The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • US drones in Niger Republic, Burkina Faso

    US drones in Niger Republic, Burkina Faso

    The United States on Monday reportedly signed a “status of forces” agreement with Niger Republic, Nigeria’s neighbour to the North, to deploy surveillance drones in that country to carry out spying and monitoring missions on Islamist militants in the Sahel. A similar agreement had been signed with Burkina Faso, and US drones are already in operation there feeding French forces in Mali with information on Tuareg rebels and Islamist militants affiliated to al-Qaeda. It requires no clairvoyance to know that there would be a very limited sharing of intelligence gathered by the drones with the host countries. The agreement with Niger is said to impose no constraints on military-to-military cooperation. This means that the deployment of surveillance drones could easily graduate to deployment of armed drones. Ethiopia and Djibouti in the Horn of Africa preceded the West African sub-region in accepting US drones on their soils.

    It will be recalled that the use of American drones in countries such as Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan and Somalia have become so controversial that they have generated resentment among the local populace and civil liberties groups. The danger is how to draw the line between gathering intelligence on militants and attacking the militants on one hand, and gathering other kinds of intelligence on the host countries. In 1962, the Action Group political party sensitised Nigerians to the dangers of an Anglo-Nigerian defence pact, leading to massive demonstrations and the eventual collapse of the deal. Such sensitivity is lacking today. Apart from the secrecy that surrounds the operation of armed drones, there is also the unacceptably high incidence of civilian casualties. According to a foreign newspaper report, “The London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism has monitored American drone strikes all around the world and calculates that in Pakistan alone there have been some 362 strikes since 2004. They are estimated to have killed up to 3,461 suspected militants in the country and as many as 891 civilians.”

    President Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger Republic has regrettably already given permission for the deployment of the drones. However, as in all the countries where drones have been deployed, there is no telling how far things can go or get out of hand. Meanwhile, Nigeria is just next door, and drones are extremely difficult to shoot down or to compromise. Only yesterday, this column deprecated the inability of ECOWAS leaders to be proactive on Mali, thereby allowing the situation to degenerate to the point of triggering French intervention. France was Mali’s former colonial master. It is evident that the quality of leadership in the region, nay, in Africa as a whole has declined horribly. There are no brilliant and perceptive leaders conversant with their countries’ histories, nor even keenly aware of the dangers of neo-colonialism and neo-imperialism. The mediocre leaders rule their countries badly, and embrace desperate methods, including opening up their countries to harmful external influences, to mitigate the effects of their misrule.

    It is not surprising that between 2009 and 2010, and also in 2012, the prestigious and most expensive leadership prize in the world, the Mo Ibrahim prize for good governance, was not awarded to any African leader. According to the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, “The $5m prize is supposed to be awarded each year to a democratically elected leader who governed well, raised living standards and then voluntarily left office. The $5m prize is spread over 10 years and is followed by $200,000 a year for life.” In 2011, Cape Verde President Pedro Verona Pires won the prize. The dearth of sound leaders should worry everyone. And that paucity of good leaders is nowhere more evident than in West Africa.

    A tragedy is befalling Africa – the tragedy of insensitive, retrogressive and unintelligent leaders. It is almost as if it is not the same Africa that produced the likes of Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda, Kwame Nkurumah, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and Nelson Mandela, among others. With the turmoil in Mali, the deployment of drones in Niger Republic and Burkina Faso, the likelihood of US-Africa Command, and the collapse of state economies, the continent, or at least West Africa, is being opened up for recolonisation. Sadly, African leaders, whose poor judgement led them to recently accept the new $200m African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa as a gift from China, have become inured to the dangers of external control which their incompetence and lack of foresight are engendering.

  • Nigerian media abandon coverage of Mali War to foreign media

    Nigerian media abandon coverage of Mali War to foreign media

    An estimated 150 journalists from 40 different news organisations have been travelling with French troops since the intervention in Mali began on January 11. Of the lot, none is Nigerian. Many of the reporters are embedded with the French forces, though they do not get near 100km of the fighting in a country so vast and so arid. No Nigerian journalist is embedded with the Nigerian troops, and so Nigeria’s role will not be accurately reported, as the recent report of Nigerian soldiers’ inadequacies by The Guardian (London) showed. There will be no news of display of valour, nor any story of sacrifice, bravery and passion for a noble cause. Indeed, the absence of Nigerian media in the Malian conflict is a terrible reflection of the decline of Nigeria, its leaders’ loss of self-confidence, and the disorientation of its foreign policy.

    Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) leaders had the golden opportunity to stamp their authority and vision on the Malian crisis a few weeks after Captain Amadou Sanogo and his band of coup plotters struck on March 21, 2012 to remove the elected government of President Amadou Toumani Touré. The coup truncated the election that was due in June, three months later. While the regional body swiftly imposed sanctions in April and tried to force the restoration of Toure’s government, that effort, which was unfortunately half-hearted, only ended in partial success as Sanogo merely formally resigned. Sadly, as part of the compromise, President Toure was also compelled to resign. But by the following month, it was all but clear that Sanogo still retained effective control.

    It was at that point that Nigeria missed it. It had the power and leverage to persuade ECOWAS to sustain sanctions until Sanogo and his fellow coup plotters were arrested and tried for treason. If that had been done, and the regional body had gone ahead to contribute troops in sufficient number to battle the secession in the North, they would have secured international support. If the battle against the secessionists had been led by Nigeria, and if we had got our priorities right, Nigerian media could have accompanied the troops and reported from the war front. But when sanctions were hastily lifted and Sanogo held on to effective control, it emboldened Tuareg rebels in the North to declare secession, capture many key northern towns, and in early January began their ill-fated advance on Bamako. The frenetic events that started some 10 months earlier naturally culminated in the drastic French intervention of January 11 and the imposition of news blackout.

    It is humiliating to Nigeria in particular that France assumed the leadership of the Malian War. It in fact indicates Nigeria’s lack of vision. In addition, it will be remembered that the interventions in Liberia (1989-1996; 1999-2003) and Sierra Leone (1991-2002), which were led by Nigeria, attracted more foreign reporters than ECOWAS media. Since a country can’t give what it does not have, the poor relationship between the local media and the Nigerian government has continued to reflect badly on the coverage of Nigeria’s foreign adventures and the international image of both the country and its faltering and spasmodic media. The times call for urgent change. Where is that Nigerian leader who will champion the needed change and restore African pride?

    Meanwhile, for a conflict taking place in West Africa, and in which some 20 people were alleged to have been extra-judicially murdered recently by vengeful Malian forces in the northern town of Sevare, Niono and Mopti, Nigerian media can only regurgitate the news and accept foreign media analyses on postwar Mali. An article in DigitalJournal.com made the following observations: “The French have not organised a single press conference in the capital of Mali, Bamako. The sole French media official in Bamako is apparently there mainly to refer media questions to Paris. The Malian army has banned journalists and human rights organisations even from areas that had been in their control for a number of days…Whenever operations are underway, communications are cut off… An Al Jazeera article speaks of Mali as a war without images.” Future crises will show whether Nigeria has learnt some lessons.

     

  • Maku lectures Ezekwesili on brickbats

    Maku lectures Ezekwesili on brickbats

    A few days ago, a former World Bank vice president (African Region) and also onetime Education minister, Dr Obiageli Ezekwesili, knowingly decided to step on the tail of an adder. While delivering the convocation lecture of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), she blamed the late Umaru Yar’Adua government and the present Dr Goodluck Jonathan administration for squandering about $67 billion or N10.619 trillion left in the national coffers by the Chief Olusegun Obasanjo presidency. She was truly unsparing in her assessment of the two administrations’ financial prudence. Said she: “They squandered the significant sum of $45billion in foreign reserve account and another $22billion in Excess Crude Account, being direct savings from increased earnings from oil that the Obasanjo administration handed over to the successor government in 2007… Six years after the administration I served handed over such humongous national wealth to another one, most Nigerians, but especially the poor, continue to suffer the effects of failing public health and education systems as well as decrepit infrastructure and battered institutions.”

    Not one to leave bad enough alone, Ezekwesili continued even more forcefully: “One cannot but ask what exactly does this level of brazen misappropriation of public resources symbolise? Where did all that money go? Where is the accountability for the use of these resources and the additional several hundred million dollars realised from oil sale by the two administrations that have governed our nation in the last five years? How were these resources applied or more appropriately misapplied? Tragic choices.”

