The Nation Newspaper

Category: Opinion

  • Demonetisation as catalyst to cashless economy

    Demonetisation as catalyst to cashless economy

    By Nnaji Jekwu Onovo

    In Nigeria, it is matter of cash! Cash is king! We are obsessed with cash. We carry it not only in wallets, but also in big bags, “Ghana Must Go”. We stash it in overhead tanks, at basements, in car boots, in cartons: and we spray it at ceremonies. In our markets and shopping malls, most transactions are in cash. Most Nigerians, about 60% of the population reside in rural communities, lacking banking facilities, so they hide their cash in secure places in the house, in the pillow cases, under the mattresses, in cupboards, in shelves, etc.

    On Wednesday, October 26, 2022, Godwin Emefiele, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), disclosed the apex bank’s plan to redesign and circulate new ₦‎100, ₦‎200, ₦‎500, and ₦‎1,000 notes. Consequently, Nigerians holding cash in any of these denominations would need to return them to their banks before the January 31, 2023, deadline.

    Explaining the bank’s decision to redesign some naira notes, the governor explained that while global best practices dictate that the process should be done every five to eight years, the naira had not been redesigned in the last 20 years.

    He explained that other reasons for the change included the hoarding of notes by Nigerians —; adding that the new currency will begin circulation from Thursday, December 15, 2022.

    But he was silent on the real motive, “DEMONETIZATION” as catalyst to cashless economy. Anyway, this is Nigeria, where policies are enunciated with some hidden agenda. Remember the IMF debate of 1985: We rejected the IMF loan and its conditions; but smuggled devaluation and subsidy removal through the back door christened “STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT PROGRAM, SAP. Naira keeps depreciating against the major currencies, just as the petroleum subsidy remains major policy discourse.

    On 6th December 2022, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) announced restriction on cash withdrawals from over-the-counter, Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) to N100, 000 and N500, 000 per week for individuals and corporate organizations, respectively. This is being implemented alongside the mopping of cash in circulation through the redesign policy.

    These policies of CBN pivoting towards cashless economy ignite protest from many sections of the society, including politicians, business communities and regional bodies. In summary, all of these people are saying: “Hands off Our Cash.”

    A cashless economy displays an economic situation whereby transactions are carried out without the need to move physical cash; and this is done through peer to peer, P2P payment services including credit and debit cards.  The cashless economy does not mean a complete absence of cash transactions; rather it refers to cash transactions being kept at the barest minimum. It is an economic system where transactions are not predominantly characterized as an exchange for actual cash.

    Demonetisation is aimed at compelling Nigerians to opt for cashless transactions due to the scarcity of liquid cash available to the public. The cashless policy might have the reverse effect of encouraging people to hoard cash. The limitation on cash withdrawals could create a black market for local currency, run by people who have backdoor access to cash given the rampant corruption in Nigeria’s public and private sectors. By not banning cash withdrawals that pass the limit, and instead asking for 5% and 10% as processing fees, the policy has created a workaround for it to be exploited.

    Noncash systems are not always inherently reliable. They require connectivity. Power outages occur with regularity here in Nigeria. We know that when the power goes out, merchants can’t take electronic payments, and cash only is the way to pay. With mobile wallets, phones must be charged. Online banking services also require, reliable and affordable internet access, which low- and fixed-income people often cannot afford.

    I am very much in support of innovation and looking toward the future and how we can expedite, how we can use the electronic opportunities that are available to us. However, let’s talk about what is happening in the real world

     The villager that brings to the market his/her agro produce does not typically have a bank account or internet skills. So, the mode of payment must be cash. Daily-paid labourers and their likes doing odd jobs want cash. They want to be paid in cash.

    There are several valuable and innovative benefits to going cashless. The first is the end of cash-based criminal activity such as money laundering, robberies, and kidnapping for ransom.  Cashless technologies could be some of our greatest assets in the fight against corruption and organised crime, too.

    If everyone were connected to an end-to-end e-payment infrastructure – a cashless environment – there would be transparency in money flows. Whether it’s international aid or private investment, if everyone in the chain were connected digitally, you could see where the money went and how it was spent. Any sums appearing outside of that framework could immediately be flagged and investigated. This would narrow the focus for law enforcement and forensic accountants, making it easier to target and recoup hidden money.

    The CBN policies have some benefits, but the strategies should be reviewed. Demonetization policy as being implemented seems punitive and discriminatory. We should do the first thing first; eliminate the high denominations of ₦500 and ₦1000 from the currency; so the upper limit will be ₦200. High denominations have been aiding money launderers, kidnappers, terrorists, and cash hoarders.   One million Naira in ₦200 bills weighs about 5kg; One million Naira in ₦1000 bills paper, weighs about 1.4kg—and therefore easy to carry. Furthermore, the daily cash withdrawal limit should be pegged at ₦100,000 for individuals and ₦1million for corporate bodies per day.

    Technology in banking and finance must expand financial equity and inclusion by providing choices and options that make personal financial management easier, more efficient, and safer for all consumers. Technology must not limit choices and perpetuate systemic inequities in our financial system that exclude and discriminate.

  • Soyinka, Pyrates Confraternity and the God factor

    Soyinka, Pyrates Confraternity and the God factor

    The invitation of Professor Wole Soyinka to the just concluded Lagos Book and Art Festival was, as is usual with WS, an event all by itself. From poetry to activism, and from scholarship to Nigerian politics, Wole Soyinka’s intellectual pungency has not been diminished by age. At the occasion, he put paid to all speculations about his religious affiliation. When asked what specifically was his religion, WS responded that he had never felt there was an imperative for him to have one. While most already knew that he was not a Christian or Muslim, most are now shocked that he denied being an òrìsà worshipper. According to him,

     I have never felt I needed one. I am a mythologist. I believe that people have a right and cannot help creating mythologies around themselves, around their experience about what they project from the inner recesses of their minds as answers to questions. And so, I find nothing wrong with utilizing mythologies as part and parcel of my creative warehouse. But religion? No, I don’t worship any deity. But I consider deities as creatively real and therefore my companions in my journey in both the real and imaginative worlds.

     This definitive response of Prof. Soyinka has, expectedly, been stretched over whichever way by commentators, especially on social media. I feel compelled to use it as a springboard for outlining a different concern, one that WS is not a stranger to—the relationship between the Pyrates Confraternity (PC), moral degeneration among the youth and the God factor as a significant variable in the urgency of moral rebirth in Nigeria.

    Any talk of the PC brings to mind the terrible loss of innocence of an idea that was well-intentioned, but that metamorphosed according to the ravages of social anomie. When Soyinka wrote the Season of Anomie in 1973, it was a literary depiction of the emerging corruption that would eventually incapacitate the Nigerian society. And forty-nine years later, that anomic situation has further raised the issue of moral rebirth as a critical component of Nigeria’s development unfolding.

    I recently came across the interview granted a former friend of WS and co-founder of the Pyrates Confraternity, the late Prof. Olumuyiwa Awe, who spoke about his participation in the group, his conversion and dissociation from the PC, and the degeneration of that group into a violent cult. Not surprisingly, when Prof. Awe got born-again and became a Christian, his ministerial responsibility revolved around cultism and the need to rehabilitate former fraternity and cult members into Christ, and hence into a new sense of responsibility to the Nigerian society.

    What is intriguing for me is simple: two bosom friends who co-founded a confraternity not only diverged on relationship with it, but eventually resolved their spiritual journey in two different ways. Professor Wole Soyinka still retains a critical and patronal relationship with Pyrates Confraternity/National Association of Sea Dogs (NAS), the late Prof. Awe severed all ties with the confraternity and indeed went on to establish a ministry that was meant to provide spiritual succor and direction for former cultists. Of course, WS has explained, ad nauseum, that it is disingenuous to conflate (con) fraternity with cultism. The charitable and humanitarian endeavors that characterized NAS now is vastly different from what the late Prof. Awe would have wanted—the total disestablishment of NAS and all other (oc)cultic groups in the Nigerian society. Of course, both co-founders are committed to the project of moral rebirth within the Nigerian society. But that must come from different spiritual perspectives.

