The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • Too many geriatrics, too few 30-50s; Don’t be silent about true Federalism

    Too many geriatrics, too few 30-50s; Don’t be silent about true Federalism

    He come to the crunch with the 2014 Non-Sovereign National Conference. It may have national spread. However the conference delegations from state and federal are uncomfortably and disproportionately filled to overflowing with geriatrics, 70-80 year olds veterans of too many political and military battles. Many were participants and perpetrators of Nigeria’s ‘unity’ problems when they were 30-50years old. Nobody called them youth then.  Now, as ‘elders’, they fill the seats of Nigeria’s current 30-45 years olds who have been demoted from often grey haired ‘adults’ to ‘Youth Leaders’- dancing in Abuja Stadium-mumu. The old should have stepped aside.

    Why, 100 years on, are we still talking about the need not to talk about unity or worry about domination? I am doctor and when patients complain one makes a diagnosis of disease. Nigerians complain of ‘Unhappiness’ at Nigeria’s political, administrative and fiscal systems without equity, justice and the non-recognition and welfare their family and ethnic group. The diagnosis is ‘Malicious False Fiscal and Administrative Federalism’. The international not local prescribed cure is ‘True Federalism’. When and where did the meetings take place that institutionalised these aberrations? Not in Lagos or Enugu. Certainly the widely known ethnic military decisions of yesterday to ruin the South for 40 years are still in the mind-set of politicians yearning to recreate the wicked past after Jonathan leaves. Many have military background and seem still to take orders from military dinosaurs with ethnic agendas. Hence the unhappiness of the people with Nigeria.

    In all sincerity Nigeria’s political and retired military classes must understand that Nigerians are very easy to make happy but no one has tried. No one can force Nigerian to be happy. Happiness comes from love, equity and justice. Nigerians demand those from this conference.

    Pray, what are the issues that unite us and why threaten murder and stoning for those who loudly proclaim that they are unsatisfied by that unity. Perhaps Nigerians are not mere robots but have sensitivities, like human beings and have feelings of oppression, discrimination, truncated achievement, being uncomfortable and uncared for, feel neglected, question the wicked implementation and mal-practice and mis-practice of our ‘unity’ causing disaffection and also administrative and fiscal rape of many different groups? If such boasted ‘unity’ is achieved by a master-servant relationship, who will be happy with such forced unity? If it appears to be a shackling with the iron chains of a militarist constitution questioned by the citizenry what is that unity? Nigeria did not invent unity or federalism.

    It is time to listen carefully to ‘the other’, unhappy citizens crying for simple rules and rights in a normal society and country and nation -equity and justice. What really unites us? Shamefully most will answer ‘football’ If we have to stoop as low as football in our search for uniting factors and the mere fact of amalgamarriage, then we have a clearly recognisable problem –political, administrative, fiscal and social, and not just sports. Amalgamarriage conferred responsibilities to care and share, not rights to overlord-ship of one over the other as has happened. Over the last 50 years who is first at the table of governance? This is the test of unity. Surely ‘True Federalism’ would unite not divide us. ‘Allowing’ a Southerner to head the Federal Capital Territory is symbolic unity but the person should have power. Returning the LGA system to the states to create, administer and fund would unite us. Regionalisation, reducing central power would unite us. A fairer revenue sharing formula would unite us, though some say it is a ‘no go’ area. Why? Nigerians would love to love Nigeria but Nigeria through malicious secret policies slaps Nigerians in return.

    The clamour for ‘True Federalism’ urgently requires your immediate full and personal ‘shout out’ attention. If this opportunity is abandoned on the altar of compromise or slips by, our children will curse us as we cursed our parents for allowing ‘false federalism’ to spread like a cankerworm. Tell the Nigerian world your opinion. Do you feel cheated as a Nigerian by the Nigerian state? Does Abuja belong to all Nigerians? Is Abuja ‘ruled’ in rotation by Nigerians from all ethnic and religious groups in the spirit of ‘True Federalism or a fiefdom? On your expressed opinion depends the future suffering as a slave or the feeling of belonging of your family within Nigeria. Be fully aware that ‘True Federalism’ is life and ‘False Federalism’ is death for the 2014 Non-Sovereign National Conference outcome. Those who strangle us must relinquish their hold now or it will be death for all of us by government ‘False Federalism’ strangulation. Do you hear ‘The Silence’ coming from some quarters of power on the question of ‘True Federalism’? Put the areas that are silent of the clamour for ‘True Federalism’ on a map of Nigeria to see at a glance those ‘False Federalism’ has benefited. The silence is a sign of unfair benefit at the expense of others. We only want to be equal, not better. The permanent practitioners of ‘False Federalism, Fiscal and Administrative have for 50 years enjoyed ‘stolen goods’, eating other peoples share, and leaving them deprived. This conference must address these issues so that all may leave ‘Happy’ with the rights and responsibilities of being a Nigerian in Nigeria!

  • The price of loyalty

    The price of loyalty

    I got the unfortunate news about mid-day last Wednesday when my phone rang. The person at the other end, a senior Journalist with one of the nation’s frontline newspapers, simply broke the unexpected news to me without much fuss: “The President has removed Bolaji Abdullahi as Minister.” Although that piece of news jolted me, it was not quite unexpected given the current political trend in the country. I managed to ask an incoherent question: “Why will the President do so at this time when the 2014 FIFA World Cup tournament in Brazil is just three months away?”

    The events leading to the Minister’s removal were, to me, some cock and bull stories or what is tantamount to giving the Minister a bad name in order to hang him. However, the case against the former Minister was put in the public domain by many of the newspapers the following day, in different banal headlines. One of the papers wrote on its front page: “The case against Abdullahi…did not identify with PDP’s plan to dislodge APC in Kwara; refusal to speak at PDP’s Ilorin rally; seen in company of Saraki and Goje, who are APC Chiefs; failure to fund PDP’s activities in Kwara State; and late arrival at the Emir’s Palace where Jonathan visited.

