The Nation Newspaper

Category: Commentaries

  • What to expect in 2014 tax year

    SIR: Every year, all tiers of government – local, state and the federal – aim to improve on their internally generated revenues (IGR) in order to meet their ever huge budgetary needs. This year will not be an exception. The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) is ready to commence the implementation of the Automated Payment System (APS) and hopes to premise on this and other planned strategies to double its 2013 performance in 2014. Most of the states have restructured their Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to improve tax collection.

    With this in mind, people should expect increased pressure from the taxmen to pay their taxes as at when due. Individuals and businesses are advised, not just to prepare for full tax compliance in the year, but to be conversant with the tax laws and how their tax liabilities are computed. It is important for taxpayers to make it a point of duty to remit their taxes regularly to the appropriate governments and at the appropriate times.

    Eligible taxpayers who do not pay their taxes are bound to pay hefty fines to the IRS when discovered. In addition to paying penalties, the IRS may also file tax liens against the defaulting taxpayer’s personal and real property possessions in any part of the country.

    The IRS may use this discovery of the past due obligations to select the taxpayer for an audit of the taxpayer’s records for previous tax years. This can span up to six years with the attendant penalties and accumulated interest payment. No taxpayer should allow himself or herself to be caught in the tax recalcitrance net and be slammed with high tax debt.

    The taxpayer may also lose all rights to peaceful negotiations with the IRS. The IRS can refuse to compromise on any tax payment proposal from the taxpayer. The consequences of tax evasion are so high that no eligible taxpayer should contemplate not to pay tax.

    Taxes help the government deal with the yearly deficits and also better fund for those things that we always yearn for as citizens, such as security and infrastructure. Having increased revenues can potentially help the various governments improve standard of living and be able to meet the needs of many people as well.

    It is advisable to voluntarily pay taxes to help the government and avoid the impending embarrassment that may come if caught in the web of defaulters.

    • Okey Igwe

    Lagos

  • Obi: Last cut is the deepest

    SIR: The message that seems to have come out from Government House, Awka in this terminal hour of the Peter Obi regime is that the last cut is the deepest. A bang has resounded in the administration’s funding and execution of projects and policies. In the last season of the regime, it has committed over 30 billion naira in accelerated pursuit of the MDGs and other socio – economic services. A sample take of these ambitious investments shows a N11.7 billion injection into road construction; N3 billion to select public and private health institutions; N2.7 billion for Onitsha hotel and convention centre; and N1.8 for resuscitation of Onitsha water scheme. Others are a N2.5 billion facility for 500 buses to both public and private secondary schools; N1 billion for library and laboratory facilities to 420 public and private secondary schools; N2.5 billion Ikenga Shopping Mall, Awka and another N2.5 billion for Agulu Lake Resort, among other schemes.

    Consistent with the Nigerian factor, partisan critics have been blushing at these breath – taking undertakings, putting them down as politically motivated window dressing. Perhaps, given the huge capital outlay of the intervention projects, some ground existed for doubting the credibility of the package. Common wisdom as we glean from the Biblical marriage feast at Cana is to serve one’s best wine first. In tandem with the underdevelopment page of Nigerian government and politics, not a few would presume a – soon – to – quit governor to be busy garnering resources for his retirement days.

    But this mindset ignores the personality factor which forms a critical plank in leadership. Personality motivations invariably determine the stuff of leadership individuals can give. Nelson Mandela was able to achieve a breakthrough in the tortuous anti apartheid struggle through sacrificial leadership. Yet, the greatness of his leadership which endured into post apartheid era was rooted in strong convictions of social justice and reconciliation.

    What emerges strongly from an analysis of Peter Obi’s story is that of a pace setter with the stamina of a long distance runner. Obi has shown that he is a man of steadfast spirit; a man of vision but more importantly who has the courage to seek its actualization. Little wonder that at the other end of the divide, critics rate him as opinionated and rigid. When it is remembered that Obi rallied the consciousness of Anambra citizens in 2001 with the poser; is Anambra State cursed or are we the cause? His sense of challenge in creating standards in the state is more easily understood.

