The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

A season of death: Justice Kayode Eso; Justice Promotion= injustice to accused; Customs: Don’t burn, Donate!

This November is the season of death. Death is hurrying to make the 2012 quota, just like government’s budgetary ‘last quarter’ mis-spending rush. With the murdered victims of Boko Haram bombs, cattle-farmers wars and floods we also see major deaths in politics, medicine, media and law. No one is ever old enough to die. Professor Bayo Olumide, eminent neurosurgeon, Alhaji Lam Adesina, Dr Olusola Saraki Mr Bode Alalade, broadcaster par excellence and now Justice Kayode Eso. He was the Truth and Reconciliation Icon, true Nigerian, author of books and ‘executive lawlessness’, primus inter pares, legal stellar light, doyen of arbitration, outstanding conversationalist, with great wit. It was always a pleasure to be in his presence. He was partial to the youth and an inspirational iconic role model whenever he graced an Educare Trust activity. Many will recall him being the trial judge who found Wole Soyinka ‘not guilty’ as ‘the man with the gun’ at NBC, Dugbe. May his large heart and soul Rest In Perfect Peace. Amen. With these deaths, governments and media producers have again lost the opportunity to fund historical and motivational documentaries, interviews, Nollywood and radio programmes on making and broadcasting the ‘life and times’ of these great men. Unfortunately, in spite of the well-known anticorruption efforts of Justice Kayode Eso and others, the judiciary is still suspected of corruption, and also stands accused of unnecessary injunctions and adjournments.

A small inexplicable observation on the legal learned world: The recent celebrated and well deserved elevation of certain justices raises an important legal, moral and economic question while the National Assembly and the Legal Council are preoccupied with deliberating on weighty issues like gay marriage, constitutional review and plea bargaining. Why does the judiciary always make an ‘ass of itself’? Imagine a judge trying several complex cases some for 19 months. Suddenly she is promoted with ‘immediate effect’. If this happened in another professional, business or family sphere we would be in court claiming damages for ‘breach of contract’, ‘deception’, ‘false pretences’ et cetera. Remember this was believed to be the problem at the heart of the Justice Salami affair –to get him out of the way, kicked upstairs. The result is that the cankerworm of injustice breaks out right in the judge’s chambers and the courtroom. If the judges themselves were victims of such injustice would they not be up in judicial arms? Can a country like Nigeria, not known for its expeditious justice delivery service, really afford such expensive judicial ‘luxuries’ or delays? Unfinished cases are abandoned even as we celebrate well-deserved judicial promotions. Later another judge has to start all over again.

Social science departments, lawyers’ groups like the NBA and FIDA and NGOs like JDPC and Consumer Protection bodies should compute the huge multimillion naira cost of this cause of ‘delayed justice’, cost of a retrial in emotions and frustration, in repeat legal fees and transportation and feeding, the cost to the accused and witnesses, the cost to the country-all totalling N50-100m for such elaborate cases and unquantifiable ‘judicial inconvenience’ by police, prisons, prisoners, witnesses, litigants and lawyers. This cost does not take into consideration the well-known judicial slogan that ‘justice delayed is justice denied’. Would it not be better to promote the judge, start the new salary grade but keep him or her as a judge of that court until he or she has finished all existing cases expeditiously, cleared the courtroom desk? Fellow Nigerians, languishing in prison ‘awaiting trial’ and innocent till proved guilty, should be protected from such judicial licence. We are happy when judges are promoted but it is good judicial judgement to ensure that they finish all cases pending before abandoning the court. Indeed why do judges not set aside several days for continuous hearing of a particular case to prevent the ‘adjournment syndrome’.

Another socio-legal conundrum: On TV we regularly see goods, drugs and tyres being burnt by Customs or NAFDAC or NDLEA. Environmentally speaking tyres should never be burnt in the open because they environmentally toxic substances which pollute the air badly and also damage the lungs of passers-by, even NAFDAC and Customs officials. Tyre burning should be banned nationwide by a Law ‘Burning of Tyre Prohibition Act’. Burning may be the only option to disposal of seized hard drugs if you do not breathe in the drug filled air around the fire, but why does Customs burn all seized goods? Many such endangered goods are not harmful and are still good enough to save lives if donated to the needy flood victims, and repatriated prostitutes from Italy, freed trafficked persons, orphanages, Red Cross and religious organisations known for their non-corrupt humanitarian work. This would be punishment enough for the smugglers. Fund-raising for these groups is a difficult task in Nigeria. So why this ‘seized wealth to waste’ burning? If the authorities burn tyres, a known major pollutant method, why do they not burn the ammunition and guns they seize and what happens to them? So why burn sieved frozen chicken, rice, cloth and clothes in a country where environmental pollution from smoke is a major problem and 70% of the country is in poverty? Customs should be legally empowered and forced to give seized goods to an independent ‘Bureau of Smuggled and Recovered Property’ or NEMA for forwarding to recognised NGOs, orphanages and handicapped schools. Let the poor, not environmental pollution, benefit from seized goods.

November 21, 2012
Aruma Oteh, Reps and Rams

When people say there is monumental rot in the Nigerian system, government officials who are the kingpins of the rot are quick to dismiss it as balderdash. In spite of this, like a festering sore that has developed gangrene, you can smell the rot, feel it and see it as it walks on all fours all over the place.

An example of this pervasive rot in the system is what is currently going on at the Security and Exchange Commission, SEC, under the watch of Aruma Oteh, the director-general, DG, of the commission. Though she had held sway as DG since 2010, Oteh probably came into national limelight in highly controversial circumstances this May. It was during the sittings of the House of Representatives’ ad-hoc committee that investigated the near-collapse of the Nigerian capital market. Oteh had caused a stir at one of the sittings when she pointedly accused Herman Hembe and Azubuogu Ifeanyi, who were then chairman and vice-chairman respectively of the House Committee on Capital Market and Institutions.

Oteh accused Hembe of demanding a bribe of N39 million from SEC for the hearing and an additional N5 million. She also alleged that Hembe received money from the commission to enable him travel to the Dominican Republic for a conference which he neither attended nor refunded the money to the commission.

The development led to an open verbal altercation between Oteh and Hembe, a situation which finally culminated in the suspension of the probe. A new panel headed by Ibrahim Tukur El-Sudi from Taraba State was later put together to continue with the hearing. But the matter did not end there as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, stepped in. The anti-graft agency subsequently arraigned Hembe and Ifeanyi for alleged diversion of public funds.

Oteh’s confrontational attitude and allegation at the hearing had caused so much bad blood between her and members of the National Assembly who have since been seeking their own pound of flesh. When the two chambers resumed from their long recess in September, they, at different times, passed different resolutions asking the President to remove Oteh from office. As things stand now, there is a stalemate over the issue as the President seems not to be in a hurry to consider the National Assembly’s demand.

Perhaps, it is in order to placate the members of the House Committee on Capital Market that the SEC DG went out of her way to buy rams for them as gift during the last Muslim festival of Id-EI-Kabir. But the members must have learnt a bitter lesson from the fate that befell the two former leaders of the Committee and, therefore, decided to excuse themselves from Oteh and her rams. Instead, they are demanding investigation into how the SEC allegedly spent millions of naira on rams. Call it “twice beaten, once shy”.

