The Nation Newspaper

Category: Opinion

  • NDDC – One year after

    The current administration and board of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, came into office in December 2013.  To celebrate this landmark event, the board and management of the commission rolled out the drums on Tuesday December 16, 2014. The venue was the prestigious five-star Port Harcourt Presidential Hotel. The event was indeed a grand affair. There was plenty to eat and drink. Amongst the artists that featured at the event were Mighty Duncan, Gordons and Terry G.

    The event, however, ran into a hitch towards the end as the over 2000 participants, mostly youths from the Niger Delta region, started a mild protest which later erupted into a full-blown uprising which necessitated the officials of the organisation being smuggled out of the venue. The grouse of the youths was clear: While NDDC officials have reason to celebrate, the commission has failed woefully to take good care of them(the youths). One of the youths angrily informed that the NDDC had abandoned its mandate of developing the nine beneficiary states, while its officials are busy enriching themselves. According to the irate youths, it was time for the officials to allow the goodies to go round so that people of the Niger Delta can begin to enjoy their commonwealth.  One was heard loudly complaining that since the exit of the first managing director, successive administrations had just been feeding fat on the agency with little or nothing to show for it. They also believe that all these administrations have allegedly taken steps to ensure that they are never probed by the EFFC, the Police or the ICPC. In other words, the hands of the security agencies have been tied such that NDDC officials are free to indulge in excesses with no one to call them to order. Indeed, the local people now believe that the NDDC has become a drain pipe instead of being a change agency, while accusing the federal government of complicity in the rape of the agency and short-changing of the people of the Niger Delta.

    The youths also claimed that their hopes were raised when the new administration came on board, even branding themselves as the new NDDC. But no sooner had they settled down than it became obvious that it would be business as usual. Instead of the promised development of communities were widely circulated stories linking some NDDC officials to the skyrocketing prices of properties in Port Harcourt, especially in GRA Phase 2. To buttress this claim, one of the aggrieved youths had informed that it was on account of this that landlords prefer giving accommodation to NDDC workers.

    A resident of Port Harcourt was also quoted as saying that they know NDDC staff by their flamboyant lifestyles and the security apparatus around them.

    It should be recalled that the NDDC was set up by the General Olusegun Obasanjo administration as an intervention agency to address the many years of neglect of the Niger Delta region comprising the nine states of Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Rivers, Abia, Bayelsa, Imo, Edo, Delta and Ondo. Precisely, the agency was to address the issues of infrastructure such as roads, schools, hospitals etc.

    However, after 12 years many in the beneficiary states are of the opinion that there is not much to cheer. Indeed, an indigene of Delta State recently queried thus: Where are the schools built by them? Where are the roads? Where are the hospitals? He believes that if they had addressed most of the needs of the Niger Delta, the militancy could have been curtailed as there would be adequate jobs for the youths.

    One observes that even contracts are not awarded in line with due process as they are awarded to cronies of government and the agency. The jobs are either abandoned or poorly executed. And so no employment is generated in the process. In fact, the argument of the restive youths is that if NDDC contracts are properly awarded to reputable companies and professionally executed, restiveness in the Niger Delta would be over in no distant time as a lot of jobs would be created in the process. But this, unfortunately, is presently not the case.

    On further investigation, one notes that some roads have been built by NDDC. Some schools have been built and some renovated. There have also been half-hearted interventions in the health sector. They spend fortunes annually on medical training and medical outreaches using several agencies and hundreds of millions of naira are spent but with nothing to show for it. So far, no major hospitals have been built or equipped.  All annual budgets on medicals simply ‘walk” away, according to an informed source. Ditto for huge budgets on roads and other infrastructural projects.

    It is true that NDDC has done some good works but nothing compared to the huge sums of money which have accrued to it since its inception.  One wonders what will happen to it now that the oil revenues are dwindling so badly!!

    I strongly feel that since President Goodluck Jonathan is from the Niger Delta, he should either make NDDC to live up to its billing or scrap it and put the resources to the states rather than just allowing it to stay as a drain pipe. I also cannot understand why all successive board members and management staff of the NDDC have not been made to give account of their stewardship if the federal government is sincere in fighting corruption. In fact, the NDDC has so far failed to justify its existence.

    I understand that this is also the perception in Abuja, the seat of government. This is because the NDDC is one of those agencies whose impact has not really been felt in the beneficiary communities in spite of the huge funds yearly committed to their operations. In fact, I was shocked when one constant traveller to Port Harcourt claimed ignorance of the existence of the NDDC and what it stands for, saying he has never noticed its impact. This is why the federal government, including the National Assembly should endeavour to exercise due oversight functions in monitoring the activities of the NDDC and similar agencies of government to ensure that they discharge their responsibilities creditably. Those founding wanting or unable to live up to expectations should be discarded. By so doing, government would have demonstrated seriousness about its war on corruption and wastage of public funds.

     

    • Daukoru wrote from Yenagoa, Bayelsa State

  • Lagos and the defining moments of 2014

    Lagos and the defining moments of 2014

    Though 2014 has come and gone, its memories continue to linger on. To some, it was a year full of sweet memories while to others it was a year to be forgotten in a hurry. In Lagos state, the year was, undoubtedly, a crucial one with daunting challenges. It was a year that the state had to engage in a fierce battle to contain the dreaded Ebola Virus Disease, EVD. Containing EVD was a tough task for the state government in many perspectives. For one, containing such a frightful disease was not something that was planned or budgeted for. Second, the disease was berthing in the country for the first time. Thus, Lagos had on its hand a volatile situation that needed to be tackled with utmost care, especially considering the havoc the disease was already causing in neighbouring Wet African countries. But, in its characteristic methodical style of handling such knotty issues, the state government carefully and systematically went to work to confront the dreaded disease. That Nigeria was eventually certified Ebola free by the World Health Organisation, WHO, is an affirmation of the untiring efforts of the state government in providing the needed leadership that became a rallying point in the onslaught against EVD. In order to ensure that those that survived EVD do not in any way become victims of stigmatization, the state Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, publicly met and fraternized with them.

    The trail blazing trend of the state government in the health sector was equally sustained in 2014 as the seventh Maternal and Child Healthcare Centre, MCC, and a School of Nursing Complex at the Alimosho General Hospital in Igando were handed over for public use. The Alimosho MCC, seventh in the series of ten such was delivered less than a month after the Amuwo-Odofin MCC was commissioned. Other MCCs already handed over include the ones at Ikorodu, Isolo, Ifako-Ijaiye, Gbaja in Surulere, Ajegunle and Amuwo Odofin which was the sixth. The eighth one in Lekki is being equipped while the ninth and tenth ones are to be located in Epe and Badagry respectively.

    The state government was equally able to stabilize the state’s economy in 2014. In a year when the national economy was threatened by global slump in oil prices, it is remarkable that the Lagos’ economy fared better. While some states groans under financial difficulties due to the continuing fall in oil prices resulting in salary arrears being owed workers, it is noteworthy that the state economy remains robust and capable of discharging its responsibilities to contractors, workers and the people at large.

