The Nation Newspaper

Category: Commentaries

  • Trillionaire police

    Much-needed seasons of plenty may have arrived for the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) with the presidency’s announcement of a planned N1.5 trillion expenditure on police reforms in the next five years. The news, which must have been music to the ears of policemen across the country, was delivered by President Goodluck Jonathan’s representative, Sen. Bala Mohammed, minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FTC), at a two-day retreat organised by the Police Service Commission (PSC) and the Benue State government in the state capital, Makurdi.

    Remarkably, the theme of the programme, Sustaining Nigeria Police Reforms, sounded rather inaccurate by implying that the police force was already being reformed and the event was about supporting the process. Glaring instances of abuse of power by the police, particularly in the political sphere, for instance, belie this idea. Except, of course, police reforms are narrowly conceived only in the context of review of the training curricula, upgrading of training institutions and increased funding, as identified by PSC Chairman Mike Okiro, a former inspector-general of police (IGP), at the event. Perhaps more importantly, it must be stressed, central to police reforms should be correct understanding and appreciation of the role of the force by its personnel, and professional performance in the context of official responsibility.

    However, not only the phrasing of the theme was problematic. It was confusing when the president reportedly said that 60 per cent of the funds would be provided by the Federal Government while the private sector, including non-governmental organisations (NGOs), is expected to contribute the balance. This is obviously ridiculous as it suggests the transfer of governmental function to the private sector; and, in a sense, it implies an imposition on the same. Since it is government’s idea to spend a specific sum on the police, apparently without consulting the private sector and obtaining its consent to the terms, it is clearly nonsensical to define the scope of private contribution, if any. Is the determination of corporate charity in the context of “social responsibility” now outside the control of private organisations?

    Actually, it is difficult to avoid the thought that the president was merely paying lip service to police reforms. While Jonathan reportedly said that the government accepted the recommendations of a committee on the subject headed by Anambra State Governor Peter Obi, and would issue a White Paper before long, Okiro expressed regret that the government was delaying the implementation of recommendations by another police reform committee under former PSC boss Parry Osayande.

    The place of the police in the critical area of security cannot be downplayed, which is why the talk that the government is committed to equipping the force, among other reforms, makes a lot of sense. But action, not talk, is what the country needs. For instance, it is no longer news to hear of policemen who fled the scene of crime because they could not face alleged superior weapons of criminals. What about policemen who habitually bully unarmed innocent civilians? With the coming trillion, hopefully, there should be enough to work toward a “reformed” force, in every sense of the word.

  • Cartoon

    Cartoon

  • Before antidotes become ineffective

    SIR: The flow of a river can only be stopped by killing its source. If one tries to block its way without tampering with its source, one is only deceiving oneself because it will always find another way. The greatest challenge facing Nigeria today is insecurity from the Boko Baram insurgency.

    Obviously, the government is trying its best to combat this menace. But for me, the killing of Boko Haram members cannot bury the insurgency. The menace has its own source, the members of this insurgent group have sponsors who act as the godfathers and for as long as these godfathers remain “untouchable”, they will keep on recruiting more members. So, we can only celebrate the death of Boko Haram insurgency if we are able to track down its sponsors.

    Another problem robbing the country of development is corruption. The legislature, executive and most unfortunately, the judiciary are corrupt. To add salt to our injury, impunity is also now of greater height in the country. Corruption drowns development and incapacitates progress. When corruption is alive, development is dead. So, for as long as we have leaders who are corrupt, our progress as a nation will be at stake.

    Those who are in the position to hammer corrupt people but refuse to do so are in fact, the most corrupt because they are encouraging corruption by condoning corrupt acts.

    One thing is certain; one will be remembered for what one does today. For instance, every June 12 of the year, Nigerians always remember two past leaders for vertically two opposite things,good and bad. This teaches us that anybody who found himself in any position should respect people’s rights because whatever we do today will become history tomorrow.

