The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • Nigeria@59. Boldly plan 60,000Mw.Nigeria@60

    ABCDEFGGHI=Avoid Bribery & Corruption Daily Everywhere For Good Governance Here Immediately for a Nigeria@60.

    With one day less than one year to become 60, what prospect is there that the coming 364 days will be used any more constructively than the past 59 years and one day? Government which could act at lightning speed always chooses the slow path especially when fixing roads, the lifeline of business, and growth activities. At 59, we cannot understand why potholes cannot be filled with urgency even during the rainy season. People have different needs and priorities than politicians.

    Obasanjo presented 400 engineers as FERMA with green pickup trucks. Nigerians applauded. Mumu!! There was no return to the ‘Rule of Engineering Law’ just worse rubbish roads ever since. Governance failure!! Sadly, Nigeria’s political history is weighed down with political versions of our ‘Nigerian Dream’ as we were serially and perhaps irreversible ruined by greater and greater failed mega-contracts amounting to trillions while abusing the intelligence of Nigerians by saying that Nigeria has no money.

    Amazingly, Nigerians are angry, vexing and flexing federal might with P&ID. Hurray!! But every deal, without exception is believed to cheat Nigeria! Why we no vex before? Think! If Buhari was not in power, we probably would have swept this under a huge carpet, with money going both ways. But we know Nigeria’s contracts are routinely awash with maximum failure and corruption. The suffering on the Lagos-Ibadan road, mirrored across Nigeria, only needed good maintenance contracts. Are any heads rolling? Our politicians are as guilty as the guilty in P&ID, only free to loot Nigeria.

    At 59, why does Nigeria’s ‘Evil’ still prevail against the electrification of Nigeria to the UN recommended 150,000Mw so Nigerian students can read through the night in a clean air and zero noise pollution atmosphere. At 59, families and business cannot overcome burning money daily to overcome the curse of 3,000Mw – one USA village supply. Partially xenophobic South Africa has 45,000Mw!

    At 59, Nigeria, under the ‘Evil’ political powers, now exports its most precious commodity, its educated professionals, the new intelligentsia, our citizens who hopefully will continue to repatriate billions of dollars from UK, USA, the Middle East Alaska etc. and increasingly now Canada. At 59, less educated, and less wanted, youth flee their disappointing homeland’s political ineptitude and government abandonment as a tsunami of Nigerian illegal migrants to become dead in the Sahara, drowned in the Mediterranean around Lampedusa Island, body parts donors, forced sex workers or unwilling and deceived prostitutes. At 59, ‘Evil’ still perpetuates the muddy quagmire on rubbish roads built and rebuilt at minimum speed and maximum extra cost to budgets, life and limb.

    At 59, ‘Evil’ causes the refusal of all governments to properly predict and control the traffic from 6am to 9pm to allow citizens to work and return home in a predictable manner daily. At 59, ‘Evil’ forces happily check particulars, especially on a Sunday, of terrified female and their children going to church and amused expatriate visitors to give them a good impression about Nigeria. At 59, bullying traffic officers pull vehicles out of heavy traffic instead of prioritising the removal of the traffic obstacle. At 59, we have no ‘pothole- filling strategy’ for the numerous government staff to fill ‘the millions of potholes of Nigeria’ by direct local empowerment labour, not contractor fraud. At 59, our neighbourhood association filled two dangerously growing leprous potholes with cement instead of a Nigeria@59 party. What did you do?

    At 59, we are being given government ministry of works assurance that certain ‘key’ roads will be ‘ok’ for the ‘ember months’ traffic.  Name one country which operates its public service responsibility around an ‘ember months’ calendar. Is road use not daily? What is a ‘key’ road? Every road budgeted and paid for once or twice but not done is a key road to Nigeria’s existence. The words ‘Key roads’ remind me of the hated term ‘core subjects’.

    At 59, the concentration on core subjects has cost Nigeria a broad educational range by forcing teachers to ignore the personal education needs of millions of students deliberately denied teaching and learning time with so-called non-core subjects.

    I refuse to ever use the hated word ‘minority’. Imagine a country seeking to become a nation@59 still unable to give a glimmer of hope and meaning to ‘True Nationalism’ with proud face and throbbing heart facing the flapping green-white-green from the flagpole when the national anthem is played. This is a country that even cheats its main ambassadors -athletes and fallen heroes- soldiers and pensioners- who die on undeclared battlefields and in never ending pension verification exercise queues without basic facilities like chairs and shade, while staff seeks bribes.

    Everyone is born with automatic pride in home, family name, state and country. It is the country’s failure to deliver the fundamentals of civilized life that erodes the citizens’ pride in that country. At 59, Nigeria is a country with a history of failing its citizens in security etc. Of course, the country is an inanimate object and it is actually the rulers, leadership, heads of household failures which collectively result in the perceived failure of society and therefore the country Nigeria to meet local and international yardsticks of civilization.

    Nigeria will be great again, but does it have to take so long? Why not 60,000Mw.Nigeria@60 in 2020? [to be continued]

  • Cokie Roberts: The voice (1943-2019)

    Cokie Roberts dies, Veteran broadcast journalist was 75, announced The New York Times on Tuesday, September 17, 2019. She has since been buried at Congressional Cemetery, Washington, DC.

    Her tart-tongued voice sounds in my ears as I write and I can visualize her, dissecting American politics and public policy on TV. She had such a professional poise and touch of class that not even President Donald Trump, ever disdainful of the press, could deny her professionalism: “She was a real professional. Never treated me well, but I certainly respect her as a professional”.

    She was the voice of radio and the voice of television. She was the voice of reason and the voice of truth. A legendary political journalist, Cokie Roberts started out as a reporter and then became an analyst, a commentator, and an anchor. She traversed four national networks—CBS, ABC, PBS, and National Public Radio. The print medium was also her terrain: She wrote a syndicated column and authored six books.

    In recognition of her contributions for over four decades, she won numerous awards, including three Emmys; the Edward R. Murrow Award; the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism; and the Women Who Light The Way Award. She topped it with the Living Legends Award by the Library of Congress. She was also inducted into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame and named one of the 50 greatest women in the history of broadcasting.