    When the Pyrates Confraternity came into existence, it emerged within the context of an ideological framing. The Magnificent Seven—Wole Soyinka, Ikpehare Aig-Imoukhuede, Olumuyiwa Awe, Pius Oleghe, Nathaniel Oyelola, Sylvanus Egbuche and Ralph Opara—were motivated to challenge the congealing elitism of the upper-middle class in the Nigerian society of the 1950s. The confraternity was thus founded on the ideals of social justice and the protection of human rights from the high-handedness of elitism. The Confraternity was also particularly irked by the increasing tribalist sensibility that was rife on Nigerian university campuses. The increasing incidence of obscene wealth and tribalism fueled the humanistic and radical ideological orientation of the Confraternity. The idea of the brotherhood of all humankind, that is the central objective of Marxism as well as all human religious institutions, is at the heart of the Confraternity’s underlying philosophy. Martin Luther King, Jr. must have had the Confraternity in mind when he argued that “The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.” Wole Soyinka has been uncompromising not only in his belief that justice is the first condition of humanity, but also in the conviction that the societal transformation away from social anomie requires concerted efforts of individuals and groups.

    Let me unpack my thoughts. Nigeria faces a significant challenge is facilitating the moral rebirth that constitute the most significant fundament in transforming her socioeconomic and sociopolitical frameworks. At the base of Nigeria’s postcolonial predicaments is the function of a moral deficit that frustrate a thorough commitment to the dynamics of good governance. In its basic form, political and bureaucratic corruption is a moral issue that speaks to the predilection of individuals—politicians, bureaucrats, public functionaries, etc.—to siphon the commonwealth for private considerations. Thus, moral corruption stands at the core of the disconnection between the government and the governed. Furthermore, this moral deficit is equally responsible for the loss of human dignity arising from the dysfunction of institutional dynamics. Administrative institutions have broken down and have lost their efficiency because those manning them have lost their moral compass. The healthcare system in Nigeria, for instance, has become moribund because people profit from sicknesses and deaths.

    And this moral decadence becomes aggravated with the advent of a youth counterculture, from cybercrimes and frauds to a virulent sociocultural disregard for ennobling values. Even the very idea of a cult has been transposed out of its original ritualized essence into a violent counterpoint to all things meaningful. “Fraternity,” from the Latin fraternus, relates to brotherhood. Indeed, the idea of “confraternity” has its root in a Christian charity and pious organisation of laypeople. It was this idea of brotherhood that signal its significance in colleges and universities from where Soyinka and friends picked it up as a nodal point for ideological advocacy. In fact, the idea of the Ogboni confraternity embed judicial, political and economic function that grounds the Yoruba worldview in the ordering of the society. That commitment to societal unity and functional relevance is still preserved in the metamorphosis of the Ogboni to its reformed essence in the Reformed Ogboni Confraternity. When the first internal crisis surfaced in the Pyrates Confraternity, it was the prelude to an unwholesome transformation that caricatured the original objective of upholding human dignity and agitating for a just society.

    Nigeria is essentially out of moral articulation; we have lost our moral compass, and the values required to put decency and dignity at the core of our national reconstruction. Ana Navarro, the Nicaraguan-American commentator and strategist, one noted insistently: “There is a minimum requirement of morality, of moral compass, of decency, of moral empathy. And if you are incapable of meeting that minimum requirement, you can’t even talk to me about policy.” She is right! At the very core of good governance is value reorientation that, at least at the minimum, directs the path of policymaking in ways that improve the quality of life of the citizens. What is not clear is where that value should derive.

    This is not a discourse that Soyinka would want to be involved, but the late Prof. Awe would insist that the spiritual experience of being born-again is a sufficient condition for a moral rebirth — “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” The newness that comes from that spiritual rebirth refers to being reborn with a new set of values and virtues that practically makes the person a new-born. Here, the God-factor is a potent moral force for moral rejuvenation. Of course, a lot of critics of the Christian faith will look at the larger picture in keying into the moral force of Christianity. The absolutist epistemology that grounds the Abrahamic faiths—Christianity, Judaism and Islam —undermines the basis for social and national relation. The three religions are founded on an exclusivist and exclusionary frame that differentiate humanity into the believers and the unbelievers. And this distinction is circumscribed by monotheist belief in one God and a set of conditionalities on how that God can be accessed. For Christianity, for example, salvation comes only through Jesus Christ. Any other mean is counterfeit. And all sorts of religious violence have been perpetrated on this dichotomy.

    The African traditional religion still remains one of the victims of religious discrimination. The fundamentalism that is the logical derivation of an exclusionary religiosity violently confronts any and all appearances of evil, including “heathen” and “idolatrous” practices. When the Colonial missionaries confronted the traditional Africans, they only saw souls who needed to be delivered from savage barbarism, rather than a set of humanity who had developed a cultural heritage that had sustained them for centuries. The Yoruba traditional religion is famous for its accommodationist dynamics. There is no exclusionary epistemology that demonizes the Other. And that is because traditional African religion does not insist that it has the whole of the natural and the supernatural realms all figured out. It considered itself just one framework out of many for understanding the cosmos and all its dimensions.

    By considering himself a mythologist, rather than a worshipper, Wole Soyinka calls on an eternal theme in his literary and nonfictional works—the role that myths and history can play in the renewal and regeneration of the human society. Myths, WS will agree, provides a storehouse of symbols that allows us to keep reimagining the possibilities that are embodied by the human spirit and human will. Mythology takes the idea of renewal and rebirth seriously, and Soyinka remains the arch-activist in his commitment to the transformation of the Nigerian society through mythological reassessment and reformulation. Indeed, it is in this sense that he prefers being regarded as a mythologist than a worshipper, even of the òrìsà religion. According to him, “But I consider deities as creatively real and therefore my companions in my journey in both the real world and the imaginative world.” It is in this sense that Soyinka can travel with Ogun, the Yoruba divinity of war and creativity, as a mythological re-enactor of change and rebirth. In Ogun, the human society is always in the acting of being reborn.

    How does this Soyinka’s vision of the relationship between mythology and transformation pan out within the Nigerian state and her urgent need for a moral rebirth? Or more specifically, we can ask about the feasibility of upholding an exclusivist religious and moral framework for value orientation in a plural context like Nigeria. I am too enlightened to know what the consequences would be. Fanaticism. A fanatical sensibility has the propensity to recreate the society around an autocratic image or idea, rather than allowing for a collective and concerted recreational essence. If, as Soyinka argues, everyone has the right to create the myth around which experiences can be grasped and better understood, then we arrive at an ecumenical point that commits everyone to viable alternatives of individual and social change. This act of will, demands in Soyinka’s mythological framework, that the renewal of the inner self be translated into an active outer quest for societal change and communal transformation.

    Mythology does not recreate the societal possibilities in the image of any gods or divinities; rather, it allows for a revolutionary recreative possibilities drawing from the entire spiritual energies a society can manufacture. I read this as a society’s capacity to draw on the spiritual belief of a Prof. Olumuyia Awe in the transforming power of Jesus Christ, a Muslim’s conviction in the peace-potential of Islam, and a traditionalist’s communitarian and relational capacity to draw everyone and every belief into a convivial framework of interaction. At a very deep level, the moral energies of all the religions represented within Nigeria’s religious landscape have the capacity to contribute to the search for moral rebirth. I mean to say that Nigeria requires a dynamic framework of mythological narration—through a national integrity and moral system—that speaks to all Nigerians equally within a broad moral prism they can all identify with; a prism that is not discriminatory or exclusivist—a framework that is undergirded by the objective of regenerating Nigeria’s decadent social fabric by appealing to the very best in the religious myths and symbols that humans have created themselves.