In order not to play into Oteh’s hands this time around, the Committee went a step further by reporting the “curious offer of rams” to the leadership of the House. Even at that, the House members claimed that pressures are still being mounted on them to come and collect the rams. One of them told a newspaper recently: “You can imagine the level of waste in SEC. Is it its business to buy rams at a time many people have died as a result of the collapse of the capital market? We want the executive to look into this.”

But Obi Adindu, the DG’s Communication Adviser, was quoted as saying that the commission did not offer the rams as bribe to House members. According to him,”the fact is that the leadership of SEC is operating a well-known zero tolerance policy for misconduct and that is why strengthening of the capital market is a key line objective of the reform agenda”. On the issue of Sallah gifts, he said, “There is an established practice in the commission in which the commission extends felicitation to well-wishers”.

A Yoruba proverb says, “Aitete m’ole, ole m‘oloko”, literally translated as “if the owner of the farm does not make haste to apprehend the thief, the thief could apprehend the farm owner”. This, I believe, is what informed the current hoopla the House members are making to draw attention to the latest development between them and the SEC DG. The members maintained that it was an unprecedented gesture because SEC had never sent any gift to them during any festive period. According to one of them, “that, clearly to us, was attempted bribe. It was the same way the commission attempted to give us #30million and later turned against us that we demanded a bribe. This is a confirmation that the DG is desperate to remain in office.”

From a critical analysis of this incident on both sides of the divide, Oteh must have actually goofed. What is left or what is now being done is damage control. It depends on those managing the SEC DG herself. In the first instance, she shouldn’t have become an emergency ram merchant or vendor overnight simply because she needed to win over the legislators. In the process of doing that, she has now found herself enmeshed in a deeper crisis bordering on mismanagement and total lack of discretion. She could have envisaged that the members would react this way since the memory of what happened to their colleagues -Hembe and Ifeanyi – in May this year is still quite fresh if not permanently engraved in their memory.

It is unfortunate that Oteh has unwittingly allowed herself to be made a scapegoat. Take another look and you will discover that the members who are now hell-bent on dragging her to Golgotha are only playing to the gallery. After all, it is a common knowledge that things have a way of changing hands in the National Assembly. The members are known to devise various ingenious methods to squeeze something even out of stone, particularly in the process of carrying out their ‘oversight functions’ and all that. Also, each time they pick ‘quarrels’ with the executive arm of government, and they do so at the slightest inkling. More often than not, such quarrels usually end‘dramatically’.

But trust image makers. Adindu said it was an established tradition in the commission to extend felicitations to well-wishers. If I may ask: who established such a tradition? If not bribe, what do you call that? What has dragging innocent rams all over the place got to do with the recovery of the capital market? Then come to think of it. How do the committee members fall under the description of ‘well-wishers’? In my own view, Oteh and her handlers should have known from the onset that the committee members are anything but well-wishers. If she earlier thought that she had them as friends, now she needn’t look far any longer for her real ‘enemies’. Again, who told Oteh that flooding the National Assembly with rams could massage the ego of the House members? It is simply one public relations move gone awry, and no amount of white-washing could exterminate the indelible stain and stench it has inflicted on her.

By the way, why has the experience of this Harvard graduate who had spent some years abroad before coming to head SEC continue to fail her? The other day she was accused of being a bad manager by SEC management who said she hardly involved them in her policies and decisions. At that time, it almost looked like an orchestrated gang-up. It will be a disaster if nothing has changed. Certainly, holding sensitive management meetings through text messages and other electronic mails does not speak well of a Harvard graduate who spoke with raw bravado on national television the other day. Now, she is at the receiving end of her own medicine. Maybe the chickens have come home to roost. Too soon!

November 21, 2012
The President and NCC’s dirty war

In contrast to the oil sector which has remained a by-word for corruption, waste and inefficiency since the seventies, there is widespread public perception that the old telecommunication sector, at least from the advent of mobile telephony some eleven odd years ago or so, has turned into an excellent demonstration of how privatisation can turn the fortune of an economic sector around.

This public perception has a sound basis. Today mobile phones number in their tens of millions in sharp contrast to less than 15 years ago when fixed phones were only for the well-heeled or well-connected and numbered only in their few thousands. Mobile phones have also been relatively cheap to buy and use compared to what we had before, if not compared to elsewhere in the world. Not least of all, the services the private phone companies provide have been making quite a bundle for their shareholders and users alike.

Behind this public perception of a relatively efficient and profitable telecommunication sector, however, there seem to lurk a level of corruption which seems different from that of the oil sector less in its nature than on its depth and scope. Indeed there are experts I know who believe, given the way Nitel, the government telecommunication company, was privatised, corruption in the sector is worse than in the oil sector, regardless of the public perception.

We may quibble about the depth and scope of the corruption in the telecommunication sector, but no one can deny that it is there – and that it is big.

Any Doubting Thomas need only refer to recent newspaper reports of how the management of the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), the regulator of the industry, has been washing its dirty linen in public.

It would seem the first blood in the commission’s running feud was drawn by Dr Bashir Gwandu, NCC’s Executive Commissioner (Technical Services), who has been at daggers drawn with the Executive Vice-Chairman of the commission and its chief executive, Dr. Eugene Juwah, almost from the day Juwah took over from him as acting chief executive following the retirement of the penultimate chief executive, Mr Ernest Ndukwe, a couple of years ago.

On October 8, Leadership ran a front page lead story in which it alleged that President Goodluck Jonathan had approved a waiver of a little over 1billion Naira to a company, MTS First Wireless Services, which Dr. Juwah had worked for and in which he had shares before it went belly-up a few years ago. This was also before he became the CEO of NCC. The insinuation in the story was obvious.

Even the most casual reading of a full page advert entitled “Mr. President, Please Save NCC now!”, published in the Daily Trust of October 23, among other newspapers, and signed by five members of a Business and Technology Publishers Forum (BTPF), which they claimed is “a professional body of seasoned Nigerian journalists who are actively engaged in the reportage of Business and Technology especially ICT in the country,” can only lead one to conclude that Juwah and his sympathisers believed the source of the Leadership story was Gwandu.

Predictably, the BTPF advert’s conclusion was that the only way the P4resident can save NCC is to sack Gwandu who, it alleged, has been a serial saboteur of the commission’s management since he was first appointed a commissioner about seven years ago, all, they said, in his bid to become the commission’s CEO.

BTPF is not alone in its call for Gwandu’s sack. Sources close to the supervising ministry say it too would not be averse to sacking the executive commissioner.

The President may yet succumb to the pressure to do so, even though this would not be so easy because it requires the approval of the Senate. But even it were so easy, the President would be ill-advised to listen to the BTPF because sacking Gwandu will not make the issues involved in the now open management feud in the commission and about which Gwandu is accused of talking to the press, to go away. On the contrary, it can only raise questions about the President’s oft-stated commitment to fight corruption. For, there are indeed sordid goings-on at the NCC.

First, no one has denied that the President has approved a huge waiver for the MTS with which Juwah had had links. I believe the insinuation in the Leadership story that this was his handiwork is somewhat unfair to the man. He may have worked there before, but the initiative for the waiver did come from him. Instead it came from his supervising ministry. Besides, the President did not have to approve. So even if he had a residual interest in MTS, the blame for the waiver should go to the minister and the president.

