The Nation Newspaper

Category: Opinion

  • Diversification: Steel industry to the rescue

    If well harnessed, Nigeria could earn $3 billion in foreign exchange from the steel industry. In this article entitled: “Reviving Nigeria’s steel industry for economic development”, Frederick Owonka, identifies the industry as one of the major pillars of the diversification efforts of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.

    Thanks to corruption, poor management, sponsored sabotage and fake news/barriers created by competitors/importers afraid of competition, professional litigants, many industrial initiatives have either collapsed or were abandoned. Nigeria’s steel industry is one of the key economic sectors abandoned by the past administrations in the country, and no reasonable government can afford to see such huge investments go into waste.

    Since the Buhari administration was elected into office in 2015, the country has witnessed a rigorous and well-focused commitment to revive the country’s abandoned industrial projects. The steel industry is one of the major pillars of Nigeria’s economic diversification efforts. Undoubtedly, the Buhari administration has demonstrated real commitment to this national endeavour.

    Local production of steel will significantly reduce Nigeria’s importation of steel and save Nigeria a minimum of $3 billion dollars in foreign exchange per year. In a world that has grown furiously competitive, no nation can afford to rely on one export commodity. It is, in fact, no longer safe for Nigeria to depend entirely on oil as the main revenue earner.

    One of the key objectives of privatisation is the desire to achieve efficiency and profitability. Besides, the success or failure of privatisation also depends on the technical experience and competence of the investors taking over public enterprises.

    Premium Steel and Mines Limited, fully owned by Nigerians with 50 years of successful track record in key sectors & major industries of the economy is making impressive progress in terms of achieving Nigeria’s economic diversification initiatives.

    According to the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Prasantra Mishra, Premium Steel and Mines Ltd, will produce 50 per cent of Nigeria’s steel needs in the first phase of manufacture.

    With its facility at Ovwian, Aladja, Delta State, the company has pledged to meet more than 50 per cent of steel products need during the first phase of production. Premium Steel has been allocated Iron ore mines in Kogi and will commence mining soon. Mr. Mishra, who announced this at the official commissioning of the steel and mining facility, said it was high time “Nigeria, sustainably and inclusively converged with the rest of the world to enhance industrial and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita income.

    Mishra explained: “We are touching the lives of the local communities, particularly through accessible and affordable healthcare, employment, women empowerment, education and sustainable development.

    It is not enough for investors to make profits, but they should also make positive impact on the lives of the communities where they serve. In line with this objective, Mishra noted that his company is committed to Nigeria’s industrial and economic revolution to lay the foundation of efforts to address poverty and inequality by creating job opportunities, and wealth creation.

    The former Delta Steel Company (DSC), which was estimated to produce 1.2 million tons of various steel products per annum, is currently being run by Premium Steel and Mines Ltd.

    Backed by sound experience, these local investors have remarkably transformed the former DSC into modern industrial success story. The company is now retooled with state-of-the-art equipment and “it is ready for competitive production as the wheels spin once again”.

    Ranked as one of Nigeria’s best steel mills to produce the BS 4449 grade steel, Premium Steel has the capacity to produce high capacity and quality products to be used for high-rise buildings, bridges, flyovers, malls due to its tough mechanical and remarkable strength.

    No less important government support is essential to the success of the investors. Mishra praised the Buhari administration’s industrial transformation agenda, describing it as the “prerequisite for economic development and sustained per capita income. He also recognized the dynamic leadership style, guidance and support of the Mines & Steel Development Minister, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, for what he called Fayemi’s ‘strong initiative.’”

    According to the minister’s road map for development, his ministry is capable of contributing $27 billion dollars to the country’s GDP.

    According to the road map, Nigeria’s aspiration was to be Africa’s mining mineral processing centre last year and in 2020; it seeks to make Nigeria compete in the global market for refined metals and minerals from 2018 to 2030 with the ultimate goal of achieving globally competitive mining sector.

    Read Also: Twist in the Ajaokuta Steel tale

  • ‘Annoying things clients do’

    Obidigwe Chidozie’s dream came true when he was called to the Bar in 2016. The Nnamdi Azikiwe University graduate shares his story with ROBERT EGBE.

    Family

    I am Obidigwe Ekemezie Chidozie. I am 25 years old, from Mgbakwu in Awka North Local Government Area of Anambra State. I am the first child of six children: five boys and a girl.

     

    Second Class Upper at university and Law School

    I attended Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, where I obtained an LL.B in Law with a Second Class Upper Division. I graduated in July, 2015. Thereafter, I proceeded to the Nigerian Law School, Abuja Campus where I bagged a Second Class Upper Division and was called to the Bar in November 2016.

     

    Why I loved law

    Well, my choice of law was informed by my love for the profession. My dad was my biggest inspiration for studying law. He’s a lawyer. I admired the way he gesticulated as a lawyer, using legal terms. The apparels of lawyers also tickled my fancy. I wanted to be like dad. Today, it’s a reality.

     

    Working smart helped me at Law School

    Law School is an interesting institution to be but just once. In fact, being at Abuja campus was one of the best things God did for me. I enjoyed every bit of my stay; ranging from the hardworking and committed lecturers to the style of teaching. The Law School programme was quite Herculean in the sense that you have a whole lot of module courses to digest within a limited time. Like my Head of Academics at the Law School would say, “Hard work is important as a student at the Law School, but working smartly is more important.” So working smart was what helped me.

     

    Law School marking scheme

    It’s high time the status quo is changed so as to give disgruntled students a sense of pride. Imagine a student making an A in four courses and one B, that’s a Second Class Upper at the Law School. At the University, such grade could place you in the First Class cadre. So, I think the Council of Legal Education should reverse this trend.

     

    Call to Bar was memorable, but…

    Well, that memorable event was quite stressful. I was slated for the evening call, which ended late. Friends and family were waiting for me at a scheduled spot not far from the Venue of Call. We all ate and drank in merriment of such epic event and took some photographs.

     

    Most memorable day

    It was the day judgment was given in my favour at the Magistrate Court on a tenancy matter I didn’t begin with as a lawyer for the defendant. It gave me much confidence as a young wig.

     

    Greatest challenge

    My greatest challenge has been not getting the best form of incentive as a young wig. You put a lot of hard work for your boss, only to be remunerated little. I know it’s for a while though.

     

    Experience simpliciter doesn’t pay bills

    There is mostly a usual song amongst young wigs which is “poor pay” which often tend to strain strategic relationship between young lawyers and their principals. Most complaints of young lawyers against their principal is that of poor monetary incentive. I know a couple of colleagues who left their former workplace to a new place because their principals were indifferent to their welfare. As for me, it hasn’t been rosy as a young wig. I suffer the same fate of poor salary package. Some of these principals tell us that we are getting the experience from them and ought to pay for the experience gotten. Yes, the experience is rewarding, but they have to understand that we always need good pay to spur us to perform efficiently. Experience simpliciter (without any qualification or condition) doesn’t pay bills!

