The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Nigeria’s 16th leader

    Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Nigeria’s 16th leader

    “Our mission is to improve our way of life in a manner that nurtures our humanity, encourages compassion toward one another, and duly rewards our collective effort to resolve the social ills that seek to divide us”
    As your President, I shall serve with prejudice toward none but compassion and amity towards all.
    —President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in his inaugural speech on May 29, 2023.

    I cannot remember the exact date in July 2017 but I remember the time. It was around 3:30am. We had just concluded a marathon review of why Mudashiru Hussain of the All Progressives Congress lost the Osun West Senatorial District election of July 8, 2017, to Ademola Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party. After everyone had left, three of us remained in the room, namely, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Rauf Aregbesola (Osun State Governor at the time), and myself, mauling over the activities of a senior member of the party, who was suspected to have worked against the party in pursuit of his perceived governorship ambition.

    Tinubu already foresaw the possibility of factionalism or defection that might hurt the party’s chances in the governorship election the following year. He wanted Aregbesola to win over the recalcitrant member. “You need everybody”, he told Aregbesola. “And, sometimes, you have to stoop to conquer.” At the end of the day, the said party member actually defected to another party and ran for the governorship in 2018 against the APC candidate. His defection nearly cost the party the governorship election. Needless to say, the ripple effects of the 2017 West Senatorial election and its aftermath underlie the recent misfortunes of the APC in Osun. But that is a subject for another day.

    The philosophy of stooping to conquer is central to Tinubu’s “strategic humility”, which Tunji Bello illustrated in his Asiwaju and strategic humility (The Nation, May 26, 2023). Strategic humility is the strategic deployment of the golden virtue of humility in order to gain competitive advantage over competitors and adversaries.

    It is not only in the political sphere that Tinubu deploys strategic humility. He does so in regular social relations as well. Who does not remember the vitriol unleashed on Tinubu by the late Yinka Odumakin? Rather than respond in kind, Tinubu offered assistance to Odumakin when he needed one. Besides, he provided one of the most memorable eulogies and necessary assistance to Odumakin’s survivors.

    In an earlier column, I illustrated the strategies used by Tinubu to build the coalitions that won him the presidency (see How to become President of Nigeria, The Nation, March 8, 2023). Stooping to conquer, as a subset of strategic humility, was central to those strategies.

    It is heartwarming to note that Tinubu is already transferring these strategies to governance, now that he is President. Of his political opponents, he had this to say during his inaugural speech: “They shall forever be my fellow compatriots. And I will treat them as such”. He even defends their right to go to court against him: “Seeking legal redress is their right and I fully defend their exercise of this right. This is the essence of the rule of law.” We should expect no less from someone who took a sitting President to court and won, while he was the Governor of Lagos State.

    Past vs. Present

    Political opponents used a two-step strategy during the campaign to discourage and disparage Tinubu’s campaign efforts. One was to draw attention to the presumed failures of the Buhari administration. The other was to put the toga of Buhari’s failures on the APC and then associate them with Tinubu since he was the party’s candidate. Even in far away London, during his lecture at Chatham House, Tinubu was asked how he thought he could win an election against the backdrop of his party’s presumed failures. Tinubu’s response was something to the effect that the President then was Muhammadu Buhari but “I am Bola Ahmed Tinubu”.

    With Buhari’s departure yesterday, Tinubu again asserted his self-confidence as his own man. Hear him in his inaugural speech, after outlining key aspects of his agenda: “With full confidence in our ability, I declare that these things are within our proximate reach because my name is Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and I am the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”.

    Tinubu has already started to chart his own course. However, much as he would like to respect former President Buhari, it will be necessary to share his findings of the state of the nation in due course. The goal will not be to blame the previous administration like Buhari did of the Peoples Democratic Party administration before him. Rather, the purpose is to lay the groundwork for public understanding of where he, as President, is coming from and to be able to appreciate the rough road he has to travel as well as his achievements down the road.

    Finally, I implore the Tinubu administration to shun the artificial benchmark of 100 days and instead benchmark six months for charting the full course of action for his administration. Within this period, it must be clear to his cabinet, the National Assembly, and the public where he plans to take the nation.

    I wish the President and his wife, Senator Remi Tinubu, as well as Vice President Kashim Shettima and his wife, Mrs. Nana Shettima, a very successful tenure that would bring peace, unity, self-fulfillment, and renewed hope to all Nigerians.

  • Cheerful progress with passport production

    Cheerful progress with passport production

    Cheerful, despite the outcry about passport scarcity? Hold your breath and, please, read on. Statistics, they say, don’t lie. As I indicated on this column last week, much of the outcry about passport scarcity in recent times was orchestrated by recalcitrant officials of the Nigeria Immigration Service and orchestrated by touts and the critical media (see Truths and untruths about passport scarcity, The Nation, May 17, 2023).

    To be sure, there was a time when passport booklets were a real problem, leading to backlogs of unprocessed applications in passport offices throughout the country and even overseas. During this period, corruption was rampant as passports were issued to the highest bidder. That was the situation throughout the sixteen years when the federal administration was run by the Peoples Democratic Party. As the data below will show, the backlog lingered into the APC administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, when he took over in 2015, and it persisted until recently.

    However, beginning in late 2019, after Rauf Aregbesola took over as the Minister of Interior, a critical appraisal of the entire passport issuance process was undertaken and the old system was completely overhauled. This gave birth to several key developments, including (1) introduction of online application and payment of a standardised fee; (2) identity verification, including linkage with the National Identity Number, and data capture in the applicant’s chosen passport office; (3) establishment of additional computer-based passport production centres throughout the country and even overseas; (4) creation of new Front Offices to aid the application and data verification processes; (5) employment of new technical partners via Public Private Partnership for the production of passport booklets and periodic restocking of the NIS booklet storage; and, above all, (6) introduction of the e-passport with multiple security features to make forgery, such as picture exchange, impossible.

    These changes have produced several results, including reduction of the cash-and-carry practice of old; reduction of touts and elimination of the illegal sale of application forms; availability of passport booklets for at least three months ahead of production schedule; a standardised timeline for passport production such that applicants can collect their passport within three weeks of application for renewal or reissue and six weeks for new passport; and clearing the backlog of applications, which accumulated when passport booklets were a real issue.