    Religions are meant to alleviate humans’ existential anxieties and national disarticulation. And this is where they serve the purpose of assisting in Nigeria’s search for a moral reformation as a precondition for her sustainable good governance. In this sense, the late Prof. Olumuyiwa Awe and Professor Wole Soyinka want the same thing—a transformed country guided by the best in moral rearticulation. This was what led them to the vision of the Pyrates Confraternity in the first place. And when that idea became caricatured, this is what led to Awe’s dissociation and the embrace of what he considered a better alternative. And this, it seems to me, is what keeps reanimating Soyinka’s mythological reenactment of societal possibilities, either through the confraternal philosophy of brotherhood, or through the cosmic vision of any of the Yoruba deities and divinities.

    To achieve wholesome framework of moral armaments that would sustain her quest for a postcolonial democratic and developmental transformation, Nigeria needs a moral discourse—the type that swings around the possibilities typified by Awe and Soyinka, rather than a fundamentalist understanding of a value reorientation that demonizes others for what they belief and the myths they have chosen to recreate their own experiences. God is a factor that is a real force for transformation for some. And for others, God remains a creative myth that could facilitate transformative experiences at the individual and societal levels. Either way, the God-factor is potent.

  • Church, state and 2023 general elections

    Church, state and 2023 general elections

    By Abiodun Komolafe

    Originally, in the secular world, the State comes before the Church, because, by its institutional characteristics, it is the custodian of all other institutions. In other words, the State is the behemoth institution; co-existing, but superior to other social institutions. And that has been established since 1648! Thenceforward, the marriage between the Church and the State has been at the mercy of the State. The only exception is Rome, where a State exists within a State because the papacy is a state on its own.

    In the United Kingdom, the Church legitimizes the State. Succinctly put, the Church is the legitimacy booster for the State. That is why, while the powers of the State protect the King or the Queen, the Church legitimizes the State. The more reason the King or the Queen can do no wrong! Again, that’s why, immediately a Prime Minister is elected, he or she goes to Buckingham Palace for the blessing of the King or the Queen. And the King or the Queen will normally approve the appointment of the Prime Minister, because it is both symbolic and a symbiotic thing!

    Basically, though the State is always there to protect the interests of the Church, the unfortunate thing is that, in the Nigerian circumstance, the Church is now representing a sectorial capacity of the religious sector. For instance, the Islamic faith is as formidable as the Church. As it is, the Bola Tinubu/Kashim Shettima same faith joint presidential ticket of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has so made the powers of the two main religions in  Nigeria become so antagonistic to each other that it is now the test of religious influence!

    It is also interesting to note that former Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State did add the reality of ‘Isese’ (traditional worship) to the mix, which, of course, is still within the purview of reli gion. Gboyega Oyetola, the immediate past governor of the state, did not betray the trust! In Osun, for instance, ‘Isese’ now has a recognized annual holiday attached to it. Impliedly, the indigenous religion is also qualified to be a contender to the throne. While the Christians may put forward an advice, the Islamic world will be willing to add its voice. Ultimately, the ‘Isese’ adherents, who also have the recognition of the State, will also want to be heard! So, it’s no longer the Church, solely.

    Where also lies the place of the atheists and others whose interests are not captured in the present picture? After all, Nigeria belongs to all Nigerians, irrespective of creed or race. What’s more? Elective offices in Nigeria are supposed to be secular. That’s what Article 10 of the Constitution says! Yes, the atheists may not have the population with which to push through their wishes, but, within the context of liberality, even the Boko Haram insurgents have a reason to make a demand in a democracy!

    With a specific reference to the 2023 elections, there’s a lot of confusion in the definition of Christianity in Nigeria. And it is deliberate! Take, for instance, the case of Peter Obi. As governor of Anambra State, it’s being alleged that he never gave non-Catholics free access, or Certificates of Occupancy to build their churches in the state. Added to Obi’s purported sins was that he almost chased everybody, who wanted to build a mosque in the State, away. As a matter of fact, these allegations have been appropriately documented and any Nigerian with disagreeing opinions has been asked to come forward and open up. Now, Obi as the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) is a regular face at Pentecostal churches and congregations. As Apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 3:2-3, doesn’t being a Christian go beyond being a churchgoer?

    Those who still doubt the relevance of, or the influence of religion in Nigeria’s democratic journey had better ask Atiku Abubakar why he hurriedly deleted his tweets, condemning the gruesome murder of Deborah Samuel by religious extremists in Sokoto, on his Twitter handle. Obviously, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate did it to appease the hoodlums. Otherwise, he would lose the entire North, come February 25, 2023!

    It has also been argued that Nigeria is currently not a State. Well, those who hold this notion may not be wrong after all! For example, had dear fatherland truly been a State, the Ademola Adeleke-led government in Osun would not have deliberately refused to pay the salaries of certain public workers. That’s not possible in a true democracy! No! In a thriving democracy, public administration cannot come down to the handlers’ personal feelings or idiosyncrasies.

    All said, the immediate major interest of the Nigerian State, so to speak, is to have successful elections in 2023. Without doubt, the point opined about the question of religion and its influence on; or, relevance to, governance is so critical to social cohesion. The State will want the cooperation of the Church, while the Church, though will want to appear neutral, will be very sensitive to its interests. So, the State must be extremely careful not to be seen as being religiously biased or partial. If it does, it could lose its legitimacy; and it will have legitimacy crises. Take for instance the Nigerian situation: the current president is a Muslim; so also are most of the key position holders in its bureaucracy and public service. Coincidentally too, the ruling party has also presented a Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket for the election. Under this condition, should the handlers of the State spew words that are perceived as being against the Christian world, it can bring the country to its knees.

    If I may ask, how coterminous is the interest of the Church with that of the Nigerian State? Whereas the interest of the State is as constant as the Northern Star, the Church cannot but negotiate its interests and preferences with the State within the context of the demands of other similar social institutions. The interest of the State is to have a legitimized government in place; and the interest of the Church is to have its interests protected from hindrances from the State or opposing faiths. That the Church is presumably drawing global attention to the fielding of Tinubu and Shettima as the APC joint presidential flag-bearers as a result of these fears cannot be far from the truth. The argument is that, as Muslims, a Tinubu/Shettima presidency may not be sympathetic to the core interests of the Church, more so as they don’t even understand the components of those core interests.

    Lastly, it’s a statement of fact that the burden of the success of the forthcoming elections lies squarely on the State. However, since it is a societal issue, it therefore behooves the Church and other societal groups to cooperate with the State to ensure that a peaceful atmosphere prevails before, during and after the exercise for, it is only in a peaceful atmosphere that both the interests of the State and the Religious Community (the Church inclusive) can be realized. How to get societal peace engineered in an environment of insecurity, poverty, hunger and other kinds of social malady places an enormous burden on the State. It’s after these negative social indices are sorted that both the Church and the State can have peace and, effectively, a government that is legitimate.

    May the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, grant us peace in Nigeria!

    • Komolafe wrote in from Ijebu-Jesa, Osun State (ijebujesa@yahoo.co.uk)

  • The saboteurs in Biafra

    The saboteurs in Biafra

    By Tochukwu Ezukanma

    I was locked in an argument with a friend. He argued that, if not for the saboteurs, the Biafran Army would have fought its way to Lagos and captured it. He refused to understand that an ill-equipped, ill-clad, ill-fed army that could neither defend its borders nor its capital, could not project military power to hundreds of miles from its frontier, and sustain serious battles and capture Lagos. I explained to him that it takes so much to project military power beyond your borders; and gave him series of examples on the inverse relationship between the distance military power is projected and the combat effectiveness of an army.

