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Category: Wednesday

Nigerian censuses and their discontents (I)

Last week when I reproduced my column of nine years ago on the composition by religion of delegates to President Olusegun Obasanjo’s 2005 National Conference as proof that President Goodluck Jonathan’s version, which opened last month, was merely a replication of Obasanjo’s strategy of political manipulation of religion, I promised that the controversial issue of the religious composition of this country will be a subject matter of this column another day.

Against the background of the vehement protests and counter-protests, the huge gap in favour of Christians in the composition of the conference – 309 out of the 497 delegates as against 184 Muslims – had provoked from several religious organisations, notably the National Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) and the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), I thought today was as good a day as any to deal with the subject.

Bar the president’s action itself, the Secretary-General of Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI), Dr Khalid Abubakar, fired the first shot in this war at a press conference he addressed in Kaduna last month.

“Christians, who by all acceptable records are not more than 40 per cent of the country’s population,” Khalid said, “…constitute 62 per cent of the total delegates.” In rapid response Dr. Musa Asake, the General Secretary of CAN, dismissed his JNI counterpart’s claim as an “unprovoked defamation of Nigerian Christians”.

The JNI, he said, “should come out with the figures that make the Muslim population more than that of Christians as we in CAN will boycott future census in Nigeria beginning with the 2016 exercise if they do not include religion. Enough is enough!”

It was like a replay all over again of Obasanjo’s national conference in 2005. Then, the NSCIA, in a petition to Obasanjo, claimed Muslims were over 60% of Nigeria’s population. Obasanjo cautioned the council against the reckless use of statistics but quickly countered with his own ratio of 50:50.

On its part the Northern CAN, through its Secretary, Mr. Sa’idu Dogo, threatened to boycott the 2006 census unless religion and ethnicity featured in its questionnaire. “In view of these claims by the Muslim community,” Dogo said, “CAN insists that the National Population Commission should, without further delay, include ethnicity and religion in the forthcoming national headcount, so that Nigerians and the world over will know the true position of the adherents of different religions in Nigeria as it is done all over the world.”

If this was not done, Dogo said, they would ask all Christians in Nigeria to boycott the census.

As things turned out, Obasanjo did not include religion and ethnicity in his headcount, but no one boycotted it. Under Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, CAN’s more belligerent attitude these days suggests it would probably make good its threat this time.

Headcounts in Nigeria started in the Lagos Colony in 1866 and were repeated in 1871, 1881 and 1901. The next one in 1911 covered the amalgamated Lagos colony and the Southern Protectorate as one entity. In the same year, there was a separate census in the Northern Protectorate. Following the amalgamation of the two protectorates in 1914, the colonial government passed the Census Ordinance in 1917 and thus paved the way for the first nationwide census in 1921.

Thereafter, censuses became ten yearly affairs until Independence in 1960. However, there was none in 1941 because of the World War II fought between 1939 and 1945.

The last census before independence in 1960 was held between 1951 and 1953. It put the North at 55.4% of Nigeria’s population and the South at 44.6. It was widely regarded as a watershed headcount because it became the basis for distributing parliamentary seats among the then three regions in the country, namely, North, East and West.

The census put the Muslim population in the North at 73% and the Christian at 2.7. Christians in the East, it said, were 50.1, Muslims 0.3 and animists 49.6. In the West Muslims, it said, were 32.4%, Christians 36.2 and animists 31.4. For the putative Midwest, Muslims, it said, were 4.2%, Christians 22.8 and others 73. The headcount put the overall Muslim population of the country at 44% and that of Christians at 22.

The first census after independence was conducted first in 1962. This was widely rejected and led to a recount in 1963. In his book, The 1963 Nigerian Census – A Critical Appraisal (1972, Ethiope Publishing Corporation, Benin City), I. I. Ekanem, compared the 1953 figures with those of 1963. The comparison showed that the overall Muslim population of the country increased from 44% in 1953 to 47.2 in 1963 while that of Christians increased even more during the period from 22% to 34.5, mostly at the expense of animists.

The disaggregation of the 1963 figures by region showed that Muslims in the North suffered a marginal decrease from 73% to 71.7 whereas Christians more than trebled from 2.7% to 9.7. In the East the Muslim population remained at 0.3% whereas the Christian population increased from 50.1% to 77.2 and animists shrank from 49.6% to 22.5.

In the West the Muslim population increased from 32.4% to 43.4 whereas Christians increased from 36.2% to 48.7 and animists shrank from 31.4% to 7.9. In the Midwest Muslims remained at 4.2%, Christians increased from 22.8% to 54.9 whereas animists decreased from 73.1% to 40.9.

Mr. Mike Okpara, the Premier of the East, rejected the 1963 headcount as “worse than useless” and went to the courts to have it annulled. He lost because the courts said they had no jurisdiction to hear his case and the figures became official, flawed as probably they were.

The next headcount in 1973 and the last to feature ethnicity and religion proved even worse. Members of the census board disagreed among themselves over its accuracy and its chairman, one time Chief Justice of Nigeria, Sir Adetokunbo Ademola, along with Chief Obafemi Awolowo, urged its cancellation. General Yakubu Gowon who conducted the headcount dithered in publishing it, apparently because of the ensuing controversy. He was overthrown in July 1976 and General Murtala Mohammed who took over promptly cancelled it.

The next census should have held in 1983 under President Shehu Shagari but even though he appointed the late Alhaji Abdulrahman Okene to chair the census board in 1981, Shagari did not pay much attention to it until he was overthrown in a coup in December 1983.

The next headcount was conducted in 1991, eight years after Shagari’s overthrow. This was under former military president General Ibrahim Babangida who appointed the late Alhaji Shehu Ahmadu Musa, one of the country’s most accomplished civil servants, to chair the census commission.

The census gave the North a population of 47,369,237, roughly 53.23% of Nigeria’s population of 88,992,220, as against 46.77% for the South. This was more or less consistent with most headcounts before it.

Not everyone was, of course, happy with the results. Individuals like the late Chief Bola Ige and institutions like The Guardian rejected it because they said it was rigged to favour the North, as usual.

