The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • Hail to the pothole; the beatification of the pothole in Nigeria; GCFR Pothole

    Hail to the pothole; the beatification of the pothole in Nigeria; GCFR Pothole

    Ask politicians if they know that one potholeincreases travel time, causes accidents with injuries and death and creates orphans and widows. Ask what the 500,000,000 to a billion potholes cause economically and mentally in Nigeria?

    It is official, we have been mis-led. The old colonial and then early republic efficient army of pothole fighters, aka PWD, was defeated and disbanded by the military probably simply because they both wore khaki. PWD refers to the defunct dead and executed Public Works Department charged with road maintenance and anti-pothole activities which are not nuclear physics but have a 100 year history. The PWD does this through its foot-soldiers armed with a wheelbarrow, shovels, head pan, a pick, a watering-can for pouring tar, a stove for tar in the watering can, a road beater and sometimes even a small roller all under a tripod of sticks with a red flag to warn road users that important government work – pothole filling – was taking place. They wore khaki -shirt, canvas shorts and a straw hat. This PWD army successfully fought potholes countrywide. So why change a winning team? What happened to that legacy causing the present pothole virus? This in spite of billion-billions declared as spent and the ineffective ‘over 400 engineers’ retrained by FERMA. No Nigerians escapes the dreaded ‘potholeitis’ of FERMA and stateERMA and LGAERMA.

    The military abandoned professionalism and failed to recognize the PWD as a most effective weapon of mass destruction of potholes in the war on potholes. Potholes grew wild. No one could combat them. The military was interrupted by an epidemic of coups, corruption and incompetence and the terrorist potholes mutated into many shapes and sizes. The military announcing a strategy to wipe out the terrorist potholes which had nearly ground the country to a halt and claimed many lives. It was a new secret weapon – ‘the contractor’ to kill potholes in their thousands overnight. ‘The contractor’ was a monumental failure and contractor status was rubbished, associated with quick wealth for no work. Contractors were defeated and blamed the rainy season for failure as if Nigeria has the highest rainfall in the world. It soon became obvious that pothole fighting required a new weapon. The contractor was replaced by ‘the mega-contractor’ attracting multiple billions of naira presumably to fight billions of potholes all at once. This was another failure. Both the contractor and mega-contractor blamed everyone except themselves for failure of ‘The Pothole War’. The professionals are there providing power and pothole filling around the world. Empower them or else face destruction of the nation. Why should Nigeria be the pothole of the world?

    There are needless potholes all around and all governments’ attempts at billion naira beautification projects and also ‘job creation’ road cleaning teams are rubbished because the nation’s 100m+ citizens are stuck in a ‘billion potholes’ watching the absurdity as road sweepers sweep around potholes and the cement for pothole filling is diverted to flowerpots and roadside decorations. Simple politics: Fix potholes, clean gutters, do beautification! They do not go hand in hand, they go in sequence. A pothole is a sign of abject failure of government and is unacceptable. It is not to be ‘managed’ or endured. A government Council in the UK paid out £750,000 as fines for axel, tyre and break damage to cars. Our neighbourhood watches, NGOs need to make pothole awareness a national clarion call. Governments should heed the warning. When Obasanjo was stuck in potholes near his home he was booed and ‘stoned’ with pure water. Politicians may be ‘stoned’ with shoes or actual stones. Only politicians, not the people, will prevent this by their good works. Roman road exist today without potholes 2000 years later. What type of idiot cannot build a road that will survive rainy seasons? Such a person does not deserve to be an engineer or politician in a ‘great’ country like Nigeria. Fast forward to today 2012.

    Today, is it not true that National Assembly members take N35-45 million/quarter or $2-4,000/day while Indians make $3,000/month and Obama earns $300,000/year? Is it not true that Nigerian government contracts are 30% more in dollar terms than anywhere in the world while we get 100% less delivery on contracts? The failure of the pothole to be filled is judgment and massive failure of politics, politicians and civil service. A failure to prioritize the needs people using the road daily. We require a planning loving pothole filling government before potholes get ‘GCFRPothole’ as having most effect nationwide.

    Retribution, restitution, revenge describe politicians’ actions to each other and the nation. One day we must be prepared for the revenge of the people especially if Ghana streaks ahead with petrodollars. ‘Ghana’s Peaceful Evolution’ will contrast with ‘Nigeria’ Coming Violent Revolution’ and our politicians will be to blame, not the Nigerian revolutionaries. The children of those denied pensioners will wake up annoyed enough one day to take the enforce the law. Governance is not a joke about how much tax Nigerians can endure for no services. Power, potholes all need fixing by December not an illusionary promise for 2020. We know the figures. We know there is money. What is missing is political and professional competence and love. If not let us ‘beatify and beautify the pothole’ in Nigeria and raise it to Sacred Pothole’ status, making it untouchable while we die!

  • Shades of Imelda Marcos

    It’s not every day that the much-maligned Nigeria Police gets to celebrate success. Its Kano State command was in good spirits the other day as they announced that after one year tracking a five-man gang of robbers who had the temerity to scavenge for loot at the Nassarawa Quarters, Kano home of late Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha, they finally snared their quarry.

    At the celebratory press conference, they paraded a haul of jewellery worth N30 million said to belong to Abacha’s widow, Maryam.

    While we rejoice with the former First Lady on the recovery of her bling, we doubt whether the bandits dispossessed madam of all of her expensive metal – causing us to suspect there must be more gold left behind in ‘Fort Knox.’ That is another way of saying that madam’s overall jewellery inventory is abysmally undervalued at N30 million.

    It just reminds you of Imelda, spouse of the late, unlamented dictator of The Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos. After her husband fell from power, hungry hordes overran the Malacanang presidential palace in Manila to get a first hand view of the opulence in which the erstwhile first couple lived. And they got more than they bargained for.

    In the lady’s closet they found over three thousand shoes! How many shoes would one woman wear in a life time? In the end her closet became a museum for pieces from past seasons. We must equally wonder about the mindset that can amass over N30 million in jewelry, when just down the street thousands of almajiri are dying of hunger. Vanity of vanities; all is vanity!