    The country’s oil is also rotten. NNPC cannot account for a missing US$10

    billion. Sometimes, I wonder whether the oil we have in this country has done an average Nigerian any good. Nigeria is the largest producer of crude oil in Africa yet its citizens are buying fuel at a price which is higher than the price of fuel in some African countries that don’t even have a spill of oil embedded in their own soil. This is unfortunate!

    Our government has shifted all attention to crude oil and this has caused a decline in the agricultural exports of the country. Crude oil is a non-renewable energy resources; so, it may finish in some hundred years to come. If we must provide for our children, we have to invest in the agricultural sector.

    In a nutshell, it is better for us to effect a change now before the antidotes become ineffective when there may be no way out. So, corruption and impunity must stop, Insecurity must be buried and poverty must be totally eradicated if Nigeria must move forward.

     

    • Jamiu Idowu Esho

    Eruwa, Oyo State.

  • Akinjide and his Ajimobi score

    SIR: Chief Richard Akinjide granted an interview which was published in The Punch newspaper of Sunday, February 2,. It was quite revealing, but only to discerning minds. The one-time National Party of Nigeria (NPN) stalwart, known for his wonky 12 2/3 analysis of the 1979 elections, and foremost lawyer, was evasive on several issues raised by the reporter on the state of the nation. He was however reflective on the tough times his party, the PDP, is currently facing, both at the national level and in Oyo State.

    When asked on his assessment of the incumbent governor of Oyo State, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, he told the reporter that he would not score Ajimobi’s government a first class if he were to mark its score but would rank him average. Apparently lamenting the loss of his party to the then ACN, Akinjide had, at the early part of the government, told the world that Ajimobi’s government would soon leave the Government House. For a man with such nihilistic divination on a man he perceived as a political enemy to now score the same man he predicted his political and governmental death an average pass mark is indeed a favourable judgment.

    Chief Akinjide is known by all to be an exceptionally stingy man to everyone but himself, even in his ranking and estimation of the other person. When he attacked the late Lamidi Adedibu and his politics, Ibadan people asked him to point at a particular person who had ever benefitted from him, even though he is one of the most successful Ibadan sons, unlike Adedibu whom Ibadan people at least ate a plate of amala in his house everyday.

    In the said interview, Akinjide praised his minister daughter, Ms. Jumoke Akinjide to high heavens, committing Political Oedipus of romancing his own daughter preparatory to the 2015 governorship. What Mr. 12 2/3 has forgotten is that in Ibadan, we, like the biblical trait of Almighty God, will demand the sin of the father from the daughter, up till three generations.

    In any case, only a blind will not see the dualizations going on in all the nooks and crannies of Oyo State, the transformation of a once-centre of filth into a metropole by Ajimobi, the Hobbesian state of nature that Ibadan became, even under the tip of the nose of Akinjide and the peaceful, good governance that the APC government is giving the people now.

    For a man like Akinjide, a pass mark from him is like scoring 120 per cent in a thorough examination!

    • Kareem Inaolaji,

    No 2, Idi Ishin Road, Ibadan.

     

  • Privatisation or laissez-faire capitalism?

    To all intents and purposes the behemoth “Privatization” has been variously described, differently practised with geocentric connotations and generally abused and exploited in varying degrees from country to country across the globe. Often referred to as a “public enterprise reform agenda” of any nation supposedly desirous of global relevance, growth and sustainable development, privatization is ideally at the end of a calibrated economic liberalization phenomenon – a continuum or an ensemble, encompassing monopoly, corporatization, deregulation and lastly, privatization – that the world first witnessed, sequel to the transfer of Chilean public assets and businesses to private operators in 1973 before 140 or so, other nations including Nigeria, gradually joined the fray that is still as fresh and controversial as when it began, four decades ago.