However, even among leading Southerners, there was widespread acceptance of the results. Such leaders from the South like the chairman of the failed 1973 census, Justice Ademola, Professor Wole Soyinka, the Nobel Literature laureate, Professor Sam Aluko, one-time economic adviser to Chief Awolowo as Western premier, and Chief Omololu Olunloyo, one-time governor of the old Oyo State, all of them praised the conduct of the exercise as the best since census started in Nigeria.

Justice Ademola for example, said in The Guardian of March 2, 1992, that the 1991 results was a vindication of his rejection of the 1973 exercise. Similarly, Professor Aluko said in the Sunday Sketch of March 21, 1992 that the results tallied with what had always been his estimate of Nigeria’s population.

The last census which should have held in 2001 under President Obasanjo was not conducted till 2006, with Chief Samuila Danko Makama, a former senior journalist and bureaucrat, as chair of the census commission. As with all previous ones not everyone was happy with its outcome, fairly thorough as the preparation for it was.

Interestingly, one of its most severe critics was Makama’s successor, Chief Odumegwu. “No census,” he said shortly after assuming office last year, possibly to the consternation of even those who gave him the job, “has been credible in Nigeria since 1863. Even the one conducted in 2006 is not credible. I have the records and evidence produced by scholars and professors of repute. This is not my report. If the current laws are not amended, the planned 2016 census will not succeed.”

The chief did not say how the extant laws on our headcounts were flawed but for many, especially in the South, this was their irrefutable proof that every census in this country had been rigged in favour of the predominantly Muslim North.

But were they?

Someone please call Metuh to order

It’s hard to believe that at a time all Nigerians should sink their differences – political, religious or otherwise – and join the bereaved families of the victims of the devastating early Monday morning bombing in Nyanya, Abuja, in their grief and pray for the dead and injured, all anyone will be interested in is how to make political capital out of the terrible event. But this is precisely what Chief Olisa Metuh, the spokesman of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has done by his reckless attempt at blaming the bombing on the opposition.

“We,” he said yesterday, even as Nigerians remained in shock and confusion over the bombing, “stand by our earlier statements that these attacks on our people are politically motivated by unpatriotic persons, especially those in the APC, who have been making utterances and comments, promoting violence and blood-letting as a means of achieving political control.”

What kind of a heart – and mind – does Metuh have that he cannot wait for the bereaved to collect and bury their dead and treat their wounded before he indulges himself all over again in a useless blame game? If his bosses truly have the safety and security of Nigerians in mind, they should, for God’s sake, call him to order.

April 16, 2014
How not to play politics

In May 2013 when a US state under the control of the Republican Party was hit by deadly tornado, politics of division and exclusiveness was shoved aside by the stakeholders to bring succour to the people who had been bereaved, injured and rendered homeless. Democratic Party President Barack Obama who was far away from the scene promptly ordered massive federal support.

A president who is often embroiled in a struggle with the Republicans over their disdain for expansive federal agencies, Obama nevertheless went to Oklahoma State under the Republican Governor Mary Fallin, who only the year before described the Obama administration as pursuing “failed policies”.

She declared: “In Oklahoma, we could teach Washington a lesson or two about fiscal policy and the size and the proper role of government,” adding that the Democrats were having a record of “dysfunction and outrageous spending”.

But that was all politics, unfit for realistic governance in the face of a situation that required the two politicians to govern and not to play politics at the expense of the welfare of the people. To be sure, they did eventually come together as two statesmen elected not to massage their egos but to submit themselves to service to the people.

That I think was the point the ex-governor of Abia State Dr Orji Uzor Kalu was making the other day when he called on Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State in Ibadan. Noticing the monumental progress that Oyo State has witnessed under the administration of Ajimobi since his advent in 2011, Kalu warned the politicians in the area not to allow divisive politics to rubbish these great advances.

He commended Governor Ajimobi’s administration for its developmental strides across the state adding, “I am convinced that you (Ajimobi) have done very well and I give a very high mark. I have been in Ibadan before and I can see the development that has taken place. We have seen a lot of change… If Governor Ajimobi wins (again) in future election, he should be supported.”

It is clear that what the ex-governor of Abia is preaching has to do with doctrine of how not to play barren politics with governance. But for politics not to be barren and make nonsense of the mandate of the electorate, the interest of the society must be reckoned with. So, if there is a performing government in place as it is with the Ajimobi administration in Kalu’s well considered verdict, all of society in Oyo State should rally around the governor in support and loyalty, regardless of party affiliation.

Right-thinking Nigerians would find it easy to align with Kalu’s position, since he pins it on the need to “ensure the enthronement of an egalitarian society and ensure development” as he put it when he spoke with Governor Ajimobi. In other words if the citizens of Oyo state truly want a progressive and stable environment the ball is in their court to cooperate with their governor and his administration. They should seek to constitutionally perpetuate a system that is fostering peace, progress and development and refuse to be swayed by ethnicity and divisive politics. Truly, Oyo State has seen breathless changes lately. This development is assuming a spirit that is taking the citizens where they ought to be rather than where the poverty and visionless path of the past was herding them. There is no partisanship in the delivery of the good things of life to the people. It would patently be unpatriotic for politicians to confuse the people about politicking and governance. The former is manipulative, blinding the masses with the idea of government as exclusive political machinery aloof from the people. But the latter is the collective administration of society that seeks the welfare of the people who put the representative government in power.

We must draw the line and let the people know that real test for a public office holder lies in performance not in his ability to play politics. In Oyo State, the people are recognizing for the first time in more that decade that if you have a disciplined and a forward-looking administration, it can be trusted with the taxpayers money to initiate projects that benefit the larger society and not a few.

Today the citizens of the state are wondering where the funds came from for the construction of new roads, the rehabilitation of long abandoned water works, the provision of brand new buses for free transportation of workers and student, the cleanup of Ibadan, the prompt payment of workers and retired civil servants’ entitlements etc. The money was always there; it was only waiting for a good husbandman with a disciplined profile.

• Olaopa is a retired civil servant in Saki, Oyo State.

April 16, 2014
Ogbechie Vs INEC

I recently stumbled on a story in one of the national dailies. It was captioned “Journalist wins contract breach case against INEC”. The story reads: “For breaching the payment of N7.5 million to Godson & Godman Ventures Limited, a Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court sitting in Apo has ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to pay the firm the sum and a 10 per cent interest, running from the day of the judgment until the debt is liquidated. Justice U.P. Kekemeke gave the order in the case brought against INEC by Ken Ugbechie, a former editor of Daily Times, for the media consultancy and publishing firm. INEC was not represented in court.

