The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

Ebola: Let us pray

The topical issue that has continued to dominate world headlines is Ebola. The killer instinct of the virus is no longer news; what is news, however, are the various preventive measures now being put in place everywhere to prevent the spread of the highly contagious virus. These preventive measures, ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous, are as many as they vary from country to country. In Nigeria, the government has been battling to persuade the people from adopting an unorthodox approach that claims that adding salt to warm water to bathe, and drinking warm water salt therapy can prevent Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). That message had gone viral in the social media and through unsolicited text messages before the government sprung into action. Even at that, several people who had taken that route landed in the hospital while a few others were not so lucky. They met their untimely death in the process. Talk of dying before the arrival of death itself.

Last week, this column wrote on Africa’s destiny with pandemics. The column stated that the current Ebola’s spread in four West African countries – Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria – “is a reminder of the vast development needs that persist in some of the world’s poorest countries”. It is, therefore, not too funny to read what Decontee Sawyer, wife of the late Patrick Sawyer, the man who brought EVD into Nigeria, recently told a magazine in Liberia. Decontee said her husband’s decision to travel from Liberia to Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, was a desperate search for a better health-care system. She said that Sawyer had no trust in the health-care system in Liberia and had possibly headed to Nigeria with the hope of receiving better treatment for his ailment. Many Nigerians, and even Liberians, had condemned Sawyer for travelling to Nigeria despite knowing that he was infected with the Ebola virus before embarking on the trip. Some Nigerians on social media even went as far as describing him as a “biological terrorist” who came into the country deliberately to spread the disease.

Decontee’s defence of her husband notwithstanding, what is clear is that at the time he made the journey to Nigeria, Sawyer knew his health status quite well before he sneaked into Nigeria through Lome, the Togolese capital. Had he done his homework well, the late Sawyer would have known that escaping from Liberia to Nigeria was like jumping from frying pan to fire. The fire finally consumed him when he was eventually cremated after he died of the Ebola disease. His cremation was done in line with the prescription of the World Health Organisation, WHO, for the safe disposal of victims of Ebola disease to forestall further spread of the disease by the corpses of the victims. WHO had said that 60 percent or more of those affected by the disease contracted it from the corpses of the victims before or during burial rites.

If we are all now blaming Sawyer for importing the disease to Nigeria willingly or unwillingly, what can we say about the nurse who had primary contact with the late Sawyer and was placed under observation but who equally sneaked out from Lagos and headed for Enugu where a few people have now been placed under observation? What this means is that Lagos is not the only state in Nigeria that has so far been hit by the deadly EVD; Enugu has joined the fray. After the Federal Executive Council meeting in Abuja last Wednesday, Labaran Maku, the Minister of Information, told State House correspondents that Enugu came into the picture because one of the nurses that treated the American-Liberian, Patrick Sawyer, shunned medical advice and travelled to the city.

Thank God that the medical team has been able to trace all those who came into contact with the nurse, including her husband, and they are now being quarantined in Enugu. The nurse has done to Enugu what Patrick Sawyer did to Lagos that has now put Nigeria in the infamous map of Ebola-ravaged countries. One would have expected those keeping vigil on all these contacts to put a water-tight cordon on such people, but Nigerians or Africans, being what we are, we have high proclivity to disobey orders. If the nurse who has transported this virus to Enugu survives, what will the system do to her even if one or two others who contracted the virus from her throw in the towel tomorrow?

The lacklustre manner in which the case of the nurse has been handled is a signpost of the unserious manner we handle sensitive issues in this country and in Africa. The other day a national newspaper displayed the photograph of medical personnel who look more like nurses wearing protective health gears at the National Hospital in Abuja on its front page. The picture was, perhaps, to illustrate that the country was ready to combat the Ebola virus headlong. Ironically, that message was lost when I discovered that one of the ladies was full of laughter as if she was modelling for a Nollywood extravaganza as the photographer clicked away. That is the way we are. Now, tell me, what was funny to the nurse that she so much got captivated with laughter in a situation that she could have complimented with a sober look?

More disturbing, is the recent report that no fewer than 17 patients infected with Ebola were unaccounted for after they fled an armed raid on a quarantine centre on the outskirts of Monrovia, the Liberian capital, by men who claimed the epidemic was a fiction. Reports say, the attackers, mostly young men armed with clubs, shouted that President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf “is broke” and “there’s no Ebola” in Liberia as they broke into the facility. The facility was believed to be housing 29 patients who “had all tested positive for Ebola” and were receiving preliminary treatment before being taken to hospital. Out of the 29 patients, 17 reportedly fled in the aftermath of the assault. Another nine died a few days after, while three others were allegedly taken away by force by their relatives from the centre. Residents had opposed the creation of the centre, set up by health authorities in part of the city considered an epicentre of the Ebola outbreak in the Liberian capital. Again, that is the way we are in Africa. It is a shame.

The Ebola outbreak, the worst since the virus first appeared in 1976, has claimed 1,145 lives in five months, according to the United Nations World Health Organisation’s latest figures as of August 13: 413 in Liberia, 380 in Guinea, 348 in Sierra Leone and four in Nigeria. With the appalling health care delivery system in this country and Africa as a whole, I believe we should all go down on our knees to pray fervently to God to save us from this killer virus. This is because in the event of a severe outbreak of the disease, (God forbid), many heads will roll especially now that they are saying that the trial vaccine is out of stock.

Mind you, this virus has been ravaging some parts of Africa since 1976 – 38 years ago – and it never occurred to anybody to find a lasting cure for the terrible disease. Recall that this current one broke out more than six months ago and it was only last week that WHO deemed it fit to hold an emergency session after more than a thousand souls had been lost. Call it different strokes for different folks. If it had happened in any of the developed countries, would the world have waited this long? The same thing happened many years ago during the Rwanda genocide. The world stood akimbo as two brothers, the Hutus and Tutsis, engaged one another in a bloody fratricidal war that claimed thousands of lives.

Anyway, this Ebola thing is a wake-up call on Africans and the Blacks in the Diaspora to wake up from self-induced stupor, gird their loins and get their bearings right. If not, we will continue to be a laughing stock in the world arena. May God help us!

August 20, 2014
‘Our Girls’; toilets, running water, Ebola and typhoid

Our Girls’ are still missing since April 15. No word about apparently ‘secret’ local efforts but there is the reported release of 85 Nigerians by Chadian troops. Hurray!

Yes, Ebola is the rage of the day. Bloody epidemics always take centre stage. Happily hand washing being touted as a preventive measure also helps in a myriad other infections, especially typhoid. No one, not one of you readers or politicians with all the billions in Nigeria cares to complain that the majority of Nigeria’s children still go to schools and universities with no running water and no toilets or unusable toilets. They are forced to urinate beside or behind their own classrooms just like the majority of their teachers, male and female. Most youths in schools throw their faecal matter in black plastic bags into the bush or even into neighbouring compounds – a New Nigerian Olympic Sport called ‘Shot-put’ after the original ‘shot-put’ of my good old 1960s school days when a grapefruit sized black metal heavy ball was thrown across a field –a sport at which the late murdered Funso Williams was a Grier Cup Champion in St Gregory’s College. May God rest his generous soul even as we pray that his murderers will have no rest until they are caught and confess.