    Against this backdrop, the frenetic pace of the Obi administration at the evening of its tenure should not be a surprise. Equally interesting is the revelation that the funds for these projects, including the two years salary for 7000 workers to be recruited into the state’s public service have all been set aside in special accounts. It marks a clear departure from the Nigerian pattern of encumbering a successor administration with all sorts of commitments and liabilities, and echoes our earlier thesis that Obi is keen on setting the pace in aspects of public service.

    It seems the case that governance has progressively improved in Anambra State since March 17, 2006. Through planning and learning from some mistakes of the past, the Obi administration has in the course of time, achieved full acceleration. We see a regime determined to sign off with a flourish and thus, for Peter Obi, the last cut is the deepest.

    • Ifeanyi Afuba

    Nimo, Anambra State

  • Jonathan’s N7b ‘talk show’

    Jonathan’s N7b ‘talk show’

    Just how much the presidency plans to spend on its controversial national confab expected to hold this year shows that the project will be as much about talking as it will be about money. Of course, it was anticipated that the dialogue would have significant financial implication; nevertheless, the figure of N7 billion projected for it certainly stretches the imagination. The Federal Government’s 2014 budget proposal, which puts the cost of hosting the conference at such eye-popping level, deserves to be viewed with suspicion.

    In particular, it is difficult to avoid distrust of the planned expenditure for the dialogue because there is curiously no breakdown of how the funds will be spent. Indeed, it would appear that this seeming omission is actually a commission. What could be the possible explanation for the oddity of presenting a total figure without defining its details? It suggests that perhaps the details don’t add up, or won’t add up. Also, it would amount to a fraudulent approach if the calculation is to get the budget estimate passed by the legislature before providing the desirable details.

    The bottom line here is that this is an unacceptable, if not condemnable, budgeting style. It should be expected that such absence of “full disclosure” would be rejected by the legislature, which would hopefully insist that Nigerians ought to have a full picture of the projected cost of the dialogue before it is passed. Failing to send this message to the executive in the strongest of terms would be grave dereliction of duty.

    However, there is the tragic possibility that the exclusion may be a deliberate attempt by the administration to provoke a situation, and thereby delay the passing of the budget figures for ulterior motives. Regrettably, holding up the approval of the budget will not be without precedent as the last two years witnessed serious disagreements over budget figures, resulting in delayed legislative consent. While it may be puzzling that government could be interested in pursuing this particular path, isn’t it even more perplexing that, wittingly or unwittingly, it left room for such counter-productive confusion? The country’s experience teaches that the ways of politics and politicians are mysterious and you really can’t put anything past them, no matter how absurd it may seem.

    To appreciate the importance of the missing information, it is relevant to highlight a similar project designed by former president Olusegun Obasanjo who in January 2005 sought legislative approval of N932 million to fund a three-month National Political Reform Conference. Significantly, the Obasanjo administration gave a breakdown as follows : delegates would earn N21.68 million as sitting allowance and N650.25 million as allowances in lieu of accommodation; N1.7 million for return tickets from London, Washington, Beijing and Johannesburg in addition to N28, 800 for return flights to Abuja for the inaugural session and subsequent conference meetings; N14, 400 for delegates for airport taxi and local transportation within Abuja ; provision for, at least, two CVU long wheel cars to be hired and fuelled at N2.9 million.

    So why did President Goodluck Jonathan apparently shun this path of reason? The nine-year gap between the two projects cannot explain this essential difference in specification. More importantly, the massive distance between Obasanjo’s figure of N932 million and Jonathan’s N7 billion cannot be on account of time factor alone. Furthermore, before apologists of the Jonathan administration identify inflation as a definitive factor responsible for the mind-boggling difference in costing, it should be pointed out that even such argument is farfetched.

    The most baffling aspect of Jonathan’s “talk show” is the fact that figures are being fixed while it is still unclear how the process will be organised, how long it will take, how many people will participate, among other key considerations. This is certainly a bad example of how to make budgets, or a good example of how not to make budgets.

  • Open letter to a new generation

    The thing about age is, it is catching. It’s like a hysterical jester lying in wait for the fool.