    Let us take these accusations one by one. It is alleged that the former Minister did not identify with the ruling party’s plan to dislodge the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Kwara State. Yes, the Minister hails from Kwara State in the North-central geo-political zone of the country. Before his appointment as a minister of the Federal Republic, he was a commissioner in his state. If I am correct, he started as a Special Adviser to the erstwhile Governor of the state, Bukola Saraki, who is now a Senator of the Federal Republic. And it follows that it was Saraki who nominated Abdullahi as Minister.

    Now that the Senator has pitted his political camp with the APC, an opposition party that is pulling all the stunts to seize power from the ruling PDP, it would be absurd for Abdullahi to work against his political godfather. This is enough reason to put him under the prying binoculars of his pay masters. And to think that Abdullahi would fully participate in the antics of the ruling PDP to dislodge the APC from Kwara State would be daydreaming, more so, when the former Minister is adjudged to be apolitical in nature.

    It was, therefore, not surprising that Abdullahi avoided speaking at the Ilorin rally which was held some three days before he was shuffled out of the cabinet. Those who appointed him as a Minister should have known that all the while, he has never played politics with his job. Even those who knew him when he was a Commissioner have attested to that fact. So also is his political godfather, who said the young man was too married to his job than politicking all over the place. It is on record that Abdullahi was one Commissioner who never got himself involved in the revelry and jamboree of going to do ‘break-dancing’ at the airport each time Saraki, his boss at that time, was flying into Ilorin by air during his tenure as governor.

    Now, people expected this type of fellow who has cut out his own unique lifestyle among the multitudes of flotsams and jesters who daily flock around politicians looking for a mess of porridge to feast on to distance himself from the company of those with whom he has found comfort all this while. I mean the accusation that he was seen at innocuous hours in the company of his former boss, Saraki, and Danjuma Goje, the former Governor of Gombe State, who is also a Senator. Apparently, both Saraki and Goje are among the 11 senators who have changed camp from PDP to APC. Are these people now saying that one of the requirements of being a Minister in this country today is that once you are a minister, you do not have the right to choose those to associate with? Therefore, if seeing Saraki and Goje amounts to a crime, then it sounds as ridiculous as it is unthinkable.

    The same people have accused Abdullahi of failing to fund PDP’s activities in his state. If I may ask: Is there any evidence that the former minister was funding or had at any time funded the APC either? This question is necessary because right from the onset, he had been known to be apolitical. If this is so, why should anybody think he should dissipate energy and resources over any political party for that matter? At any rate, where will the money to fund the party come from? Is it from statutory allocations to his ministry, personal emoluments or inflated contracts? It would have been a different story if his accusers had said that he embezzled money that was given to him for onward delivery to the PDP in his state. If that did not happen, then it means that the former minister was expected to deep his hands into the public till to satisfy the financial want of some greedy, gluttonous and godforsaken politicians.

    It was also reported that the former minister was reluctant to attend the jamboree in Ilorin because he had an assignment to do outside the shores of the country but he was prevailed upon to stay behind and attend the President’s campaign visit to Ilorin. Even at that, a mischievous party chieftain who was in the same vehicle with the former minister was said to have quoted the former minister as saying: “If not that I am from this place, I would not have been on this entourage.” That statement means that the former minister had to work against his wish in order to satisfy the wolves that had encircled him and were hunting and hounding him ever since his political godfather jumped ship. It is a pity.

    I had a chance meeting with Bolaji Abdullahi on January 26, 2012, in London. At that time, he was Minister for Youth Development having been appointed a minister in 2011. He was later saddled with the task of supervising the Ministry of Sports before he was appointed substantive Sports Minister in March 2012. The venue of that meeting was at the Heathrow Airport in London. I had spotted him at the check-in queue on arrival at the airport that chilly winter morning. Although we were meeting for the first time, he instantly recognised me.

    As we exchanged banters, I was overwhelmed by his humble disposition. We soon got talking. I told him I was in London for the annual Presidents’ meeting of the EMEA Region (Europe, Middle-East and Africa) of the global Entrepreneurs’ Organisation, EO. He said he was also in London for a series of meetings for the Paralympics games and other games coming up in London that year. He told me about his determination to overhaul the National Youth Service Scheme to make it more relevant to the needs of contemporary Nigeria and other issues bordering on his vision for his ministry. Two months after, he was moved to the Sports Ministry. As we departed that day, the impression he gave me was that of a quiet, unassuming young man. He struck me as a person who knows his onions and could go places if given the opportunity to excel.

    Since that meeting, I have followed his performance and meteoric rise as a public servant and I must confess that he has been wonderful with what he had done as a minister. It is a pity that his zeal to excel has now been scuttled. The wolves may have succeeded in getting Abdullahi, their prime target, out of the way. By doing this, they have unwittingly caused the country a great harm; they have sacrificed merit for sycophancy.

    Above all, Abdullahi’s gargantuan achievements will live after him in the annals of competent administration and good governance in the country. No wonder, his achievements are already reverberating in the public domain and will remain permanently etched in national consciousness for a long time to come. He has done well for journalism, his profession and his generation.

     

  • Metuh and the APC roadmap

    Metuh and the APC roadmap

    Last Thursday in Abuja the All Progressives Congress (APC) began the process of laying out a distinct vision that sets it apart from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by holding a one-day national summit. The 10-point document that emerged from the event lays out a plan that focuses on jobs, security and an anti-corruption drive.

    For all those who have been urging the party to outline a platform for governing, this is a welcome development. There is no question that as the elections approach APC and its leaders would be challenged, and rightfully so, to flesh out some of the ideas they have unveiled.

    Not surprisingly, the high profile Abuja outing was being tracked by the ruling party whose spokesman, Olisah Metuh, was not slow in rolling out a response. His take? Of course, the opposition party’s platform was all hogwash – the product of “Janjaweed ideology.”

    For the uninitiated the Janjaweed are an armed tribal militia group in the Darfur region of western Sudan. The word itself is Arabic in origin and refers to ‘a man with a horse and a gun.’