    In terms of budget performance, the state government was able to sustain the tradition of admirable budget implementation. It was able to achieve 106 percent performance in the second quarter implementation of its 2014 budget. The second quarter result added to the performances of the preceding 86 percent performances of the first quarters to give the state an aggregate of 106 budget implementation for 2014. Between April and June 2014, the state budget performed at 106 percent. If added to the 86 percent performance in the first quarter, the result will be a cumulative half year performance of 86 percent. The impact of the performance can be seen in some of the housing and the roads projects that were completed within the period.

    To affirm the stable financial position of the state government in 2014, global leader in credit ratings and research, Fitch Ratings, upgraded Lagos State’s national long-term rating to ‘AA+ (nga)’ from ‘AA (nga)’, thus giving the state a stable outlook . Fitch believes that Lagos management is becoming progressively more sophisticated. Fitch equally rates the state high on debt management, which has improved with longer bond tenures and more loans from development banks. The Fitch’s upgrade is a further testimony to the state’s continued firm operating performance, enhanced transparency and renewed efforts towards an increasingly urbane and transparent administration, which is favorable to increasing private sector investments. With a local GDP accounting for 20%-25% of the national GDP, Lagos is a critical driver of Nigeria’s economy. Domestic production is fuelled by its diversified economy as a commercial hub in the country, with service, construction, transport and industry making up 80% of the local economy. Fitch believes that Lagos’ socio-economic indicators will further improve as local GDP growth is expected to outperform the estimated national GDP growth of 7%-8% in 2014.

    Another essential moment for Lagos in 2014 was the handing over of the Transfer Loading Station at Agege which has been embedded with a medical waste treatment facility. The Station, the third of its kind by the Fashola administration, will provide hospitals and clinics that are close by with an efficient depository for treatment and disposal of medical waste in a safe and healthy manner. Unlike the first one at Simpson, which was simply about solid waste, the Agege Transfer Loading Station is set to do more as it will address the danger of medical waste, syringes and all of the end products of surgery which were often just dumped in the refuse where children can play around with them and result in possible epidemic.

    In order to sustain current pace of development in the state, the state held the 2014 Ehingbeti Summit with the theme: ‘Powering the Lagos Economy: Real Opportunities, Endless Possibilities’. The essence of the summit’s focus on power is for the private sector to draw the attention of the Government to places where its activities would enable the private sector achieve its potential in terms of delivering of service, provision of opportunities and growth of the economy. On its part, the state government has been working tirelessly in pursuit of a new power agenda for the state. Presently, government is working on a plan to set up a one-stop shop to fast-track the handling of all issues relating to right of way and power infrastructure development in the State. Similarly, apart from the three functional power plants in Akute, Lagos Island and Alausa, efforts are being made to install two other plants in strategic locations of the state.

    Other significant moments for Lagos in 2014 include presentation of Lagos State Development Plan (2012-2025), commissioning of 34 new fire trucks, reversal of the Lagos State University (LASU) fee from N350,000 to the old rate of N25,000, Horns free day, introduction of a 10 day paternity leave for male employees of the state government, extension of maternity leave for female government’s employees to 12 weeks, the listing of Governor Fashola among the 100 Top Global Thinkers for 2013 by a global personality assessment organization, Lo Spazio della Politica among others.

    With the continued support of Lagosians, the state government is poised to take the state to new heights in 2015.Fortunately; Governor Fashola has vowed to continue working for the people until the very last minute of his mandate. This is what the people wanted. This is what they deserve.

    •Ogunbiyi is of the Features Unit, Ministry of Information & Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja

  • As PDP rolls its selfish agenda into 2015

    Nigeria is lingering at a crossroads. It is grappling with the desire of a clique of politically insolvent leaders to perpetuate themselves and their cronies in power for economic gains. This is sapping this nation of all its vigour. But what is the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and President Goodluck Jonathan’s real end game?

    To understand their secret power-grab strategy for a one-party nation ruled by one political party with a crony capitalist agenda, we need to understand this government’s manipulation of the centripetal and the centrifugal forces in shaping Nigeria’s socio-political terrain. PDP’s policy is simply to impose an agenda of transforming our democratic government and emerging but creeping free market economy into a nation governed by a rent-seeking cabal. This obsessive fixation on turning our multi-party system into a one-party monopoly has blinded them to the real issues threatening the economy, the safety and mutual co-existence of the Nigerian people.

    This fits perfectly into the unprecedented plan of the newly passed Election Act 2010 (As Amended), which seeks to limit the political space by giving the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) additional powers to de-register political parties; an action some judges have pronounced ultra vires. The invocation of the Electoral Act 2010, which deregistered FRESH and 27 other political parties, is based on this unstated objective to keep the polity firmly in the hands of the governing elites. This has led many observers to wonder why INEC is behaving so badly, stabbing the rule of law in the head under Jonathan’s watch.

    It is also why, even though FRESH and one other party got their de-listing by INEC overturned by the courts, the electoral body ignored this ruling and foot-dragged on compliance until, like in the case of Hope Democratic Party (HDP), it reluctantly allowed the party to join the 2015 electoral contest at the close of nominations. FRESH, though rumoured to have been similarly re-enlisted, has still not been given a letter of recertification at the time of writing.

    Politicians like Rev. Chris Okotie who are proposing a new governance paradigm are out of the race- no thanks to INEC’s manipulations; the field is now left for the PDP’s incumbent President, Dr. Jonathan, and veteran candidate, APC’s Gen. Mohammadu Buhari, who is hoping to break the record with his fourth straight shot at the presidency. Their proposed debate, if it ever happens, will reveal a lot. But had Rev. Okotie been allowed the chance to sell his ideals of a new governance paradigm, the public would have been in for a rare treat: a battle between old war horses and a new kid on the block.

    We know what Gen. Buhari stands for: anti-corruption, discipline and efficient service

  • Explosion against ‘stomach infrastructure’

    I dub the letter, published in the Punch of December 23, 2014, and reproduced below, The Letter of the Year. Call it an irony, a satire or sarcasm, I think all the three literary devices are rolled into one in the missive.

    “Distributing  fat chickens, bags of rice, and cash to 80,000 Ekitis by the Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose, would by now convince cynics and critics beyond doubt! This empathetic candour of reaching out to 80,000 (out of the over four million people in the state) citizens in need of such a gesture is commendable, at least, it’s far better than distributing 80,000 modern farming implements to farmers, and such other similar empowering tools to 80,000 of handi-work men and women. This indeed is cheery news to Ekiti. Kudos, once again, for the stomach infrastructure initiative!” – Dele Ogundele, Lagos.

    Despite being seen as, and arguably an irony, this short write-up is actually a sarcasm writ large; the literary word at its most pungent, “sharp, bitter, cutting, caustic, or acerbic; it is the instrument of indignation, a weapon of offence.” [Patridge, Eric (1969)]

    The letter is an explosion against stomach infrastructure. It shows that stomach-structure is on the wrong side of history. As one Yoruba adage says, “A house built with saliva is eventually destroyed by common dew.” The edifice of stomach infrastructure was, ab initio, erected on quicksand, its destruction therefore being a matter of time.

