Category: Hardball

Hardball

It seems the minimum wage issue isn’t settled, despite the fact that President Muhammadu Buhari signed the National Minimum Wage Bill into law on April 18. According to Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) President Ayuba Wabba, 19 states are yet to set up negotiating committees to interact with labour on the issue, showing a lack of commitment on their part.

The states are Bauchi, Yobe, Rivers, Benue, Gombe, Kwara, Imo, Osun, Ekiti, Oyo, Anambra, Taraba, Cross River, Ogun, Enugu, Nassarawa, Plateau, Kogi and Delta.

Wabba said Borno, Abia, Kano, Bayelsa, Sokoto, Niger, Abia, Akwa Ibom, Edo, Ondo, Ebonyi, Katsina and Zamfara had constituted negotiating committees on the consequential adjustments for workers’ salaries, while Kaduna, Kebbi, Lagos, and Adamawa had started paying the new national minimum wage.

There may be trouble in the states that are non-committal. The NLC president was quoted as saying:  “In the event that any state fails to comply with these resolutions on or before 31st December, 2019, organised labour would not guarantee industrial harmony in such states.”

Wabba added: “All of us are aware that from the day the president signed the Minimum Wage Bill into law, it became enforceable. It can be enforced through court of law, and certainly, there is no excuse for any state to say that it is not going to respect a law that is actually based on the constitution.

“The National Minimum Wage is actually a constitutional issue; so clearly, it is about respecting our laws and also respecting international convention and procedures.”

It is unclear why the non-committal states are playing with such a serious issue, which may bring trouble. Do they want trouble?  The reality is that by law the country has a new national minimum wage of N30, 000. It is unreasonable to act as though there is no such law in place.

Concerning the Federal Government, Minister of Labour and Employment Chris Ngige told journalists that the Federal Executive Council had approved “that the financial implications be worked out by the National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission, as consequential adjustments should take effect from April 18, the date the new national minimum wage came into being.

“The Council also approved for us that the financial implications be worked out and the attendant payments completed on or before Dec. 31.

“Council further directed that the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, through the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, should effect all these payments as scheduled before Dec. 31.”

Against this backdrop, the non-committal states had better act with a sense of propriety.

A Month after the governorship elections in Bayelsa and Kogi states, some of the policemen who provided security during the elections are still waiting for the payment of their election duty allowance, according to a December 13 report.  It isn’t surprising that the affected policemen are angry and complaining.

The affected 225 policemen from Ekiti State Police Command who were deployed to Kogi State for the November 16 governorship election allege that their names were removed from the list of those due for payment. They want the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Adamu, to look into the matter.

Their spokesman told journalists:  “We want the IGP to investigate this matter, get our allowances for us and mete out proper punishment to whoever is culpable. Those behind this are the ones responsible for the force’s bad image.

“We risked our lives day and night to ensure adequate security during that volatile election. It is appalling and shocking that the police authorities have refused to pay us, a month after the election, while others have received theirs.”

They suspect fraud, which takes the matter to another level:  “This has given room for suspicion that the fund must have been embezzled allegedly by some high ranking police officers at the state or zonal level. We appeal to the IGP to investigate the cause of the delay.”

The Nigeria Police Force (NPF) said it deployed 66,241 policemen in the governorship elections, 35,200 in Kogi State and 31,041in Bayelsa State.  In addition, there were the police mobile force, special protection unit, counter-terrorism unit and other security outfits. The IGP also ordered the posting of deputy inspectors general of police (DIGs), AIGs, CPs, DCPs, and ACPs to all senatorial districts and local government areas in the two states. It is unclear whether the protesting policemen are the only ones who haven’t been paid election duty allowance.

Interestingly, an October report showing why so many policemen and policewomen appear in shabby uniforms, despite the police budget for uniform and other clothing, had quoted an Assistant Superintendent of Police with the same Ekiti State Command, who has been in the NPF for more than 20 years:  “I have been buying my uniform since I left the Police College. We are aware that there is always a budget for uniform but we do not know what becomes of the money earmarked for it. In fact, if you ask any police, they will tell you they are aware, but people don’t get the uniform. So, where does the money go?”

Where is the money meant for the payment of election duty allowance to the protesting policemen in Ekiti State?

Hardball

It’s bad news that corruption is still a serious problem in Nigeria, despite the anti-corruption war of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration in the last four years plus.

A new public survey by Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) involving 2,549 respondents across  the  country’s six geo-political zones and  covering eight states – Ondo, Enugu, Rivers, Lagos, Adamawa, Kano, Kaduna and Kwara-showed that public opinion on corruption is a cause for concern.  Abuja was added as a sampling area because of its status as the country’s capital.