    Starting from Chile in Latin America in 1973, the capitalist nations of the West and even the Eastern Bloc countries, exemplified by the “Perestroika and Glasnost” policy of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, to the “copycat or minion” countries of the African Continent; the intents, resource management and effects of privatization visibly differ – especially when viewed and evaluated from the perspective of the state of economy of the relevant nation at the instance of implementing the scheme and subsequently, too.

    UNITED KINGDOM

    Referred to as “privatization boom” or “economic transformation”, the British privatization programme was used as one of the core methods of reversing the perceived “corrosive and corrupting” effects of socialism, according to late Baroness Margret Thatcher – the then conservative-party British Prime Minister and privatization grand initiator and czar – as the privatization obsession gained worldwide momentum and swept the world, at her instance. The British privatization scheme that took off in 1979 saw more than 50 companies in private hands of over 10million shareholders in a population of about 52million then, raising more than £50billion for the exchequer. This was in contradistinction to the widespread nationalization of industries – being the pith and core of the collectivist agenda by which preceding Labour Party governments structured the British society, hitherto. Most notable amongst the privatized companies are – British Aerospace, British Gas, British Petroleum, British Steel, the Power, Water and Mining industries and British Telecom (BT) that was divested in 1984. BT currently holds sway in about 170 countries whilst enjoying healthy competition at home, unlike its counterpart in Nigeria – the defunct Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL), presently facing the threat of liquidation – having earlier been subjected to unwholesome, febrile and non-sterling but forlorn privatization exercises, in a seemingly endless and tortuous odyssey.

    FRANCE

    Spurred by the tradition of the State’s acceptance of leadership role in managing her economy herself, rather than by “cartels”, the French society was inundated with an unremitting series of nationalizations and interventions by government, until the 1980s when Thatcher’s irrepressible tidal wave of privatization coupled with the effect of the extant globalization and the influence of European integration, eventuated in France’s gingerly but vacillating plunge into the privatization fad that brought more than 70.8 billion francs to the public treasury. It should however, be noted that whilst Thatcher’s open bidding approach (Share Issue Privatization – SIP) in which the shares of all the companies to be privatized were floated on the stock market, was pointedly unregulated, the French method – sensu stricto, was highly controlled, wherefore the Ministry of Finance allotted the shares in percentages to potential holders or owners – firms, employees, public and a vanishingly few foreign investors. Indeed, the scheme was colloquially referred to as the “people’s capitalism” as it encouraged and ensured widespread share-ownership by employees of the privatized companies as well as the general public.

    NIGERIA

    From 1988, the Technical Committee on Privatization and Commercialization (TCPC) held sway on the new paradigm but metamorphosed into the Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE) as implementer – under the supervision of the National Council on Privatization (NCP) that took charge of Nigeria’s privatization scheme in 1999. After many years of rough, undulating, tumble and controversial privatization undertakings, many public corporations and enterprises were either deregulated or privatized. The relevant industries affected include: Aviation, Banking, Education, Entertainment, Insurance, Health, Manufacturing, Power, Telecommunications, Transport and Downstream Petroleum industry. Indeed, the most successful exercise in the cauldron of these undertakings is the deregulated telecoms industry that brought in about $772million – having sold two Digital Mobile Licences (DMLs) in 2000, one DML in 2002 and one DML in 2007.

    The process of privatization has been relatively painless in western European countries and Japan, not only because efficient financial and legal structures existed in those places, but also, the institutional shareholders willing to guarantee the success of public floatation consummated the new paradigm more so, at the instance of disciplined financial markets that were imposed. Understandably, in developing nations, the story was not only dissimilar, it has been very difficult as the shareholder-owned corporations were and still are, less established or structured. In the end, the intellectual battle and to a large extent the practical one has been won – as the state has proved itself not to be a very good owner or manager of commercial operations. Whilst the motivation for privatization in the United Kingdom and Latin America was infusion of capital to relieve government of subsidy and budgetary burdens, decentralization of government structures was the raison d’être in Eastern European countries. The Nigerian case hinged on a multiplicity of burning, competing and compelling issues – employment generation, search for performance, efficiency, transparency and accountability, in public enterprises; support for social sectors – education, health and rural development; budget deficit leverage, consolidation and development of the capital market and the urgent need to reduce all manner of debt and also limit external borrowing.