    Stomach-structure is highly degrading and morally debasing. It is a travesty of empathy; a parody of genuine welfarist schemes of governors like Senator Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State, Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom, Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers, Tanko Al-Makura of Nassarawa State, Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State, Rochas Okorocha of Imo State, among others. It is the very height of insult ever visited on our people; a complete erosion of our value system and anything considered noble and dignified.

    Lest this piece is misunderstood, deliberately perhaps. I should say that there is nothing wrong in giving gifts during festive season or at any time. But when the entire structure and superstructure of governance are built on distributing food items to the citizens (a fraction of them anyway) in order to win election and court cheap publicity while in power, then our humanity is returned to Thomas Hobbes’s state of nature, where the life of man is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”

    I cannot count the number of times – before stomach-structure stealthily entered the Nigerian political lexicon – the Wife of Ogun State Governor, Mrs Olufunso Amosun, feted the disadvantaged in the society. She has never asked the less-privileged to line up like beggars in scorching sun to collect any food item. I recall her birthday before June, 2014 (before the rise of stomach infrastructure). She travelled to far-flung communities in Ogun to feed and fete children of the less-privileged and provided them with various gift items. It is both Biblical and Koranic that we must genuinely take care of the less-endowed in the society. You do not wait for the election period to do this and you don’t make this a state policy in order not to create disincentive to industry and perseverance. So the altruistic welfarist scheme of taking care of the less-privileged has been part and parcel of the Amosun administration from the very first day in office. Indeed, he had been doing this long before he became the governor. That is why he has a near fanatical following among the masses of Ogun State.

    What stomach-structure is greater than giving the children of the poor free education, as it is the case under the Amosun administration, whereby their parents do not worry about school fees and standard textbooks? What stomach infrastructure is better than providing security for the poor such that when they eat their garri and epa they can have a sound sleep?  Of what use is providing them chickens when they cannot sleep with their eyes closed – not knowing when and where the next trouble, crisis, thuggery and banditry may erupt from? What stomach-structure is greater than compliance with the rule of law such that when the rights of the poor are trampled upon they have courts that can sit without fear of molestation or thuggery, where their rights to freedom of speech and association are not abridged and where both the Governor and the governed are equal before the law? What stomach-structure is bigger than providing an enabling environment for businesses to thrive so that the children of the poor can have gainful employment in their thousands rather than becoming touts and cannon fodders for unconscionable politicians? What stomach-structure is bigger than opening up the rural areas with road infrastructure such that the farmers can easily get their produce to markets without stress, and proving farm implements and machinery for mechanised agriculture, thereby reducing also the cost of living in the entire state?

    “Governance,” according to Amosun, “should not be reduced to Amala politics. How many people do you want to start giving money or food items to everyday?”  Instead of investing massively in social infrastructure such as security, education, health, agriculture, power, roads and bridges, etc. as Amosun did, suppose he had set up food-distribution centres all over the state, what would have happened at this period of cash crunch – fall in revenue and near zero allocation from the Federation Account? Just one example. In one fell swoop, Amosun distributed 500 brand new transformers across the length and breadth of the state to energise the businesses of battery chargers, barbers, hair-dressers, video club owners, business centres, auto-mechanics, auto-electricians, welders, market men and women, tailors and others whose commercial activities were hitherto paralysed by lack of power. Suppose he had invested such colossal amount on stomach-structure, what would have happened today to these thousands of people and their dependents (millions of Ogun people), when such amount of money is not available?

    And it is cheery news overhearing some workers cautioning one of their colleagues to show some understanding because of the current situation. “Amosun,” they said, “has never owed us salaries. Instead he paid those owed by his predecessor, clearing arrears of pension and gratuity from 2007. This is the first time salaries will be delayed, just for one month.” One other worker argued that “Things are even far better in Ogun than in many states. Some are owing two or three months.” Besides, Ogun is the only state in Nigeria that pays N18,250 as Minimum Wage, implemented the Wage across board and up to Local Government level; yet it is one of the states that receives the least allocation from the Federation Account. What stomach infrastructure can be greater than this?

    Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State did not resort to stomach infrastructure in order to win re-election in 2011. Indeed, he invested billions of naira in providing free education to the children of the state and changing the status of Akwa Ibom from being providers of housemaids to that of intellectual human capital.

    When Governor Olusegun Mimiko won re-election, stomach infrastructure had not made its entry into the lexicon of Nigeria. His investment in Abiye, just like Gbomoro and Araya in Ogun, a free health scheme, had been hailed as one of the enduring welfarist schemes. What more shall we say of Governor Raji Fashola who, building on the strong foundation laid by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, changed the infrastructural face of Lagos and won a re-election based on his sterling achievements.

    What stomach-structure did Dr Nnamdi Azikwe do when he laid the foundation that turned the East into the fastest-growing economy in Nigeria? What stomach infrastructure did Chief Obafemi Awolowo provide to launch the Western Region into its golden era? And what stomach-structure did Sir Ahmadu Bello do to build the groundnut pyramid – a symbol of economic prosperity – in the Northern Nigeria?

    All these confirm that stomach-structure is an anomaly, an aberration, a war against civility and defilement of our humanity. Authors and proponents of stomach-structure have debased the legacies of our heroes’ past.

    Rather than accord stomach infrastructure any regard, all men of good conscience, those who value our traditional value system in Nigeria, and believe in the genuine welfare scheme that takes care of the poor in our society without subjecting them to ridicule should all rise in unison to denounce stomach-structure and ensure it is expunged from Nigeria’s political dictionary.

    •Soyombo, a journalist and public affairs analyst, wrote from Abeokuta

  • Between Fayemi and Fayose

    At last, that year of the sphinx, 2014, has rolled away, leaving all its survivours with bated breath! Not a few Nigerians wished that such a year should not have come up at all, though they could not foresee a better alternative in the succeeding year 2015, when the general election would hold – a year for which more gloom than boom has been widely predicted, but which cannot be skipped all the same. Those who wished 2014 away therefore should look beyond 2015 for succour, be it for political or economic bail out.

    While at the national level, the year 2014 gave Nigerians more than they had bargained for, narrowing it down to Ekiti State was even more unpredictable and mysterious, particularly on the political front. It was a year of political flip-flop when a performing incumbent lost his seat for another political maestro with a negative past, thus returning the people to a dark era of much promise, less execution.

    Neither an optimist nor a pessimist saw it coming that a John Kayode Fayemi, the incumbent and a man of worth, would lose out and a Peter Ayodele Fayose, a smart alec and political gadfly, would win the June 21 election in a state that prides itself as the land of Honour and Pride.