    My quandary about his determined, repetitive argument was heightened by his supposed education. He has a PhD in economics. How can a man with such extensive knowledge of Economics, “the management and distribution of scarce resources among alternatives” or “maximizing utility subject to constraints”, be so unimaginative?

    Once the topic is Biafra, the enduring grip of the lies of the Biafran propaganda on Igbo minds makes it impossible for many Igbo, irrespective of their education, to reason, thoughtless of reason rationally. Irrespective of the intrusively available information and the incontestable facts presented to them, they refuse to appreciate the futility and absurdity of Biafranism. They continue to believe that Biafra was a realizable objective, scuttled by the subversive activities of the saboteurs. Ironically, there was no saboteur in Biafra; and Emmanuel Ifeajuna was not a saboteur.

    For the naysayers that will consider this fact a desperate attempt at historical revisionism, and, as usual, haul invectives on me: Igbo hater, Fulani slave, agent of northern hegemony, bastard fathered by a Hausa/Fulani, etc, I recommend four books by four prominent actors in the Biafran war: Alexander Madiebo, Adewale Ademoyega, Bernard Odogwu and Frederick Forysth. They all wrote about Emmanuel Ifeajuna, and made it clear that he was not a saboteur.

    In his declaration of Biafra, Ojukwu rejected the advice of the Igbo military elite, and political elite, namely his father, Sir Louis Ojukwu and Nnamdi Azikiwe. He, contemptuously, overlooked the refusal of the minorities in Eastern Nigeria to be part of his Biafra. He ignored Yakubu Gowon, who had implemented the Aburi Accord with Decree 8, and repeatedly, warned of an impending war, if Ojukwu tried to secede from Nigeria. In addition, he disregarded the Organization of African Unity (OAU)’s ingrained opposition to secession, and its insistence that the resolution to the conflict must be within the context of one Nigeria; and scorned the British and American governments’ opposition to the breakup of Nigeria.

    With his declaration of Biafra against the grain of the Igbo military and political elite, the minorities in Biafra, the federal government of Nigeria, OAU and the governments of two most important superpowers, Biafra was a reckless, suicidal enterprise. Just as the war started, Biafra started collapsing. With its superior fire power, the Nigerian Army copiously slaughtered Biafran soldiers. After six days of fighting, they had captured the whole of Nsukka, and were on their advance towards Enugu.

    Ifeajuna and his group urged Ojukwu to make peace, at least, arrange a ceasefire, because the war was futile; it was wasting lives, especially of Biafran youths and destroying our material resources, and will still end in our defeat. Ojukwu refused. Ifeajuna, once had a test of fame as a Commonwealth athletics champion and was one of the few university graduates, then, in the Nigerian Army. He was the intellectual/ideological leader of the January 1966 coup. He was among the Igbo military elite that were opposed to the declaration of Biafra. With Alale, Ifeajuna went seeking support from other army officers to end the war immediately and to stop the waste in human lives; and to replace Ojukwu with someone more amenable to peace, if need be.

    Alale was a trade unionist, expert of mass psychology and propagandist, and a very important aide/adviser to Ojukwu. He organized those series of rallies, graced by Ojukwu’s personal magnetism and mesmeric oratory. He was not originally a soldier, but was given a protective rank of major in the Biafran army.

    In his book, The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War, the Biafran Chief of Army Staff, Alexander Madiebo, wrote about the visit of Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna and Major Alale to his military headquarters at Nkalagu. They told him of their desire to remove Ojukwu and replace him with another army officer prepared to negotiate with the federal government and bring a peaceful resolution to the war.

    In his book, Why We Struck, the second-in-command in the Victor Banjo-led Biafran invasion of Mid-West, Adewale Ademoyega, wrote, “Ifeajuna visited me in Benin and discussed a political solution as a possible alternative to the military, in view of Biafra’s heavy and continued loss of men, material and credibility”. He was disturbed that “Enugu was badly threatened and could fall any minute. And that it would be tragic to wait for that to happen.” To him, “Ojukwu was totally intransigent and that a political solution, if any, might have to be put into effect without his consent.”

    As they sought the support of other army officers for their enterprise, the Chief of the Biafran Military Intelligence, Bernard Odogwu, got a wind of it; and informed Ojukwu. In his book, Nowhere to Hide (Crisis and Conflict in Biafra), Bernard Odogwu wrote that Ifeajuna, Alale and Agbam, a lawyer and a friend of Ifeajuna, planned to overthrow Ojukwu. And in his book, Emeka, Ojukwu’s friend and confidant, Frederick Forsyth, concluded his circuitous presentation on Victor Banjo-led military invasion of the Midwest with: Banjo was executed for insubordination. He “was shot along with one of the plotters of the January 15th 1966 coup, Emmanuel Ifeajuna.”

    Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna, Lt. Colonel Victor Banjo, Major Alale and Barrister Agbam were arrested, and hurriedly tried and convicted for “intending to overthrow Ojukwu”. Members of the special tribunal instituted to trial them were ordered in advance to convict them. A member of the tribunal, a lawyer from Onitsha, Godwin Nzegwu, disobeyed the order to convict the four men because, as far as he was concerned, “There was no concrete evidence against them; it was totally unjust to convict them on hearsay.” He was arrested, and thrown into detention, where he remained till the end of the war.

    Although they were convicted for “intending to overthrow Ojukwu”, the Biafran propaganda portrayed them as saboteurs that, for long, leaked Biafran military secrets to the enemy and subverted the Biafran war efforts, and thus, were responsible for the series of Biafran military setbacks. It also accused them of having infused and concealed their members throughout the entire Biafrian army, and infiltrated enemy soldiers within artillery range of Enugu, and thus, the city had been under the artillery barrage of the enemy.

    As he stood, bare-chested, blindfolded and tied up, and awaiting the volley of bullets from the firing squad that will snuff-out his life, Ifeajuna said that: his death would not stop what he feared most, that the federal troops would enter Enugu, and the only way to stop this was for those about to kill him to ask for a ceasefire. The Biafran propaganda twisted his statement, and quoted him as saying that: even with his death, his plan, for the defeat of Biafra, will still work; the federal forces will soon enter Enugu and Biafra must lose the war. Quite naturally, the Biafran masses believed this lickerish, salacious, but mendacious, narrative.

    The saboteur politics proved terrible for the Biafran Army, but very handy for Ojukwu. It seriously undermined discipline in the army: soldiers distrusted their commanders, and sometimes, disobeyed their orders, beat them up and murdered them because they suspected them of being saboteurs. Madiebo wrote that he repeatedly asked Ojukwu to stop the saboteur politics because it was destroying the Biafran Army, but Ojukwu refused. It provided him scapegoats for his repeated blunders. It exonerated him from all blames, as everything that went wrong in Biafra was blamed on the saboteurs. As Biafra wobbled from one defeat to another, and lost one city, town, village after another and Ojukwu rejected every opportunity for a peaceful resolution to the war, Biafrans trained their venom and blame on the supposed ubiquitous saboteurs; and not on the real culprit: Chukwuemeka Ojukwu.

    After Nnamdi Azikiwe secured five international recognitions for Biafra; and the conflict ceased to be Nigeria’s internal affairs, the prospect for peace significantly improved. But Ojukwu scuttled every attempt at a peace resolution because peace demanded a number of compromises that will strip him of his absolute and despotic powers: Head of State and Supreme Commander of the Biafran Armed Forces. At the continued waste of Igbo lives and destruction of Igbo land, he continued to protect his power, until the federal forces closed in so dangerously on him, and would have captured him within a few days hence he ran away.

    • Ezukanma writes from Lagos.

  • Beware a world where artists are replaced by robots. It’s starting now

    Beware a world where artists are replaced by robots. It’s starting now

    By Molly Crabapple

    Like many artists, I’ve looked in horror at generative image AI, a technology that is poised to eliminate humans from the field of illustration.