    She left many enduring legacies. First, she was recognised across the United States for her trailblazing role as a Congressional Correspondent and as one of the Founding Mothers of public radio journalism in the country. She played this role for over forty years, sharing the honour with three compatriots on NPR, namely, Nina Totenberg, Linda Wertheimer, and Susan Stamberg. The four women changed the texture of news on public radio and shared space with men in interviewing powerful people and reporting on politics and public policy.

    In the course of her career, Cokie covered at least eight American Presidents and 22 Congresses. The distinction with which she served was echoed by Presidents and Congressional leaders. Former President Bill Clinton said it all: “I liked and respect Cokie Roberts very much. She understood people and politics. For nearly half a century, she was an institution in American journalism—tough but fair, insightful, and with a voice all her own”.

    In her eulogy at the memorial service, a long-time friend and current Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, described Cokie as “an American icon, who will forever be in the pantheon of the greatest professionals of her field”.

    Second, Cokie was unique in traversing radio, television, and print. While remaining with NPR in one role or the other throughout her career, Cokie shared her role on radio as Congressional Corespondent and political analyst with “Newshour”, a PBS TV programme. She later joined ABC, where she also took on additional roles. Among others, she served as a political correspondent for “World News Tonight”, filled in for Ted Koppel on “Nightline”, and co-anchored, with Sam Donaldson, “This Week”, a Sunday morning political affairs programme.

    Third, although Cokie never wore feminism on her sleeves, she nevertheless mentored young women and highlighted the role of women in American history and politics in three bestselling books, namely, Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation (2004); Ladies of Liberty (2009); and Capital Dames: The Civil War and Women of Washington, 1848-1868).

    Her quest for gender balance was evident in the three companion books in which she explored the public and private role of the women who shaped the United States during the early stages. Pelosi foregrounded the significance of this contribution in her eulogy: “Because of Cokie, the women who helped build and strengthen our nation are now taking their rightful place in our history books”.

    Cokie’s interest in political journalism was rooted in her upbringing and supplemented with her degree in Political Science. Both of her parents were politicians, each of whom served for decades as a Democratic member of the House of Representatives from the state of Louisiana. She walked the halls of Congress as a young girl and the experience never left her. Nevertheless, unlike other members of her immediate family, who ran for Congress, she decided early on journalism and political analysis as her way of giving back to society.

    She acknowledged the impact of her childhood experiences on her views about America: “Because I spent time in the Capitol and particularly in the House of Representatives, I became deeply committed to the American system. And as close up and as personally as I saw it and saw all of the flaws, I understood all of the glories of it.”

    It was her deep understanding of the American political system that gave her an early insight into the danger of electing Trump. In an article co-authored with her husband, she called on “the rational wing” of the Republican party to stop his nomination. Their warning now appears prophetic: “If he is nominated by a major party—let alone elected—the reputation of the United States would suffer a devastating blow around the world”.

    A consummate professional journalist, she recognised the proclivity of journalists to blame politicians, while hardly acknowledging their achievements: “We are quick to criticize and slow to praise”, she said of journalists at a commencement address 25 years ago. She then invited the audience to join in holding their political representatives accountable.

    Finally, Cokie left a legacy of consistency. As Obama observed, she was “a constant over 40 years of a shifting media landscape and changing world”. She was also consistent at home as a wife and mother of two. Although she married early (at 20), she remained married for 53 years to Steven Roberts, also an American journalist, writer, and political commentator. The cream of the Washington establishment, including President Lyndon B Johnson and his wife, attended their wedding in 1966.

    True, Cokie was a child of privilege but she used her position to acquire as much knowledge as possible about the American political system and to share her opinion, views, and stories with the public across major media platforms. Her burial at Congressional Cemetery was a befitting reward for over four decades of diligent reporting on Congress and American politics.

  • 2023 can wait!

    I was at a forum during the week where 20 years of uninterrupted democracy in Nigeria was reviewed. Most people came expecting it to be all gloom and doom: they were not disappointed.

    Not even the deliberate efforts of some speakers to shine light on positives from the last two decades, lightened the mood significantly.

    One speaker said he had given up on discussing Nigeria because public discourse had degenerated to the extent where what you had to say is irrelevant, because you are automatically profiled on the basis of ethnicity and faith.

    A middle-aged lady spoke about an all-night conversation she had with her brother 20 years ago. The question they wrestled with was whether this nation could be salvaged. Her brother decided it was impossible and emigrated to the United States.

    Ever the sunny optimist, she stayed back believing she and like-minds could join hands to turn things around. The woman who spoke that morning had become disillusioned with what the country had become.

    Unfortunately, the people and politicians appear to live in a parallel universe. Those in government are quick to dredge up stats that suggest a massive improvement in our collective lot. For the average man, they might as well be speaking Greek.

    Barely four months after governments at federal and state levels were inaugurated for fresh terms, and a clear three years plus to the next polls, trending discussion isn’t about decaying infrastructure or the economy, but about scheming for the 2023 presidential contest.

    This is a country where politicking never stops and governing hardly ever gets done. Perhaps, I exaggerate, but not much.

    The convention in most places is that once an election is done, the new administration settles down to govern. In countries with fixed four or five year election cycles, serious politicking doesn’t get going until 18 months or two years to the next round of voting.

    That is not to suggest that ambitious politicians would not be quietly working to actualise their dreams.

    But they recognise that an election gives a political party the mandate to deliver on its promises. At least 75% of the tenure of the administration would be dedicated to making the slate they sold to the people reality.

    The current feverish discussion of the 2023 prospects of certain individuals and regions, simply confirm what a growing number of our people are have come to believe; that their voices don’t matter in a supposedly democratic setting.

    Politicians and the shadowy figures that hover around the powerful, are only focused on who next gets to sit on the driving seat. The question, however, is to what end, because once the 2023 election is done, the buzz immediately shifts to who wants to be what in 2027.

    In the last couple of weeks this pattern of discussion became accentuated after Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, suggested that at some point in our political journey we might need to discard zoning as our preferred method for power sharing.

    Although he didn’t say this should begin with the next polls, the comments played into the narrative that a powerful tendency in the North was bent on retaining power in the region after President Muhammadu Buhari’s full two-term run.

    Last week, the debate became even more animated against the backdrop of two government actions that appeared to significantly whittle down Vice President Yemi Osinbajo’s clout within the administration.