“Ugbechie had dragged INEC before an Abuja High Court over the agency’s alleged refusal to pay him for contract executed… In his statement of claim, Ugbechie said his company was, on January 19, 2010, awarded contract to inspire and generate expository articles, commentaries, news analysis, editorial and comments, among others, to sufficiently enlighten the electorate on all that the commission was doing to ensure a hitch-free 2011 general elections. He averred in an affidavit in support of the suit that the said contract was thoroughly verified by INEC officers after completion. According to him, despite repeated demands, the defendant has refused to pay the said N7.5 million due his company since the execution of the contract.

“He added that after the receipt of the plaintiff’s solicitors’ demand letter, the defendant referred the matter to its Alternative Dispute Resolution, ADR, Department, adding that his lawyer also had a meeting with the director of ADR, wherein it was decided that the matter be referred to the Public Affairs Department for confirmation. According to him, the department had since confirmed that the contract was creditably executed by the plaintiff, but despite this, the defendant would not pay the said contract sum”.

This is a landmark judgement delivered against a recalcitrant federal agency which had elected to trample on the rights of an individual who had no other option than to approach the court for protection. Many journalists have, in the past, fallen victims to this type of crooked treatment in the hands of highly placed individuals and government officials who take delight in “using and dumping” these professionals at their whims and caprices.

Now, let us analyse this judgement. The “undefended list procedure” is a procedure within the Abuja legal jurisdiction and contained in the Abuja High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules. It is similar to the summary judgment procedure in the rules of the Lagos High court. The procedure is adopted in both jurisdictions to provide an easier and faster avenue to determine cases which are straightforward and not likely to go to trial as the defendant, in most cases, is expected to admit the claims brought against him.

Basically, the plaintiff, that is, the party instituting the suit, believes that the defendant has no defence – hence the resort to this time-saving procedure. The plaintiff will state this in his affidavit in support and attach all relevant documents, which must naturally point unmistakably to the defendant’s liability for the claims against him. The matter should be so straightforward that an independent observer examining the documents can reach the conclusion that there is an obligation left to be performed by the defendant.

The procedure is usually employed for cases of debt arising from simple contracts and monetary claims generally. However, the monetary claim must be liquidated or ascertainable by simple means, but in practice, plaintiffs will include the total figure for which they claim so as to save the court from making any arduous calculations. The snag here is that the suit cannot be initiated until the judge has read through the processes and is satisfied that it merits inclusion in the “undefended list”. Otherwise, it is sent to the general cause list, which is naturally for contentious matters where issues will be joined. In this case, Ogbechie must have had all his documents intact, which on the surface shows that there is some money to be paid and the judge must have been satisfied that it is a straight-forward debt recovery case and that the documents were sufficient to support his claim.

According to the story, INEC did not make any appearance at the suit, even after it was served with notice of the suit. This is not unusual in this kind of cases. Ordinarily, the plaintiff must serve the defendant with the processes after the judge must have given leave to include it in the undefended list. The defendant in turn is expected to file his notice of intention to defend, together with an affidavit disclosing a defence within five days to the date on which the case is set for hearing. The judge will consider the affidavit and if it discloses a valid defence, the defendant will be granted leave to defend the suit and the case will be transferred to the general cause list.

If the judge cannot find a valid defence in the filed affidavit, or the defendant fails to file anything before the date for hearing, the judge’s only duty is to grant judgment against the defendant on the said date, and no more. That is the situation in this case as INEC did not make any appearance at all; talk less of filing an affidavit disclosing a defence. The law is clear on this point. The judgment given will be valid and can be enforced just as any other judgment.

It is not uncommon for the court to make an order for post-judgment interest when it gives a monetary judgment. This is done to dissuade judgment debtors from sitting pretty and dragging their feet over payment of a sum granted against them. However, for the order to be made, the plaintiff or judgment creditor must have included it in its reliefs. The court does not award benefits that are not sought. It was a good thing that the lawyers to Ogbechie included this in their reliefs and the interest continues to read for as long as INEC refuses or fails to pay the sum.

ADR is a substitute to litigation which should be explored by disputing parties more regularly. It will help to clear the courts of many cases, especially frivolous suits that only require patience and understanding between the parties to resolve. People include this clause in their agreements but still run to the law courts at the first sign of trouble. Others do not honour the clause, or if other forms of ADR are adopted, they do not abide by the resolutions or decisions reached, leading them, eventually, to litigation.

The case here is a classic example of a government agency which, according to the story, even has a dedicated ADR Department. Unfortunately, the department has little effect on the operations or the enforceability of any resolutions reached. The courts still had to be visited in this straight-forward matter of “A” provides certain services at agreed rate that “B” refuses to pay. Where government agencies rubbish the ADR process, how will private individuals be encouraged to adopt it? The ADR that is systematically being introduced by the courts themselves has not been received as well as expected by the same populace that decries the snail’s pace of justice.

Government agencies should be at the forefront of the efforts to increase the acceptability of ADR procedures by their responsible adoption of it. As INEC has shown, that is not the case. One need not go into the list of cases against government agencies in courts. It will not be surprising if it is found that such cases constitute 30 percent of the case load in most jurisdictions. Individual citizens can be unruly and uncivil, but governments in Nigeria and their agencies, including the federal government, are at the forefront of uncivilised practices that include reckless disregard of the law and its machinery through incessant breach of contracts and trampling on the rights of private citizens. Certainly, there are lessons to be learnt from this judgement!

