyantly in the media on and off birthdays, even as they sit, plot and plan to ‘legalise the illegal acquisition’ – theft of our national assets for undeserved pensions? The citizens of Nigeria must bring the criminally extravagant National Assembly under public opinion to stop this malignant evil and wicked attempt to steal what is left from our poverty-struck and financially-raped country. Nigeria is a country destroyed by repeated ‘rape robbery’ and looting and contract-hyper-inflation and ‘theft for political party purposes’ during 1999-2015 – a cause of the calamitous collapse in naira value in spite of the heroic stubbornness of President Buhari to protect it. He may still win.

    We have travelled this potholed road repeatedly before. In The Comet newspaper during 2002, I wrote ‘We pay toll fees to drive not to our destinations but to our deaths on fake roads filled with genuine potholes’. Today perhaps we do not pay tolls but we still die in potholes, and tolls may soon come back! PAY YOUR TOLL BEFORE DEATH IN A POTHOLE, ABI? Perhaps Nigeria, banks and individuals and the stock exchange should INVEST IN POTHOLES because potholes are the fastest growing ‘commodity’ in Nigeria. Perhaps Nijabet and other lottery groups can take bets from Nigerians on how many Nigerians will die today in potholes on different roads? But we would be foolish to bet on when potholes will be filled. ‘Continue to Die, Nigerians’. How much do governments really care for citizens above their political pockets and secret bank accounts? Their members always escape to build and buy with millions and billions meant for pothole filling!

    THE POLITICIANS, by stealing massively and neglecting their contractor supervision work in favour of bribes for over 50 years, have given us millions of POTHOLES. We cannot expect politicians who are perpetuating themselves through life pensions, salaries and immunity to take our potholes away. Politicians like to name buildings and streets after themselves. We citizens must name potholes after politicians. Yes!! WE SHOULD GIVE THE POTHOLES BACK TO THEM and embarrass them by NAMING THE POTHOLES AFTER POLITICIANS. Please play THE ‘NAME THE POTHOLE’ GAME! Name and shame’ potholes after politicians. Tweet to inform all of any politician’s personalised pothole. `Tweet or WhatsAp or I-Report the named potholes around Africa. Citizens of Nigeria ‘TAKE POLITICIAN POTHOLE ACTION’! Start Pothole Websites and honour our ‘Pothole Politicians’ with a Facebook message ‘THIS POTHOLE IS NAMED AFTER YOU- KEEP UP THE BAD WORK!’

    Let us give our potholes away to politicians and name potholes after politicians at Naming Ceremonies and Pothole Opening Ceremonies. We must invite the named politician for the closing or burial ceremony of the pothole as it gets filled in. The XYZ Pothole. Yes! Nigerian politicians would only want giant killer potholes bearing their names. Why did Nigeria kill the Public Works Department workman?  After 40 years of Letters to the Editor and Columns started in 1975/6 during my NYSC, I know THAT IN NIGERIA POTHOLE-FILLING IS NUCLEAR PHYSICS! Our coming nuclear plant must be built in Abuja, beside the NASS!

    ‘Brexit’ Referendum. The British exit from the EU confirms Nigeria should have a REFERENDUM or a 10million Signature Demand to change a bad status quo. It must shut down the opulent and duplicitous Senate, move to a ONE HOUSE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY- HOUSE OF REPRESENTITIVES, INSTITUTIONALISE PART-TIME SITTINGS and ALLOWANCES to save 80% of the unbearable costs of paying politicians their super- SAPs -Salaries Allowances Perks. Have they no sense of responsibility or pity? Nigeria is dying and citizens are crying from a greedy political class eating the nearly lifeless body of Nigeria, soon to be the cadaver of Nigeria, left for dead by the carnivorous, naira-vorous and dollar-vorous outgone political parties at all  levels and falling oil prices. Why are Nigerians yet to see one ‘leadership’ action from the 400+ ‘Nasty NASS’ members eating the Nigerian elephant’s carcass?

    This is not a ‘Nigerian National Cake’- making ‘theft’ ‘ok’ explained by –They did not steal- They only ate National Cake! We have only a ‘Nigerian National Carcass’ left. The NASS members’ hands, mouths and clothes are blood-stained as they devour the ‘Nigeria’ and ‘Naira’. NIGERIANS HAVE LOST 50-60% OF OUR VALUE. HAVE POLITICIALS NO REMORSE? WE NEED A REFERENDUM FOR A RESURRECTION OF NIGERIA!

  • Nigeria is a ‘foreign’ country

    Nigeria is a ‘foreign’ country

    It is not too often that wives jump into the argument when their spouses are having problems with their government employers. But whenever they do things get interesting.

    Near the end of the Goodluck Jonathan administration, when the army was having trouble reining in rampaging Boko Haram insurgents in the North East, wives of soldiers who had been posted to the war front with only a handful of bullets, took to the streets to protest against what they considered a government move to make them widows.

    But as far as telling your government bosses where they get off, the riposte of the wife of the late Super Eagles coach Amodu Shuaibu surely wins the prize. I believe Chief Alex Akinyele was the then Sports Minister who in a moment of crisis for the national football team declared that the Super Eagles needed a foreign coach.