    In minutes or hours, apps such as Stable Diffusion and Midjourney can churn out polished, detailed images based on text prompts — and they do it for a few dollars or for free. They are faster and cheaper than any human can be, and while their images still have problems — a certain soullessness, perhaps, an excess of fingers, tumours that sprout from ears — they are already good enough to have been used for the book covers and editorial illustration gigs that are many illustrators’ bread and butter.

    They are improving at an astounding rate. Though some AI fans give lip service to the idea that this technology is meant to help artists, it is, in fact, a replacement, as explicit as the self-acting spinning mule, a machine commissioned by British factory bosses in 1825 to break the power of striking textile workers.

    This replacement could only be accomplished through a massive theft. The most popular generative art AI companies, Stability AI, Lensa AI, Midjourney and DALL-E, all trained their AI’s on massive data sets such as LAION-5B, which is run by the German nonprofit LAION.

    These data sets were not ethically obtained. LAION sucked up 5.8 billion images from around the internet, from art sites such as DeviantArt, and even from private medical records. I found my art and photos of my face on their databases. They took it all without the creator’s knowledge, compensation or consent.

    Once LAION had scraped up all this work, it handed it over to for-profit companies — such as Stability AI, the creator of the Stable Diffusion model — which then trained their AIs on artists’ pirated work. Type in a text prompt, like “Spongebob Squarepants drawn by Shepard Fairey,” and the AI mashes together art painstakingly created over lifetimes, then spits out an image, sometimes even mimicking an artist’s signature.

    AIs can spit out work in the style of any artist they were trained on — eliminating the need for anyone to hire that artist again. People sometimes say “AI art looks like an artist made it.” This is because it vampirized the work of artists and could not function without it.

    John Henry might have beaten the steam drill, but no human illustrator can work fast enough or cheap enough to compete with their robot replacements. A tiny elite will remain in business, and its work will serve as a status symbol. Everyone else will be gone. “You’ll have to adapt,” AI boosters say, but AI leaves no room for an artist as either a world creator or a craftsman. The only task left is the dull, low-paid and replaceable work of taking weird protrusions off AI-generated noses.

    While they destroy illustrators’ careers, AI companies are making fortunes. Stability AI, founded by hedge fund manager Emad Mostaque, is valued at $1 billion, and raised an additional $101 million of venture capital in October. Lensa generated $8 million in December alone. Generative AI is another upward transfer of wealth, from working artists to Silicon Valley billionaires.

    All this has made illustrators furious. After ArtStation, the popular portfolio site for the entertainment and game design industry, decided to allow AI-generated art, the front page became a sea of anti-AI graphics, uploaded by artists in a coordinated rebellion. ClipStudioPaint pulled a generative AI feature after protests by its users. Artists such as “Hellboy” creator Mike Mignola have spoken out against AI art. Famed animator Hayao Miyazaki called it an “insult to life itself.”

    AI pushers have told me that AI is a tool which artists can use to automate their work. This just shows how little they understand us. Art is not scrubbing toilets. It’s not an unpleasant task most people would rather have the robots do. It is our heart. We want to do art’s work. We make art because it is who we are, and through immense effort, some of us have managed to earn a living by it. It’s precarious, sure. Our wages have not risen for decades. But we love this work too much to palm it off to some robot, and it is this love that AI pushers will never get.

    They already seem omnipresent, but generative art AIs are at their beginning. If illustrators want to stay illustrators, the time to fight is now. Data sets such as LAION-5B must be deleted and rebuilt to consist only of voluntarily submitted work. AIs trained on copyrighted art must also be pulled. Above all, the work of real people should be valued, not exploited to enrich a few tech plutocrats. We are, after all, on “team human.”

    • Culled from Los Angeles Times. Crabapple is an artist and author of “Drawing Blood.”

  • Ranking Nigeria’s richest: Let’s play by logic

    Ranking Nigeria’s richest: Let’s play by logic

    By Stephen Okorie

    Every other week, we see news reports of one Nigerian billionaire toppling another off the top two positions – it is never the first position as that bit appears to be set in stone – irrespective of the prevailing realities around the true earning positions of the men who occupy them.

    At times, you would think this was a Formula One race with the frontrunners neck and neck and overtaking one another at intervals, except that in this particular race, only the top two and three positions are interchanged. About time we permitted some logic and nuance in this game since it matters to us to keep this otherwise insignificant score.

    Who is richer, Aliko Dangote, Mike Adenuga or Abdulsamad Rabiu? Well, it depends on who you ask. If you put it to Forbes, it is always Aliko Dangote. Who is richer in the straight run between Mike Adenuga and Abdulsamad Rabiu?

    That’s where the turbulence sets in because, from my count, Abdulsamad is always overtaking Mike Adenuga in the newspapers. This is even more interesting when you realise that the same papers who say he was now in the second position return to say he has again overtaken Mike Adenuga into the second position – Logic doesn’t appear to be their forte.

    How many times can a man be overtaken in a year? It does look like there appears to be an obsessive need to force a debate where none exists. That way, if it is repeated long enough, maybe – just maybe – reality would eventually bend to the wishes of those who believe that repeating an anomaly long enough will make it normal.

    In a Super Brands ‘Coolest Billionaires In The World’ feature piece, Mike Adenuga is said to be worth some $20billion. Unlike his Forbes estimate that methodically use his stock earnings and prices, this nuanced his wealth across some of his major economic interests and investments including Conoil, Glo, Julius Berger, banking interests, real estate etc. These are only the investments we know are owned by the quite private billionaire. It would not be shocking to find out that he’s got a lot more in his kitty.

    Unlike his peers who appear to enjoy the attention of the media and are quick to give interviews and appear at events – nothing wrong with these, different strokes for different folks – Dr Mike Adenuga Jnr. has pointedly kept himself away from the news, public events and other such matters.

    We know a lot less about him and we do know a lot more about the rest. Maybe that is why it is easy for the media games to be played against him, where he ought to be seen as the richest in Nigeria, going by assets and spread of investments, he is being made to look like even the second position isn’t his.

    Money and the business of counting money is a numbers game, obviously. If the media intends to play it, numbers are dealt in the science of mathematics and mathematics is an exercise in numbers, not noise.

    Enough of twisting and bending logic, where we are made to read – and some believe – that those with profitable assets, including platforms that earn billions by the nanosecond must be seen to be poorer than those whose wealth are counted by the ticks, tocks and vagaries of stock exchanges. Even if this was some Tik Tok challenge, we would still need to permit reason as the preeminent decider of what we believe or don’t.

    The internet and books are replete with reports of the inaccuracy of Forbes rankings – often the basis for newspaper reports on ranking the rich. It is no surprise for instance that the Bloomberg rankings of the rich and the Forbes ranking at often unaligned.

    Forbes almost completely ignores wealth held in private investments; Bloomberg makes an effort to accommodate those. For instance, in 2019 Forbes claimed Candy Empire’s Jacqueline Mars was worth $29.7b, but Bloomberg valued the same billionaire at $43.8b. That’s a whopping $14.1billion worth of errors.

    There are several disparities like this with these reports. These disparities make it appear like guesswork at best. At worst? Let us not be seen to be imagining that there are billionaires who pay to be valued higher than they really are.

    We must define what we mean by wealth on this side of the world. Elsewhere, one could be swimming in oceans of debt and still be deemed to be wealthy as long as they have managed to build a sophisticated system that only permits for their perceived income to be taken into account.

    This may look permissible in a credit system. To copy and paste this into our reporting and perception of wealth in Nigeria is to swallow the hook, the line and the sinker without question – also known as being gullible.

    We can do better. Let’s define wealth by the obvious: Who’s got more investments? Who’s got the bigger investments? Who’s got more diversity in their investments? Who is less exposed to debts? And when all is said and done, who is able to drop the money on the table when push comes to shove? We know who, enough with the predictable musical chairs. It’s a poor look on all of us.