    Another cheerful result is in the increase in the total number of passports issued since the inception of the Muhammadu Buhari administration on May 29, 2015 and the clearing of the age-long backlog of applications. In the eight years of the administration, an average of over 1 million passports were issued every month. Thus, as of today, the APC administration has issued about 9.5 million passports in its eight years, between 2015 and 2023, while only 6.5 million passports were issued during the eight years of the PDP administration, between 2007 and 2015.

    Read Also: Passport home delivery coming, says Aregbesola

    On several occasions, the number of passports issued by the Buhari administration exceeded the number of applications received, because the huge backlog of applications inherited from the previous administration was gradually being cleared.

    In the last three years, since the new system kicked in, the turnover has been spectacular as passports were issued to roughly 97 percent of all applicants. This was possible partly because the entire backlog of applications had been cleared and partly because applications are now being processed as they are received.

    The question now is: What next? Adequate answers to this question are necessary in order to sustain the reforms and the momentum already established, given the usual problem with the sustainability of government programmes. Besides, it is important to achieve the planned reforms on the drawing board.

    One of them is to establish additional Front Offices so that applicants will not have to go far for identity verification and data capture. Such a development will also reduce congestion in existing offices. The United States employs a similar pattern of decentralisation by adopting three options for passport application submission, namely, by mail (usually through the Post Office), at a passport agency or centre, or at an acceptance facility. However, there is a significant difference. There is no need for applicants to go for data verification or capture, because the long established system of social security number provides a direct link to the applicant’s basic biometric data as well as a trail of his or her activities over time.

    Another development on the drawing board is to engage a reliable Courier Service for passport delivery. This has since become standard practice in the US, where expedited delivery is even available for an additional fee. Such a development will be beneficial for NIS officials and the applicants. It will ease congestion at Passport Control Offices and allow NIS officials to concentrate on passport processing, leading to improved productivity. Besides, by reducing contact with applicants, the chances for extortion will be drastically reduced. At the end of the day, it will speed up the process of passport processing and production, while also taking away the hassle and stress of going to Passport Offices for collection.

    Once these processes become routine, the processing and issuance of passports will no longer attract media attention as there will no longer be room for the creation of artificial scarcity of passport booklets or the crowding of Passport Offices. It is unfortunate that such negative developments have dwarfed the advances made in passport application processing, security enhancement, and passport production, especially in the last three years.

  • Tinubu: From renewed hope to change

    Tinubu: From renewed hope to change

    In another five days Nigeria will close the Muhammadu Buhari chapter with the inauguration on May 29 of Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the country’s 16th president.

    This isn’t just a ritual changing of the guard; it’s another opportunity for a prodigiously blessed nation to try again at actualising its true potential.

    It was the same eight years ago when the then opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) toppled Goodluck Jonathan’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) administration following a campaign anchored on the promise of change.

    At that point the ruling party had been in power for 16 years after winning a comprehensive victory to close out the era of military rule. By 1999, Nigerians had become well and truly fed up with a succession of military strongmen who were accountable to no one but their small cliques, and were just as incompetent and corrupt as the politicians they painted black.

    If repeatedly shooting their way to power was political banditry of the worst sort, their casual annulment of the June 12, 1993 election won by Chief M. K. O. Abiola, left the nation traumatised. After that grievous mistake, not even the loudest guns or biggest tanks in the armoury could stabilise the polity.

    The short-lived Interim National Government (ING) headed by Chief Ernest Shonekan was akin to the military attempting to stop flood waters bursting forth from a breached dam with their palms. It didn’t work.

    General Sani Abacha would revert to tried and tested intimidation – unleashing the worst form of totalitarian rule the nation had ever witnessed. It didn’t work either. By then a people used to meekly accepting military rule had lost their fear and discovered resistance. Something changed in the mood of the country.

    General Ibrahim Babangida spent close to a decade manipulating a transition to nowhere – acquiring the moniker Maradona in the process. Abacha, who was just a brute not known for his originality, tried more of the same – clamping critics into detention on trumped up coup plotting charges.

    He even tried to shed his fatigues for a babanriga as civilian president only to be thwarted by death. Following his mysterious demise, the same junta that had tried every dodge to remain in power couldn’t wait to return the country to democratic rule.

    In less than a year, the General Abdulsalami Abubakar regime got the transition done and Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was inaugurated as president. Such was the enthusiasm and expectation that a country repressed by military dictatorship could begin to heal and make progress again. That desire was reflected in a robust 52.3% voter turnout at the 1999 presidential election.

    For the next 16 years, Obasanjo’s PDP would govern the country with increasingly reckless abandon. For all the good he did, his tenure would be marred by abuse of power supervising illegal impeachment of governors in several states, unlawfully seizing allocations for local governments in Lagos State and finally trying to procure an unconstitutional third term for himself.

    Read Also: Akeredolu to Tinubu: be courageous to tackle challenges

    Such was the party’s grip on power at state and federal levels that its one-time national chairman, Chief Vincent Ogbulafor, openly boasted in 2008 that it would govern Nigeria for 60 unbroken years. But in a classic example of famous last words, just seven years later, they found themselves out on their ears in the opposition wilderness.

    Up till today many PDP members can’t understand how they lost power to a coalition of strange bedfellows who were only held together by their will to win and by a correct reading of the tenor of the times. It’s no mystery. A party that was elected to do great things at a time when the global economy was favourable, spent its time in power becoming a byword for complacency, insensitivity, incompetence and corruption.

    Nigerians expected simple things: regular electricity, good roads, schools, hospitals, a sound economy and security. Instead, the administration served up an unending stream of scandals. Contracts were awarded, funds disbursed and the job left undone.

    At the height of the PDP mess, despite spending billions of naira the insurgency in the Northeast threatened to overtake large swathes of the North. As would be revealed later, monies that had been voted for fighting Boko Haram extremists were casually disbursed to party chieftains for political ends.

    It was no surprise, therefore, that an antsy populace easily embraced the promise of change offered by the opposition.

    Buhari campaigned on a slate that offered to transform the economy, resolve insecurity and deal with pervasive corruption.

    As he leaves office the jury is out as to how well he has done on the three core areas for which he sought power. The country was already headed for a recession by the time he became president. Critically, oil prices were headed south – unlike the heyday of PDP rule when a barrel of crude sold for $100 or more.