    So what is the relationship between the political and economic blueprint APC outlined and the Janjaweed? Was Metuh just throwing around a word he had ill-digested or is there some connection between the opposition party and the Sudanese militants he would like to educate Nigerians on?

    Not content with savaging the APC platform he descends on its leaders for defending suspending Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.

    Among other things he alleges that a leader of the APC who he does not name received a fraudulent N84 billion contract, while another stalwart of the party was paid N5 billion as consultancy by the CBN under Sanusi’s watch.

    It would have helped if Metuh had named names seeing as the administration has not been shy to leak anything that would damage Sanusi. Thanks to the advertising expenditure of the government, Nigerians are now fairly conversant with the alleged sins of the former CBN chief as outlined in the report of the Financial Reporting Council. It is, therefore, curious that the spokesman restrained himself. Is this a case of not have the courage of one’s convictions?

    We’ve been told what these nameless and faceless APC leaders got as contracts. Metuh can now present a better-rounded picture by telling us how many billions his PDP colleagues received from the benevolent CBN while the going was still good.

    Lastly, we should point out that it is not yet a crime for Nigerians who are not PDP members to win contracts from government agencies.

  • Jonathan’s campaigns

    Jonathan’s campaigns

    In last few weeks President Goodluck Jonathan, PDP National Chairman, Ahmadu Muazu and a whole armada of ruling party bigwigs have been crisscrossing the country holding political rallies to welcome defectors from other parties, and lay down the marker for what is shaping to be a bruising general election in 2015.

    They were in Sokoto to welcome former Governor Attahiru Bafarawa. In Owerri they celebrated the return to PDP ranks of the likes of ex-Governor Achike Udenwa, Senator Chris Anyanwu and others. The train has since visited Kwara where Jonathan made pointed remarks about the Saraki dynasty. Yesterday, they rolled into Minna for another of such rallies.

    Interestingly, Minna is the home turf of a one-time member of the rebel G-7 governors, Babangida Aliyu. He is the same man who regaled us with tales about the existence of a one-term pact between Northern leaders and the president.

    Speaking a few days before the rally he not only said Jonathan would not make a 2015 declaration in Minna, but also that the president wasn’t actually campaigning.

    Really? Given the speed with which Aliyu repented of his G-7 ‘rebelliousness’ it is not surprising that he would say anything in defence of his new cause. During these rallies Jonathan does not discuss Keynesian economics: he talks pure, undiluted politics. We don’t need anyone to tell us that the president is bending the rules and campaigning even before the race has been flagged off. Thankfully, he has the police on his side.

  • The audacity of the Abachas

    The audacity of the Abachas

    One of the many reasons thrown up by government for marking Nigeria’s centenary is that the coexistence of the country’s disparate ethnic groups for this period was worth celebrating. Strangely, the many millions who should have been in raptures over such an epoch were less than enthused and stayed largely detached from what ended up being another staid government event.

    Ironically, this expensive birthday came at time a national conference to discuss the many unresolved questions about our coexistence is about to commence.

    Over and again, those who have called the conference have declared that Nigeria’s break-up was not up for discussion. At the same time, there are elements insisting that dissolution this shotgun union be open for discussion. In the end the centenary was just an expensive party celebrating a marriage that is still in grave danger of crashing.

    It is not just the ironies that stand out, many have equally pointed to the insensitivity of throwing this lavish event at a time when Boko Haram insurgents were slaughtering school children in their beds, and laying waste to significant chunks of the North-East.

    Indeed, in other climes some of those who were being celebrated with gold medals draped around their necks would have been strung up the gallows for their serial crimes against the country that again, ironically, was feting them.

    It was this unbelievable paradox that the Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, was addressing when he rejected the award bestowed on him because of the inclusion on the honours list of the late military dictator, General Sani Abacha and others who had plundered Nigeria’s treasury.

    In his statement titled “The Canonisation of Terror”, he spoke of how the celebration of Abacha called into question “the entire ethical landscape into which this nation has been forced by insensate leadership”.

    For those with very short memory, he reminded us of the former dictator’s reign of terror during which time he seized the late Chief M. K. O. Abiola who had been duly elected Nigeria’s president on June 12, 1993 and threw him into detention. The process of usurpation eventually cost Abiola and his wife, Kudirat Abiola, their lives.

    It was a period of routine assassinations and arbitrary detentions. Free speech was non-existent and many who dared disagree with the man who projected an inscrutable front hiding behind dark shades day and night, fled for their lives. Death squads roamed the land. Phantom coups were the preferred means for dispatching those whose loyalty to the despot could not be guaranteed.

    It was a time when many national institutions – the army included – were progressively destroyed. Nigerians were introduced to Abacha’s Chief Security Officer, Major Hamza al-Mustapha, who became so powerful and feared that generals who were his superiors in rank quaked in their boots whilst in his presence.

    Not content with stripping the people of their rights, confidence and all that they held dear, Abacha supervised the transformation of Nigeria into a pariah nation with his handling of the execution of the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and other Ogoni activists.

    Of course, many of the centenary honourees are not too choosy about the company they keep. They gladly received their medals and enjoyed their two minutes in the bright lights. Not so Soyinka. But he is within his rights to spurn what the Abuja event planners had to offer.

    I was expecting the usual critical intervention from government spokesmen berating Soyinka for turning down his country’s ‘honour.’ When the attack did come it was not from the quarters you would expect, but from some Abacha children falling over themselves to defend their late father’s legacy! What a legacy!

    Gumsu, daughter of the strongman, declared that while she was a lover of books written by Soyinka at a younger age, she now found his comments “foolish, stupid and insignificant.”

    A son, Sadiq, berated the writer for criticising successive governments without offering himself for an elective position. Among other things he said: “I believe brilliance is not perfection. I have grown and watched you criticise regime after regime and at that young and naive age I was thinking why wouldn’t this man contest to be president so that Nigeria can be saved?