We in Africa accept massive numbers of mother and child deaths at delivery and other deaths from deadly deficient government services as ‘normal’ and ‘Acts of God’. They are not. They are a form of government sponsored medical murder just as Ebola is medical murder because wrong containment practices were initiated by government when the disease was first diagnosed properly. Indeed Ebola has highlighted the pathetic place of barrier, sanitation and other health facilities. Do the victims have first class medical treatment and Intensive Care Unit facilities?

Does NEMA, National Emergency Management Agency, not have gloves, masks, preventive suits and boots in large quantities? Why do all government hospitals not have suits ready? Horrifyingly today, as for many years, in many government hospitals and clinics, the patient on arrival is expected to first ‘buy or bring’ gloves, mask, syringes and needles for the hospital to use. Shameful. When I was a doctor and consultant, our medical pockets bulged with these ‘immediate life-savers’ to bring immediate care to patients. Now a doctor must wait sometimes for hours for relations to purchase these items before intervening thus destroying morale and ‘Removing the Urgency from Emergency’. The patients too often die in the interval.

Education and medical services including facilities are closely related in failure. Recall the pathetic situation in education especially in public schools. Only 31% pass rate of five credits including Maths and English in 1.8million WAEC students confirming a government failure of 69%. Many of the passes were probably in ‘private sector schools’ the same ones that governments in states and LGAs overtax and harass daily. The pass rate in government schools is probably nearer 20% with that of private schools being probably nearer 60-80%. Government has failed, not the students. Government should ‘thank God’ for private schools boosting its abysmal results. Should the education system nationwide not suspend or sack all its Ministry supervisory staff and all its ‘’16,000+’’ teachers for such an abysmal result which is getting worse in spite of whatever billions of naira boasts by states, UBE and other mega-education bodies and the federal ministry? If doctors had a successful diagnosis, treatment delivery or surgery recovery rate of 31%, they would have been burnt at the stake of public opinion. As treatment for the Government-Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) face off, I recommend a cooling down on both sides. This can best be achieved by a call off or suspension of the strike by the NMA to allow government use a Presidential suspension of the suspension of the Residency Training Programme and Presidential reinstatement of the l6,000 doctors of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD). Nobody wants to be or should be cheated by a government that chooses to pay its politicians salaries outlandish salaries and perks, SAPing the nation and insulting hardworking professionals. Residency is not classroom school lessons; it is hard work, heavy responsibility and years of on-the-job training. Residency was not invented in Nigeria. It is the standard way of training doctors. Anyone who has questions should come and train instead of sitting on the fence and criticising. SANS get SANed by doing their job in court, getting full pay, but sit no other examinations. Specialisation in the medical profession is tightly controlled by the number of vacancies and the pass rate for different examinations is as low as 10% and as high as 50% for a married man or woman 25-40years old. Disgracefully, even newly graduated medical doctors roam the streets for one or two years before being trained for full registration. Maybe Nigeria will next abolish House jobs? Are we not pariah enough in the world without disgracing further our post-graduate training programmes by suspensions which even if overturned tomorrow have already been noted worldwide by medical associations with consequent dismissal of Nigerian medical education and services as third rate? Meanwhile foreign medical tourism will increase.

Questions about Ebola are being asked daily. Why were the initial contacts not isolated individually in separate rooms to protect them from each other and their families instead of this growing circle, a lethal circus of danger to themselves and fellow Nigerians? The idea of sending them home for monitoring was a huge breach of procedure

August 20, 2014
‘Our Girls’; Lagos-Ibadan 9 hrs; ‘No Shaking’, Ebola & ‘Ebata’; Failed ‘Political Class’ of 1999-2014! Osun!

Our Girls’ are still missing since April 15. And now we have girl-child bombers. Are they forced to act under threats to their families or school friends. Where is the world going?

Lagos-Ibadan took five hours last Tuesday morning due to inability of the contractors in providing adequately wide two easily motorable lanes, not ‘one and a half’ during construction work. Simply pouring gravel on holes and over the major muddy areas will keep traffic moving. It took longer – nine hours – last Saturday which is 10 kilometres per hour courtesy of both Convention and Contractor failures. Why must Nigerians suffer extreme torture in order to ‘smile’ to a new expressway?

Today we face Ebola and have ‘No Shaking’, hugging, sneezing or close contact with sick people until Ebola is excluded from the diagnosis. We must add ‘Ebata’ meaning careful with your shoes, especially in unhygienic markets where other people’s urine, faecal matter and other secretions are dispersed freely on the ground and all kinds of ‘water’ including gutter and rain puddle water is used to wash vegetables and keep them looking ‘fresh’. Have you seen the bread hawkers blowing and dusting bread with foam before inserting it into the cellophane bag, and who blows the husks off groundnuts before forcing them into groundnut bottles? How sick is the person in the backroom who sends the child or youth to the market or street?

This is not alarmist but cautionary. The Ebola virus does not live long outside the body and transmission is prevented by simple hand-washing with detergents and antiseptic washes like bleach and soaking suspected clothing in bleach but if two highly trained Americans can get it so can we. ‘Caution, care, cleanliness, contact reduction & cellphone,’ are the watchwords with reduction in physical contacts by increased cellphone use. Gloves and masks are essential if one is in direct contact.

It is now that Nigerians will understand the persistent clamour for adequate sanitation. Toilets are ‘conveniences’ because locked or absent toilets are a crime, not an inconvenience. Running water and toilets are huge factors in preventing Ebola but many more will die ‘unsung and silently’ of ‘common’ typhoid than will ever die of Ebola. Are we not mumu in Nigeria? We shout ‘Ebola’ even though we live and die with typhoid and unsanitary situations everywhere. Foreigners do not die of typhoid any more. Running water and sanitation in schools and offices are not ‘dividends of democracy’ but ‘Demands of Democracy and Civilisation’.

The ‘Citizens/Politicians Charter Or Principle’ is not about good quality contract works, fine public buildings, more well equipped schools, water running everywhere, a clean attractive environments, more tax, better health facilities, better roads, more arrests for out-of-school hawkers or even more toilets. These are subtitles under the general International Political Science heading of ‘Civilisation or Development Agendas’. These ‘achievements’ are not nuclear physics but a United Nations Millennium Development Goals examination or test which Nigerian politicians have repeatedly failed. They have failed all the sloganized ‘For All’ yardsticks in the last 50 years: ‘Housing For All, Food For All, Education For All, Polio Plus For All, 10,000Mw For All’-now just ‘Little or Nothing For All’.

The Citizens/Politicians Charter Or Principle’ is about non-violence and calculating how much is spent in terms of total funds expended on trailer-loads of rice, cooking oil, sewing machines, motorcycles, grinding machines, keke NAPEP, and even ‘free or nearly free’ medical services handed out by First Lady NGOs and politicians and foreign based Nigerian medical ‘Missions’. Except for some of the ‘Medical Mission Outreaches’, every kobo of these services, and equipment comes from the government purse and through contractors forced to ‘be grateful’ and ‘support politicians’. Much of the money used is actual political ‘legalised theft’ masquerading or hidden in the budget as hyper-inflated ‘Salaries and Perks’, SAPing Nigeria dry. The people have learnt to take ‘freebees’ from all parties against the rainy day of ‘democracy draught’.

