Niyi Akinnaso

As the holiday season approaches, I decided to focus on this topic because I have observed widespread ignorance about tyres by most Nigerians, regardless of social class. Vulcanisers and drivers are the most ignorant. Before you know it, they will over-inflate your tyre. They tell you that the more the air pressure in the tyres, the easier it is for them to turn the steering.

A more specific reason for focusing on tyres derives from several tyre-related accidents that I have witnessed or read about in the last few years. Readers will recall, for example, the tyre accident involving former President Olusegun Obasanjo on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway in October 2015. Here is how it was described in a press statement issued about the incident: “The vehicle he was travelling in suffered a burst left tyre at the rear and swerved several times but did not hit any curb or any car in front or behind until it did an 180-degree turn and faced where it was coming from, and he had to change vehicles” (Sahara Reporters, October 25, 2016).

However, then Minister of State for Labour and Employment, James Ocholi, and his family were not that lucky, when they were involved in a similar accident, involving a rear tyre blowout. Rather, according to Francis Udoma, the Kaduna State Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Corps,  “The rear tyre burst and the vehicle somersaulted into the bush. The minister and his son died on the spot, the wife died in the government hospital at Doka, Kaduna” (Vanguard, March 7, 2016).

A similar fate would befall six doctors from Ekiti State and the bus driver on their way to Sokoto to attend a conference. Again, the cause was a rear tyre blowout. According to a report in The PUNCH (April 26, 2016), “The impact … set the vehicle on a ghastly somersault, killing the six medical doctors and the driver while others were injured”.

Eight students from two separate secondary schools in Kano shared the same fate with the doctors in a similar situation. Reporting the incident on May 5, 2016, Daily Trust put it this way: “Daily Trust gathered that one of the tyres of the bus that was carrying 12 students burst and the driver lost control, resulting in the death of nine persons, including the driver.”

One road accident that I witnessed, which gave me periodic nightmares for quite some time, also involved a tyre blowout. It occurred on the Ilesa-Akure Road and involved a commercial bus. The driver overtook us on the road; but moments later, the bus skidded off the road after running into a bump, which immediately took out the front tyre on the passenger side. It somersaulted several times before finally resting on its back. By the time we got there, many lifeless passengers had been mangled with the carcass of the bus.

It is against the above backgrounds that four features must be noted about tyres. First, note that tyres are like medication. They have a shelf life. That is, they expire at a given date. Unlike wine, tyres do not improve with age. Whether they are attached to a vehicle or kept in storage, tyres do degrade over time. Even if you buy a new tyre today, it may be just a few months to expiration, if the date of manufacture was like four or more years ago. The important point to bear in mind here is that tyres do age, whether used or not. This is the more reason you should never install any previously used tyre on your car.

Second, numerous factors affect the condition and lifespan of tyres. When I visited a Michelin tyre dealership in the United States two weeks ago, I was given a long list of factors, divided into six categories, namely, (1) physical factors (age, wear, and damage) (2) road condition  (damaged roads, potholes, sharp objects, and speed bumps); (3) climate, (extreme temperatures, strong sunlight, and ozone); (4) driving habits (speeding, quick starts, and emergency braking); (5) neglecting basic tyre maintenance (air pressure, alignment, tyre rotation, wheel balancing, use of unapproved sealants for tyre puncture; and (6) improper usage (mixing tyre types, using tyres on damaged wheels, and re-inflating a tyre that has been run flat).

Third, proper and regular maintenance can increase the lifespan of your tyres and your own safety. Three maintenance tips are essential: One, you should know the correct tyre size and air pressure for your car. The pressure is measured in pounds per square inch (psi). You can find it on the driver’s door post, the glove compartment, or the owner’s manual. You should follow whatever you find in either of the three sources and not the maximum psi written on the tyre itself.

Notice that different manufacturers use the same tyre size for their vehicles. However, manufacturers know the best psi for tyres mounted on their vehicles. They know the weight of each vehicle and the expected maximum load. The pressure recommended by the manufacturer should be the maximum, because allowance has been given for the pressure to go up a notch or two when the tyres are hot, either as a result of long and fast driving or hot weather.