    Well, the adder struck back almost instantaneously on Sunday through a press conference addressed by the Information minister, Mr labaran Maku, who was flanked by the Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe; Economic Adviser, Prof. Nwanze Okedigbo; and Special Adviser on Performance Monitoring, Prof. Sylvester Monye. (By the way, the revenge mission would have been more colourfully undertaken by Dr Okupe directly, with or without assistance, for that is his forte). But since the position of chief traducer was conceded to Maku, how did he perform? According to the minister, “The statement by the former World Bank vice president that the governments of Presidents Musa Yar’adua and Goodluck Jonathan have squandered $67 billion (including $45 billion in foreign reserve and $22 billion in the Excess Crude Account) left by the Obasanjo Administration at the end of May 2007 is factually incorrect.” And he continued: “At the end of May 2007, Nigeria’s gross reserves stood at $43.13 billion – comprising the CBN’s external reserves of $31.5 billion, $9.43 billion in the Excess Crude Account, and $2.18 billion in the Federal Government’s savings. These figures can be independently verified from the CBN’s records. The figure of $67 billion alleged in her statement is therefore clearly fictitious.”

    But this was as far as civility would carry the vengeful quartet. Soon they would soar to incredible level of cynical dismissiveness. Said the clearly incensed Maku: “We also found Mrs. Ezekwesili’s interrogation of the educational system somewhat disingenuous and borderline hypocritical. During her tenure as Minister of Education between 2006 and 2007, she collected total sum of N352.3 billion from direct budgetary releases. In addition, she received about N65.8 billion under the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) Fund, and over N40 billion from the Education Trust Fund (ETF) during her time as Minister of Education. In view of these humongous allocations, few legitimate questions arise. What did she do with all these allocations? What impact did it have on the education sector? One wonders if our educational system would have been better today if these allocations were properly applied.” Oh, so, it must be tit for tat. Ezekwesili had questioned what the Yar’Adua and Jonathan governments did with the ‘humongous’ foreign reserve left by Obasanjo; and in turn Maku and his men are now questioning what the former Education minister did with the ‘humongous’ allocation to the education sector under her watch.

    Hardball is not in a position to determine what Dr. Wale Babalakin did or didn’t do with former Delta State governor, Chief James Onanafe (the same Onanafe) Ibori, for the case is still in court. But it is interesting that when he had disagreement with the government on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway concession, it was time for the government to take him to the EFCC showers. Had Ezekwesili considered the delicate temperament of the Jonathan government, especially its bilious intolerance of dissent, she would have measured her criticism of its profligacy. Now that she is even challenging Maku and other government champions to a public debate, a gauntlet the voluble duo will not take up, let her beware of the acrid smell of vengeance wafting in the air as the empire strikes back.

     

     

  • Jonathan’s CNN interview

    Jonathan’s CNN interview

    Last Wednesday, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour interviewed President Goodluck Jonathan on sundry issues affecting Nigeria. As usual, the president’s responses, which many commentators felt were neither guarded nor reflective, nor even accurate, drew much flak. Many of the answers indeed are examples of how not to engage the international media. However, on account of the increasingly visible role Nigeria seems prepared to play in international conflict, Jonathan must cultivate the habit of reassessing his rather distracted performances on the international stage in order to guide his future interactions with the sometimes scabrous and relentless international media.

    The question that elicited the most controversy was the one on the homegrown terror group, Boko Haram. Amanpour had asked Jonathan whether the terror group didn’t pose existential threat to Nigeria. It did, replied the president. But he went further very controversially to offer what seems to him to be the sect’s driving force. Said he: “The sect was not borne out of misrule, definitely not; sometimes people feel it is a result of poverty; but no. Boko Haram is a local terror group and that’s why we call on the rest of the world to work with us, and that is why we are talking about Algeria, we are talking about northern Mali, and our belief is that if you allow terror to exist in any part of the world, it will not just affect that country or that state, it will affect the rest of the globe and we should not play politics with Boko Haram.”

    The president gives the impression that the international media are unaware of how he had dithered on the violent sect, how he had unwisely tried to mollify its rage, how he virtually begged for rapprochement with it, and at a point how he even seemed willing to concede that it smelled of roses in spite of murdering thousands of innocent people. Does Jonathan think Amanpour and the international media could not see through his answers? The value of the Amanpour interview, we must console ourselves, is that finally, and with the world as a witness, Jonathan has made up his mind to fight Boko Haram. Let us hope he can walk the talk better than he answered Amanpour’s questions.