    In Nigeria, the authenticity of the touted “efficiency hypothesis or theory” regarding private service delivery broke down under intense intellectual and detailed scrutiny (cost-benefit analysis) of available data. The RORO Port case is a glaring example. Again in Nigeria, even the transparency and accountability claim for private investments tumbled without equivocation – the Ajaokuta and Daily Times sagas speak volumes as they were riddled and ridden with corruption. The comatose state of the Nigerian Newsprint Manufacturing Company (NNMC) at Oku Iboku, Akwa Ibom State – renamed Oku Iboku Pulp and Paper Limited, after it was sold for $32.5million in 2008 to Negris Holding, is yet another “commission” in the cockpit of unceasing aberrations.

    Aluminum Smelter Company of Nigeria (ALSCON) Ikot Abasi, Akwa Ibom State, that even got waivers from the Nigeria Customs Service without producing since 2007, is yet another piece in the melting pot.

    Amongst many other preposterous transactions, one striking abnormality that is even unconstitutional is the privatization of the Nigerian Security Printing and Mint Company (NSPMC). Even United Kingdom – the indisputable owners of the privatization mania, did not have the temerity to privatize the British Royal Mint, as they are fully convinced of its strategic and incontrovertible importance to the British economy, besides their commitment and allegiance to the Union Jack.

    The epic telecoms case regarding the sale of NITEL/M-TEL is yet another recurring decimal in the laundry list of incalculable anomalies. This attempted but forlorn sale experienced various scenarios of mercurial unbundling, re-bundling and unbundling – in the labyrinth of a long and tortuous privatization odyssey without any sale to-date, after 12years and losing N100billion to the “Pentascope” management contract scam at some point, in the shameful and ignoble outings.

    • Bello is a retired Managing Director of M-Tel

  • Open letter to Governor Suswam

    SIR: As an admirer and keen observer of your activities and performance in Benue State, I have not been very pleased with the assignment you’ve been given or awarded to yourself since the beginning of the current political imbroglio. You’ve been sending wrong signals to your great fans over there, the Tiv nation and Nigeria as whole.

    The good people of Benue State elected you to serve and promote the best interests of Benue people and not to run errands for the President. You can do your job very well and leave a worthy legacy without getting involved in the pettiness being foisted on our country from the presidency.

    The impression from certain quarters is that despite the re-election of Governor Rotimi Amaechi as Nigeria Governors Forum chairman, simply because it is against the wishes of the President, you are all out to run him out of office. If I may ask, what shall it profit you if President Goodluck Jonathan achieves his ambition of removing Amaechi as NGF chairman?

    What will it add to your own curriculum vitae (CV), if the governor is impeached?

    Truth is always bitter. I believe you have gone too far and too deep into this matter. President Jonathan is big enough and has all the machineries to fight his own battles. As a great son of ‘Tiv Awange’, you are too big and far important to be used as human King Kong.

    You stand to lose more than what you can possibly gain if you persist and continue on this dangerous road. You’re eroding and wasting your equity on a worthless venture.

    No matter how much you portray yourself to be humble and absolutely loyal to the President, it is a wasted effort. Any one discerning enough would know you’re heading somewhere; don’t be deceived that the President is fooled about your voluptuous desire. You’re an irrepressible soul. And when time comes the Nigeria mafia will try to cut you down to size.

    Please,permit me to refresh your memory a bit Your Excellency. Once upon a time,there was a powerful minister who wielded stupendous power. This minister was elevated to a point were he felt comfortably secure but after the death of his master, he was surgically removed and clinically eliminated from the system by the cabal. If any one had foretold the tragedies that would befall Michael Kaase Aondoakaa some years back, he would have called the person a fake prophet.