April 16, 2014
The Lagos siege? NSNC: ‘Honest Census’; Solar Revolution; Protest NASS N45m

Who authorised that soldiers be unleashed on Lagos State to enforce an exclusively politically orchestrated difference of opinion about land use in several areas? Even in a demented democracy as unforgiving, bizarre, viciously violent, ritualistic and murderous as our own in Nigeria, is this ‘Siege of Lagos’ display of soldiers not a flagrant abuse of ‘all we are trying to hold dear’ and also the National Security Act? It reminds Lagosians of the negative milito-ethnic federal might in 1983/4 under Buhari and Babangida that stopped the Jakande Monorail in Lagos at a penalty for contract cancellation of $184,000,000 rather than allow Lagosians modern transport. Shame on them and still no apology yet from them. Instead, only, new political federal capital wahala. Was national security ever threatened by Lagos State? Is national security the preserve of ‘federal Lagosians’, hirelings of power in Abuja? Is this misuse of soldiers approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC), the National Security Adviser (NSA) or the Minister of Defence? Neither police nor the armed forces should be used to enforce obviously partisan political decisions. What is most painful is that the developments being shut down are for the benefit of all Lagosians, including the Lagos-living relations of the federal Lagosians. Why have these federal Lagosians shed their ‘state-ship’ for a ‘mess of federal party pottage’? Is it the price to be paid to get a CV that will allow one to be chosen as the state governorship candidate of the federal party? The price is too high! Lagosians will retaliate at the polls. Nigeria’s soldiers have enough to do facing and dying in the Boko Haram insurgency and guarding schools from Fulani herdsmen and do not require to be brought into disrepute or have their intelligence insulted and their persons disrespected by federal Lagosians misusing their specialised training just to inflict political pain on a political enemy without weapons.

At last government provides figures for Nigerians power deficit. For years we have reported that Nigeria has a 100,000Mw deficit when government was working on providing a still unattainable 10,000Mw. We have a disgraceful 4,000Mw. Now at last government admits to a 170,000Mw need at 1,000Mw per one million if you believe we are 170 million. I think we have 20-25% inflation of census figures for dishonest financial interstate ethno-religious and political reasons, cutting the projected population to 136m. Interestingly this will improve further the reworked GDP figures as the same $510b is divided by a lower population pushing Nigeria to number 23 or so in the world. So the Non Sovereign National Conference (NSNC) should clearly address the importance of getting our next census right. The NSNC must stand against the sack of honest whistle-blowers like Festus Odimegwu of the National Population Commission. The NSNC must discover how to defuse the ‘politically explosive sensitive and probably corrupt census scam. NIGERIA MUST BE ACCURATELY COUNTED. The NSNC must get a commitment from all delegates and stakeholders for ‘A HONEST CENSUS’ as one of the most important and indispensable keys to the future political and financial prosperity.

Well, now it is official everywhere except in Nigeria’s political circle. United Nations scientists recommend a dramatic increase in renewable energy and especially solar energy to fight climate change. It is one of the irresponsible marvels of our time that giant solar farms are found in the cold low sun UK and power entire solar cities in Spain while here in Nigeria and Africa, with our burning God-given sun, we have only a few token solar projects. What Africa and Nigeria need is a ‘Continental and Country by Country Solar Power Plan’ to provide 10 or 50% of all energy ASAP. For this, massive funding as grants and loans by the World Bank, IMF and Bank of Industry and all central banks will quickly provide access to the newest solar technology at discounted 0-5% interest rates with long repayment schedules. Nigeria needs all political parties and politicians in the National Assembly (NASS) and state assemblies to be educated on and commit to delivering a 2014-2019 Nigerian Solar Revolution before God gives our sun to some country more deserving. Indeed the urgent need for Solar Power should be on the agenda of the NSNC, all Economic Summits especially ‘State Summits’ as solar will set states free from the politics and failures and workers of the national grid.

We hope that the NSNC delegates ‘North/South Exchange Visits’ take place to enlighten each other about floods, erosion, gas flares and pollution, petroleum and mining hazards. Some have suggested that the tours include the dams in the North and crossing the First Niger Bridge. Having done this each member should choose any three days to have a wheelchair day, a blind day and a deaf day in the National Conference, just to feel what the physically challenged have needlessly suffered. Delegates should face reality and not be spoilt by Abuja’s glamour. NSNC must represent Nigerians and protest the N45,000,000/quarter NASS Salaries and Perks, SAP, which are ‘SAPing’ Nigeria dry and unsustainable! The political system must be changed to part-time with sitting allowances and cancellation of most perks. The delegates should choose a ‘Nigeria week’ to work without electric power, water in the toilets and positive leadership. Finally, if at the end of the NSNC Nigerians feel genuinely aggrieved or cheated as most Nigerians have felt these 50 years, then the NSNC would have failed and Nigeria would be closer to the ‘disunity’ not to be discussed. Work to stay together!

April 16, 2014
The politics of size

In terms of population, land mass and mineral endowments, Nigeria is massive relative to most countries in Africa. Our population of over 150 million people – if they were truly economically empowered – would make this nation a powerhouse. So the controversial recent rebasing of our gross domestic product (GDP) is only stating the obvious in book form.

Unfortunately, our high numbers are made up largely of very poor people who cannot afford much. Instead of squabbling about whether the rebasing is right or wrong, we should rather be scandalised that given our huge population we are only generating so much.

Over the last 53 years, a succession of leaders have failed to harness the natural advantages our size offers either on the economic front locally, or diplomatically on the continental and global stage. That is why today millions of Nigerians have become economic refugees fleeing to unlikely places like South Africa, Libya or Cyprus – anywhere would do!

It is the same failure of leadership that has seen smaller African countries run rings around us as we have contested for things on the international stage. They have little or no respect for our size – pre or post rebasing. Their reaction is a function of how we’ve squandered our potentials.

It isn’t that size doesn’t count. There are obvious advantages that being identified as the biggest economy in a region or continent confer on a country. Were it not so, many would not have paid any attention to last weekend’s landmark.

Size does count for something. For many years the South Africans basked in the honour of being described as Africa’s biggest economy. They were certainly not too thrilled at seeing the title slip out of their grasp – no matter how untidy the process of Nigeria’s emergence on top may have been.

The official reaction from Pretoria was very proper and welcomed the fact that African countries were rising on the global scene. However, unofficial tweets that circulated in the country in reaction to the new GDP figures were more revealing. Most were keen to emphasise that while Nigeria may have a larger population, the rebasing didn’t change the fact that South Africa had the more prosperous and advanced economy.

One commentator, Dr. Martyn Davies, CEO of Frontier Advisory, argued that the new label didn’t amount to more than underlining the fact that Nigeria had a larger population. “No country became rich through buying consumer goods. They become rich through saving, investing, innovating, embracing technology, driving productivity… Not GDP.”