    “I would have defiantly voted for Mr. Soyinka if it would have brought an end to Nigeria’s woes. To my utter surprise, I heard about your FRSC leadership and how funds were misused and a great deal of it unaccounted for. “Oh my God! In the end he turned out to be just the same as everybody else” were my next thoughts. My hopes for you all ended up in great disappointment”.

    It is possible that the two Abacha children were too young when their father was terrorising the country to understand the trauma that Nigerians were subjected to. That can be the only explanation why people who should hang their heads in shame over the reproach brought upon their family line by their patriarch have the audacity to speak in the manner in which they have done.

    But then there was no need for Soyinka or his defenders to respond. Barely, two days after familial emotions got the better of the Abacha’s, the United States government announced that it had ordered the freezing of $458 million in assets stolen by their father and his accomplices and hidden in European accounts.

    In the past Nigeria had traced $1.3 billion which the general plundered and hid in different banks in Europe. The biggest chunk amounting to $500 million came from Switzerland in 2005. A further $1.1 billion remains trapped by litigation in France, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg and the Channel Islands. Some estimates claim that stolen funds traced to the Abacha could be as much as $5 billion.

    Commenting on the U.S. seizure, Mythili Raman, Acting Assistant Attorney General said: “This is the largest civil forfeiture action to recover the proceeds of foreign official corruption ever brought by the department. General Abacha was one of the most notorious kleptocrats in memory, who embezzled billions from the people of Nigeria while millions lived in poverty.”

    Abacha was not just a brutal dictator under whose watch scores of Nigerians lost their lives and were denied their rights; he was also a thief who stole billions while millions were wallowing in hunger and poverty. He was not just greedy beyond belief; this sort of greed was akin to sickness. That is Abacha’s legacy. It is not something his children should be proud of.

    Rather than raise their voices against Soyinka for pointing out the truth, they should be burging their heads in shame while the nation cleans up the mess left by their father.

  • Why Governor Shettima is right; a preface

    Why Governor Shettima is right; a preface

    As the reader can see I have devoted virtually the whole of today’s column to reactions to my last two columns; the first on the need for the new opposition party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), to get its act together, if it is to have any chance of unseating the ruling PDP in next year’s election, and the second on the spat between President Goodluck Jonathan and the sacked governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, ostensibly on his alleged “reckless” management of the CBN, but in reality over Sanusi’s whistle blowing on the apparent grand thefts of the country’s oil and its revenues.

    The first article elicited only 18 text messages and a few emails while the second got 69 and a couple of emails. One of the texts on the second piece expressed great disappointment that I wrote on the GEJ/SLS spat when I should’ve done so on the blood curdling middle-of-the-night massacre of pupils of Federal Government College, Bunu Yadi, Yobe State, the day before, allegedly by elements of Boko Haram.

    “I,” the reader who texted from +2347067280114 but did not give his name said, “was expecting to read from you a lamentation on the killing of innocent students of so-called unity college. Haba mallam!”

    The reader’s disappointment, possibly even anger, is understandable. The problem, however, is that we’ve had too many lamentations and condemnations by just about everybody but little or no sign that President Jonathan, on whose table the buck stops, is sincerely willing and/or capable of dealing with the terrible insurgency.

    Of all the things that raise doubts about his commitment and capacity to end the insurgency none has been as revealing as his angry retort at the remark, no doubt dead on target, by a tearful Governor Ibrahim Kashim Shettima of Borno State, following Boko Haram’s sacking of Kauri, Idzge and Konduga villages in the state, that the insurgents “are better armed and better motivated” than our military and are therefore not about to be routed anytime soon by the military.

    Next week, God willing, Shettima’s remarks and the president’s reaction will be the subject of this column.

    For today I leave you with some of the mixed reactions to my last two pieces.

     

    FEEDBACK

    Re: “GEJ versus Sanusi, the whistleblower”

     

    Sir,

    One of my favourite topics in my O’ Level School Certificate Government, is the Principle of Collective Responsibility. The Central Bank governor cannot be a whistleblower in a government he is part of. The honourable thing to do is resign and blow the whistle from outside.

    When Eze Festus Odimegwu opened his mouth wide about goings-on at National Population Commission, as regards Census figures in Nigeria, Gov. Kwankwaso and company went to the Presidential Villa, and prevailed on President Jonathan to sack him. Odimegwu was eventually sacked and heaven did not fall.

    So Sanusi deserves his sack because no employee ever dictates the terms and conditions of his employment.

    Sanusi’s behaviour lately reminds me of late Chinua Achebe’s story of the bird, Nza, which dared his CHI (personal god) to a wrestling bout after enjoying a sumptuous meal. Of course, we have now seen the outcome of the wrestling match. Sanusi’s sack is good riddance!

    Chukwuma Dioka. +2348166933115

     

    Sir ,

    He who comes to equity must come with clean hands. Sanusi is guilty of what he accused Jonathan of. The kettle cannot call the pot black. They are all thieves.

    Ibegbu. +2348035410176

     

    Sir,

    Sanusi lives in glass house and was dropping stones in the president’s ATM machine, the NNPC.

    Patrick. +2348032571244

     

    Sir,

    If you were the president will you allow Sanusi to remain on seat fighting you directly?

    Engr. Anolue. +2348037114167

     

    Sir,

    In your write up you failed to take note of the fact that Sanusi said he saw the allegations against him on the day he was suspended. This is critical and touches on principles of fair hearing.

    +2348123464980

     

    Sir,

    Jonathan and his government have been a terrible disappointment, a ‘Badluck’ and a curse on Nigerians. The man is busy picking fights against his betters like Amaechi and now Sanusi while Boko Haram continues to slaughter innocent Nigerians right under his nose and he remains criminally clueless and helpless. This impunity, corruption, social injustices, security ineptitude and economic malversation characteristic of his government must stop.

    +2348096966605

     

    Sir,

    Police were on the trail of armed robbers, a prostitute informed of their whereabouts. Please let’s arrest the armed robbers first, collect our $20 billion then face the lesser offender. The government waited for months after Lamido’s request and realising that the man is determined, dusted up a report that will not stand in a law court but gain popularity in beer parlours in Bayelsa.