Calculate how much money is held back by politicians’ ‘Constituency Projects’. People have noticed this accounting anomaly and demand more ‘upfront’. The people have no voice except ‘the vote’, manipulated or not. The method of ‘belly infrastructure’ is not a new creation but merely the mega-manifestation of chronic hunger from political failure. Now ‘Rice is My Price’,’ ‘I Don’t Believe Any Of You’, ‘Hunger Management- Prevention Is Better Than Cure’ or ‘A Bag Of Rice Goes A Long Way’ the manifestation of ‘I-Am-Tired-Of-Waiting’, ‘What Is In It For Me Now, Today?’ The voter is a shareholder ‘selfishly’ or perhaps ‘wisely’ demanding something now as he sees politicians getting richer while he gets poorer.

This apparent greed by the citizens is consequent upon the vicious assault on them by malicious ‘manner-less’ arrogant seizures of wares and motorcycle and vehicle, shop closures, bulldozing of houses, disappearing good and wares -officially confiscated but actually stolen by government officials – and Internally Generated Revenue drives. Add to these maliciously high government charges, four year backdated high rates, for everything exemplified by retired citizens being forced by circumstances to take on tenants to help pay ever-increasing rates and taxes often without a pension paid as and when due.

Congratulations to the State of Osun for the ‘relatively non-violent’ return of Governor Rauf Aregbesola. How ‘pure’ and non-violent were the elections in Ekiti and Osun? Progress at last, perhaps! But should democracy cost so much money, and how much was spent in Osun?

August 13, 2014
Africa as Ebola’s Paradise

Its recent outbreak in some West African countries may not have initially been accorded much attention, but today, as a result of the havoc it has so far created and the ease as well as the rapidity of infection, everybody is now on his toes across the globe. Now, Ebola has suddenly assumed the status of the fastest-growing killer virus in the world. And to affirm this horrible and disturbing status, last Friday, health experts declared the Ebola epidemic an international health emergency that requires a coordinated global approach.

At the moment, Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and lately, Nigeria are battling the deadly virus, which has defied any known cure. So far, the virus is believed to have infected at least 1,779 people, killing 961 or more, thereby making it the worst outbreak in the four-decade history of tracking the disease. According to the World Health Organisation, WHO, “the possible consequences of further international spread are particularly serious in view of the virulence of the virus, the intensive community and health facility transmission patterns, and the weak health systems in the currently affected and most at-risk countries”.

The history of the disease is well known. Unfortunately, since it was first recognized in 1976, all the 18 outbreaks so far recorded occurred in Africa alone. Ebola may be a native of Africa but now the virus is threatening to go global and, by declaring it an international public health emergency, it shows how seriously WHO is taking the current outbreak. But tough statements, definitely, won’t save lives. Perhaps, what should really worry all of us now as the battle against the virus rages, are the words of Peter Piot, the scientific adventurer who discovered the virus: “We shouldn’t forget that this is a disease of poverty, of dysfunctional health systems and of distrust”.

In 1976, Piot, a 27-year-old medical school graduate training as a clinical microbiologist, undertook a voyage of discovery to the then Zaire, where, out of sheer determination, he ventured into the thick forest in one of the remotest areas of the country and unearthed the disease. Piot is now 65 years old. It’s been 38 years since the first outbreak and the world is now experiencing its worst Ebola epidemic ever. At the last count, the disease has reared its ugly head in four West African countries of Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. Out of these, Nigeria has been least affected, recording fewer deaths. Unlike in the past when the outbreak is confined to only one country, the current situation is unprecedented as the spread of the disease across four countries is making it more complicated to deal with than ever before.

As Piot rightly observed and I agree with him, “this is a disease of poverty, of dysfunctional health systems and of distrust”. The current Ebola’s spread in West Africa is a reminder of the vast development needs that persist in some of the region’s poorest countries despite claim to rapid economic growth and investment. The vast majority of Africans live miserably in slums and squalor. Africa faces endemic poverty, food insecurity and pervasive underdevelopment, with almost all the countries lacking the human, economic and institutional capacities to effectively develop and manage their water resources sustainably. As a result of this, a large number of countries on the continent still face huge challenge in attempting to achieve the United Nations water-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Although the crucial role of water in accomplishing the continent’s development goals is widely recognized, various governments on the African continent seem not to be moved by the appalling living standard of their people both in the urban and rural areas. Thus, clean water becomes a scarce commodity.

Besides, Sub-Saharan Africa is the world’s poorest and least developed region, with half its population living on less than a dollar a day. About two-thirds of its countries rank among the lowest in the Human Development Index. A recent report by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, UNDESA, gave an analysis of data from 35 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, representing 84% of the region’s population, showing significant differences between the poorest and richest fifths of the population in both rural and urban areas. According to the report, “over 90% of the richest quintile in urban areas use improved water sources, and over 60% have piped water on premises. In rural areas, piped-in water is non-existent in the poorest 40% of households, and less than half of the population use any form of improved source of water”.

The report stated that despite efforts and approaches to extend and sustain water, sanitation and hygiene systems and services continue to suffer leading to different health complications in Africa as a whole, especially Sub-Saharan Africa, thereby causing avoidable deaths. “The water and sanitation position in West/Central Africa is of particular urgency, as the region has the highest under-five mortality rate of all developing regions: 191 child deaths per 1,000 live births”. This is underscored by recurrent outbreaks of cholera in both urban and rural areas, a situation that equally underlines the poor state of this region’s basic living conditions. This is a serious concern because of the associated massive health burden, as many people who lack basic sanitation engage in unsanitary activities like poor solid waste and waste water disposal, open defecation and other dirty habits. The practice of open defecation that is rampant in Africa is widely believed to be the primary cause of faecal oral transmission of disease with children being the most vulnerable.

As if all these are not enough, there is also rapid and almost uncontrollable population growth and rural-urban migration. Despite the efforts of some Sub-Saharan African countries and cities to expand basic services and improve urban housing conditions, rapid and unplanned urban growth has increased the number of settlements on unstable, disaster-prone and high-risk land where diseases and other phenomena disasters with devastating consequences are prevalent. Among developing regions, Sub-Saharan Africa is estimated to have the highest prevalence of urban slums and it is expected to double to around 400 million by 2020. Again, this rising population is driving demand for water and accelerating the degradation of water resources in many countries on the continent.

Africa has joined India and China as the third region of the world to reach a population of one billion people, and it is expected to double this by 2050, the UN says. By then, there will be three times as many people living in Africa’s cities, and the continent that had fewer than 500,000 urban dwellers in 1950 may have 1.3 billion. The breakneck transformation of a rural population into a predominantly urban one is neither good nor bad on its own, but the issue is that African countries should plan their cities better, to avoid mega-slums and vast areas of deprivation developing across the continent. This is because, in most slums in Africa, basic amenities like potable water, quick disposal of garbage, sanitation facilities and toilets are not available. People in slums face many battles. Besides poverty, the health situation is very bad. Since slums are considered illegal, the government feels no obligation to provide water and proper sanitation to slum dwellers. This high density and over-population means viruses and diseases can spread easily and cause epidemics. And when people are ill, there are not enough health services, doctors, nurses and medicines available for them, or even if these are available, people often lack the money to pay.