“Three things create wealth in successful economies – obviously considering clean, effective government as a given… its innovation, its productivity and its technology… And I don’t see really any of the three coming out of Nigeria at all. It’s purely a numbers game. Fast moving consumer goods facing numbers game. That is it,” he said.

One advantage of being branded the biggest is that it is now a reality investors looking for opportunities on the continent must deal with. The challenges and cost of doing business here notwithstanding, they would think hard about sidestepping the immense opportunities offered by our huge market.

On the home front, the largely negative reaction to Nigeria’s overnight emergence in the ranks of the world’s 30 largest economies can be understood from two perspectives. Firstly, it represents one of the few bits of good news on the economy for President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration in a very long while.

He and his team would naturally want to take credit for the new labelling because it has happened under his watch. It doesn’t matter whether his policies or those of his predecessors are what triggered the quantum leap.

But what really riles people is that no attempt is being made by the government to put the rebasing in perspective. The suggestion somehow seems to be that the new GDP figures mean life for the average Nigerian has become better under Jonathan because his statisticians tapped their calculators – releasing a batch of impressive new numbers.

Worse for the government, the results have been unveiled against the backdrop of the tragic Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) recruitment exercise a few weeks back which left 19 dead across the country. As of today millions of able-bodied, educated citizens are pining away in the ranks of the unemployed. Indeed, one of the defining images of the Jonathan years would be the cavernous Abuja National Stadium overflowing with desperate jobseekers.

It is hard to be impressed with the rebasing when it is happening at a time Nigerians are feeling the pinch of the absence of the most basic public infrastructure. The bulk of our people live in the dark – without hope of power any time soon. The same frustrated ones who have to pay through the nose to provide their own electricity are supposed to crack open bottles of champagne to celebrate some new statistic that has no bearing on their lives.

Here is one statistic that shows why many are so cynical. South Africa which we have just ‘overtaken’ generates over 45,000 megawatts of electricity; Nigeria with her grand GDP figures can only manage a little over 3,000 megawatts.

Still, we should be grateful for little mercies. The ongoing numbers storm has focused attention on what is important: the state of the economy and the ability to turn it around – rather than mundane matters like religion and ethnicity. It should now be the key test as we edge towards electing a new set of leaders in 2015.

Former United States President Bill Clinton rode into office in 1992 hammering on the parlous state of the economy. Jonathan’s leadership over this critical area of national life should come under scrutiny. So also should the credentials of his potential rivals who think they can do a better job.

April 13, 2014
The confab and the media

A long with secession, restructuring and the appropriate titles by which self-important confreres may be addressed, media reportage is turning out to be another hot topic for discussion at the ongoing National Conference.

Clearly, some delegates are not thrilled with the less-than-laudatory slant of reports published each day. Instead readers are still being served stories about goings-on that only those with a trained reportorial eye would see.

At onset, the media set itself on the collision course with some after it published mirth-inducing pictures of some delegates succumbing to sleep after being assaulted by a couple of soporific presentations. Of course, there were those who had to take a nap on account of their advanced age. For this category it was understandable – after all, the Holy Scriptures say that our old men would dream dreams! So they were doing what comes naturally!

But rather than see the funny side of things, some individuals with outsize egos began to push for withdrawal of accreditation of any newspaper which reported proceedings in unflattering light. Thankfully, more perceptive delegates quickly snuffed out this clumsy attempt at censorship.

This breed, however, die hard. Last week they reared their heads again with the same old complaints. Rather than push for outright expulsion of offending reporters they now want them excluded from covering certain sessions.

It is amazing how quickly people begin to see themselves as special. If you are discussing Nigerian issues why lock yourself away from media scrutiny? I doubt if there’s any idea that is so novel being discussed at this conference that has not come up in past constitutional conferences in the last 50 years. Even the most dreaded prospect – secession – has been broached. So what else is new under the sun that has to be discussed away from the hearing of Nigerians?

I would suggest that delegates at the conference should make every effort to be humble. They are not elected representatives of the people. They are not recognized by the Nigeria constitution. They are a creation of the president without legal underpinning.

The constitution confers upon the Nigerian media the right to report and inform the people. They don’t have to report to please delegates, but do their jobs as they judge professionally correct. Rather than try to constrain reporters from carrying out their duties, these touchy delegates might as well scrap press coverage so that the conference officially becomes a secret society. Who cares really?

April 13, 2014
A Mugabe tongue-lashing

Nigeria has finally protested to the Zimbabwean government remarks by the country’s president, Robert Mugabe, a few weeks ago about corruption in Nigeria.

He had sparked by outrage on March 15 when, when in speaking of deepening corruption in Zimbabwe at an event marking his 90th birthday asked his audience: “Are we now like Nigerians where you have to reach into your pockets to get anything done?”

I suspect that Nigerian officials who protested didn’t do so over the veracity of the assertion seeing as there’s nothing new in what the ancient dictator said they we don’t tell ourselves every day. It just rankles when it comes from an outsider.

That said, no one should be too surprised about the broadside. Mugabe is a notorious loose-cannon whose victims include everyone from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, former United States President George W. Bush and even the incumbent, Barack Obama.

For 34 years he has ruled his country with an iron hand – destroying its economy in the name of land reforms which were actually just a political ploy to secure his position. Using brutal means he has emasculated the opposition. He brazenly plays base tribal politics just to strengthen his grip on power.

Mugabe is a disgrace to the continent. But he has managed to survive for more than three decades because timid and cowardly African leaders – wary of being at the receiving end of his acidic tongue – have not stood up to him. No surprise that he has turned that tongue on his one-time benefactor – Nigeria.

April 13, 2014
Jobs, not ‘Chinese Rice’

The avoidable deaths of Saturday, March 15, when more than 18 unemployed persons were trampled upon and lost their lives at the kangaroo Nigeria Immigration Service recruitment exercise, have, once again, brought to the fore the dismal statistics of and the raging debates on the state of unemployment in Nigeria. However, amidst the calls for resignation, suspension, dismissal, the tragedy should not be a platform to vent pent-up anti-establishment feelings or try to score cheap political points. I think what went wrong should be something that will sensitise the government and the generality of the citizenry, towards finding a lasting solution to unemployment in the country. This issue has remained unaddressed in view of the wanton job preference that is usually displayed by the teeming number of employable youth when openings are either advertised or announced.