    But on the brief Algerian standoff shortly after France went into Mali, Jonathan was simply unprepared. He had been asked if Nigeria, which is also in Mali, was prepared to contain terror attacks like the one that happened in an Algerian gas plant on January 16 leading to the killing of about 38 workers. “Yes, what happened in Algeria was unfortunate. That is why the government has been working day and night to make sure that we prevent such excesses,” Jonathan replied evasively. It was obvious that after two failed hostage rescue attempts, Nigeria is apparently not ready to confront similar massive terror attack with anything superior to Algeria’s. Amanpour’s question on Nigeria’s preparedness was probably perfunctory anyway.

    But by far the most amusing of Jonathan’s replies to Amanpour’s questions is the one on crude oil theft. Against the background of the Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s estimation last April that 400,000 barrels of oil a day were looted from the country in just one month, and the International Energy Agency’s calculation that $7 billion dollars was lost annually to oil theft, Amanpour sought to know how Jonathan was tackling the issue. “Frankly speaking,” began the president incredulously, “I want the international community to support Nigeria because this stolen crude is being bought by refineries abroad and they know the crude oil was stolen…The world must condemn what is wrong.”

    Jonathan assumes the world cares. More, he assumes the world is not irritated by our helplessness and sloppiness. How does he expect the international community to help those who don’t help themselves? And in any case, it is not true that all the stolen crude is taken to refineries abroad. With the discovery of hundreds of makeshift refineries in the Niger Delta creeks by the military Joint Task Force (JTF), enterprising Nigerians are apparently also participating in the refining bazaar, even as a significant part of what is left is stolen directly and brazenly from vandalised pipelines.

    Hardball rates the Jonathan interview below average.

  • SURE-P probe in troubled water

    SURE-P probe in troubled water

    Six federal ministers, among whom were the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke; Minister of Transportation, Mr. Abdullahi Umar; Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu; and Minister of Niger Delta, Mr. Godsday Orubebe, were reported to have shunned an investigative hearing into the implementation of the Federal Government’s Subsidy Re-Investment Programme (SURE-P) being conducted by the House of Representatives. Others who shunned the hearing were the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi; the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Mr. Emeka Worgu; and the Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF), Jonah Otunla. It will be recalled that the House of Representatives had on November 15, 2012, mandated the committees on Petroleum Resources (Downstream ), Finance, and States and Local Government to investigate the implementation of SURE-P.

    Mr. Dakuku Peterside, lead chairman of the probe panel, angrily accused the ministers of knowingly undermining the investigation. “This is a deliberate decision of the ministers not to honour the invitation of the House,” he fumed, before postponing the session to February 12. It is not clear whether the absent ministers will find the humility to honour the invitation when the hearing resumes. While only a few of the heads of agencies invited to the hearing bothered to send representatives, the rest did not even offer explanations for their absence. The Petroleum minister, said an aide, was yet to fully resume work from leave, as if that was a sufficient mitigation. There will be many more of such provocative affronts in the coming months, as the National Assembly steps up its oversight responsibilities.

    But few Nigerians are actually surprised that the legislature is often and openly disrespected. Right from the presidency of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, when the culture of subverting the legislature took root, the upper and lower chambers had been periodically destabilised by a meddlesome government obsessed with controlling or at least influencing legislative functions, in addition to its primary executive functions. The presidency’s disguised contempt for the legislature naturally rubbed off on many government ministers and appointees, some of whom, like the former Federal Capital City (FCT) minister, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, openly insulted the legislature and accused them of seeking gratification to do their oversight job.

    Admittedly, the National Assembly has itself not helped matters. Apart from sometimes indulging in unhealthy and questionable interactions with ministries, agencies and departments, some of which had backfired even in the recent past, the legislature also gives the impression it does not know where its powers end and those of the executive begin. Legislators have sometimes called for the sack of ministers or attempted to cajole the presidency in matters that lie exclusively within the purview of executive responsibility.

    Yet, no misinterpretation of powers or misconception of power boundaries justifies the absence of anyone one, not to talk of ministers, invited to any legislative hearing. It appears that the ministers’ deplorable behavior is a reflection of the presidency’s own condescending view of the legislature. Only recently, a few ministers voiced their frustrations with being frequently summoned by the legislature to answer one question or the other. They were too busy to be tied down to answering questions, they said in obvious indication of their limited understanding of democracy and its dynamics. Indeed, if the executive had treated the legislature with the respect the constitution envisages and our democracy demands and deserves, it is unlikely the ministers would show such appalling disrespect and ignorance. For in the end, Nigerian democracy will not be served if those in authority continue to manifest the kind of abhorrent behavior the six ministers showed on Tuesday.