According to the survey, “96.2% of the respondents believed corruption remains a serious problem in Nigeria today. There was no significant difference in opinion on this issue across the different geo-political zones surveyed.” Also, the survey found that “84.5% of Nigerians believed corruption affects them.”

The most disturbing aspect of the report is that “Almost half of the respondents (43.5%) surveyed do not believe that corruption can be successfully fought in Nigeria.” This suggests that the public believes the Buhari administration’s anti-corruption effort is going nowhere. Worse still, it also suggests that corruption will always be a big problem in Nigeria.

Interestingly, the findings of the new SERAP survey are in line with the 2018 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) released by Transparency International (TI) in January, which ranked Nigeria among the world’s most corrupt countries.  Nigeria ranked 144, with Kenya, Mauritania, Comoros and Guatemala, out of the 180 countries surveyed and ranked by the Berlin-based anti-corruption group. Nigeria had ranked 148 out of 180 countries in 2017.

The movement from 148th position to 144th out of 180 countries in 2018 is insignificant. Indeed, the Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, an agent of TI in Nigeria, Musa Rafsanjani, had observed: “Nigeria scored 27 out of 100 points in the 2018 CPI, maintaining the same score as in the 2017 CPI.”

The question is: What needs to be done to win the war against corruption? For instance, Rafsanjani had noted that “Despite some indisputable evidence, many corrupt politicians and businessmen and women seem to be above the law.” He added that such a situation “deepens a sense of hopelessness among well-meaning Nigerians.”

The point is that the number of casualties, or the number of convictions, is important in assessing the fight against corruption because a war without casualties can’t be a war properly so called.  Punishing corruption has a deterrent effect. Not punishing corruption encourages corruption.

Hardball

Every man of knowledge and conviction should be expected to exhibit some passion. Brilliant lawyers are usually passionate about matters of principle. The Rule of Law is their credo. It is therefore not surprising that Femi Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria who has done so much to step into the shoes left by the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi as conscience of the nation, is taking up highly volatile cases involving the state. He has dared to swim in shark infested water.

The latest in the list of briefs he has passionately argued and thrown everything into fighting is Omoyele Sowore’s. He did not wait for the details of the case to be made public before he jumped into the fray. For him, the fact that the Department of State Security plucked him like flower in the night and failed to disclose the cause of action was enough to attract a judicial action. He has been involved every inch since August 3.

Failure of the secret police to release his client on bail as directed by the court was enough to draw Mr. falana’s ire. When did the department turn into a superior authority to review a court order? It was enough to provoke the University of Ife-trained lawyer to don his wig and show his skills in court again. Fortunately, this time, it was in Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu’s court that he landed and the judge was as angry. She ordered that Sowore must be set free on the terms set by the court only.

The concern here is not Mr. Falana’s conviction. No, it’s his right. It’s also in the interest of the state. But, to call on the Nigerian Bar association to sanction Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, both being members of the inner Bar serving in the federal executive is to stretch logic too far. Let’s start with Fashola. He is the Minister saddled with improving the state of federal roads and bridges, as well as closing the housing gap. How could that be extended to bearing responsibility for administration of Justice. Haba, Falana.

And, even the Vice President. Did the learned silk ever hear that deputies are spare tyres? They function only to the extent that the principal office holder allows them. The only time that Osinbajo, a respected Professor of Law and Senior Advocate acted in place of the President, he is known to have stood firm on the side of Justice. The ever overzealous DSS had invaded the National Assembly, but Osinbajo would not allow that under his watch. He did not just order an evacuation, but a sack of the Director General.

There are only two men who should bear responsibility for this recklessness- President Muhammadu Buhari on whose desk the buck stops and Mallam Abubakar Mallami, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General. Full stop.

Hardball

There is a popular belief about Karma — what you sow, you reap.  By Karma, those who sow evil must reap evil, even if payback time could be a later generation.

But could Karma also come in advance, punishing the parents in anticipation of their unborn children’s future crime?

Could the traumatic apartheid system, under White minority rule, have been just but advanced desert for criminal progenies now plaguing South Africa, well beyond the era of apartheid and White supremacy — and with some tacit official support?

First, what is the difference between the racial violence of apartheid (separation and different development of races) that brought the South Africa of Nelson Mandela to its knees; and the xenophobic violence that criminal-minded South African natives inflict on fellow Blacks, which by the way, Bongani Mkongi, South Africa’s deputy Police minister, insists is no xenophobia, but just speaking “truth”?

So, if South Africa has somewhat failed to satisfy the yearnings of its post-apartheid natives, the solution is to attack, loot the shops and kill hardworking foreign nationals in that country, even if some of these foreigners are themselves accused of drug pushing and sundry crimes?

