The Nation Newspaper

Category: Letters

  • Brouhaha over oil revenue

    Brouhaha over oil revenue

    SIR: I have followed, with keen interest, the controversy surrounding the unaccounted federation account funds involving the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). It will be recalled that the CBN Governor, Mallam Lamido Sanusi caused a stir when he raised an alarm in a letter to President Goodluck Jonathan that the NNPC failed to remit crude oil proceeds amounting to $49.8 billion into the Federation Account from January 2012 to July 2013.

    However, when he was summoned before the Senate Committee on Finance in December to give insight into the letter he wrote on the controversial missing money, Sanusi recanted saying $12 billion, and not $49.8billion, was the amount discovered not to have been remitted to the account within the period. That was after a joint reconciliation committee, of which he was part, had resolved the figure to $10.8 billion. Now, the CBN Governor’s position has changed again. This time, he has put the figure at $20billion.

    Between the vociferous rebuttals of the NNPC and the disturbing inconsistencies of the CBN, there is need to reach a middle point. Since the CBN and NNPC have continued to be at loggerheads, with the one insisting on $20 billion as funds yet to be accounted for, and the other vigorously asserting that it has accounted for virtually all the funds, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy (CME), Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has graciously recommended that the best way to get to the truth and reassure Nigerians who have been expressing strong opinions on the issue would be to set up an independent body that would do a forensic audit of all the documents and claims.

    Evidently, this should provide Nigerians with a definitive verdict on the controversy. We would recall that a similar forensic audit was deployed to investigate subsidy claims and this yielded good results and a better tighter process against fraud. With this firm stance on fairness, transparency and accountability maintained by the Finance Minister, we can rest assured that the reconciliation process will be completed with honesty and integrity, devoid of undue encumbrance from partisan interests.

     

    • Olusola Daniel,

    Kwara state.

     

  • Reflecting on the Mararaba-Nyanya-Abuja road traffic

    SIR: Daily, Nigerians who use the above stated road suffer a lot of inconveniences from or to Abuja. Most times, the traffic hold -up could keep people on the road for over two hours. It is really frustrating and uncharitable in a young city considered the world’s fastest growing city and the political capital of Africa’s most populous country.

    This situation worsens by the day as more vehicles and persons come into or leave Abuja via this road. By 2007 when I moved into Abuja and residing then in Karu Site Extension, it took a maximum of about thirty minutes to reach Aya junction in Asokoro; but that may surely not be the case today. The number of man-hours lost and the distress it causes in a hot environment like Abuja should only be imagined than experienced. To make the matter worse, private green buses (Araba) and motorcycles (Okada) have been banned from Abuja; thus crowding everyone in at Nyanya.

    To arrest the situation, the FRSC is now stationed at the Karu junction along the road so as to ensure organized vehicular movement at all times. Yet, no solution. One key solution would be to further expand this expandable road into a six-lane express road on either side up to Keffi in Nasarawa State. Another thing to do is to quickly construct a link road of near the same lane-size from Mararaba to Mpape and yet another one from Karshi to Apo. A final one can also be constructed to link Aya and either Orozo or Kurudu. With the construction of these link roads and further expansion of the main express, the traffic would flow better and it will give Abuja a further infrastructural face-lift just like the Aya to Kubwa road.

    The key purpose of governance is to reduce the sufferings of the people through having more common/public goods. I am pretty sure that these vital link roads if constructed would further beautify the FCT and free the flow of traffic from and to Abuja and reduce the sufferings of Nigerians who ply this road daily.

    • Okachikwu Dibia

    Abuja.

  • Nigeria’s leaders mustn’t toy with her peace

    SIR: May I use this medium to express my concern over the worrisome attitude of Nigerian rulers to issues about the peace of the nation. In 1999, the then leaders thought about Nigeria’s peace and proposed rotational presidency, consequent upon which all the major political parties chose their presidential candidates from the Southwest. When former President General Olusegun Obasanjo ended his second tenure in 2007, the pendulum shifted to the Northwest from where all the major political parties chose their candidates. That gave the impression that orderliness and peace had come.

    When President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua died, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ) and OBJ denied the rotational agreement, that it was Jonathan’s turn. Some Nigerians argued that the agreement was unconstitutional or undemocratic. I argued that the constitution was made for Nigeria and not vice versa. To those who said rotational presidency was undemocratic, I replied that democracy is about political order, and it becomes democratic if we endorse it.