The sickening living conditions in many African countries may not have attracted much attention from the global community all this while. However, the ravaging Ebola virus that is currently knocking at the doorstep of everybody has, once more, forced global attention on Africa. With the experience of Nigeria, where a Patrick Sawyer, an American-Liberian diplomat, imported Ebola into the country from Liberia, the whole world has suddenly woken up from slumber to the stark reality that the entire global community is at the risk of contacting the deadly virus. What this calls for is the need for global cooperation and strategy to combat the recalcitrant disease. Not rhetoric. Not empty promises!

August 13, 2014
Addressing Abuja’s infrastructure challenge
Truly, before any settlement, town or community could be termed developed, such must have a surfeit of infrastructural facilities in place. Putting the same issue in different words, a city devoid of infrastructure is like a king without a crown. This explains why experts have identified infrastructure deficit as a major constraint to Nigeria’s development. So, to address this problem, successive governments had introduced various policies aimed at bridging the gap.

That is the case with the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), where the administration of Senator Bala Mohammed has been working assiduously since 2010 to provide basic infrastructure for the territory. These projects have in turn created employment opportunities for thousands of Nigerians.

The world over, infrastructure projects are by their nature, social investments, especially in developing climes like ours. That is why the World Bank’s estimate that African governments face infrastructure investment deficit of $93billion annually calls for serious concern from all and sundry.

To resolve this issue, some stakeholders have canvassed for a speedy passage of the “Development Planning and Project Continuity Bill” currently before the National Assembly, which would make it mandatory for every government in Nigeria to continue the implementation of projects initiated by the past administration(s).

When passed into law, the Bill would also make development planning compulsory for all tiers of government in Nigeria as a means of creating coherence and measurable targets in developmental initiatives by all governments, to facilitate the expeditious achievement of the goals set out by government.

In the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the Bala Mohammed-led administration has been working round-the-clock to provide roads, bridges, sewages, potable water, housing, schools and hospitals for both indigenes and residents of the nation’s capital city. In this regard, the entire FCT has been divided into districts, which have also been grouped into development phases to wit: Phases 1 to 4. These are to make provision of these essential facilities easier, orderly and faster.

Phase 1 has all the districts with the exception of Guzape fully developed with infrastructure. The districts include: Asokoro (Cadastral Zone A04); Central Business (Cadastral A04); Garki 1 District (Cadastral Zone A03), Guzape Cadastral Zone A09); Maitama District (Cadastral Zone A05 and AO6); Wuse District (Cadastral Zone AO3) and Wuse 11 District (Cadastral Zone AO3).

Similarly, Phase 2, which has most of the districts developed include: Durumi, Utako, Jabi, Wuye, Kado, Mabuchi, Katampe (& Katampe Ext), Jahi, Dakibiya, Kaura, Duboyi, Gaduwa and Dutse.

Phase 3 has Gwarimpa, Galadima, Dakwo, Lokogoma, Wumba, Saraji, Kabusa, Okanji, Pyakasa, Nbora and Karma.

While phase 4 district, which is still being developed include: Karsana, Sabon gida, Idu, Idogwari, Kaba, Kajini, Ketti, Shertti Cheche, Waru-Pouma, Gwari, Bude, Chafe, Jaite, Mamusa, Burum and Purfun.

Above all, there are suburban districts. These are districts that are not within the Federal Capital City (FCC), but because of their proximity to the FCC, have attracted some development, with thousands of those who work in the FCC residing there. These include: Kubwa, Gwagawalada, Karu, Jikwoyi, Lugbe, Chika, Kuchigworo, Mpape and Dei-Dei.

Apart from tackling the problematic issue of land racketeering, the Abuja Light rail and the Abuja-Kaduna railway projects (Lots 1A and 3) embarked upon by the incumbent FCT administration is expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2015, which will transport a total of 700,000 passengers daily. While these projects are equally expected to create thousands of business opportunities, plans for mono-rail project have reached an advanced stage.

Provision of engineering infrastructure worth N61,194,747,645.00 through Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) for Katampe District is currently on-going, while that of Kagini 1 District is estimated at N52,609,879,284.47 and Maitama Extension District expected to gulp N23,650,000,000. These massive projects will provide 70,000 kilometres of road network of diverse categories, including bridges, culverts, drainage systems, water, sewage, electricity and communication facilities.

To actualize this vision, the FCTA has entered into series of agreements with Infrastructure Concession and Regulatory Commission (ICRC), an agency of the federal government set up to boost investment in infrastructure by the private sector through PPP.

It is a well known fact that the concept of PPP in the provision of social infrastructure is all about leveraging the capacity and the skill, nay efficiency of the private sector to enhance delivery of social services such as education, health, shelter and security.

A lot has equally been achieved in the area of provision of potable water with the recent commissioning of completed work on Tanks 1 and 6 with 40,000 cubic centimeters storage capacity; reconstruction and expansion of the country’s most modern 10-lane multiple carriage super-highways: the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua (Airport Road) expressway; the Outer Northern (Murtala Mohammed) Expressway otherwise known as the Zuba/Kubwa/City Centre highway as well as the dualization of the Nyanya-Abuja Expressway.

In the same vein, several major inter-changes at AYA; Banex-Jahi/Mabushi link; Gwarimpa 11 Junction-Kado/Life Camp Junction; Karmo/Utako have been completed and commissioned by President Goodluck Jonathan.

To extend development to satellite towns, the administration, following the approval of the president, has re-established the FCT Satellite Towns Development Agency (STDA). With this agency as handmaiden, the administration has extended its Midas touch to the satellite towns.

Strenuous efforts of the administration has led to the attraction of over $20billion investments in Abuja; and in a drive to make the city the preferred investment destination in Africa, a 37-storey World Trade Centre, estimated at $1.2billion is being built at the Bakassi Market under PPP arrangement with Churchgate Group.

The most audacious policy of the FCT administration is the land swap policy premised at ceding lands to private investors in lieu of provision of critical infrastructure for Abuja city centre and adjoining districts and satellite towns. Now doubt, if the current efforts are sustained, Abuja will certainly become one of the most developed capital cities in the world in the foreseeable future.
- Ochela is an Abuja-based media consultant.
August 13, 2014
Nigeria’s power problem
The NEPA people came the other day. Actually, their official name has changed, but NEPA — an acronym for the utility formally known as the National Electric Power Authority — is easier to say and jibes so well with our expectations: Never Expect Power Always.

Though the organisation is now called the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, the new name doesn’t work as an acronym, though its initials, P.H.C.N., are popularly agreed to stand for: Problem Has Changed Name.

I had been expecting them. They come about once a month, a van containing a crew of four or five guys, going from house to house, ready to cut off your power if you lack proof that your payments are up to date — and turn it back on for an $8 reconnection fee, or any reasonable under-the-table amount. Alas, I was in arrears.