    Both the presidency and the National Assembly must recognize that a problem exists in their relationship, just as it exists between the executive branch in the states and the Houses of Assembly. This misunderstanding is potent enough to either undermine democracy or at least stultify it. They, therefore, have a responsibility to mend fences and create fora where both parties to the misunderstanding can be enlightened. Yet, no matter how sometimes misguided the legislature may be in interpreting its powers, ministers have absolutely no right to openly disrespect the legislature, let alone ridicule it both in words and by their absence. For that would mean not only undermining institutions upon which our democracy is built, but also their own legitimacy as cabinet members. Ministers can’t claim not to have this elementary understanding.

  • Chime and his London visitors

    Chime and his London visitors

    After speculating for over three months and running the whole gamut of pathology, the media have suddenly come to a crushing anti-climax with the release by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) of a photograph showing a “great, very great,” but mildly pensive Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu State in company with three other Nigerian governors in London. The visitors were Governors Gabriel Suswan of Benue, Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers and Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom. And the visit was presumed to have taken place on Tuesday, though the photo caption did not indicate where in London Chime received his visitors. Apparently, the photograph was meant to convey a picture of general wellness than to answer the equally important question of where the picture was taken.

    The pointed message the news, which seems so affected, and photograph, which is so impersonal and yet familiar and puzzling, sought to convey is that the governor is as fit as a fiddle, is solidly on his feet, and will be back home very soon. The three visiting governors – they would gladly spend so much more of taxpayers’ money to show empathy – were quoted to have said a word or two underscoring Chime’s clean bill of health. One was reported to have said the Enugu governor had made full recovery; another said he was in good shape; and the third, before berating the public for ganging up to wish their leaders evil, claimed Chime had recovered tremendously.

    It is clear that neither Chime nor any of his three august visitors understood the issues involved, and indeed it is no surprise that most Nigerian governors are simply incapable of adapting to the governmental needs of the modern era. If Chime and his fanatical supporters had come clean on his health, regularly updated the public with news of the governor’s health condition, and not take the same electorate for granted, would there be speculations, let alone a wish for some hypothetical evil to befall him? The problem with Chime’s long absence is not whether the constitution had been breached or not; the problem is lack of good faith, disrespect for Enugu people, childish contrivances, and now additional verbal indiscretions from the visiting governors.

    But we have the three governors visiting Chime in London to thank for inspiring reports expected to dispel all rumours about the ailing or fully recovered governor’s health. It would have been unnecessary to look forward to any governor’s reports, not to talk of doubting them, had the state and its hospitalised governor done the commonsensical thing in the circumstance. It is truly dismaying that three governors believed to be incapable of exaggerations of any sort – Chime is no longer a reliable witness in his own health story – had to struggle to tell what they swore was the truth. Yet, the story is much simpler than they have made it.

    If, as they say, Chime has made “full and tremendous recovery, and is in good shape,” what on earth is he still doing in London? They say he’ll be home soon. This column wishes him safe journey. But it is a pity the constitution does not permit impeachment on the grounds of poor judgement, which Chime is exhibiting copiously. Nothing so degrades governance and retards progress as poor judgement, a vice most African governments, by their incompetence, haughtiness and insensitivity, revel in. And nothing has been so appallingly sentimentalised in Nigeria as when its leaders fall ill, as Chime, a few other governors, and at least two Nigerian presidents have shown.

  • The floating bodies of Ezu River

    The floating bodies of Ezu River

    All it took to reenact the confusion often associated with Nigerian newspapers were some corpses floating down the Ezu River on Saturday morning. The river passes through about five communities in Enugu and Anambra States before emptying into the greater River Niger. First sighted in Amansea, Awka North Local Government Area of Anambra State, some of the bloated corpses were said to have had their hands tied behind their backs, obviously an indication they were probably tortured to death. Thereafter the drama began, of course first provoked by the media, and then given added colour by the police, baffled community elders, the touchy-feely Governor of Anambra State, Mr Peter Obi, and local tourists with bizarre tastes for the macabre.