    The coach’s wife had a classic response: if that was the case they might as well get a ‘foreign’ Sports Minister while they were at it, madam declared! Ouch!

    Nigeria is country in love with all things foreign. President Muhammadu Buhari declared sarcastically not too long ago that going through the records he found the national foreign exchange reserves had been blown importing non-essential things. This prompted him to make the sarcastic statement: “I didn’t know when Nigerians became so sophisticated that the only toothpick they use are Chinese ones!”

    Nigerians love all things foreign because we somehow believe that the solutions to our issues lie in someone else’s tried and tested methods. All we have to do is simply import the solution in a container and begin implementation.

    It’s always a funny sight watching members of state houses of assembly – and even local government councillors – embarking on trips to the US, Canada, Japan and the likes ‘to learn how to make laws.’

    When our attempts at governing ourselves democratically, using the Westminster model foundered in the First Republic, our search for a solution to our peculiar Nigerian political problems took us to the United States where we appropriated the presidential system hook, line and sinker.

    We didn’t pause to ponder whether it was a system suited to our temperament, or one that would be ideal for managing our complex ethnic mix.

    Close to 40 years after introducing this ‘foreign body’ into our polity, we have discovered to our rude shock that our ‘body’ is rejecting it – leading to an unending series of amendments, that is, when we are not moaning about one branch oppressing another.

    This past week there were moans aplenty in the National Assembly after the Senate’s two topmost leaders – Bukola Saraki and his deputy Ike Ekweremadu – were docked for allegedly forging the Standing Rules that was used to elect them last year.

    Saraki issued the obligatory statement about dictators and oppressors, and spoke of his willingness to be martyred with a stint in Kuje Prisons. His deputy was more creative in staging a subliminal protest from the dock by donning a traditional Igbo outfit – complete with a woollen hat that looked suspiciously Scottish.

    My Igbo colleagues, however, assured me it was an outfit associated with warriors in the South East. The sartorial statement was supposedly a coded warning to his persecutors that he was ready for war.

    The warrior in Ekweremadu didn’t stop there; he went beyond the codes and internationalised his fight for democracy. The Deputy Senate President fired off protest letters to the United Nations General Assembly, European Union parliament, United States Congress, European Union, United States government, United Kingdom government and House of Commons, as well as other foreign diplomatic missions over “an attempt to truncate Nigeria’s democracy.”

    Again, my interpretation is that the senator had lost faith in the ability of all our local institutions to resolve his peculiar trouble and sought help in potential foreign saviours.

    The amusing thing is that at the point he was engaging in his copious correspondence, those he was writing to were engaged in dealing with greater domestic and continental challenges of their own. Britain and the rest of Europe were still coming to terms with the stunning verdict of the Brexit referendum.

    Across the seas in the United States Congress, Democrats and Republicans were engaged in mortal combat over gun law reforms following the mass killings at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

    Were these politicians – some of whom don’t even know whether Nigeria is capital of Egypt – going to leave their pressing national issues to start debating the personal legal troubles of two African legislators?

    Perhaps it would have mattered if the Senate forgery trial had some remote bearing on the national interest of the US or UK. Unfortunately, it doesn’t.

    Indeed, if Ekweremadu had thought through his actions he would have realised that what turns America off isn’t the mere mention of the word ‘dictator.’ In the last century the US – celebrated as the great bastion of freedom and democracy – has been one of the most unabashed patrons of dictators across several continents.

    Most recently, it closed its eyes and blocked its nose when current Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi – then head of the army – staged a coup to topple the civilian President Mohammed Morsi and crush the massive nationwide protests of his Muslim Brotherhood party supporters.

    America always readily sacrifices its avowed support for democratic values wherever its long term strategic interests are involved. It is to such a foreign saviour that Ekweremadu has placed his hope of deliverance from a dangerous legal problem.

    I am not sure what his expectations are, but it is highly unlikely that any of those he’s corresponded with are going to be making any public statements soon, or intervening in any meaningful manner, in what is a local issue within Nigeria’s sovereign environment. Buhari isn’t going to get a lecture from Barack Obama or David Cameron over the trial.

    From time to time parliamentarians face criminal investigations and trials in the US and UK, but no one interprets such proceedings as attempts to truncate democracy. We are truly a dramatic society.

    It is possible that Ekweremadu realises that his letter-writing is an exercise in futility and probably just aims to embarrass the Buhari government. He should not forget, however, that foreign countries also have diplomats in Nigeria that make their own independent assessments for their governments.

    They should be able to decide whether democracy in Nigeria is on the verge of collapse because the Senate’s leaders are facing legal proceedings.

    The trial only damages the egos of Saraki and Ekweremadu; it doesn’t incapacitate the Senate from carrying out its functions. Where parliamentary work is hampered it has been by the deliberate choice of senators to abdicate their duties in order to spectate at the court.

    The protestations by the Deputy Senate President won’t resolve anything because the genie has long since escaped from the bottle. The trial is now reality and he must deal with it.

    Thankfully, the senator is a lawyer and hasn’t said he has no confidence in the courts. His best bet for salvation still lies in applying his energies to proving his innocence through the trial process rather than dreaming that some foreign government or parliament has solutions for his predicament.