Two, when you install new tyres, make sure that the alignment and wheel balancing are properly done to avoid uneven or irregular tyres wear down the road. Once you notice uneven wear on your tyre, it is time to recheck the alignment. I recommend changing, not managing, it, especially if you have to drive over a relatively long distance.

Three, remember that your whole vehicle and its passengers ride on the tyres, which provide the only contact with the road. As a result, they get hot. This is worsened by speeding and high outside temperature.

What we have on Nigerian roads is often a toxic mix of badly managed tyres, bad roads, and speedy drivers. Bad tyres do not cause accidents by themselves. Speeding on a bad road is often the cause of fatal accidents involving tyre blowouts.

This is often complicated by the drivers’ lack of knowledge in managing tyre blowouts. There are at least four basic steps to take to lessen the impact of a tyre blowout. Step 1. The starting point is to maintain a safe driving speed that will enable you to take full control of the vehicle in case of an emergency. Step 2. Be calm, and leave the footbrake alone. Do not slam on it. If you do, it will worsen the car’s imbalance and throw it out of control. Step 3. Hold firmly to the steering and do your best to keep the car going straight. If the car is pulling to one side, only gently pull the steering in the opposite direction. This is important to avoid crashing into the road divider or drifting into the bush or the opposite lane. Step 4. Guide the vehicle to gradually coast to a stop, and then pull over safely off the road. Use the mildest steering inputs throughout the ordeal.

Overall, just don’t drive too fast.

Niyi Akinnaso

When Omoyele Sowore, career activist, publisher of Sahara Reporters, and presidential candidate in the 2019 general elections, was first arrested in July, 2019, I chastised him, not for leading a protest but for the provocative invocation that accompanied his call for a revolution.

Although he used a provocative word-revolution-in the call for protest, it was not the case that he had an army or anything of the sort to topple the government. The word was used only to add colourful emphasis to the need for the government to change its ways in order to make Nigeria work better and for everyone.

Nevertheless, I anticipated the unwarranted interpretation of his statements by English language-challenged security forces and by a government in crisis: It will be recalled that the government was facing court challenges on the election of the President, whose former role as a military dictator puts him on edge on hearing the word revolution. Besides, the government has been confronted with security challenges from various sources and its political party-the All Progressives Congress-was, and still is, in a crisis of its own.

I did not spare the government, either, for its draconian response to Sowore’s call for revolution. His initial arrest was unwarranted not to mention his prolonged detention, even beyond repeated court orders for his release.

Even more unwarranted and downright disgraceful was his re-arrest in open court a day after his release from detention. The exact location and timing of the re-arrest don’t even matter. Viewers of the video-taped recording, which will live in cyberspace forever, are free to make their own judgement. What matters is that the event happened at all and in such a disgraceful scuffle, apparently involving uniformed security agents, fully robed lawyers, and eyewitnesses from Sowore’s family and friends as well as civil society.

The controversy over the rearrest makes matters worse. The Department of State Security’s doublespeak on the matter is below the expected dignity of the Department. So is the claim that Sowore stage-managed his own arrest. If so, why then is he still in custody? And if, as it was claimed, the presidency knows nothing about it, then why not order his immediate release?

It is important to ask the question at this point: Why are the government and the DSS afraid of Sowore-led protest to the point that it was killed before it even took off? After all, no one has been tickled by a pin by Sowore and his followers since the mere announcement of his #Revolution Now protest. Most observers at home and abroad know that his was a peaceful protest, like the long-standing Bring Back Our Girls protest.

Comparisons cannot but be drawn with the violent sympathy protests which followed then Presidential candidate Muhammadu Buhari’s electoral loss in the presidential election of 2011.  Hundreds of people, including innocent members of the National Youth Service Corps, were killed in the protests and property worth billions of Naira was destroyed. Till today, no one has been held accountable for those protests, despite pre-election boasts by Buhari’s supporters that the country would be made “ungovernable”, were Buhari to lose.

The truth today is that there is a global spread of protests. Rather than continue to live in blissful ignorance of the global scale of protests, it is important to place Sowore’s aborted protest within a global context. This past decade, there have been protests on all continents.

In 2019 alone, protests have occurred in over 50 countries, including the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Australia, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Uruguay,  Haiti, Israel, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Uganda, Guinea, Sudan, and so on. A common demand across all protests is the call for reform.