    Curiously, there was a rumour in 2007 that OBJ chose Yar’Adua as his successor, knowing that he might soon die from kidney ailment, thus making GEJ his automatic successor and thereby helping the South-south people to taste the presidency. I dismissed the rumour in favour of my belief that OBJ chose Yar’Adua selfishly to compensate Shehu Musa Yar’Adua. But, everything happened as rumoured. Yar’Adua died, and OBJ declared operation total support for GEJ. Then I started begging Nigerians not to truncate rotational presidency for it would ensure order, equity, peace and progress if made to rotate among the six geopolitical zones.

    GEJ used his power of incumbency to set machinery in motion; depleted Nigeria’s foreign reserves and plunged the nation into bankruptcy. The debilitating campaigns necessitated fuel price increase from N65 to N97, soon after GEJ’s election in 2011, dressed as “fuel subsidy removal”. The same scenario is now playing out as GEJ is going from traditional rulers to religious leaders.

    Therefore, I appeal to the All Progressives Congress (APC) to make amends where necessary for past mistakes. I beg Nigerians to resist GEJ’s bribery and corruption for the new Nigeria of our dream. Visiting leading Kings, Emirs, etc with brown envelopes will not sway people who are tired of political disorder, corruption and abject poverty. GEJ will only enrich the bribed and aggravate ordinary people’s penury.

     

    • Pius Oyeniran Abioje, Ph.D,

    University of Ilorin.

  • Gov Amosun, let’s enjoy your good works

    SIR:, we the entire indigenes and residents of Simawa Town in the Sagamu Local Government Area of Ogun State appreciate the good services being rendered by the Ogun State Government under the leadership of Governor Ibikunle Amosun. We want his government to extend such to our communities by providing us with basic amenities including recreational facilities, schools, pipe-borne water, electricity and motorable roads. All these among others will bring Simawa Town to equal level of development with other towns in and outside the state in the interest of the people.

    Governor Amosun should as a matter of fact, not wait any longer to bring basic amenities to Simawa Town and its environs; we need good roads for free flow and transportation of our goods to other states; our children need recreational facilities and the entire town is thirsty for pipe-borne water among other good things of life.

    The giant strides of Amosun’s administration in road infrastructural development are awesome. We want him to do more for the people. However, as a person, the governor cannot do it alone with his lieutenants. This is why we believe that everyone, notably all traditional rulers, elders, spiritual leaders and other stakeholders should join hands with his government to genuinely move Ogun State forward to the desired destination.

    When the history of the Amosun-led administration will be written, we want it on record that Simawa is among the lucky towns that enjoyed the magic wand of the hard-working and people-loving governor. This is why we want him, his commissioners and the state legislators to consider us in the scheme of things as we are ready to continue to perform our civic duties as law-abiding citizens.

    • Prophet Francis Taiwo Olaseinde,

    Praise and Apostolic Church (Oke Agbara), Simawa.

  • ICPC: A new approach to fighting corruption

    he hydra-headed monster called corruption seems to be waxing strong so far. It does not seem to be affected in any manner despite the conscious efforts to bring it to its knees. As a debased moral value, it is amazing how its apostles are arrogant and shameless in their scandalous behaviours, its foot soldiers stomping like a terminal disease through the system and across the land. Shrouded in moral paralysis, corrupt elements demonstrate a brazen bravery, unabashed in their hope of never having to retreat in the war to further entrench corruption. Perceptively and evidentially, this remains a paradox in a society achingly seeking systemic integrity.

    It is like the more Nigerians talk about this and try to fight it, the worse the situation is getting. The culture of genuinely exposing acts of corruption as a duty to the country has not really taken any root among Nigerians. Rather, exposing acts of corruption still manifests as periodic acts of vendetta against any form of enemy, perceived or real. In addition, the political, social and economic systems prevailing in the country seem to preserve corruption rather than checkmate it.

    While not totally discountenancing the psycho-social necessity and impact of going after the symptoms as in isolating corrupt elements, investigating, indicting and trying them where necessary, Chairman Nta seems convinced that undue belligerence could and would always lead to missing out on some relevant systemic challenges that have helped and continue to sustain the incubation of corruption. Thus, his calm and calculated approach to isolate these systemic challenges, evaluate them and put in systemic corrective mechanisms that would serve as incorrigible obstacles to embedded variable acts of corruption is worthy of being evaluated.