    I want to tell you about Mrs Okoro. Before l turned nine, school was a vaguely irritating distraction from the pursuit of happiness in play and adventure. Every school day, I’d wear my red checked dress and burgundy beret uniform and passively submit to school. l was not a rebellious child. I was a bored child who daydreamed through classes until lunch when the school served asaro and chicken with bananas and ground nuts as snacks. That was until l got to Mrs Okoro’s class. Mrs Okoro made letters become words, words which became stories, stories which became my life. I loved her dearly, perhaps it was transference as l’d only just lost my mother but at nine, l started going to school because she was there. One day walking out the gates after school, l saw Mrs Okoro getting into a bus ahead of me so l ran across the road to get into the same bus. I didn’t bother checking for traffic. The next thing l remember is thinking heaven looked rather like Akoka road. I had been hit by a car and was staring up at the concerned faces of Mrs Okoro and others. The driver was distraught; he was a student at Unilag and in the moment before pain cut through my adrenalin, l remember being happy l had been hit by a grand university student not some infernal danfo bus driver.

    He took me to the university health centre where the nurses gave me a large cone of ice cream to comfort me before treating me and putting me in the big university bus home. My heart was swollen with pride as the shiny big bus drove down our dirt street in Bariga. Not a dime was exchanged, no one called my father at work, there were no mobile phones and we had no phone at home. There was no need; the system took care of me. It was Nigeria 1980.

    Recently on my way out of Nigeria, the Murtala Mohammed airport was thrown into chaos, people were sweating and swearing, passengers stranded as all electronic equipment had stopped working. The place stank because there was no water to clean the toilets. I watched the white airline crew walk by with barely contained derision as they gingerly sidestepped the mess. The problem wasn’t that there was no electricity at the airport, that’s normal; it was that someone had not supplied the diesel to run one of the generators.

    I sat in a corner, observing people; those who fascinated me most were the band of men, mid30s to late 40s, Nigeria’s emerging business and political elite. I recognised them by their Louis Vuitton luggage, logo jacket and velvet slippers, disguising their social anxiety with an unabated desire for the pointless. Seemingly oblivious to their environment, they strutted about backslapping and rolling their r’s, being cocky, rude and dismissive to everyone.

    What stuck me most about these preening peacocks though, was their total lack of shame at the state of things. They are the band of new-Africa-rising, proudly Nigerian jingoists, living in a glass bubble as far removed from the Nigerian reality as you can get. For them patriotism is not a recognition of failure and a determination to redress it, but a slogan to be worn, tweeted or liked.

    Later on, crammed into a rather unsanitary first class lounge, I watched them posturing for furtive young female travelling companions, clearly under instructions to pretend not to know them. The odd thing is that these are no corn farmers made good from my native Ida ogun, these lounge dwellers are very well educated and uncommonly well travelled Nigerians. A defective fraction of the immense amount of brainpower and knowledge Nigeria has produced.

    I often hear foreigners perplexedly comment that Nigerians are some of the best educated, urbane and confident black people they have ever met, so how come the country is so, well, Shit?

    The question therefore should be, what is it about the country that makes it impossible for its bright, hard working, resource rich population to organise itself into collective prosperity? What is it that turns some of Nigeria’s brightest technocrats into hand wringing, head-scratching incompetents when they achieve power?

    You see, Nigeria was founded as an economic proposition to collect and remit resources to the empire, with the British government entrenching a feudal, centralized, western-education-phobic elite in the North and a westernized, Judeo-Christian, anglicised elite in the south.

    On departure, these elites with their distinct cultural differences but common goal of avarice became the new imperialists. Imbued with a servitude underpinned by self-loathing and a voracious appetite to mimic their former bosses, they confused westernisation for civilisation and like all counterfeiters concentrated on the surface of things. Thus, to their thinking, the more resources of the land they could coral, the more trappings of the west they could possess and the more civilised they could become.

    That unwelcome process continues today.

    Each time the elite is replaced, it is by a new generation similarly afflicted and culturally insecure with the same desire to fraudulently acquire a large share of the common wealth themselves.

    This is self-loathing in action. It is a terminal disease.

    The system designed by the British was to serve the big empire. It was not designed to work for us and never will.