    No matter how it is dressed, a publicised presidential memo asking the VP to always seek Buhari’s approval for contracts and other matters concerning agencies under his office, amounted to some sort of rebuke – no matter how gentle. It suggested that, in the past, he may not always have done so.

    Osinbajo’s comeback that he had always followed the law in running the agencies, showed that he recognised the subtle censure.

    Coming almost in the same 24-hour cycle when the Economic Management Team he used to head was suddenly dissolved and a new advisory council that reports to the president empanelled, it was grist to the mill of conspiracy theorists.

    Many commentators have since concluded that the one-two punch handed the VP, was a brutal tackle to take him down a peg in the 2023 stakes.

    I am not saying it is, neither am I saying it isn’t. But this relentless intriguing and speculation is a distraction from the compelling governance issues that confront this country.

    The level of misery and poverty is mindboggling. In many cities, the major sources of employment today aren’t manufacturing or some IT start-up, but motorcycle and tricycle taxis that are multiplying like germ culture.

    While they provide short term transportation relief, they are no substitute for proper mass transit. They contribute to the general air of chaos because many governments are overwhelmed by their rapid growth rate and lack the capacity to regulate them. Rather than being a sign of empowerment, they have become emblems of decline and poverty.

    Nigeria’s problems are urgent and can’t wait till tomorrow. They can’t wait for our ‘distinguished’ National Assembly members to return from their leisurely holidays. Neither can they abide much longer the president’s famed deliberate style.

    That’s why it is obscene at this point in our history, to be inflaming discussions about 2023 when the promises of 2015 and 2019 haven’t been made good.

    Nigerians truly need for their leaders to, for a change, deliver some genuine ‘dividends of democracy’. In recent times we have been sold the lie that bridges and roads built represent some kind of return for voters.

    But as some have pointed out, we don’t need elected officials to build roads. Some of Nigeria’s most enduring public infrastructure were built by military dictators like Yakubu Gowon, Olusegun Obasanjo, Ibrahim Babangida, Muhammadu Buhari, Sani Abacha and others.

    We need to demand much more from those we invested our time to vote for. In addition to building roads, we should see improved healthcare, greater freedom of expression and association, more participation in the process, respect for the rule of law and better security across the land.

    If the media and politicians persist in enabling this cynical system where politicking never takes a break, the result would be the sort of disillusionment that has seen voter turnout drop by a consistent 10% in the succeeding elections of 2011, 2015 and 2019.

  • Govs: Plan 2020 Pry6/SSS3 exam success; Pry School OSAs

    ABCDEFGGHI=Avoid Bribery & Corruption Daily Everywhere For Good Governance Here Immediately.

    There was a recent ‘Future of Education Summit’ held at Nustreams in Ibadan, Oyo State hosted by Pastor Francis Madojemu. It was a great event exposing valuable old, modern and future education tools and prospects.

    Urgent actions can reverse the poor performance recorded by students in national examinations who need extra help. Teachers need extra support and incentives to lift weak students. The most immediate education war /emergency strategy in all states is to single out for six MONTHS HYPER-EDUCATION SUPPORT for the 2020 batch of students facing Common Entrance or WAEC/NECO in May/June2020. Without this the students will fail woefully-automatically. They need fatherly governors who must recruit/transfer the best, dedicated, motivated teachers, even NYSC, just to extra-teach primary six and SSS3 students during and after school and compulsory Saturday with group and individual training using fresh teachers. This strategy will guarantee better fortunes of state-based children in the national examination ranking.

    Primary schools need major support, the same as the financial and social benefits given secondary schools. Governors should encourage that ‘What is good for secondary school is good for primary school’. Governors must empower PRIMARY SCHOOLS TO SET UP OLD STUDENTS ASSOCIATIONS AND BOARDS OF GOVERNORS and reward the best as recommended by Educare Trust since 1994.

    The introduction of free primary and secondary education is welcome. Yes, teachers have cheated parents. Yes, some impose levies for exams and scams. Remember ‘the Delta State affair -Success The Girl’.  After 60 years of some form of ‘Free Education’ one thing is sure. Educare Trust has repeatedly pointed out that government can never provide enough exercise and text and story books, buildings, toilets, chalk for blackboards or marker pens for whiteboards, desks and chairs, staff rooms, sports equipment, laboratory equipment for all the students. Even Eaton and universities like Cambridge and Harvard where high fees are paid have no hesitation in sending out ‘SCHOOL NEEDS LISTS’ to old students and current parents requesting them to contribute in cash and kind to events and equipment. When PTA raises money, it should be left to the PTA to spend on what it wants, without government interference. Simple.

    Government should not deny individual PTA members of the right to support the school, even a free education programme. Our school suffered in the past when the battle of ‘Quality vs Quantity’ Free Education raged between political parties with the children as suffering pawns. Many good creative practical teachers were unable to function maximally as they were banned from even asking children to bring pins, newspapers, magazines, scissors, books or coloured pen to make posters for the walls. Even the parents mistake free education and refuse to supervise any aspect of their children’s lives related to school for the six years they are in school. Nobody running a school would reject financial, material and moral support from parents or community.  Government, the custodian of all schools servicing millions of needy youth cannot in 2019  afford to reject, purely to avoid political misinterpretation of ‘free education’,  financial, material and moral support from willing parents, PTAs, Old Students Associations or the social or business community. We suffered from an arrogantly underfunded free education in the past. Never again should ‘free education’ mean ‘No voluntary contribution’ by parents. Educare Trust suggests schools without libraries can ask each student to contribute voluntarily a book each to the CLASSROOM BOX LIBRARY to be returned at term end – no cost to anyone.  Teacher running arts, reading or music classes must be empowered to request students to bring educational material to help the learning process using an official ‘VOLUNTARY SCHOOL MATERIAL LOAN REQUEST FORM’. Educare Trust recommended from 1994 that well-monitored, with checks provided by PTA and a school Board of Governors can complement government budgets by voluntary extra material investment in school and classroom. PTA should keep its money within the classroom for wallposters, books, dictionary and encyclopaedia, sports equipment and science instruments.