    The ICPC thus seems to have consummated conscious and relentless efforts to take the ICPC and the fight against corruption to the next level, starting with institution of preventive mechanism, anchored largely on effective monitoring of the Nigerian systems with a view to plucking all loopholes which had hitherto been exploited by public officers to perpetrate acts of corruption. It is examining, reviewing and enforcing the correction of corruption-prone systems and procedures of public bodies.

    Instituting what he called System Review is first on the list of such preventive mechanisms. For instance, over the past few years, the ICPC had silently conducted system studies and reviews on different public and private institutions and had successfully blocked avenues for officers to engage in acts of corruption. For instance, the ICPC conducted system study and review on the 2012 budgetary allocation and expenditure profile on personnel cost of 234 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

    In the process, it recovered a total of N24.8 billion in cash, “being irregular payments from MDAs paid to Sub Treasury of the Federation (STF).” In the same vein, a total sum of N14. 4 billion was returned to the STF by MDAS in 2012 as unspent balances on personnel costs with a directive from ICPC. More interesting was the intervention of ICPC in the payment of civil servants salaries direct from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Through this, the commission has removed the temptation of physical cash left in the ministries that can be shared the end of the year.”

    Results were not much different when the ICPC conducted System Review on the Pension Funds. It succeeded in “closing down illegal bank accounts used in siphoning Pension Funds through 40 banks, with lodgements of the sum of N23 billion. The ICPC also discovered the sum of N469, 325, 25 accrued interests in the Pension Accounts, and had since remitted that to the STF.”

    The Nta-led ICPC also launched a Corruption Risk Assessment initiative in collaboration with TUGAR, UNDP and Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP). “The Commission gathered 69 corruption Risk Assessors drawn from the Federal, State, Public services as well as from the Civil Society Organisations.” In 2013, the Assessors conducted Corruption Risk Assessment in the Nigerian Ports with a view to discovering old and new avenues for perpetration of acts of corruption, while plugging them completely in the process.

    Added to the above is the ICPC grassroots programme that has given birth to a coordinated volunteerism. Founding and nurturing the National Anti Corruption Volunteers Corps (NAVC) across the 36 states of the federation has served the objectives of the ICPC very well as members of the corps had assisted severally in bursting corruption related crimes in different organisations leading to the arrest of culprits.

    ICPC staffs across the federation are well enlightened, having been exposed to training and re-training programmes. While collaborating with international organisations such as UNDP, UNODC, DFID, J4A to improve and bring its work process to international best practices, “the Commission is convinced that before long, the rest of Nigeria will fully align with the initiatives it had put in place for taming the incubus of corruption in the country.”

    It is also important to note that the Commission’s proactive strategy in fighting corruption necessitated the new plan to adopt surveillance approach, as a step to reducing time spent on investigation, in the fight against corruption. This is coming along with planned strengthening of the Commission’s Asset Tracing and Monitoring Unit (ATMU) as well as training of senior officers who will head its Anti-Corruption and Transparency Units (ACTUs) in the MDAs. The cost – benefit analysis of this approach is not only encouraging, it is very rewarding. It saves time, energy and money. The results coming in are great while much is still being expected.

    It is reassuring that the ICPC is recognising that fighting corruption is a war that requires depth of understanding, anatomical analysis, comprehensive accost and gradual but unhindered annihilation of the insidious debased moral value, its prowling apostles and its cavernously ensconced soldiers. The device of appropriate mechanisms and operational modalities will help in closing in on more of those corrupt elements in the public sector; checkmate them before they inflict any damage while amassing enough evidence to bring them to justice. Eventually, this will pan out to permeate the private sectors and other facets of our political, social, economic and religious spectrum.

    Oyeyemi writes from Abuja.

  • Fayemi has restored Ekiti’s core values

    SIR: Ekiti State was carved out of the old Ondo State on October 1, 1996 alongside five others by the military dictatorship of the late General Sani Abacha. Before the creation, it had about twelve local governments under the old Ondo State. Upon creation, it took off with sixteen (16) Local Government Areas and the status quo is still being maintained.