    The dysfunction at Nigeria’s heart remains because it serves the interests of whichever big man muscles or cheats his way into power. (Note; I said man, the system will never allow for a woman, at least not a woman who won’t do the needful.)

    But what about the people? What about the youth?

    The subtext of Obasanjo’s recent letter to Jonathan is what they used to call two fighting boy and boy in the streets of Shomolu. The people can sense this it is not their fight; they are as disconnected from the elite as the elite are from them.

    They know their place is to submit and dream. They want to be the next big cat. They have no real distaste for those who have stolen their future; often they just want to replace them. The grudging admiration seeping through their envy fuelled whimpers of protest reveals fragile egos easily stroked by association with those who have raped them, then thrown them a bit of Vaseline and warm towels.

    Nigeria in 1980 was by no means a perfect place but would my counterpart in Shomolu today have a Mrs Okoro or such access to public health care?

    Let us sound a warning to our “betters,” as they push and pull the country one way and another in their hustle; it is untenable, there will be a snapping, one, which no one can predict.

    So what shall we do? What will the young intellectual elite of today do differently?

    A youth cultural revolution of ideology and values perhaps? Jettison the hypocrisy, the pseudo religious, anti-women, anti-children, anti-poor patriarchy. Turn away from the bigotry, the megalomania, and the cultural bravado. Free yourselves and your future. Speak the truth to power and each other, not just on twitter, to face. Refuse to participate in the racket, the hustle, and the lie. Be better than that which is on offer.

    Thatcher, a deeply polarising figure, but outstanding leader once said;

    “Watch your thoughts for they become words.

    Watch your words for they become actions.

    Watch your actions for they become habits.

    Watch your habits for they become your character.

    And watch your character for it becomes your destiny.

    What we think, we become. ”

    Start now before you become the company CEO, the minister, the commissioner, the senator. Lead from within and without.

    Abraham Lincoln once said of citizens desiring change; make me. Make your elders and leaders take you seriously. Help the few good men and women in power by showing there is a generation who can and will stand with them. Insist on the structural and constitutional changes that which will free our collective creativity, innovation, science, ideas and culture.

    Civilisation is neither westernisation nor exclusive to other climes. It is building a society on values and institutions designed to protect not the strongest but the weakest as we are only as strong, as honourable, as respected and valued as the sum of our weakest parts.

    Now what? My job is to tell stories with context, sometimes l don’t know the end. Write your own ending. Shape history.

    •Excerpts of a paper delivered by Ms Iyanda at ThinkOyo 30under30 Awards on December 21, 2013

  • Look back with angst

    As new year approached a century ago, most people in the West looked forward to 1914 with optimism. The hundred years since the Battle of Waterloo had not been entirely free of disaster-there had been a horrific civil war in America, some regional scraps in Asia, the Franco-Prussian war and the occasional colonial calamity. But continental peace had prevailed. Globalization and new technology-the telephone, the steamship, the train-had knitted the world together. John Maynard Keynes has a wonderful image of a Londoner of the time, “sipping his morning tea in bed” and ordering “the various products of the whole earth” to his door, much as he might today from Amazon – and regarding this state of affairs as “normal, certain and permanent, except in the direction of further improvement”. The Londoner might well have had by his bedside table a copy of Norman Angell’s “The Great Illusion”, which laid out the argument that Europe’s economies were so integrated that war was futile.

    Yet within a year, the world was embroiled in a most horrific war. It cost 9m lives – and many times that number if you take in the various geopolitical tragedies it left in its wake, from the creation of Soviet Russia to the too-casual redrawing of Middle Eastern borders and the rise of Hitler. From being a friend of freedom, technology became an agent of brutality, slaughtering and enslaving people on a terrifying scale. Barristers shot up around the world, especially during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The globalization that Keynes’ Londoner enjoyed only really began again in 1945 – or, some would argue, in the 1990s, when eastern Europe was set free and Deng Xiaoping’s reforms began bearing fruit in China.