Minister Mkongi’s nativist bluster, in the face of clear evil, is a perfect manifestation of the popular quip: patriotism is the last bastion of the scroundrel! Though Gen. Bheki Cele, the Police minister, has apologized for Mkongi’s vomit, that such crap could come from such a high official of state means the xenophobia, by the lowlifes, is not entirely an accident.

Mkongi just told the world that since foreigners dominate South African cities and townships like Hillbrow to the tune of 80 per cent, no one should raise an eye-brow that the overwhelmed 20 per cent natives see looting and arson and murder as their sole salvation.  Good luck to such a criminal country!

Yet, that violently jars against the spirit of the Madiba, the one and only Nelson Mandela, one of 20th century’s living saints.  Now, did all decorum and decency and nobility die with Mandela — Mandela who after spending 27 years in White gaol, still emerged as one of the noblest and most refined personage in the whole of the globe?

Is this present redoubt of muggers, looters, arsonists and murderers really Mandela people?  Or Mandela was just a freak, conferring undeserved humanity to vandals, who thoroughly deserved the trauma and horror of apartheid?

Mandela must be weeping in his grave!

Still, it’s important to state that these barbarians, and petty, murderous thieves, can’t define South Africa, if Hardball is not to commit the illogic of sweeping profiling.

Gen. Beki has apologized for Mkogi’s crap.  Julius Malema, the maverick leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, the radical breakaway of hotheads from the ANC, has also condemned this horror.  Let more weighty voices speak up, not the least President Cyril Ramaphosa — and ANC.

Meanwhile, these scums and petty xenophobes are giving nobody but their country a bad name.  For starters, they portray their country as crawling with idle, lazy and spiteful denizens, looking out for foreigners’ trove to pounce on.

After the foreigners have been scared to return to their home countries, or have fled elsewhere, the mad dogs will continue pouncing on their own kind.

That is when this brewing lunacy would fully dawn on those decent South Africans who now, for political expediency, keep mute.

Meanwhile, puff goes in smoke, the South African tourism market.  Who wants to go to a country of hateful xenophobes?

• First published September 5, 2019

Hardball

News that the Presidency has ordered the Ministry of Police Affairs to recruit 4000,000 personnel into the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) to tackle manpower shortage is puzzling. Head of Press and Public Relations Unit of the ministry, Odutayo Oluseyi, in a statement said already the minister, Mohammed Dingyadi, has set up a 13-man Ministerial Project Coordination Committee to conduct the recruitment.

Based on a document titled, “Delivering on government’s priorities 2019-2023,” it is reported that , “The police affairs ministry was assigned specific priorities and deliverables including full implementation of the Community Policing Policy, the recruitment of additional 400,000 policemen across the country, establishment of a Federal Public-Private Security Trust Fund amongst others.” It is unclear how many policemen are supposed to be recruited per year, based on the plan.

This development ahead of the December 4 date fixed by the Federal High Court in Abuja to deliver judgment in a suit challenging the recruitment of 10,000 police constables by the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Adamu, adds a twist to the story. The Police Service Commission (PSC) had taken the IGP and the NPF to court over the recruitment of 10,000 constables as approved by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The commission had asked the court for an order of interlocutory injunction restraining the defendants from “appointing, recruiting or attempting to appoint or recruit by any means whatsoever any person into any office by the NPF pending the hearing and determination of the substantive suit.” The plaintiff also argued that none of the respondents is authorised by law to play any role in “the appointment, promotion, dismissal or exercise of disciplinary measures over persons holding or aspiring to hold offices in the Nigeria Police Force.” The commission described the NPF’s move as a flagrant usurpation of the functions and powers of the PSC.

There is no doubt that Nigeria needs more policemen. The United Nations (UN) standard of policing says one policeman to 400 citizens, but Nigeria is said to have one policeman to 600.

It is good to have more policemen policing the country, but recruitment should not blind the authorities to the problem of training.  Where will the recruits be trained? How will the recruits be trained?  In 2016, the then Commandant, Police Staff College, Jos, Plateau State, Mr. Joseph Mbu, an Assistant Inspector General (AIG), observed:  “Our police colleges, both senior and junior are in very bad state. Most of the structures you see there are dilapidated and the issue of poor staffing is also there…We need good facilities and atmosphere to make them better policemen.” The example of the Police College, Ikeja, Lagos, will suffice. Built to accommodate 700 trainees, it reportedly housed over 2, 554 occupants as at January 2013.

The point is that recruiters should think beyond the narrow and simplistic focus on recruitment.