     

    Annoying things clients do

    Some clients tend to pay you lesser legal fees because of your age at the Bar. Some of the clients look down on you, doubting your abilities as a young lawyer. I remember vividly one client doubting if I could perfectly draft a deed of Assignment. The client asked, “Counsel, can you draft a Deed of Assignment?” It was really annoying you know.

     

    What I would change about law

    There is need for an overhaul of the Land Use Act of 1978. There is a provision I find curious. The Land Use and Allocation Committee is a body set up by the governor to advise the governor on the amount of compensation payable under the Land Use Act for improvements on land. I propose that this committee be made a neutral and independent body that wouldn’t be loyal to the biddings of the governor. The principle of Nemo Judex in causa sua applies here (you cannot be a judge in your own cause). The committee is a judge in their own cause.

     

    Marrying a lawyer

    I can marry a lawyer in so far there is an understanding between us and we are compatible. I believe one’s choice of marriage shouldn’t be predicated on the profession of the other party, but it should be a matter of attraction, perfect synergy, and good understanding between the parties.

     

    The future

    I hope to become a Senior Advocate of Nigeria someday with much hardwork and determination… I have flair for commercial transactions; so, I want to be a seasoned Corporate lawyer too and possibly a Chartered Arbitrator.

  • Wanted: An ‘independent’ INEC

    Electoral bodies have the responsibility of conducting elections to enable citizens exercise their franchise to elect their leaders.

    Whoever secures the votes of the majority is entrusted with the mantle of leadership and it is to him that the electorate surrendersits political and financial rights.

    The choice of the majority may not always be the right one, and, although the minority will have its say, politics is a numbers game, so, the majority will have its way.

    But if privileged minorities force their will on the majority (which, in my view, has continued for too long in our country) it is an invitation to bad governance. There is a direct correlation between free and fair elections and good governance. In fact, the most certain way to ensure accountable leadership is a free and fair ballot system.

    It is often said that elections in Nigeria since the inception of the Fourth Republic in 1999, have been anything but acceptable. There is thus a need for concerted efforts to right the wrongs.

    The first step, in my opinion, is to identify the wrongs that have corrupted the system and cheated the majority of their choices for too long.

     

    The Constitution and the Independent National Electoral Commission (Establishment) Act

    Sometimes, the problem is caused by the inadequacies in the enabling legislation: the Independent National Electoral Commission (Establishment) Act 2004.  It might also be the absence of the will power to implement the safeguards for independence and good polls as provided and stipulated in the Act.

    The prevailing attitude of indifference by Nigerians as if they are resigned to the impossibility of achieving the desired objective must be discouraged. Nigerians must begin to see themselves as the beginning of the change – an ‘it begins with me’ attitude.

    The 1999 Constitution (as amended) and INEC Act have copious provisions for INEC’s independence.

    But, do these provisions merely express an intention of independence for the electoral body or do they cloth the electoral body with actual independence?

    Section 158 of the Constitution provides for the independence of certain federal executive bodies, to wit: “In exercising its powers to make appointments or to exercise disciplinary control over persons, … the Independent National Electoral Commission, shall not be subject to the direction or control of any other person or authority.”

    Similarly, the INEC Act in Section 6 provides that “In the discharge of its functions under this Act, the commission shall not be subject to the direction or control of any other person or authority.”

     

    How legislation undermines INEC’s independence

    Do these provisions really guarantee the independence of the electoral body? Is it enough to state that the commission should be independent when the independence is given by the right hand and essentially taken away by the left?  How is the leadership of the electoral body appointed and what is the source of its funding?

    The Constitution and the Act are silent on the funding of the electoral body despite providing for the appointment of the leadership of the electoral body.

    On appointment, Section 154(1) of the Constitution provides that the INEC chairman shall be appointed by the president subject to confirmation by the senate. The President also reserves the right to remove him from office albeit on an address supported by two-third majority of the senate – Section 157 (1) of the Constitution.

    In a polity like ours, I dare to say that the mode of appointment of the head of the electoral body makes it susceptible to manipulation by the Presidency and to maintain an unholy loyalty to the president as experience has shown thus far.

    There must be something fundamentally wrong with the system as we operate it here that has made nearly all the leadership of the electoral body under whatever nomenclature since independence to have failed or performed really poorly.

    From Eyo Esua, Michael Ani, Victor Ovie-Whiskey, Ema Ewa, Humphrey Nwosu, Ephraim Akpata, Prof Okon Uya, Abel Guobadia, Maurice Iwu to Prof Atahiru Jega and now Mohammed Yakubu, our elections have always lacked the acceptability element of results of elections which electoral bodies in other climes enjoy.

    For instance, EyoEsua, who led the first indigenous electoral body in the country, organised the first post-independence federal and regional elections of 1964 and 1965. The December 1964 election was marred by controversy and confusion which led to a military coup in 1966.

    The result of the Michael Ani-led commission, which conducted the election that ushered in the Second Republic government of Alhaji Shehu Shagari on October 1, 1979, was rejected by the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), led by late Chief Obafemi Awolowo who challenged Shagari’s election in court but lost.

    The elections conducted by Justice Ephraim Akpata that ushered in the Obasanjo’s government in 1999 did not carry any wide acceptability or approval.

    Maurice Iwu conducted the elections that were perhaps the most controversial in the nation’s history. Even the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua admitted that the election that made him president in 2007 was flawed. By the time his tenure expired he had perhaps no goodwill left, that his appointment was not renewed.

    After those era came Prof. Atahiru Jega and now Mohammed Yakubu. The outcries against controversial elections have still not changed. However, the situation does not seem to be as absurd as it was in the recent past. At least, there are hardly many incidences of number of votes outnumbering number of registered voters. Whether that is as a result ‘of the bird learning to fly without perching because of the improvement of the shooter’s prowess, is another issue.

    All over the world an aligned electoral body no matter how slight the alignment is, has done a polity no good and it cannot be different for our country.

    With the experience in Nigeria since the return of democracy in 1999, one can say with almost no fear of contradiction that the ‘INEC’ has been anything but independent. From Abel Guobadia to Maurice Iwu, to Jega and now, Mohammed Yakubu they have always maintained a leaning, most commonly to the ruling and appointing authority.

    The then ruling party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) enjoyed the revered privilege of being in control of the ‘INEC’ for so long (sixteen years) and during the period the other political parties were at their mercy and most likely envious of PDP’s position of influence over the electoral body.