  • Buhari, CBN and naira devaluation

    Buhari, CBN and naira devaluation

    Times without number President Muhammadu Buhari has stated his opposition to the devaluation of the naira. When he has the chance he recalls with fondness the glory days of our national currency and bemoans the fate that has befallen it in recent times.

    One such occasion was when he hosted prominent members of the business community at the Presidential Villa, Abuja roughly a week ago.

    “I don’t like the returns I get from the CBN concerning the devaluation of the Naira.  In August 1985, the naira was N1.3 to a dollar but now you need N300 or N350 to a dollar. What do we derive from that? How much benefit can we derive from this ruthless devaluation of the naira?” he wondered.

    “I’m not an economist neither a businessman, I fail to appreciate what the economic explanation is. What has happened to us now is that we have manoeuvred ourselves into mono-economy which led to the collapse we are seeing now.”

    The president’s remarks confirm that he was dragged kicking and screaming to back the CBN’s resort to a more flexible exchange rate policy. That’s just another way of saying that devaluation was sold to him wrapped in sugar-coated economic jargon.

    He signed on and told the country so in his May 29 Democracy Day broadcast. At that point the official rate was N199 to the dollar, while on the black market the currency was being exchanged for as high as N370 to the greenback.

    What was going on was that the CBN found itself in an impossible situation where it could not meet demand for forex and was blowing reserves to maintain the artificial N199 peg. It was not sustainable and something had to give.

    In truth, the government was just living an illusion if it believed the true exchange was that artificial peg. It lay somewhere between N199 and the street rates that are driven by raw demand and supply factors and speculation. Which is another way of saying the reality had devalued the naira but the president and those who supported maintaining the official rate didn’t want to wake up and smell the coffee.

    I don’t believe Buhari should work himself into a state over the floatation or official devaluation of the naira. What should be of concern is whether the policy helps us to achieve our goals for the economy.

    So far, the portents are not so good because the crash of the naira to more realistic rates has not made the dollar more readily available. The scarcity has as much to do with fact that we are not earning as much from external sources, as it has to do with the fact that those who may have huge dollar holdings locally wouldn’t dare open up their ‘vaults’ for fear of the scrutiny they would attract.

    Still, what the CBN has done might be the best among a range of options. Allowing the markets to determine the rates takes out much of the abuse of the official rate that was done through round-tripping.

    We all need to be patient – and that includes the president. The naira being at a particular figure to the dollar or pound is not the issue. As Buhari pointed out our woes are hemmed to the mono-cultural nature of our economy. Until we deal with that structural problem all our mourning over the state of the national currency would be meaningless.

    The problem, perhaps, is that those who sold devaluation or floatation to Buhari probably did so making it look like a magical solution.

    But the naira isn’t going to recover just by some economic sleight of hand. It’s going to be a long waiting game. Earnings have to go up to shore up reserves, foreign investors have to be convinced again to bring in their cash and non-oil sectors of the economy have to begin to deliver on their potential before we can see real change.

  • Our Girls; BUHARI LGA EFFECT; Abiku bridges vs Federalism:  Who will build this bridge? Cyberwars

    Our Girls; BUHARI LGA EFFECT; Abiku bridges vs Federalism:  Who will build this bridge? Cyberwars

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15 2014. What hope?

    Nigeria must liberate the LGAs to become an independent layer of government. PERHAPS ONLY THOSE STATES WHICH HAVE INDEPENDENT ELECTED LGAS should be eligible for future FG bailout loans-a BUHARI LGA EFFECT?

    When better to change the nation for A TRUE FEDERATION than now with so little at the centre when the FG cannot deliver the expectations of the states.  THE QUESTION OF TRUE FEDERALISM IS A REAL AND PRESENT NECESSITY. TOGETHER WITH CORRUPTION, THE LACK OF TRUE FEDERALISM IS AT THE ROOT OF OUR DEVELOPMENT FAILURE. Beyond periodic restructuring ‘conference calls’, ‘NIGERIA IS CHANGE’ and ripe to wrestle true federalism from a warped greedy ‘false federalism’ political system masterfully manured to maturity by a malignant military slogan ‘unitary’ sown by the Ironsi Military Government and ‘kidnapped’ by his post-civil war successors.

    Today, Nigeria suffers the negative effects of false federalism with abandoned projects and failure of state and LGA development also due to major local corruption. However, the difficult cross-party relationship between state and federal has also stunted state dreams and achievement for its poor citizens and children. The Lagos State Jakande Rail, designed partly by Funsho Williams and cancelled by Buhari at a cost of $184m penalty should be carrying its one billionth Nigerian passenger around Lagos by now. It is now under construction to the credit of Governors Fashola and Ambode.  But that cannot restore the maliciously devastating blow to the state’s development or restore the billions of hours and other losses to those millions of Nigerians who missed trips between 1983 and now 2016 – 33 years of waste.