    Governors need to authorize a long standing Educare Trust recommended annually updated School Needs List (SNL) exercise for every school. A SNL does not embarrass or disgrace a wise government. It is for genuine stepwise upgrading support from the community, social and business. Schools have faced 50 years of under-budgeting. This can only be reversed by joint effort.

    No man is an island. Education needs updates with new input into an ANNUALLY UPDATED CURRICULUM PAGE. Governor-directed inter-ministerial cooperation and ministry/institutional cooperation areas are key to a good governance and particularly health, environment and education programmes. The Ministry of Education must involve all ministries and  institutions to improve the local content of the curriculum.

    Every school has an assembly daily, 200+ a years. Educare Trust recommends that every school uses that time with ‘5-10MINS ASSEMBLY TALKS’ ON ‘LIFE SKILL TOPICS AND MESSAGES’ like environment, manners, morals, bullying, harassment, prepared by teachers and students bring 200 items of co-curricular knowledge to the students.

    Sadly, less than 1% of Summit participants had read or taught social conscience and Nobel Laureate Pa Professor Wole Soyinka’s ‘Ake; The years of childhood’ or heard of Olaudah Equiano, the First Nigerian Published Author who wrote ‘The interesting narrative of the life of Gustavus Vassa alias Olaudah Equiano’. He will be 275years ‘old’ in 2020. Nigeria is in trouble when it refuses to read or teach its heroes to generation Next!

     

  • Nigeria and the South African attacks

    Nigerians, who lost their lives or property in South African attacks over the years, deserve our sympathy. So do Nigerian professionals, who are engaged in legitimate businesses there but who are being negatively stereotyped by some South Africans as sponges on their state. Special sympathy also goes to Nigerian children, who are bullied in South African schools.

    The culpability of the South African government lies in its complicity in those attacks, as exemplified by (a) occasional hate speech by some South African officials; (b) the look-away attitude of the police in the course of the attacks; and (c) the unwarranted airport investigation delay of Nigerians being evacuated from South Africa last week.

    True, as Professor Bolaji Akinyemi pointed out recently, the South African attacks violate international charters, including the African Union’s, and must be addressed as such. Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that the Nigerian victims are paying dearly for for their country’s inability to create a suitable environment for them to thrive, leading them to seek livelihood abroad.

    Accordingly, a two-throng approach must be adopted. On the one hand, the Nigerian government should assess the damage to the lives and property of the Nigerian victims and pursue diplomatic and possibly legal means of ensuring appropriate compensation for them.

    On the other hand, as discussed below, special attention must be paid to our own domestic policy, which should focus on creating a suitable environment for all citizens to realise their potentials.

    Given the long history of the South African attacks, it could be argued that the Nigerian government should have intervened much earlier. Nevertheless, its prompt three-prong response to the recent wave of attacks is commendable.

    First, the government promptly stopped the reprisal attacks, which would have replicated the South African actions being condemned, while also disrupting local South African businesses, such as Shoprite and MTN, in which Nigerians are franchise owners or workers. Second, the government sent an envoy to South Africa to intervene and verify the nature and scope of the attacks. Third, the government offered assistance to Nigerians, who were willing to leave South Africa.

    While the voluntary evacuation of Nigerians from South Africa might be good as a short-term solution, the prevention of the dispersal of Nigerians abroad is the most desirable solution.

    However, before outlining the long-term solution, it is important to comment briefly on two trends in the ongoing discussion of the South African attacks on Nigerians that are not necessarily helpful in solving the underlying problem of a country that is unable to nurture the aspirations of its citizens.

    The first is the don’t-they-know argument, which focuses on the contributions of Nigeria to the liberation of South Africa from apartheid. The category of South Africans involved in the attacks knew little or nothing about the Nigerian contributions. They were either unborn, too young, illiterate, or had limited access to information during the apartheid years.

    Those in the political class, who should have known, are now too consumed in their newfound power to remember those who got them out of the woods. It is a lesson to the Nigerian government to desist from playing Big Brother and refocus its foreign policy in aid of its domestic agenda.

    The second not-so-helpful trend in the discussion is the nostalgic reference to a glorious Nigerian past. This reference is useful only to the extent that it reminds us of that era. However, the goal now should not be to return Nigeria to that past, because the world has moved far beyond it. Rather, the goal is to make Nigeria competitive in a world of rapid socio-economic and technological changes.

    The first step is to strengthen our institutions and make them work. Those in need of modification, such as the constitution and electoral laws, should be modified as appropriate. We have all the institutions of a modern state but they are disrespected and continue to be weakened by the political class and public servants. This downward slide should be reversed.

    We need to move from governance failures to governance successes, by respecting the institutional framework of our democracy, including the rule of law. Achievable agenda to make Nigeria competitive in, say, 2050, should be set and implemented according to world standards.

    In order to discourage the continuing exodus of Nigerians, we must fill the huge gaps in our infrastructure, especially roads, power, housing and necessary public utilities. The huge gaps in education, healthcare, and the agricultural value chain also have to be filled. These steps must be taken in order to create the necessary environment for industrialisation and manufacturing and to generate meaningful employment opportunities.

    It is also necessary to fill these gaps in order to strengthen the country’s security architecture, while also making kidnapping, banditry, robbery, and cyber crimes less and less attractive. Retrieving guns and policing or militarising the roadways offer only temporary solutions. These crimes thrive in the face of high unemployment, increasing job losses, and abject poverty.

    It must be realised that there are crucial gaps in our development. For example, we’ve been trying hard to take advantage of the fourth industrial revolution, characterised by the Internet and digital technology, without maximising the advantages of the third industrial revolution, characterised by the rise of electronics, telecommunications, and computers. This failure is due in part to the inadequacy of infrastructural facilities. Consequently, most of the few industries and manufacturing plants that came with the third industrial revolution collapsed before the fourth industrial revolution dawned on us.

    Jobs disappeared with the collapse of the industries, while job seekers increased with population explosion. Some Nigerian youths responded by seeking financial succour abroad, while others embraced various crimes at home and abroad. At the same time, the disrespect for professionals by successive military administrations and the stifling of work environments led to gradual brain drain.

    The result of these developments is a large number of Nigerians dispersed across the globe.

    True, occasional mention is made about the exceptional contributions of Nigerian professionals abroad, Nigeria remains negatively stereotyped across the globe for cyber crimes and drug peddling.