  • Mubi massacre and the limits of outrage

    Mubi massacre and the limits of outrage

    Nigeria’s descent into depravity is a challenge that is now beyond President Goodluck Jonathan and the security agencies

    The cowards who slaughtered forty-something unarmed students of the Federal Polytechnic, Mubi on Independence Day are yet to openly own up to their devilish act. So we may never get a full understanding of their motivations and agenda.
    Still, there are all kinds of pointers that put the usual suspects in the frame. All the circumstantial evidence suggests that this was something sectarian and political; it was not just the arbitrary act of rival school gangs fighting over turf or girls.
    This was cold, calculated and pre-meditated. The guns started blazing at 10.30pm the previous night and did not stop booming until 3.00am the next morning. For over four and a half hours more than 40 young Nigerians were methodically executed in their hostel for reasons they will never know.
    The act was also deeply symbolic. The killers could have carried out their deadly spree on any other day, but they chose to do so on the day Nigeria celebrates her independence as a nation. If you think that is coincidental, then think again.
    The timing is important because beyond damaging national cohesion, it presents a public relations conundrum for a beleaguered government which rose out of the ashes of one of the bitterest political contests in Nigeria’s history.
    The attackers asked for the identity of their victims before dispatching them to untimely death. Other eyewitnesses said they called the victims by name and then killed them. Clairvoyance is not required to conclude that the identification parade would have been to sort out Christian from Muslim, Northerner from Southerner.
    Several months ago in the same Adamawa State, gunmen burst into some churches and slaughtered over 20 worshippers. Other innocents would be killed where they gathered to grieve their loss. A couple of weeks ago in Bauchi, it was another tale of unprovoked deadly assault against a hapless community.
    What should be evident by now – going back to similar attacks in places like Bayero University, Kano – is that certain people and forces are hell-bent on pushing our buttons until we slide into an undeclared sectarian and ethnic war.
    Their strategy is clear. If past outrages have not done the trick, then up the scale by killing more people in the kind of numbers that will generate global headlines, and stir even the most stable and sober to reach for their sword.
    What is especially depressing about the Mubi massacre is not just the sheer scale of its savagery, but its exposure of the helplessness of the authorities to guarantee the security of citizens. Senate President, David Mark, captured this reality vividly in his reaction to the killings.
    He said: “Today it is Mubi, who knows where and when it will happen in the next town. How many policemen can you put in various universities and polytechnic in this country? It is absolutely impossible. There is no way; it does not matter how well you fund the security agencies.”
    One of the reasons the execution-style killings have riveted attention is because the victims are students. But the reality of present day Nigeria is that in the North-East and other parts of the north, the mindless slaughter of scores of people has been a weekly occurrence. We are only shocked when the body count is especially high.
    Let’s forget the hollow posturing: what is happening is a national crisis that is far beyond the capacity of President Goodluck Jonathan and the security agencies to manage. The almost daily killings give the lie to claims by the president and other officials at different international fora that government is containing the Boko Haram insurgency and the freelance killings.
    Mubi is evidence that this crisis will not be addressed by merely reshuffling the leadership of the national security apparatus. General Andrew Azazi was fired as National Security Adviser (NSA) and Colonel Sambo Dasuki hired in his stead, but the switch has not made one jot of a difference. Dasuki has shown that he’s no magician.
    It’s not as if the agencies have not had their moments. But where they make some progress like in the slaying of the Boko Haram spokesman, Abu Qaqa, that gain is immediately cancelled out by a statement-making type of Mubi massacre.
    After each of these bestial outings, Jonathan and the National Assembly leadership serve up the usual chorus of outrage. This time, for added effect, Mark has called for the death penalty for perpetrators of such heinous crimes.
    Unfortunately, knee-jerk reactions based on the emotions of the moment will not solve anything. The death penalty is a dubious solution that has not stopped serial killers in America, or mass murderers whether in Rwanda or the Balkans.
    Nigeria needs help and Jonathan even more so. He needs to call an urgent national gathering, or family meeting, that transcends political affiliations and ethnic origins.
    Such a gathering is imperative to hammer out a national consensus that certain things like the mass murder of innocents are unacceptable. We need to agree that our differences can be resolved without recourse to senseless slaughter.
    We need to agree that we can pursue our political aspirations within the ambit of law, without recourse to the bloodshed blackmail.
    We have to agree that that all who will not subscribe to this national compact become our common enemy who should be fought and defeated by all means necessary.
    Without such a consensus, no president – whether of minority or majority ethnic group origin – will be able to deal with what is happening right now. Without such a deal, we will never have enough men under arms or in our security agencies, to thwart evil men when they decide to embark on killing sprees in deserted outposts of our vast land.

  • Ugo Ozuah, yet another victim

    Ugo Ozuah, yet another victim

    Imagine this scenario: a man met a lady. Both of them got talking. One thing led to another and they both agreed to live together as husband and wife for the rest of their life. For two good years, they courted, dreamt dreams, ruminated on how they would go about their lives and finally are joined together in holy wedlock.

    What follows is the reception where nice things are said about the couple. There are smiles all over, the bride and groom grinning from one corner of the mouth to another. On such a day, appetite will take a flight. The stomachs of the duo are naturally filled with joy, not food. Some dance steps follow. Gifts are exchanged. Flower bouquet is thrown at spinsters by the bride. The story of how they met, sometimes in edited version, is told.

    Five days after, while people still reminisce on the beautiful wedding, the groom is gunned down by a heartless, satanic individual who put paid to a jolly life of marital bliss that was just about to begin.

    The questions are: how will the wife feel? Was she married or not? Can she move on with her life? Can she revert to spinsterhood once more? Will anybody readily go for her again, given the cultural and traditional beliefs of people in this part of the world? What should she do?

    I have tried to recreate what has befallen the family of Ugochukwu Ozuah and Joan, his wife, who got married on September 15. The couple’s joy was abruptly cut short five days later, when the groom was allegedly shot and killed by policemen attached to the Anthony Division, Lagos, while dropping his friend off.

    The friend, Erikefe Omene, said that he still could not understand why the policemen shot the deceased. According to him, “We got into his car, a Honda CRV, and he drove out. As we approached the expressway, policemen came around. Ozuah parked the car and we both alighted so we could stop a taxi. But before he made to shut the door, one of the policemen said, ‘Who’s there? Who goes there?’, and shot Ozuah, who then fell flat on the floor. I thought the policemen might come around to shoot. So, I ran back into the estate.”