    Cardinal O.C. Arogundade. +2348055567777

     

    Sir,

    Please tell them, in case they don’t know, that even if they acquire the whole world they will leave everything behind on their deaths.

    +2348053263196.

     

    Sir,

    I agree with you that Sanusi has won the hearts of the poverty-stricken Nigerians, while the position of the president remains unenviable. What I want to add to your incisive piece is this: the eyes of the poor have opened. They now know that the present suffering did not fall from the sky but flows from corruption in high quarters.

    Amos Ejimonye, Kaduna. +2347085284103

    Sir,

    Under section 11 (1) (b) of the interpretation act, the power to hire includes the power to suspend.

    Abubakar Sani, Abuja/Kano. +2348034533892

     

    Sir,

    Whenever a father uses hammer to kill mosquito when a wild snake is left roaming around in the house, the child standing by is put in a state of confusion. May we see Nigerian army strike again to handle the mega thieves in the oil cartel.

    Ondas Nas. +2348032399800.

     

    Re: For APC, time is ticking

     

    The opposition APC using paid loyalists like you in their employ is engaging in subjective and destructive criticism against Africa’s biggest party. Cure yourself of deliberate blindness and discover that APC is too desperate, immature and unprepared to rule Nigeria. I wish you both good luck. You need it.

    Dr. Ifeanyi Nwaeboh. +2348163295663.

     

    Sir,

    I am an Igbo man and the problem with people of my tribe is lack of knowledge and blind sentiment. Each time I make comments about GEJ and his corrupt government both on radio and in our gathering they accuse me of being an agent of Boko Haram. By God’s grace PDP mis-rule will end come 2015.

    Collins, Abuja. +2348059876387

     

    Sir,

    The APC appears to rely so much on propaganda.  It is stretching the capabilities of its talented Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.  But Lai alone cannot win the 2015 elections. The APC needs to encourage and nurture a formidable structure in all the 36 states of the federation to stand a good chance of occupying Aso Rock in 2015.

    For example, in most of the South East, apart from Imo State and to lesser degree Anambra state, the APC is in the hands of charlatans, who cannot even deliver their wards.  They are just after the crumbs they are expecting from the national secretariat or other APC controlled states.  And after the elections, they will drift back to their PDP pay-masters.  You will recall how the South East CPC disowned General Muhammadu Buhari after the 2011 elections.

    Azunna Nnamani, Enugu State.

     

    Sir,

    Your piece on For APC, Time is Ticking is a free consultancy for the APC which you should also extend to the PDP.  Perhaps, because of your interest in APC, you are too soft on their current leaders as to point out their incompetence.  Since the APC got five PDP governors to join them, they have not ceased celebrating to the extent that they appear to have forgotten that the main purpose of all the manoeuvring is the 2015 elections. Their congresses are supposed to be a few days or few weeks away and yet they have not come out with the modalities for the congresses.  This is where PDP is better.  Kindly give PDP some credits next time.

    James Onoriode, Sapele

     

    Sir,

    Usually it is not in my character to reply to publications like your article on the back page of The Nation of 18/02/2014 but I have to make an exemption to the rule for correction purpose only and only to set the record straight.

    The party, All Progressives Congress, came as a result of the merger between the now defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), a group from All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) led by Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State and Senator Annie Okonkwo, and a group from the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) led by late Senator Pius Ewherido and my humble self.

    I represented DPP throughout the process leading to the merger. Two positions, National Auditor and Deputy National Organising Secretary were allocated to the DPP. Today, I am the Interim National Auditor while the former state chairman of DPP in Imo State Chief Romanus Egbuladike is the Deputy National Organising Secretary.

    Sir Olisaemeka Akamukali.

  • NSNC 2014 Delegates – We Beg think ‘ A Renewed Nigeria or Ruin’ : Leaders or ‘Greeders’

    NSNC 2014 Delegates – We Beg think ‘ A Renewed Nigeria or Ruin’ : Leaders or ‘Greeders’

    Yet another evil attack on school children in Bama and a market in Maiduguri by Boko Haram. The international community’s multiple satellite surveillance may help locate Boko Haram before they strike.

    Arising from the greedy politics of 50 years, Nigerians are victims of an ‘unjust peace’. Criminal political mathematics involving census figures, 12 2/3, inability to count votes, mal-distribution of LGAs and minority-led governors’ forum are Nigerian fraudulent fiscal federalism.

    Be in no doubt that the great drawbacks to development and entrepreneurship are discriminatory policies of governments since 1967 resulting in a two-tier fraudulent feudal federalism and failed electricity supply. If those two are corrected every Nigerian will feel ‘equal’ and have a high Happiness Factor.

    These drawbacks also point to a generation of past heads of states issuing ‘secret orders’ deliberately setting a ‘Hold Nigeria Back’ agenda – ‘How do we achieve failed federalism and failed centralised grid power while looking as if we are developing?’ This led to the fuel-thirsty generator generation precipitating the 40 year fuel armada enriching the few and pauperising business profits by 10-30%. Because of this, my son grew up in darkness in 1978 which still remains to this day and I operated on a patient with a torch in Lafia. Similarly the ‘How Do We Kill Railways?’ policy implemented by Buhari et al first against Jakande Rail guaranteed northern haulage monopoly especially from the lucrative multibillion naira bridging of fuel prices across the country. Unfortunately roads were ‘Killed’ by contract corruption. Now we die on the roads. This ‘Kill Railway’ policy forced selfish ethnic strategies into government agendas against economic and public good. Our heroes past offered Nigeria little ‘leadership’ and a lot of ‘greediship’ and ethnic domination. We have few ‘leaders’ but many ‘greeders’.

    I am a beggar. I beg for my NGO Educare Trust and people in need and friends dodge me. Every month we must raise N2-300,000 for salaries and services.  People promise but ‘Nothing for you’ as Lagbaja would say. But past beneficiaries of the NGO also do not donate. If they sent Educare N10-100/month each we would have no monthly money pains paying salaries.