    What we see presently with the state electoral commissions is clear proof. Just as it has always been with the other states, Edo State recently conducted its Local Government elections and the results released by the Edo State Independent Electoral Commission (ESIEC) shows that the ruling party won in all the 18 local governments in the state. It is almost the same in all the states.

    To be continued next week

  • African leaders and SDGs

    Coming shortly after the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) was wound down, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is one among the cocktail of measures by the global community towards making the world a better place.  I am a strong advocate in Nigeria and Africa for exploring the synergy between SDGs and good governance and leveraging the goals to work for our people and our humanity at large.

    Most of us are still saddened that we never fully explored the utility of MDGs as key development tools for the 15 years they lasted. I remain mindful of missed opportunities and lessons learned, more so as a former state governor who appreciated fully how sub-national governments could benefit from and be instrumental to the implementation of MDGs in the interest of humanity. One of the lessons was that as much as we tried as individual leaders to attain the MDGs, such measures fell far short of the full effects of collective action.

    It seems difficult to address SDGs without first grasping the harmful effects of not giving unfettered support to meeting the MDGs targets.  If the MDGs did not fly fully, will the consequent SDGs fly – since the SDG programme is a follow-on to the MDGs? I recall the then UN Secretary-General Mr. Ban Ki-Moon’s frank observation that ”The Millennium Development Goals were a pledge to uphold the principles of human dignity, equality and equity, and free the world from extreme poverty… The MDGs measured what mattered to people. As we look ahead, we must do more to reach those who are most vulnerable, are not counted and have not shared the improvements of the past 15 years”. Unquestionably, there was a void, but it must be admitted that where faithfully pursued, MDGs added value not just to good governance, but to overall development and quality of life, as exemplified in China.

    China’s successful integration of MDGs into its national development planning, with effective and coordinated implementation from national to local governments, helped the country to achieve an unprecedented transformative result, using the three most critical goals: lifted 439 million people out of poverty; achieved universal basic education ahead of schedule; and made tremendous improvements in health care for women and children, and disease prevention and control.

    In contrast, within this period in Africa, there was drastic under-performance in the three critical goals: Poverty rose from 290 million to 414 million persons; Less than 70% was achieved in universal basic education; the number of under-nourished children rose from 27 million to 32 million.

    An example of what could have been done to achieve better results could be drawn from our efforts in my state, Anambra, where we domesticated the MDGs via a home-grown mechanism tagged ”Anambra Integrated Development Strategy” (ANIDS). This approach enabled us to simultaneously engage constructively in seamless planning, budgeting, and implementation of all the MDGs. These enabled us to achieve remarkably visible results across the MDGs, especially in first three critical goals.

    We became the first state in Nigeria to conduct mapping to establish the statistics of poverty. A major finding from the study was that poverty was fuelled by inadequate access to rural communities, which made us construct rural roads across the state to open up those areas to development opportunities and grant rural farmers access to urban markets for increased earnings from their produce. As affirmed by the then Minister of Works and the Senate Committee on Works, Anambra State during our administration had the best road network, particularly rural roads, in the country.

    Poverty alleviation also received a boost from the reconstruction and rehabilitation of our Industrial Estate in Onitsha; attracting investments from such Fortune 500 companies like the then SABmiller. We further accelerated the pace of industrialization as first state in Nigeria to partner with the Bank of Industry to obtain low-interest loans for MSMEs domiciled in the state.

    Our decision to return schools to their original missionary proprietors gave rise to a novel and unprecedented Government-Church partnership. The state consistently earned the first position in most national examinations, with the added value of raising productivity in different walks of life. So unique were ANIDS and its dividends that the World Bank commissioned a study of our achievements by a team led by renowned Oxford University’s Professor Collier, for possible adoption by other governments. The World Bank supports Anambra State because of that revolutionary approach.

    In health, again with novel partnership with the missionaries, we were able resuscitate 10 Schools of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Technology. Existing hospitals were rehabilitated and revamped through huge investments in facilities and staffing. We also established 10 primary and maternal health hospitals in rural communities across the state from the money we won from Melinda and Gates Foundation by being the best state in the eradication of polio; and at the tertiary level, a teaching hospital. With these efforts, Anambra State achieved reduction in infant mortality ahead of the MDGs deadline of 2015.

    It has been argued that the framework of the SDGs and Agenda 2030 (with 17 goals, 169 targets and 230 indicators) is too broad to make any meaningful impacts possible. But the reality is that the SDG framework is only as broad as the prevailing global challenges and unmet development needs. If we desire truly to attempt to end poverty and ensure that people’s human dignity and human rights are respected, we should be less concerned about the multiplicity of goals, targets and indicators. Rather, we should get to work – moving from agenda to action.

    I share the views of Helen Clark, the then UNDP Administrator, who recognized in 2015 that world leaders had the unique and unprecedented opportunity ”to shift the world onto a path of inclusive, sustainable and resilient development”. If  the SDGs programme is a continuum and should kick off where the MDGs ended, then the African continent needs to acknowledge that it failed in the three most critical MDGs and that such poor results must not be repeated with the SDGs.

    It is instructive that the MDGs success was offset by prevailing challenges and many areas of unmet needs, which characterized the results and progress as at best halting and mixed. Lingering problem areas likely to affect the SDGs include lack of political will, poor co-coordination, bureaucratic bottle-necks, poor resource management, erratic industrial actions, poor or total lack of true and validated baseline data, poor budgeting and accountability, and non-coordination between federal, state and local government agencies.

    Drawing from our experience in the poor implementation of the MDGs in Africa, making the SGDs work requires complete domestication of SDGs into the development planning of each country, and tailoring their effective and coordinated implementation modalities to the peculiarities of each nation and their sub-national and local geo-political entities.

    Effective funding is of critical importance. Africa cannot be parsimonious in funding the SDGs and expect the programme to achieve its set goals. Africa must match their funding efforts with broad support for the development of human capital and eschew negative trends like nepotism and corruption that chase capital and investments away. Nepotism is worse than corruption because it kills hard work and professionalism as people’s hard work would not match their opportunities.

    Africa must premise their action on the understanding that the most critical drivers of the SDGs are human beings – the beneficiaries and the implementers. Besides the human component, the continent must strive for adequate, reliable data collection, processing and utilization; effective evaluation and  monitoring at every stage of progress; transparent and inclusive budgeting; accountability; applying lessons learned and grasping missed opportunities; and strong political will.

    Finally, Africa owes it to our humanity to rally to a consensus that the SDGs must not flounder like the MDGs on account of collective inaction. The time to act is now, and this Global Festival of Action for SDGs represents a clarion “Call to Action”. Africa must overcome their lethargy, and must seize the moment.

     

    • Excerpts from remarks by Peter Obi, Former Governor of Anambra State at the Global Festival of Action for Sustainable Development Goals, At the World Conference Centre, Bonn, Germany,   March 21-23.