    Fayemi is an internationally recognised political and human rights activist, who has a Doctorate degree in War Studies. Fayose parades a questionable Higher National Diploma certificate that is still a subject of litigation. Fayemi has won accolades as a respecter and an advocate of the rule of law, while Fayose is widely known as one who rules with impunity.  Fayemi has never been indicted for any offense and was enjoying positive public opinion, while Fayose has been publicly indicted, removed from office and had a case to answer with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.

    Yet Fayemi lost the election to Fayose in all the 16 Local Government areas of the state in a baffling circumstance, the mystery of which has yet to be unravelled. Predictably, the result transformed the state from a lawful to a lawless one. The state suddenly became newsworthy for negative happenings and a relatively peaceful state became a one-week-one-trouble one. In his characteristic manner, Fayemi accepted the outcome as the wish of the people and moved on, while Fayose began a reign of terror, riding roughshod on people’s rights.

    Teasers: While in the saddle, Fayemi was a stickler to all that was civil. He would ensure that due process was followed in appointments, promotions, transfers, procurements, award of contracts, and so on. The rule of law prevailed with the executive, legislative and judicial arms of government operating independently, while security matters were taken seriously and budgets were preceded by consultation with the people.

    But no sooner had Fayose emerged a winner than all these began to thin away for dictatorial tendencies. Like any conman, Fayose knows how to prey on the minds of his followers, and he is doing so without let. He would whip up sentiments, keep them emotionally enslaved, cover their eyes with veil and wrap their minds up with wishful thinking. He has presented himself as one from among them, who would rather stay with them at their level of reasoning than attempt to elevate them. He would rather give them fish than show them how to fish or provide the enable environment for them to fish. He would shed crocodile tears, tell them he was so doing in their best interest. He would denigrate his predecessor’s efforts, write them off as unnecessary distraction to the simple and modest ways of life of the helpless people. Yet, like their hapless shepherd and they his helpless sheep, he would milk them of substance and relevance.

    No sooner did he mount the saddle than he started to drive it furiously leaving in his trail balls of dust. Immediately his name was announced as the winner of the election, he went round the banks, threatening fire and brimstone should they further honour any request from the incumbent governor who still had four months from then to hand over to him, and those ones caved in to the threat. This translated to financial paucity for the state, which hitherto had been honouring its financial obligation as at when due.

    For Fayose, separation of power is a long process and an undue sharing of authority.  First he pounced on the judiciary where he had a case of perjury to answer, manhandled sitting judges and chased justice away from the land. Next, he invaded the hallowed legislative chamber with thugs and force men, replacing the rule of majority with that of the minority, chased away the 19 opposition members, installed the rule of minority with seven members holding sway.

    On mounting the saddle, Fayose removed all the constitutionally recognised structures and began to rule with impunity. He made propaganda the official form of communication, converted lying to a virtue and was pacing hurriedly to wipe off his predecessor’s legacy of civil culture, replacing it with street credibility, his own version of governance of appealing to sentiment rather than reasoning. From his lying lips flow unsubstantiated allegations against Fayemi, whom he had earlier told that he would outsmart with lies. “That is politics,” he would say.

    Fayose promised the people of the land of pride and honour stomach infrastructure in the place of physical and developmental projects. He promised to line their belly with rice and chicken, even at the expense of giving them a befitting edifice. Day in day out, he rakes off whatever relevance Fayemi had laid in the lives of the people.

    Like an Emperor, Fayose resumed a life of opulence while decking the people up with poverty. The relationship is a master-servant one. Everything civil started giving way for everything trickish. The more the people are looking, the less they are seeing. They were being told whatever they would want to hear instead of what they need to know. A fruitful hope started giving way for a fruitless one.

    The year 2014 thus ended in nostalgia of a quality life for the people of Ekiti, asking one another questions more than they, or anyone else, could provide an answer. Fayose is busy having a field day, feeding the people with lies and feasting on the collective wealth. But in the words of Pastor Enoch Adejare of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, who visited the state for a crusade at the end of of the year, better days are ahead again for the state. The state nose-dived in 2014, it will bottom up in 2015. Hopefully.

    • Dipe, a journalist and public opinion analyst, writes from Ado Ekiti

  • 2015: Nigerians need peace

    “Don’t gain the world and lose your soul, wisdom is better than silver or gold.” –  Bob Marley

    The die has been cast; the drums have been rolled out and the dancers have already taken the centre stage. It is a very rough road that leads to Armageddon and some may never even reach there. We have crossed this bridge before and it was not an easy way to Terabithia. General elections in Nigeria are a very serious business – too serious to be left in the hands of politicians alone.

    In the past few weeks, political parties were preoccupied with party primaries across all level of governance. Party tickets have been won and lost. The winners are engulfed with joy and they are looking forward to form more alliances ahead of the February general elections, while some losers are still aggrieved, dissatisfied and angry. Some are even looking for ways to cause chaos during the elections. Only a few of them understood the real meaning of sportsmanship in politics and that brings us to where we presently find ourselves. Many politicians in Nigeria are very selfish and they are always ready at any given time to do whatever it takes to get elected. The life of the poor in our society and the peace of the nation mean nothing to them in as much as the elections did not go in their favour. The opposition will do everything within their arsenals to muscle their way into power, while the incumbents will also use all armaments to keep power. All the dirty tricks in the books will be deployed by all and at the end of the day they leave blood in the streets. Oh yes! We have crossed this bridge before and it never leads to Terabithia.

    The 2011 general elections was marred with wide spread post-election violence in some sections of the country. The Federal Government constituted a 22-man committee headed by a Minna-based former Grand Khadi, Sheikh Ahmad Lemu. Nobody was in any doubt when the highly respected Sheikh presented a very meticulous report with insightful recommendations on how to forestall future occurrences. But very typical of this administration, the report, just like many other committee reports before it, was dumped in a shelf somewhere in a corner of Aso Rock villa. No surprise that nobody heard anything about the Lemu’s report or its recommendations that was submitted to the current president. Ironically, this and many other good intentioned works for promoting peace and religious understanding earned the Sheikh the 2014 King Faisal Prize at the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

    Since then many things have change in this country. The Fulani man carrying a stick before is now carrying a gun. The repentant Niger Delta militants carrying guns before are now warship importers. The Boko Haram carrying AK47 before are now controlling Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs) and the Ombatse militia of Nasarawa State are now gun runners. Our territories have been annexed by religious extremists that claimed to be fighting for Islam. Weapons, weapons, everywhere, but not enough for the army. Of great concern are the recent serial jailbreaks that took place at different locations in the country. The pattern of these prison breaks have political colouration written all over them. Everyday there is a terror story in Nigeria and no one is feeling secure. Unfortunately, the government of the day has its priorities and providing security to the citizenry is not at the top of their scale of preference. Winning election and retaining their offices is all they have ear for. At the top of these all we are facing a general election in an uncertain, insecure, vulnerable and defenceless situation.