    However today I want to ‘Be A Beggar’ with disenfranchised Nigerians begging for a ‘Renewed Nigeria’- the federal Nigeria of our dreams in 1960, ruined by ‘greeders’. To get Nigeria back on track we beg the delegates and secret handlers of the 2014 Non-Sovereign National Conference, 2014 NSNC as follows:

    • We beg for a truthful understanding of why we need a NSNC. Patriotism demands the bitter truth that Nigeria and most Nigerians have been disenfranchised in an unhappy unequal amalgamarriage with a political master-servant society, serial criminal looting, ethnic favouritism, underfunding of infrastructure and political banditry all preventing full potential except in football.

    • We beg you to address the three power failures killing Nigeria –  Over-centralised federal power, electric power  and the power to curb corruption.

    • We beg you to see that Nigerians are not happy with Nigeria-as-is – geographic, political, fiscal, federal. For years biased political machinations have discriminated and poured funds, uneven irrigation strategies, positions, political and civil service power to particular groups which succeeded in their ethnic directives but failed in the national responsibility to move Nigeria forward. The result is widespread dissatisfaction.  For every rich person there are thousands of underachieving undeserving neglected poor.

    • We beg for ‘The Right to 24hour Power’, 100,000Mw within 6-12 months as a right, not a dividend of democracy.

    • We beg for ‘Federal And Fiscal Equity’.

    • We beg for better, stronger anti-corruption measures independent of politics with adequate pursuit and diligent speedy prosecution. If none of us can be corrupt, moral and monetary, without being caught, Nigeria will be a giant.

    • We beg for reduced legal proceedings time, to combat those courts breeding corruption through adjournments and jurisdiction applications.

    • We beg to point out that the country that ‘Cannot Count’ its population, its petroleum barrels production, its money in the CBN is a corruption incubator! Already the federation, its states and LGAs are founded on a census falsehood perpetrated by the military. Nigeria must be counted correctly, perhaps by foreign satellites which can also be used to track the heat signals of Boko Haram convoys and gunmen if we ask them.

    • We beg for a stop to funding of political parties, compulsory deductions of 30-70% for politics, and bigwigs through bogus inflated contracts.

    • We beg to point out that the items under ‘negotiation’ were criminally stolen by past governments from some  Nigerians and given as stolen goods to other Nigerians–Over-centralisation, warped federalism, skewed  LGA creation and ‘Reserved ministries’ included.

    • We beg and demand for the return of said stolen items and a return to status quo ante military rule.

     

    The N-S-NC must choose ‘Renewed Nigeria or RUIN’

    It will take real Nigerian nationalists to know ‘What To Give’ and ‘When To give’ to create this renewed Nigeria. The centralist/feudalists must return that which was seized and approve decentralisation. If not, the expectant country will sink into renewed resentment and ethnic tension. Some delegates are old enough to have caused or witnessed Nigeria’s problems sitting beside patriots struggling to right wrongful political decisions like wickedly biased LGAs and state creation, the long exclusive list and the unsustainable cost of the presidential system. We Nigerians beg and demand that the Conference agrees to the people’s will for a just, better life.

     

     

  • Wanted: A war cabinet    

    Wanted: A war cabinet    

    It was a catalogue of deaths and destruction last week when the Boko Haram terrorists went on a killing-spree in the three Nigeria’s northeast states of Yobe, Adamawa and Borno. The attacks started on Tuesday at the Federal Government College, Buni Yadi, Yobe State, where no fewer than 43 students were killed. From there, they moved to Shuwa, in Magadali Local Government Area of Adamawa state where a teachers’ college, a secondary school and a Catholic covent were attacked. By Saturday, it was the turn of Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, where a twin-bomb explosion tore through the heart of the city, killing more than 50 people. Mainok, a village about 50 kilometers from Maiduguri, also had a taste of the orgy of violence and blood-letting.

    The attack on the Government College, Buni Yadi, bore the full imprimatur of a similar one on Saturday, September 28, 2013 at the College of Agriculture, Guijba, in the same state. In that attack, more than 50 students of the school met their untimely death. The terrorists attacked the college at midnight when most of the students were deeply asleep. That also, was not without precedence. In June 2013, the terrorists killed eight pupils and a teacher during an attack on Government Secondary School, Damaturu, capital of Yobe State. They also killed 29 pupils at Government Secondary School, Mamudo, also in the state.

    On Saturday, April 13, 2013, an unspecified number of students of Monguno Secondary School, in Monguno Local Government of Borno State, were killed as they returned home on foot and bicycles from the centres where they wrote the West African Examination Council (WAEC) Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE). Before that daylight massacre, six secondary school teachers, including a principal, were also hacked down by the terrorists in the same local government area.

    It is sad that our so-called security forces have always been caught napping each time these marauders come calling. In the killings of the school children who were accosted on their way from their examination centres in April 2013, no security agent was sighted at the scene of the slaughtering until more than three hours later. The same scenario has played out again and again. It was the same story at the School of Agriculture, Gujba. In the recent incident at FGC, Buni Yadi, the killers did not only have the luxury of time to carry out their devilish act, they also proved that they were out to destroy the hopes of tomorrow by separating the girls from the boys. While they mowed down the boys, they simply drove the girls away from school and advised them to go and get married instead of wasting their time at school. That is true to their name Boko Haram, which means “education is bad.”

    What is more sickening in all these, especially in last week’s incident, is the fact that the security agents who were stationed within the proximity of the schools left their checkpoints shortly before the terrorists came calling. Now, the security agents are running helter-skelter to unravel those who might have been complicit in the attacks among the local populace. Talk of medicine after death. By the way, why is it that these security agents, with the hordes of intelligence officers in their midst, have never for once nipped these attacks in the bud while the so-called rag-tag terrorists are daily giving them a bloody nose?