    This brings us back to the South African attacks, blamed on high rate of unemployment, job losses, drug peddling, and fraudulent activities associated with Nigerians and other foreigners. These problems also exist in Nigeria and must be addressed before the anger is turned on the government.

  • The ugly Nigerian

    Every country can count among its citizens – the good, the bad and the ugly. Usually those in the last two categories are a minority. Nigerian Correctional Service figures from 2015 show that there were just over 56,000 prison inmates in the country.

    Even if we make a generous provision of one million persons for those who ought to join them behind bars, the bad eggs amongst us would still be a minute fraction of our over 150 million people. On second thought, one million might just be a terribly conservative estimate!

    Despite being a tiny sample of the populace, the activities of the ‘ugly Nigerian’ now define us across the globe. This is because boorish behaviour and criminality generate more headlines than civility and honesty.

    In most places you travel to in Africa, the stereotype of the loud Nigerian hangs around us like bad body odour. We are perceived as aggressive, dishonest, criminally-inclined, lacking in humility and attention-seeking show offs.

    Many of these adjectives don’t describe me, just as I am sure they don’t apply to the vast majority of our people. Unfortunately, there is enough in those words that speaks of what we are becoming as a nation.

    The recent episode of xenophobia – or more pointedly Afrophobia – in South Africa has received deserved condemnation. Still, it provides a window of self-examination for us.

    If Nigerians are being set upon, we should ask ourselves why we are so hated. Whether in South Africa, Kenya or Ghana, we are not exactly flavour of the month.

    I found part of the answer in a comment section of a story about how Nigerian-owned businesses had been burnt in parts of Johannesburg. The commentator, obviously a Kenyan, was far from sympathetic. He talked about how we are everywhere in Nairobi, selling drugs and messing things up.

    As for our numbers which we often proudly cite as making us the ‘giant of Africa’, that, he felt, was part of the problem. We are too many and should try birth control!

    Truth be told, the gradual collapse of our national economy over the last two decades, has meant that there are not enough opportunities for our teeming millions.

    For many of our young people, living in this country is a fate worse than death. That is why despite the well-advertised perils of travelling through the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean to reach Europe, they are willing to take the risk.

    In fact, many who were repatriated after horrible experiences in Libya, started talking about returning the moment their plane touched down in Lagos. They extolled the virtues of their hosts while blaming their travails on the excesses of their countrymen.

    The very pressures that have sent hundreds of thousands of our citizens fleeing to the four corners of the world, are also prevalent in places like South Africa.

    There is massive unemployment and poverty among the black population. Little wonder that the poor are venting their frustration on the equally black and foreign poor, who have come to compete with them for the crumbs their country offers.

    It is virtually impossible to stop people from seeking a better life elsewhere. But it is a privilege when any country opens its doors to a foreigner. The problem is we used to be known for our oil exports, today we’re becoming infamous for exporting criminals. No country would accept that.

    Nigeria’s Ambassador to Burkina Faso, Ramatu Ahmed, just revealed that over 10,000 underage girls from this country had been forced into prostitution in the country by traffickers who have promised to get them to Europe.

    Very reliable government sources say there are over 10,000 Nigerians currently in South African prisons. A couple of weeks ago, the FBI arrested 77 Nigerians accused of participating in a variety of fraud and money laundering schemes. I am trying to recall the last time I read of over 70 citizens of one nation being held – in one fell swoop – for criminal activities in another country.

    I am not sure how much of the online crime market we control, but our people have cornered the romance scam – so much so that in many places it is known as the ‘Nigerian love scam.’

    In Italy, Nigerian crime gangs have become controllers of the prostitution and human trafficking business in parts of the country. In Sicily, spiritual homeland of the Mafia and other organised crime legends – they are now acknowledged as key players.

    A couple of months ago in nearby Ghana, our people were pointedly being accused of causing a spike in kidnapping cases.

    As unacceptable as crime is, people can live with it when the perpetrators are locals. But when foreigners set up shop as crime bosses, all hell is let loose. Imagine for a minute that the Chinese or Ghanaians were the ones running the lucrative kidnapping franchises in Nigeria!

    When we emigrate many don’t shed some of our less attractive national traits. So we export our penchant for lawlessness and vulgar exhibitionism to places whose people are more restrained and we stick out like thumbs.

    Some of the Nigerians arrested by the FBI were filmed at a party spraying dollar bills like confetti. Net even Warren Buffet or Bill Gates does that!

    Nigeria blew her God-given opportunities to build a modern, prosperous nation that could sustain the bulk of its people. A succession of leaders chose to plunder the commonwealth and left a mess that people are fleeing from.

    It is not too late to start rebuilding a country that poor, desperate South Africans and others would think of emigrating to. Part of that requires urgent action on how to handle our exploding population.

    It is a disgrace that we can’t even conduct an acceptable national census without tying ourselves up in ethnic and political knots. We don’t even have a clue how many we are and have to depend on dubious estimates.

    If we cannot grow the economy at a pace that it can cater for the majority, then we have to device means of reining in our reproduction rate.

    The pressure on what resources we have now is becoming unbearable. The consequences of inaction are unpredictable.

  • Pa Akintola Williams; Do ‘Monthly Total Body Exam’; VAT re-think?

    ABCDEFGGHI=Avoid Bribery & Corruption Daily Everywhere For Good Governance Here Immediately.

    All tribute to Pa Akintola Williams, eminent accountant and distinguished Nigerian professional colossus, reputation unscathed, at 100 years of age and an age rarely achieved in any world context. It would be interesting to have notes on his diet and that of all over 80s as diet is identified as an important contribution to healthy longevity. But be aware there is no rigid diet for long life. Remember it is written that ‘Man does not live by food [and drink] alone’  Long life is by the Grace of God but you can help by good choices in lifestyle and regular exercise, but not necessarily strenuous exercise, dealing adequately with stress and refusing excess of everything- particularly sugar, salt, oily foods and alcohol.