What is even more important is that virtually all the known causes of protests across the globe are present in Nigeria today. They include endemic corruption; election fraud; economic decline; growing inequality; tuition increases; climate change; obnoxious laws; infrastructural decay; and calls for political autonomy, personal freedom, and self-fulfillment.

In essence, that’s what Sowore was calling for in a country that has consistently ranked in the bottom pile on major international indices, including the Corruption Perception Index, the Failed States Index, the Human Development Index, and the World Poverty Index.

It is also important that youths, especially students, are in the forefront of most protests across the globe, because it is their future that is at stake. This is particularly so in Nigeria, where the national debt far outstrips the life of the present administration and many more to come, thereby eclipsing the future of Nigerian youths.

It is against these local and global contexts that Sowore’s planned protest must be viewed. Repressing dissent and protests is the beginning of autocracy. It may well be the beginning of the death of democracy.

Sowore may be in detention today, and his protest may have been aborted. The DSS may crack down on any protest as they want. Nevertheless, if Nigeria continues along the present path, protests will happen and they will be leaderless as they will involve everybody: Jobless youths, the elderly without social security, the hungry, the sick, the homeless, and others will fill the streets.

The political class and others cocooned in their wealth may be blind to the plight of the masses. The image of a roadside hawker and his experience comes to mind. As he was rushing to brandish his wares, an SUV drove past mine, overtaking everyone in lane, splashing mud water on the hawker and others by the roadside as the SUV galloped from one pothole to another.

The hawker put down his wares, squeezed water from his shirt, and cursed the owner of the SUV and the driver. Others by the roadside chorused him. Another person railed at the government for not taking care of the roads. These are people who may not hesitate to join future protests to reclaim the future of their country, their future.

For some politicians, stepping into new shoes, such as assuming the governorship of a state, is like going to a foreign country for the first time. They have to learn new ropes in order to function effectively in the new environment. That is not the case, however, for Gboyega Oyetola, the ninth Governor of the State of Osun (and fourth since 1999), because he had witnessed the functioning of the office of the Governor for eight years as the Chief of Staff to his predecessor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, now the Federal Minister of Interior.

Oyetola brought other relevant qualifications to the office. Armed with a Masters degree in Business Administration, he was a successful private sector guru, managing his own company and chairing, or serving on, various corporate boards. No wonder, when he joined the government as Chief of Staff, no government vehicle matched his own in comfort and luxury.

More importantly, he brought to the office of governor an enviable mien. He is deliberative. He seeks advice. He listens. He carefully sifts through options. And he prioritises the people in his programmes and projects, always asking, what do the people want? He works through the party and opinion leaders, even in setting up his cabinet. The end product of these enviable prerequisites is a business-minded Governor, who is determined to run the state effectively and deliver profitable dividends to the people of Osun.

Rather than rush through his first year in office, he deliberately took measured steps. First, he worked through supervisors and committees, drawing on existing cabinet members and other administrators with whom he served in the preceding administration. Then he teased out his Development Plan, distilling ideas from the Thank You tour on assumption of office, the various Town Hall meetings, and a Citizens Needs Assessment by the UK’s Department for International Development, whose goal is “to promote sustainable development and eliminate world poverty”.

After prioritising programmes and projects in various sectors, he then set up an all-inclusive participatory process of selecting cabinet members from across the state. Once selected, they were subjected to a rigorous dose of governance and administrative chores in a three-day retreat (October 15-18, 2019), while also being briefed about the administration’s Development Agenda. On inauguration, they were given performance charters, detailing the functions of their ministries and their precise mandate.

With the cabinet in place, Oyetola launched a three-day Economic Summit (November 19-21, 2019), widely praised as one of the best in the country so far. After nine robust plenaries; the contributions of 58 panelists and rigorous discussions; and about 30 Business to Government and Business to Business meetings, 25 or so high-stake commitments were given by investors across various sectors, including agriculture; infrastructural development; mining; trade and industry; light manufacturing; Information and Communication Technology; economic growth and potential; and tourism, arts and culture.

Since the planning for the economic and investment summit began at the inception of the administration, Oyetola had been working toward providing the necessary enabling environment for investors, by deploying resources to security; road construction; environmental sanitation; agriculture; culture and tourism; water resources; education; and public health.