I owed several months for the electricity they had barely been providing. Even though about 85 percent of Nigeria’s urban areas and 30 percent of rural areas are on the power grid — the result of years of government monopoly and its attendant corruption — the supply is intermittent at best. I’ve been getting about three hours a day, if lucky, and even then rarely at a stretch. Sometimes you don’t get any power for three or four days. Like many people here, I rely on a private generator to bridge the gaps.

Things were supposed to get better since the government announced with great fanfare (almost a year ago now) that it had privatized the power-distribution network. But one didn’t need to be an engineer to understand that decades of neglect, in this as in other areas of national life, can hardly be fixed in a few months.

It’s difficult for nonprofessionals to work out the complicated structures involved, but generally speaking the government now generates electricity and private companies distribute it. These companies tend to be much more aggressive than the government had been because they need to repay bank loans and recoup other start-up costs. Their employees, like all workers in Nigeria, are paid very poorly. It is therefore understood that a man must augment his income any way he can.

The affable crew boss who confronted me was sincerely understanding as I explained to him how my problem had begun six months ago, when my monthly bill jumped from $30 to nearly $185. But arguing was pointless. After my power was cut, pending payment of past bills and the reconnection fee, he suggested that perhaps it would be best for me to go state my case at my local P.H.C.N. office. I should have known better.

The official I was directed to wait for was calm, considering the confusion and mass irritation swirling around him. When my turn finally came, he looked over my latest bill, frowned, and began to tap away on his keyboard. Finally, he looked up at me and explained that my previous bills had been too low; they had been adjusted upward based upon estimates of my power consumption.

In any case, he added, my meter was obsolete. I tried to explain that my meter still functioned, but he cut me short, demanding to know why I hadn’t applied for one of the new prepayment cards, which deduct money automatically as electricity is used. I explained I had been told that none were available — to put my name on a waiting list. (Payment cards may be more efficient, but they offer less opportunity for the state to collect cash payments, or impose fines.) He shrugged and called the next customer.

I decided to take my case up a notch. But the senior manager I appealed to at the head office the next day shook his head. There was nothing he could do but demand payment in full. However, he added, I was in luck. The card meter was now available. For “just” $275, and they could fix one for me — after I had settled the outstanding bill.

So now I was looking at fees of around $525. I went home and discussed the problem with my wife, but in truth there was nothing to discuss and we both knew it. We already paid $215 a month to run our generator, which is not powerful enough to draw water from the well I had dug when the state water authority, equally comatose, finally stopped supplying us many years ago.

To say that this couldn’t have happened at a worse time assumes that there is ever a good time to be hit with an outrageous bill. We had just embarked on major renovations, and a newspaper that had hired me to write a weekly column suddenly and without explanation stopped paying.

Then there was always “the Nigerian factor,” which is to say the uncertainties of life in a country where even the power of the government itself is something of a fiction. This is most obviously demonstrated by the fact that none of the more than 200 schoolgirls who were abducted over three months ago by Boko Haram terrorists have been rescued (although a few of them managed to escape).

So time passed, the next monthly bill appeared, and hard on its heels came the men with their ladders to disconnect defaulters.

This time I fudged the truth, explaining that I had met with the senior manager, and that we had worked out a payment plan. No use. They cut the power line to my house.

I went to my local office and paid something on account, and got a stern warning to settle up once and for all as quickly as possible — or else.

And yet, even as I write this, I’m not as perturbed as perhaps I should be. Cutting corners has become a way of life for all Nigerians, great and small. We don’t expect anything better, which is why we are so quiescent under conditions that should ordinarily make people rise up and say, enough is enough.

But power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and, in their own small way, so do power shortages.
- Maja-Pearce is a writer and critic, and the author of “Remembering Ken Saro-Wiwa, and Other Essays.” First published by New York Times of August 7
August 13, 2014
Osun 2014: For Aregbesola it’s a goal
I believe that all men and women of peace should commend the present administration in Osun for the far-reaching development programmes it has initiated for the benefits of our people. It is our duty to see to it, that these positive programmes succeed and the momentum maintained. Our people should commit themselves to this noble cause. What others could not do during their tenure, Aregbesola has done in three and half years of coming into office, very prudently and transparently.

Indeed, anything is possible if we have faith, the will and heart. I know we all have the will to play our parts in this campaign for accelerated development in Osun State. I know we have faith in the present regime and we have the hearts to face the challenges ahead. Our people are urged to support this administration’s laudable programmes of economic reconstruction, social justice, unity and religious tolerance that will guarantee our present happiness and future prosperity. Test of faith can only be ascertained by God Almighty, in whose hands are the sovereignty of heaven and earth.

The cause of Aregbesola’s regime is the cause of the common people and the less privileged members of society – the villagers, the labourers, farmers and those millions of unemployed. It is a cause that compels serious attention and commitment.

Let the politicians pledge, that they will not misuse the trust and responsibility that are thrust upon them by the people. Let them pledge, that they will speak for those who have no voice, and to remember those who are forgotten. Let them pledge that they will love us as themselves and that looting of public treasuries will not be their major preoccupations. Let them remember accountability before God Almighty, on the day that all would be assembled before Him.

The challenges for the electorate is to give voices and votes to people of integrity and for those fundamental democratic principles of human freedom, free economic enterprises, self respect and accountability.

Indeed, Aregbesola’s regime has offered us new hope; new hope of gainful employment and self respect for those thousands of our school-leavers, graduates-skilled and unskilled through O’YES. New hope of economic recovery through the dedicated pursuit of individual and collective approach to agrarian revolution and small-scale industrialization through O’REAP. New hope of good quality of life for the rural populace through the faithful execution of populist-oriented programmes, like the DAGBOLU scheme, through O’HUB.

Socially, we must build bridges of understanding. And economically, we must narrow the wide gap between the rich and the poor, if we want peace and stability in this country. Indeed, we stand at a great turning point, when Osun State and indeed Nigeria is looking for a new direction, through a second term for Aregbesola and an APC federally-controlled government.

A time like this calls for leadership like Aregbesola that can set a firm focus and positive vision for the future and rally the people of Osun behind it. We thank God that at this point in time in Osun State, we have such leader in the person of Governor Rauf Aregbesola. Let me commend all his good efforts toward ensuring progress in the state since he took charge. However, the governor himself must continue to reinforce the attributes of good leadership with which he is already identified and make more use of home-grown people to man key positions in his second term in office.

The school merger programme by the government should be vigorously pursued, possibly with modifications. The structures being put in place are of world standard and a legacy that will outlive Aregbesola. I am impressed that the various sites demolished are now being beautified with walkways. Definitely, we need to embrace modernity in all aspects of our life, though no changes come about without temporary pains. Only change is permanent.

Aregbesola government has been listening not only to the clamorous voices of the privileged few and those at the corridor of power, but also the hardly audible voices of the proverbial silent majority.