    Omene said he went to the deceased’s house to inform his wife about what had happened. He said Joan and her in-laws took another car and drove back to the scene. Upon returning to the scene about 10 to 20 minutes later, he saw more policemen, including the Divisional Police Officer, standing near Ozuah, who was lying down in a pool of his own blood. The DPO said he just received a phone call that someone was shot. I then told the DPO that it was a policeman that shot my friend. The DPO then asked me to explain and I narrated the story to him. He said, ‘Are you sure it wasn’t someone in black that shot your friend?’

    Omene said he remained with the DPO and reiterated what had happened but the DPO was adamant, saying the killers must have been armed robbers in police uniform. Omene added that he and the DPO then drove to the hospital where the doctor said Ozuah was dead. Omene said he was later taken to the police station where he wrote a statement, while Ozuah’s remains were deposited at the morgue.

    What is baffling in this whole episode is the police insistence that it was actually armed robbers and not policemen that murdered the young man. Since the incident occurred, Ngozi Braide, the spokesperson for the Lagos State Police Command had continued to inundate the public that indeed it was some ‘unknown’ armed robbers that snuffed the life out of Ozuah.

    From the behaviour of the policemen from Anthony Police Station and their DPO, who quickly came to the scene, one cannot understand the spurious attempts to cover up this heinous crime. The DPO said he responded to a call that armed robbers had shot someone. And when he got there, he did not know what to do than to stare blankly at the helpless man on the ground. He waited till Omene came back before deciding to take the dying man to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.

    Why will the DPO ask if Omene was sure that it was a policeman that shot Ugo and not somebody in black? Ugo had money in his wallet, his car, as well as, his cell phone was intact, so what was the motive of the armed robbers? Although nobody can stay in the comfort of his home and pontificate that it was a policeman that shot Ugo, but, the storyline of the police, especially Braide, is loaded with either half truths or outright fallacy and falsehood.

    That reminds me of an incident not too long ago. A driver of the Lagos State Ambulance Service, LASAMBUS, Jimoh Fasasi, reportedly died after he was allegedly brutalised by some policemen from the Surulere Police Station at Barracks Bus Stop, Lagos. Eyewitnesses said Fasasi was on his motorcycle when he was arrested by policemen on the fateful day. An argument then ensued between the two parties. One of the eyewitnesses alleged that one of the policemen hit the driver with the butt of his gun. The man fell on the ground.

    “Not long after that, some LASAMBUS staff got a call. The caller was shouting that they should hurry, that Fasasi fell down after he was hit with a gun and that he was foaming. By the time they got there, he was stone dead.” Another eyewitness, in the area, said immediately the policemen realised what had happened, they fled the scene and took the motorcycle away.

    In her moonlight tale, Braide, said the eyewitness’ accounts extracted by the police were different: “The eyewitnesses we talked to said after he begged and they did not listen to him, he wanted to rest under an umbrella owned by a recharge card seller there. They said he started panting and later fell. He then hit his head on the ground. Braide said the deceased’s visible head injury was because he hit his head on the ground”. That story is probably meant for the marines.

    In spite of what happened, the policemen did not rush him to the hospital but left the scene with his motorcycle. It is obvious that Braide was being economical with the truth. An officer who until recently was Braide’s boss at the Special Fraud Unit, Ikoyi, Lagos, described Braide as an intelligent officer. I know that the job of a police spokesperson is very tough – daily defending the indefensible. I can only pray that she should use her intelligence positively and not to pull cotton wool over people’s eyes.

    I have encountered excellent policemen who carry themselves with respect, dignity and candour. But again, there are many of them, even senior police officers, who I cannot stand. I am sure if policemen and other security agents work according to their callings, half of the insecurity problems we are now battling with in Nigeria would have been permanently solved.

    However, the resolve of Mohammed Abubakar, the Inspector General of Police, IGP, to identify and fish out the killers of Ozuah is reassuring. Already, a dedicated email address and phone lines have been put at the disposal of the public to enable anybody an unfettered access to the investigating team. That is the hallmark of a God-fearing IGP who brooks no nonsense. I am not surprised though. Fasasi’s case is still pending too. It is only hoped that at the end of the day, the killers of Ozuah and Fasasi will be unmasked and brought to justice. We cannot continue to lose our citizens in this senseless manner.

  • Still on Nigeria@52: Where is the love? The rights of Women at work; Police palaver

    Still on Nigeria@52: Where is the love? The rights of Women at work; Police palaver

    Nigeria or at least the electorate is still searching for a truly great selfless Nigerian with the love of Nigeria and the love of Nigerians as the cornerstone of his or her presidential policy thrust. As we ‘celebrate’ 52 years let us ‘cerebrate’ on the huge lack of achievement during that time compared with God-given resources, mineral, manpower and mental. If Ghana had a 100th of what we had, imagine where Ghana and Ghanaians would be now. We are also constantly reminded to look at Indonesia where imaginative leadership motivated by a deep love of Indonesia and Indonesians resulted in that Asian tiger riding on palm oil plantations originating from Nigeria. So we may be one year older, but are we one year better or one year wiser?

    The idea that the federal budget is for stealing needs a change. An anniversary is a good time to swear renewed allegiance and oaths to the country and citizenry. Of course they have been sworn but did they mean anything beyond photo-op for the paparazzi and yawning time for local channel viewers?

    I join millions of fellow Nigerians to apologise to our female police, rank and file, for the law that forbade them to marry or have children for three years after joining up and needing more than automatic permission to marry. Perhaps such a law exists throughout many uniformed and civil service institutions and even some banks et cetera may have such secret policies. I hate to think how many of them were forced to compromise themselves with immoral senior officers in order to get that ‘Permission To Marry’ stamp. In Nigeria nothing is as it seems and exploitation of employees is seen to be a right for the ‘authority figures’. They see nothing wrong with such bestial behaviour as ‘that was what so-and-so did in the ‘glorious past’, so why should they be any better?’ Nigerians will exploit every loophole and this is why we need much more good high level monitored policing from a better equipped, better focused police service than is available at present. Our police service must join the 21st century police services in many areas including human rights and employees’ rights. Giving birth is a national service –hence maternity leave. Some of the police stations are unworthy of the name with no facilities or amenities for the police- male and especially, female.