In his own attempt to defend himself from the charge of conflict of interest in the case, the Executive Vice-Chairman told Thisday (October 21) that the allegation was an attempt by enemies of the Jonathan administration to discredit its record of performance.

“It is,” he said, “now obvious that there is a motive and an agenda by some elements who are enemies of this administration and who are bent on stopping us from excelling.” Coming from someone I do not believe should be blamed for the MTS waiver, this is rather disingenuous.

As Juwah himself said in the interview in question, the waiver came about because of moves by a new putative owner of Starcomms, Multilinks and MTS to merge and transform the three into a company that can compete with the Big Four in the industry, namely MTN, Glo, Airtel and Etisalat. All three merging companies, he said, applied for waiver but only MTS was given. This, he said, was because of the three, only MTS had gone bankrupt. This was in 2007. “It was,” he said, “no longer a going concern unlike Starcomms and Multilinks.”

Surely as an industry consultant, Juwah must know that when you buy companies, as the chap he said was behind the planned merger of the three did, you buy them with all their assets and liabilities. Why was it necessary for anyone to ask government to shoulder the liabilities of MTS?

Juwah, obviously, could have done better than trying to defend the indefensible.

Then, of course, the MTS is not the only indefensible going-on at the NCC. There is even the more serious issue of the improper underselling of spectrum in no bid deals, the two most prominent of which were the sale of one spectrum to Open-Skies Limited led by Chief Emeka Offor – someone whose permanence in the corridors of power is almost legendary – and a similar sale of another spectrum to another company with the almost cynical name of Smile Communications Limited (Could it be that its owners enjoy smiling all the way to their banks at the expense of others?).

In both cases the spectrums could have fetched the country much, much more that the price at which they were sold. And in the case of Open-Skies, not only did it pay peanuts for its spectrum; it failed to meet the deadline for payment more than once. Worse, it did not and still does not have a licence from NCC to use any spectrum.

Worse still, at the time the company bought the spectrum it was yet to be properly retrieved from the Nigerian Police Force to which it had initially been allocated for security purposes but which it had failed to use.

Again, it seemed more than mere coincidence that Open-Skies rushed to complete its payment only after the police had acquired a $406 million security surveillance system in preparation for the use of the spectrum. This can only fuel suspicions that Open-Skies acquired the spectrum merely to speculate with it, akin to land speculation.

Certainly the President should move to save the NCC, as our telecommunication beat reporters have urged him to in their advert. However, what he should move against is not Gwandu but the messy goings-on at the NCC which the commissioner has been complaining about but which our concerned reporters see as the antics, indeed, “the lies of an ambitious Commissioner,” to use their own words.

November 21, 2012
Osun’s revolution in education

Unarguably, education is the most precious and enduring catalyst that has helped mankind in the discovery and sustenance of the world as we live in it today.

It is indeed the strongest weapon with which mankind broke the cycle of ignorance and darkness, thus arriving at the threshold of civilization.

It ultimately amounts to merely begging the question to say that a country which handles its education sector in slipshod manner faces one of the greatest perils that could ever threaten the foundation of its very existence.

And expectedly, a nation without clear cut education policy or one with low education quality, undoubtedly cannot stand among great nations of the world, which pioneer development, break new ground and open new vista in learning and knowledge towards the advancement the of entire human race via research.

The past three decades in the history of Nigeria’s education – both in policies and planning, not to talk of its progress – confronts one with a gory statistics of decadence, retrogression and abysmal performance if not outright failure.

It goes without saying the fact that the same measure of failure cascaded to the states with each one of the 36 states jostling to occupy the bottom table of poor performance index.

Sadly enough, in comparison, the type of education the country had from post-independence up to early 70s appeared to be the golden era in the nation’s history as opposed to the sham we have today.

As earlier observed, the shambles confounds one from one state to the other. No one state has the same problem or challenge as the other; each with its own peculiarity.

Hence the Case of the State of Osun couldn’t be any different from the shoddy account above. Until around October 2010, no one believed, including the people of the state themselves that the air in the balloon of the state’s education has instalmentally leaked away inexorably.

This point of despondency was exposed when the incumbent governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, declared a state of emergency in the education sector and called a summit on education.

What his government discovered were so terribly disheartening that the governor toyed initially with the idea of closing down all primary and secondary schools across the length and breadth of the state so as to allow for a total overhauling – from physical structure to curricula as well as restructuring of teachers and teaching aids, some of which were then scantily available.

The decision, according to Aregbesola, was informed by his administration’s discovery of crass degeneracy in both physical structures and polices of the school, thereby making qualitative and conducive learning impossible.

He also told the people at the summit that he however, refrained from his initial decision because of the colossal adverse consequences such clamp down would cause all stakeholders -government, pupils/students and parents – in the education sector.

He lamented that none of the public schools at that time could actually be called schools in the real sense of the name, which explained why he proposed closing all the schools down in order to swiftly address the rot.

Reversal of this decision, the governor revealed, caused the slow process of government’s intervention efforts in revamping the schools from this near total decline they have been for more than three decades without concrete efforts towards a turnaround around – how ever feeble – by successive governments.

Consequently, he elected to approach the gargantuan problems through a middle-of-the-road approach. The obvious corollary of this approach, as Aregbesola revealed, was a slow process of revamping the decades of cold-hearted inattention meted to the education sector in the State of the Virtuous.

The intervening periods thus allowed Ogbeni to go back to the drawing board to tackle the decay from the roots rather than surface-scratching it as the usual practice of old employed by past regimes.

After one and half years of painstaking planning and brainstorming, Ogbeni seems to have come up with radical solutions to education in the state.

The revolutionary process which, much more all-inclusive in outlook, is currently unfolding, going through what can be described as a test running. A cursory look at these new plans and policies reveal somewhat innovative strategies spiced with renascent programmes, which are a reminder of the colonial education heritage in Nigeria.

Let’s attempt to capture the new education agenda of Ogbeni’s government one at a time.

First is his idea of a physical structure of a place of learning called school. Aregbesola reminisced that in the 60s through to 80s the finest and edifying buildings in towns and cities were school buildings and so beautiful were they that even a blocked head would want to go to school merely seeing the architectural exterior of a school building.

Against this backdrop, Aregbesola conceived of a school building that will be an architectural masterpiece as a model school befitting the great people of his state. A sample of this model, which is one of 21 such buildings that will dot the states within the next 18 months, now stands splendidly in the capital.

In addition, his government is also building 100 elementary schools and 50 middle schools. That explains the physical structure.

At this junctures, a peep into the mind of Ogbeni is necessary in order to verify the authenticity of the motive behind the promised re-engineering of education in his state. His intention was informed by his sincere commitment to bequeath a lasting legacy in the state of his birth.

His words: “We are laying a solid foundation for their future – a future of freedom, a future of prosperity, a future of security…The rich will be allowed to pursue their choice of education for their wards but public schools will be put in the best possible shape for others and our people will have real choice.”

This budding seed sowed in this sector is so fundamentally irresistible to warrant accolades from the Senate Committee on Education which visited Osun few weeks ago in the performance of its oversight function.

The high power delegation, which was led by distinguished and indefatigable Senator Uche Chukwumerije openly, commended the efforts of the governor for his landmark achievements in education, and at the same time calling on other state governors to borrow a leave from what Aregbesola is doing in the education sector in his state.