    First, the newspapers. Not only did their headlines fail to agree on the number of floating corpses, their reports also showed clearly that they depended on unreliable eyewitnesses’ accounts for the scanty and conflicting details of the gory spectacle. Two newspapers, without proof, said the corpses numbered over 50; another, perhaps thinking it was exercising more reportorial restraint, said the corpses were about 40; and yet another dutifully reported 30. But the drama was just beginning. The Enugu State Commissioner of Police, Musa Daura, was reported by one of the newspapers to have led a team of policemen to view the scene from the vantage position of the Amansea Bridge. He was mystified about the corpses, he told reporters, but would work with his Anambra State counterpart to unravel the murders. Hear, hear.

    Then, according to the same reports, the Anambra State governor weighed in with his own drama by cutting short his overseas trip to attend to the tragedy. Perhaps Hardball had, unknown to himself, become desensitised to all forms of tragedies; but for a governor to cut short a foreign trip over some floating corpses seems a little extravagant, not to put too fine a point on it. But perhaps the meticulous Mr Obi deserves this columnist’s apology. For if newspapers’ accounts, unlike their statistics, are to be believed, it was not until the governor returned home that he ordered the evacuation of the corpses, and announced a reward of N5m for information on the murders. The tragedy occurred somewhere within the jurisdictions of two state police commands, but it was not until Monday, a clear two days after the corpses were first sighted, that shaken security men began tackling the mess. It was then everyone, including perplexed policemen and community elders speaking in the grand manner, discovered that the corpses were about 18, not 30, not 40, and nothing near 50.

    On the same Saturday the corpses were discovered, they ought to have been evacuated, police should have opened multipronged investigations, the scenes of crime cordoned off and samples taken, and accurate information issued by relevant law enforcement agencies. But as usual, the authorities chose drama and slothfulness. If the shock and outrage exhibited by the public could drive the authorities to solve the crime, it would perhaps mitigate the initial official pussyfooting that accompanied the discovery of the floating corpses of Ezu River and end the farcical drama everyone concerned is enacting to our dismay.

     

  • Obama’s second term

    Obama’s second term

    In spite of his brilliance, composure, sound judgement, and historic re-election, President Barack Obama is unlikely to become a great American president of the first rank comparable to the three leading greats – George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. Under the three greats, the very existence of the United States was imperilled, but they rose to the challenge with a single-mindedness and vigour that admitted no possibility of failure. Washington not only birthed his nation, he led it for 25 years, and gave what historians describe as permanence to the American system. Lincoln preserved the Union and destroyed slavery; and Roosevelt saved his country from economic collapse, ensured the endurance of its political values and institutions, and won World War II. As former President Richard Nixon said of great leadership, it is not enough for a leader to be brilliant, charismatic and courageous; he also needs great issue(s) to put him in what Norse mythology calls Valhalla.

    Obama can be pardoned for being consumed by a desire to leave a notable legacy in his second term, or perhaps achieve much more. It is a legitimate aspiration. His inaugural speech of yesterday signposts that secret desire to be remembered for so much more than just being the first African American president, or the third Democrat after Andrew Jackson and Roosevelt to win two successive popular- vote majorities. Even though the details of his programmes will not be spelt out until February’s State of the Union address, he gave indications yesterday of recommitting himself to the ideals of the Founding Fathers, ideals he says have propelled the country into lofty hopes and achievements, and indeed served as the country’s raison d’etre.

    The speech was doubtless inspiring, but it was not his best ever, for there were not many memorable phrases in it comparable to the ones that have given lastingness to many American presidents’ speeches in their country’s moments of peril. Yet, it should serve as an example for the incomparably dull speeches Nigerian leaders have half-heartedly inflicted on their fellow countrymen. Hear Obama in one sheer moment of ecstasy after quoting the opening lines (second sentence) of the Declaration of Independence: “Today we continue a never-ending journey, to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time. For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they have never been self-executing; that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on Earth. The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob. They gave to us a Republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed.”

    Obama has many unfinished businesses from his first term. He will do his utmost to give permanence to many of them in such a way that some sort of remarkability would hallmark his presidency. He will try not to be encumbered by partisan considerations, or be distracted by divisive issues that have plagued his country for decades. And he will, as he says succinctly, attempt to inspire his fellow Americans into believing in their own ability to transcend limitations imposed by time or circumstances. Again, hear him in his elegant simplicity: “This generation of Americans has been tested by crises that steeled our resolve and proved our resilience. A decade of war is now ending. An economic recovery has begun. America’s possibilities are limitless, for we possess all the qualities that this world without boundaries demands: youth and drive; diversity and openness; an endless capacity for risk and a gift for reinvention. My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment, and we will seize it – so long as we seize it together.”