    Just as we were exiting the recession the COVID-19 pandemic hit, with the resultant lockdown further depressing the fragile economy. So, for all the trains that are now running, the bridges and roads that were built, under his watch inflation hit an all-time high and the naira collapsed to record lows against major world currencies.

    Inexplicably, the government would approve an ill-thought out naira redesign, triggering a cash scarcity that devastated many small scale businesses – impoverishing many in the process. A policy that was supposed to bring cash into the banking system ironically ended up increasing hoarding and damaging financial inclusion.

    Read Also: Former UK PM Blair meets Tinubu, Shettima

    But the Buhari administration makes the point that despite all the challenges with the recession, pandemic and low crude prices, it managed to do more with less in the area of infrastructure than the PDP governments that came before it.

    To his credit, Boko Haram is no longer headline news like they were in 2015. But that gain has been vitiated by the spread of kidnapping, banditry and mass killings by herders. There are frightening estimates of the numbers of people killed in the last eight years that are floating around. That is certainly not the sort of change voters bargained for when they looked to the former general to address Jonathan’s shortcomings in the area of security.

    On corruption, the president’s personal integrity remains unimpeached. However, no one can say that corruption has been eliminated. In the last few years many prominent serving and former office holders had found themselves on trial for graft. But all that he’s done thus far is like scratching the tip of the iceberg.

    So has Buhari delivered on his promise of change? Depending on which side of the fence you sit, there’s plenty of evidence to say he’s done so positively or negatively. There are many who even argue that beyond the economy, insecurity and corruption, the country is now more divided than it was eight years.

    The debate about his legacy will continue long after he’s retired to Daura. Perhaps with time and perspective he will be judged less harshly than those who came before him.

    Many were hopeful in 2015 that things would change for the better. Perhaps in making ‘Renewed Hope’ the slogan of his own campaign, Tinubu acknowledges that there’s plenty still to be done in virtually all areas that his party promised to make a difference in eight years ago.

    Despite his central role in midwifing the Buhari administration, he would spend the bulk its time in office as an outsider looking in. The incumbent made it clear from day one at Eagle Square that he wouldn’t be beholden to even those who helped him climb up after memorably declaring in his inaugural speech that he was ‘for everybody and for nobody.’ 

    Despite that, many who opposed his running for president did on account of Buhari’s failings; not because he was in government or exerted overweening influence – but simply for facilitating the rise of the APC government. They were angry because the ‘change’ they envisaged had not materialised.

    Now, in Tinubu’s immortal words: emilokan! It’s his chance to turn things around. Forlorn hope must not just transform into ‘renewed hope.’ Nigerians desperately want to go beyond merely hoping against hope; they expect change for the better. With his hands now on the controls, he must stand and deliver.

  • 2023-27 Politics: Empower the people, DO NOT enrich politicians

    2023-27 Politics: Empower the people, DO NOT enrich politicians

    We mourn  Otunba Subomi Balogun. May he rest in perfect peace and comfort the family as we marvel and celebrate incredible business acumen, exemplary philanthropy, inter-religious tolerance, nationalism and particularly a fountainhead of friendship with his chief mourner and bosom friend of 65+ years, Chief Kola Daisi. 

    As some groan and some gloat and many give prayers of supplication or praise to God, May 29 approaches. Many applaud but many are apprehensive. Some are still in court. Some argue that the much-flaunted CV of advances and achievements, the foundation of this new incoming government’s argument for power, were achieved at hugely unfair financial cost extracted at source and also by unjustly high ‘Demand Notices’ embarrassingly stuck to the door or gate of almost every home and office of the citizenry of some states.

    Imagine you are one of the millions of Nigerian fathers or mothers arriving home with your impressionable children from school, tired after a 1-2 hour traffic jam battle with okada, only to find such announcements in the most military and insulting language plastered to your gate. The announcement is not merely a BILL billing you but A DEMAND NOTICE DEMANDING that you pay immediately a huge amount of money within a few weeks with a ridiculously short time frame with punishingly escalating costs easily met only by a thief. And your children are made to think less of you for no reason but government’s insultingly arrogant insensitivity. This is 2023.

    Government should be ashamed of such citizen-abusing methodology even if it is copied with malicious intent from another country.  Two wrongs do not make a right. The 2023-2027 government at state and federal will blindly continue and expand this vicious behaviour nationwide but it can change the notice to a BILL so as not to disgrace the parents, who have done nothing wrong, in front of their children. A DEMAND Notice is mental torture and harassment. A BILL is a bill which will be accepted and paid in due course. Demand Notices with time frames ‘from the date of this notice’ are notorious for being deliberately delivered weeks after the initial date stamp maliciously reducing the window payment by a month or more.

    Will Nigeria now become victim of 100m DEMAND NOTICES, the preoccupation of governance to tax to death to meet the domestic, state and international debt profile and irresponsible political salaries and Perks and Pensions SAPing Nigeria dry? A simple nomenclature change can remove the insult and political arrogance and reduce the citizens’ anger at the political authorities and help heal the wounds inflicted by government recklessness, arrogance and insensitivity. ‘Demand notice’ must change to ‘Bill’ and be less threatening with a LONGER TIME 6 -12 MONTHS TO PAY IN INSTAMENTALS.  We should not be subjects of a vengeful government. OR ARE WE? We did not vote executioners and extortionists, OR DID WE?   The citizens of Nigeria and Nigeria itself are not ATMs or one giant ATM for government employees and agencies to extort from. OR ARE WE? 

    Read Also: UNICEF training empowers Adamawa schoolgirls, improves attendance

    There are many questions on most skeptical Nigerian minds, and there are many, judging from the mere 30% voter turnout, 30m +Actual Voter: 93mmRegistered Voters ratio vs the wildly exaggerated population estimates of Nigeria? 160+m, not the politically motivated 200+m’. The main question is -In the 2023-27 political cycle— are we to become an even bigger giant ATM machine for politicians, government agents and agencies, contractors and civil servants and the over N10 separate billion scams to be discovered annually by EFCC only after the theft has occurred and with only 10 or 20% returns on tax extracted from the citizenry as seems to have been the usual practice in past times under some governments?

    We have seen the world. We are in the world. The world buys our goods and we buy from the world. We are not an appendage, a slave colony, a colonial conquest anymore. We have a right and it makes commonsense and simple political and social science to compare Google the cost a bag of cement, flour, sugar, a kilometre of bridges or dual causeway and wages of paupers and politicians.  We are tired of giving everything at huge cost for so little return. One city in America has more concrete and tarred roads, more water supplies and more electricity than Nigeria has. This cannot go on. Why can’t we get our leaders right?