    Understanding this defect makes a true nation rise quickly. That misapplication of ‘Federal Might’ caused loss of independent development decision-making in Lagos, followed by the systematic strangling of Nigeria’s development during which there grew a list of nationwide unexecuted ‘state development projects’ sadly killed with a ‘PROJECT DENIED STAMP’ by federal bigwigs who paradoxically come from the states they oppress. They rejected their responsibility to use their federal power to drive development, preferring to say ‘no’ to every development request from a ‘wrong-party‘ state. Beyond political affiliation, what taste do George, Obanikoro and Ogunleye leave in the mouths of Lagos State when spat out? Do they stand out as leaders? Did they sell ‘their’ Lagosians for a mess of pottage or were the reversals just politics? But late President Umaru Yar’Adua stands out ‘Presidentially’ for cooperating with Lagos State’s Governor Fashola to build the Lekki Bridge soon to carry its one billionth citizen. But Nigeria needs 10,000 such bridges, all stalled by ‘Federal Miserable Might’ demanding to be ‘in charge’. So Nigeria stumbles, a huge uncompleted ‘Project Nigeria’ unbuilt by feuding federal ministers fighting dreaming state governors over territory, rights, responsibility, ‘exclusivity of lists’, right of way and authority over minerals, roads and waterways. Such development agendas must never be delayed by ministers from different political parties or used as ‘vote for me’ weapons. President Shagari infamously campaigned in Lagos State that he would build the second Lagos Bridge only if we voted for his party in Lagos. We did not and it took years for the bridge to open under Babangida. Now we have outgrown even that and fourth Bridge is being built by Ambode.

    Meanwhile the 40 year overdue baby called the Second Niger Bridge, has been conceived and aborted so many times that it is an ‘Abiku’. An abiku is a child who never lives long and keeps ‘coming back’, born again. Unfortunately the unbuilt ‘Abiku bridges’ are everywhere, victims of traumatic interparty politics perhaps awaiting the next election campaign? In every state, citizens demand ‘WHO WILL BUILD THIS ABIKU BRIDGE IN MY COMMUNITY?’ The APC and its predecessors particularly in Lagos have suffered malignant federal oppression from pariah ruling party minions ‘claiming’ also to be ‘Lagos’ perhaps deliberately planted to do evil to their own state and even in Ekiti from reports.  The APC must not reciprocate this history of deliberate discrimination and distortion during its own federal governance. It must institutionalise federal-friendly MULTI-MINISTERIAL MONTHLY FEDERAL/STATE MEETINGS stopping the politicisation of development projects. Nigeria cannot survive repeating dangerous past tactics.

    Nigeria is almost dead with a huge development hole nationwide in its heart because of this Federal/State animosity/dichotomy from a lack of devolution of democratic development decisions and from massive local corruption. The current lack of funds at federal centre has exposed the risks of a ‘Runaway corrupt Federation’ as a caricature of a country, each part rejecting cooperation. The FG has taken a disproportionate quantum of available funds but stole rather than sow the seed of a greater Nigerian state. However huge quantum of cash received by states from the Federal Allocation has also been stolen further ‘stunting state growth’. Obviously federal, state and LGA must urgently work synchronously in harmony, together, for Nigeria’s development. True federalism is a long overdue debt to Nigerians and good start. Nigerian leaders must become leaders of Nigeria!

    War, war, war everywhere! Trouble in cyberspace. Cyber space is the new ‘War Domain’. NATO declaring that a cyberattack on one member state will bring a mass response from all 28 states. It is not difficult to initiate an attack and blame it on others who will be felled by ‘friendly fire’. While sharpening your keyboard skills, do not throw away your notepaper and biro.

     

    • Blog:  tonymarinho.com
  • Ekiti and its man-made disaster

    Ekiti and its man-made disaster

    It is a state famed for the high intellectual attainments of its people. Just as you would associate crude oil with Bayelsa or Rivers, the mere mention of Ekiti conjures up visions of a land crawling with professors and PhDs.

    But curiously for a people so enamoured of learning, the political leader that has captured their imagination the most in the last 16 years is one not noted for his educational accomplishments.

    It is as if the people became bored with the snooty ways of their super educated elite and hankered after someone earthy. Out of nowhere, Ayodele Fayose happened to them – igniting an on-and-off romance.

    When he first ran for governor he would drive into a village without potable water and distribute the liquid free to villagers. While he was meeting the people’s most pressing needs, his rivals who probably felt better qualified because of their pedigree, were lulling the people to sleep with the same old promises of what they would do.

    Not surprisingly the man form nowhere swept away all in his path to become governor. After leaving office in ignominy and roaming the political wilderness for years, the connection he had with the people still remained. It was something his rivals just couldn’t explain.

    The attraction between the people and Fayose could only be likened to the magnetic pull that draws good girls to bad boys. He can turn on his ‘man of the people’ charm one minute, and the next he’s leading a band of unruly supporters to rough up a High Court judge in his chambers.

    It is not as if the people didn’t know his flaws. Still they chose him over a hardworking intellectual in Dr. Kayode Fayemi whose only sin was that he was aloof. But buyer’s remorse may very well be setting in.

    Fayose is a gaffe machine that never stops giving. Just when you thought he had done his worst, he outdoes himself by drilling down into the basement.

    He is bad news – and that’s not just his critics or members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) talking. Ali Modu Sheriff, one of the claimants to the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) chairmanship, has dismissed him as an embarrassment.

    Governors are elected to govern and improve the quality of life of their people. The Ekiti governor views his time in office as one long drama sketch.

    Many states like his can’t pay salaries. But the more serious among his colleagues are restructuring their economies and engaging the Federal Government to get needed funds. Some are blocking leakages, cutting budgets to save funds.