    Genes and the environment, clean or dirty of smoky, also play key roles. Being content and of happy disposition are essential as anger and hatred eat the body of the angry and hating. Poor environment is bad for the brain and the body especially the lungs. Congratulations sir, for a balanced and exemplary life. Citizens be aware that everyone, everywhere in Nigeria, in West Africa, in Africa, in every continent can take a step towards a universal healthy long life if they practice and teach their family and friends and workers and students one thing. You remember that we have taught girls and women and now men to do a Monthly Breast Examination, MBE, looking for lumps requiring further investigation to prevent cancer of the breast. It works even though too many young girls, captive in schools escape being taught properly this important preventive measure!

    It should be easy for the WHO and ministries of health to drive everyone, worldwide, to extend this success to the rest of the body and recognise the importance of the next big step – the Monthly Total Body Examination. The MTBE is a monthly exam of your body, by you and for your benefit, from head to the sole of your feet, including everywhere, neck, arms, armpits, groin, legs and soles of the feet- all best done while initially standing, if possible in front of a mirror. Then the abdomen is best examined lying down on the floor or your bed and pressing the abdomen in from top to groin feeling for masses in the abdomen, while breathing in and out. Draw a body on a sheet of paper and pin it up in your bedroom, your children’s room, the classroom, office, school and office notice board. Maybe every Ministry of Health needs to recommend this and even suggest a date eg 1st or 25th of the month for a national MTBE by all citizens.

    We are so busy with the shards and shreds of life politics throws at us that we have forgotten that we really can delay unnecessary death by servicing the needs of life including self-examination to catch disease early.

    We had an expressway. It was taken away from us. Government incompetence is brilliantly manifest by the catastrophic chaos that is mistakenly and nostalgically called the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, after 20 year zero maintenance -perhaps a million vehicle, 10 million citizens a week. This is a disaster of Nigerian proportions. The expressway has fallen from a mid-70s ’45-minute drive’ to Ibadan to a travel nightmare of unpredictable length. Yet no single government official has apologised for such incompetence, corruption and no name has been shamed by ICPC or EFCC.

    Government has historical and current guilt in this travesty of maintenance by allowed tolling with no maintenance, no pothole filled and no grass cut routinely, robbers, redirection of N150b by the 8th NASS and a total national failure to reduce maximum axle loads. When will it be as it was in the beginning? Germany’s Autobahn, Britain’s M1, built in the 50s-60s are still good due to ‘Compulsory Maintenance’. Why is ‘Compulsory Maintenance’ such a dirty and neglected and optional words in Nigerian politics? Complete the dismal picture with the Apapa Port road, our $9.6b fine and the tens of unproductive billions ‘misspent’ on ‘no electricity’. Add the cost and losses of the Enugu airport closed till December.

    Re-think VAT please! With any new VAT charges we require new VAT distribution rules. Let us keep VAT in the states of origin or allocate 60 -80% of VAT for use within the state of origin of the VAT. States who ban alcohol and terrorise nightlife have no right to demand VAT benefits from states which allow such activities. Morality is morality. Already this is a very amoral society when funds are wrongly distributed, by previous and ingrained and apparently immovable government fiat, between federal and states and LGAs. It is common knowledge that the states and especially the LGAs where immorally distributed between North and South giving serious financial benefits to the North. It is time for the VAT to stay where it was made.

    Nigeria’s slow discourse with the US on reducing our fees resulted in the US imposed a ‘reciprocity’ fee. It did not have to come to this if the government was acting in the interests of Nigerian. This is the typical fire brigade approach to local, state, national and international issues. Our leadership is allowed to ‘postpone the day of reckoning’ with no consequence except to the victims, innocent citizens of Nigeria, at every societal level.

  • Why are some South Africans angry at foreigners?

    CERTAIN keywords and catchy phrases employed in describing certain events often obscure deeper issues worthy of exploration. That’s the case with xenophobia employed in describing the events in South Africa in recent times, involving the killings of foreigners.

    But if xenophobia is the fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers, which is what it is, then the next logical question is: Why do some (certainly not all) South Africans fear or hate foreigners, including Nigerians, in their country? It certainly is necessary to go beyond the attacks resulting from xenophobic feeling in order to unearth the very reasons behind such feeling.

    However, in order to understand the motive behind xenophobia in South Africa today, we must first ask: Who exactly are the xenophobes and why are they attacking foreigners? What exactly is their motive?

    There are three main groups of participants in the attacks. One group consists of gangs whose members depend on stolen goods and drugs for survival. Drug dealers-South Africans and foreigners, including some Nigerians-are their suppliers. A number of the drug dealers have legitimate shops used to mask their drug dealing business. Such shops are often included as targets of attack.

    The second group consists of bandits and miscreants, who look for any opportunity to loot shops and businesses. All they need is a slight disagreement between a local and a foreigner. Bingo, foreigners, who own businesses or shops in the area become targets of attack. Once a critical mass of such attackers takes over the area, the police become helpless.

    The third group of attackers consists of unemployed youths and disgruntled workers on low wages or those who lost their jobs. This group believes, rightly or wrongly, that they are being displaced by foreigners, whose immigration to South Africa increased after the end of apartheid in 1994.

    The immigrant community in South Africa peaked in the last 10 years, as the economy in other African countries began to decline. Between 2010 and 2019 the immigrant community in South Africa more than doubled from two million to over four million. Incidentally, such immigrants tend to be much more educated and more skilled than most of the jobless locals.

    Negative public perception of immigrants increased correspondingly. For example, an opinion poll in 2018 indicated that 62 percent of South Africans viewed immigrants as a burden on society-they displace locals by taking jobs and social benefits. Worse still, in the same poll, at least 61 percent of South Africans thought that immigrants engage in, or support, criminal activities more than other groups.

    A year before this poll was taken, an officially sanctioned anti-immigrant protest took place in Pretoria. A petition was handed to officials of the Foreign Ministry in which immigrants were accused of taking jobs and causing crime.

    Let us now go beyond the attackers to further explore the main reasons behind their actions. They are mainly socio-economic issues. In the forefront is a combination of soaring unemployment, low wages, and job losses, which are blamed on foreigners, as the first poll figure above shows.

    The unemployment rate in South Africa today is near 30 percent, almost as high as the Nigerian unemployment rate. True, there are many Nigerians in South Africa today, holding skilled or professional jobs, for example, in the universities, hospitals, construction, and business. At the same time, however, there are Nigerians in South Africa holding unskilled jobs-driving taxis, buying and selling goods or services, manning street corner shops, and so on.