He and some of his colleagues, including the wife of the former Governor of Lagos State, Senator Oluremi Tinubu; Professor Olusola Adeyeye, Senator Atiku Bagudu and others paid a courtesy visit to Osun as part of their oversight functions. Seeing the reforms on-going in the state’s education sector, Senator Chukwumerije said: “The states and the country owed Governor Aregbesola a lot of gratitude for promptly laying a formidable foundation for education in the state. I will like to use this opportunity to advise other states irrespective of your political affiliation. You must drop your ego and learn from the people oriented projects and programmes of Governor Aregbesola.”

Indeed, with what he has achieved so far, we would be safe to conclude that a new dawn is unfolding in education sector in the State of the Virtuous.

• Owolabi is of the Bureau of Communications and Strategy, Office of the Governor, State of Osun.

November 14, 2012
Dividends or Demands of Democracy? Envir/ Land Use Demands – Terrorist Taxation: A ’penkele mess’

Alhaji Lam Adesina, Former Governor and ACN leader in Oyo State is dead. We console his family. May he Rest in Peace. His legacy, limitations and achievements, will be analysed politically. All governors must think of their legacy. Today the living working citizens have serious economic challenges in Oyo State aggravated by IGR strategies. This requires intervention by current Governor Ajimobi.

A letter from a State Commissioner may appreciate you for ‘services rendered’ or be an Internally Generated Revenue Demand. The citizens are asking from government agencies ‘When is a ‘‘legality’’ an immorality?’ Bad Breaking News 1 on 1-11-2012: The Environmental Ministry’s Commissioner Dauda signed a dreaded ‘Demand Notice: Annual Environment Development Charges’ for my and hundreds of other business premises, N50,000/annum backdated 3 years to 2009 before this government came in. This N200,000 is payable ‘within three weeks or you.. ]face] a fine, imprisonment, seal of premises – 2004 law.

Bad Breaking News 2 on 29-10-12: Courier letter dated 29-10-2012 delivered on 9-11-2012 -10 days lost. Finance Commissioner Adelabu signed to me and hundreds of others a 2012 Land Use Charge of N126,000 for commercial use of building within 30 days. We could pay a discounted N107,000 if paid by 13-11-12, N157,500 paying between 13-28 Dec, N189,000 paying between 29 Dec-Jan 28 2013 and N252,000 paying between 29 Jan-28 Feb 2013, or ‘property will be liable to receivership by the state or its agent and any other ENFORCEABLE reliefs.

How can a charge double in four months? Does that make it easier to pay? Is this mere law enforcement or extortion? Is this bad political advice, legalised illegality or political rascality like when ‘people’ working during Adedibu/Akala’s time extorted up N20,000 ‘within one week’ from Ibadan businesses for ‘fire protection’? Those promoting excessive government charges should explain and perhaps be ‘sued’ by Civil Society and Consumer Protection Agencies. Are these government charges, their size, time frame, threat factor and insulting wordings not ‘terrorist tactics/Tax Terrorism similar to colonial taxation? Imagine if we had enforcing state police. We should feel at home in a state we love, not in occupied territory.

Let public officials publish their own payments for charges in their business officers and homes. We hear the Residence Charges are coming also. What an unpleasant End of Year present from Government for an ‘annus horribilis’ with the January fuel strikes, poor power, dwindling business, November fuel scarcity and N120/litre fuel. Now triple taxation! Does government want blood from stone?The Governor, as a professional, businessman and politician, should please intervene. Can the Governor please cut the fees by 80% and cut out corruption opportunities of ‘negotiation’? A little from a lot of citizens is better than a lot from a few. Obama and the Red Cross made ‘billions’ from millions of $10-50 donations and not $1000s from a few.

These charges may breach the human rights of citizens who deserve civility not ‘demands’. Just because someone calls it ‘TAX’ or ‘Charge’ or ‘Demand’ does not make it morally correct in amount. Even if it is ‘legitimate’ and ‘IGR’, Fellow Nigerian citizens need protection from overzealous taxation. Where is the Citizens Ombudsman? The authors of excessive tax bills should be cautioned and sanctioned because their wild assessments are causing panic among their tax victims, the voting Nigerians of 2015. This ‘mental assault’ intimidates the citizens and the letters should be rewritten. There should be trust and mutual respect between citizens and government, not a master servant relationship. This is not a human face of government.Does no one uphold the SERVICON pact not to abuse the citizens’ trust and respect?

Would the Commissioners writing these letters be happy to receive letters promising such violence and vitriol? The bills are too high, too late in the year, with too short a notice for payment and too severe punishments. Does government want us to steal to pay these bills? Whenever the amount is agreed, bills and rents can be more easily paid by 12 monthly instalments like in civilised countries instead of once annually, ‘within one month’. An honest business professional could lose his business for this while the dishonest one will pay up and even ‘bribe up’. Meanwhile billions are stolen in government inflated contracts and corruption nationwide daily for no punishment.

IGR must be ‘Intelligently’ and empathetically collected. Are these letters different from the threatening text messages and letters sent by Boko Haram, kidnappers and robbers forcing citizens to pay ‘protection’? They have ‘legal’ backing but every schoolboy knows the quote ‘The law is an ass’ and interpreted differently by every lawyer and judge. Indeed the ‘law is a manipulated ass’ used by authorities to legalise immorality. The principle of environmental care and land use are good but extortion is not.

Firstly a charge for 2012 is issued in November 2012. Secondly, which financial wizardry makes N126,000 malignantly become N252,000 in four months, 300% interest per annum? Is that legal? Neither the Mafia nor Shakespeare’s Shylock and his ‘pound of flesh’ charge such interest rates? A la Adelabu of old, this is a ‘’penkele mess’’ demand of democracy, not a dividend. The citizen needs protected from government agents paid by citizens’ taxes. Struggling business, education and health services lift the state’s income and reputation. They are not pariah or the enemy but partners in state progress. The governor can intervene. For me, Agodi prison is a real 2013 possibility.

November 14, 2012
Feedback on ‘Achebe’s personal history of Biafra’

In keeping with my promise last week, here are some of the scores of reactions my piece of October 24 on the subject above generated in texts and emails.

Sir,

Thank you very much for balancing the story objectively. We need more of your likes to educate our people on what really happened in that Civil War. As you are aware, our people, for lack of reading their history books, can believe anything, including the fact that goats in Nigeria had eight legs before the Civil War! As for Prof Achebe, Olatunji Ololade summed his self-propelling lies thus, “There was an elder.” I cannot agree more!

Kayode A, Abeokuta.

Sir,

Your article on Achebe’s Biafra story was well written. Those of us Igbo who lived here before and after the war understand you. Both sides have certainly erred and strayed. What we need to learn is the futility of resorting to violence and murder as a method for redressing wrongs. Peaceful demonstrations and powerful articles like yours and powerful speeches and lectures like Azikiwe’s in the pre Independence period are, in my view, better. The newspaper articles and the action of the Save Nigeria Group urging the observance of the Constitution regarding the succession of Yar’Adua by Jonathan proved that this method can work. And it is a more civilised way of dealing with such issues.

Dr. Ekweani, Kabala Hospital, Kaduna.