    But what does our ‘man of the people’ do? He stops his cavalcade by the roadside to cut ponmo! Great photo opportunity which cuts no ice with the hungry. At other times, he jumps on a motorbike amidst a swarm of Okada riders and dashes up and down the lone decent road in his rustic state capital and scurries back to Government House. Problem solved!

    But news flash! Ekiti workers are still on strike and say nothing short of three months arrears of payment would do.

    The governor loves to position himself as some political grandmaster whose perceived madness has some underlying method. Those who buy this pitch love him to bits. But even among his fawning followers the act may be wearing thin. This past week, may come to be remembered as the week Fayose unravelled.

    It all began with the dramatic announcement by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) that courtesy of a court order it had frozen a couple of accounts held by the governor, his family members, associates and the former Minister of State for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro. The amounts involved run into billions of naira

    Fayose would have us believe that President Muhammadu Buhari goes to sleep at night and wakes up in the morning thinking about him. So his first reaction was to launch a stinging personal attack at president’s wife, Aisha, with the intention of getting some mud splattered on the once who had been sold to the world as a paragon of integrity.

    There was just a little problem. Two former EFCC chairmen – Nuhu Ribadu and Ibrahim Lamorde – who were involved with the Halliburton bribery scandal confirmed that an impostor ‘Aisha Buhari’ was the one involved in US Congressman William Jefferson’s case – and not the president’s wife.

    But rather than staging a tactical retreat to allow other events to take away the poignancy of his blunder, the rattled Fayose staggered from one unforced error to another.

    In a bid to distance himself from the disbursements made from the office of the former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd), he threatened to unmask his financial backers if they didn’t speak up in his hour of distress.

    Making good the threat, he makes the disturbing claim that Zenith Bank bankrolled his political campaign. With bank maintaining a stony silence, Fayose’s movie production subsidiary went into overdrive. Lo and behold within 24 hours we were watching edited videos purportedly showing the bank’s officials stammering and grovelling before the governor. He said they had come to ‘beg’ him. For what sins we are not told.

    Given the governor’s past antics one may be tempted to dismiss the episode as another charade. A similar thing happened not too long ago when his erstwhile ally, Dr. Temitope Aluko, started giving tell-all interviews all over the place.

    But before you knew it Fayose had managed to get Aluko into a setting where it seemed like the prodigal had repented having seen the folly of his ways. Before rolling cameras the governor patted his one-time ally fondly on the back, declaring ‘he’s my boy!’

    Next day, a stunned Aluko was repudiating what occurred the day before as a well-orchestrated charade. Is this what we just witnessed with the supposedly begging bank officials?

    Ordinarily, there are one or two ways by which banks part with money. They either give you a loan of sorts or a donation. A loan would require documentation and security no matter how big the customer is.

    Was Fayose given a loan by a conservative bank to prosecute an election against an incumbent without any guarantee he would win? Is it even credible to imagine such a scenario given that the risk analysis would have killed off the proposal?

    If he was given a donation, what was the amount involved and how does that action line up with provisions of the law?

    Section 221 of the 1999 Constitution states: “No association, other than a political party, shall canvass for votes for any candidate at any election or contribute to the funds of any political party or to the election expenses of any candidate at an election.”

    There is a similar prohibition in the Companies and Allied Matters Act Cap. C20 L.F.N. 2004 (CAMA). Section 38 (2) of CAMA provides that:

    “A company shall not have or exercise power either directly or indirectly to make a donation or gift of any of its property or funds to a political party or political association or for any political purpose; and if any company, in breach of this subsection makes any donation or gift of its property to a political party or political association, or for any political purpose, the officers in default and any member who voted for the breach shall be jointly and severally liable to refund to the company the sum or value of the donation or gift and in addition, the company and every such officer or member shall be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine equal to the amount or value of the donation or gift.”

    The allegations made by the governor are not only grave, they have legal implications such that an institution with the profile of Zenith Bank cannot afford to keep mum for too long – hoping this embarrassing episode will just disappear.

    Such an explanation could shed more light on the contents of the frozen accounts. While Fayose is tying himself up in knots bleating about his precious immunity from prosecution (not investigation), he could help the discussion by telling the world how he came about the frozen billions.

    The governor may still have his diehard loyalists, still I suspect that many who were chanting ‘Oshokomole’ on Election Day must by now realise that they’ve been had.

    Many now mock the Ekitis by saying that they sold their future to Fayose by collecting his miserable ‘stomach infrastructure.’ Without much sympathy they urge the people to live with the choice they have made. On this point though I have a different perspective.

    It might not be entirely correct to say that Fayose was the will of the Ekiti people reflected on voting day. The revelations of Captain Sagir Koli over the Ekitigate scandal have been corroborated by the emerging details of how the PDP moved billions into the state to topple Fayemi.

    So in reality the incumbent was virtually imposed himself on the people in a brazen exercise in subversion of the democratic will. Of course, the people have their own share of the blame because Fayose could not have risen to challenge for power if the people – masses and elite – had not fallen for his allurements and tolerated his excesses.

    Unfortunately for the governor stolen waters are not really enjoyable. He knows what legal troubles are waiting for him when the screen of immunity is lifted. That perhaps explains why he keeps shouting ‘I’m not afraid of Buhari’ when no one has accused him of being afraid.