    Until his second term ends, it will be impossible to determine how well Obama had lived up to the promises he so eloquently orated. Indeed, as The Economist (London) magazine once put it, a leader’s legacy is not secured nor his reign scored until iconoclastic posterity has scoured through his achievements. Obama will have to wait until then, just as Lincoln’s Gettysburg address had to wait to become one of the most memorable ever, with its oft-quoted definition of democracy. Obama has shown what it means to be inspired by past greats. Would to God Chief Olusegun Obasanjo had read about Washington in order to rein in his natural predilection to subvert great principles, including constitutional provisions on term limitation. Nelson Mandela probably read Washington, and did better than exhaust his term limits. Indeed, Nigeria would have been an exceptional country today had its leaders opened themselves to the values and philosophies that ennobled the three American greats, values which Obama’s second term is giving us the opportunity to appreciate anew.

     

  • Still on the phones for farmers

    Still on the phones for farmers

    Officials of the Ministry of Agriculture obviously still don’t appreciate just how bad their phones-for-farmers policy is. Rather than back down and take criticisms in good faith, they have sought to modify the policy and resell it to a wary public dissatisfied with government insensitivity and profligacy. Originally, according to the ministry’s permanent secretary, Mrs Ibukun Odusote, some 10 million phones costing between N40bn and N60bn were to be procured and distributed to farmers in order to integrate them into modernised agricultural management. The firestorm that greeted the plan forced the minister himself, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, to wade into the controversy in an attempt to set records straight. There was no N60bn set aside anywhere, he said, and no one, not least himself, was interested in lining anyone’s pocket with filthy lucre. Apparently, he believed that those who denounced the plan suspected ministry officials were eager to embezzle government funds.

    But Adesina did not stop at reiterating his bona fides. First he flaunted his credentials, in particular how he contributed to the agricultural revolution in Malawi and Kenya; and then second he gave details of why the phones were important in integrating farmers into the government’s agricultural plans and programmes. Said he: “The government will provide a subsidy to the farmer through the voucher to buy the phone. The farmer takes the voucher to the local mobile phone operator and pays the balance, which is the difference between the value of the voucher and the cost of the phone. Once a farmer buys a phone and a SIM card, his new phone number will be updated on the e-wallet database and he will be able to receive his e-wallet voucher, which will entitle him to purchase fertiliser and seeds at subsidised rates.” The minister still misses the point. Whether subsidised or not, critics are saying farmers are able to buy their own phones, and the government need not be involved through any subsidy programme.

    Not satisfied with simply debunking public perceptions of the issues surrounding the phone project, the minister unwisely followed up with a delicately wrought faux pas. Said he: “I will not be distracted. We will rebuild the broken walls of Nigeria’s agriculture and unlock wealth and opportunities for our farmers. For those calling for my crucifixion, let me say that when Jesus was before Pilate, they had accused him falsely. Pilate, after listening to his case, found no cause for condemning him. Nonetheless, should anyone still want me crucified, let me say this, along my faith: ‘I am crucified with Christ already. Nevertheless, I live, and the life that I live, I live by the grace of the son of God who died for me.’” Nobody doubts his religious credentials. Though the rather emotive minister seems inclined to equate himself with the phone project, what is actually being crucified is not him but his phone policy. And it certainly does not seem there is any biblical or literary quotation he might fling at his critics that can mitigate their desire to kill the superfluous project.

    The Agriculture minister is apparently a man of wide experience and great learning, a fact that is obviously not lost on the president who appointed him, and on the president’s spokesman, Dr Reuben Abati, who enthuses about his stellar performance. Critics also respect his judgement and give him the benefit of the doubt concerning his motives in putting together the phone project. But his moralisations, apart from being fulsome, again miss the point. Hear him: “I have stolen no man’s silver, nor demanded any man’s gold, and will continue to drive bold innovation and reforms to fully modernise and transform the agricultural sector. That is my remit from the president and that is exactly what we will do, as I continue to serve my nation with the highest level of vision, passion, personal integrity and dedication.” Let Adesina keep his virtues. But the remit he will get from the public is that while his bold reforms are desirable, the ministry has no business spending a kobo, directly or indirectly, on phones for farmers.