  • Faithful Leah

    Despite the melancholy foisted on our country men and women by the audacious Boko Haram terrorists, I see hope in the heroism of Leah Sharibu, who defiantly refused to trade her faith for freedom. The SS 1 pupil of Government Science and Technical College, Dapchi, rejected the offer by the dreaded sect to convert to Islam as price for her release with the rest of her colleagues. Left alone amidst rapists, killers, bigots and the misbegotten, Leah leaps into world acclaim with her message delivered by her mother: ‘let the will of God be done.’

    Even as the guns boom, swords slash throats, bazookas take out villages, Leah by her resolute determination teaches our leaders how to deal with cowards. Stare down the brutes with courage. By being faithful to a cause, Leah has morphed into a legend. By her action, Leah teaches us faith. Faith in God and whatever worthy cause we believe in. She has reassured a nation in distress that her generation is not only concerned about entertainment and debauchery.

    When recently a youth corps member despite the klaxon of an approaching train and calls to run for her dear life, got crushed to death on a rail track, most likely because she was ensconced listening to the indecorous music of her generation, many while regretting her untimely death, were further alarmed about the continued degeneracy of our youths. Similarly, each time a misguided faction of the National Association of Nigerian Students-our future elites, trade indecorously in awards for pieces of silver, they make the future scarier for all discerning Nigerians.

    When our youths prefer to walk around showing their under-pants as a fashion ensemble; when major chunk of our future leaders prefer to be ensconced in Tramadol and other elixirs to starve a conscious appreciation of their decadent state, while waiting ‘to hammer’; when our pupils join cults to advance socially and academically instead of engaging in excellence in various endeavours and swotting at night for high grades, Leah’s resolute resolve resonates.

    Clearly bold, beautiful and brainy, Leah represents hope not just for her distraught parents Mr Nathan and Mrs Rebecca Sharibu, but also for our beleaguered country Nigeria, especially her youths. She is the stuff saints are made off. As the parish priest of Holy Family Catholic Church, Very Rev. Fr. Simeon Irabor asked rhetorically at a short but incisive homily at an evening Mass, last Friday, how many of us can resist temptation in the face of a little challenge. How many of us can resist the offer of bribe, especially in the midst of poverty he asked?

    Leah refused to be bribed with freedom in exchange for faith. She understood the teaching we have heard over and over again during this Lenten period in our various churches concerning the single minded determination of Jesus Christ to walk the way of the Cross, despite the temptation to balk and walk away. Leah appreciates perhaps the greatest teaching of the way of the Cross to man: “that your body may be broken, but no force on earth and none in hell can take away your will, your will is yours.”

    Many of us would have accepted the offer of freedom in exchange for faith, with the intention to recant the conversion as soon as we are out of danger. Indeed, for lesser mortals, the easy way out would be to accept the offer on the grounds that it was procured under duress. If she didn’t have a strong will, she would have accept the jejune offer from the bandits, knowing that no ordinary mortal would condemn her for a conversion obtained under duress.

    By her conduct, Leah put a knife to the commonest lie that bedevil criminal trials in our courts. At every juncture in the prosecution of high profile criminal cases, part of the delay tactics is to force the court to engage in what is referred to as trial within trial. In one recent instance at the federal high court Lagos, the lawyer to the accused objected to tendering of the witness statement, obtained by the EFCC and videoed, alleging that the statement was obtained under duress.

    When asked how the statement was obtained, the accused person said that the EFCC put a gun to his head to obtain the statement. In essence he was saying he was threatened to lie against himself. But here is a teenage girl who would not lie before the dreaded Boko Haram. Of course, many in the court were choking with supressed laughter, over this well beaten part. If at the trial within trial that must follow, the court accepts that the evidence was obtained under duress, the piece of evidence would be thrown out.

    The import of this digression is that Leah could have legitimately agreed to the condition, and when she gets back to safe custody, she would plead that the conversion was obtained under duress and is worthless. I doubt if any human judge would not acquit her, for indeed, the conversion would have been obtained with a gun literally held to her head. But she rejected the temptation and held out against potent threats, unlike our defendant in the criminal trial who most likely imagined the gun, and fell under the spell of his own imagination.

    In our recent memory of national distress, Leah in her little way aped the legendry M. K. O. Abiola, the acclaimed winner of June 12, 1993 election, by being resolute, in the face of grave and potent danger. MKO who had had a great life of surplus, rejected to trade his honour and presidential mandate for the impaired freedom offered by the menacing dictator Gen Sani Abacha. He stood resolute to the shock and amazement of his detractors, who thought that because he had lived in luxury, he would not withstand pain and deprivation that prison represented.

    Returning to Leah, we are encouraged by a beautiful teenager, as her picture in the papers clearly depicts, remaining resolute and bold in the midst of clear and potent danger. Of course she must be intelligent to decipher what ultimately is more important in the long run: that it is not how long but how well we lived that matters. Regardless of what happens to her in the custody of the dreaded Boko Haram, Leah’s faithfulness will resonate for a long time to come.

    When the news broke that the Dapchi girls have been dramatically released, I had a good laugh, for I knew that President Buhari and his party would be excoriated for their efforts. The way the release fell in line with the prediction of senior government officials, I knew that many would dismiss the saga as a home video. To bring this national embarrassment to an end, the federal government must do whatever it did for the others, to get Leah back home.

     

  • Assembly of jeopardy

    Perhaps Nigerians should plead the defence of double jeopardy against the determined effort of the National Assembly to clean off our national treasury even as they foist on us, misbegotten legislations. With the official confirmation that our senators and representatives are engaged in taking what does not belong to them, in the guise of running cost, I was hopeful that some of them would own up and openly canvass at least for institutional amendment, if not restitution. But alas, those who have spoken on the issue, tried to explain away their illegal conducts.

    Nigerians have Senator Shehu Sani to thank for confirming what we have all suspected – that this National Assembly has become a double yoke on our sagging body. How can our lawmakers pretend that they don’t know that the constitution expressly barred them from fixing their salaries and allowances? How can they try to justify the perfidy they are engaged in? How can they take so much from the commonwealth, and give so little in return by way of constitutional duty?

    Section 70 of the 1999 constitution, as amended, without equivocation states clearly: “A member of the Senate or of the House of Representatives shall receive such salary and other allowances as the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission may determine.” Without amending this provision, I have always wondered under what guise the National Assembly try to appropriate the power to determine their salaries and allowances.

    No form of ingenuity can change this constitutional provision, and any senator who collects any income not determined by RMAFC by whatever name called is engaged in unconstitutional conduct. Such a person is taking what does not belong to him. Of note, all the criminal laws of the country, whether federal or state, defines stealing as taking what does not belong to the taker. I have no doubt in my mind that if our country has the will, every kobo taken by any senator whether in this assembly or in the past could be recovered.