The governor has declared that his administration does not presume to have a monopoly of knowledge. He has brought ‘dissenters’ into policy discussions, rather than freeze them out. He has invited constructive criticism, because he believes the critics have a right to be heard. We should realize that the lamps of enlightenment are lit by the spark of controversy and that their flame can be snuffed out by the blanket of consensus.

In this regard, we must concede, that out experience between 2003 and 2010 was not particularly edifying. We saw hatred and sorrow on our faces waiting for love and happiness. We saw families divided against themselves waiting to be brought together again. To find answers to all these unwholesome acts, we must look within ourselves. Let us forget the past and come together to build this state, for nobody else can do it for us because it belongs to all of us. We must close all sullen pages and open a new chapter.

Let us give unalloyed support to Aregbesola, so that those who were left out in the cold in those years of inaction, could be accommodated for positive contributions. Let us know that we cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another; until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.

Let us remember that if we succeed, generations to come will say of us now living, that we mastered our moment. That we helped to make Osun safe and prosperous to live in. This is our summon to greatness. Let us pray that strength and courage abundant be given to us; that the good that lies in each of our hearts may day by day be magnified. That we may come to see more clearly not what divides us, but that which unites us. That the true spirit of this time – its joy, its hopes and above all its binding faith may live among us. Osun State must always be many steps ahead of others.

We must build a virile state and improve the standard of living of our people, because the worth of a nation is the worth of the men and women in it. We must not lose hope, for in ashes there can still be spark. For as the passage in one of the Shakespeare works put it “there is a tide in the affairs of men which taken in time leads to good fortune.” We must not allow this golden opportunity to slip by.

The prelude to August 9 governorship election should be devoid of violence and acrimony in whatever form. We should know, that our leaders can only govern over the living. Both APC and PDP should call their supporters to order, as there is no cause to make the forthcoming election, a matter of do or die.

Aregbesola is working. Osun is progressing. For Aregbesola, it is a goal scored in a grand style, after an epic and protracted play against concerted forces of fate.
- Lawal writes from Ede, Osun State
August 6, 2014
Al-Makura’s Impeachment Debacle

Everywhere across the political landscape, the impeachment stuff has become a sort of epidemic or another version of Ebola virus that has so far defied any known cure. One of the governors now in the throes of impeachment is Umar Tanko Al-Makura of Nasarawa State. But a theatre of the absurd is now playing out there. The 20 PDP members in the state House of Assembly, who are the brains behind the impeachment drive, are not comfortable with the composition of the seven-man panel set-up by the Chief Judge of the state to investigate the governor. They are, therefore, calling for a recomposition of the panel. In the alternative, they have warned that the report of the panel as presently constituted will only be good for the dustbin. If that happens, a new dimension would have been introduced into the roiling impeachment saga now blowing across the country.

The 1999 Constitution of Nigeria has laid down procedures for appointment and removal of governors of every state in the country. These provisions of the Constitution are sacrosanct and must be followed strictly. Sections 188 and 189 of the 1999 Constitution provide the only acceptable procedures for removal, or more commonly termed “impeachment”, of a sitting Governor. Section 188 lays down procedure for possible removal of a governor on grounds of “Gross Misconduct” while Section 189 gives the procedure for possible removal where a governor is alleged to be permanently incapable of holding office on health grounds – mental or physical health. However, the case in issue here is bordered on Section 188 of the 1999 Constitution.

Now, the Nasarawa State House of Assembly recently set in motion the procedure in Section 188. So far, the procedure has been caught up in legal and political controversy. In a strictly legal sense, there are genuine points for debate which may have no easy answers as the matter stands. First, there are allegations that the State House of Assembly did not serve the notice of impeachment on the governor as provided in Sub-section 2 of Section 188. The legal implication of this is difficult to ascertain as Sub-section 10 of Section 188 seems to preclude contesting any matter relating to impeachment proceedings of the House of Assembly before any court, even though non service of the impeachment notice would be a violation of the constitutional provisions of section 188, if indeed no notice was served on the Governor.

Secondly, there is the question of whether the State House of Assembly can direct the Chief Judge of the state to disband the panel constituted to investigate the allegations. That only the Chief Judge has the power to set up the panel is without doubt. The immediate question here is, did the Chief Judge adhere to the provisions of sub-section (5) of Section 188 in appointing members of the panel, particularly the requirement that they must not be “members of any public service, legislative house or political party”? If any of them indeed falls in any of these categories, then the panel is illegally constituted; but can the House of Assembly direct the Chief Judge to disband the panel? Certainly not. This particular point, of the legality or otherwise of the constituted panel is justiciable and can only be determined in a court of law and not by the decision of the State House of Assembly. Added to this, the holding of a session out of the chambers and out of the state by the lawmakers is an absurdity unknown to Nigerian laws. Although the constitution contains no express provisions for venue of a state House of Assembly session, it is ludicrous to assume that such can be held in the private house of a member, outside the state or even in a beer parlour as some of these reckless assemblymen might want to do.

In the midst of the brewing accusations and counter-accusations, we should not forget what the intention of the draftsmen of the 1999 Constitution was in apportioning a critical role for the Chief Judge of the state in the middle of an otherwise fully legislative procedure. That particular provision was inserted purely following the principle of checks and balances, a practice that ensures that no arm of government has a free reign or monopoly of power in performing its functions. This is why certain executive decisions are subject to the confirmation of the Senate for instance (and vice-versa) and why the Judicial Review and the likes of the writ of Mandamus and Habeas Corpus, amongst others, are available to the judiciary to curb excesses by officials in other arms of government.

The principle of checks and balances is a complement to the principle of separation of powers which ensures that division of powers is no licence for one arm to use its powers arbitrarily. The Chief Judge whose role in the impeachment process is to check and balance the powers of the legislature must, in turn, ensure that his function is performed judicially and judiciously in line with constitutional procedures. It is no surprise that the Nigerian Government in successive administrations has rubbished these sacred principles expounded by renowned scholar, Baron De Montesquieu, in the Eighteenth Century.

It is obvious from the surrounding circumstances that the constitutional procedure laid down in Section 188 and sacred constitutional principles are being overshadowed by cheap politicking and selfish interests from all quarters. If, indeed, the impeachment notice was not served, despite coming after the Nyako saga, then the proceedings have been tainted from the very beginning by disregard for legal procedure. That means that something dangerous is pervading the entire gamut of our polity as the rule of law is continually shoved aside to make way for political agendas. And everybody is a victim of the disrespect for the law, including the probably “unsuspecting perpetrators” themselves. The spine of the law is not just in sanctions but in people’s adherence to it and the impulse of everyone at all levels to obey. A lawless state is a throwback to the dark days of the human race, and selective application of the law is a worse evil to an organised society. The House of Assembly and the Chief Judge cannot feign ignorance of laws that are so directly applicable to their normal course of duties. Their non-adherence, if true, can only be considered an affront to the law and against the people.

The drama that is currently playing out in Nasarawa State is a pointer to the fact that most of this impeachment nonsense all over the place is designed to get rid of political opponents at all costs. In the past, we had witnessed a situation where a handful of legislators who are not even up to one-third of the House of Assembly have ganged up to remove their governors. In many cases, this is done for pecuniary gains. And now it is as if history is repeating itself. I am sure a lot of right-thinking Nigerians, irrespective of ethnic, tribal or political differences, are amazed by this sad development in the polity. The truth is that this thing is predominant in opposition-controlled houses of assembly all over the place.