Sir,

You missed Achebe’s point. I’m neither Igbo nor northerner nor a fan of both people, but, my dear, we need to say the truth. And you are the one not saying the truth not Achebe. Why didn’t northern officers stop at killing Ironsi and Igbo army officers? Jan ’66 coup saw less than 35 casualties, but July ’66 coup saw well over 300 victims. Was that not enough revenge? Why oh why, did they go ahead to kill civilians in such large numbers and expect the Igbo to stay calm for the sake of one Nigeria? Your article justifies the murder of countless innocents. This is one area anti Achebe writers, including you, glossed over. If hatred for the Igbo wasn’t a factor, why didn’t Gowon institute policies to assuage Igbo feelings? How on earth did you expect a tribe that lost 30,000 souls in massacres across the North not to opt for secession?

Tonye Kalango, Port Harcourt

Sir,

I read with dismay and I found it very nauseating reading miles of inaccurate nonsense you wrote about Chinua Achebe and the Civil War. I don’t like distortion of facts which is your trade mark. You exhibited a stunning ignorance of what happened during the war. Yoruba and Northerners both hate Ndigbo. Why don’t you leave us alone to go as Biafrans? You hate us and you still want us to be in Nigeria. I believe you are confused and your confusion emanated from a deeper ignorance different from what Achebe has written in the nice book, “There was a country”.

Collins Ewenike, Imo State.

Sir,

For the first time you are writing southern issue without your acidic bite. Thanks for not joining our Yoruba brothers to shout down peoples account as if they have skeletons in their cupboard. Ojukwu failed the Igbo by not writing his account before he died. Please beg Gowon not to make the same mistake again. We, the new generation Igbo, need as much information as possible on the Civil War so that when the time comes in the near future we will not suffer the same fate again.

Andrew Udeze

Sir.

Your piece of 24/10/12 got it all right. However, you equally allowed the manipulation of historical events to affect you, which reflects in your write up. You may note that Anthony Enahoro’s proposal for independence in 1956 was in 1953, which Sir Ahmadu Bello sought for its amendment with the clause “as soon as practicable’. The eventual motion for Independence was proposed by Chief S. L. Akintola in 1959. The Yoruba nation, in its desire to erase the contributions of Akintola, conspired to ensure that all his landmark inputs were obliterated from historical events. Sir, please crosscheck this area of your work and don’t allow students of political history quote you in error.

Mohammed Adebayo Ameenu

Sir,

Thanks for the refreshing angle on the one of the causes of the Civil War. Achebe has only succeeded in opening a can of worms, and creating disaffection between new generations of Nigerians.

+2348034058476

Sir,

Your fact on Igbo triumphalism and their celebration and gloating at the death of Sardauna is very true, as I recall as a seven year old in Makurdi, a recorded popular song in Igbo with the lyrics ‘ewu ne barkwa’ ( meaning a goat is crying or gloating). Regrettably that’s what the Igbo still think and call all Northerners. What puzzles and annoys me is why would an icon like Achebe today remind me of the sad era of me running for cover with my siblings whenever Makurdi came under Biafran bombing? History is okay but Nigerians, especially the Igbo, should let the sores of that period of the life of the nation go.

Adoga Anyebe

Sir,

I can’t understand what Achebe wants to achieve by raking up an old wound with so much hatred at a time this nation has so much present day challenges to surmount. What Nigeria needs today is how to heal old wounds so as to move forward. I suppose Achebe is familiar with the saying that if you cannot improve on the silence it is better to keep quiet!

I think Achebe and some members of his generation with long memory for hatred are part of the problem with Nigeria. Period!

Dr Festus Aisabokhale

Sir,

I hold you in a very high esteem, and your critique on Achebe’s latest offering, ‘There was a Country’, has only reinforced my respect for you.

You pointed out, from your perspective, the lapses inherent in the work without abusing the author. There is no doubt that Achebe is human, and therefore he is not infallible. The good thing about this work is that it has opened up the debate for a soul searching exercise, and even the healing of the wounds of the past.

It is right for those that do not agree with Achebe to state their own perspectives, without resorting to inflammatory statements or abuses. I do not share the view of some commentators that we should bury the past and forge ahead. The holocaust is still being discussed in the Western world, in spite of being a very sensitive issue.

If, as you pointed out, Achebe glossed over the murder of innocent military officers of Northern extraction by Major Nzeogwu and other conspirators, then you have towed the same line of argument as Michael Hollman, one of the first reviewers of the book, who stated that the book is ‘partisan in perspectives’. I was uncomfortable to learn from you that Achebe did not acknowledge the contributions of nationalists like Herbert Macaulay and Bode Thomas to our independence. However, the lapses inherent in the book do not detract from its importance and relevance to our fledgling society. For once, both the generation that did not witness the Civil War and those that witnessed the brutal conflict are engaging themselves in intellectual exercises; some in the right direction, others, unfortunately, in the wrong direction.

Erasmus Ndulue.

Only well informed and respected columnists like you and Duro Onabule, would serve as guides to ensure the youths do not stray from the path of probity. Abusing Achebe and demonising his tribe, simply because his views were seen as ‘being partisan’ will not help matters. We need other perspectives to balance the stories of our unfortunate past. As you rightly pointed out, ‘The truth of the Civil War was that there were rights and wrongs on both sides’.

Another critic, Clem Baiye, in Tell of October 29, even pointed out that Achebe did not address the issue of the opposition of the minorities in the Southeast to the secession of Biafra in his work. It is however simplistic and reductionist for most commentators to dwell solely on Achebe’s comment on Awolowo’s role during the war. Those commentators turned a blind eye on Achebe’s observation of Awolowo’s meticulousness in managing the affairs of Action Group, as pointed out by Clem Baiye in Tell.

Having said that, I have placed an order for the book, and your critique will surely serve as a guide for a student of political history like me.

November 14, 2012
The ‘fever’ of Obama’s re-election

After months of gruelling and exhilarating campaign, the two front runners in the 2012 Presidential contest in the United States of America – Barack Obama of the Democratic Party and Mitt Romney of the Republican Party – left their fate in the hands of the electorate last Tuesday. At the end of the election, which has been described as the toughest ever in the history of the country, Obama won an overwhelming majority votes. With this, the first African-American President of the US won a second term in office as the country’s 44th President.

It has gone down as one election where political bookmakers got it wrong, opinion polls and exit polls somersaulted, and an overwhelmed media declared the polls too close to call. For many of us, it was like a battle of our lives. Days before the election, I had taken it upon myself to put regular calls through to my friends in the US in order to get-first hand information about the campaign. That was when it became obvious that the usually reliable international media could no longer be relied upon.

Not even the Sandy storm that bared its rage across the east coast of America, leaving disaster and destruction along its tempestuous route, was enough to dissuade Uzoma Nwagwu from his daily commentaries which he shared with me with ferocious interest. Uzoma is a resident of New Jersey who commutes to New York every day to fend for self and family with a paid employment at the Citi Bank Group. Before he ‘migrated’ to ‘Obama’s land’ about 20 years ago, Uzoma had had a stint with a newspaper in Nigeria. He had also been exposed to some pro-democracy activists who were at the fore-front of the clamour for civilian rule in the country in the early 1990s.

So to Uzoma, whom his numerous friends prefer to call Uzor, monitoring an all-encompassing campaign like the recent one in America was more or less a familiar terrain. He was just there anytime his phone rang to give updates. He exuded confidence and charisma each time he weighed the chances of Obama and Romney. When Obama faltered during his first televised debate with Romney, we were both gripped with fear and trepidation.