    Though, lacking in industrial development, the state is reputed to have produced the highest number of professors in Nigeria. Among several renowned academics from the state were Professors Adegoke Olubummo (the 1st Nigerian Professor of Mathematics), Adeyinka Adeyemi (1st Professor of Architecture in West Africa). Others include renowned academics like Profs J.F. Ade-Ajayi, Niyi Osundare, Sam Aluko and others too numerous to mention.

    From the foregoing, it is lucid that the sobriquet FOUNTAIN OF KNOWLEDGE, now LAND OF HONOUR, is not misplaced. Ekiti is historically, culturally, geographically, religiously and linguistically homogeneous. This homogeneity reflected in every son and daughter  of Ekiti in their stand for  industry, honesty, uprightness and justice. From the primitive history to this modern time, Ekiti people naturally loathe and always revolt against injustices and marginalisation being a socio-politically conscious race. It is on record that in the course of the struggle for the Nigeria’s independence, the position papers presented by the representatives and opinion leaders from Ekiti, were one of the adopted documents at the constitutional conference for the realisation of the Nigerian independence.

    But for good governance, all the good virtues, attributes of real Ekiti persons and core value that had been deeply rooted in our customs soon became history. In August 4, 2009, Ekiti State Command of the National Drug Law

    Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) rated the state as a leading producer of Marijuana a.k.a. Indian hemp in African continent, following the discovery of the largest single seizure  of Indian hemp in the state by the Agency and had earlier In February 2008  discovered about 53.7metric tons of cannabis in a storey building at Ise-Ekiti among other seizures which nearly eroded our dignity and cast doubt on the much-touted acronym, Fountain of Knowledge.

    Over time, education which was part of the prides of an Ekiti man was in shambles. More disheartening was the rating of Ekiti students as the 35th in WAEC, NECO and UTME in recent rating. Ekiti was fast losing her integrity, and were noted for election rigging. People no longer afraid or feel ashamed of being tagged election riggers. Ekiti became a state where truth was no longer the order of the day, no justice, no peace, the respect for individuals and elder became history.

    No wonder the speed of development in the state became very slow because where there is no justice there cannot be peace and consequently there cannot be development. The state, therefore, became notorious for ‘one day one trouble’ as violence of all kinds including killings became entrenched in our body politic. Apparently troubled by this worrisome situation and in his desire to bring back the lost core values of Ekiti, Governor Fayemi, upon

    assuming office, emphasized the need for Ekiti renaissance and put machinery in motion to actualize the objective.

    Firstly, he changed the Fountain of Knowledge cognomen to Land of Honour through rebranding with orientation that re-established and re-awakened the people’s consciousness.

    The Fayemi-led administration has done much more in ensuring that the culture of fairness, justice, hospitality, purposefulness and moral integrity are brought back. This was evident in the geometric increase in the rating of Ekiti from the abysmal 20 per cent recorded in 2012 to 70 per cent in Ekiti Senior Secondary School/West African Examination Council. It is noteworthy to conclude that Governor Fayemi’s three years in office, when he commissioned innumerable developmental projects had already eclipsed eight years of political upheavals, violence, uncertainty and anxiety that characterised the governments of his predecessors.

    The peace that had long eluded us has returned to Ekiti and the much-needed justice and honour to really revamp our values followed.

     

    • Gbenga Sodeinde wrote in from Ado Ekiti.

  • Re: “Good riddance”

    SIR: Dear Tunji,You happen to be one of my favourite columnists, which include a sizeable number of those with the Nation newspapers. The above title, which appeared in last Sunday’s Nation, not only made my day, I consider the ideas espoused, therein, scholarly and factual, as they emboldened my long held notion-that leadership in today’s highly sentimental Nigeria, requires a lot of courage if success  is the goal. There is so much to be done with the mindsets of the people constituting a cog in the wheel of progress, even when they pose as party supporters.

    I have my doubt if courage, not a desperate effort to impress OBJ did the trick, finally, on the issue of Oduagate.

    Politicians, with their satanic (not only greedy) desires have constituted themselves as cogs in the wheel of administrative (governance) progress, even when faking as party supporters/party loyalists/friends of government/governor. They make selfish, yet, unsalutary and anti-people demands of government, making governance uneasy and holding governors hostage. This is a dilemma, which makes leadership, in government, a no-go area for the spineless/a person who would rather be a good-boy than step on toes. This President isn’t the no-nonsense type of person, for obviously-understandable reasons.