  • Eko Electricity and its customers

    Eko Electricity and its customers

    By I.D. Nga

    What exactly were Nigerians supposed to gain from the privatization of the power sector? What, for instance, made the new power distribution companies (DISCOs) preferable to the much despised and now defunct NEPA or PHCN? Or was the privatization programme just another scheme to put power supply in different (preferred) hands, and nothing more?

    A key issue with the new arrangement is that the citizens are still denied the option of choice. In the telecommunications sector, once you lose interest in one service provider, you can simply throw away its SIM card and obtain that of another. But in the case of the power sector, you are perpetually stuck with the particular DISCO under whose fiefdom you fall into by virtue of where your accommodation is located. And so, even if you are not happy with their dismal and excruciating style of operations, you cannot leave them, and you have no one to run to for help.

    And what is worse, Nigerians are still trapped in the same notoriously poor power supply system under which NEPA/PHCN made them to pay heavily for thick darkness. Knowing therefore that there is no way of escaping their vice grip unless the person packs out of their fiefdom (a very unlikely occurrence given the high cost of changing accommodations in Lagos, for instance), the DICOS have devised several methods for extorting and oppressing their victims – who, in the present circumstance, can only suffer in silence.

    The aim of this preliminary comment is to offer customers few suggestions on how to minimize their suffering in the hands of these mindless shylocks.

    Now, if your house happens to fall into the enclave of the one called Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC), the most important precaution you must take is to ensure that you guard your pre-paid meter very jealously. Else, you will return home one day to discover that your meter has suddenly (and “mysteriously”) gone blank. This however will not stop the supply of electric power to your apartment.

    Sometimes, it might take you a long time to discover this – when it suddenly occurs to you that you have not “recharged” your meter for a long time even when you are still enjoying electricity. And once you report to their office, they will shock you with the information that it is “illegal” to repair the meter! And so, you must apply for a new meter. And this is where your trouble starts.  They may even tantalize you with the information that the meter is free, that the federal government pays for it, that even if you purchase it, the money will eventually be refunded to you.

    Since you are still getting the usually epileptic power, you might choose to concentrate first on the tedious process of applying for their new meter. But after sometime, they will serve you a bill they call “Loss of Revenue” (LOR), and that is when it will dawn on you that all this while, you have not been dealing with people with human heart. The bill would startle you, because, at first, you would think they meant to serve it to a manufacturing company nearby but mistakenly brought it to you. Soon, they will disconnect you from power supply and if you are unable to pay the huge bill to the last kobo, they will neither restore electricity to your apartment nor even allow you to pay and obtain the new meter you have applied for.

    A customer told me that if you are lucky, some kind-hearted staff of the company might call you aside and secretly advise you to better endure the prolonged darkness and stay without electric power supply while you wait for your meter to be processed, which can sometimes take as much as eight to nine months or even over a year. If you neglect this advice, one day you may have to take a bank loan and borrow massively from friends to pay the bill they will send to you under their notorious “Loss of Revenue” arrangement! It is that bad!

    The “Loss of Revenue” policy is the goldmine of the EKEDC.  I was told of a woman in Surulere who despite all the money she had already paid them still owes N500, 000. And this is just a residence and not a manufacturing company.  Another man said they billed his office where they manufacture nothing (they just do paper work) over a million naira.

    So, it is always better to endure the darkness (no matter how long) until your meter comes unless you can afford the hundreds of thousands they will seek to extract from you.

    It might look as if the new meters they are installing will bring any succour. Most people regard those meters as Casino Boxes. They only exist to burn your money like the candle waxes they now import from China.  People are beginning to establish a link between the desperation of EKEDC people to replace the normal pre-paid meters with the “fast running” new ones with frightening regularity at which the meters are suddenly malfunctioning. It is like the ones that are going bad are the ones whose owners did not take care to place at points where they cannot be accessed by any other person when they are not around.

    This may not be far from the truth because a customer told me recently that some EKEDC staff came to his office and told the security personnel that they want to remove the “old meters” and give them new ones! Fortunately for him, the security men were wiser: they told them to their faces that they do not need new meters. Now, why do they want to replace meters that are functioning if they do not have sinister motives?

    So, if you find yourself in EKEDC’s fiefdom, ensure you make your meter inaccessible. Two, if your meter malfunctions and they disconnect you because you could not afford their usually overinflated “Loss of Revenue” bill, try and endure the darkness and remain disconnected as you try to offset the bill and process your meter.

    EKEDC staff are distinguished by their arrogance, dishonesty and callousness. And these their behavioural patterns are breeding deep-seated resentment and anger against them in their hapless victims. Are they service providers or mere extortionists eager to suck the people dry? And how long will the people continue to endure their provocative operations before their anger boils over? That’s why I think that the authorities must intervene before we have a major crisis in the area superintended by these mindless characters.

    The problem with Nigeria is that we often wait until the people revolt before we move in to institute some damage control? Where is the Ministry of Power? Where are the House and Senate Committees on Power? Does the National Electricity Regulation Commission (NERC) still exist and what exactly are its functions? Should not the government intervene and investigate the claims made in this article and nip any potential crisis in the bud?

    And where are the print and electronic media? Why don’t they beam their searchlights on EKEDC (and other DISCOs) and bring to light the unspeakable suffering Nigerians are undergoing at their godless hands?

    Indeed, the House and Senate Committees on Power should hold a public hearing in the area controlled by this particular service provider and hear from the people directly. That is what service to the people should entail. Hapless citizens should not just be left in the hands of cold-hearted shylocks to suck out the last drop of blood in them. The patience of the victims might soon snap, but this can be prevented. It is possible that some powerful individuals might be behind EKEDC which might explain why its staff act as gods that cannot be tamed. They talk down on everybody with utmost impunity. But they have obviously taken more than they can chew and unduly stretched the powers of the big guns behind them. Everywhere people are discussing their tormenting action with charged emotions. A quick intervention must be entered immediately to prevent a firestorm.

    • Nga is a consumer rights activist (idnga2000@yahoo.com) 

  • It’s high time for South African politics to grow up

    It’s high time for South African politics to grow up

    By Tessa Dooms

    As South Africa enters one of the most anticipated weeks of the political calendar, the week that the ANC conference is set to begin, it is important that we, as South African society generally, reflect on the state of our country’s politics far beyond the confines of ANC politics and the promise or not that the ANC’s elective conference holds.

    As significant as the ANC’s 55th national congress is in South African politics, the dominance of the ANC is a historical fact but it is not a foregone conclusion that this will always be the case.

    Even today, as the ANC remains electorally dominant and top-of-mind in the political imagination of what is possible, for many South Africans, politics is not limited to the internal machinations of the party or even limited to the political blows exchanged between the big parties and personalities in the country. For many people, the politics they care most acutely about is local and is based on things that affect us personally.

    The political contestation and action that consumes many communities of people can be found in the WhatsApp groups they form to organise a protest against poor services or a march for justice when yet another woman dies at the hands of an intimate partner.

    It is the politics of communities that organise to go head to head with a city to show up irrational by-laws that victimise homeless people. It’s the politics of organised land occupations in the face of a housing crisis that pits private sector developers against poor and landless communities destined for urban slums.

    The politics of big men and factional battles of national parties are like a movie that people know is ongoing. The protagonist and antagonist may as well be fictional characters or reality stars whose personas are best known through television appearances and folk tales.

    Mainstream party politics is alienating for many. For some people, even being in a political party does not reduce the social distance between the communities they live in and the larger-than-life political personalities at the centre of the drama of political life that grabs news headlines.

    There has to be more to South African politics than the goings-on of political parties and political elites. There must be more than rallies, T-shirts, the latest factional song and leadership squabbles. South Africa deserves a politics that centres on all people rather than a few personalities — a politics that does not rely on hollow ideological refrains but breathes practical life into a serious contestation of ideas and values.