    It is important to point out that no politician is worth dying for and no one deserve to die because of an election. Rewind: actually, not even an ant deserves to die because of an election. I also believe that the security of lives and properties of the citizenry is the responsibility of all, but the buck lies on the table of the Commander-in-Chief and the governors of the states. History shows that the utterances of some political gladiators during electioneering are clear pointers that motivate violent tendencies in the electorates. Therefore, it is high time we start holding our leaders responsible for their unguarded utterances in the run-up to elections. The way and manner some electorates easily become willing tools for political manipulations to cause violence during or after elections calls for a serious concern. It still beat my imaginations that in this year and age some people still participate in political thuggery without their political godfathers and their children leading the way in the streets. It is totally against the law of fairness for politicians to incite the masses to kill themselves on the streets during elections while their children are sent to the most expensive schools abroad studying. Indeed, common sense is not always common.

    The politics of tribe, religion and region is a very sensitive thing to play with in Nigeria, but unfortunately that is what the politicians are using to divide us. The moment any of these is mention, we quickly loose our senses. We quickly take sides depending on which side of the argument we come from. The election is just around the corner, but no one is discussing issues yet. No one is discussing the peace and security of the electorates before, during and after the elections. As far as I am concerned, the security of lives and properties of the citizenry is far more important than the value attached to winning elections. Without peace and security in the nation, there will be no country to rule.

    Let us be our brother’s keepers and let’s shun any act of violence that will jeopardize the peace and tranquillity of the nation. Vote wisely because your vote is your right. This is my #PieceOfPeace.

    • Hamidu wrote in from the Federal University of Technology Minna.

  • Jonathan: Pitching young against old

    Addressing mostly youths at the official inauguration of the Youth Employment in Agriculture Programme and the Fund for Agricultural Finance in Nigeria which held at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Tuesday, December 17, President Jonathan was widely reported to have praised the Nigerian youths about their remarkable feats in their chosen fields of human endeavor, most specifically in the areas of sports and the arts. He said they continue to “bring glory” to the Nigerian nation. Conversely, he excoriated the previous, older generations, including himself, passing them off as grumpy and quarrelsome old people who did nothing but create problems. Hear the president: “For the Nigerian young men and women, those who have seen today and the ones outside there, we appreciate and commend you because anything that you are involved, you bring glory to this country. Anything that the old people like us are involved in, it is always problems…and within the period that I have been here as Vice President and President, they have always been bringing glory to us.”

    Reminding the rest under-achieving Nigerians of the industry in which they have recorded the highest achievement, President Jonathan said that “Young people are involved in the movie, popularly called Nollywood, and this continues to bring glory to us. Young people are involved in music, like D-Banj, and they always continue to bring glory to us. But see politics that old people like us are involved in, we continue to quarrel and abuse ourselves everyday and create problems for innocent Nigerians…The young Nigerians will surely take us to where we want to be.” As if that was not enough lambast for the few old people at the inauguration to hang their heads in shame, tuck their tails between their legs and get out of there as fast as their legs could carry them to avoid more verbal missiles, President Goodluck Jonathan delivered the mother lode of the excoriation and said: “One day, you will take us to the moon…Surely, we will create enabling environment for you because you stand for the future of this country and you will make this country great.” Phew! What an awesome president.

    So many adjectives have been deployed to situate the Jonathan presidency with the yearnings and aspirations of the Nigerian people as well as the nation, as an organic entity. The Jonathan government has been described by the Nigerian people from various socio-economic stations as “uninspiring” and “under-achieving because of an “incompetent” and “clueless” leader whose ship of state is glaringly and hopelessly adrift.

    While these adjectives may be apt in describing Jonathan and his administration, the president may not be totally “clueless” when it comes to the art of political mischief, such as deploying the instrumentalities of state to force his will down the throats of the Nigerian people, or using their ethno-religious differences to drive a wedge between them in his desperation to hold on to power beyond 2015.

    Looking at the above statements from the surface, one may be tempted to think that President Jonathan was probably too frustrated with his older forebears for making his job unnecessarily difficult, having failed to design and put in place a proper, enduring socio-economic and political template before the polity became too complex like now. But one should not be under any illusion that the President is carefully setting up a new but diabolical stage to exploit society’s social stratification in respect of age as a weapon of mass electoral harvest in his war to hold on to the presidency of the republic which must be won either by hook or crook. It was a carefully coded verbal barrage (although delivered with his usual display of youthful exuberance and naïve optimism when he’s not reading from a prepared text), deliberately targeted at Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (72), the presidential candidate of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC). It should be recalled that President Jonathan, more than any other chief of state in the nation’s history, has cynically exploited Nigeria’s ethno-religious cleavages in the most egregious, if not despicable and highly reprehensible manner in order to score electoral points.

    Notable people from his Ijaw ethnic minority had warned and placed advertorials in national newspapers to remind Nigerians that Jonathan is their beloved son in whom they’re well pleased and therefore, must be allowed to do another term irrespective of his performance record. When those advertorials were deemed not to have sunk into our collective consciousness, they threatened war – literally – should the president lose the presidential election in 2015. While all this was going on, Nigeria’s president (or so the rest of us thought) did not utter a single word to dissociate himself and his presidency from this tomfoolery. Even religion, which should be between its practitioner and his/her God, has not been spared by the president in his urge to win the electoral contest at all costs. Governance has been taken to a despicable new low as President Jonathan continues to use the pulpits to announce major policy decisions and issues of national importance brought into the fore. His partner and loyal lieutenant in this ‘crime’ is not his Vice President nor the Aso Rock chaplain, but the president of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, who had warned in so many ways that it would be more tolerable for the lands of Sodom and Gomorrah than for Nigeria’s Christendom if Jonathan (a Christian) is not re-elected. It cannot get any more nauseating than that.

    One need not be a political scientist to recognize a common thread in what President Jonathan has done in the past, which is his inordinate knack to exploit what is exploitable, by his recent statements. Since his camp is beginning to sense that somehow, their strategy of exploiting ethno-religious sentiments introduced into this electoral contest seems not to be gaining enough traction, exploiting the youths’ anger towards the nation’s older generations whom they believe, even if instinctively, may have failed them in so many respects, thereby truncating their future, is another perfect idea. After all, the youths constitute the bulk of the Nigerian, if not the voting population. It therefore, makes perfect political sense for the Jonathanians to cast Muhammadu Buhari, as representing the “old” that continues to “create problems for innocent (the youths) Nigerians.”

    But before the youths start shopping for those special suits that will enable them to defy gravity on their journey to the moon, they should interrogate the state of education and the enabling environment under Jonathan’s watch. They need to remember who gave a new meaning to corruption when he said that much of the financial sleaze happening in the country is nothing but mere stealing and not corruption. Even the squandering of N10 billion by the Petroleum Minister on a private jet to hop around the world (when there’re ten airplanes in the presidential fleet) is yet to meet the definitional threshold of stealing, let alone corruption. They need to remind themselves of a former governor of Central Bank who screamed that $20 billion was not remitted to the national coffer, but disputed by the country’s Exchequer that the amount was only $10 billion. Even the $10b is yet to be accounted for. Perhaps they should have maintained a minute of silence (before clapping for their president) for those 20 members of their generation who met their untimely deaths because a Minister, after an apparent extortion, herded them into stadiums across the country for employment he knew did not exist. The minister is still sitting pretty on his chair.