    It is a sad commentary on modern Nigeria that the Goodluck Jonathan cabinet is brimming with experimenters, such as the highly fecund Aviation minister with her considerable and convoluted boondoggles. Worse, it is a government that has cruelly and consistently refused to heed public dissatisfaction with and reservations about government programmes. If Adesina is as brilliant as Abati lets out with perfect conviction, he will appreciate the public’s reluctance to endorse his new project on phones for farmers, and quietly and sensibly shelve it.

  • Dilemma in Mali

    Dilemma in Mali

    Nigerian troops are finally departing for Mali, ahead of the September 2013 date originally planned by the United Nations to put an intervention force in Mali. This column had twice counselled Nigeria not to go into Mali until there was indication the complex and fundamental problems that precipitated the secessionist crisis were understood and concrete efforts made to tackle them. Any intervention, the column warned, was bound to focus mainly on achieving quick, morale-boosting military victory without a corresponding plan to win the peace.

    However, by restarting and intensifying their efforts to cut a wider swath of the country than the northern half they had controlled for more than six months, separatist Tuareg groups, in particular, Ansar Dine and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), inadvertently triggered French intervention (Opération Serval) nearly nine months early. The now increasingly activist France leads the cavalry with the deployment of ground troops in Mali, and is in direct combat against the separatist al-Qaeda-linked Islamist groups which control the northern half of the country and had purged the moderate Tuareg rebels, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), from their ranks.

    But France’s direct involvement, contrary to its earlier stand not to put ground troops in Mali, is certain to complicate the crisis, and probably internationalise it in ways unanticipated and injurious to the long term peace and stability of Mali and even to the interests of France itself, as the Algerian hostage crisis briefly indicated. Jihadist forces always love the opportunity to take on the West in any guise, whether it is equal or unequal combat. The gusto with which Ansar Dine announced to the media early in the week that they were locked in combat with France and the “Crusaders” is a testimony to this bizarre, sanguinary predilection. Yet, by launching an invasion southwards believed to be capable of threatening the capital, Bamako, it was the rebels that provoked the spontaneous French intervention. In fact, going by the speed of the rebel attacks and the near collapse of the Malian Army, it was feared last week that Bamako could fall in weeks. To prevent such a catastrophic collapse of the entire country and the imposition of Afghanistan-type Islamic rule that nurtures and sponsors terrorism, France decided to act. It had become clear that the UN September date for the regional intervention force to intervene in Mali was unrealistic.

    France has received encouragement from fellow European Union (EU) countries, which fear Mali could be turned into a terrorist haven by the rebels. ECOWAS forces have also mobilised. The rebels who number less than 2,000 fighting men have inexplicably decided to take on 2,500 French troops and 3.300 ECOWAS troops, with Nigeria contributing 900 men and commanding the regional force. For as long as the rebels stick to conventional war tactics, it is unlikely they can get the better of the multinational force, no matter how inhospitable the terrain. The better armed and numerically stronger intervention force is expected to achieve easy victory. But the problem is winning the peace in a country that is poor and more than half of which is absolutely inhospitable and vast.

    While the French-led intervention force was inevitable given the rebel advance on the south and the appalling indecision and weakness of ECOWAS in tackling the crisis when it began in March 2012, the UN must not lose sight of the factors that predisposed Mali into crisis and rebellion. Economic growth, which was trudging on at a manageable five percent or so, had by last year slowed down agonisingly to a little over one percent. Importantly, too, and in spite of Mali being a poster child for regional democracy, it had become insular, allowing the problems in the north to fester. More crucially, the coup d’etat led by Captain Amadou Sanogo was a disaster that aggravated the country’s crisis. The coup truncated democracy, worsened economic crisis, and offered no useful initiatives in tackling the rebellion in the North. Indeed, the rebels used the coup as a casus belli.

    France and the regional intervention force may win the war – and there is no compelling reason for them not to do it soonest because most northerners are reluctant to host al-Qaeda groups in their territory – but peace will not be secured until the fundamental problems are addressed purposefully and intelligently. If peace is to be restored, disaffected but moderate groups in the North will have to be encouraged to embrace negotiation, an economic rejuvenation programme will have to be drawn up by the UN, coup leaders will have to be forced out of the power loop and democracy re-established, perhaps with some sort of autonomy for parts of the country, and France must quickly relinquish control of the intervention force in order not to create a worse backlash. The country is too vast and too barren for outsiders to impose durable peace by force of arms.