    You would recall, Tunji, the tumultuous welcome given the APC governments in the south western region. It was, understandably, out of a collective desire for a change from the non-performance of previous years-not anything, whatsoever, to do with political party. The governments started well in what looked like we are “On the march again”, years after our journey to stardom, started by Obafemi Awolowo was brutally truncated, by the military. What do we, now have to show: abandoned projects with haphazard implementations suggestive of remote-controls/sinister motives, here and there. For example, a beautiful road project, over which people had being jubilating, getting stopped abruptly, for no visible reasons, after it has crossed a “big” politician’s community etc, in manners that are most suspicious.

    Permit me to quote for you, one of your passages, most striking to me “he (Mr President), would not have to lose sleep over whether his party’s lawmakers and governors are defecting; all he would lay bare for Nigerians is his score card which should be speaking for him now”. I always believe that this is one strong premise upon which democracy thrives. It reminds me of the River state fellow on Channel TV, (during the recent Rivers/Mbu scenario “talk your own make we talk our own, let the people choose”-here is a grass root person, defining, most- accurately, democracy. What do we have today, here and there: non-performing governors seeking re-election by harassing us with deceitful jingles using their states’ funds.

    I knew and predicted, long before election, that it would be hard, if not impossible for any one born of human to stop the second term bids of Fasola (Lagos) and Adams (Edo). The same would, under normal conditions, happen with Kwankwaso’s Kano, Akpabio and would have happened in Ngige’s Anambra, but for the orchestrated “kidnap” by Raphael Ige. To me, it takes a really bad governor to lose a bid for second term, under normal conditions in Nigeria.

    Truth is that the people know who serve them- politics apart. Chief Awolowo and the LOOBO governors were no angels but their names became indelible in the political history books, all on account of exemplary performance. All of these were possible because an individual/group of men, of impeccable character, were willing to call the shot, in what I call benevolent dictatorship or authoritarianism. We would need to have this if we are to move forward-I know you might quarrel with me, here.

    The Options before APC or any party willing to make a difference and avert a fast-approaching state of chaos is to acknowledge this un-usual fact. Chief Awolowo ordered (NOT advised/appealed to/pleaded with) Ambrose Ali, then governor of Edo, to first pay back the state money he (Ambrose) used to bury his father,(about 500,000 naira ONLY!) into the state treasury, before coming to see him (Chief Awolowo), for further directives-it was like a case of a senior prefect overseeing the lesser prefects. It is the only way to move forward taming the excesses of individuals with anti-people desires/intentions and guarantees, more than any of these gangsterist methods, the electoral fortunes of the political party and the enduring reputation of governors and governance.

    In summary, there must be an impeccable central command structure, respectable and possibly “feared”. That centre must be benevolent, noting also that, unlike in a parliamentary model, what we have, gives enormous powers that can be abused by the unscrupulous.

     

    •Ade Ayeni

    Ade Ayeni

    wuleemu@yahoo.co.uk.

  • Afe Babalola: An icon with magnetic clout

    SIR: All Aare Afe Babalola – a quintessential legal practitioner and exemplary philanthropist of no mean order – ever wanted to be is the best! Loathe him, but you certainly can’t but admire his style. At the convocation of the first set of graduates of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), President, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, who was personally present at the occasion spoke glowingly of the icon of law practice and first-class educationist whose institution is racing to compete with ivy-league institutions. At the commissioning, Jonathan said Afe’s feat was “notably one of the most outstanding individual contributions towards government educational project”. The visit by President Jonathan to the Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), sometime ago, was just to keep a tradition that his predecessors had, for years, kept inviolate – honouring a man who has been touching lives in awe-inspiring ways.

    Though the Presidency may not have had a chummy relationship with the elder statesman over his past comments about certain policies of his administration, but the president nonetheless still hold him in high esteem. The Engineering Complex of the university was named after the current President and: Isn’t it a little curious that the man was the first to criticize Jonathan when he unsuccessfully changed the name of the University of Lagos to Moshood Abiola University?  Isn’t it also ironic that he has spoken against several policies of the current president?  Even before Jonathan spoke national conference that is generating ripples across the land, Afe had said it and the President counted on some of his views.