    There must be something wrong somewhere. It is either a failure of intelligence or non-intelligence at all, as the case may be (if I am permitted to put it that way). It is obvious that some people are aiding and abetting these criminals within the local population and among the security agents as well. For how long will the blood of our children be spilled like rotten milk on the altar of greed, selfishness and vaulting ambition of our overfed politicians both in uniform and babaringa? Every time, you hear about a fleet of vehicles consisting of more than 10 or 15 attacking a particular location. Why is it impossible for the security forces to pick them as they move along? I am quite aware that because of the dry season, almost everywhere in the affected areas is motorable at this time, but if the security forces are doing their work well, these terrorists should still be spotted.

    It is rather superfluous that while the brigandage and blood-letting that have been going on in the northeast of the country in the last four or five years (2009 – 2014) continue to spiral out of control, up till this moment, no single person has either been fingered or arrested on account of being the sponsor of this brazen terrorism against our fatherland. The other day, a former governor of one of the states in the Northeast was allegedly arrested in Cameroun by a Camerounian security officer who said he was convinced that the former governor is one of the financiers of the Boko Haram insurgency. The former governor was arrested on his way to see the governor of Northern Cameroun.

    Although the former governor in question was later released by an order from the Vice-President of Cameroun, after he quickly reached out to people, he is strongly suspected to have played a role in the rise of Boko Haram in the first instance and so, it will be difficult to isolate him from the unrelenting assault of the criminal gangs on the country. There is also this belief that this former governor may not be a Nigerian as he is said to hail from neighbouring Chad Republic, where he currently operates an airline and maintains a mansion. After his tenure as governor many years back, it was to Chad that he went to cool off and observe developments in Nigeria from the sideline until his recent visit to the country which sparked off a wave of violence in his native state.

    By now, I believe the security agencies should have the list of suspects who are collaborating with these terrorists in one way or another to wreak havoc on unsuspecting Nigerians, but, perhaps, because of political expediency, nobody wants to touch them. That is why some people think that if the President announces today that he will not be contesting the 2015 presidential election, the whole Boko Haram brouhaha will die a natural death. Since the President has an inalienable right to contest as President a second time as enshrined in the 1999 Constitution in use in the country, if he wishes, the onus is on the security agencies to do their work properly and contain this avoidable carnage that has continued to cast a dark spot on the image of the country. The only way out of this quagmire in which the country has been enmeshed all this while is the urgent need for the President to form a war cabinet.

    In the first instance, the troops which were deployed to the theatre of war in the Northeast went there purely for peacekeeping operation. Now the whole scenario has snowballed into a real war situation. Therefore, the strategy must change. A senior cabinet minister must coordinate the ‘war’. As things are now, it may be impossible for the National Security Adviser, NSA, the only person who probably performs the role of coordinating the military interventions in the Northeast, to summon any of the head of the services to a meeting – I mean summoning someone like the Chief of Army Staff or the Chief of Air Staff that are both involved in managing the crisis to a meeting – not to talk of the Chief of Defence Staff. They will just ignore him because the NSA is more or less a Staff Officer to the President. That is why there is need to quickly put a war cabinet in place.

    The war cabinet, as envisaged, will consist of seasoned Generals, both serving and retired, as well as some respectable and responsible civilians, whose duty will be to take care of the political angle to this festering crisis. It is time to end this genocide!

  • Boko Haram: Nigeria’s military on the spot

    Boko Haram: Nigeria’s military on the spot

    Sometime in 2011 a private in the Nigerian Army was arrested by agents of the Lagos State Environmental and Special Offences Task Force for driving in the dedicated Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) lane at the Obanikoro area of the city. Angered at the audacity of the officials, the man left and soon returned with his comrades-in-arms and a full-blown army-police clash ensued.

    In my column that weekend I excoriated soldiers who thought they were above the law simply because they wore fatigues. I suggested that whole lot of them be shipped off to the North East where they could work out their aggression tackling a Boko Haram sect that was fast becoming a nuisance. At that point government was still addressing the issue mainly using the police and secret service.

    I soon received a text message from an officer who while taking my caustic comments in good humour denied that military men only had contempt for the police. He pointed out that the army was always being called in to clean messes left behind by the Nigerian Police. He boasted that if the military were the ones handling the young insurgency, they would sort it out in three months.

    This week I was reminded of that boast as the death toll from the attack on the Federal Government College, Buni Yadi, Gujba Local Government Area of Yobe State hit 60. In nearby Adamawa State, a further 32 persons lost their lives in separate attacks by Boko Haram in three towns. Overall the body count for February is over 300 and rising.

    Early in December last year, the sect swept unhindered into Air Force bases located near the Maiduguri airport. They left in their wake scores killed and five aircraft razed. It was a stunning and embarrassing blow to Nigeria’s military pride, and it occurred with the armed forces firmly in charge of managing the war against the insurgents.

    Eight months after President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, and gave the military extensive powers to stamp out the killings, the performance of the military is under scrutiny. Disturbing questions are being asked and nobody is providing answers.

    Frustrated and angry governors are raising posers. Bewildered legislators are scratching their heads wondering what on earth is going on. The questions cover everything from strategy to rules of deployment, funding and motivation.

    Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima, got things going by claiming the insurgents were better equipped and motivated than Nigerian soldiers. This very serious charge drew a typically defensive riposte from President Jonathan who offered to withdraw the troops for one month to test the theory about their ineffectiveness.

    For his part, Adamawa State Governor, Murtala Nyako, has made the equally grave claim that there may be Fifth Columnists sabotaging the efforts of the military from within. The allegations arise from a string of strange deployments that preceded the Buni Yadi slaughter and some other recent high profile attacks.

    Wondering why soldiers were always late in arriving at scenes of incidents, he said: “In Buni-Yadi, Yobe State, the soldiers withdrew from checkpoint hours to the attack. Who ordered the withdrawal? In Shuwa and Michika, soldiers withdrew, shortly after that Boko Haram attacked, who ordered the withdrawals”?