    There are also drug dealers and fraudsters among them. These are the Nigerians who spend lavishly on women, causing some South African men to be jealous of Nigerian men. It is as yet unclear whether such jealousy featured in the attacks.

    A direct result of high unemployment is abject poverty, which is also high in South Africa. Poor South Africans cannot but be angry at Nigerians, when they see them on jobs they, too, could do. Poor people everywhere look for opportunities to make quick money and get food. Looting offers such an opportunity, which makes the urban poor ready accomplices in such crimes.

    Social inequalities easily get accentuated by high unemployment rates. Corruption, especially the phenomenon described as “state capture”, under former President, Jacob Zuma, could only worsen matters. The poor, the unemployed, and gang members often seize any opportunity they find to vent their anger at the economic situation that puts them at a disadvantage. A slight scuffle with a foreigner or two offers such an opportunity. Such was the case with the death of a taxi driver on September 1, 2019, which sparked the series of riots and looting this month.

    South African officials have not helped matters, either. For one thing, there seems to be no agreement as to the characterisation of the attacks. While President Cyril Ramaphosa sees them as xenophobic attacks, the Police Minister and the Police Chief see sheer criminality, pointing to the wanton looting accompanying the attacks. The press, of course, is focused on xenophobia as are many world leaders, who rely on press reports.

    Ramaphosa himself has been blamed for contributing to xenophobic feeling, by indicating in a campaign speech in the May 2019 general election that he was committed to cracking down on undocumented foreigners involved in criminal activity.

    Besides, South African officials have missed numerous opportunities to stop the attacks and protect foreigners in their country. Discrimination against immigrants has a long history in South Africa. So do attacks on foreigners, which actually intensified as immigrants increased in population after majority rule in 1994. Between 2000 and 2008, at least 67 people died in such attacks. Indeed, in May 2008 alone, 62 people died in a series of attacks, including 21 South African citizens.

    Between 2008 and 2019, multiple attacks have taken place in different cities in South Africa, involving immigrants from various countries, including Nigeria, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Pakistan and Bangladesh. True, some attackers were arrested but nothing else has been heard about them. The belief is that they were gradually eased out by the authorities, implying the government’s complicity.

    The Nigerian government was quick in stopping reprisal attacks on South African establishments in Nigeria. The government’s reaction to the attacks on Nigerians in South Africa over the years will be reviewed next week.

     

  • South Africa’s theatre of hate

    YOU would have expected that the rain of condemnation which trailed the recent wave of anti-foreigner violence in South Africa, would have left the average citizen of that nation drenched and remorseful.

    In Nigeria, Zambia and a few other places, there were reprisals that never attended past xenophobic attacks against nationals of other countries.

    But it doesn’t appear to have been noticed in certain parts of Johannesburg where, early this week, protesters again took to the streets demanding that all foreigners leave their country.

    It never ceases to amaze me how South Africans, who depended on a global movement comprising organisations and countries from different continents to break the yoke of apartheid, suddenly realised that their problems would disappear the day there is no foreigner in their midst.

    Back in the 70s and 80s their freedom fighters went cap in hand soliciting funds from the same Nigerians they now disdain. Many were exiled to the so-called Frontline States of Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique – from whose territories African National Congress (ANC) militants launched guerrilla attacks.

    These nations often paid a bloody price because the racist regime then in power in Pretoria would regularly invade to carry out reprisal sorties against targets, using its military might to humiliate the not-so-powerful African countries.

    In less than 30 years, a nation that depended so much on others has succumbed to collective amnesia. The ‘Rainbow Nation’ founded on love and forgiveness is gradually being transformed into a theatre of hate.

    Right from my earliest contacts with South Africans I was struck by how insular they were. Perhaps it comes from being located at the rear end of the continent – surrounded only by the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

    Back in 2004, I had gone on a work-related trip to Johannesburg. A family friend then invited me on quick visit to Pretoria. I remember him introducing me as his ‘brother’ to a neighbour in the apartment complex where he lived.

    The South African greeted me fairly cordially, but quickly asked when I was returning to Nigeria. He added that it was clear my friend who had been in the country for about two years had no intention of returning home! I assured him my departure was only a matter of days. His satisfaction was evident.

    Just as it is wrong to depict all Nigerians living in that country as drug pushers because of the shenanigans of a few, it would be grossly unfair to write off the entire population as anti-foreigner.

    One day, on that same trip, a colleague who didn’t have the outlook of many of his compatriots, tried to illustrate for me the complex way some of his people relate with the rest of the continent. She said someone going to a destination like Lagos or Accra, would say something like “I’m travelling to Africa” – as though their country wasn’t part of the same continent.

    Even if you purge South Africa of all foreigners, it remains a very violent nation. There are places in Johannesburg where you can be killed over a cell phone. Carjackings are commonplace. Rape and femicide have reached such dire levels that women took to the streets in protest last week and had to be addressed by President Cyril Ramaphosa.

    Unfortunately, past governments have often responded to xenophobic episodes in a very timid way that encouraged criminal elements to think they can kill and maim foreigners and get away scot free. Sadly, these past orgies of violence haven’t created more jobs or made the society more egalitarian.

    Despite the black empowerment programmes of successive administrations, the gulf in economic power between whites and blacks has only widened – and it is not down to malevolent activities of Nigerians, Ethiopians or Tanzanians living in that country.

    With a sense of perspective South Africans would realise that our 30,000 citizens in a sea of their own 50,000,000 people is minuscule. And not all our folks are drug traffickers. Many are professionals, academics, sportsmen and legitimate business people.

    Unfortunately, the woolly thinking that quickly ascribes all that is wrong with their country to the excesses of outsiders, is not limited to the frustrated poor living in cramped city hostels and slums.

    Senior government officials have thrown up their hands in helplessness, or tried to rationalise the attacks on grounds that some foreigners have engaged in criminal activity.

    Defence Minister, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, in an interview with eNCA, a local television channel, described her country as an angry nation and insisted that the government couldn’t have prevented the violence.

    “The reality is that we have an angry nation. What’s happening can never be prevented by any government,” she said.

    “People are saying it is xenophobic attacks but it is not the first time, we have had them in the past.