    While we know that a senator in this current assembly is taking what does not belong to him to the tune of N13.5 million, we have no idea of what the members of the previous assemblies were hefting from our commonwealth. Of course this would be in addition to what they can clean from the so-called provision for constituency projects. Since the projects are to be sited in their domains and since it is them who gained the provision, they are in a position to front their surrogates to further take more of what does not belong to them.

    Perhaps because the executive is knee-deep in the double jeopardy that is our lot in the hands of the political class, they are unable to stare down the legislators as envisaged by the constitution. Or is it because our democratic institutions are weak that the courts cannot declare without hesitation that what the National Assembly members are engaged in the name of salaries and allowances are manifestly unlawful? Or could it be that the executive does not appreciate its powers under the constitution or is afraid to exercise it?

    What is the driving force that has made the three arms of government to allow the mockery of the supremacy of the constitution? Yet, section 1(1) of the constitution states clearly that: “This constitution is supreme and its provisions shall have binding force on all authorities and persons throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria.” To give effect to the provisions of the constitution, it provides in section 5(1) “Subject to the provisions of this constitution, the executive powers of the federation (b) shall extend to the execution and maintenance of this constitution, all laws made by the National Assembly and to all matters with respect to which the National Assembly has for the time being power to make laws.”

    By the above provision, the president has executive powers for the execution and maintenance of the constitution, and so it behoves on him to ensure the execution and maintenance of section 70 of the constitution. To allow what is going on in the name of salaries and allowances being hefted from the national treasury by the National Assembly, he is abdicating his constitutional responsibility. A simple reading of the constitution should reveal that to him. In the current circumstance silence is not golden, and if the president has any doubts, he should approach the courts.

    The president can ask his attorney-general to approach the courts to seek the interpretation of section 70, vis-à-vis the decision of the National Assembly to decide what to pay its members. If politics precludes the president from squaring with the assembly directly, he could ask the RMAFC to approach the courts to enforce its constitutional mandate. To do nothing should be completely unacceptable to a president elected on the platform of zero-tolerance for corruption, and this should be so, even if there are unresolved allegations of taking what does not belong to them, by some aides of the president.

    What is going on is a great disservice to our country. Those in power must know that the joke is on them. If they doubt, they should talk to our youths. Most of them have lost faith in the country. They refer to such cruel jokes as snakes swallowing money, money being kept in the cemetery and such bizarre tales as confirmation that we have an unserious country, whose leadership is out of tune with reality. Now with the confirmation that members of National Assembly are brazenly taking what does not belong to them, it will be further cemented in their sub-conscious that known humans are also involved in swallowing pieces of the commonwealth without any consequence.

    Those who believe that they can stop the craze to get-rich-quick amongst our youths, those believe that buying tons of arms and ammunition is what is needed to stop sundry criminality, those who model a few patches of oasis as signs of a national revival, those who take what does not belong to them ad use same to make their children comfortable and refer to those children as exemplars of progress are living in denial and playing the ostrich. It is inexcusable that those engaged in public service will be entitled to brazenly break the supreme law of the country without any consequences.

    Without any equivocation, a monthly take home of N13.5 million for a senator by whatever name it is called is both unconstitutional and amoral. To try to explain it away or justify it under any guise is reprehensible. Those of them in the National Assembly with any modicum of respect for their integrity should own up their mistakes and make amends. Even if they will not engage in restitution, they can turn a new leaf, and cease to be an assembly of double jeopardy.

  • Economic waste, tale of African economies

    Africa is indisputably the world’s richest continent in terms of mineral and natural deposits. A continent representing over 20% of the world’s arable lands, fertile for all kinds of agricultural produce, it contributes over 50% of the world’s deposit of mineral resources such as diamond in South Africa, gold in Ghana, crude oil in Nigeria, 90% of tantalize (cobalt) tin ore, fortunately 40% of world’s hydroelectric power, unspeakable amount of tanzanite, uranium, with a whether which can sustain and support farming all year round.

    Despite the high level of intelligent and innovative personnel from around the continent, Africa has continued to lag behind in the comity of nations, earning all kinds of names such as the dark continent of the world, the white man’s grave yard etc. African economies have been begging for assistance from other continent centuries past with no end in sight, not because they lack the resources but simply because they lack that financial aptitude and discipline to handle and develop an inclusive, progressive and egalitarian economy built on sustainable economic blueprint.

    One will not therefore fail to ask what has been the problem of Africa. How can Tanzania owning 99.9% deposit of the world’s Tanzanite lacks the technology to process it, Tanzanite is a relatively rare and costly mineral discovered in 1967 and is named for its country of origin, a resource used as a rare jewelry material exported raw from the country of origin to other countries where it will be processed and sold at a very high price. West Africa collectively supplies two-thirds of the world’s cocoa, with Ivory Coast leading production at 1.65 million tonnes, and nearby Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon and Togo producing additional 1.55 million tonnes. Ivory Coast overtook Ghana as the world’s leading producer of cocoa beans since 1978, but if you look at the beverage industry, they earn the least from that industry.

    Nigeria is Africa’s biggest oil producer and the 13th largest producer of oil in the world with daily production reaching about 2.4 million barrels. Nigeria also has the second largest proven oil reserves in Africa and the 10th largest in the world but sadly Nigeria imports refined crude oil in millions daily. The country lacks a functional refinery, this ugly satire has seen the country not benefiting from or saving enough during the oil booms. Unemployment and underemployment has been on an alarming rise, while inflation has been heading to the east. The value of the local currency has been on a free fall and today the government wishes to borrow $30 billion to fund deteriorating infrastructures, for which specifics are being awaited.

    Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Namibia are Africa countries producing large value and volume of diamond but have remained under-developed with poverty level at an abysmal and dreadful rate. With very little value addition, these countries, like their Nigerian counterpart have not been able to take any comparative advantage of this rare resource that is sought after in the international market to better the lots of her citizen, the manufacturing sector, energy and absence of pipe borne water have been economic challenges to these countries.

    The question is what has been the cause of Africa’s continued under development? Should we apportion it to the colonization of Africa? No I do not think so, America was at one point colonized by Britain and today they are greater than even their colonial master, overtaking them as the world’s largest economy 150 years ago. India, Singapore, Malaysia, Turkey, Brazil and so many other countries respected today were at one point in their history colonized, but the difference is that these countries have decided to shake off their colonial experience and today are forces to reckon with.