    This is the enabling environment that Jonathan is providing the youths for ascending to the moon and doing greater exploits. What a fantastic president.

    • Odere is a media practitioner. He can be reached at femiodere@gmail.com

     

  • Is the Nigerian Civil Service irreformable?

    I have been asked to choose a topic for reflection as my 55th birthday gift to the enlarging constituency of reform of the public sector.  The tone of the title I have chosen would appear rhetorical and even somewhat provocative especially given the evidence of the short, medium and long-term reform interventions that have littered, especially, the evolutionary path of the Nigerian Civil Service (NCS) since 1954. To ask whether the NCS is irreformable could therefore be seen, and rightly so, as casting some form of doubt on Nigeria’s past reform efforts. If we take the question to be rhetorical however, then the question requires no answer since the evidence of reform in the NCS trajectory speaks for itself. If we take it as provocative, we achieve the same result. Indeed, if the reform of the NCS has been going on for all these years, why would anyone, especially someone who really is in a position to know, still ask if the service is irreformable?

    This rhetorical question was not freshly minted, it was the unique angle of a seminar task that I was recently saddled with at a continental professional seminar platform of the African Ministers of Public/Civil Services in Marrakesh where I was put in a difficult position (as a civil servant) of assuaging the frustration of policy makers (largely politicians) and experts in public administration on why, inspite of spirited effort of the political leadership as to why except in Botswana, Mauritius, South Africa and Namibia – those that Prof. Adamolekun in his 2005 research report categorised as ‘advanced reformers’, civil service reform, as distinct from its public service reform success stories like pension, tax, customs, procurement reforms etc., seems to be recording insignificant impact.   Disembodied of technicalities, I share a few of my thought at the seminar through this medium, in continuation of our public education series.

    The two ways of interpreting the question that this contribution interrogates are in a sense wrongheaded. There is therefore a third approach to the intent of the question. In other words, to ask whether or not the NCS is irreformable is to cast attention on some of those protracted administrative issues and circumstances that have ensured that we continue reforming the institutional frameworks of the civil service system without essentially achieving our central objective. What then does this question suggest? Ludwig Wittgenstein, the Austrian philosopher, gives us a clue: ‘The philosopher’s treatment of a question is like the treatment of an illness.’ To ask if the NCS is irreformable is therefore to ask for a diagnostic assessment of past reform efforts vis-a-vis our current reform activities. But beyond the historical excursus, it is to highlight some of the tangible reform landmines and insights that could expedite the transition of the civil service system in Nigeria into the future envisioned for it.

    The question of the reform of the civil service system, anywhere in the world, is not ever settled, another way of saying that the road to perfection is always under construction. This is simply the case with the public service as its reform is intimately tied to governance which in itself is an unceasing and constantly evolving process of determining how to make life better for the citizens; a domain that is also undergoing deep seated reforms. The important issue therefore is not to think of settling the question of reform but to constantly reflect on how to reform right and in a manner that ensures that a system will not continue revisiting the same reform issue for as long as change, regarded as a constant, is imperative. In reform, the real issue is not often doing things right, but doing the right thing to get effective and efficient outcomes.

    “‘Experts,” says Tom Peters,’are those who don’t need to bother with elementary questions anymore-thus, they fail to “bother” with the true sources of bottlenecks, buried deep in the habitual routines of the firm, labelled “we’ve always done it that way”.’ The first lesson in reform is thus that of how not to make it a tradition; that is, reformers cannot afford to reform for reform sake. Reformers cannot afford to make themselves ‘experts’ in reform matters. Indeed, the issue raised by Tom Peters is peculiar to the civil service because it is a system that is constantly under the threat of becoming bureaucratic. This implies that such a system becomes too overwhelmed by the immensity of its routine work that it domesticates genuine reforms to some trivial administrative changes that leave the real problems-the true sources of bottlenecks-deeply buried behind the thick files. In this context, reformers pay lip service to the necessity of reform while discreetly working to preserve the administrative status quo.

    Without the burden of a complicated historical analysis of the trajectory of reform in Nigeria, suffice is to say that the Nigerian civil service, since its inauguration in 1954, has been undergoing series of reforms (this, for me, isn’t the same as saying we are reforming). Beginning with the several reform commissions in the pre-and post-1954 period and up till the evolution of the democratic dispensation, the NCS has been subjected to approximately twenty one reforms efforts. Each of these reforms was targeted at specific issues within the evolving civil service system. For instance, the pre-1954 reforms were essentially concerned with the thorny issue of giving birth to the nascent civil service system while facilitating the smooth exit of the expatriates. On the other hand, the post-1954 reforms had to settle the issues of the critical absence of an indigenous middle executive cadre in the two-tiered civil service system that had most Nigerians in the junior cadre and the issue of remuneration.

    By the time the democratic wave was rolling across Africa in the 90s, it has become an established administrative fact that much of what we expected from the reforms have not been achieved. The evolving democratic dispensation revealed a very serious dilemma: How we hope to democratise without an adequate and functional civil service institution already working in tandem with global best practices? In other words, the civil service is still terribly embroiled in severe institutional gaps-process, policy, capacity, performance and resources-that tell us that we have actually made tremendous effort at turning the civil service system around, but we still have a long way to go in terms of making that system a world class institution delivering quality service to Nigerians.

    The extent of the reformability of the civil service system, especially in its Nigerian context, has to do essentially with the capacity the system has to overcome the execution trap in the development pathway. It has been noted with a special reference to Africa that only 29% of reforms ever got completed; 45% of on-going reform projects are rated unsatisfactory; and 26% of these reforms usually get cancelled. The reform execution trap therefore speaks to the unfortunate fact of excessively conceiving reform ideas without translating those ideas into demonstrable outcomes that we call qualitative and efficient service delivery.

    In Nigeria, the implementation trap is acutely demonstrated by two critical institutional deficiencies. The first concerns our inability to connect the intention of reform with the environment within which that reform intent would be implemented. More often than not, an unfriendly environment will always undermine a good reform. One immediate way to read this deficiency is to see it as a kind of disconnect in designs between governance, policy and administrative operations. The second institutional deficiency manifests as the passion for reform without the knowledge of what it takes to successfully manage a reform process. The third relates to the scope and contents of reform that are sufficient to create desirable multiplier effect and systemic impact. The three examples if correlated will demonstrate this deficiency-the failure to recognise that public administration systems have theoretical underpinnings and the inability to derive reform solutions from action research.