    The old standard Nigeria Police station should be re-designed with a leaf taken from South African Police stations, though the South African Police let Africa down by creating Soweto Two by shooting 44 miners and then accusing the miners of murder under an old obnoxious apartheid law. Police equipment referred to above includes every police station utilising locally available IT know-how with computerising of the police station and digital cameras to record crime scene and detained suspects for criminal face recognition records and fingerprints to avoid the Ibori incident, intelligence and weapons.

    Every policeman should have a pre-paid cell phone. This ‘no marry’ is blatantly discriminatory as it did not forbid men from doing the same. In these days of men developing cold feet over marriage for financial and other reasons, such a law complicates an already difficult situation further. Let us remember that reproducing is a national responsibility which keeps the population steady or growing. This obnoxious rule should have been thrown out years ago by the Police Service Commission and must be thrown out by the NASS if it has not already done so. It is as bad as the old Maternity Leave Law which gave ‘Six weeks before and six weeks after delivery’ under which most Nigerian mothers in employment would lose days and weeks if she gave birth earlier than was predicted by her Last Menstrual Period (LMP) or did not start leave early enough. Most women have always desired to work longer to around 36 weeks so as to get about 8-10 weeks with the baby post-delivery before having to send them to creche or give them up to a nanny at home. It was an avenue for extortion from the helpless women by unscrupulous doctors who had to sign the maternity leave forms especially for civil servants. I personally fought for years, and successfully, to get the Maternity Leave Law to be a consolidated to read ‘12 weeks maternity leave, regardless of the date of delivery’. Unfortunately some retrogressive elements in the federal and state governments are still living in the past and insisting on cancelling any leave not used fully if the delivery comes before six weeks into the maternity leave. By using the ’12 weeks consolidated Maternity Leave’ we were able to eliminate frustration of the mothers, a mountain of paperwork as the date the mother wanted was when the leave started and fraud from medical personnel colluding for money to alter maternity dates. The women in NASS and state assemblies should fight to ensure that the ’A Pregnant Woman is Entitled To 12 weeks Consolidated Maternity Leave’ is what is being practiced in their areas. Enough of cheating women. Women must demand their rights to pregnancy and full three months maternity leave. For Police or the public, ‘Pregnancy is a National Service’ lasting much longer than nine months and still too many fellow Nigerian women die trying to complete this service. What will Nigeria@53 bring? Is there any ‘Love for Nigeria’ out there?

     

     

  • The resource control furore: one more word

    The resource control furore: one more word

    Three weeks or so ago today after my two-part piece on the onshore/offshore dichotomy on allocation of the country’s oil revenue, the issue seems to have returned to the front pages of our newspapers.

    First it was President Goodluck Jonathan himself who, through his spokesperson, Dr. Reuben Abati, pronounced the 2004 Act abrogating the dichotomy a closed issue. Shortly thereafter, his Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Mohammed Adoke, followed suit. Then six days ago, the new president of the Nigerian Bar Association, Mr Okey Wali, announced that the NBA “fully endorses” the position of the Attorney-General. Wali, it may be recalled, was a one time attorney-general of Rivers State, a leading oil producing state.

    “We,” he said, “agree with the AGF that this matter has been settled by the highest court of the land, the Supreme Court in AG Adamawa State and 22 others versus the AG Federation and eight others…we condemn any attempt by some politicians and their sympathisers to deliberately over-heat the polity by resurrecting the matter.”

    With due respect, Wali, Adoke and his principal are guilty of, at best, playing politics with the law, and, at worse, downright lying with it, akin to the subterfuge of lying with statistics.

    To begin with, as the three gentlemen know all too well, Supreme Court judgments are not cast in stone; all over the world apex courts have been known to reverse themselves when the need arises. Second, if the word of Supreme Courts is final and irreversible why did many of the most vociferous objectors of the re-opening of the 2004 Act even more vociferously reject our own apex court’s April 2002 judgment upholding the onshore/offshore dichotomy as untenable, to the extent that they even threatened to secede from the country? Why did they insist that beyond the court’s judgment there has to be a political solution?

    However, the issue here is not only that Supreme Courts can reverse themselves. It is also not only that these latter-day the-word-of-supreme-courts-is-final advocates are being inconsistent. More importantly, the issue is also that the Supreme Court never dismissed the case of AG Adamawa State and 22 others versus the AG Federation and eight others on its own merit, as Wali would want the world to believe.

    True, the court unanimously dismissed the case of the 22 states that sought the nullification of the 2004 Act which abrogated the onshore/offshore dichotomy for the purposes of revenue allocation among states. But the judges also differed among themselves on the merit of the case. For example, whereas Justice Oguntade said he did not see “anything intrinsic or extrinsic” in the law which was contrary to “the letter and spirit of the 1999 Constitution”, Justice Kutigi dismissed it only on the grounds that the plaintiffs went about their case the wrong way.

    “It is,” he said, “doubtless that this action seeks to challenge the validity and effect of the 2004 Act. But the plaintiffs had chosen to go about it the wrong way…Unfortunately, the plaintiffs have not asked this court for any interpretation of the relevant provisions of the Constitution or of the 2004 Act itself. They therefore committed a blunder!”

    Justice Oguntade might as well have been right. But then he was talking merely about the abstract principle of the letter and spirit of our supreme law of the land. The story might have been different if the principle were tested against some specific issues.

    In any case, the fact that not all the Supreme Court judges agreed that the case lacked merit left enough room for a re-examination of the case.

    So for our President to say the case should not be re-opened because it has been pronounced upon by the Supreme Court is simply untenable. Worse, it betrays an attitude that he is the President, not of all Nigerians, but of a section of it – specifically the section he comes from which seems implacably opposed to the re-opening of the issue.

    Feedback

    Newswatch: sad end to a great news magazine

    My piece last on the sad putative demise of Newswatch elicited 41 texts and a couple of emails. Nearly a dozen of the reactions corrected the date I said Dele Giwa, one of its four founders, died on; October 19, 1986, not in 1985 as I said. The majority of them were angrier with the top management, led by Ray Ekpu, for apparently allowing themselves to be suckered by Chief Jimoh Ibrahim than with the chief for killing the magazine in effect.