The unfortunate incident should form the fulcrum on which a solid programme of employment generation – at both the public and private domains – should revolve, not one that should be subjected to the application of fleeting palliatives. A system that allows impoverished job seekers to pay money to obtain job application forms, which, in the main, does not even guarantee them a job, is sheer robbery by the privileged. According to the International Labour Organisation, ILO, unemployment statistics for 2012, there are 197 million persons currently out of work worldwide, which accounts for six percent of the total world workforce without a job. In the Nigerian context, the issue of unemployment is traceable to many factors that include the soaring population figure; proliferation of educational and vocational institutions; structural and frictional unemployment; and the one that has flourished for over four decades -the preference by many graduates (and non-graduates alike) for socially-elevating and wealth-creating positions in the banking and allied industry, mobile telecommunications; Customs, Immigration, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency and other Para-military formations; foreign service etc which provides leverages for immediate financial and job fulfilment.

Perhaps, more than any other thing, the tragedy of this craze for “preferential unemployment” is that a large percentage of those unemployed persons seeking placement in these “life-changing” working environments are least trained or suited for such positions. Therefore, one issue that is incidental to finding a lasting abatement to the issue of chronic unemployment is that of self-employment through job creation. Though not an end-all panacea for full employment, being one’s own employer provides self-fulfilment and the platform to manage available time and also create employment avenues for others. This is the ideal situation, and this is where entrepreneurship readily comes in.

Sometimes, when the various governments – federal, states or local governments – talk about creating jobs, I wonder about the magic wand they intend to employ to create these jobs when, in actual fact, what is on ground does not show any genuine commitment to either grow or support entrepreneurship in the country. Entrepreneurship or investing, in the Nigerian context, runs like a torture process, especially where basic and strategic infrastructures that will foster the holistic setting-up and growth of commerce and industry are lacking, grossly inadequate or outmoded.

Many unemployed persons who have attempted the self-employment solution have been constrained by bad roads; lack of constant and adequate power supply; non-provision of potable and regular water supply; stress-filled allocation process for suitable and adequate land in rural and urban areas, including the procurement of certificates of occupancy; the non-liberalisation of regulations, procedures and approvals for the formation of new commercial enterprises and industries; the dearth of professional advice with back-up services by the relevant government agencies. Above all, any prospective entrepreneur, especially those coming from the unemployment queue, are confronted with the most debilitating and excruciating hurdle: financial capital to actualise the dream of self-employment.

If these critical draw-back factors are surmounted by the willingness and resolve of governments at the various levels to provide the enabling environment for commerce and entrepreneurship to thrive, then the magnitude of the unemployment statistics will be greatly reduced. In tackling the ever-present ogre of unemployment with its attendant social problems, Nigerians have been greatly fixated on the Keynesian model that emphasises a preference for government’s intervention in the economy to reduce the spiralling cases of unemployment in all the strata of the production chain and those of service providers.

In reverse, there are certain government’s economic policies, programmes, actions and inactions, that tend to trigger recurrent shocks and disequilibrium that sometimes reduce the aggregate demand for goods and services, which, in turn, reduces the demand for workers. In essence, government intervention has more or less amounted to mere tokenism. They include job creation in the public service, financial stimuli to employers of labour in form of waivers, tax holidays, low interest rates, protective import restrictions etc.

Available statistics point to the inexorable fact that rather than creating long-lasting job opportunities for the teeming unemployed persons, the various levels of government tend to provide glorified “soup kitchen” alternatives that only address those issues that expire or lapse with the tenure of such governments. These include street-cleaning; traffic and crowd-control; communal farming; revenue collection; business clusters and cooperatives and even thuggery or bodyguard gangs.

When viewed from the prism of the failure of various governments in their primary responsibility profile to cater to the welfare of its people, it is pertinent to say that the fear of the unknown and lack of focus in career choice for self-employment, contribute in no small measure to the frightening population of unemployed persons in Nigeria. Therefore, what should engage the attention of all Nigerians at the moment, is providing a holistic solution to what could have propelled 522,650 jobless youth to apply for, pay the sum of N1,000 each and be short-listed for 4,556 actual vacant positions in the Nigeria Immigration Service.

When we place undue emphasis on issues of reparation and restitution as atonement for the unfortunate death of the applicants, which are merely cosmetic and tangential, we only scratch the surface of the ingrained problem of acute unemployment rather than provide a satisfying and holistic solution. The nagging question has always been: why is a large proportion of our employable populace unemployed? The sore point of the unemployment bottleneck is that the unemployed, including those that lost their lives struggling to fill non-existent places and extricate themselves from the millions-strong unemployed queue, are victims of the weak leadership modems at federal, state and local levels that lack the political will to create or enable platforms to reduce the frightening unemployment statistics which have overshot the irreducible indices of the ILO.

It is glaring that we have lost the battle to provide decent jobs for our teeming population of employable youth, especially graduates of various disciplines who are roaming the streets after many years of graduation. In retrospect, the tragic occurrences of Saturday, March 15, were avoidable if proactive actions and due diligence were applied in the fateful recruitment exercise, rather than the commercialization of a process that would assuage the unemployment status of the 522,650 applicants.

The delegates at the on-going national confab should focus attention on the prime issue of unemployment in Nigeria, which should be given as much prominence as those tagged as contentious or important to the survival and continued cohesion of the Nigerian nation. It would be a good thing if the delegates can do away with getting enmeshed in discussing such inanities as ‘Chinese rice’ and what they need to fill their stomachs, their craze for high-decibel but meaningless titles and all that. Instead, they should concentrate more on the nagging issues of chronic unemployment among both the skilled and unskilled cadre of persons in the country, as well as, insecurity, especially the perpetually rising cases of ethno-religious conflicts all over the place. These should be part of the highpoint topics that should be in the same realm as that of fiscal responsibility and revenue allocation, devolution of powers, creation of local governments, elections and so on. In fact, unemployment in the country is a tinderbox waiting for a stray spark!

April 9, 2014
Death; NLC Housing; UK harmattan; Delegates local travel; State vs federal party

Too many deaths and kidnapping, more than 80 this week: ethnic, mindless violence, road and boat accidents, robbery, Fulani cattle related, for body parts!