    He is known to be firm and transparently honest with his clients and associates.  His natural ability to handle people is so inspiring that even when he disagrees with them at meetings, he would disarm them with grace and wit.  That is the reason he has had the rare privilege of hobnobbing with all the Presidents that have been ruling the country.  They associate with him; they curry his favour because they know he has the Midas touch.  The late President Shehu Shagari asked him, after he won a celebrated case for the federal government, what he wanted in lieu of his legal fees.  Shagari had marveled at ‘how a man could turn down a whopping five million pounds in exchange for a university for his people in Ekiti.’

    Afe told Shagari that he would forgo his fees of five million pounds if he (Shagari) could fulfil his heart desire of having a university in Ekiti, then a part of the old Ondo State.  That was the first time Afe Babalola caught national attention.  From that point, successive Presidents had begged him to be part of their governments.  When they could not convince him to join the train, they appealed to him to recommend people of his choice to fill plum positions in government.  Even the late fiery General Sani Abacha was said to have sent emissaries to appeal to the legal giant to be the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister for Justice.  That stemmed from the respect he earned himself with his views.  Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, as Nigeria’s President, also engaged him to gain political and legal mileage for his administration.

    Perhaps nothing established the fact that Afe has won a place in the history of the nation’s giant-hood through educational advancement than the spectacle tagged the maiden convocation of ABUAD last year. What a celebration of a true patriot who came to make an indelible mark in his time!

    • Kolawole Igandan is a media consultant and PR executive based in Lagos.

  • Nigerian leaders must change their ways

    SIR: the ongoing face-off between the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and the House of Representatives Committee on Finance, over the budget and the state of the economy, is another repulsive scenario. The Committee had asked the Minister to furnish it with answers to a set of fifty questions which the minister obliged it (the committee). At the weekend, however, the Committee, through its Chairman, Honourable Abdulmumini Jibrin, rejected the minister’s response, insisting that “some questions were either not answered, partially answered, ignored or completely misunderstood”. Consequent upon this, the minister has been sent another set of fifty questions and mandated to appear before the committee for further questioning.

    This latest drama of the absurd is the ongoing fiasco involving the All Progressives Congress and the Federal Government in which the former justifiably directed its members in the National Assembly to filibuster on debate regarding the 2014 Appropriation Bill. These two scenarios are intimately related – half-truth is being presented to the public as the truth. Anyone who is familiar with the way members of the National Assembly, especially those of the lower house, have been conducting their affairs – particularly in regard to issues of finance – cannot fail to note that the ostensible purpose of the so-called fifty questions is for Nigeria to have a more robust economy but the real goal, one can make bold to say, is self-service. In a House where some of the members have, at various times in the past, been incriminated of ignoble financial crimes (remember Faruk Lawal?) and certificate forgery (remember Salisu Buhari?), and where there has never been probity and accountability in financial matters, what else does one expect but the present scenarios.

    There is something not quite right in the present face-off. In one’s considered opinion, rather than the honourable minister, it is actually members of the House of Representative Committee on Finance that have questions to answer. If these so-called Honourable men are people with their honours intact indeed, they need to demonstrate to Nigerians first why they have to be taken seriously, and this has to start with them telling us what they wish to achieve with these fifty questions. Yes, they have stated the purpose of these questions, but we know too that these questions raise issues that they themselves are also implicated in. He who comes to justice must come with clean hands, and he who leaves in glass house should throw no stones.

    While it is true that the minister is the coordinator of the economy, it is also true that she is not alone in ensuring that the economy does not go to the dogs. The House of Representatives, through its Committee on Finance, ought to realize that Nigerians are not fools and cannot be hoodwinked into shifting blames for the parlous state of the economy to the Finance Minister alone.

    How accountable are these men? How have they been expending the monies allocated to them for constituency projects and oversight functions? What can they say about the humongous amount being paid out to them every month in salaries and other emoluments, the bulk of which forms part of our recurrent expenditure? Can these men, in all honesty, wash themselves clean of the hushed allegation making the round that they routinely collect bribe in order to approve ministry budgets and other spending?