    The driving force behind the catastrophe that befell the world a century ago was Germany, which was looking for an excuse for a war that would allow it to dominate Europe. Yet complacency was also to blame. Too many people, in London, Paris and elsewhere, believed that because Britain and Germany were each other’s biggest trading partners after America and there was therefore no economic logic behind the conflict, war would not happen. As Keynes put it, “The projects and politics of militarism and imperialism, of racial and cultural rivalries, of monopolies, restrictions and exclusion, which were to play the serpent of this paradise, were little more than the amusements of (the Londoner’s)… daily newspaper”.

    Playing your role

    Humanity can learn from its mistakes, as shown by the response to the economic crisis, which was shaped by a determination to avoid the mistakes that led to the Depression. The memory of the horrors unleashed a century ago makes leaders less likely to stumble into war today. So does the explosive power of a modern conflagration: the threat of a nuclear holocaust is a powerful brake on the reckless escalation that dispatched a generation of young men into the trenches.

    Yet the parallels remain troubling. The United States in Britain, the superpower on the wane, unable to guarantee global security. Its main trading partner, China, plays the part of Germany, a new economic power bristling with nationalist indignation and building up its armed forces rapidly. Modern Japan is France, an ally of the retreating hegemon and a declining regional power. The parallels are not exact – China lacks the Kaiser’s territorial ambitions and America’s defence budget is far more impressive than imperial Britain’s – but they are close enough for the world to be on it guard.

    Which, by and large, it is not. The most troubling similarity between 1914 and now is complacency. Businesspeople today are like businesspeople then: too busy making money to notice the serpents flickering at the bottom of their trading screens. Politicians are playing with nationalism just as they did 100 years ago. China’s leaders whip up Japanophobia, using it as cover for economic reforms, while Shinzo Abe stirs Japanese nationalism for similar reasons. India may next year elect Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist who refuses to atone for a pogrom against Muslims in the state he runs and who would have his finger on the button of a potential nuclear conflict with his Muslim neigbours in Pakistan. Vladimir Putin has been content to watch Syria rip itself apart. And the European Union, which came together in reaction to the bloodshed of the 20th century, is looking more fractions and riven by incipient nationalism than at any point since its formation.

    I have drunk and seen the spider

    Two precautions would help prevent any of these flashpoints sparking a conflagration. One is a system for minimizing the threat from potential dangers. Nobody is quite clear what will happen when North Korea implodes, but America and China need to plan ahead if they are to safeguard its nuclear programme without antagonizing each other. China is playing an elaborately dangerous game of “chicken” around its littoral with its neighbours. Eventually, somebody is bound to crash into somebody else – and there is as yet no system for dealing with it. A code of maritime conduct for the area is needed.

    The second precaution that would make the world safer is a more active American foreign policy. Despite forging an interim nuclear agreement with Iran, Barack Obama has pulled back in the Middle East – witness his unwillingness to use force in Syria. He had also done little to bring the new emerging giants – India, Indonesia, Brazil and, above all, China – into the global system. This betrays both a lack of ambition and an ignorance of history. Thanks to its military, economic and soft power, America is still indispensable, particularly in dealing with threats like climate change and terror, which cross borders. But unless America behaves as a leader and the guarantor of the world order, it will be inviting regional powers to test their strength by bullying neighbouring countries.

    The chances are that none of the world’s present dangers will lead to anything that compares to the horrors of 1914. Madness, whether motivated by race, religion or tribe, usually gives ground to rational self-interest. But when it triumphs, it leads to carnage, so to assume that reason will prevail is to be culpably complacent. That is the lesson of a century ago.

  • Re: How two Nigerian students died in Ukraine

    SIR: I refer to the piece published in The Nation, Friday, December 27, page 20 on the two Nigerians that died in Ukraine. Anyone who read the story should have a touch in the heart as it’s an emotional piece and a great call for one to be careful in his/her dealings in life.

    I will use part of what the writer wrote to butress my point: “The question many of us have continued to ask since then is whether the UkrainiÌan doctors would have left their own citizens in critical condition to smoke for five minutes. Would they have treateìd fellow European or Russian citizens the same way?”

    I believe that this can only happen in an environment where racial discrimination abounds. Now who should be blame be put on? Is it the deceased, their families or the Nigerian government?