    One of the reactions also corrected the date I said Newbreed made its debut. This correction is published below along with some of the more interesting ones.

    Sir,

    I enjoy your column every week for the quality of efforts evident in it but do not always agree with your conclusions. Just a minor information: Newbreed came on stream in 1972 not 1976. I remember this clearly because myself and Chris Okolie were charged for seditious publication over my article “Rivers State as I see it” published in its April 1974 edition.

    Joe Agbro. +2348051821777

    Sir,

    It is surprising that the founding editors of Newswatch will sell one per cent to Jimoh Ibrahim without checking his antecedent. This man is Nigeria’s Mitt Romney. He buys troubled companies not to revive them but to sell off the assets and make profits. I have no tears for them.

    +2348023049640

    Sir,

    As usual your piece on Newswatch was a master piece. However, you should have mentioned the fat millions collected by the squad. They sold their rights of ownership of the magazine to a Smart Alec. Please advise them to use the millions to run for seats in the National Assembly where there is free money. No crocodile tears from them. Dele (RIP), whom I knew very well at Brooklyn College, (New York), would have done the same or worse.

    Rest in Peace Newswatch.

    D.M. Badamosi fmngs +2348037044586

    Sir,

    One is not surprised you remembered Obasanjo’s ban on Newbreed in the 70s but can’t remember that it was your Nupe brother, Ibrahim Babangida, who was responsible for the ban Newswatch suffered. By now your articles should reflect the views of a nationalist not a tribalist. It is too early to forget the deeds of Obasanjo and Babangida.

    +2348038358461

    Sir,

    I agree with your commentary today on the rise and fall of Newswatch magazine. As a student, there was no week I did not buy Newswatch magazine at N1.50. Similar magazines now sell for N500 and this is a good measure of how much the Naira has crashed over the years.

    It is very sad indeed because the magazine as an idea and now a brand should have been sustained, no matter the circumstance.  Nigeria is also failing today because we do not know how to build institutions.

    Kind regards.

    Ehi Braimah

    (08033017348)

    Dear Sir,

    I have read and followed your writings since my school days. I am in my late 40s now. So I have read you a long time.

    What some people do and we call it business turnaround in Nigeria is simply hostile take-over and asset stripping. Your catalogue of our dear Chief’s escapades bears me witness.

    Only a fool with means and connections will not have gone for those companies he went for. NICON with all those houses and what not was a sitting duck. Nigeria Airways had more landed property than planes. So if a Corporate Undertaker shows up? Hide the assets list.

    Sir, I write today, not because I have qualifications in Literature, Entrepreneurship and Business turnaround but because Newswatch’s murder could have been prevented. We have this knack of taking our own counsel in this country. The tendency is to rate size, intelligence or connections over diligence.

    I am saddened because these were men I respect so much, and who back then, wanted me to work with them before life took me on a different route. Their error of judgement and lack of care in signing the papers is at best infantile.

    Who was their financial adviser? I am sure they had none.

    •Otherwise there would be no need for these shares nonsense.

    •How come they signed off the company without receiving the promised capital injection. At least they should have followed BPE’s Nitel saga.

    •How did Chief succeed in opening an account in the name of a company he is yet to acquire and be the sole signatory?

    Sir, I am sure you see the point now? Newswatch was acquired for nothing.

    He opened the account, transferred money into it and is spending the money himself.

    Let them talk to a good business lawyer who is versed in mergers and acquisitions. This is not a journalistic battle, it is a business war. You don’t carry a gun to fight a man in a tank; you stay far and shell him with anti-tank missiles.

    Babafemi Oduyingbo

     

  • Nigeria@52; Ogun Crash; Wanted: Nollywood ParaOlympian and historic films; Wasted 60+yrs

    Nigeria@52; Ogun Crash; Wanted: Nollywood ParaOlympian and historic films; Wasted 60+yrs

    The arrogance of government knows no bounds as we ‘celebrate’ Nigeria at 52. Shame on all governments as Nigeria ‘boasts’ of 4,700Mw- enough for a town in UK or USA when we have spent enough for the needed 100,000Mw and still reject ‘God’s’ solar power used by sunless countries.

    Another 30 innocent Nigerian lives lost in Ogun State last week! No Nigeria@52 celebration for them or their families! The trailer company will go free, of course, while the families of the dead are condemned to parentless penury! America’s normal road is 4-6 lanes each side while Nigeria’s best road is two potholed ‘lanes’ except for the irrelevant 10 lane road in Abuja -the heart of darkness and profligacy. Is what is good for Abuja not good for all Nigeria’s major roads or do they have three heads in Abuja? Nigeria’s CINS of Corruption, Incompetence, Negligence, Selfishness need exorcising!

    The Ogun crash will create more physically challenged Nigerians. The success of the Nigerian Paralymics Team is a 2012 Nigeria@52 story of triumph over adversity facing athletes. In another country, directors and writers would sign up Paralympians to turn their stories into award-winning ‘Triumph over Adversity’films. But no. Our Nollywood seems preoccupied with wizards and kidnappings, violence and violation, love and lust. The ‘new’ films should highlight the early life of Paralympians, other challenged individuals and those groups fighting for access to buildings and vehicles, educational support, more mobility aides, employment and training opportunities and show the odd governor or company sponsoring a wheelchair, airline ticket or laptop donation.

    Once again at Nigeria@52, governments at LGA, state and federal can, but will not, address budgets, policies and infrastructure for the challenged. One NASS member’s Salary and Perks (SAP), is more than the annual budget for all associations of the physically challenged nationwide.

    The government and NASS refuse government support for modern museums and exhibitions. The implementation of a personal aggrandisement NASS Museum Plan should be suspended. It is a mockery to have a museum for the questionable activities of politicians of questionable productivity and very high cost: Returns ratio when the nation lacks arts, science and history museums and exhibitions. These are part of education, entertainment and entrepreneurship and job opportunities for millions of youth worldwide.