    These systemic deficiencies are so formidable that we are driven, once again, to re-examine our initial question: In the light of these historical outlines, is the Nigerian civil service irreformable? The answer to these questions is double-edged. A positive answer will derive from the qualitative levels of reform that has been generated by the democratic framework since 1990. We can identify the SERVICOM as veritable concept still requiring oxygen to come alive; IPPIS, GFMIS and the NHIS reforms as valiant attempts to remould our institutional platforms for the ongoing challenge of democratic governance in Nigeria. Indeed, every Head of Service at the Federal level has made spirited attempt to add value with the framework set between 2003 – 2009, while a significant, albeit incomplete, move towards performance orientation has been made with the Tenure Policy in 2009.  Subsequent move to deepen the institutionalization of the performance-oriented business model still remains largely aspirational.

    With the benefit of hindsight, therefore, we can look through the perspective of history at the trajectory of continuously improving reform insights and strategies that had been put in place. The critical point here is that without the framework of successive reforms from pre-independence till date, our present reflections on administrative reforms in a democratic context would have become stunted.

    The Nigerian civil service has really come a long way since its inauguration in 1954. Thus, in terms of the consistency and critical insights

    To return to our original question: Is the Nigerian civil service irreformable? With the benefit of analysis, we can return a resounding ‘No’. The caution, however, is that the question may return to haunt us if we fail to learn from the critical insight generated by past reform efforts. Horace, the Roman poet, counsels: ‘To have begun is half the job: be bold and be sensible.’ That is solid advice from the ancient!

  • Dabiri-Erewa: Lawmaker of example

    Dabiri-Erewa: Lawmaker of example

    By virtue of her trade then as a newscaster in the nation’s main electronic media,  Abike Dabiri – as she was then known – probably carved for herself an image that the Nigerian public was at liberty to interpret in so many ways. As a TV personality, the Nigerian public probably saw her with different lenses whenever she appeared in their living rooms to deliver her message. By plunging herself into the foul, if not nauseating waters of Nigerian politics, the member representing Ikorodu Federal constituency, Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa has managed not only to mitigate the debris that Nigerian politicians characteristically throw into the country’s political pool, she has also made notable efforts, through her contributions to debates and legislations, in reducing the stench in the political waters as well.

    Nigeria’s lower chamber has 390-odd legislators, some of whom may have found the hallowed chamber so discomfiting, if not intimidating (or both), that their colleagues could have sworn never to have seen them before. Some of these legislators (after their (s)elections) may even be unknown in the constituencies from whence they came, let alone be familiar to that segment of the Nigerian public interested in the business of legislation, for they exist in relative obscurity. They could not say anything because they saw nothing.

    Dabiri-Erewa, in her 12-year stint as a member of the Second Estate of the Realm, has proven to Nigerians to be a legislator of distinction not only in terms of performance but in character and integrity. Her contributions to the deepening of our nation’s nascent democracy as a result of the many bills (some of them unprecedented in the nation’s history) that has become the laws of the land either authored by her or co-sponsored are bound to become points of reference for many years to come. Her contributions to issues of national importance at plenary can be so passionate that one is left with no doubt that she’s being driven by the values that shapes her being as well as her acute awareness of how a nation must be the protector of all her citizens wherever they may be.

    As a chairperson of the House Committee on Diaspora, Nigerians in the Diaspora have come to see her as the conscience of the nation because of the seriousness with which she takes and reacts swiftly to the unfortunate circumstances that befalls them either as individuals or as a group in their host countries. A very proactive legislator, one must not hesitate to mention here that one of the greatest disservice that a nation’s legislature must not do to a critical mass of her citizenry (Nigerians in the Diaspora) is the vacillation of this Seventh Assembly in signing Dabiri-Erewa’s Diaspora Commission bill into law before she finally takes her leave in May 2015. But her place is nonetheless secured in the legislature of the Fourth Republic.

    While the news that the legislator from Ikorodu, on her own volition, would not be presenting herself for re-election took Nigerians by surprise, judging from their reactions in the social media, I only smiled. On learning about her decision, I spoke gently to myself, and said: “This woman is so true to herself,” mentally recalling a discussion I had with her almost two years ago at the Oriental Hotel about 2015. One who’s true to oneself has no other choice than to be true to the entity s/he is serving at any given period. That was the lesson that the universe drew for me to learn from with the news. Nigerians on the social media could not understand why such an effective legislator with very high approval ratings from her constituency in particular and Nigerians at-large was calling it quits. Others simply thanked her for her decision.

    While Dabiri-Erewa’s refusal to seek re-election in 2015 because she wanted to give someone else the chance to contribute and rise in the business of nation building fundamentally attests to her character (and character, as they say, is what you do when no one is looking), the decision, as ennobling as it is, can also be seen in a different light. Her willingness not to return to the National Assembly is also capable of having a detrimental effect on the strength and quality of the nation’s democratic experience, it can be argued. The stark truth is that Nigeria lacks capacity in just about all those infrastructures that guarantees development and the nation’s legislative Houses are not exempt. These houses are a key segment of our national institutions in which capable and experienced hands are desperately needed to acquire capacity. After all, one is not talking about some deadwood legislators that dot both the upper and lower legislative chambers who doesn’t even know the questions let alone have answers, refusing to seek re-election. But someone so good and effective in her job that Nigeria is by a small notch better as a result.

    A politically enlightened constituency with the sophistication to know what politics should produce and a political party that knows a good legislator when it sees one would have insisted that Dabiri-Erewa seeks re-election. Did I hear someone say nobody is indispensable? True. But in a nation that is seriously hemorrhaging and suffering from all kinds of socio-economic and political ailments, her best hands should be seen as indispensable at this material juncture. Dabiri-Erewa is one of these capable hands in the National Assembly. The high turn-over of good, effective and experienced legislators in the name of turn-by-turn politics during election cycles just doesn’t augur well for deepening democracy and good governance in the polity.

    As a former Liaison Officer (USA) to the House Committee on Diaspora, I needed to brief Hon. Dabiri-Erewa on the progress of a project I was assigned by her on behalf of her committee and our meeting place was the Oriental Hotel. After my briefing and having read her body language that she was satisfied with my answers to her usually tough questions, which I had anticipated, having worked with her for some time (as my own inventive strategy to further ‘detain’ her, thereby doing justice to more drinks), I re-directed our conversation to the politics of Lagos, the nation and her own political future. “So, my chairwoman, what options for another office are you considering in 2015?” I asked. “I am not considering any options,” she said curtly. “That means you’ll just go back to the House,” I replied. “I will not be running for re-election,” she deadpanned. Though I did not believe that she wouldn’t run again knowing full well she would trounce anyone from her constituency during elections anytime, I still asked her what she would be doing after her voluntary retirement from the House to which she said she would find something to do, including going back to the electronic media.

    Having arrived very early for the convention and sitting all alone, lazily leafing through the programme brochure, her caring and motherly instinct probably nudged her to former governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola to intimate him of the availability of foods and other refreshments to relax with in the meantime. Oyinlola nodded approvingly. Dabiri-Erewa led the former governor to the VIP Lounge and arranged for his food. “You actually meant what you said to me almost two years ago, my chairwoman”, I reminded her as we both talked some more at the APC’s third National Convention in Lagos. This congresswoman is most assuredly in the new league of truly selfless, brilliant, caring and highly effective political leaders that this country desperately needs. With her decision not to seek re-election even when the ticket is hers for the asking and her chances of winning in the general elections is as good as predicting that there will not be darkness at 12 noon, Dabiri-Erewa has shown that she’s a legislator of example.