    Indeed, our government should share part of the blame, because neither the embassy in Kiev nor the federal government appears to have done anything on the matter.

    No doubt, if the government had funded the public universities appropriately from the onset, I don’t think the foreign universities will be a “must to go” for our youths.

    I share part of the grief of the entire Nigerian student community in Donestk, Ukraine.

    May God put an end to such calamity.

     

    • Uwala Samson. A,

    Abeokuta, Ogun State.

  • Thoughts on the New Year

    SIR: This is a season of joyous celebrations, goodwill and renewal of hope. About a week ago, Christians all over the world celebrated Christmas, in remembrance of the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, more than 2000 years ago. Now another festivity: the New Year. In the twinkling of an eye, 2013 has gone with all its up and downs and 2014 has arrived with expectations and individual resolutions.

    Having gone forever, we should now forget about the pains and disillusionment of 2013, if there was any, and move on in the New Year with unflinching spirit of hope, optimism, perseverance, equanimity, resolve and determination in order to change things for the better. We should not continue to lament over our predicament(s) or pander to fatalistic resignation or self-pity, which rarely solve any problem but create more confusion and uncertainty. Rather, we should count on divine help through earnest prayers, with clear conscience, while being upbeat and maintaining a momentum of grit and courage to survive and overcome, even in the face of great adversity.

    We should see 2014 as a year for a new thinking. Therefore, we should rethink individualism, selfishness, personal aggrandisement, greed, covetousness and avarice. Apart from undermining or destroying inter-personal relationship and imperilling both our moral and ethical values, these retrogressive factors are also responsible for the upsurge in crimes like corruption, fraud, armed robbery, kidnapping, murder, human trafficking, prostitution and crude oil theft.

    To make 2014 eventful, we should compassionately consider the plight of the less privileged in our society – especially the unfortunate victims of deprivation, privation, poverty, alienation and economic austerity. That the level of squalor among a vast majority of our people is spiralling out of control today is not an overstatement. Those in the corridors of power at all levels in Nigeria are besought to respond swiftly and vigorously to this worrisome development through good governance and delivery of dividends of democracy by way of provision of infrastructure and social services, as well as articulation of safety nets of poverty alleviation, skill training and social opportunities.

    It is impossible to conclude without mentioning the great significance of 2014 for our fatherland. It is exactly 100 years this year that the Northern and Southern protectorates were amalgamated by the erstwhile British colonial administrator, Sir Frederick John Jeatry Lugard. Regardless of the painful twists and turns the country has undergone since its formation as a political entity on January 1, 1914, as exemplified in bloody civil war, minority uprisings, political upheavals, military interventions of the mid-1960s through the 80s and intermittent communal pogroms, there is still hope for the future. If anything, such traumatic events and those subsisting should be seen as part of the birth pangs of our nationhood, which other countries had passed through and came out more stable, united and peaceful.

    This is not the time to equivocate on the future of Nigeria; it is time for outlining grand vision for progress in all aspects of our national life. Basically, our centenary calls for good governance, leadership accountability, democratic consolidation, relentless campaign against corruption, dutiful citizens, dynamic political class that upholds national unity and is attuned to the needs of playing according to the rules of the game, coexistence among our complex and diverse groups on equal terms, social justice, growth-oriented and inclusive economy and sustainable development.

    • Okechukwu Emeh, Jr

    Wuse 2, Abuja

  • Blaming all on corruption

    SIR: An average Nigerian today strongly believes and holds the opinion that corruption is the root cause of Nigeria’s problems. Nigerians have developed a self-loathing that manifest in a habitual cynicism. Nigeria has become a synonym for disease, dislocation and destruction, a byword for pity where pious westerners earn their saintly credibility. It is the playground for experimentation in western social ideas based on half-baked data estimates. More troubling is the standards designed by multinational organisations based on these dubious estimates that drive governments policies, which commit themselves to climbing the mountains of goals and benchmarks that are rarely in sync with the aspirations or even the needs of their people.

    Nigerians’ mentality is the major factor why the system is not working; policies are designed by those at the top who are far from the true point of interaction with the environment and who have little openness to the wisdom that emerges from the front line.