What this current gale of impeachment signposts is that our dubious politicians, ever so cunning and diabolical in political permutations, have discovered new tricks to wrestle political power from their opponents without necessarily going through the ballot box. As it is, impeachment is now a shortcut to power. It is in this vein that our politicians, especially at the legislative arm of government, have introduced new dimensions into the exercise of the power of impeachment. This power is being grossly abused as it is now being exercised, not necessarily as a panacea for gross misconduct, but simply to settle political scores. The opposition of the House members to the composition of the investigative panel and their threat to dump the report has exposed the shenanigan and hitherto hidden agenda of the legislators and their paymasters. That agenda is to nail Al-Makura at all costs. If this unwholesome practice is allowed to fester, it is our democracy that will suffer, albeit, irreparable damage.

August 6, 2014
History and moral of constitution making in Nigeria

Next Monday, the National Conference will reconvene for the final consideration and signing of its report. The prospect that the conference will have a happy ending looks rather bleak. And the reason is the same old one that has marred virtually every constitutional conference in the country since 1966; a dubious hidden agenda of self-service by the conveners.

When President Goodluck Jonathan made a U-turn from his long-held rejection of a constitutional conference and suddenly announced early this year that he would convene one, there were widespread scepticisms, even cynicism, about his decision. Many, including this reporter, concluded it was to divert public attention away from his dismal performance and, at the same time, execute a Machiavellian sectional and self-succession agenda against the foreground of next year’s presidential election.

Once again, it seemed the lesson that no such hidden agenda has succeeded since 1966 when the country’s first military regime sought to perpetuate itself, has been lost on those in power.

Back in 1966, the first military Head of State, Maj.-Gen. JTU Aguiyi-Ironsi, set up a Constitutional Study Group under the late Chief Rotimi “The Law” Williams barely a month after he came to power in January. However, even before the panel could settle down to study anything, the general took the unwise advice of a power-hungry cabal he had surrounded himself with and promulgated the Unification Decree in May, which turned the country into a unitary state under his jackboots. This led to his overthrow and assassination in July.

Col. Yakubu Gowon, who took over, set up an Ad Hoc Conference on Constitutional Proposals, essentially to manage the crisis of his succession in the face of strong objections from Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the military governor of Eastern Nigeria, who was nominally his senior. The conference ended in a fiasco in Aburi, Ghana, with each side accusing the other of bad faith in implementing its decisions.

The disagreement eventually led to a three-year civil war that ended in 1970. After that Gowon announced he would end military rule in 1976. He changed his mind in 1974 when he not only said in the year’s Independence Day broadcast on October 1 that 1976 was “unrealistic”. He also failed to give a new date that was realistic.

This led to his overthrow in July 1975. In his first Independence Day broadcast on October 1, the new Head of State, Brig. Murtala Mohammed, announced a five-item, four-year transition programme, the central pillar of which was a new constitution for the country. In February 1976, some disgruntled elements in the Army tried to overthrow his regime but failed. However, they succeeded in assassinating him.

Despite this assassination, the new regime headed by Lt.-Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo kept faith with Gen. Mohammed’s transition programme and ended 13 years of military rule by handing over power to civilians on October 1, 1979. However, this was not before it had executed its own agenda of changing the country’s constitution from the parliamentary model bequeathed to it by its British colonial masters to an American-type presidential model in which the centre became all-powerful.

The wisdom of this change, intended to check the country’s old centrifugal tendencies, has since become debatable. As Prof. Ben Nwabueze, SAN, the country’s foremost constitutional lawyer, who also played a central role in drafting the 1979 Constitution said in a recent interview in Sunday Vanguard (March 20), this change seems to have led to the exact opposite of the framers’ good intentions.

“We took 50 per cent of the concurrent list of matters (in the old constitution) and merged them to the exclusive list,” he said. “We also went to the residual matters, took almost 50 per cent and put it in the exclusive list. We took so many other things…It turned out that putting so much power at the centre was an invitation to disunity…The struggle for control of the centre with all that power led to disunity.”

Whether the change was wise or not, the new presidential system under President Shehu Shagari lasted only 51 months. His ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN) boasted that there were only two parties in the country; NPN and the military. Meaning, it could never lose any election to its civilian opposition. It went on to gratuitously rig the 1983 election – chances then were that it could still have won fair and square – so massively the military felt compelled to pick up its gauntlet as the only opposition party and threw it out on December 31, 1983, barely three months into its second term.

The regime of Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, which took over from Shagari, said initially that a return to civil rule was not its priority. Less than two years after he came to power, he was overthrown by his army chief, Maj.-Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, in a bloodless palace coup in August 1985.

Babangida, in turn, ran the longest transition programme in the country’s history and in the end was forced to “step aside” in August 1993, leaving behind his army chief, Gen. Sani Abacha, ostensibly to back up the interim government of Chief Ernest Shonekan he had cobbled together to remedy the huge constitutional crisis his inexplicable cancellation of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, apparently won by Chief MKO Abiola, had created.

Instead of backing up Shonekan, Abacha obliged very convenient calls from several so-called progressives for the overthrow of what they dubbed Babangida’s “contraption”, and sent the former UAC mogul packing in November 1993. But rather than hand over power to Abiola, as the “progressives” foolishly believed he would, the man predictably kept the power to himself.

Five years after he overthrew Shonekan, the man tried to perpetuate himself by swapping his khaki for mufti through a political sleight of hand in which all the five parties his electoral commission had registered in the course of his transition programme, nominated him as their presidential candidate. However, before any election could hold, the man died a mysterious death.

He was succeeded by his Chief of Defence Staff, Lt.-Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, who, ironically, he had pencilled down for sack on the day he (Abubakar) became the head of state. Wisely, the new head of state refrained from stretching his luck and ran the shortest transition programme in the country’s history, lasting only 11 months; dutifully he handed over power on May 29, 1999 to a civilianised Gen. Obasanjo after he was pardoned for his conviction over a coup attempt against Abacha for which he served several years of a life sentence commuted from death sentence, and after he had won the presidential ticket of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which was essentially a two-horse race against Shagari’s deputy, Dr. Alex Ekwueme.

Obasanjo served out his two terms of four years each, but soon forgot the lesson of his regime’s good faith during his first outing as the military head of state in 1976; he sought a third term half way through his second. Not only that, reminiscent of NPN’s boast during the Second Republic, his party said it would rule Nigeria for the next 50 years, if not forever.

Obasanjo’s third term agenda failed so miserably that today virtually all those who aided and abetted him have been denouncing him. Surprisingly (?) the loudest denunciation has come from his one-time Minister of Information and Political Adviser, Prof. Jerry Gana, a permanent resident in the country’s corridors of power.

His former principal’s Constitutional Conference of 2005 came to grief, Gana said in an interview in Daily Sun (April 16), because the man was “greedy”! “I was,” he said, “the political adviser at the time and I happened to be one of the conveners…But just because of the issue of third term, which was not part of what we recommended, Obasanjo abandoned the whole thing. It was irresponsible, it was not proper, it was unfair…It was painful; it was an act of greed.”