    By this insistence on a NASS museum, the house exposes itself to ridicule as the true history of the country is yet to enter the syllabus in any intelligent or critical detail, perhaps because the truth is bitter, unbelievable and ‘too sensitive’. But parents know Nigeria’s history and teach it. There are many good and bad biographies and autobiographies which if stripped of their sugar-coating could be compared to reveal the truth. This is a goldmine for researchers, scholars and filmmakers in modern Nigerian history. They can cut out the self-aggrandisement and come up with the authentic history of Nigeria 1960-2011 probably in several parts. The writers of such masterpieces can make them relevant by borrowing a leaf from other historians and writing the history as a ‘fact and fiction’ or ‘faction’ around fictitious individuals such as aides to the politicians involved or ordinary citizens happy, troubled or traumatised by the time. This is already being done about the Civil War and the independence era. Because we did not have a pre-independence bloodbath does not mean it was painless or not worthy of accurate record. We have the mosquito, not ourselves, to thank for that ‘ease’. Make the films, please.

    At every October 1, we appraise Nigeria. The generator noise has cost us and deafened us for the last 30 years of my own Soyinkaian ‘wasted’ generation, now 60+years. Today, we and Nigeria are nowhere near what we dreamed of when we grew up sharing our plans and expected outcomes in Nigeria’s schools and on university campuses. Looking back, life has been so incredibly difficult, complicated by CINS. Unknown to us, and perhaps unknown to them, the evil military and subsequently the malignant political class were planning Nigeria’s financial and structural destruction. Military unitarianism and ethnic fiscal and political mis-applied federalism engineered Nigeria’s failure. Today’s Nigeria is not what we worked hard throughout the last 45 years as diligent university undergraduates, dedicated NYSC members and professionals. Are we the problem as we were in the civil service and government?

    We have largely succeeded in bringing up our children at home or abroad and have lived almost our entire adult lives subsisting without and substituting for absences of tap water, electricity, landlines, security or care from the state. We have had almost nothing good from our country except what God has given that politicians cannot take away – family, the glorious Nigerian weather and clean air now polluted by 100,000 okada 2-stroke motorcycle engines in a murderous and misguided employment drive! We witnessed the economy collapse from 1970s N1:$1.5 to N150: $1. Today the preposterous N5000 banknote looms like a lethal cloud threatening malignant devaluation. Easily filled potholes litter the landscape taunting every responsible engineer while our politicians prefer stealing while we suffer mentally and physically in preventable traffic jams while they do beautification projects –planting a flower beside the pothole! What is it about Nigeria that makes politicians feel they can fail and nothing will happen to them or the country? One day there will be no country for them to rape and no road for them to escape! Where are the politicians who love the people and Nigeria@52?

     

  • Amosun’s infrastructural financing model

    Amosun’s infrastructural financing model

    “Rough waters are truer test of leadership. In calm water every ship has a good captain”—Swedish Proverb.

    Ogun State Governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, has again unveiled another financial masterstroke that promises to transform the infrastructure landscape of the state. The parlous financial position of his state compelled him come up with a novel idea that will enable him use other people’s money to develop his state.

    An innovative financial system that would see well-placed construction companies undertake the construction of developmental infrastructure, especially roads, for the state on credit to be paid in instalments later. The arrangement is a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) scheme.

    The payment plan, which is a direct fallout of the confidence he has instilled in the state’s financial system would come in form of ‘promissory note’ (or Treasury bill) arrangement. The idea is akin to the popular ‘hire-purchase’ arrangement that commercial drivers enter into with auto-dealers whereby a vehicle would be released to commercial drivers on credit and the money for the vehicle is paid over a period of time.

    However, unlike in the case of the normal ‘hire-purchase’ arrangement where the auto dealer keeps a copy of the vehicle key and is at liberty to confiscate the bus if the driver defaults in the payment, the companies in this arrangement will not be able to do that hence the need for a law, making it mandatory for the state government to stick with the payment agreement no matter what, whether there is a change in government or not.

    This arrangement can also be likened to a situation where a worker buys a 32’’ LG Television set from his cooperative society on credit with a promise that payment be deducted from his monthly salary over a period of time.

    To allay possible fears of any default in the re-payment schedule, Senator Amosun has sent a bill to the State House of Assembly asking for the enactment of a law establishing a ‘sinking fund’-a pool of funds dedicated for a specific purpose- in the financial firmament of the state.

    The proposed law also seeks to set up a legal framework which must be adhered to whenever the government wants to access any loan in the state. The law would serve as an instrument for enforcing fiscal and financial discipline.

    The bill titled “A bill for a law to provide for the raising of loans through issuance of bonds, (treasury) notes and other securities, and for connected purposes,” spells out the steps and procedures to be taken by the government whenever it wants to access any loan, a sort of regulatory framework for taking loans. The bill also seeks the establishment of a ‘sinking fund’ by the state government. The ‘sinking fund’ will be made up of 15 percent of all Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the state and must be dedicated to the repayment for projects executed under the ‘promissory note’ arrangement.

    Interestingly, the ‘promissory note’ initiative presents the people of Ogun State with a ‘Win-Win situation’. It ensures that situations where funds meant for projects are diverted becomes a thing of the past, and ensures that the people will enjoy the infrastructure before the state will start paying for it. The law would equally serve as bulwark against the diversion of developmental funds.

    This novel idea would at least ensure that the people of Ogun State can always see what their money is spent on.

    The state Commissioner for Finance, Kemi Adeosun, at a recent media briefing, dismissed insinuations that the Bill sent to the legislature was to facilitate the state access to Bond. She explained, ‘it is like people in Ogun State are fixated with bond. But the bill we sent to the Assembly is not to ask for approval to take bond. Yes, bond is good as a long term financial instrument, but we are not going for it. That is not our intention. The finances of Ogun cannot sustain a bond presently. Our debt portfolio is high and our IGR is low. We inherited a debt profile of N87 billion in 2011 and as at today we have reduced it to about N60 billion; but our IGR is still very low and all these would be taken into consideration when they want to calculate the amount you can take as bond.

    “Again, the process that would lead to a bond is long and might not materialize until the final year of the administration”, the commissioner noted. She added the process of accessing a bond “include applying and getting approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), appointment of a legal team, financial advisers, trustees as well as the consent of the Federal Ministry of Finance, all these after we must have secured the approval of the state House of Assembly on the move.