    Nearly half of the world now lives in urban areas. The use of digital communications has increased exponentially across the world seeing the decline of agriculture as an economic activity. Yet the discussion on our continent is about mechanising agriculture and industrialisation. We are given the correct answer to a question that is relevant to the preceding century, when in fact quite different questions need to be asked and answered.

    Nigeria has the potential to be well structured, with equipped vibrant mind to create ideas that would manifest in rapid structured development. Very good example is the metropolis of Lagos Island. E very day, people head to Lagos Island en masse, home to about a quarter of million people and the working destination of over five million people. They all aim to get to work by 9am for the start of official working day, and are home bound about 5pm, creating one of the largest and most crushing traffic jams daily. If complex thinking was applied to manage this uniform approach, then organisations would use the entire spectrum of the day to organise work, with some starting at, say, noon and finishing much later. Government would have to make Lagos a 24 hour city. Working stakeholders would have to designate optimal closing times and encourage flexible working approaches.

    The average Nigerian sees himself as indigenes, not citizens. Most Nigerians are indigenes because their sense of belonging comes from being born in the country with the expectation that they are entitled to a certain standard of living. On the other hand, being a citizen is a conscious engagement with the sense of nationality that recognises the complement of rights and responsibilities.

    To address the Nigerian system by focusing exclusively on dysfunctional parts such as leadership or even a perceived pathogen such as corruption will lead to a partial analysis and often-incorrect conclusions. Most Nigerians hold this opinion that corruption is the cause, but in reality most Nigerians don’t even know our role as citizens thereby blaming any challenges or difficulties on the government.

    The Nigerian man should stand up to seek knowledge and shouldn’t be caught in the rat race of blaming every eventuality on the government of the day. Government do have faults and a role to play; but our mentality that anything goes should be curtailed because corruption don’t just start when a man attains power but the way he runs his home.

     

    • Folawiyo Kareem Olajoku

    Osogbo

  • Rice on the menu

    Predictably, rice will be on the menu in many homes across the country this first day of the New Year. Generally regarded as food for celebratory occasions by a good number of Nigerians, it will be served in a variety of forms, particularly the popular Jollof rice and Fried rice. However, as rice eaters enjoy their food, it is pertinent to highlight the brewing storm related to the Federal Government’s recently announced plan to stop the importation of rice by 2015 as part of efforts to ensure sufficiency in local production.

    Remarkably, two concerned groups lately added their voices to protest from various quarters, urging the government to review the policy in the interest of the country’s economy. The Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) and the Seaports Terminal Operators of Nigeria (STOAN) in separate statements argued against the implementation of the policy, stressing that the authorities appeared to be too much in a hurry without adequate planning for its success.

    According to MWUN, the announcement of the policy’s take-off time has increased smuggling, leading to high market penetration by uncontrolled poor-quality rice with negative health implications for the people. The group’s President General, Mr. Anthony Nted, and General Secretary, Mr. Aham Ubani, said in a December 27, 2013, letter addressed to President Goodluck Jonathan, “The policy on importation of rice has made it difficult for genuine rice importers to bring in their products through our ports. The effect is that revenue accruing to the nation is lost to neighbouring countries and some Nigerians who genuinely work in the ports are also denied their livelihood.”

    On its part, STOAN spokesman, Mr. Bolaji Akinola claimed that the country was losing N1 billion daily to the subsisting policy on rice importation and the consequent high-level smuggling. “Before January 2013, rice importers paid 60 per cent duty, but when duty was increased to 110 per cent, importers shunned Nigerian ports for neighbouring countries, “ he said, adding that smugglers brought the same rice into the country illegally.

    Of course, it is relevant to ask: Where is the Minister for Agriculture, Dr Akinwunmi Adesina, who regularly boasts about “a revolution in rice production” and “the rice transformation strategy to make Nigeria self-sufficient in rice by 2015”? Whatever may be the merits of the government’s plan to make the country less import-dependent, it is clear that there are inevitable issues arising from the idea, which just won’t go away and should be addressed with all sense of responsibility.