This, Gana said in the interview, which I am not aware he has repudiated, was something President Jonathan has assured Nigerians he would not contemplate with his own National Conference. “This president,” he said, “has said no Nigerian must come back and do this again. He told us…by the Grace of God this time round your recommendations will be implemented.”

Gana is not alone among President Jonathan’s men who say they believe in his good faith. Senator Femi Okurounmu, hitherto a champion of Sovereign National Conference and chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee which recommended the shape and circumscribed terms of reference of the current National Conference, is another.

“I think,” he said in an interview in the New Telegraph (March 17), “this administration, in all fairness, has tried to show it has no hidden agenda and I can say that as the chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee on National Conference that if the government has a hidden agenda, I would be privy to it.”

As we all now know, the newspapers have since given the lie, a big, big lie, to repeated denials by the president’s men that he had no hidden agenda in convening his own National Conference. A 102-page document with presidential imprimatur written all over it, has since surfaced at the conference purporting to be the “Terms of Agreement of the Six Geo-political Zones in Nigeria.” This was reminiscent of the document Obasanjo’s men tried unsuccessfully to sneak into his 2005 conference in order to give him a third term.

As with Obasanjo’s document, this one too has come with malicious intent towards one section of the country. It also contained the six-year, single-term tenure we all know is so very dear to our president.

If I have bored you with this longish recap of the history of constitution making in the country since 1966, I am terribly sorry. But I thought the recap was necessary to make its moral apparent; virtually every constitutional conference in this country has come with a hidden agenda by its convener and virtually all of them have come to grief.

I have no doubt in my mind that as members of the current one reconvene next Monday, this too shall come to pass because it too was never convened in good faith.

August 6, 2014
Ribadu: Beautiful bride courted by all
An African proverb says that when a woman is exceptionally beautiful, she attracts the eyes of several suitors, and it is that suitor who possesses the most panache and material disposition that might win her heart. There comes a time in the life of a man when his ability and pedigree present scintillating attributes too good to resist by all and sundry.

This appears to be presently true of Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, the former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), who is currently being eyed by the two dominant political parties in Nigeria, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressive Congress (APC), both trying to draft him to their sides as the race to occupy the seat of the Government House in Yola, Adamawa State, becomes more intense.

Ribadu, the former presidential candidate on the platform of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), would certainly be the man to beat if he enters into the race under whatever platform to clinch the Adamawa governor’s seat vacated by the sacked governor Murtala Nyako for obvious reasons.

Among the deluge of attributes that make Ribadu tick, as the most sought after politician in the state at the moment, are his courage and drive. It is also the misfortune of Adamawa of not being lucky with good administration that makes the yearning for Ribadu even more deepening. To most people, he represents the needed new lease of life the state needs at this time.

He gained prominence during his heydays as the anti- corruption czar during the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. The fear of Ribadu was palpable as he bestrode the length and breadth of the nation catching corrupt politicians, businessmen, internet scammers, advance fee fraudsters and a wide range of financial fraudsters and sending them to face prosecution.

During Ribadu’s time at the EFCC, the haven of fraudsters was methodically dismantled, the politicians who stuck their filthy fingers on the treasury, were hammered into submission. He was effective as he was consistent.

Despite the calculated attempt to slant his war against corruption as a witch-hunt by some disgraced elements in the country, the distinguished lawyer proved to all who cared that the war was logical and anchored on transparency, with enormous empirical validity.

His ability helped to launder the image of Nigeria then heavily trapped in the opprobrium of corruption among the comity of nations. The international community recognized his unprecedented efforts in fighting corruption in Nigeria such that he became a household name. He also bagged several domestic and international awards.

Even though his efforts were fraught with risks as most of the thieves in the country are known to be very dangerous elements, who could easily connive to take him out, he yet continued the dogged fight. The amount of money he saved for the country ran into billions of naira and Ribadu, despite having an opportunity to enrich himself, chose transparency and left office without any trail of corruption till this day.

It is not surprising that Ribadu had to enjoy these impressive credentials because if he had enriched himself with illicit funds, those who he brought down during his reign as the anti-corruption chief, would have mobilized their strength and financial power to hunt him. But he left no one in doubts with his honesty, integrity and a shining example of excellence.

It is these startling qualities of the man that are now his greatest assets as he joins the bid for Adamawa governorship. For a state that suffered corruption hemorrhage for a very long time, the people are no longer trapped in the blind following of political parties, but rather their concern now is on individuals who can clean the malfeasance of yester-years and re-direct the country unto a fresh path of progress. This is what the people see in Nuhu Ribadu.

For the APC, the ultimate choice, if they were to provide a credible person that can give the dominant PDP run for its money, it would have to be Ribadu. The APC is on the verge of being silenced in the state and they recognize the strategic political asset Ribadu would be for the APC in their quest to bounce back from the brink.

The ousted governor, Nyako, tried to transpose the political fortunes of the state to the lap of the APC, yet lacked the tact and prudence to pursue such initiatives. His shortsightedness and some proportion of arrogance cost the party what may have been an opportunity. Now they are desperate to snatch power back from the PDP hawks, who have taken over.

The top rank of the APC hierarchy led by its chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, are said to be working to convince Ribadu, who was presidential candidate of the ACN, one of the components that formed the APC.

For the Peoples Democratic Party PDP, they are struggling to have Ribadu as their flag bearer in the forthcoming governorship election in Adamawa state because of the aforementioned qualities. For the PDP Ribadu’s popularity, integrity and his influence will be a big asset to the party. He therefore stands a great chance to pick the PDP ticket once he makes up his mind to run under the platform.

Apart from his high moral disposition, Ribadu is also a powerful force in terms of articulation of ideas; he is equally gifted in recruiting the best brains to drive such ideas. As a politician, Ribadu is a smooth operator who is not disposed to the flamboyance and unnecessary aimless public statements.

At the moment the sad situation which led to the impeachment and removal from office of the former governor, Nyako, caused some ripples in the political equation of the state. But it presents yet immense opportunities to restore the requisite values to the state and move it forward.

Ribadu’s emergence in the state as the PDP candidate will further strengthen the hands of the party as they strategize for the 2015 elections. Already the PDP enjoys the majority in the state assembly as well as other facets.

It is only Ribadu that can give the PDP the edge they are looking for to neutralize the threat of the APC, which now has possible sympathy votes from Adamawa voters. It is not surprising therefore, that the Presidency is reportedly in the forefront of those clamouring for him to pick the PDP ticket with some lofty promises of support in all ramifications.

Although this situation of two platforms cajoling him presents Ribadu with some awkward scenario, the challenges notwithstanding, Ribadu is man who knows how to pick the best in any given situation.

The astute politician can distinguish the pretenders from real politicians adept at transformation, which the state indigenes desperately need. He is passionate about his quest to reorder the state, reprioritize and refocus the state on the path of peace and development.
- Umar wrote from Karewa GRA, Jimeta, Yola
August 6, 2014