    “With a Bond, you have to issue what is called Irrevocable Standing Payment Order (ISPO). With an ISPO, your allocation won’t come to you intact again. The debt would be deducted directly from Abuja. Before the allocation gets to you, the Federal Ministry of Finance deducts at source.

    “We are not running away from accessing a bond. We are not scared of the approval process either but we simply don’t think that a bond is the only option at the moment. We don’t think it is an appropriate and viable option for now. But with this ‘promissory note ‘arrangement, no ISPO is needed. All we need is the goodwill, a Memorandum of Understanding and a firm commitment from the government in the mould of this law we seek from the House of Assembly,” the commissioner stated.

    This novel idea promises to fast-track development across the three senatorial districts of the state as no fewer than six companies are already on standby to construct 10 roads for the benefit of the people. With the arrangement, the people of the state can practically eat their cake and still have it!

     

    • Balogun is an aide to governor Amosun

     

  • Sanusi’s loss, Nigerians’ gain

    Sanusi’s loss, Nigerians’ gain

    After weeks of intense debate on the proposed N5000 note, the Presidency waded in last week and doused the raging inferno. The debate had placed many Nigerians, especially stakeholders in the economy, at daggers-drawn with the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, and its management. The tension had become so palpable that it could be cut through with a knife. At that point, it was obvious that the unexpected could happen. But it took a long time to come. And when it finally came, it was with a bang: Sanusi lost, Nigerians won.

    The whole thing was ignited a few weeks back when Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the governor of the apex bank, came under klieg lights and announced that the apex bank had concluded arrangements to introduce the N5000 currency bill into the country’s financial system.

    Since then, the debate over the desirability or otherwise of the introduction of the new currency had spread like a wild fire in the harmattan. In most cases the observations raised by people have not gone down well with Sanusi and his lackeys. One of this was the comment made by former President Olusegun Obasanjo at a forum in Lagos. Obasanjo had said that the introduction of the bill was capable of crippling or killing production, thereby causing hyper-inflation. Pronto, Sanusi carpeted the former President, describing him as a “bad economist.” He pointedly asked whether Obasanjo could be said to have contributed to inflation in the country by introducing the N1000 bill during his tenure as president.

    Surprisingly, the position of Obasanjo was commended last week by Professor Shamusdeen Tella, a renowned economist. He insisted that the former President was right to say that the introduction of the new notes would not be in the interest of the country’s economy. Tella said the reasons given by Sanusi to conclude that Obasanjo is a “bad economist” are not in tandem with the current economic trends. He explained that the importation and fluctuation levels in the country’s currency had created huge instability in the domestic enterprise, resulting in broader inflation and, as such, “the circumstance does not warrant any higher denomination at all in the system now.”

    According to Tella, “collecting higher denominations will mean that people would lose confidence in that money … All these did not happen when such denominations were introduced by Obasanjo’s regime. So Obasanjo is right. Even when he brought the N1000, people accepted it.” Tella also warned that the implication on CBN’s insistence “is that there won’t be anything called cashless economy anymore. There will be serious implication”, he said.

    Also last week, the position of Tella and others before him actually got a boost when both houses of the National Assembly came down heavily on Sanusi and the CBN. They passed different resolutions asking President Goodluck Jonathan to stop the CBN from introducing the controversial N5000 note.

    However, going by Sanusi’s trademark obstinacy, I doubt it if CBN has not commenced the production or even finished printing the currency and minted the new coins. Nigerians should not be surprised if this becomes an open secret tomorrow. I am saying this because there seems to be a tinge of desperation in Sanusi and his lackeys who have been trying to sell the idea to the public at every available opportunity.

    The media has been awash with advertorials over the issue. And these advertorials cost a fortune to place in prime time television and major newspapers. Now, by suspending the project instead of outright cancellation, is the presidency saying that the CBN can continue to waste huge sums of money on the so-called enlightenment? The government should know that Nigerians have spoken; they don’t want the new currency and coins, and no amount of propaganda can change that mindset.

    Like many people have rightly observed, the new CBN’s move is a contradiction of its cashless policy, which has not even been accepted in Lagos. People have been devising ingenious methods to circumvent the policy since it was introduced. Sanusi himself attested to this fact recently when he openly admitted that the banks were conniving with their customers to sidetrack the policy.

    It is a known fact that the informal sector controls a big chunk of the volume of cash in circulation. The market men and women in Oshodi, and Oke Arin markets in Lagos; Ochanja Market in Onitsha; Fegge Market in Kano; Ariara Market in Aba; and Agenebode market in Edo State transact their businesses in Ghana-Must-Go bags stacked with naira notes. Majority of these traders are peasants and illiterates who do not have any business with the banks. Therefore, I do not see how they can embrace this cashless gambit. I think Sanusi should rather concentrate on how to strengthen the cashless policy and make it work than dissipate energy on selling the idea of N5000 note to unwilling Nigerians.

    The other issue is the coins. Sanusi wants to change some lower denominations of the naira like N5, which carries the portrait of Tafawa Balewa; N10, which bears Alvan Ikoku; and N20 which spots late General Murtala Mohammed on it. These people represent many things to many people across the geo-political divides in Nigeria. The implication is that Sanusi is set to consign their memories to the graveyard of history.

    Nobody should tell the CBN governor any longer that Nigerians do not like coins. Just like one of the parliamentarians observed last week, even beggars don’t collect coins from alms givers. If Sanusi is so adamant, let him try and introduce the N5000 in coin. Nobody will touch it. Our goods and services are not priced in smaller digits. When it becomes necessary, they are approximated to the next higher denomination. Think of any minute object or commodity such as oranges. It is either they are N10 or N20 each. So why does Sanusi want to devalue our currency by other means?

    However, the CBN governor may have probably played the political card by proposing that three women activists of blessed memory -Olufunmilayo Ransom-Kuti, Margaret Ekpo and Gambo Sawaba – will jointly adorn the face of the N5000 note. Even at that, there would still be problems. For instance, in Sanusi’s own part of the country, women are more often relegated to the background in the scheme of things. They can neither be heard nor seen, as it were, which is why many of the men keep their women out of public eyes. The culture there is that women should naturally play second fiddle. What this boils down to is the fact that the stark illiterates in this part of the country, who are mainly traders handling high volume of cash, may not want to have anything to do with the N5000 note.