For example, about 150 of the state’s over 300 Public Health Centres have been renovated and equipped within one year. Moreover, free medical services were recently provided to Osun citizens in various locations across the state. Over 7,000 patients have so far benefited from the project being provided by various organizations at the invitation of the state government.

Moreover, various projects have been completed across the state under the Community and Social Development Programmes. So far, every Local Government Area in the state has felt the presence of government one way or the other.

The above strides notwithstanding, Oyetola decided to establish the Osun Investment and Promotion Agency immediately after the Economic Summit to focus solely on facilitating investments and enabling a most favourable investment climate. He also decided to appoint Investment Ambassadors for the state. These are excellent developments, the more so when many investors have already given firm commitments to engage with the state. What is more, some investors have already started calling and visiting the state, just days after the Economic and Investment Summit.

From inception, Oyetola never took his eyes off the state’s relatively low Internally Generated Revenue. In order to beef it up, he quickly hired a seasoned professional to take charge. The result has been more than encouraging, leading the state occasionally to cross the N1 billion Naira monthly IGR threshold.

Perhaps, by far, the government’s stellar achievement to date has been the regular payment of salaries from inception. He also has paid off arrears owed to workers and pensioners. Today, workers and pensioners are happy. And critics ignorant of the full details of the state’s payment agreement during the past administration have been silenced.

Already, Oyetola has presented the state’s 2020 budget, titled “budget of restoration”. It is a lean budget of N119.5 billion, reflecting the realities of the state’s actual revenue and expenditure expectations and the need for the state to do more about its IGR profile.

Three factors are paying off for Oyetola. As indicated at the beginning, his business orientation, administrative acumen developed in business and government circles, and painstaking attention to detail have been judiciously deployed to the advantage of the state.

second, Oyetola should be credited for his choice of core functionaries, including Dr. Charles Diji Akinola as the Chief of Staff; Mr. Oluwole Oyebamiji, Secretary to Government; Mr. Olowogboyega Oyebade, Head of Service; and Professor Olalekan Yinusa, Commissioner for Budget and Planning. The quartet, led by Dr. Akinola, with unparalleled mastery of agriculture, policy, and development issues, has been in the forefront of the state’s development agenda, working along with the Governor, whose focus is on governance and service delivery to the people.

Third, Oyetola has signalled clearly that states can no longer continue with business as usual. With the Federal Government heavily in debt and still borrowing, states can no longer pin their hopes on federal allocation alone. Rather, they must engage in careful planning, improve on their IGR, and invite investors to partner with them. This is the surest path to employment generation and wealth creation as the government, per se, does not create wealth as such. And there is a limit to the employment it can generate.

AMERICAN President, Donald Trump, and the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, are political buddies in more ways than one. They are both heads of government in their respective countries and are friends of some sort. But, far more than that, they are both conservatives, who pander to the extreme or ultra right wing of their political parties. It may not be wrong to also label them as autocrats.

They both share a characteristic that is disruptive to democracy: Each is determined to govern as an unchallenged ruler, pushing the guardrails of democratic norms beyond their limits. No wonder they are pitted against the courts and against public opinion at home and abroad. There are lessons to learn from their political ordeals.

Today, they are both allies in crime, being embroiled in one type of criminal misconduct or the other, each serious in its own way. Trump is facing impeachment and other problems, while Netanyahu is facing possible jail time over corruption charges.

Donald Trump, variously described in the press as a bully, racist, misogynist, and liar, is facing multiple battles, including efforts to keep Americans in the dark over his financial records; lingering questions over obstruction of justice during special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of his campaign’s collusion with Russia during the 2016 presidential election from which he profited; and the impeachment battle over Ukraine.

With regard to Ukraine, Trump is accused of using a back channel, led by his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to persuade the Ukrainian government to announce investigation into Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Neither men is known to have committed any offense nor is Trump interested in the investigation per se.

Rather, his interest is in the public announcement of the investigation in exchange for American aid of nearly $400 million already appropriated and approved by Congress. Although Trump prevented government witnesses from testifying before Congress, many of those who defied his order confirmed that Trump withheld the aid until the announcement of the investigation was made. Trump hurried released the money only after it became public that a whistleblower had notified Congress of the clandestine arrangement in a phone call by Trump to the new Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky.