    It is believed that the continent of Africa has lost over $1.4 trillion from 1980 to 2010 to financial mismanagement and waste. Economic waste has been the major cause of Africa’s under-development; it has nothing to do with colour, climate, natural resources, human capital and religion. These are factors that have had contrasting realities when placed side by side with other nations. We cannot say climate is the issue of Africa’s underdevelopment since the country of Israel presents a sharp contrast. Israel is a country located in the desert with very little amount of rainfall per annum. Few years ago, who would have believed that Israel could feed herself let alone export fresh fruit and vegetable to the rest of the world? It took the application of apt, systematic, disciplined and inclusive financial and resource management with the continued adoption of destructive innovation. Africa has been raped repeatedly by her finance managers for a very long time and she is critically bleeding. Lack of strong institutions in Africa and failure of leadership has done more harm than good to the continent.

    Most economies of Africa cannot boost of state of the art infrastructural amenities that can support development. Energy supply has been a problem but when viewed with the number of abandoned projects in other sectors in most African countries and the enormous resources already committed that cannot be retrieved or reinvested in any other venture. It is believed that three quarter of Africa’s infrastructure is either stalled or abandoned. This is high for a continent that lacks basic infrastructure like roads, electricity, irrigation, pipe borne water, rail way etc.

    The cost of corruption to African economies is colossal. The African Union has estimated that during the 1990s, corruption was costing African economies about $148 billion per year, or about 25 percent of Africa’s total output. This is very gigantic and has accounted for the continent’s continued lag in comity of nations. Corruption is an ill-wind that brings no one any good except the economies that receive and warehouse such stolen funds and utilize it for their own benefit leaving the masses in Africa to wallow in abject and derisive poverty, dying of the least treatable disease with little access to decent health care, lack of quality education system.

    The rising wave of external loan stock accumulation in the continent of Africa is a thing of major concern. In 2006 the Paris club of creditors waived over $100 billion of which many Africa economies benefited from. This saw the continent’s debt servicing and repayment profile fall drastically hence freeing enough fund which was to be channeled towards infrastructural and human-capital development. Today, the aggregate external debt profile for the 10 most indebted African countries stood at $374 billion as at December 31, 2015.The recent restructuring of Chinese market away from manufacturing to service based economy saw China’s demand for raw material which is cheaply sourced from Africa fail drastically. The continent, being commodity-exporting continent is facing major economic challenges from South Africa to Nigeria, from Ghana to Congo DR, from Botswana to Rwanda to Zimbabwe the story is same but the degree varies, leaving so many countries borrowing to even fund recurrent expenses. This must be discouraged if Africa must continue to rise; we should not plunge into another round of debt crisis because our experience with debt is not a palatable one. Africa should solve Africans problems. Regional integration remains the best as such should be encouraged. As no outsider will ever love you more than you love yourself.

     

    • Princewill, (ACA) is a development finance and emerging economies analyst.

  • El-Rufai’s fire versus Labour’s fury

    The exchange of star-words in Abuja between Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State and Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) made the news last week. The governor reportedly lashed out at the organized labour, claiming unions “destroyed the nation more than they have contributed to it”. “Trade unions”, he said, “have never served the country well. They have been selfish and everything is about their narrow interests. In general, in Nigeria, trade unions have been a danger to our progress and I think they should be curtailed”.

    At 40th anniversary when all Nigerians, including President Buhari openly celebrated the role of Labour in the struggle for independence, against colonialism, for democracy against military dictatorship, El-Rufai was exceptionally uncharitable to the nation’s workforce! But true to its tradition of resistance against abuse, (verbal or policy wise) in a quick reaction, organized labour, pointedly described the governor “as an embarrassment” to public office, an “anti-people and a chameleon”.

    Witness the General Secretary of Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Dr. Peter Ozo-Eson: “The country has a better moral standing than the likes of El-Rufai who has demonstrated that he is not fit to hold public office or political position.  He is an embarrassment to public office in Nigeria. He speaks out of both sides of the mouth. This is the same El-Rufai who once gate-crashed into one of NLC’s protests and pleaded to have NLC apron to be part of the protest”.

    My take here is to further point out that crisis of governance is deepening in Nigeria. With “friendly fires” between the governor and numerous real and imagined enemies, is the governor really governing Kaduna State or governing serial (often self- inflicted!) crises of attritions?

    Undoubtedly the relationship between NLC and Kaduna State government had degenerated since his controversial mass sack of about 22,000 teachers who allegedly scored below pass mark in a controversial competency test. NLC and its affiliate unions in January marched in Kaduna in solidarity with the members of Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) amidst unprecedented military/police presence. That is expected. The world of work is all about cooperation and contestation. Even at that, it beats imagination that a governor in 21st century, (not 19th century colonial King Kong!) would upscale his ideological opposition to labour almost to a full blown hate speech. It is “dangerous” (governor’s word) and certainly unhelpful to his government, his ruling party, APC (some of us voted for!) to make hostility against Labour a virtual policy. There is a bagful of El-Rufai’s volte face on a number of critical national issues including “Restructuring”.  He hitherto decried it only to emerge as a new restructuring enthusiast without an apology for his previous dismissal of the recommendations of 2014 National Conference which favoured far-reaching reform measures based on national consensus compared to the current partisan dictatorship.

    It might be fashionable for the governor to relish in Labour bashing. But I recall that the governor had had mutually rewarding robust engagements with the labour movement with quotable quotes credited to both celebrating partnerships in governance. As NLC General Secretary pointed out, this writer was at the barricade in Abuja during the 2010 NLC strike and mass protests against fuel price hike during which then dissident citizen El-Rufai  applauded Labour for providing platform for Nigerians to oppose unpopular policy of fuel price hike under Jonathan. I recall the on-going partnership between him, Buhari administration and Labour to revive the closed textile mills. Indeed Governor El-Rufai in 2015 in Kaduna hosted the National Conference of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers’ Union (together with Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, then Edo State governor), with  adorned face cap singing workers’ solidarity song!

    Indeed there was once “a Comrade El-Rufai” who rightly saw unions as allies, not “dangerous” bodies. Was it all about opportunism on his part or enduring principle to make positive impact in nation-building? This then raises the issue of capacity for governance. It’s time Nigerians demanded for competence test for all governors.  Many governors of course parade multiple degrees, local and abroad. But most of them lack the “real degree”; leadership and strategic training to make a democracy work for the people. Most governors even lack the knowledge of 1999 Constitution which informed their oath of office. Constitution defines us as citizens to be dignified, not slaves to be verbally abused. Indeed the constitution envisages dignity of labour. No private manager of a private company, no matter the provocation, would ever describe his customers “irresponsible” if he wants to sell in the market!