In response to ‘Nigeria needs 17million homes’, the NLC/TUC building project in Abuja is fantastic and should be replicated. Lagos is also working in this direction if the federal government will hands-off interfering. Too many associations waste money on expensive AGMs, dinners and five star hotels mimicking wasteful National Assembly (NASS) politicians. All states and associations should build as well, because the federal government may never build enough housing quickly enough!

We have had zero allocation of power for one month+ but Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and states joyfully tax and levy citizens and business while banks charge 25% for loans. But no rebate for patrol purchases during no power! Maximum suffering and no smiling on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway under construction companies not interested in adequate two lane alternative routing for impatient drivers too willing to ‘face me-I face you’ at a moment’s inconvenience. Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) is too busy gathering N10-16billion in number plate money, particulars check and TV appearances for simple traffic control. And now there is hamattan in London caused by local smog and dust from the Sahara. Wow!

As part of ‘The National Learning And Healing Process’, National Conference Nigerians can learn to bridge ethnic and religious differences by travelling locally. Young delegates from the North should visit the South including gas flares at night and oil spill dead farms and fishing villages of the Niger Delta, erosion in the East and the Lagos-Ibadan and East-West roads. All South delegates should visit the North including the huge farms, a night on the caked dry shore of Lake Chad, the borders of the Sahel to witness the desertification and decay in family life. Mingle with both herdsmen and farmers! Such a trip meeting locals, not Emirs and chiefs, will improve inter-ethnic, religious and mutual respect.

The Non Sovereign National Conference (NSNC) must counter negative development strategies of federal ministry officials and ministers occurring because the central federal party is not the state party. Federal employees are sometimes teleguided against the state’s progress instead of creating symbiosis for development creating abandoned federal projects and neglect. The federal government is not supposed to be a party government for the benefit of only ruling party states. Federal punishment for states having a different party has been around forever. President Shagari promised the Third Mainland Bridge to Lagos living Nigerians, only if he was re-elected. PDP Obasanjo depriving AC Lagos of N10b. A presidential legacy president should develop all citizens. Look at the East-West Road, Second Niger Bridge and the Lagos-Ibadan and Ore-Benin roads problems. Indigenes of states sit at ministerial meetings where their state is brought up for ‘dirty tactics’. Did someone actually say ‘Hey guys, how can we destabilise Lagos State? Any ideas, you Lagosians?’or maybe ‘I have an idea to destabilise my State Lagos’. And did someone “phone a friend” in Lagos and reply ‘Let us seize some land and tie them up in court so they cannot build those 1000+ flats. Let’s stop that Lekki bridge, Ha ha!’ Would a united northerner do that? Using Federal soldiers in your own state in a civilian era speaks of desperation, poor democratic credentials and zero respect for the rule of law. Are federal Lagosians no longer Lagosians when even the NSNC is wrestling to decentralise power, no matter what party is federal -North, South, Muslim, Christian? Look at the Rivers State imbroglio. Federal ministers should not be at war with the ‘other party’ state party officials. Admit good done by opponents and suggest you will do better. Do not rubbish progress. The people will not take bribes instead of services for ever.

Nigeria and its states, even Lagos State with all its Fashola progress and struggle to be glamorous, are far behind their expected position in 2014. Lagos State is larger than 50 countries in population and income and should be allowed to act like a country. So why should a Lagosian in politics get to the NASS or Federal Executive Council (FEC), using his birth certificate as a Lagosian, and conspire to retard Lagos? Is it just for cheap federal political points in the political game? That is how the some SDP states foolishly forced good NRC Shagari federal housing schemes to be built in the inaccessible bush. The political game is killing and depriving people of housing, food, power, water, education, health, jobs, railways and roads. Do those in the United North countenance such self-destruction? No. Only the South destroys its home states. Yet it is that state wherein their own relations suffer power failures. It is not just Lagos. Ekiti and Osun are hotting up, murderously. How many lives will be lost for political power, this 2014-15?

No one should single out his state for devilish destruction. We Lagos State citizens call on all Lagosians in federal power not to execute- with or without soldiers- negative plans. This ‘State Pledge’ is common to other states. No official in the federal government, originating from Kano, Plateau etc would ever do anything against their state. Of course they could refuse to educate or provide health and infrastructure for citizens but they would not block funds or progress getting to the state. State development must not be sacrificed by federally based state citizens because of party affiliations.

April 9, 2014
Muslims and the National Conference: the case of blaming the victim

Almost exactly nine years ago this month, I wrote the article with the title above on these pages (precisely on March 16, 2005) in reaction to the composition by President Olusegun Obasanjo of his national conference. With President Goodluck Jonathan’s version, history – the manipulation of religion for power – seems, except for the change in personnel, to have merely repeated itself. Indeed only worse; the in-your-face brazenness of the student, compared to his now estranged master, in defending the indefensible margin of Christians (309 out of 497, i.e. about 62%) to Muslims (184, i.e. about 37%) in the composition of his conference in a country where, according to the 2014 usually reliable CIA Factbook, the ratio of Muslims to Christians to others is 50:40:10, truly boggles the mind.

The controversial issue of the religious composition of this country is a subject matter for probably another day. For today the following is an abridged version of what I wrote nine years ago for its relevance to President Jonathan’s national conference:-

The controversy surrounding the composition of the leadership and membership of the National Political Reform Conference has once again brought to the fore the importance of the mass media in shaping public opinion and in policy making and implementation. When President Olusegun Obasanjo decided to make virtually the entire leadership of the NPRC Christian and also decided to give them a nearly two thirds majority edge over Muslims in its membership in a country he himself says is 50:50 Muslim/Christian, he knew he could count on the conspiratorial silence, if not the support, of most of the Nigerian mass media in his flagrant breach of the same Nigerian Constitution he has sworn to defend. Clearly the president has not been disappointed. Three weeks into the Conference, there has been a deafening silence from most of the Nigerian mass media over the president’s blatant act of injustice.