    There are bigger targets to fix your gaze on. Forget about going to the senate in 2015 and forcing your way through. As a matter of fact, such moves have been the trend and are just too predictable.

     

    • John Akevi

    Bauchi

     

  • 2015: Imperative of a North-east Presidency

    The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has just released the timetable for the 2015 general elections. This means political activities will soon pick up and the atmosphere will once again be charged. The most important of all the political horse-trading that will soon ensue is determining who occupies the presidency by the year 2015. There is so much interest and calculations across a spectrum of stakeholders on this all important position. Many political gladiators are jerking up their sleeves for a showdown in the contest of who grabs his party’s ticket for presidency.

    As it can be recalled, the North ought to have taken over the presidency in 2007 for a period of eight years; that is after President Olusegun Obasanjo had ruled for a stretch of eight years. It did take over. But fate conspired to deny the North of the eight years. Expectedly, and as provided for by the constitution, then Vice President Goodluck Jonathan took over from late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, first as acting president and later (on Yar’Adua’s death) as president. However, instead of President Jonathan to complete what remains of the Yar’Adua/Jonathan tenure and let the position come back to the North again, he manipulated his way to getting a fresh mandate.

    However, as the political mill begins to roll once again, there is a resounding agitation to send President Jonathan parking. First, to most patriotic Nigerians, the man has only managed to hold the country in one place: stagnant, without any progress. On the extreme side, others are even lamenting that the country only witnessed retrogression on many sides, under the watch of President Jonathan.

    For the North-east, the six years or so of Jonathan presidency have been most uneventful ones. For us, it has become what the Latin would call annus horriblis (year of horrors). The time-bomb planted by years of neglect of this area has suddenly gone off and to the chagrin of all, the government seems helpless on the two expected directions: containing the insurgency, and cushioning the impacts on the victims and the affected towns. While the government’s security forces daily avenge attacks on them by the insurgents on the hapless civilian population, the civil government has shown no willingness to help victims recover psychologically and materially. The pointer to this is the paltry budgetary provision of N2 billion for the entire North-east, after all the promises.

    For the average person from this region, our people are being treated as second-class citizens in their own country. First and foremost, federal presence in this vast zone is, for lack of better word, abysmal. Strategic and key institutions of governments have not been sited here. There appeared to be no deliberate industrialization policies by the federal government to develop the region. The scattered industries around have also been left to rot in neglect.

    It is the opinion of our people here that things have been allowed to degenerate over time in this region because its capable and competent persons have been tactically shut out of power at the highest decision making level. For a very long time, there seems to be silent but dangerous trend in the politics of the North, and Nigeria in general where there appears to be a sort of consensus or conspiracy against the North-east geopolitical zone.  This dangerous trend, whose unfortunate manifest is now the insurgency in parts of the area, which goes on unabated, is a direct result of neglect and marginalization.

    Anytime opportunity presents itself for the North to present head of government, it goes to the North-West or the North-Central, as if by act of commission – and omission for the North-east. Despite producing senior thoroughbred military officers, the region was never for once accorded the honour of producing the head of state. Those fine officers, therefore, were only used (or, expended) in military operations where, thank goodness, they proved themselves to be brave, professionals and good managers of humans.

    A quick rundown of the history of Nigeria’s military rule shows that when General Ironsi was toppled in July, 1966, the then Colonel Yakubu Gowon (from the North-Central) was handed over the mantle for eight years. From Gowon, the North-west took over via Murtala Muhammed. There then come Buhari (from the North-west) who removed a fellow North-west person – Shehu Shagari. General Babangida, from the North-central succeeded Buhari and he in turn was followed by Abacha (from the North-west). The military era ended with General AbdulSalami Abubakar, also from the North-central, succeeding Abacha. This shows North-central alone has spent 19 years ruling this country while North-west held sway for six years under the military, in addition to the Shagari and Umaru Yar’Adua years as civilian leaders.