    I was scandalized that El-Rufai without measured temperament of an elected governor tagged Nigerian doctors “irresponsible” for going on strike! Nigerian constitution and labour laws recognize the right of any working man and woman to withdraw his or her service, including doctors in the face of violation of rights to decent work. In May 2016, in England 37,000 junior doctors went on three strike actions on improved working conditions. Governor El-Rufai must be from another “planet” (his word!) not to know that doctors’ strikes are globally acceptable practices. Samuel Gompers puts it better; “Show me the country that has no strikes and I will show you the country in which there is no liberty.”

    Governor El- Rufai is certainly not Adolf Hitler! What should worry the governor is the mass exodus (sorry, “mass strike”) of thousands of doctors and nurses abroad due to abysmal working conditions and indignities at home. APC’s restructuring exercise is dead if the likes of El-Rufai lack basic appreciation of the importance of labour as a factor of development and nation building. He betrays gross ignorance of simple labour market issues (and indeed national development) by calling for the   removal of labour from the Exclusive Legislative List. He even called for “Very Low” Minimum Wage (a grammatical overkill because “minimum” means “very low!). All 36 governors receive same minimum/maximum pay in spite of their miserable internally generated revenues. No governor earns “very low minimum” pay! What is good for governors is good for a messenger and a cleaner. Nigeria cannot be part of the 20 leading developed economies without a development agenda that mainstreams labour motivation and productivity. World-wide, the laws which govern labour, capital and land as factors of production, have significant impact on growth and development. Even predatory colonial Lord Lugard and military dictators or recent past eventually were compelled to recognize the importance of labour as a factor of production and development. The first federal (note; not regional!) ministry to be established was Federal Ministry of Labour in 1914. Colonial authority as well as post-independent Nigerian governments recognized that labour was a critical success factor for transformation. Behind the celebrated miracle of Nigeria’s double digit growth plus development in the 60s and 80s were progressive labour laws regulating minimum wages and pensions as well as collective bargaining and industrial conflicts.

    Given the current high level of youth unemployment, worsening poverty, unregulated immigration, foreign investment of dubious value and underdevelopment, rampant strikes and industrial conflicts, more than ever before, Nigeria needs a federally-managed (not deregulated) labour process. Since humanity rightly banished slave trade (with prescribed punishment for slave traders!), labour is no more a commodity to be verbally hired and fired as El-Rufai gleefully threatened to summarily sack lecturers of Kaduna State University if they dare go on “ASUU strike”. Labour markets “are socially embedded” for those that care. Labour markets harness human energies. They rely on human motivations, care, understanding, dignity and above all fairness failing which you get no production. Labour creates wealth. I enjoin governor El- Rufai to consciously cultivate Labour as partner in development process through social dialogue not endless “fire” with attendant “fury” .

     

    • Aremu mni, is a member, National Executive Council of NLC.

  • U.S, China and Africa: Issues in Tillerson’s visit

    Before his departure on his current five-nation African tour, U.S Secretary of State, Mr. Rex Tillerson delivered a lecture at George Mason University, Virginia on the outline of the vision and issues of Africa-U.S cooperation. Among many other issues, he grudgingly admitted that “Chinese investment does have the potential to address Africa’s infrastructure gap” but added a curious caveat that “its (China) approach has led to mounting debt and few, if any jobs in most countries”.

    Not only does this fly in the face of reality, it leaves one wondering if Tillerson was adequately or properly briefed on issues of China-Africa cooperation.

    Last year, in June 2017, a prestigious U.S –based global management consulting firm, Mckinsey & Co issued a report of its elaborate filed research on China/Africa with a title of Dance of the Lion and dragons: How are Africa and China emerging, and how will the partnership evolve? On page 40 of the highly rated report, it observed that “a walk through China factory or construction site almost anywhere in Africa will confirm what our research finds,” that “Chinese enterprises overwhelming employ local workers. At the more than 1,000 companies we surveyed, 89 percent employees were African, adding up to more than 300, 000 jobs for African workers. Scaled up across the more than 10,000 Chinese firms in Africa, these numbers suggest that Chinese-owned business employ several million Africans.”

    Continuing, the report said “private companies and SOEs across industries in the eight countries we studied had majority-local workers. In trade, for example, the workforce is 82 percent African, in manufacturing, it is 95 percent African, and comparing public and private enterprises, SOEs employ an 81 percent African workforce, and private enterprises employ a 92 percent African workforce.” According to Mckinsey & Co, “the reason for the bias toward local labour is not hard to understand; employing Africans lead to lower overall cost” and referring to one Chinese construction company supervisor it interviewed, the report quoted as saying that “even though Chinese workers tend to be more productive, it is now five times more expensive to bring a Chinese worker to Africa than it is to hire locally.”

    This report of a foremost and prestigious American consulting management firm would not have escaped the attention of the meticulous and intelligent U.S Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, and his horde of advisers in the U.S state department. For why Tillerson chooses to disparage facts in favour of ideological hankerings is best known to the former oilman who is not at all, a stranger to Africa in his “former life,” as he put it at the George Mason University speech, hawking outright lies and slander to tarnish China-Africa cooperation is not new and hardly makes any impression in Africa.

    In 1991, a former U.S Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights in a New York Times report accused China of using convict labour in the Republic of Benin and later it was picked up by the British Daily Mail report in 2008. Without any foundation in fact, the report was a sheer fabrication and evidently did not to harm soaring China-Africa relations.

    As Secretary of State, Tillerson pointed out, U.S-Africa relations is longstanding and has been buoyed by former President Jimmy Carter visits to Liberia and Nigeria in 1978 where he announced that “our nation has now turned in an unprecedented way toward Africa”. And in contemporary times, according to Secretary Tillerson, “that turning continues” as “our country’s security and economic prosperity are linked with Africa’s like never before,” and “will only intensify in the coming decades.”

    As he sees it, Africa by the year, 2030, will represent about one-quarter of the world’s workforce. And by the year 2050, the population of the continent is expected to double to more than 2.5 billion people – with 70% of them under the age of 30.” And secondly, according to him, Africa is experiencing significant growth. The World Bank estimates that six of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world this year will be African,” and narrowing to down to Nigeria, Mr Rex Tillerson said that “for context, by the year 2050, Nigeria will have a population larger than the United States and an economy larger than Australia’s” and added that “to understand where the world is going, one must understand that Africa is a significant part of the future. African countries will factor more and more into numerous global security and development challenges, as well as expansive opportunities for economic growth and influence.”

    With such robust view and understanding of the strategic potential of Africa, the United States of America whose state department or foreign ministry created its Africa Bureau in 1958, should readily mean business by engaging Africa more productively than into a battle-ground for ideological contestations by the unsolicited and false alarm of so-called China’s “predatory practices”. As former Head of State, Murtala Muhammed affirmed in 1976 that “Africa has come of age, and it’s no longer under the orbit of any extra continent power,” in response to the earlier letter of the U.S President, Gerald Ford on how Africa should steer clear of the former USSR and Cuba influence on the matter of then, Angolan independence. The Nigerian leader warned then, that “for too long has it been presumed that the Africa needs outside “experts” to tell him who are his friends and who are his enemies,” and affirmed that “the time has come when we should make it clear that we can decide for our self, that we know our own interests and how to protect those interests; that we are capable of resolving African problems without presumptuous lessons in ideological dangers, which, more often than not have no relevance for us, nor for the problem at hand.”