    But Sanusi and his henchmen have a readymade answer for this. They have come out with the cheap propaganda that those who do not want to spend the money are free to reject it. If a person goes to cash money in the bank and the counter clerk tells him that all he has are N5000 notes, what will happen? The customer will have no other choice than to succumb.

    As things are now, there is the need to do more research on the real problem bedeviling the naira. This is with a view to fashioning out an appropriate panacea to resolve it rather than the perennial introduction of higher currency and redenomination.

    Besides, the usual arrogant posture with which Sanusi has dealt with such issues in the past, and which has manifested in his behaviour over the years, does not augur well for somebody in such a sensitive position. Sanusi must demonstrate civility and flexibility at all times in his conduct because it is not the man that makes the institution; it is the institution that makes the man.

  • N5, 000: Who’s the bad economist now?

    N5, 000: Who’s the bad economist now?

    One magic note, irrespective of its utility, will not pull us out of the economic slump

    I confess that while it lasted I found the brouhaha over the Central Bank’s plans to introduce the N5, 000 note something of a hurricane in a very tiny tea cup.

    But on the positive side, the passion it ignited was such that for the first time since the Super Eagles were thrown out of some tournament, we forgot whether were from South-South or North-West!

    Sure, there were all the arguments about how the anticipated currency reforms could set off an inflationary spiral. Many who had these worries were not only critical of the big note, but also pointed to plans to coin the lower end denominations below N100.

    Over the years Nigerians have developed a strange resistance to coins. This manifests in the form of traders simply ignoring the metallic money and fixing prices for the cheapest of items beginning with the lowest of notes.

    This irrational behavior, like most things in the Nigerian economy, has nothing to do with the basic laws of economics. The artificial and opportunistic price hikes are not triggered by demand and supply factors, but by a mindset that cannot be supported by anything in our history.

    From Independence and well into the 80s, our people embraced the coins that were in circulation. It is equally revealing that the same Nigerians, who supposedly have a cultural aversion to coins, gladly use and carry them around when in the UK, US, Italy, South Africa and many other places.

    So is the problem the coin, the evaporation of its value, or some strange mentality we have acquired? I believe that even the irrational has triggers that can be traced. Primary blame must go to the CBN which over the last two decades has allowed the bizarre thinking that paints coins as an inferior repository of value, to take hold.

    When other factors set off inflationary pressures in the economy, and the existing coins were rendered nearly worthless, the apex bank ought to have released not just a new set of notes, but also coins responding to our new reality.

    They should have put in place policies and rules that counter the notion that only paper denominations that count. Traders, business people and public transportation owners should have been encouraged to have coin boxes in place.

    The CBN gave the impression it was not really interested in coins because banks were never sanctioned when they discouraged bank hall transactions in coins.

    As for the elephantine N5, 000 note, I believe the CBN never made the case why it was such a compelling proposition at this point in time. Countries usually resort to printing such huge bills when hyperinflation has rendered their currencies useless. We’ve seen this happen in the likes of Zimbabwe and Ghana. But surely, inflation in Nigeria is not yet running at 1,000%.

    As has been argued by many, the aborted note would most certainly have exacerbated graft, money laundering etc. Rather than help the CBN’s vision of a cashless society, it would have made it even easier for people to hoard millions under their beds or tote it around.

    The apex bank’s governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, would have us believe that those who opposed his bright idea were either illiterates or voodoo economists.

    He made this point in his now infamous put-down responding to former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s criticism of the controversial note. For suggesting that it will cause inflation and worsen hardship, Sanusi dismissed him as “a very successful farmer, but a very bad economist.”

    Obasanjo was not the only VIP who flayed the big bill. Former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon and several other high profile figures did. The Senate and House of Representatives were set to ask for Sanusi’s head on a platter if he defied them by going ahead.

    But OBJ’s comment particularly irritated the CBN governor because according to him Obasanjo introduced more high currency denominations in Nigeria than any other head of state.

    Still, for all of Sanusi’s knowledge of economics, I thought his comments were rather impertinent. For one thing, he was dismissing the knowhow of a man who presided over some of Nigeria’s better economic times. Surely, such a person would know a thing or two.

    This whole N5, 000 episode is another useful lesson for the CBN governor. He was convinced that having made his economic argument and sold same to the President and cabinet, the whole country would just fall in line.

    Sanusi forgets that economics is often not black and white, and economists are just like politicians – each one has a different prescription for the same malady. Some of the most vociferous critics of the N5, 000 note are economists of unimpeachable pedigree.

    Now, President Goodluck Jonathan, barely a fortnight after signing off on the proposed note, has executed a 360 degree pirouette by putting Sanusi’s plans on hold – ostensibly to allow more time for public education.

    Opponents of the note are already performing its burial rites. Who can blame them? Back in January the government pulled the plug on the policy of total deregulation of the downstream sector of the oil industry, again, to allow more time for people to be better schooled on the joys of living without subsidised petrol.

    Eight months after, there’s not a single half-hearted tutorial going on. Rather we are staggering around in the morass of a full-blown fuel subsidy payment scandal. That is why it will be quite a surprise if Sanusi ever gets to print his cherished note before his tenure runs out.

    Lesson for the governor: on certain matters economics is not enough. Remember how late President Umaru Yar’Adua stopped Prof. Chukwuma Soludo – another bright economist –from executing his own currency experiment?

    What has stopped the N5, 000 are not economic factors but political ones. Jonathan simply checked the Richter scale of political criticism and decided there was no point making himself even more unpopular. Sanusi may sneer at this, but in real life this is how it works.

    Once upon a time there was another brilliant economist who used to see what the rest of the less-endowed populace could not see. His name was Dr. Kalu Idika Kalu and he served as Finance Minister in President Ibrahim Babangida’s regime. As Nigeria struggled to overcome her economic woes in the mid-80s he pressed for the nation to take an International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan. In the end he was overruled by Babangida in the face of strident national opposition.

    It is good the ghost of the N5, 000 note has been laid to rest: not necessarily because it is bereft of merits. But one magic note, irrespective of its utility, will not pull us out of the economic slump. There are fundamental issues to be addressed if we mean business about turning the economy around. Let’s tackle the basics and put the drama to one side.