    It is one of the tragic wonders of Nigeria that, according to Adewunmi’s figures, it “has 84 million hectares of land of which no more than 40 per cent is cultivated.” Obviously, among the reasons for this agricultural under-development must be not only the wrong and wrong-headed priorities of successive administrations, but also their lop-sided and short-sighted focus on oil, the country’s main revenue earner. Ironically, perhaps oil is also the bane of the country.

    Certainly, it won’t be enough to ban rice importation only to encourage local production of rice that falls short of the quality of imported rice. The challenge of ensuring that locally produced rice meets consumer standards of acceptability is a major one, and it would amount to a denial of the people’s right to the best if the official restriction merely helps to impose undesirable sub-standard products in the name of home-grown rice.

    Furthermore, it is unclear whether local production, even where it enjoys consumer acceptance, would be adequate for consumer demand. In another apparent instance of grandstanding, Adesina asserted, “We have every natural endowment to be a major exporter of rice… At least, we should be exporting rice to all of West Africa after we have met our own self-sufficiency requirement.” Evidently, this is easier said than done.

  • Haba! If you Sanjo me, I will Ebele you!

    Haba! If you Sanjo me, I will Ebele you!

    SIR: When Gerald Ford was President of the United States, an incident occurred that is of particular relevance in this instance of the present imbroglio between Presidents Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan. President Ford’s 18-year-old daughter was quoted‘ as having said, with reference to an issue that was the talk of the nation then, that “the president was stupid.”

    Excitedly, journalists rushed to the White House where a cornered President Ford was asked bluntly by a reporter; “Mr. President, your daughter said you are stupid. Any comments?” President Ford’s response, paraphrased, went something like this. “You know what you just said is not true. I have seen the clip of my daughter’s comments. What she said was “the president was stupid,” and I am very proud of the fact that by saying that she has exercised her rights as an American citizen to criticize the American president not minding the fact that the president is her father. How many 18 year-old American citizens say worse things about the president daily around the country without remorse? If she had said “my father was stupid,” then, I will do what I need to do as her father.”

    Americans responded to his answer with acclamations and kudos. He was hailed for upholding the tenets of the oath he took at his inauguration; to defend and uphold the American Constitution and the rights of American citizens!

    I am sure that President Jonathan took an oath that is similar, in intent if not practice, to the oath taken by any American president, even any president, at inauguration. So, why the pugilistic exchange of” blows” and “counter-blows” between an incumbent president and a former one, who, for all intents and purposes, was, in my estimation, simply exercising his rights as an ordinary Nigerian? Does Mr. President read the newspapers daily where allegations worse than President Obasanjo’s comments and allegations feature regularly?

    Fellow Nigerians, writing scathing criticisms of a president, calling presidents names unfit for dogs and pets, and peddling innuendoes about a president’s penchant for doing the incredible, and so on, are issues of fundamental rights of citizens around the world; the much ballyhooed and acclaimed “dividends of democracy.” Both Presidents Obasanjo and Jonathan know this for a fact. No one would deny or prevent President Obasanjo from his opportunity to enjoy his rights as a Nigerian citizen.

    Donald Trump writes full page letters to the American president regularly. Former American presidents also communicate with the incumbent president on regular basis through the pages of newspapers. Incumbent presidents never respond. So, why is the presidency in Abuja so bent out of shape?

    In the wisdom of African folklore, when two elephants make love, the ground suffers. When they fight, the ground suffers too! So, it does not matter what two elephants do to one another; it is the ground that will suffer. Unfortunately, the ground that is suffering is Nigeria!

    When, in 2011, at the Eagle Square PDP Convention, President Obasanjo stood at the head of the chorus of PDP’s members, urging them to follow him as Jonathan was anointed PDP presidential flag bearer in the 2011 elections, Nigerians suffered. Today, in 2013, as arrangements are being put in place for the selection of PDP’s flag bearer for the 2015 elections, Nigeria is still suffering!

    The country’s issues and sufferings would never be addressed by the kinds of political ping-pong being played by its present and/or former leaders.” If you Sanjo me, I will Ebele you,” is definitely not the way to go.

    • Angelicus-M. Onasanya

    Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State.