    Tillerson’s current anti-China rhetoric is more likely to meet the same fate as former President Gerald Ford’s in 1976. The fact is that Africa is open to partnership with any country or region in the world that shows respect to her.

    China-Africa relations is not perfect but is working and delivering tangible results. It is a work in progress and has established a mechanism for routine consultations and dialogue. Through the mechanism of dialogue and consultation, instituted in the Forum on China-African Cooperation (FOCAC), both sides express their concerns and work through consultation and consensus to drive a process of mutual benefits and win-win cooperation.

    China has also offered another meaningful platform and mechanism, the Belt and Road International Cooperation to engage global development and build a community of shared future for all mankind. The United States with her numerous advantages of a lone super-power, can leverage the Belt and Road mechanism to deepen her engagement to the core global developmental issues which are of concern to Africa, but whose neglect are the reasons for the security concerns which Washington seems perennially obsessed.

    On the occasion of the U.S Secretary of State visit to Africa, Washington should burnish its solid Africa credentials after all, it has a sizeable population of Africa-origin and engage more usefully in sectors that are mutually productive and meaningful to both sides.

    China has consistently said it is keen to engage other interested international partners in Africa and therefore, the U.S does not need to revive the outdated Cold War rhetoric about China in Africa but to engage in a framework that brings about mutual benefits to all parties.

     

    • Onunaiju is Director, Centre for China Studies, CCS, Utako, Abuja.

     

  • Wage as sin

    The scripture importunes that the wages of sin is death. In the Ten Commandments, it admonishes man not to covet his neighbour’s property. In his teaching about wage and the wage-payer, Jesus reminded us that we should not begrudge him if he pays the man who worked for a few hours what he choose to pay another who toiled all day. But he emphasised that the resources are his.

    Jesus in the homily on wages of sin was teaching on sin and punishment, and in workers and wages was proselytizing about the benefit of coming to repentance even at the 11th hour. He did not contemplate the present day Nigeria where wage has become a source of sin. Here, the privileged public official sins by criminally appropriating disproportionately excessive wage for himself. Like the Pharisees of the Jesus era, they heft the heavy burden of over-taxing the ordinary people to satiate their criminal wages.

    The Nigerian top bureaucrat sins yet again by paying workers death wages. They fix a minimum wage that cannot pay for three square meals for a month. They pretend the payee does not need a house, go to the hospital, have a wife and children. They sin when they fix a wage that is miserable. They also goad the low wage earner to sin, for it will be a sign to rely on his wage. How can he live off his wage and see his wife and children go to bed hungry.

    The Ghanaian novelist Aye Kwei Armah in his novel: The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, dwelt on the dilemma between corruption and puritanism. The Nigeria nation sins when it fixes a wage that is a mockery of reality. The constitution sins when in Paragraph 31 and 32 of the Third Schedule to the 1999 constitution (as amended), it established the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, with a false bravado.

    The constitution sins when in sections 84 and 124 of the constitution, it purports to give the commission overriding power to fix the remuneration, salaries and allowances of top public officials, without any consequence for its disregard. The top officials who arrange remuneration, salaries and allowances which are not approved by law live in sin. They hide their sin in all manner of grandiose names like security vote or allowance.

    Yet their greater sin is the wage they pay the ordinary folks, while they take so much for themselves. The debate about a new minimum wage is an opportunity for Nigeria to amend its ways. The country, if it wants to progress, must holistically review its wages across board. While the public service wage is a grand deceit, the lifestyle of most top public officials show they are involved in grand larceny.

    When governors use public funds to celebrate weeding for their children, when they fund their private foundation with public resources, when they treat their state as a private estate, they sin. When members of the National Assembly earn salaries, wages and allowances they are ashamed to own up in public because it is illegal, they sin. When they use their power of oversight to extort money from other public officials or from private person, the wage they earn is sin.

    Setting a new minimum wage is an opportunity for Nigeria and those in positions of authority to lift the burden off the back of poor workers as part of penance during this Lenten season. Let those fooling themselves that the minimum wage is too high stop their love for sin. Having lived like the Pharisees for too long, it is time to live not just according to the law but according to the spirit of the law. Of course this column has always advocated for federalizing wages and work.

    Yes, it is silly to pay the same wage and emoluments to the governor of Lagos State and the governor of Zamfara State when their work schedule and economic capacity are wide apart. The same should apply to workers at lower level. But it is appropriate to have a minimum wage, which must be a living wage. The current N18,000 as national minimum wage is a death wage, even for the poorest state. What should be worked on is the differential or grading going up the levels, depending on the state.

    Instead of grumbling about a common national minimum wage, the cantankerous governors who live like kings while their workers live wretchedly should canvass for federalization of income and wages together. But how many of those noisy governors can truly operate in a federal republic, where they have to earn their income and live according to law? What they want is to get the free dole from Abuja, criminally appropriate same for themselves and their family members, and pay pittance to workers.

    But if we run a truly federal republic, where income and wages are federalized, they will have to substantially earn their income and then democratically and transparently share the state resources between recurrent and capital expenditure. It is criminal for one public official to earn tens of millions every month, whether as allowances, emoluments, security vote or by whatever name called, while another public official who does a no less important work for the progress of the state, earns a  couple of thousands per annum.

    A nation that allows such dubious disproportionate wage bracket sins and encourages its disadvantaged workers to sin, in effort to eke out a living. The result is that the nation dodder and makes little progress. With the majority of the workers so poor, they are unable to hold the political office holders to account. Instead of treating the chief executive as a senior colleague in the service of the country, state, local government or public corporation, he is treated as a king, who can do no wrong.

    With poverty staring the worker in the face, how can he look the stealing chief executive in the face and discharge his lawful duty of checks and balances? That is why many of the chief executives behave like they own their workers and the work. They forget that like the poorly paid worker, they are just workers, and when the issue of wage is raised, they are livid, as if the money is theirs. In their misconception, they sin.

    As Christians commemorate the period of Lent when Jesus journeyed to the cross for the redemption of man, shouldn’t our public office holders redeem themselves from the wages of sin? How can a privileged few live so well off the commonwealth, while their colleagues live so poorly because of poor wage? The National Assembly instead of devoting energy to make a law to gag the public from condemning their iniquities in the name of a law against hate speech should spend that time making laws to create a more equitable wage bracket.