    Is this 2023-2027 leadership going to be any different? We have been promised normalcy so many times that hardly anyone believes normalcy is possible. Pothole-less roads, running taps, switches bringing electric power on demand, good well-equipped hospitals and good child– and teacher friendly schools with toilets and libraries are not nuclear physics, decent regular salaries and pensions for workers and not just human rights. They are the basis of democracy and bedrock of development and to be provided by any government in power. Sadly, we the citizenry discuss high political salaries and pay low citizens wages. We want to be citizens where democracy means dialogue with the citizenry and not destruction of their lives and livelihoods.

    Attacks on IDPs in camps towns and villages and especially the Mangu killings believed to be between 150 and 200 real lives, Fellow Nigerian souls have minimised life. All are preventable deaths if there is adequate military and intelligence and drone support.

  • Truths and untruths about passport scarcity

    Truths and untruths about passport scarcity

    It is common knowledge that the press milks on bad news. This is especially true of the Nigerian press, particularly when reporting on government business. In the name of keeping the government on its toes, the press typically looks out for whatever is wrong or done wrong. And, to be honest, there are many things to criticise in the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari. In this regard, the word “scarcity” has become a buzz word in reporting on the perceived underachievement of the administration. It sells better to write about fuel and Naira scarcity than about their regular supply, more so when there indeed was unnecessary and ill-timed scarcity of the two commodities.

    The above notwithstanding, not all scarcities propagated in the press and social media are true. One such scarcity is passport (booklet) scarcity. To be sure, some officials of the Nigeria Immigration Services may have created and touted artificial scarcity, often to generate enough anxiety for applicants to want to cut corners. But the truth is that, since the previous system of booklet supply and passport production was replaced, there have been enough booklets for passport production at least for three months ahead of schedule.

    As indicated above, this does not mean that bottlenecks do not exist. However, such bottlenecks have been reduced to a minimum, leaving only a negligible fraction to the machinations of unscrupulous officials and touts, whose goal is nothing but extortion. Beginning in early 2020, new administrative processes were established, culminating in full digitisation of the application process and the introduction of the enhanced e-passport. As is typical of Rauf Aregbesola, Minister of Interior from August 21, 2019, he announced in advance the new processes to expect with customary enthusiasm. He did not mind the resistance to change by some of his officials who were benefitting from the old system.

    Today, passport issuance, from application to collection is in three clear stages. Stage I of the application process is divided into two phases. The first phase is the completion of the online application for new and renewed passport through the NIS portal, including the payment of specified fees. On the portal, applicants are free to choose any passport office convenient for them, either because of proximity or because of the waiting period for biometric data capture, otherwise known as “appointment date”.  This date is automatically specified for each office on a given day and the applicant is free to choose any available time. There is considerable variation between the completion of the application and the date for biometric capture, within each passport office, and from one office to another, depending on the volume of applicants.

    The second phase of the application process is the biometric data capture. While the first phase could be completed in the privacy of the applicant’s chosen space, the second phase must be completed on the appointed date in the chosen passport office and in the presence of a designated official, because that is where the applicant proper is identified and his or her picture taken. Even more importantly, that is where the NIN, order of names, and other data are verified. Many applications stall at this stage, if discrepancies are detected. The application will not be processed until they are corrected.

    Stage II is passport production. This is where the passport page, with verified biometric data, is attached to the passport booklet. Both the booklet and the passport page are products of the most advanced technology in passport production today. In fact, Nigeria is among the first five countries in the world and the first in Africa to employ the technology involved in the production of e-passports, each with as many as 25 security features!

    In order to enhance the speed of passport production, the Ministry of Interior embarked on two inter-related processes. One is to speed up the process of booklet production, while the other is to speed up the production of the passport page and its attachment to the booklet. The passport page is fully digitised. As a result, there is no shortage of supply. However, there could be delay in production due to increased volume of applicants.

    In order to reduce the waiting period for biometric data appointment and the bottleneck in passport production, the Ministry embarked on large-scale decentralisation of the process beginning in 2020, by establishing passport production and front offices in strategic locations throughout the country. This involved installing appropriate computers and relevant software as well as training necessary officials in the ICT knowledge required to operate them.

    Similarly, passport booklet scarcity was solved by changing the suppliers and employing Public Private Partnership with new technical partners, who regularly restock the NIS store from time to time. Thus, it is worth repeating that, as I write, there are enough supplies in the NIS store for passport production for the next three months. This is the development, which gave Aregbesola the boldness to assert that there are no passport booklet shortages. It is also the foundation of the new timeline for passport collection, namely, three weeks for reissue or renewal and six weeks for new passports.

    Nevertheless, it is true that the Central Bank of Nigeria has not been as cooperative as needed in facilitating the access of NIS’s technical partners to needed foreign exchange. This is not altogether surprising, given the CBN’s anti-people policies and actions in the last few years. However, this has only slowed down the pace of booklet production; it has not halted it.

    This brings us to Stage III, which is passport collection by the applicant. Here is where the Nigerian factor is most evident. Nigerians believe that their presence at passport offices will speed up processes, if they could speak to one or two officials and convey some sense of urgency or bribe their way through. Unfortunately for the NIS, there are officials with itchy palms.

    The truth, however, is that there really is no need for applicants to go to the passport office until they are sure their passport is ready. This they can verify online by checking their application status on the NIS portal, using the Passport Application ID and the Passport Reference No generated when they applied online and sent to their email address. Using the same portal, every applicant can monitor their application from submission through passport production to completion.

    Next week, the focus will be on the statistics of passport production in the last seven years vis-à-vis the preceding eight years. Perhaps then, the contribution of the present administration to passport production will be appreciated.

  • The Seun Kuti saga

    The Seun Kuti saga

    In the last few months popular musician, Seun Kuti, son of afrobeat legend, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, has been in the news for reasons far removed from music.

    Early this year he was caught up in a social media slanging match with Peter Okoye of the pop group P-Square for having the audacity to suggest that Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party, was unlikely to win the elections because he was an opportunist.