    A politics that focuses on solutions rather than an over-analysis of problems. A politics that draws hope for the future rather than one that romanticises the past.

    It is concerning that even after many ANC conferences this year — regional, provincial and policy — what dominates the political news cycle is not the solutions the ANC and its potential new leaders will debate in order to persuade each other.

    In fact, while the general public is constantly reminded of this significant upcoming event, we are hardly told about the resolutions the party intends to pass and their potential impacts on its ability to govern.

    Unless the issues related to the “balance of forces” that may tip the scales in favour of one candidate or faction over another, talks of the ANC conference are reduced to the popularity of one person over another.

    We, as the public, have contributed towards this narrow and shallow personality politics. We have come to believe the lie that the next president of South Africa will be elected at an ANC conference.

    While the next president of the country may be the person the ANC chooses as its leader, that determination will be made in 2024, after the outcome of a national election in which millions of South Africans will vote for parties and people they want to represent them in parliament. It is the MPs who are chosen who will decide who the president will be, not the delegates of an ANC congress.

    While we should keenly observe how political parties practise the internal democracy that leads them to choose the MPs and the presidential nominee they put forward, as the public we do so not beholden to the decisions parties make. We note the ideals, values, processes and quality of their leadership as it should inform our decision about whether voters can trust the party to collectively and as individuals represent our interests.

    The political choices of South Africans in 2024 and beyond are not limited to, or constrained by, what members of any political party choose for themselves. Particularly when communities feel a party’s interests are far removed from our interests.

    The move away from centring large parties and personalities in South African politics has long begun. In 2019, 48 parties registered to contest on the national ballot, and hundreds contested in provincial elections.

    In 2021 a record number of 325 parties contested local government elections, with more than 1000 independent candidates. The appetite for a more diverse, local and issue-based politics is clear.

    Many of the micro-parties that make up these emerging parties are only technically parties because they have registered for elections. But most are not parties in any other traditional way. These are community organisations and movements that are often focused on a single issue or the representation of a particular group. These groups are not trying to prop up the next president; they are trying to access sufficient power to solve the problems they face daily.

    It is increasingly the case that political action is being taken beyond electoral politics. Many people organising for what they care about want to affiliate with organisations not interested in electoral politics for fear of being used for internal party political ends.

    This means that organisations and movements are gaining political power and support outside of electoral politics that can significantly challenge the power of those elected.

    These are positive developments. The green shoots of political energy in microcosms of geographic and issue-based communities should be a source of hope, not concern.

    It has become common for people to feel apprehension over the rise of new political formations, fearing that more parties will result in more division and a more fractious politics. The reality is that the constitution always envisioned a multiparty democracy.

    That we have had a few parties dominate for so long is an oddity in that we have not had the culture or legal guidelines to make it effective.

    More democracy requires more participation, not less. Better democracy requires the ability to not only improve the quality of electoral options, but also the quality of people who hold the political establishment to account. Our hope for the future of politics in South Africa does not hinge on what happens at the ANC elective conference. Our hope lies in our ability to broaden our political options beyond one party. It lies beyond the contests of big parties and personalities. To understand electoral politics is not the only way we enact power, while not shying away from using our electoral power to effect change.

    As the ANC conference unfolds and we straddle between trying to “Dezemba” and peeping through our hands as they cover our eyes, trying not to look; let us remind each other that our collective future as a country is ultimately in our hands, not theirs.

    • Culled from Mail & Guardian. Dooms is a sociologist, development practitioner.

  • COVID offered Africa the perfect opportunity to industrialise; there won’t be too many more changes

    COVID offered Africa the perfect opportunity to industrialise; there won’t be too many more changes

    Apple shifting some of its production from China was not unexpected, but Africa needs to get in on the action, argues Adam Molai, an African industrialist and founder of TRT Investments which manages a diversified sector portfolio and operations in Southern, East and West Africa.

    “When life gives you lemons, use them to make lemonade.”

    This was the adage at the forefront of my mind two years ago, in the midst of the first lockdowns wrought by SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

    While it soon became clear that the Covid pandemic would have widespread impact on Africa, I also believed that it would provide a unique and invaluable opportunity to the Continent to set itself up as an alternate global supplier to China.

    The pandemic had demonstrated the vulnerability of the world’s economies in being solely reliant for most of production on China. And it was clear that they would start looking around for other suppliers to offset that risk.

    Which is why it wasn’t surprising when Apple, one of the world’s most valuable companies, announced in June this year that it had asked suppliers to shift more iPad production to Vietnam – thanks to China’s zero-tolerance coronavirus which caused mass disruption due to factory closures. With over half of Apple’s main suppliers around the Shanghai region affected, iPad production had been hit and the company was reportedly working to compensate.

    Later, it was revealed that Apple would also be shifting some of the production of the iPhone 14 to India as well.

    Apple’s decision is not surprising given the disruptions to global trade and supply chains over the last two-and-a-half years. But what should concern Africa is that it is not in the frame to take over some of the production.

    There will not be many opportunities like this for Africa to grasp the nettle, and the government and the private sector need to commit to fostering the necessary enabling environment to make it feasible for a company like Apple, or another multinational, to outsource their production to the Continent.

    Aside from creating jobs for Africa’s hundreds of millions of young people, growing the Continent’s manufacturing capability is a priority if Africa is to realise inclusive and sustained development, achieve high growth rates and diversify its economies.

    Among the multiple benefits of manufacturing is the industry’s ability to create employment for a vast number of low-skilled workers – which is essential for reducing poverty –  and also accommodate our highly-skilled labour which we are losing to the diaspora for lack of opportunities to absorb these skills.

    Studies show that the average percentage of manufacturing employment in African countries remained stagnant at 7.2 per cent between 1990 and 2010 but increased slightly to 8.3 per cent by 2018.

    Despite the increase, 8.3% is nothing when weighed against the potential that manufacturing offers to African countries that continue to grapple with how to develop their economies and continue to rely on supply of primary, un-beneficiated products.

    So how can Africa go about improving its industrialisation capacity?

    Building, improving and maintaining infrastructure is a priority. Manufacturers need to be able to access the raw materials and supplies they need but they also need to be able to transport their goods to ports and railway stations.

    So African countries need to place more focus on improving their infrastructure – especially their transport (road, rail,  sea / port and air) networks.

    This will ironically not only contribute to the ease of doing business for manufacturers but will also create massive employment in the construction phase whilst simultaneously improving the quality of life for citizens – a win-win for anybody who wants to stay in political power.

    Next, African countries need to identify which manufacturing sectors they want to pursue and start acquiring the necessary skills, expertise and capacity to become leaders in these sectors.

    A useful template for how they can do this is South Africa’s automotive sector.

    The automotive market is considered the most globalised of all the manufacturing sectors. South Africa, which accounts for the bulk of Africa’s global automotive output, has been assembling vehicles for 100 years.

    As was typically the case in developing countries, the South African automotive industry grew under high levels of protection. Considerable diversified development took place under this protective regime, which included a series of increasingly stringent local content requirements introduced from the early 1960s, according to an African Development Bank paper.

    Lower tariffs in the automotive industry were accompanied by import-export complementation arrangements, which enabled firms to rebate import duties by exporting.

    Today, imports account for approximately 50% of South Africa’s light vehicle market, but 52% of output is exported, with the EU and rest of Africa being the major markets.

    Since modern devices such as smart phones and iPads are also assembled, it would make sense if Africa adopted this model – with some adaptations based on lessons learned – to grab some of the production of modern devices from Asian countries.

    They could engage with vendors such as Apple to see what is required and provide the necessary incentives and rebates to lure the company to the Continent.

    Third, Africa needs to get serious about beneficiation.