     

    • Odere is a media practitioner. He can be reached at femiodere@gmail.com
  • NAFDAC‘s regulatory strides

    NAFDAC‘s regulatory strides

    On Tuesday December 31, 2013, President Goodluck Jonathan re-appointed Dr Paul Orhii for another term as the Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC). The good tiding, contained in a statement signed by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, was to take effect from January 13, 2014. The reappointment was an endorsement and recognition of the revolutionary strides of. Orhii in the affairs of NAFDAC.

    As the curtain is being drawn on 2014, Nigerians would consider a reinvented NAFDAC among positive indicators of the transformation that has taken place in Nigeria under President Goodluck Jonathan. The renowned Pakistani economist, the late Professor Mahbub ul-Haq who was behind the institution of the Human Development Reports of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in 1990 most profoundly, contextualized the centrality of the people in governance when he observed: “The real wealth of a nation is its people. And the purpose of development is to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy, and creative lives”.

    President Jonathan has lived through the above words on the marble. No better evidence can be found than his obsession with ensuring qualitative healthcare delivery system in the country. The height to which NAFDAC has taken the regulation and control of the production and distribution of food and drugs in the country in the last six years underlines the resolve.

    The Benue-born NAFDAC’s CEO has not only been a change agent in the nation’s health sector in the past five years, the current year has seen him consolidate on the achievements of the agency and in going a step further in designing measures to spur his transformation drive. Today, NAFDAC under Orhii became the foremost regulatory agency in the West African sub-region to deploy cutting edge technologies in combating counterfeit medicines. These include Truscan, Black Eye, Mobile Authentication Service (MAS), the world’s first anti-counterfeiting contraption which uses the SMS platform, Radio Frequency Identification service (RFID), and Minilabs. Following the resounding successes in the deployment of these cutting edge technologies in Nigeria, the food and drug administration agencies in the United States, Germany, Sweden, Canada and a host of many developed countries of the world, have also started using the hi-tech anti-counterfeiting initiative.

    The introduction of small business support units aimed at developing small businesses, the electronic registration, and evolvement of electronic clearance portal for the sole purpose of fast-tracking online electronic clearance of goods at the nation’s ports thereby preventing trade inhibitions, as well as deployment of the Automated Products Administration and Monitoring Solution (NAPAMS), including the strengthening of its regulatory capacity through up-grading of its surveillance systems and capacity building, have all combined to make NAFDAC a total drug and food regulatory agency.

    The agency has expanded its regulatory frontiers to the practice of veterinary medicine and the use of pesticides as part of efforts to reduce food poisoning in the country. For this purpose, a directorate of veterinary medicine and allied products was created to ensure effective control of food-borne hazards at every stage of the food chain, “from the stable to table and from farm to the fork”. On the safe and responsible use of agro-chemicals, NAFDAC has successfully evolved distinct and efficient guidelines cum standardized operating procedures for chemical regulation and control, while risk assessment and field trials for fertilizers were equally introduced.

    For NAFDAC, good and standardized production and hygienic practices are the watchword in fast food centres and operators of eateries, while bakers are under compulsion to refrain from the use of cancer- causing Potassium Bromate in baking. For promoting cassava bread and export of value-added agricultural products, fortification of food vehicles with Vitamin ‘A’ and other micro nutrients as well as entrenchments of the universal salt iodization aimed at eliminating iodine deficiency disorder in Nigeria, the agency has become a blessing to the country.

    For massive enlightenment and awareness creation, NAFDAC management has relied on television channels, radio, handbills and in-house magazine to do the bulk of the job. It has encouraged consumers’ safety clubs in institutions of learning, and the formation of National Youth Service Corps Community Development Service Programme. The entrenchment of desk offices in the nation’s 774 local government areas for effective grassroots liaison, introduction of consultative fora with stakeholders, regular hosting of town hall meetings as well as the infusion of Food and Drug Safety Education into the nation’s basic school curriculum, etc are part of the awareness sustenance drive. Also notable is the D.G’s  intensive and persistent well coordinated advocacy visits to state governors, local government chairmen, royal fathers, community heads and chief executives of sister agencies, etc.

    Another dynamic innovation in its anti-counterfeiting crusade is the engagement of local celebrities in such campaigns. For instance, Tuface Idibia, a popular hip hop musician, was recently adopted as NAFDAC Ambassador to strengthen the agency’s anti-counterfeiting drive.

    In the pharmaceutical products distribution chain, the drug markets – Regional Mega Drug Distribution Centres (MDDC) and States Drugs Distribution Centre (SDDC) – which it helped create across the country –  have been most salutary in checking the hitherto chaotic distribution channels. Similarly, the Mobile Digital Water Testing Service System to effect an on-the-spot assessment and certification of sachet and bottled water to complement the physical factory-to-factory inspection it has in place, has helped to protect and secure the nation’s multi-billion naira water business.

    Enforcement activities of the agency have remained impressive, as its strategy of detection and destruction of fake and counterfeit drugs, as well as the arrest and prosecution of fakers have curbed a lot of unwholesome practices in the industry. The total overhaul of the agency’s legal framework to accord it befitting enforcement strength was equally achieved under Dr. Orhii.

    Under the incumbent DG, four Nigeria’s indigenous pharmaceutical companies – Swiss Pharmaceuticals, May and Baker Nigeria Ltd, Chi Pharmaceuticals and Evans Medical Plc, got the World Health Organization’s pre-qualification good manufacturing practice certification, and thus earning a global recognition for their products. The agency has performed creditably well in infrastructural development thereby raising the standards of local herbal medical practice to global level.  So also are the construction, rehabilitation and re-equipping of sophisticated scientific laboratories across the country and acquisition, refurbishing and building of office accommodation for the agency’s staff in other states of the federation among others.

    One outstanding accomplishments of Dr. Orhii in the out-going year is staff appreciation through the institution of annual honours and awards, and this has resulted in the exponential improvement on productivity. And for NAFDAC-DG, he will be remembered as one leader that put his all in the effort to eradicate drug counterfeiting and faking and in the global drive to ensure safe drugs for consumers. With success came local and international recognition. One such global honour is being named vice chairman of the International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Taskforce (IMPACT) based in Geneva, Switzerland. He is also the chairman of the West African Drug Regulatory Authorities Network (WADRAN); chairman WHO‘s Mechanism for the International Fight against Spurious, Substandard and Counterfeit Medicines.

    And finally, the international partnership for effective anti-drug counterfeiting activities has led to the sustenance of Nigeria’s robust working relationships with numerous countries like United States of America, China, Argentina, Canada, India, the European Union, Brazil, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia, Libya, African countries, Romania, etc.

    • Ikhilae is a Lagos-based public affairs analyst.