Though Romney’s rating had unexpectedly soared after that first encounter, Obama was to shore up his electoral value during the other two debates. On the eve of the election, we had to abandon every other thing and concentrated attention on how Obama would fare in the battleground and swing states. At least, we were sure of his victory in Ohio because of his auto bailout programme which resuscitated the failed auto industry. This ensured that workers in the state had their jobs for keep in the aftermath of the economic recession that plagued the US and the rest of the world in 2008. But we had concern over Florida, Iowa, Virginia, Wisconsin, North Carolina and others.

At a point, Uzor and I became more troubled when feelers started pouring in that many of the white voters had probably introduced racial dimension into the voting pattern in their desperate attempt to ease out ‘our candidate’ (Obama) from the White House. That evening, the Cable Network News, CNN, which has maintained a track record of accurately projecting winners of elections in US for many years, played safe and could only see a tie between Obama and Romney. That sort of increased the adrenalin flow in our bloodstream.

At 11:18 pm (Eastern Time in America), when Fox news, CNN and other news outlets still projected President Obama winner, the race to the White House wasn’t anything close. It was a decisive victory for Obama who polled 332 electoral votes, 62 votes more than the required 270 votes, against Romney‘s Republican party’s 206. Obama also swept eight out of nine swing states, with North Carolina his only battleground loss. Of the 56 presidential elections held in United states, 44 presidents in US history, incumbents have run 30 times, winning 20 times and losing 10 times.

But Obama’s second-term victory did not come as a surprise. The worsening economy set the agenda for the 2012 election. Obama made lots of grandiose promises when he was first elected President in 2008. Paul Ryan, the Republican Vice president, captured this thus: “He promised to cut the nation’s deficit in half? It doubled. He vowed to create jobs and put Americans back to work; unemployment rate grew higher than the day he took office. You have 23 million Americans struggling to find work, 15 percent of American citizens are today living in poverty”.

The facts are monumental and, definitely, the defence of Obama’s record almost made his candidacy a hard sell. All but the economy became central in the campaign. It is the Middle class that lost their jobs and could not find any. They lost their homes as they could not pay their mortgage and could no longer afford medical care for the family. No wonder the two candidates ran their campaigns focusing on the class.

Obama’s ground game of getting voters, micro targeting the much-needed audience, and ensuring they voted timely, was a deciding factor for the outcome of the election. For sure, hurricane Sandy did not blow in wind of votes for his victory rather it was the result of a carefully conceived election campaign based on changing political demography that was passionately executed.

Essentially, the grounding game strategy roared Obama’s message home directly to the target audience. He connected with the Middle class who formed the bulk of the voters. He understood that voters wanted the president they know. They believed convincingly that Obama, not Romney, understood their nightmares of college costs, insurance bills and all that. Virtually, in most of Obama’s rallies, he did not fail to seize the opportunity to remind Americans that he had been in their situation, understood and shared their values. This worked well for him as exit polls showed that voters thought far more and viewed Obama as the voice of the poor and the middle class. On the other hand, they saw Romney as the guy leaning perpetually toward the rich.

Furthermore, Latino vote was a significant block. Obama’s campaign strategists, therefore, converted to advantage, the emerging demographics and their voting influence on the outcome of the election. He succeeded in building a firewall with Hispanics, and tapped heavily on their increasing population. Hispanics became the biggest deciders of the election. For the first time, they represented 10 percent of the overall electorate. On the whole, Hispanics cast about 11 million votes in the election.

There was a good reason for this. Five months earlier, under an executive action, Obama amended the immigration policy to allow hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children to remain in the country and work without fear of deportation. That appeared to have removed the rug underneath Romney’s feet. From then on, the Republican Party candidate was all through hunted by his statement calling for illegal immigrants to “self-deport”.

Also, throughout the campaign, Romney carried the baggage of horrendous gaffes. The problem was that the Republican Party candidate couldn’t pass the credibility test. It was so bad that even many voters who were hitherto disenchanted with Obama found it unsafe to vote for Romney who was seamlessly at ease shifting grounds on his earlier adopted positions on many issues.

On the whole, Romney’s flip-flop cast aspersions on whether he could really be trusted by Americans. Obama’s strategists effectively used the question of Romney’s credibility to ask American’s who they trusted based on their antecedent. At a point in the campaign, Obama was constrained to call his rival a ‘talented salesman’ who will change his position at anytime to win. The lesson of the 2012 United States presidential election especially for Nigeria, is a topic for another day.

November 14, 2012
Obama/Justice Jombo-Ofo: Tale of two nations

The widening gap between America’s astonishing progress in managing her diversities and Nigeria’s rather embarrassing retrogression at integrating her diverse populations has come to the fore, once again. While an Anambra born woman, Justice (Mrs.) Ifeoma Jombo-Ofo, could not be sworn in as Justice of the Court of Appeal because she hails from Abia, a different State as her husband’s, an Africa-American, Barack Obama, was re-elected by a predominantly white population as the President of the most powerful nation in the world. What a shame!

This brings to the fore a recent lecture entitled “The Political Ideology of the Great Zik of Africa and the Leadership Challenges in Nigeria” delivered by the Deputy President of Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu in Awka. Ekweremadu had noted that apart from the fact that Zik won election in the South West, with his NCNC also showing great strength in the 1951 Western Region House of Assembly election, NCNC installed Altine Umoru and Bashorun Balogun as the Mayors of Enugu and Port Harcourt, respectively. According to him, therefore, the question our generation would have to answer is: “Why is it that decades after the great Zik and his generation had shone the light of this level of brotherhood, we are still unable to profitably manage our diversities and gel into a true nation state?”

Also, wondering if we are actually making progress or retrogressing, the Senate Leader explained during a debate on the matter by the Senate in plenary that some 30 years ago, an Igbo man, Honourable Justice Kalu Anya was the Chief Judge of Borno State, while a Yoruba man was the Attorney-General of the Borno Judiciary.

Let us look at the contrasts to find answers to Ndoma-Egba’s questions. Sometime in the United States history, blacks were just some pieces of property, with the first set of black slaves arriving in State of Virginia. It was a long and tortuous history of misuse, dehumanisation, and derogation. In 1800, a black slave and blacksmith, Gabriel Prosser planned a slave revolt which was to march on Richmond, Virginia. His plan was uncovered and he and many fellow black “conspirators” were hanged. The same faith befell Nat Turner, an African American preacher in Virginia in 1831 as well as Denmark Vessey in Chesterfied, South Carolina in 1821. Ironically, as if to atone for its notoriety for slavery and highhandedness against black slaves, Virginia, known to have consecutively delivered to the Republican Party from 1968 to 2004 presidential elections, made a “U” turn to elect Obama, a black, in 2008 and re-elected him few days ago.