    His remarks drew the ire of Okoye who had installed himself as some sort of vigilante calling out anyone in the entertainment community who had less than laudatory things to say about Obi, or who stated a preference for the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

    Just as that incident was receding in our memory, we find Seun thrust into our faces again over an unseemly altercation with a policeman captured on video. Pushing and shoving would be capped with a slap across the face.

    Once the footage went viral, Inspector General of Police, Alkali Baba, jumped into the fray, ordering the musician’s arrest for serious assault. Kuti has since been granted bail by the magistrate court, but had before then been walked through the humiliating process of being handcuffed and having his mugshot taken.

    The case is ongoing in court so I can’t really go into the merits. But the episode has raised several interesting talking points. Firstly, the outrage has been remarkable in its near totality. In a country which at times seems like it has lost all sense of what is right or wrong, it was refreshing to see people from all ages and across ethnic and political divides agree that slapping a cop isn’t the wisest thing to do – your renown and celebrity notwithstanding.

    But those who know a bit about the famous Ransome-Kuti family wouldn’t be too surprised that the singer has gotten himself into hot water with the authorities. Seun has shown that he’s the true son of his father who had scant respect for the establishment. While I don’t recall any instance of him striking a cop, Fela, in his heyday, had withering contempt for the police and soldiers. When he was not skewering them for their brutality, he was mocking their corruption and cluelessness.

    He was as fearless as they came, taunting the military for their robotic devotion to command and obedience in his afrobeat classic ‘Zombie.’ In another of his inimitable hits, he sang ‘uniform na cloth na tailor dey sew am’; a defiant declaration that he couldn’t be intimidated by anyone just because they were in some sort of fatigues.

    Fela was a giant and he left a challenging legacy. His children would struggle to measure up, chart paths of their own or end up as poor imitations of the old icon. So far, they haven’t done too badly in their musical careers, but there would only be one Fela – artistically or for notoriety.

    I am sure Seun wasn’t looking for attention when he let fly with a slap to the policeman’s face. This was road rage defined and the finer details of the trigger would become clearer if this trial proceeds further. Irrespective of the justification, he has admitted to striking a cop and that would be regarded as outrageous in most societies.

    So what can we take away from the widespread condemnation that his action has attracted? Has the Nigerian Police Force suddenly become so beloved that people are horrified someone could deign to slap one of them? Are Nigerians now so respectful of institutions they can’t stand to see them rubbished in such a way? Could some of the outrage be down to gloating by those who were not too thrilled by his recent political interventions?

    Let’s be clear. I totally condemn any attack on policemen or their facilities. Any society that wants to progress must have law and order. It must treat those charged with enforcement with utmost respect and dignity.

    But like anyone accused of any crime, we must presume the singer is innocent until the court convicts him – irrespective of what we’ve seen in the viral video.

    That said, this episode affords us another opportunity to look at the awkward relationship between the police and the larger populace. A little over two years ago, the nation was rocked by the #EndSARS protests against police brutality. Although there was much sympathy for youths who were at the receiving end of abuse and profiling, the demonstrations would spiral out of control with the killing of policemen, burning of stations and other public facilities, jailbreaks, blocking of major road arteries and near breakdown of law and order.

    Several panels of inquiry set up by state governments in the aftermath of the uprising have made multimillion naira awards to compensate several victims of brutality who were able to prove their case. In the course of hearings Nigerians heard bloodcurdling testimonies of torture and abuse that led many to lose their limbs; all of these perpetrated by those supposed to protect them.

    It is understandable why the police would want to hype the Seun slap into some sort of high crime. They wouldn’t want other celebrities, powerful, influential or rich people to think it is an example they can copy.

    However, do the Nigerian police who are so miffed by the musician’s action ever indulge in similar slapping assaults – where the recipient cheeks are those of ordinary, powerless citizens? They do so all the time, but because we have come to accept that as standard conduct on their part, you don’t get the same sort of outrage that has attended Kuti’s momentary loss of self control.

    It doesn’t appear as if a significant segment of the Force drew any enduring lessons from the #EndSARS episode. A few recent examples confirm this. In March, the Delta State Police Command announced the arrest of five officers – four male and one female – who had been captured on video brutalising a helpless woman. In the viral footage the victim was stripped naked and they were seen binding her hands behind her back.

    Early in April this year, the Rivers State Police Command arrested one of its officers who had also been caught on video flogging and slapping a young man by the roadside over an unstated offence. The victim was humiliated before his wife who watched helplessly as her husband took the beating.

    In yet another outrageous incident in April, a young businessman was shot dead by a policeman in Asaba after he refused to part with N100 bribe. The list of such incidents in recent times is as long as the arm.

    While it is proper to teach people to respect and cooperate with law enforcement officers at all times, the police also need to clean up their act. The uniform they wear is a public trust. The arms they bear are paid for by tax payers who have rights. They are to serve them, not terrorise, oppress or intimidate them. That is the only to get people to treat cops with anything that approximates affection or appreciation.

    Many years ago, in a bid to build a connection with the people, the Force came up with the slogan ‘The Police is your friend.’ If only they can subject this statement to more up-to-date polling. The results will confirm how desperately the institution needs to reform so that people will truly believe they are on their side.

  • No standing up for politicians; Disgraceful passport delays             

    No standing up for politicians; Disgraceful passport delays             

    We are all witness to the horse-trading going on over consensus, zoning, non-zoning representation, rights, rewards and recycling, new nonaligned AND non-APC candidature for four powerful places in the National Assembly, NASS -the leadership and deputy leadership of Senate and House of Representatives.  If only all these political moves would lead to a better NASS and a better politics and subsequently a better Nigeria. Perhaps they will but perhaps they will not especially considering the destructive, rather that constructive, nature of past NASSes vis-à-vis the deliberately, socially reprehensibly insensitive prolonged delay in the funding of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, (LIE), and the resultant unlimited suffering maliciously inflicted on the citizenry.

    Remember that these same members of NASS arrogantly cancelled the proposed budget to finish the road three or four years ago and diverted 135billion out of N150billion to mostly questionable Constitutional Projects. More recently in a last gasp effort to drag Nigeria back into the slavery and serfdom, the dying days of the current NASS proudly gave second reading to a bill to force medical doctors to remain deregistered for five years and unable to leave Nigeria. What arrogance. Both are evidence of the misconception and perhaps abuse of the power of NASS. Count the cost of the billions or even trillions of working hours, naira, days, litres of fuel, poisonous exhaust fumes  and breaths wasted, produced and even lost in horrendous torture on that road.