    Yes, it is it true that late Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa from the present day Bauchi State was the first and only Nigeria’s Prime Minister. But it is also true that he was just there as the errand boy of Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna, who was the leader of the of the ruling Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) then. Obsessed with playing at the regional level, where he was working towards his ambition of becoming the Sultan of Sokoto, he ‘sent’ Balewa to the centre while retaining his own role as the party leader. Meanwhile, there was a president in Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe.

    Therefore, as the calculations begin for 2015, it is our prevent hope that this time around, the larger North plays the fair card for the North-east in picking a presidential candidate. Yes, in 2011 something of that nature was reflected but some of us who are keen students of power knew that it was not going to work. This was because President Goodluck Jonathan’s chance of getting the PDP ticket at the time was a fait accompli. But this is 2014 and all hopes for who produces the president lies with the All Progressives Congress (APC). Yet, North-east is not lacking in competent and vibrant personalities that have the qualities to be presidents, from within the APC.

    Having tried many options in the past, and bearing in mind the dynamism of the world and diversity of Nigeria, key stakeholders in APC should have a deep reflection of who the party gives its ticket. The opposition coalition this time around is in a form of make or mar union which has the vibrancy of upstaging the present administration of PDP. But to achieve that there is need to have a decent leader. Such a person should be a leader who everybody will be comfortable with for his decency, pan-Nigerian spirit, honesty and modernity. Needless to say, the North-east as a geopolitical zone have an array of personalities that have passed the credibility test and have the broad-mindedness to superintend over one united and stronger Nigeria. Moreover, we from the North-east will have the rest of mind that the current disturbing challenges here will be easily solved. The saying that only the owner of the room knows where it leaks is true in this case.

    • Bukar writes from the University of Maiduguri, Borno State.

     

  • Ending inter-agency rivalry among security agencies

    Ending inter-agency rivalry among security agencies

    SIR: Finally, President Goodluck Jonathan has clarified that the reason behind the replacement of service is not connected to seeming inter-service rivalry among security agencies. The media reported his remarks while commissioning the Air Force Comprehensive School in Yola, Adamawa State. He nevertheless urged a synergy among the nation’s security agencies, given that Nigeria is exposed to “cancer” of insurgency.

    Few days before the President’s visit to Yola, suspected Boko Haram members were reported to have attacked churches and mosques and killing innocent citizens in Borno and Adamawa states. The recent attacks might have been triggered to dissuade the President from visiting the home-state of his new Chief of Defence, Air Marshal Alex Badeh who is from Adamawa.

    It should also be recalled that immediately after the announcement of the new Chief of Defence Staff, the Nigerian air-force were reported to have attacked and killed a number of suspected insurgents at the Cameroonian border with Nigeria. Badeh who was former Chief of Air Staff, had promised to crush terrorists by April 2014.

    We should not lose sight of the fact that the military has so far succeeded in restricting and cornering Boko haram insurgency to few states in the North-East. Few years ago, terrorists were having field days in other parts of the country including, Kaduna, Kano, Plateau, Kogi, Niger, Sokoto and few incursions in other states including the Federal Capital Abuja.

    The Nigerian military has recorded tremendous success in its war against insurgency. The relative peace so far recorded in the troubled states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe before the recent unfortunate development even in worship centres, is attributed to the gallantry, determination, sacrifice and relentless struggles of the Nigerian security agencies. Even though it has continued to lose its finest personnel in several coordinated attacks against terrorists, it has remained undaunted and more committed to ending acts of terrorism across the country.

    Without doubt, we still have a long way to go in banishing terrorism from our dear land. More re-organization, strategy reviews, policy alteration, shake-up, alignments and re-alignments are part and parcel of what to expect in positioning the Nigerian military for optimum performance.