    “We also have the case of Gen. Mohammed Shuwa who was killed in Maiduguri by the so-called Boko Haram. There is an army unit there, but they didn’t respond during the attack. Who told them not to respond?

    “The Air Force base was raided in Maiduguri. There was a military base nearby; who gave the base the order not to respond during the raid on the Air Force base?” Questions, questions!

    As though worries about unseen hands manipulating the situation were not bad enough, we now have to contend with reports of soldiers in Adamawa abandoning their checkpoints and fleeing into the bush – leaving five villages at the mercy of the insurgents according to reports by Associated Press.

    Why would soldiers who are trained to kill or be killed, who are supposed to provide protection for the people, cut and run before the enemy? It all comes down to the same issues of equipment and motivation raised by Shettima. Anyone would beat a retreat in the face of superior firepower.

    They would definitely scamper before insurgents who joyfully embrace death if they see no reason to die for their country. It is not just the hapless troops in the middle of nowhere who have to deal with the question of motivation. How many are willing to die for Nigeria? It just becomes an issue because it is the business of the military to die, and turning tail before the enemy is one of the most serious offences a soldier can commit.

    So how do we begin to turn things around seeing as current efforts are doing very little to deter the terrorists? The first battle that needs to be won is that of finance. Reports indicate that the insurgents who struck at Buni Yadi drove into town in nine brand new Toyota Hilux vans. Each of these vehicles cost more than N6 million at today’s prices. How many do they have in the fleet? Who’s paying for them? Individuals and organisations with very deep pockets obviously.

    But no matter how rich they are they cannot be more endowed than the Nigerian state. That is why it is scandalous to even imagine that the insurgents can be better armed than our soldiers. What do we spend our huge defence budget on if troops can’t get the armament they need to prevail in battle?

    The ongoing war against terror provides the window to review not just the pattern of defence expenditure, but the entire structure of our military. All over the world countries are reforming their armed forces based on their peculiar security challenges. It is obvious that for Nigeria in the foreseeable future those challenges would be terroristic – rather than conventional.

    In addition to throwing more money at the problem in a targeted way, we need to throw in more troops. Yobe State Governor Ibrahim Gaidam has made this demand and he should be supported. We can learn from the example of the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    When it seemed like the security situation in both countries was spiraling out of control, the Americans implemented a “surge” policy that introduced thousands of new troops into the theatre of conflict. The upshot was that the spiral of violence was contained. The North East is crying out for a surge that limits the room the enemy has to maneuver.

    But that surge should not contemplate the temporary relocation of the Nigerian Army’s headquarters to the North East as suggested by senators. That would simply be an empty knee-jerk reaction that will not materially change much. If anything it exposes the nation to psychologically devastating attacks against symbols of the Nigerian state like happened with the assault on the Nigeria Police headquarters in Abuja.

    Much has been said about addressing social and economic conditions that provide a ready recruitment pool for terrorists. It is hard to fault that. Still, the point needs to be made that Boko Haram is unique. They are an implacable foe that would settle for nothing less than victory for their evil ideology. The only thing that can stop them is defeat. That is why it is important to get our military strategy right.

    There’s no question that some progress has been made in limiting their activity to the North East. These days stories of IEDs going off in city centers in the North West are rare occurrences. Still more needs to be done. It begins with the military and President being humble enough to admit that their current strategy is not working and is in urgent need of a review.

  • NEITI and NNPC’s ‘complex’ accounts

    When the suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, alleged that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was yet to remit $10.8 billion to the Federation Account, the oil firm’s leadership accused him of confusion and ignorance.

    Labouring to defend his dismissal of Sanusi during his last media chat, the president referred to how the CBN chief had tied himself up in knots bandying different figures allegedly not remitted by the NNPC.

    Now, it appears that the list of the ‘ignorant’ and ‘confused’ is getting longer. A presentation made by the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, before the Joint House Committee probing the Berne Declaration report, has claimed that not only was Nigeria losing an estimated $8 billion annually through the crude oil-for-refined products exchange arrangement, aka crude oil swaps, NNPC may have failed to remit $22.8billion to the Federation Account.

    Berne Declaration, a Switzerland-based non-governmental advocacy group published a report titled “Swiss Traders’ Opaque Deals in Nigeria” last year.

    The report alleged that every year Nigeria loses billions of dollars as large volumes of oil are exported for well below the market price. It further alleges that the subsidy scheme for imports of refined petroleum products was systematically defrauded.

    NEITI’s Ahmed told the House Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream) that the findings came out of its audit report on the finances of the oil corporation for 2009 to 2011.

    Quick as a flash, NNPC spokesman Dr. Omar Farouk Ibrahim reacted to what he argued was an orchestrated campaign of calumny designed to tarnish the corporation’s image. He said sensational headlines had been written misrepresenting the contents of the NEITI report. Significantly, Ahmed has not retracted her assertions before the committee.

    When she appeared before the hearing Ahmed said, “There is similarity in NEITI’s audit report and the Berne Declaration report. The report has a lot of substance in it. NEITI will go back and link the Berne Declaration report with the NEITI audit report.”

    But until Ahmed comes up with damning evidence against the corporation, NNPC executives can sleep soundly – after all they are the only ones who understand this oily business and its peculiar accounts.

    Even statutory agencies that should be combing through the corporation’s books are throwing in the towel. At its budget defence before the Senate Committee on Drugs, Narcotics, Financial Crimes and Anti-Corruption, the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) said its inability to probe NNPC over the years was down to the ‘sophistication’ of the corporation’s accounts.

    Professor Olu Aina, Acting Chairman of the Commission’s board said: “The account of NNPC is so sophisticated that it would require hiring financial experts to study it for needed investigation the cost of which, however, cannot be afforded by us now due to underfunding.”

    As it was in the beginning, so it is now and forever – the words of Sanusi et al against those of executives who keep telling the rest of us “you can’t understand this!” Truly, we just can’t understand: except if the NNPC spokesman is suggesting that NEITI has now merged with the All Progressives Congress (APC).