    “We have criminals that have read the situation and are aware that we have challenges right now.

    Before her, Grace Naledi Mandisa Pandor, Minister of International Relations, had said: “I would appreciate them in helping us as well to address the belief our people have and the reality that there are many persons from Nigeria dealing in drugs in our country.”

    These are very damning statements coming from officials operating at the highest levels. They are self-indicting because a government that admits it is incapable of thwarting a barely-concealed conspiracy is acknowledging its incompetence.

    Perhaps, the violence is a diversion that allows people to vent their anger on soft targets and not focus on politicians who, in almost 30 years, have failed to deliver on the promise of a better future which the arrival of black majority rule held out.

    As the victim foreigners contemplate the charred remains of their businesses and properties, they are not the only ones damaged. The South Africa government has invested a fortune trying to promote the country as an excellent tourist destination. But who wants to travel to a place – even if it were heaven on earth – where foreigners are made so unwelcome?

    Even more disappointing is the fact that the mindless violence greatly diminishes the citizens and leaders of a country that produced such a great specimen of humanity as Nelson Mandela.

  • Governors are state presidents; Osun: Water, not HQ

    Osun State has priority-advertised a water corporation headquarters contract. Water first; meeting SDG 6, headquarters later. Please first do 1,000 boreholes or a dam, governor-man! Think people now, not legacy later. Clean water is life and will reduce typhoid, cholera, death!

    A building is just another contract. Have we learnt nothing???

    Governors, every state is larger than 20 countries. Governors are ‘presidents of states’ and should, add to presidency and save Nigeria by making their states liveable. Governors are state presidents, make your state great! Move around the state monthly. Every state has had enough to be great but past governors and leadership and the parties were grabbing and greedy. 2019-2023 are not ‘years to steal’! Good governance is also about little things! Governors should shun a master-servant relationship with citizens. Keeping ‘political distance’ is dangerous, inflammable and destructive. Buhari makes this mistake.

    There is anger among miscreants suffering from budget theft, and among citizens financially castrated by non-payment of salaries and pensions. This anger is inflamed by excesses of politicians, contractors, corporate instant millionairism and billion-naira corruption scams and Big Brother. Tension is high, with hungry and angry –‘Hangry’ hopeless, homeless poor, and desperate, koboless jobless. Any word or ‘dirty slap hand’ can ignite a fire engulfing anyone anytime, in traffic, train, home or office.

    Nigeria’s volatility is seen in the horrors of violence, murder, arson, kidnapping, killing innocent police to kidnap their target, and terrible extrajudicial killings of citizens and police officers. Good governance at the micro-levels is important. Corruptly high corrupt political salaries and perks should go.

    Xenophobia is inhuman but Nigeria’s gallant 1960-80s anti-apartheid ‘war’ are distant history to today’s hungry young South Africans who witness foreign drug gangs and also ‘hard-working foreigners’ and their prosperity. If all Nigerians, good and bad, are unwanted, Nigerians should leave -life has no duplicate. Nigeria has expelled foreigners before. In Nigeria, destruction of businesses of foreigners but jointly-owned with and employing Nigerians must be stopped.

    Governor Makinde opened a closed one kilometre road running in front of Government House, Oyo State. Millions had to take a 4.5km long road prior to this. Governments should cost their actions. NISER and state ministries should calculate saving by millions of citizens in travel time, fuel and accidents prevention -millions of naira by citizens and an increase in the index happiness. A multimillion naira and priceless governor’s decision. Next, please fill the 40 year-old Sango-Elewure Rail crossing, Sango-Polytechnic, Ibadan. Increasing the Oyo education budget to 12 % will revamp education if corruption is prevented. Hurray!

    A governor’s honour is greatly improved by ‘Executing Simple People Projects and Policies’- after listening to the citizens. Governors and government houses should be near citizens to feel the pain and remedy the problems. Immediate action is what state executive council meetings are for and not just contract awards and long-term projects. There must be a press briefing after each meeting.

    Do governors ask ‘What can my government do today to impact on citizens’ lives today?’ Do they insist on hands-on monitoring to confirm implementation? Enlightened ‘21st Century Politics’ requires that governors must criss-cross the state monthly and unleash their ‘Power of Personality’, ‘Power of Presence’ a high visibility personal interest, in the daily problems facing their 2-20million individual citizens ‘suffering and grimacing’ in a state.

    Governors must know that citizens face a surge in population with migration -fleeing terrorism and financial decay. This influx is of ambitious young, trader-oriented or wild motorcycle-riding, often unruly, unmindful of local norms. The result is further strangling of traffic and damage to ‘the business of living, state-wide’. Our strangled roads, junctions and roundabouts deserve governor-led liberation in a humane but war-like manner. Creating a governor-driven new proactive attitude to the ‘Ease of Doing Business in the state’ is the most important challenge to every governor as he receives security reports and identifies citizens’ needs.

    The governor should never be accused of hiding from the people. The good governor must make himself active in this direction receiving daily reports from friend and foe without fear or favour on ‘time and motion’ studies about trips around the state. How can the governor speed up traffic and still provide parking if he has no knowledge of traffic spots? An active governor must insist on a ‘Weekly Cabinet Traffic Briefing’ with Traffic Reports and reviews of traffic performance from across the state? Without easy traffic passage and parking, there is no easy business. Business will die not develop! There is no business on an expressway because there is no parking! Governors must teach traffic authorities that ‘Intracity Dual Carriageways Are Not Interstate Expressways’, Parking is allowed on dual carriageways but not on Expressways except in ‘emergencies’. Rampant ‘No Parking’ collapses business. There must be no corrupt underhand distribution of parking permissions for bribes.

    Governor, get your hands and your commissioners’ hands dirty. Please 1] List and unblock one million drains with local drain clearing talent. 2] List and fill your one million potholes with local PWD Public Works Department efficiency. 3] List and unblock your 200 roundabouts and 1,000 key junctions from 5am to 9 or 10 pm with traffic authorities present. 4] Insist on punctuality especially in school starting at 8 o’clock, 5] Initiate Primary School Management Boards and Primary School Old Boys Associations to fund equipment in schools. 6] Hold SEC meetings by senatorial district or HOR plan state-wide.