Worse still, those of us who have dared to complain about this injustice are being portrayed as unreasonable. The Secretary of the Conference, my good friend, Reverend Father Mathew Hassan Kukah, himself an object of the protest, albeit not over his person, has even dismissed the protesters as “irresponsible”. To which another friend, but this time a scion of the Hausa-Fulani ruling family in Kano, Lamido Sanusi Lamido, has in effect said, Amen. “Kukah”, he said in his trenchant defence of the reverend father in the Daily Trust of last Monday, “is absolutely correct. It is irresponsible”.

Sanusi said his intervention was to stop the debate over the composition of the NPRC from degenerating into a purely religious affair. “An urgent Muslim intervention,” he said, “is required before the debate becomes one between Muslims and Christians.”

Sam Ndah-Isaiah, the editor-in-chief of Leadership, was correct in his argument in his article last Monday, titled Seeing through the president’s mischief, that the president did what he did to divide and rule Nigeria, the North in particular. Like Sanusi, Sam was, however, wrong to conclude that the proper response to the president’s mischief was to have kept quiet, lest he achieved his objective. “Many of those talking today,” said Sam, “have made the president’s day. They have helped him achieve his objective. The people are now divided, helped by the legitimate anger of those protesting.”

Both Sanusi and Sam seem to assume that national unity is an end in itself and so no amount of injustice can justify any act that undermines it. The huge irony of this assumption, at least on Sanusi’s part as Father Kukah’s defence attorney, is that Kukah himself does not share it. On the contrary he seems to detest it with a passion. “God,” he said the other day in a paper he presented last year at the Conference on Peace organised by the Northern Governors’ Forum, “is a God of justice and therefore cannot let injustice into His Sanctuary. We are under no obligation to promote peace, if that peace is not founded on justice…”

Father Kukah went on in that paper to say whereas the duty of religious leaders is to point out the right way, that of politicians is to provide the vehicles to take us to our destination. And if politicians provide rickety vehicles, religious leaders, he said, have a duty to raise hell against such a contraption. No fair-minded person, not even Sanusi in spite of the passion of his intervention, can say that the architecture and structure of the vehicle Obasanjo has provided for the National Conference are sound.

Sanusi questions the assumption that “there is something like a ‘Christian’ or ‘Muslim’ position in a national Conference…” He questions the assumption on the grounds that there are divisions within the religions themselves. Surely, however, Sanusi knows that divisions within people of the same faith, tribe or region, has never stopped them from having common positions on issues that are basic to their identities. For example, no Muslim, whether he is Maliki, Shafi’i, Hannafi or Hambali, or whatever, will reject Sharia or subscribe to the doctrine of secularity.

In case Sanusi is not aware, one of the hidden agenda of the convener of the conference is to finally banish so-called political Sharia from the Constitution, through some sleigh-of-hand. For, among the amendments a committee under Professor Jerry Gana, the president’s political adviser, is proposing there is one which says “If any other law, customary or religious practice is inconsistent with the previsions of this constitution, this constitution shall prevail, and that other law shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be void”. This amendment is meant to replace section 1 (3) of the existing constitution. The difference is the seemingly innocuous phrase “customary or religion practice”, a phrase that has been smuggled into the provision behind the back of the constitutional reform committee chaired by Deputy Senate President, Ibrahim Mantu.

Even though a Muslim cannot reject Sharia as long as he believes in Islam, such a Muslim member of the Conference may or may not stand up for so-called political Sharia. But any Muslim member would be foolish to think that a non-Muslim member of the Conference will go out of his way to defend a Muslim’s cardinal belief in Sharia.

“Many Muslim Northerners, the present writer included,” says Sanusi, “do not care about the religious identity of competent Nigerians appointed to an office whatsoever, so long as they consider their constituency to be the whole nation in the conduct of their official functions” (Emphasis mine).

Sanusi is right that religion, or for that matter, region or tribe, ideally should not matter in such things. But he himself has entered a sensible caveat about the behaviour of public officials. He has also admitted that there is no such thing as an objective person. Invariably we are objective only to the extent that we know we cannot get away with our prejudices. The way the National Conference was composed, the majority can easily get away with their prejudices.

This is why our Constitutions since 1979 have emphasised the importance of government reflecting the federal character of the nation in its conduct and composition. The relevant section in all those constitutions obligates government to “(ensure) that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few states or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in the government or any of its agencies.”

It bears repeating that Obasanjo blatantly violated this provision as far as the religious character of this country is concerned and it amounts to adding insult to injury for anyone to say those who have complained about this injustice are being unreasonable or even irresponsible.

Before now when the Christian leadership, specifically the then Archbishop, now Cardinal, Olubunmi Okogie and Primate Sunday Mbang, as former national presidents of the Christian Association of Nigeria, used to complain – sometimes justifiably, sometimes not, as we shall see next week when, God willing, I write on the issue of our next census – that Christians were being discriminated against, no one ever called them irresponsible.

When The Guardian wrote an editorial on October 7, 1992, saying that the presidential primaries that year under General Ibrahim Babangida’s transition were unacceptable because “the two presidential candidates that will emerge at the end of the day are from the same part of the country – the Far North… This is disturbing given the national composition of the country,” no one said the newspaper was irresponsible.

Last but by no means the least, when Father Kukah himself said the actions of Obasanjo in the wake of the Kaduna religious riots of 2000 and the Plateau crisis of last year were prejudicial to Christians in his article Plateau: State of Emergency as a metaphor in The Guardian of May 30, 2004, no one said he was irresponsible. Needless to say he himself could not have seen his protest as irresponsible or even unreasonable.

Similarly, when he said in the same article that Obasanjo was wrong to mix religion with politics – something which I have said elsewhere is not necessarily true depending on how you mix the two – no one said he was irresponsible. “Had General Obasanjo declared himself a born-again Christian and gone back to the farm,” said Kukah, “that would have been no problem. But to do so and then proceed to seek political power was bound to create a problem for religion and the country, especially within the Muslim population.”

In the last six years, Obasanjo has mixed religion and politics in the most cynical and self-serving way, culminating in his blatantly lopsided composition of the leadership and membership of the National Conference. In the last few days he has tried to redress one but has done nothing about the other. It is unreasonable to blame those who feel aggrieved by such an insensitive act for complaining, simply because the unity and peace of the country must be maintained.

But then, as Malcolm X once said, “If you are not careful, the media will have you hating the people who are oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”

April 9, 2014