    It is the wish and prayer of all Nigerians, irrespective of tribe, religious, ethnic or political aspiration for Nigeria to overcome its security challenges as soon as possible. The human and material loses so far recorded are too massive to be quiet about. We cannot continue to act as though those precious lives we keep losing in separate attacks are not precious to us. We have every reason to be worried about this sad occurrence. Every soul lost in any of these attacks should be a source of concern to any Nigerian. All the government requires of us is full time cooperation and understanding as it goes about making necessary changes in the nation’s security make-up to overcome challenges posed by insurgent groups.

    We all desire to see that peace and normalcy returns to all trouble spots across the country.

    The successes so far recorded in the war against insurgency must be sustained. We need not allow unnecessary primordial and clannish issues distract us from consolidating on the gains so far recorded. Even members of the international community are happy with Nigeria’s modest achievements in its efforts to end terrorism in the country. As Nigerian too, we should cooperate with the security agencies in providing necessary supports and information for the protection of lives and property.

    The new heads of these security establishments should seek to breakdown the wall of mutual suspicions and inter-agency rivalry among their chiefs and their personnel. They should make effort to share intelligence. They should all realize that they have common goal of ensuring that Nigeria is safe for both Nigerians and her visitors. The government should not tolerate any unnecessary competition that will bring retrogression to this country. They should work collectively in harmony to ensure that the nation overcomes her security challenges.

    • Fatima Goni

    Kofar Dukawuya, Kano

     

  • Understanding APC’s strategy

    Understanding APC’s strategy

    SIR: For many who do not understand political arithmetic, it would be easy to dismiss the APC’s poaching style as impolitic or wrong political calculation especially against the background of the kind of recognition it has given to the governors that defected from the PDP. Some commentators seem to be taken in by the argument that the APC’s decision to make the defecting governors leaders of the party in their states amounted to political suicide.

    That reasoning exposes a sheer lack of proper understanding of the workings of politics in Nigeria especially against the pervasive impact of power of incumbency in public mobilisation.

    The behemoth which PDP represents demands unleashing war generals that enjoy present day following and good will in other to dismantle it. The mere fact that the leaders of the former legacy parties that merged to form APC are not presently accommodated as leaders of the party in those states does not remove from the fact that they are respectable stakeholders in APC.

    If these defecting governors were not honourably accommodated, the mass defection of members of the National Assembly to the APC would not have been possible. Politics is all about numbers.

    APC leadership understands the operating environment and where the real power and influence resides and could not have for any reason denied the defecting governors control of the structure in their respective states.

    What these leaders would have done, in the spirit of compromise to make APC and its members electable, is to humbly subordinate themselves to the leadership of these defecting governors. After the elections, the issue of restructuring can then be placed on the table.

    Nobody changes a winning team, if the structures the governors are bringing to the political table have the fire and bite to deliver, why should the APC begin to pander to emotions and make costly political mistakes? Discussing who controls the structures now based on the spirit of the merger would create unmanageable distractions and the party might implode.

    The revolutionary train that would reshape the politics of Nigeria has taken off; these sulking leaders that have refused to accept the political realities on the ground should better shape up or ship out. Pontificating over the morality of the decision to hand over the party structure to the defected governors amounts to shadow boxing.

    Real politics demands ingenuity, being practical and ability to rise above emotions to take the hard decisions that engender success. No one needs doubt the fact that the governors hold the aces in this march to dislodge PDP across the country.

    • Alhaji Garba Umar

    Kano

  • Calling on Ikeja DISCO

    SIR: I live in Hilltop Estate Close, not far from Aboru community at Agbado-Oke

    Local Government Development Area. We are connected to the Ikeja Distribution Company (DISCO).

    Power supply in my estate has been very abysmal. We have not had power for up five hours in the last five days. The unpleasant and unfortunate

    consequence is that things stored in refrigerators get ruined, we go out without our cloths ironed; the whole environment is pitch black at night.

    Ikeja DISCO should do something to improve power supply to our estate.

    • Adesuyi Mike,

    Lagos