    Both are examples of deviant anti-democratic behaviour by the highest political bodies in the country that has rendered the country a shadow of its expected beautiful bride self in the comity of nations, a disappointment when compared to its sibling countries of similar age and colonial oppression. Of course, there has been foreign participation in this aberrant political behaviour at variance with the norms in other countries and it truly has further contributed to the ‘The Rape of Nigeria, The Beautiful Bride.’ Our own citizens entrusted with the keys to the country and its copious coffers and saddled, by virtue of the Pledge of Office, with the responsibility for the protection of the virtue of Nigeria the beautiful bride, act like pimps, turning Nigeria into a repeatedly abused prostitute forced by the abusive authorities to service the greed of local and foreign nationals. Many foreign banks are awash with the proceeds of that rape having advertised for secret accounts as far back as the 1960s on the back pages of West Africa and similar magazines.  

    Nigeria has previously been married against her will to some of many suitors in do-or-die, kill-and-go corrupted contests mis-called FAF, ‘Free And Fair’ pseudo-democratic elections where the rights of the electorate were denied by immoral political forces. She has been kidnapped by different ranks in her armed forces boasting ‘self-acclaimed patriotism’ or ‘retaliation for perceived or actual wrongdoing’ or ‘I-can-do-it better- than-you’ reneging on or modified their mandate of ‘protection of country and citizen’ and, instead, turning the beautiful bride into a beautiful prize of a war on one’s citizens and country and placed her in the cruel criminally minded care of greed driven jailers and murderous minders. Now some people are talking of a second interim government as if that is in any way legal and without reference to the fate of the first ‘fake’ interim government in the time of Babangida. We all know what happened during the subsequent terror and avarice of the Abacha era. We are still receiving trickles of Abacha loot. When we see any and every politician, try to see into their minds. Most except maybe a president and vice president should not be stood up for. Even some governors would find it hard to qualify.  We raise them up by standing and are surprised when they mutate into monsters. Yes, we are a respectful country – a two-way street. But the leadership and the politicians do not respect us. So we the citizens should make a Bill FOR STANDING: Nigerians will only stand for the president and vice president. You may add governors who are mini-presidents of 3-15m citizens. But they must be deserving. But we must not stand for ministers and commissioners. Perhaps we can introduce ‘taking a seat’ just as a ‘taking a knee’ as a protest.         

    The suffering citizens have to go through to get a passport is mostly disgraceful human collusion and human failure. The very idea that passports are not printed in sufficient numbers for distribution to all states and foreign embassies suggests an ignorance of the magnitude of the duties and responsibilities and an incompetence of monumental proportions. In a normal country, it is not possible to underfund budgets of adequate, delay routine passport production in excess of demand without being sacked. The passport office has been in the hands of one or two ethnic groups since forever. Why? Certainly, the leadership has failed to deliver on its core mandate passports. Is no one else equally trustworthy or more efficient in the country? Is it a government plan to strangle the supply of passports?

    The incoming government must make passport turnaround times two weeks. More capture points, more IT specialists and more passports. Shorter waiting time – not nuclear physics. Just rights of citizens and responsibilities of governance denied until now. But it is getting worse not better. Politicians and civil servants who slow down service-delivery, like failing to deliver passports in 2-4 weeks, should be removed and penalised. 

  • Nigeria Rescue, not more Rape! SERAP; LIE gridlock

    Nigeria Rescue, not more Rape! SERAP; LIE gridlock

    Electric buses are available in several African countries. Now they are said to be in Lagos. Hurray! But where will they get electricity in a city largely working on generator power? Questions are being raised on the actual cost of the buses. It is a transparency matter. Simple.

    If Nigeria is to be rescued and not subjected to more rape, it must grow at the state level and not only the federal level. Every four years the citizens yearn for an improvement in their lives.  Nigeria deserves to be much better off than it is. The real danger is that if we have more of the same disregard for the citizenry we will sink further into the disarray and despair and financial embarrassment.

    The question is how to guarantee that the 2023-2027 class of political office holders live up to the people’s expectations. Constant public pressure and scrutiny will help. We must put in place from day one mechanisms to detect fraud and diversion of funds long before large sums are stolen. The political class must be instructed on the consequences to citizen and country of any and every theft and urged to keep the Pledge they swear to every day and live up to the National Anthem.

    This also applies to the 2023-2027 class of contractors and civil servants. How do we convince them, and every employee, that ONE YEAR OF HONESTY will change Nigeria and we will all demand another year of honesty and so on. ‘Nigeria needs Rescue, not more Rape.’

    SERAP, Social Economic Rights and Accountability Project, is suing the Federal Government for contempt in connection with failure to recover over N40b pensions allocated to former Governors. Nigerians are also against payments, such as cash, vehicles every four years and houses in state and Abuja. They demonstrate maximum greed as every governor is reasonably well-off before taking office, and this well-offness never deteriorates during office.

     Many of the governors served as chief financial officers of states which did not pay salaries or pensions as and when due, and indeed owed pensions sometimes for years. Governors should be realistic and know that this is just ‘Governor Greed’ and oversteps the honourable bounds of Good Governance.

    This matter should never have come up as Nigeria is facing serious economic, security and public office holder trust issues. It is a distasteful disgraceful misuse of office. They worked and were well paid for their 4 years or 8 years including the so-called security vote believed not to be subject to any audit or scrutiny ‘for security reasons.’    Hundreds of thousands of Fellow Nigerians were 7-10 hours and longer on the LIE, Lagos Ibadan Expressway, on Sunday, the 7th May 2023, in four to five lanes aside for up to 30Km or more.

    No, this time it was not due to the construction though the construction compounded the matter later. For some years, it has been pointed out that the basic LIE design has too few emergency crossover points which could remain closed until an emergency occurs blocking one side. During such a LIE closure, the road crossing could be opened under the authority of the road traffic agencies to allow traffic to loop to the other side of the road for three or four kilometres and then cross back to the correct side at the next emergency crossover bypassing the accident area. All this in an orderly supervised manner.