    More crucial than the above is the question of morality. Here is an assembly with a shameful record of infamy. We cannot forget too soon the case of Honourable Farouk Lawan. We cannot forget too soon that this is a House where members have been routinely implicated in sundry cases of bribery leading to aborted investigation into corruption charges. How, pray, can this House consider itself morally upright enough to ask the minister the so-called fifty questions. It is all too glaring that these so-called fifty questions and other matters arising therein are related to the current impasse in the House over the Appropriation Bill, and this is rather unfortunate considering the self-serving overtone of the whole affair.

    No nation can expect to be great if the leaders will always think that they can always pull the wool over the eyes of the citizenry. For sooner than later, it would be revealed that no matter for how long falsehood may have been travelling, it will take only a moment for the truth to catch up with it. A note of warning: Nigerians are watching. We are gearing up for a purge, and anyone caught in the vortex of our collective action will have only himself or herself to blame!

     

    • Issachar Odion, a Post-graduate student lives in Abuja.

  • As Igbo become a minority in Nigeria

    SIR: The Igbo today are groping in a labyrinth of confusion; a labyrinth that they have knitted together out of humongous morsels of selfishness, avarice and ignorance. And as they waltz in the ball of anodyne confusion their status or place in the Nigerian entity magnanimously tapers off.

    It is indubitable to aver that the place of the Igbo in Nigeria is the abominable and thrashed quarters of irrelevance. The Igbo take the wizened, bottom space after the Hausa, Yoruba and Ijaw. In fact, other peoples that are considered ethnic minorities in Nigeria may go up the political ladder before the Igbo as it is today. To say the least, the Igbo have become side-kicks to dominant Hausa-Yoruba-Ijaw power heroes in the Marvel comic of Nigeria.

    As always, the unthinking Igbo horde will allude the present condition of the Igbo to the Biafra-Nigeria civil war. And for this horde there is no way out of the asphyxiating cul-de-sac because the war has already done irredeemable damage. Playing the victim has become the lazy default configuration of some Igbo.

    Is the war the reason greedy Igbo leaders in a perfidious clique known as Ohanaeze barter the political future of the Igbo for billions of naira which they swallow, and defecate pennies for their coterie of unthinking followers? Is the war the reason states in the South-east are sprawling igloos in spite of all the huge monetary allocations to the various South-east governments? Is the war the reason the Igbo lack direction, and orphaned of an agenda? Is war the cause of the gully erosion gormandizing parts of Anambra State with belligerence? Is the war the reason the Igbo are ball boys at the Maracana of Nigerian politics? Is the war the reason for the ossified, steal-abroad-and-take-chieftaincy-title -at-home culture in Igboland? Is the war the reason for the baby factories mushrooming in Igboland? Is the war the reason for preponderance of Igbo criminal regiments at home and abroad? There are many more imposing posers, but these are for cerebral crunching.

    Perhaps, the war is the reason why “Kpomo” is more expensive in Anambra than in Kano.

    For the thinking Igbo, it is wholesomely clear that the trash position of the Igbo in Nigeria today is as a result of a concatenation of ill-forces mustered by the Igbo themselves. The vilest ill force militating against Igbo ascendancy to affluence, influence and power is Igbo penny leaders. The fact is a scrum of Igbo penny leaders feed fat on the emaciated condition of the Igbo in Nigeria. They claim to represent the Igbo, but what they do is to gulp down mouth watering sums of valuable paper in exchange for Igbo’s rights farting stained coins of greed. The alleged handout of 1.2 billion given to Ohanaeze by President Goodluck Jonathan is a knocking affirmation of this point. Even if Ohanaeze disputes the allegation, the truth remains it cannot be tooting Jonathan’s horns and running his errands for free. Ohanaeze, we all know is not for charity. So it must have been duly raking in “solid quid” into its bloating coffers from its consort with the President.

    The vacuity of Igbo leadership heralds itself as the national conference dawns. The Igbo seem to be the obfuscated people without an agenda. The Yoruba agenda is regional autonomy. The Hausa-Fulani agenda according to Arewa Consultative Forum is unitary Nigeria (even though they are euphemistic about it), but the Igbo sadly, tout conflicting ideological noises as agenda. At best, what the Igbo do is to sandwich themselves between Ijaw agenda of resource control and self-determination. One Igbo leader from the North Pole cries, “self-determination” another one from the South Pole screams “con-federalism”. Disjointed schema! Playing the “fourth fiddle” has become the genius of the Igbo.

     

    • Fredrick Nwabufo,

    Abuja.