    It reminds me of the story of a man who had been on death row in Kirikiri for close to 30 years. One day God showed him mercy when a prominent pastor visited and helped set him free. He later told the man of God that his worst nightmare all those years was he couldn’t sleep between the hours of 12.00 midnight and 4.00 am.

    He said the hangmen used to come during that period to take those to be executed. So each night he would stay awake all night when he heard footsteps, wondering whether they were coming for him.

    Forget the noise and drama, Fayose surely dreads what’s coming to him.

     

  • Our Girls; Olympic headache; ‘Single Digit Loans’ FOR ALL?; NASS & NEITII Report?; Buhari State Effect

    Our Girls; Olympic headache; ‘Single Digit Loans’ FOR ALL?; NASS & NEITII Report?; Buhari State Effect

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. We pray.

    Avocado pears, grown freely and discarded here in Nigeria, are in high demand in UK/Europe and expensive high yield following a poor harvest in Australia where any good harvests are actually being stolen, 40 thefts already, just like our farmers have their crops and fish stolen the night before cropping. Nigerians could export avocado as we are nearer to the EU than Australia.

    Nigeria needs a POWER POLICY to ‘GET AS MANY OFF THE GRID AND ONTO SOLAR to reduce pressure on the grid.

    Nigeria needs a POTHOLE POLICY to GET AS MANY POTHOLES OFF OUR ROADS IN ORDER TO REDUCE DEATHS, TODAY, NOT WHEN SOME CONTRACT IS FINISHED IN 2020.

    Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro declares State of Emergency’ before the Olympics, a Pre-Olympic headache- a ‘Financial Emergency’ requiring $550M. Greece suffers a ‘Post- Olympic hangover’ with unused event centres. This is a warning to Nigerian officials anxious to ‘Host’ to make profit and misappropriate the conference tents and protocol cars. From FIFA’s troubled NFF to others, officials fail to supply tools for development. Nigeria should ban itself from international hosting until it builds grassroots-up sports development pyramids with computerised databases to groom a new generation of sports gladiators.

    NEITI and others announce that NNPC, NIMASA, NAPIMS owe government $13+billion dollars – half our $26b foreign reserves. We question the moral credentials of National Assembly (NASS) to set up self-appointed anti-corruption committees to ‘further investigate’. Will more dollars be stuffed into headgear? NASS is seen as an opulent ‘immunity safe haven’ for questionable political officials. The self-acquired ‘Distinguished’ and ‘Honourable’ appellations contrast with the poor NASS performance compromised by greed, corruption, gifts, with the insultingly excessive Salaries Allowances and Perks. These drain Nigeria dry even as their home states cannot/refuse to pay or have stolen 6-9 months salaries. NASS members dare to visit destitute home-states to distribute ‘our money’ as ‘their dividends of democracy projects’. Insult upon thievery – legally-illegal thievery! CLOSE ONE HOUSE, THE SENATE, NOW IN THE ECONOMIC INTEREST OF NIGERIA!  POLITICAL RESTRUCTURING!

    NASS members’ salary should be paid from their home states! Why has no NASS member lead the REJECTION of their over-pampered life, livelihood and SAP excesses ‘legally-illegally’ extracted from the country by the GREEDY POLITICAL EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRY when times were good? Late UK MP Jo Cox, much lamented, murdered for her beliefs by a ‘deranged’ racist right winger at 41, lived on a River Thames houseboat!!! And now a Right Winger is up for election to take her place???

    The perpetuation of NASS SAP is detrimental to economic recovery while citizens ‘earn nothingx six months’. Strangely, Governors invoke a ‘No Work, No Pay’ rule on striking workers who operated ‘Work, No Pay’ guidelines for six months. In America the entire workforce practices ‘No Pay, No Work’ the next day.

    Yes Minister of Finance, Nigeria as a country can ‘borrow at the most cost effective rates’ lowest, best, longest repayment terms. BUT YOUR CITIZENS CAN NOT’ BUT NEED LOANS ALSO. Nigerians borrow at 25-30% with 13% going straight back to CBN as MPR.  Minister of Finance: Please introduce SINGLE DIGIT INTEREST RATEs FOR ALL CITIZEN LOANS by scrapping/cutting Monetary Policy Rate and discuss with greedy banks to stimulate the economy by universal 5-9% loans, not just for ‘preferred’ SME businesses. LET EVERY NIGERIAN’S BUSINESS BECOME A PREFERRED BUSINESS, REQUIRING SINGLE DIGIT LOANS -a bail-out philosophy in the UK and USA! Excessive interest rates have made Nigeria A COUNTRY Of BOGUSLY GRANDIOSE BANK BUILDINGS in a country where there are almost no YOUTH CENTRES or Science and Tech Museums and Exhibitions to build and inspire the Youth. In Educare Trust we say: BUILD BRAINS, NOT BANKS

    The naira is floating. Remember the decades 1999-2015 and serial Presidential failure to ‘recover the naira’ especially in the last decade of profligacy. Can we fulfil Buhari’s dream of a powerful naira tomorrow. AS NAIRA FELL, SO COULD IT RISE!