Now, though the US Congress banned slave importation in 1808, the US Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott’s case that slaves were not citizens. Yet, from Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation that freed black slaves in the Confederate States in 1863 to the Fifth Amendment that gave the blacks voting rights; from the election of Hiram Revels as the first African-American Senator (Mississippi) in 1870 in the period of Reconstruction (1865-1877) to election of 16 black Congressmen and 600 black state legislators in the same period; from the founding of the first college for black women (Spelman College) in 1881 to the breaking of Major League Baseball’s colour segregation when Jackie Robinson signed to the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947; from the integration of African-Americans into the US military by President Truman in 1948 to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans case in which the Supreme Court declared (on May 17, 1954) that all forms of racial discrimination in schools was unconstitutional; from the popular Rosa Parks refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger at the “coloured section” of a bus in Montgomery on December 1, 1955 to the successful one-year bus boycott by blacks that led to the desegregation of buses in Montgomery in December 1956; and from the sweeping Civil Rights Act under President Lyndon Johnson in 1964 that prohibits discrimination of any kind- race, colour, religion, national origin, etc, plus the Voting Rights Act (1965) and another Civil Rights Act (1968) to the election of President Obama in 2008, the US has made tremendous progress in transforming into a country that truly lives out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold this truth to be self evident, that all men are born equal”. US is now a country of Martin Luther King’s dream where “men are judged by the content of their character, not by the colour of their skin”. This invariably accounts monumentally to America’s tremendous transformation into an economic and political super power because men and women find their dreams, becoming the best they are capable of, irrespective of their religion, race, colour, etc.

Conversely, Nigeria has moved from a nation where an Altine Umoru and Bashorun Balogun became Mayors of two biggest cities in the then Eastern Region, namely Enugu and Port Harcourt, to one where no man/woman amounts to anything outside his/her State of Origin. We have retrogressed from a nation where an Honourable Justice Kalu Anya became Chief Justice of Borno to one where an Anambra born Justice Jombo-Ofo, was refused ascension to the Court of Appeal unable to access her full rights and privileges as a Nigerian from her State of Marriage, Abia. Ironically, she remains an Abian, her children remains Abians, and will no doubt be her final resting place when she is called. We have also moved retrogressed to a country where a Governor of a State in a 21st century Nigeria has, on purely sectional and ethno-religious grounds, consistently upbraided and discredited the ongoing efforts to address dire contradictions in Nigeria’s constitution. Even though we spend billions of naira funding the NYSC, we are steadily transforming into a country where funny and incompetent characters could occupy the best of available positions and opportunities, so long as they are “sons and daughters of the soil”. Again, what a big shame!!!

However, given the national applause that has greeted the patriotic motion moved by Senator Ekweremadu and the entire Senate calling the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Honourable Justice to order, it is comforting that Nigerians understand that this Jombo-Ofo matter, if allowed to stay, would sound a requiem for Nigerian women and big obstacle for inter-state marriage and national integration. It is like digging a grave for our future.

Kowtowing to an unreasonable Rule of the Federal Character Commission (FCC) is not a complementary commentary on the nation’s judiciary. Unless we are saying that the FCC Rule overrides Section 42 of the 1999 Constitution which provides that no Nigerian should be discriminated against on the ground of religion, state of origin, sex, language, etc.

i also feel this national embarrassment should further mobilize Nigerians to support the National Assembly to replace the State of Origin with State of Residence in the ongoing constitution review. Indeed, what God has joined together, let no judiciary put asunder. Besides, the hunger, insecurity and poverty challenges we face, know no state, religion, tribe or tongue.

• Anichukwu is Special Adviser (Media) to Deputy President of Senate.

November 14, 2012
Boko Haram: Why govt should listen to Amnesty

Last week, I promised the reader I will devote today’s column entirely to some of the reactions provoked by my piece of the week before on the controversial “personal” history of Biafra by Chinua Achebe which he titled There was a country.

However, man, it is said, merely proposes but it’s only God who disposes. God, apparently, disposed through two terrible events of last two weeks that my promise would have to keep for another week. The first was the gruesome suicide bombing of St Rita’s Catholic Church, Unguwan Yero, Kaduna, on October 28 in which at least 30 worshippers lost their lives and hundreds more lost their limbs or were maimed.

It was indeed a miracle that the casualties were not higher considering the number of worshippers who assembled that day and the suicide bomber’s (assuming he was alone in the vehicle) apparent desperation in ramming his way into the church yard through the perimeter fence that terrible Sunday morning.

It was my typical Sunday morning; rising late and taking eternity to have my bath. I was sitting on the toilet seat a little after 9 am when I heard a huge rumbling sound like I’ve never heard before. At the same time, I felt the house shake as if the roof and the wall were going to cave in.

Madam, who was in the bedroom, shouted “Baba, what is it?” Of course, I didn’t know what it was but somehow I restrained myself from rushing out, especially since the kaboom was not followed by any physical destruction. However, while still in the toilet I kept thinking what could have caused such a huge sound. In quick succession I dismissed the possibility of the rock breakers across the road from my house using dynamite and the other possibility that the transformer serving our neighbourhood had blown up.

In the end, I concluded it must have been a bomb, even as I prayed to God fervently that it shouldn’t. My prayers were answered in the negative when shortly after my bath one of my kids came to tell us that the online media had been reporting that it was the suicide bombing of a church at Unguwan Yero.

My heart sank just imagining what the casualty would be like; if my house which must be at least two kilometres away from the church as the crow flies, could be shaken to its foundation by the bomb I shuddered to think what could have been the fate of those in and around it.

Terrible as the number of those killed and injured was, it was, indeed, a miracle that the mayhem was not far worse by the time the rubbles had settled.

Predictably, the story grabbed the headlines of the media the following day. Equally predictably, virtually all fingers pointed at the usual suspect: Boko Haram.

This time, however, the security forces acted with unusual dispatch to avert any retaliatory attacks. But even more importantly, in my view at least, the Christian leadership in Kaduna, especially those of the Catholic fold – that of the affected church even more so – acted with greatest restrain in calling on their, no doubt, angry flock not to seek revenge.

As far as I know, Boko Haram has not claimed responsibility for the attack but it has remained the principal suspect.

All this was Sunday October 28.

Then last Friday came another shocker. I was about rounding up my lecture to my post graduate diploma students at the Samaru campus of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, when a call came through from a former very senior government official and a senior friend. During class I normally leave my phone on silent and pick up a call only when I think it might be important. This was one such call. So I excused myself and answered my phone.

I had not spoken to the gentleman since dropping a document for him a few days before. So I thought he was calling to confirm receipt. He did confirm receipt but his next words shocked me to the marrow.

“Sorry about Shuwa,” he said. “What has happened to him?”, I asked nonplussed. Didn’t I hear he had been killed that morning?, he asked.

That ended my class that evening. Apparently, my students too had not heard. They were all shocked when I told them the news, half of which they must’ve guessed from the way my voice and countenance changed. Their shock was not surprising because more than half the class were old enough to have heard some of the probably apocryphal exploits of the (79 year old) general during our civil war of 1967 to 1970. To think that such a person who had survived a war and served his country well would be killed like a chicken by assassins who were probably young enough to be his grandchildren right in front of his house!

If their shock at the manner of the man’s death did not surprise me, the way they all chorused that “dis one pass Boko Haram,” surprised, even shocked me, the more so because there were more Christians in the class than Muslims.

My students are certainly not a representative sample of this country’s population. But it sounds sensible to me that if only one Christian would begin to wonder if there is not more to the bombings of churches and the killings of Christians – never mind the bombings of public buildings and the killing of security agents, serving or retired – than Boko Haram insurrections, one can be forgiven the thought that the official mantra about Boko Haram being behind each and every one of these bombings and killings needs a fundamental re-thinking.