    Beneficiation is a word which has long been bandied about by Africa’s governments but none has made a concerted effort to ensure that it is implemented. Twenty-two years into the 21st century and faced with a technological revolution, Africa still imports 70% of the goods we consume while  exporting the bulk of its raw materials.

    We can start small when it comes to beneficiation; we don’t need to beneficiate whole value chains from the outset. We can look at parts of the value chain which don’t necessarily require massive capital investment and skills and start from there.

    While Africa never took advantage of the opportunities to beneficiate through the Third Industrial Revolution, the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the green economy offers Africa another bite at the cherry.

    Most of the raw materials that will be required by the green economy are found in Africa and the Continent needs to learn the lessons from the previous gold and platinum rushes and start putting in place the systems that will allow it to process our natural resources on the Continent and export finished – or semi-finished – goods rather than raw materials.

    Critical to this, however, is something Africa needs to learn, which is collaboration.

    Eighty percent of the world’s platinum is produced in Zimbabwe and South Africa, which as neighbours, could have collaborated to develop value chains.

    But the unfortunate inward-looking approach taken by each country militated against this achievement.

    In the same vein, if we look at all the components required for the green economy, map out which African countries produce all the requirements and collaboratively develop a value chain, Africa will own the value chain. However, sadly, what we will see happen is Africa will export the raw materials at 1% of their value and become the importers of the finished goods perpetuating the significant balance of trade deficits.

    Finally, as always, we need to overhaul our education systems and focus on skills development. We need to focus on providing high-quality reading, mathematics and science instruction to our pupils and students so that the skills are available to drive our industrialisation agenda.

    It is clear that what Africa needs to do to industrialise is not rocket science; it merely requires foresight, determination, collaboration and a doggedness to do what needs to be done.

    In other words, we need to figure out how to make lemonade, then take the lemons that Africa so abundantly possesses, and just do it.

  • Oil theft probe: Test case for federal government

    Oil theft probe: Test case for federal government

    By Braeyi Ekiye

    The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) as well as the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) and other critical stakeholders in the Nigerian project recently called for the setting up of a Special Investigative Panel on oil theft and losses.

    The call was necessitated by the humungous oil theft that has gone unchecked for as long as oil and gas exploration and exploitation began in Nigeria, some 66 years ago. But these thefts at various oil installation locations across the oil producing areas of the Niger Delta became increasingly unbearable in August; the worst month in oil theft record this year, when a foreign vessel capable of lifting over two million barrels of crude oil escaped from Nigeria’s territorial waters but was arrested by Equatorial Guinean Maritime security forces. (Vanguard page 18 Tuesday, December 13).

    NEITI has bemoaned Nigeria’s loss of 619.7 million barrels of crude oil valued at $46.16 billion or N16.25 trillion in 12 years from 2009 to 2020.

    The losses, as disclosed by NEITI, were reportedly from theft and sabotage, based on information and data provided by an average of eight companies covered by the NEITI processes over the years.

    NEITI in a statement said a “breakdown of the losses shows that in 2009 when the agency commenced reporting of crude oil theft, Nigeria lost 69.49 million barrels valued at $4.31 billion. The figures for 2010, 2011 and 2012 revealed that 28.31 million, 38.61 million and 51.58 million barrels, $4.39 billion and $5.82 billion were lost respectively”.

    The list of combined losses to crude oil thefts from 2013 to 2015 disclosed by NEITI was put at 67.29 million barrels valued at $5.57 billion. The year 2016, NEITI report stated, recorded highest losses of 101.05 million barrels, valued at N4.42 billion. Between 2017 and 2020, NEITI report indicated losses of 36.46 million barrels ($1.99 billion) in 2017, 53.28 million barrels ($3.837 billion) in 2018, 42.248 million barrels ($2.772 billion) in 2019 and 53.056 million barrels ($2.21 billion) in 2020.

    The combined value of these crude oil thefts, as reported by NEITI was put at 619.7 million barrels, amounting to $46.16 billion dollars, over a 12-year period.

    From NEITI’s report and the lackadaisical attitude of petroleum resources managers and the array of security agencies available to secure our oil facilities from oil thieves and illegal bunkerers, one is not enthused at the recent federal government’s panel set up to investigate this anomaly in our nation’s oil industry, the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy. To some, the panel is coming too late in the day.

    Inaugurating the 11 – member ppecial Panel headed by the Interim Administrator, Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), Major General Barry Ndiomu, the National Security Adviser (NSA), Maj. Gen. Babagana Monguno stated the obvious that Nigeria was facing monumental loss of revenue that ought to have accrued from the sale of crude oil, “being the main source of its foreign exchange earnings”.

    He said the escalation of acts of vandalism and theft of crude oil led to significant decline in production, with associated impact on revenue, adding that these losses were orchestrated by unscrupulous elements in our society. Monguno then hit the nail on the head: “With the scale of the oil theft and losses and alleged complicity of regulatory agencies/officials and security personnel as well as the involvement of international collaborators, the “enterprise” is deeply entrenched and would be extremely difficult to exterminate without very stern and decisive action by government”.

    This and many more compelling reasons are why government has “now” deemed it fit to set up a special investigative panel on oil theft to investigate all aspects of crude oil theft, identify the culprits and submit its reports for necessary action.

    Terms of reference of the panel are:

    (a) To investigate oil theft/losses in all its ramifications and propose wide ranging array of implementable recommendations to enable the Buhari administration take decisive actions to end the criminal act.

    (b) To ascertain the circumstances surrounding the illegal insertion into Trans-Escravos Pipeline (TEP) around Yokri area in Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State.

    (c) To establish the ramifications of crude oil theft/losses in Nigeria; ascertain the causative factors, immediate and remote, of crude oil theft/losses in the country and ascertain the extent of crude oil theft/losses in the country.

    (d) With the widest possible amplitude, identify persons/entities whether public, private or foreign, involved in the criminal enterprise and establish the level of identified persons/entities in the enterprise.

    (e) The panel is also to examine the specific roles of regulatory agencies; security agencies, tiers/arms of government and International Oil Companies (IOCs) in aiding and abetting criminal enterprise.

    (f) To also assess the efficacy of security architecture/arrangement in tackling crude oil theft/losses and associated petroleum products and recommend appropriate commensurate and sufficiently, deterrent sanctions on all those culpable.

    (g) To recommend steps/procedures/processes to be taken by government to eliminate the enterprise in the industry to prevent future occurrence;

    (h) Make any other recommendations on any other issue incidental to the terms of reference.

    The Ndiomu panel is expected to commence assignment immediately, and charged to conclude as well as submit its report on or before February 21, 2023.

    Going by the panel’s terms of reference, one can guess the seriousness Buhari government attaches to this crime of oil theft which amounts to economic sabotage and national security breach. That, the panel is headed by a retired General in the armed forces, known for his penchant to details and commitment to our shared values of probity and accountability, and laced with men of proven competence in their various areas of specialization as members, gives hope to the seriousness of government in healing this malignant sore on Nigeria’s oil industry and by implication, its fast dwindled economic and financial receipts in recent tunes. But then, as the Vanguard report expressed areas of confidence and fears in the probe, producing meaningful result, coming with only six months to the expiration of Buhari’s administration, the federal government should prove that it means real business, this time around, in fishing out these oil robbers and bring them to book with dispatch.

    Indeed, Nigerians have sniffed, seen the art of magical works of probes for far too long, and are bored, and suspect such probes producing tangible results. They have witnessed televised probes with mind-blowing revelations, and lately the marathon NDDC forensic probes with nothing to show for their investments, both in human, material and financial resources. The onus now lies on the federal government with its anti-corruption stance, to act swiftly after the submission of the General Ndiomu findings. This is, indeed, a test case on this administration’s commitment to decisively fight economic and financial crimes in the country.

    Nigerians and the international community are watching closely the proceeds of the probe itself, its outcome and its implementation by government.

    • Ekiye writes from Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.