Put quite simply, Trump wanted to use the announcement of the investigation in his campaign against Joe Biden, who is running for President on the Democrat’s side. In addition to seeking dirt on his political opponent, Trump’s action is viewed as bribery, that is, an exchange of A for B.

The House of Representatives responded with the impeachment hearings, which were concluded last week. The articles of impeachment are being drafted, and will be submitted to the Judiciary Committee of the House. If Trumped is impeached, the case then moves to the Senate for trial. If found guilty, he will be removed from office.

In a case brought by Congress before Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson over Trump’s order preventing former White House counsel Don McGahn from testifying during the impeachment hearings, the Judge issued a stunning rebuke of Trump. In ordering McGahn to testify, the Judge said: “Stated simply, the primary takeaway from the past 250 years of recorded American history is that Presidents are not kings”. It surely was a stern warning to a President that has hardly played by the rules.

The above notwithstanding, Trump’s removal from office is viewed as a long short, because the Senate, which is vested with the power of removal, is controlled by his political party, the Republican Party. So far, the party has stood by him, not because they don’t frown (at least privately) at his misconduct, but because they don’t want to lose power at the centre.

Netanyahu’s case is probably more serious because he could be sent to jail, if found guilty. He was indicted last week on charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. In a statement reminiscent of the American judge’s rebuke of Trump, the Israeli Attorney General, Avichai Mandelblit said: “The public interest requires that we live in a country where no one is above the law”.

In some respects there are striking similarities in the charges against Trump and Netanyahu. They are both accused of bribery. Trump is accused of using his official position to seek from a foreign government personal favours that would benefit him politically, while Netanyahu is alleged of giving or offering lucrative official favours to several media tycoons in exchange for favourable news coverage or gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Both leaders have reacted similarly to their predicament with defiance and denial. They both dismissed the allegations against them, arguing that they were built on lies and political animosity. Even more strikingly, they both called for the investigation of the investigators!

It is, therefore, not surprising that Trump was the only major world leader, who supported Netanyahu’s move of the Israeli capital from Tel Aviv to the occupied territory in Jerusalem. Both men acted in concert to defy a standing UN resolution 151-6: “Any actions by Israel, the occupying Power, to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the Holy City of Jerusalem were illegal null and void”.

There are many lessons to learn from the behaviours of Trump and Netanyahu and their political troubles. First, it is quite clear from the foregoing that democracy dies in the hands of leaders, who fail to govern by the rules but to rule as autocrats. Both of these leaders are not only killing democracy at home by acting above the rule of law but also by defying the international community. It is a lesson for political parties to choose their candidates carefully to avoid putting autocrats in office.

Second, in the case of Trump, the House of Representatives is doing its oversight duty of keeping the executive accountable. Their effort may be regarded as partisan, partly because the House is controlled by Democrats and partly because Trump’s primary offense is the attempt to dig up dirt against one of their own. Nevertheless, it would be a travesty of democracy and of justice were Trump allowed to continue to set his own rules.

Third, the indictment of a sitting Prime Minister makes Netanyahu’s case very interesting, the more so that he is the first Israeli Prime Minister to be so indicted while in office. It says a lot about the justice system in Israel and the courage of the Attorney General, whatever his political leaning.

WE are about the enter the annual harmattan season with its dry, dusty, and disruptive wind. As indicated in this column last week, people, crops, and even trees will be stressed during the harmattan. Some people may die as a result, while crops will wither. Even erstwhile strong tree trunks may break.

On several occasions this year, Nigerians experienced varying degrees of stress from another kind of harmattan, that is, election harmattan. Just as the harmattan proper is a blight on the weather, so is election harmattan a blight on Nigerian democracy.

Last Saturday, November 16, 2019, election harmattan gripped Kogi and Bayelsa states during the governorship election in both states. It was characterized by thuggery, gun touting, gun shootings, vote-buying, vote rigging, ballot box snatching, intimidation, and other electoral malpractices.

At the end of the day, several fatalities and many injuries were recorded. And nobody was spared, from INEC officials and politicians to observers and innocent voters. It was yet another blight on democracy.