No doubt Boko Haram is real. And its methods are despicable and certainly counter-productive to its objective, to which it is entitled, of Islamising Nigeria. As it knows all too well the Qur’an makes it very clear that there is no force in religion.

However, it has been said again and again that Boko Haram has since become a franchise used by criminals, and for all we know, rogue elements in government and the security services for their own ends. This is one good reason why government must rethink its scorched earth strategy to bring an end to the insecurity that has pervaded this country.

The scorched earth policy has not worked and it will not work because it can only worsen the very vicious circle of violence which the extrajudicial killing of the Boko Haram leadership back in 2009 unleashed on the hapless citizens of our dear country.

If only because government has control over the official instruments of violence, it has the greater responsibility for ending this vicious circle. It can start by listening to what Amnesty International said last week about how the public, especially in the theatre of the Boko Haram insurrection, has come to fear and loath our security forces more than the Boko Haram insurgents.

Unless we have a strategy of more carrots and fewer sticks employed by government, the country could, God forbid, slide into an anarchy of bombings and counter-bombings and high profile killings along religious lines.

November 7, 2012
Oronsaye: Go home

You could mistake it for a scene in a chartbuster Nollywood movie. The only difference is that, this time around, the actors on parade are technocrats and highly revered top civil servants who have dominated Nigeria’s civil service like colossus for many years. And watching the drama as it unfolded with ‘ruptured’ attention was the President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan including cabinet members, other top government officials and television-viewing public worldwide who were all dazed with amazement.

The setting of this theatre of the absurd last Friday was the Council Chamber of the Presidential Villa, Abuja. Present were three powerful committees set up by the President to look into different aspects of our national life. These are Special Task Force on Governance and Control, Refineries Special Task Force and the Petroleum Revenue Task Force. They were there to submit their reports.

Prior to that ceremony, Reuters, an international news agency, had gone to town on its website with some ‘scoops’ from the report of the Petroleum Revenue Task Force headed by the former anti-corruption czar, Nuhu Ribadu. The report was also widely circulated by several newspapers. This extensive publicity sparked off instant public debates which seriously rattled the government. As tongues continued to wag over the report, the government knew that it needed to do something quickly to stem the tide of negative commentary.

Perhaps, to save its face, the government fixed last Friday for the submission of the report in which monumental corruption has been unearthed. But rather than work, the strategy actually boomerang and created more embarrassment for the Presidency. This was underscored by the confusion and avoidable altercation that ensued between Ribadu and Steve Oronsaye, the man who rose from the ranks to become the head of service of the civil service of the federation before he retired a few years ago.

The dilemma started during Ribadu’s presentation. First, he saluted the President for his courage in setting up the three committees and expressed the hope that Jonathan would find the courage to implement the various recommendations. While focusing on his own report, Ribadu assured the President that all the issues in the report were handled with sincerity, and that if properly implemented, they would set the country free from economic bondage. This, according to him, is because the recommendations would strengthen institutions and increase government revenue. He lauded the President’s anti-corruption and reforms agenda but emphasized that more needed to be done to fight the hydra-headed monster which corruption has assumed in Nigeria, adding that carrying out such reforms requires integrity.

As soon as Ribadu moved towards to Diezani Allison-Madueke, the petroleum resources minister, to present the report, an apparently uncomfortable Oronsaye, who served as deputy chairman to the committee, raised up his hand like a schoolboy in a classroom, to signify his intention to say something. But it was after Ribadu had handed over a copy of the report to the minister, that the President recognised Oronsaye, who had then become so desperate to speak. With subdued anger, Orosanye alleged that the process leading to the production of the report was flawed. He claimed, it did not pass through due process. This jolted everybody. The position of Oronsaye was supported by Ben Oti, another member of the committee.

Though infuriated by Oronsaye and Oti’s position, Ribadu calmly said Oronsaye, “never participated even (for) one day in the deliberations of this committee”. He then added a caveat: “During the work of the committee, Oronsaye got himself appointed on the board of the NNPC. The other gentleman, Oti, became the Director of Finance of NNPC, and they decided to, more or less, bully everybody to take over. And they wanted us to write for them, but the Committee members refused.” Ribadu added,“Steve (Oronsaye) has not been in the country. He flew in this morning for him to come and do this and I think our president deserves more respect than what you have done now.”

Ribadu’s position was corroborated by Samaila Subairu, the acting secretary of the committee and Ignatius Adegunle, another member. Subairu said the report was, indeed, the product of a joint effort of all members. Like Ribadu, he accused Oronsaye of staying away from most of the committee’s meetings. On his part, Adegunle said he was of the view that the forum was not the proper place for the issues canvassed by Oronsaye.

However, what is clear from the melodrama between Ribadu and Oronsaye is that many people entrusted with sensitive national assignments have always found it difficult to separate personal emotions and self-preservation from such assignments. Or how does one explain the fact that it was during this type of assignment that Oronsaye and Oti came on the board of NNPC, a department that was under probe.

It was quite astonishing viewing the video clips especially where Oronsaye repeatedly kept on hollering “the President said you should submit, and so what!”, with all the emphasis heaped on “so what!” That statement was contemptuous of the office of the president. Whichever way it is viewed, it shows lack of reverence for that office. What Oronsaye actually meant was that Ribadu and other committee members should have ignored the President’s directive. Perhaps, it was when this dawned on him, that he made spirited efforts to explain his “so what” just immediately after he said so repeatedly.

A consummate civil servant that he is, a man who once sat at the pinnacle of the nation’s civil service rule as it relates to such an issue, Oronsaye should not, and he cannot, simply interrupt the submission of the report the way he did it. If at all he had any reservation, since he has access to either the minister or the president himself, he could have sought appointment with the president and voice out his resentment. This way, that show of shame he exhibited under television klieg lights would have been avoided. After all in the civil service, you can only communicate by writing not by engaging in reckless vituperation right in the presence of your superiors, not to talk of exhibiting such gross misdemeanor right before the President. If such a scene had enacted itself in the presence of the man who appointed Oronsaye head of service during his tenure as president, I am sure he would have dressed him down and reprimand him for his ‘bad behaviour’.

The lesson from this is that Oronsaye and his cliques who have served their fatherland for more than 30 years should now take a back seat and allow those who are more vibrant, focused and result-oriented to take the centre-stage in piloting the affairs of this nation. Nigerians can no longer be bogged down by those who prefer to operate under archaic bureaucratic redtapism.

All these appointments here and there, including even that of NNPC, which Ribadu said should have necessitated Oronsaye’s resignation from the committee in order to avoid being compromised, are no longer for spent bullets like him. Resignation would have been the most honourable thing for him to do rather than constitute a public nuisance. The same thing applies to Oti, his comrade in disgrace.

With what the whole nation witnessed last Friday, Oronsaye need not be told any longer that he seems to have over-stayed his welcome in national affairs. The only option left for him at this moment is to devote his time to his community’s affairs back in Edo State, where his wealth of experience in the public service can make a whole lot of difference. I believe there are many things waiting for attention in Oronsaye’s community – youth counselling, community development, chieftaincy matters, settling matrimonial squabble and all that. It is time for him to retire from active public life and assume a father-figure. That it is why he should go home!

November 7, 2012