    States, LGAs fail all anti-corruption development yardsticks. But wonderfully, the Federal Government is using the ‘Cash Carrot And Accountability Stick’, to get the states on board ‘anti-corruption budget and accounting programmes’ by forcing The STATE EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRY’ to have ‘anticorruption’ hands. The cesspool of corruption pollutes FG, States and grassroots LGAs. Check any state financial allocations for the last 25 years to judge the lack of development standards. Every LGA got N1billion+/annum on paper. LGA free elections must be the prerequisite for any further loan.

    THIS IS ONE BAIL WHERE THE BAIL CONDITIONS WILL REDUCE CORRUPTION NATIONWIDE IMMEDIATELY. This ‘BUHARI STATE EFFECT’ masterstroke is like the ‘BUDGET BUHARI EFFECT’, which cut budget fraud and where ‘Budget Padding’, a routine of 50 odd years, entered the Nigerian political Lexicon. LONG TERM, THE SOLUTION IS TRUE FEDERALISM not bailouts, with stronger states and weaker federal centre giving states more power over electric power, solid minerals, waterways and a larger share of VAT. States employ political hangers-on by outgoing governments bloating workers and ghost workers numbers. This ‘WORKER PADDING’ was common in 1999-2015 time of plenty but now we face a 2015-2019 FINANCIAL AND FAMILY FAMINE. We must encourage retirements without filling vacancies for a leaner budgeted workforce accommodated by the 40-60% budget collapse. Pensions, gratuities and even senior civil service perks negotiated during the times of plenty, are crippling now. Do governors still get N50-100m/month security vote-a hangover from the military? This must stop!

     

  • Is Buhari the problem or solution?

    Is Buhari the problem or solution?

    THIS piece is inspired by a recent OP-ED article by the Wall Street Journal writer Pete Hoekstra titled “The Three Changes Nigeria Needs.” The writer concludes that President Muhammadu Buhari is actually Nigeria’s problem and not the solution. He then warns that rising ethnic tensions are a threat to the country’s future.
    It’s always refreshing to have such outside interventions in our national debate. An analyst looking in from the outside is liberated from accusations of partisan bias, but could also be guilty of ignorance and a rush to judgment.
    In some cases people spend three days in a country and they become instant experts on her travails and have all the magical solutions to her problems. How helpful it would have been if they were saying something new.
    Let’s begin by saying the never-ending projections of Nigeria’s imminent demise have been grossly exaggerated. Many tiptoed into 2015 conscious of the projection by some Western security agencies that the centrifugal forces troubling the country would come to a head with the once-promising giant breaking into tiny bits.
    Although the doomsday scenario didn’t play out, we came pretty close. What with Abubakar Shekau’s Boko Haram setting up a ramshackle caliphate on the desert fringes and a desperate Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) regime pressing every ethnic and religious button in its bid to retain power.
    In the end the nation has remained intact after a fashion. But twelve months after Muhammadu Buhari was installed as president, and with his political honeymoon will and truly expired, the divisions are back with a vengeance in the form of the Niger Delta Avengers in the South-South and Biafra agitators in the South-East.
    It is increasingly quiet up north with the Boko Haram threat in recession. But whatever positives have been gained on that front are swiftly neutralised by the emergence of Fulani herdsmen as cross-country agents of death and devastation.
    Add to the stew of woes an economy that is tanking, a national currency shedding value by the minute, states that are so insolvent they can’t pay their workers, and you know you smack in the middle of a crisis.
    At such times everyone has an opinion as to the way forward. Some even look back longingly to the cucumber, leek and onions of Egypt even half seriously requesting ‘bring back our corruption.’ The imputation being that life was rosy comparatively in the last dispensation.
    Former Senate President David Mark captured the sentiment best when on the May 29 Democracy Day anniversary he told Nigerians to judge whether things were better under APC rule than they were in the PDP days.
    I read a funny post online that said when the All Progressives Congress (APC) were in opposition they had all the answers, but now that they find themselves on the hot seat all they offer are excuses! Funny, but the neutrals know one wisecrack doesn’t tell the whole story.
    Nigerians understand that the ship landed in choppy waters because of the path chosen by those who were steering in times past. What we have now is the picture of a vessel in a raging storm taking in water faster than the captain’s ability to bail it out.
    The question now is not the commitment of the skipper to scooping out the water to prevent a shipwreck. What is at issue is both the vigour with which he’s applying himself and the technique he’s deploying to resolve the problem.
    By now it would have been obvious to everyone that the president is given to deliberation and would not be stampeded on any issue until he’s good and ready to go. For a nation of people permanently rushing somewhere, he’s a mismatch.
    By taking his time he opens himself up to accusations of being ‘Baba Go Slow’. But I guess the ‘slowness’ comes from getting him to move from his long-held positions to new options that he remains deeply suspicious of.
    This criticism is rehashed by Pete Hoekstra in his Wall Street Journal piece which cast Buhari as “Nigeria’s problem and not its solution.”
    The article attacked the president’s “stiffness, lack of vision and reactive approach to issues.” The writer also argues Buhari’s ideas ‘to rebalance the economy and regenerate growth, his damaging and outdated monetary policy has been crippling.’
    It is not a new thing to be said about Buhari. During the campaigns the PDP repeatedly derided him for his years and the age of his ideas. But fair is fair.
    The president may have a reputation for stubbornness, but it would be fraudulent to accuse him of being as inflexible as his erstwhile starched khaki uniforms.
    A man who was viscerally opposed to a hike in petrol price and removal of subsidy bowed to the advocates of deregulation. The man who romanticised the naira’s glory days when it exchanged in single digits to the dollar, surrendered to currency floatation or devaluation.
    The only thing that addresses the nitpicking are results. In order for ‘change’ not to become a moving target, the administration must desperately pray that the measures it has taken on several fronts begin to deliver the desired results. So far, the jury is out.
    Even within the administration there doesn’t appear to be clarity as to the way forward. Take the issue of nipping resurgent Niger Delta militancy in bud. During the week we witnessed the embarrassing spectacle of Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi and Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu openly disagreeing over negotiations with the militants and the controversial Maritime University at Okerenkoko, Delta State.
    To hear both men talk you would have thought one was in government while the other sat with the opposition. It was not the sort of display to give a sceptic confidence that the administration has a handle on one of its most disturbing challenges.
    The divisions in the cabinet mirror the differences of opinion on the outside. It is understandable that the government is still feeling its way forward, but what is needed now is for Buhari to come down clearly on one side of the argument for progress to be made.
    He did so with the deregulation of the downstream of the petroleum sector and the floatation of the naira. While the measures didn’t satisfy everyone naturally the president’s decisive move earned him plaudits. He needs to move with such despatch on many other fronts.
    What Buhari and his team must appreciate is that a juncture has been reached where the mere retailing of the history of our predicament is no longer enough for a people desperate for change. The people know what PDP has done and repeatedly saying it doesn’t ameliorate their suffering, it just becomes annoying after a while.