    A petrol tanker heading towards Ibadan had some accident, ending up lying on its side, and apparently petrol had to be syphoned off to prevent a fire in the Ibafo area of the LIE. The incident blocked the Ibadan- bound traffic from early morning and probably the previous night. Many vehicles changed sides into the Lagos-bound lane facing oncoming traffic and succeeded in bringing that lane to a stop also. Now the stuck Lagos-bound traffic also decided to reverse and change sides and drive down the Lagos-Ibadan side, and succeeded in stopping any traffic which managed to escape the original cause of the traffic gridlock. The mayhem was compounded by the arrogance of the drivers insisting on their right of way. Traffic was at a standstill for a long time.

     Many vehicles, endeavoring to escape at any costs, were directed into the sideroads around Mowe/Ibafo. Sadly, those roads are narrow, with gullies and poor road surface resulting in further traffic gridlock on the so-called escape route. The routes were manned by entrepreneurial or opportunistic, sometimes aggressive and sometimes nice local area boys, some of whom were fond of extracting money per vehicle entering their area of operation. Motorists were between the devil and the deep blue sea.  

    Dangote refinery is due for commissioning by outgoing President Buhari on May 22. We anticipate the results and the costs to the consumer. Dangote’s previous business ventures in cement and flour and sugar were not marked by any reasonable home-grown advantage pricewise. Will the refinery products be any different?  

    About 58 victims of kidnappers were rescued by police and other security outfits. This is fantastic news. We are still hoping and praying that the remaining Chibok Girls and others kidnapped around the country are being actively sought so that the Buhari government does not hand over any ‘Awaiting Action’ or ‘Pending’ files on kidnapping, especially of children. The parents are owed their children by the 2017-2023 Buhari government.  Deliver these kidnapped children to their parents.  

  • Early tests for Tinubu presidency

    Early tests for Tinubu presidency

    We live in ugly times. A generation of Nigerians have come to adulthood without any memory of what it was like to have experienced the ‘good times’ in this country: a period when the naira was at par with the dollar, when our tertiary institutions rated against the best in the world, when we were so flush with petro-dollars and didn’t know what to do with the cash, so we threw a global party for black people called FESTAC.

    All that many Nigerians under 40 know is a nation in decline, one that stubbornly refuses to fulfil its potential in the hands of largely mediocre leaders. As we stumbled from one era of disappointment to another, our people became programmed to expect the worst. Today, we have one of the most cynical populations on earth; the product a widening distance between the governors and the governed.

    As Bola Ahmed Tinubu prepares to take the presidency on May 29, he would be doing so against the backdrop of a bitter campaign where ethnicity and religion were key factors. He becomes leader in an environment where people have lost all sense of what normal political contestation involves.

    For many, it is only fair if they are winners. Hate and bloody mindedness have eclipsed all other noble values. On social media, savagery – interpreted as how nasty and obnoxious you can be to another person in an ongoing conversation – is celebrated. People would rather believe and deploy fake news if it suits their cause. What a time for anyone to take over as Nigeria’s president!

    Tinubu will be inheriting some of the challenges that outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari promised to tackle when he took power eight years ago – economy and insecurity precisely. To his credit, the incumbent has largely destroyed the threat which the Boko Haram insurgency posed. But under his watch kidnapping, banditry and mass killings by herders assumed a scary dimension.

    In 2015, as candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) he tongue-lashed Goodluck Jonathan’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) administration for woeful economic management that saw the dollar to naira exchange rate verging on N200 to one. In the last one year there were times when it appeared like our currency would breach the N1,000 to the dollar barrier.

    No fair-minded commentator can assess Buhari’s record without taking into account the recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the unscripted Russian invasion of Ukraine. But if we accept that these were events outside anyone’s control, the same cannot be said of the own goal that the naira redesign policy was. In the annals of cockups, this definitely ranks as a prize winner. No one may be able to put a proper cost to the devastation done small businesses by one instance of policy confusion. The emotional trauma and humiliation suffered by many is hard to describe, not mention that some actually lost their lives because of the actions of the Central Bank.

    At some point at the height of the cash crunch and petrol scarcity in January and February, it appeared that the nation was at breaking point. But people gritted their teeth because they could see the finishing line and their hope was that a new administration could offer different solutions.

    Now, a clear winner has emerged and it doesn’t matter if his victory is being contested at the tribunal. Both supporters and those whose didn’t vote for him are waiting to see what difference Tinubu would make.

    Therefore, one of the earliest tests that could ultimately shape his presidency is how well he manages the burden of expectations. Put bluntly, a country in dire straits, is expecting deliverance in a hurry. That tells me quickly that the new president may not get anything like the traditional honeymoon period.

    Conventionally, new leaders are afforded that period of anywhere between three and six months where friends and foes treat them gently and with courtesy, allowing them bed down to the task they’ve been handed. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen. Many of his embittered political foes who have been on a losing streak since 2015 would be on the attack from day one.

    Those who have refused to accept the verdict of voters, the counting of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and have served notice that any verdict of the courts that’s not in their favour wouldn’t be acceptable, would remain hostile. The only option is for Tinubu to hit the ground running and not stumble.

    The challenge is that he’s being handed an in-tray of problems for which there are no quick fixes. That’s where he urgently needs to start managing expectations. People are quick to point to the impact and successes of his tenure as Lagos State governor over eight years. But not many remember that in his first few months in office, while he was sorting out the financing for his programmes, he was harshly criticised. But once he resolved the cash end things began moving smoothly.

    One of the toughest decisions awaiting him is the removal of the fuel subsidy. There’s a national consensus that Nigeria can no longer afford it. The sticking point is when to do it and how to go about it. Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, predicted recently that without ending the subsidies government would have to resort to printing money in order to pay its workers.

    The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) agrees that the waste should end but only when four local refineries have been fixed. The prospect of that happening in the short term is remote. The much waited Dangote Refinery would be inaugurated on May 22, a mere week to the onset of the new administration. It remains to be seen whether it alone can mediate the anticipated brutal effect of the removal.

    Tinubu has vowed to remove the subsidy irrespective of the anticipated opposition from Labour and civil society groups. With budgetary allocation for it ending in June, he may need to consider whether his first business in the saddle would be to manage social upheaval with unpredictable consequences, or kick the can a few months down the road, while he steadies himself at the controls.

    Another front on which the president may find himself being quickly tested is insecurity. Bandits, kidnappers and other crime entrepreneurs would want to see if the new leader is a soft touch or someone to be feared. He needs to deliver some quick wins in this area to send out the right signals to those concerned and sustain the feel good factor for his government.