The conduct of both elections and the conditions under which they were held left far too many questions unanswered. For example, the Inspector General of Police boasted of deploying over 60,000 police officers to both states to provide security during the elections. What did they do?

Well, according to various civil society groups, which monitored the election, including the Centre for Democracy and Development and the Centre for Citizens with Disabilities, security agencies, including the police, were complicit in the malpractices that enveloped the elections in Kogi and Bayelsa. True, this has been the pattern since the 1999 elections but special concerns were raised this time around because the malpractices were excessive and involved fatalities.

These observations were corroborated by Diplomatic Watch, comprising the European Union Delegation, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In one voice, this consortium of international observers, which has monitored Nigeria’s elections since 1999, condemned the atrocities they witnessed during the Kogi and Bayelsa.

It is most unfortunate that the combined efforts of the presidency and the legislature since 1999 have not translated to desirable policies and laws guiding electoral processes in the country. True, in acknowledgement of the flawed election that brought him to power, late President Umaru Yar’Adua did set up a panel on electoral reform, led by Justice Mohammed Uwais. The panel’s recommendations were warmly received by most observers, including civil societies and even many politicians. Nevertheless, Yar’Adua only sent to the legislature the recommendations he cherry-picked.

His successor, former President Goodluck Jonathan forwarded the full report to the legislature. However, the legislature chose to subsume what was sent to them to their or agenda. Instead of following through on the full report as demanded by the public, Jonathan’s successor, President Muhammadu Buhari, shifted his focus to the Independent National Electoral Commission, because he was saddled with an uncooperative and self-serving legislature.

It is, therefore, doubly unfortunate that INEC has not been able to implement existing laws to desirable levels, despite billions and billions of Naira allocated to the Commission over the last 20 years! The huge expenditure on elections notwithstanding, electoral materials continue to be delivered late to polling stations or not at all. Card readers continue to fail. And the voting process, voting conditions, and the laborious process of manual collation of election results continues to be open to all kinds of abuse.

It is important, however, to also emphasize that politicians have a huge share of the blame game in Kogi and Bayelsa as in previous elections. They recruited the thugs and armed them; doled out the money for vote-buying; and greased the palms of security agents, willing INEC officials, and temporary staff, including members of the Youth Corps.

The politicians’ assault on elections is made all the more possible because of the abject poverty in the land and extensive rural illiteracy. The urban poor and rural voters are willing to sell their votes for a loaf of bread. The same factors underly the recruitment into thuggery and partisan wars, even when the fighters may not be members of the party they are fighting for and even though they may not even survive the war.

Theirs is not a fight for ideology or the people’s welfare. It is a fight for bread and their own welfare. There are thugs today, who live large and ride flashy cars, because they live on their sponsoring party’s largesse. They, too, often switch parties, along with their political sponsors. And they move on to another politician when their sponsor loses an election.

The same material motive underlies the politicians’ do-or-die approach to elections. After 20 years of democracy, a group of politicians has been bred, which now takes politics as a profession. These are politicians, who have developed the Nigerian kind of political culture in which the politician lives big-SUVs, police orderlies, siren-blowing pilot vehicles, and, in no time, big houses.

Once this lifestyle is tasted, it becomes difficult to “live below standard”. As a result of this mindset, the politicians do everything they can to retain their seat. Those who view this lifestyle from outside also look to politics as passport to wealth. They, too, do everything they can to win an election. That’s why no seat is more keenly contested than that of the executive, which controls resources, that is, the presidency or the governorship.

The atrocities associated with the Kogi and Bayelsa elections should not be viewed in isolation. They are part of a pattern established since 1999. The cumulative effect of this pattern on Nigeria’s image cannot be over-estimated. It could be deduced from the report of Diplomatic Watch on the Kogi and Bayelsa reports.

That image cannot be changed overnight. It should begin with changes to our electoral process, to the role and functions of politicians in our democracy, and to their access to the treasury.

True, the United States, whose constitution we copied, has been at it for over 200 years. Nevertheless, at no time was their process of democratic renewal this messy. Right from the beginning, they had their priorities right. Just one example: The President of the United States earns $400,000 annually, whereas the President of the University of Pennsylvania earns $3.9 million annually.