  • A president and his luck

    A president and his luck

    PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has the distinction of being Nigeria’s oldest president. He may yet turn out to be her luckiest much more favoured than the ex-president who was presciently named ‘Goodluck’ by his parents.
    The Goodluck Jonathan story is a well-worn tale. It takes an uncommonly generous providence for a man in any country to climb the political ladder to become president without actually contesting an election!
    But like most things that come easy, they often depart with similar ease. And so, within the span of four years, good luck and goodwill separated themselves from our former leader handing him the dubious distinction of being the first civilian incumbent to be toppled by a challenger.
    His successor was handed a broken country that needs to be fixed in a hurry. From Boko Haram, to rampaging herdsmen, Niger Delta militancy, Biafra agitation, corruption and an economy speeding to the pit of recession, these are all problems that demand instant treatment.
    Any combination of these deadly afflictions can torpedo a politician’s career especially if that combination negatively impacts the citizen’s stomach. Hunger pangs demolish party affiliations and political loyalties.
    Last year in Greece governments fell like cards in the face of the country’s economic crisis. Today in Venezuela an oil producing country like Nigeria that forgot to diversify its economy people are revolting against the Socialist government because they can’t find basic food items to buy even after queuing for days.
    Venezuela has economic woes but it isn’t contending with insurgents and agitators north, east and south. On top of its troubles it doesn’t have to tackle the phenomenon of killer herdsmen whose blood lust is straining the fabric of national unity at the seams.
    But with all he’s had to contend with Buhari has gotten off lightly. It is all down to the fact that political foes who should have been training fire on him, are preoccupied fighting each other. Such luck!
    In the main opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) two chairmanship claimants are charging at each other like raging bulls. The bitter rhetoric emerging from the contending camps shows that the dispute which has landed in the courts isn’t about to be resolved soon.
    Such is the paralysis of the opposition that during the half-hearted protests that trailed the recent hike in petrol pump price, not a peep was heard from the PDP because they busy fighting at a so-called convention in Port Harcourt.
    Backtrack to 2012 and a similar price increase. Recall how the then opposition Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) used the protests to damage Jonathan politically. Imagine what they would have done if roles were reversed today.
    The collapse of the traditional opposition has been compounded by the own goal scored by the Ayuba Wabba-led Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) for long the unofficial opposition. In the annals of political miscalculation the union secured its place of prominence with its ill-timed strike action.
    The upshot is that as a platform for political action at national level, the NLC is damaged goods. Worker power will never be what it was in Nigeria at least for the short term.
    Of course, there’s always the National Assembly to provide constitutional checks and balances to the Executive but it cannot play the role of political parties.
    In any event, where nominally APC is in charge, PDP is really the power behind the scene because of the coalition that enthroned Senate President Bukola Saraki.
    Unfortunately, the fraught process that brought Saraki to power has destabilised the Senate for the foreseeable future that it can hardly be a strong voice to face down the Presidency. To make matters worse, Saraki’s ongoing trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal hangs around his neck disconcerting him and eroding his moral authority.
    So what we have now is a president and an administration free to do as much as they please which can be good and bad. On the positive side, the government can ram through its agenda without bothering about opposition peskiness.
    The downside is that every democracy needs a vibrant opposition not only to hold the government accountable, but also to provide an alternative.
    That role has been abdicated by the PDP whose leading lights are either in EFCC cells or scattered to the four winds in ignominious exile.
    It is so bad that even those who are frustrated with Buhari turn around to ask’ What is the alternative?’ A country as big as Nigeria needs an alternative. APC also needs an opposition that keeps it on its toes so it doesn’t die from complacency like the PDP it replaced.