    Tinubu spoke last week of his intention to follow the example of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua. One of the key legacies of his short reign was that he brought calm to the oil bearing Niger Delta with his peace deal with the militants. This was something that all of former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s machismo couldn’t achieve. In much the same way, Buhari’s successor must deliver creative solutions that allows hapless rural dwellers return to their farms without the fear of attacks and quickly puts kidnappers on notice that it won’t be business as usual.

    Just as important as these challenges is the question of perception management. The new president has been on the receiving end of vicious attacks on social media for years. He says he doesn’t care what people say about him in that rough and ready terrain. But he should care. Millions of people who don’t patronise the more restrained traditional media have their world view and perceptions about public figures shaped by what they gobble up on social media. If he’s to succeed and strike the right rapport with those he governs, he needs to take the fight to those currently defining him negatively – unchallenged – every day.

  • Domestic airlines: To fly or not to fly

    Domestic airlines: To fly or not to fly

    All over the world, air travel is no mass transit. In general, it is an elite mode of travel, which is why only a small fraction of the population patronises airlines for domestic and international travels. In recent years, however, patronage of domestic airlines has increased, especially in African countries, where new airlines have appeared in the sky. This is especially true of Nigeria, where as many as 20 airlines currently ply the domestic skies, although well over a hundred domestic airlines have folded up since independence in 1960. Most of the operating airlines today were established only within the past 10-20 years (some, such as Green Africa and Ibom Air, only within the past 3-4 years) and most of them have a limited fleet size of less than 10.

    However, it is one thing for airlines to put planes in the sky; it is another thing to achieve a trifecta of reliability (1) in schedule, (2) in aircraft maintenance and safety, and (3) in customer service from ticketing counter to luggage claim and phone calls. The more airlines fail in one or more of these factors, the higher the possibility of patronage decline.

    The data

    Last week on this column, I used my personal experiences with two domestic airlines, Airpeace and Overland Airways on the Akure-Lagos and Akure-Abuja routes, to illustrate the unreliable schedule of  domestic airlines in Nigeria (see Nigerian domestic airlines and schedule integrity, The Nation, May 3, 2023). This was supplemented by the personal narrative by Jumoke Oduwole, Executive Secretary of the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council, chronicling her experience of numerous sudden schedule changes by Airpeace on the Lagos-Akure flight on April 28, 2023.

    Recent data from the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority indicate that flight delays and cancellations are industry-wide with Nigerian domestic airlines. NCAA’s summary of industry performance for the year 2022 showed that as many as 59 percent of flights were delayed or cancelled, despite a post-COVID hike in patronage. The situation worsened during the first quarter of 2023, with a much higher percentage of flight delays or cancellations across the industry. Babatunde Adeniji, CEO of Upside Aviation Limited and popular aviation management consultant, puts it this way: “We failed as an industry to even make the pass grade. Domestic airlines as a whole were only punctual for 41 percent of operated flights”. There are, of course, a few exceptions, notably, Ibom Air and Green Africa, the latter having engaged in a promo blitz for the last two months.

    Besides schedule unreliability, the domestic airlines also suffer from aircraft age. Most of the aircrafts they fly around are over 20 years old. For a growing industry that generally lacks maintenance culture, the 22-year ceiling imposed by NCAA appears reasonable, particularly because poor maintenance has been identified as a major cause of airline accidents in Nigeria, in addition to pilot error and bad weather.

    Customer service is also generally poor across the industry. Most times, it is hard to reach the airlines advertised customer service numbers, leading passengers to call the airline agents they know for assistance. Service counters are generally overcrowded, leading to poor or delayed service. Sometimes, passengers are left waiting for clarification on when or whether or not the plane would arrive or whether or not the flight will be cancelled. Oftentimes, nobody from the affected airline says anything, in part because they, too, do not know what is going on.

    The major causes

    Of course, Airlines Operators of Nigeria are aware of the abysmal performance of the industry, and they are quick to highlight some factors responsible for the situation. Sometime last years, the National Assembly complained against the airlines’ schedule delays.  The Airline operators responded by highlighting as many as 15 causes, including poor infrastructure, such as congested aprons, limited service counters, inadequate screening and exit points at departure, limited passenger sitting areas, and unserviceable baggage claim machines; dawn to dusk airports, operating between 6:00am and 6:00pm; bird strikes; bad weather and other natural disasters; VIP movements; non-availability of forex for spare parts and maintenance; delayed clearance of critical spare parts by Customs; and last, but not least, scarcity and rising cost of aviation fuel.

    Airlines Operators are being clever by half here. Some of the challenges they identified, such as delays due to VIP movements, are preposterous. If VIPs must move when they want, let them charter a jet or chopper. It’s only in Nigeria that a passenger plane can be delayed for a VIP. The Airlines Operators also failed to mention the steps they have taken to cushion the effects of some of the challenges they identified. For example, in response to the rising cost of aviation fuel, airfare tripled or quadrupled in some cases.

    The Airline Operators also failed to acknowledge the cost of their failures to passengers, some of whom might have missed important appointments or lost some important business. For many passengers, a cancelled flight could lead to unbudgeted expenses, such as hotel, feeding, and transport costs for which they are not compensated by the airlines.

    Possible remedies

    It is high time the NCAA imposed sanctions on domestic airlines for flight delays and cancellations. Besides, passengers should be adequately compensated for such failures. Compensations could be in the form of rebooked flight, free hotel rooms in the departing city or a free return air ticket on top of the existing one. It is the global standard to provide assistance and pay compensation for inconvenience to passengers whose flights are delayed or cancelled. Passengers, too, should not shy away from pressing their demand for compensation. It is their right to do so.

    Even more importantly, more attention should be paid to airline safety by facilitating the processes by which flight operators could access forex to import necessary spare parts and get customs clearance as quickly as possible. On their part, the operators should study the aircraft they purchase and order enough serviceable spare parts on first purchase.

    Finally, government cannot be absolved of responsibility for some of the causes of flight delays and cancellations identified by the Airlines Operators. This is especially true of state governments, which have provided inadequate infrastructure, typified by crowded rooms and sparse furniture, for their domestic airports. In most cases, aircrafts park on the runway from which passengers embark and disembark. This makes it impossible to handle two or more airlines simultaneously. States wishing to boost the economy of their state should look toward expanding their local airport facilities and making it a business hub for travellers.