The Nation Newspaper

Category: Commentaries

  • Masses, not leaders are Nigeria’s problem

    SIR: It is obvious that all is not well with our economy. Almost every sector of the economy is rotten. Education is in shambles. ASUU is on strike and students are compelled to stay at home. Also, power supply is erratic.

    The aviation sector is nothing to write home about. Five plane crashes within 14 months. As if that is not enough, the NCAA bought two armoured cars which were not budgeted for at a cost of N255million. Yet a certain Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala claimed there is no money to cater for the demands of university lecturers. But, there is money to pay federal lawmakers’ wardrobe, newspaper, entertainment, vehicle maintenance, hardship, personal assistants and domestic staff allowances.

    Insecurity has attained its most terrifying state with Boko Haram in the North and kidnappers in the South-south and South-east.

    Why is this happening to Nigeria despite the numerous resources we are endowed with? Many have attributed our problems to corruption which people like Chinua Achebe said is accounted for by leadership failure. But, the question that has not been answered is that: “who caused the leadership failure”?

    We, the masses are the architect of leadership failure. Yes! When it’s election time, politicians will distribute money, recharge cards and do all sorts of things just to get people’s votes. This is like the PHCN bringing electricity consistently when the month is running to an end just to encourage people to pay up their bills only to return to their epileptic ways thereafter.

    Our problems start when we fall for the tricks and deceit of politicians. The latest slavery index shows that many Nigerians are swimming in the pool of poverty. Unless we enthrone leaders who are ready to take the bull by the horn, the number of these swimmers will continue to rise.

    We are the employers of our leaders. This means that we can hire and fire them anytime. Nigerians should not trade away their votes on the altar of religion or ethnic sentiments. They should for for merit.

    • Idowu Esho Jamiu,

    Eruwa, Oyo State.

     

  • What’s delaying operational audit of DANA Air?

    SIR: In compliance with the October 6, directive by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) for Dana Air to suspend its flight operations to allow for an audit of the airline’s operations, the management of the company shut down its operations.

    Subsequently, as a result of the suspension (and understandably so), the airline directed its Nigerian and expatriate staff to proceed on compulsory leave without pay, with a promise to recall staff as soon as the audit process is completed.

    It is now three weeks since the NCAA directive and, though the airline is open and ready for the planned audit, it is worrisome that the NCAA is yet to commence the audit and no clear direction or timeline has been given to the airline for completion of the same.

    The continuous grounding of Dana Air is causing untold hardship for the hitherto ‘gainfully-employed’ staff of the airline, and with NCAA’s inaction regarding the audit, there appears to be no relief in sight to the sufferings of the airline’s staff and their numerous dependants.

    NCAA’s action or inaction is not without consequences for the average Nigerian traveler with the few airlines left taking advantage of the dearth of operators to hike fares and offer poor services to helpless customers.

    Businesses and nation’s economy are negatively impacted too. Need we mention the negative signals being sent to potential investors in the sector?

    It is for these reasons that the over 540 directly-employed Nigerian staff of the airline, are appealing to the NCAA to save us and the airline by carrying out its statutory role devoid of sentiments and political interference, and commencing the planned operational audit of the airline without any further delay.

    • Tony Usidamen

    Lagos

     

  • Okonjo-Wahala the ghost-buster – a parody

    Once upon a time, actually not quite long ago (in fact, Hardball can whisper that it was only a few weeks ago) in a land we may call Naija, there lived a very tough dowager known as Okonjo-Wahala. Now Naija was a jungle that pretended to be a country or if you prefer, a country that looked like a jungle. Whichever way you frame Naija, its jungleness was remarkable and naturally, all the pains and discomfort that came with a jungle were abundant.

    But particularly troublous for a woebegone Naija was that it had a ghost challenge or if you like, it was challenged by ghosts. How can that be, you may wonder? How can ghosts challenge men? Right from the time ghosts were invented (or were they created?), ghosts have been ghosts and men have been men. Besides, ghosts are generally known to mind their businesses, appearing mainly in movies and to drunken men. But ghosts do not often have to manifest in the physical for their reality to be felt; in fact their surreal, cold and chilling presence remain their forte and the nemesis of man across ages.

    It was a peculiarly ghoulish phenomenon in Naija that her ghosts lived in government work places called ministries, departments and agencies. They were particularly comfortable in local council offices being essentially jungle environments, in fact, every government establishment was habitat for ghosts in Naija. It was a peculiarly Naija syndrome that could have been packaged for export as Weapon of Economic Destruction if they were any smarter.

    This story, lest we forget, is how Naija’s strong woman, Okonjo-Wahala waged a mortal combat against the teeming ghosts of her land and exterminated them all. These insidious ghouls had traipsed Naija land for decades with nobody seeming to have any solution to the pandemic. In the last two years, the swashbuckling dame of Naija had applied a biometric device she called Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) to wipe out all the ghosts in town. According to official record, 47,000 ghosts were upstaged from their dwelling places in 215 government ministries, departments and agencies.

    In order to understand the magnitude of this feat Naija saved about N119 billion which was what these ethereal beings spirited away from Naija’s treasury. Let us extrapolate that these waifs have been at work (yes, at work) in the last 10 years! For vanquishing the Unidentifiable Salaried Objects (USO), aka ghost workers, Okonjo-Wahala won numerous awards from across the world.

    At one of the many receptions in her honour in which her godfather, called Gridlock Joe-Nathan was personally at hand, it was backslapping galore. Speaking ex tempore and in his characteristic manner, he threw a few lame bon mots about at the occasion: “Madam, this biometric thing you used to wipe out these useless ghosts, is it a bomb or a kind of gun? Why I am asking is that whatever it is, we must use the money we have saved to import more of it so that we can try it on these Hoko Baram who have been troubling us for sometime now!” A raucous laughter erupted which became an applause and ended as a standing ovation. There in the crowd clapping the loudest were Heads of Service, Permanent Secretaries, Directors and heads of agencies and departments.

    Gridlock continues: “My greatest worry now is whether they will rise again, the challenge you have now is to make sure that this ugly situation does not rear its ugly (sic) head again. We need to bury them. In fact to make sure of that, I hereby mandate you to set up an Independent Commission for the Total Eradication of Ghost Workers. We can call it the Ghost Commission for short; I thank you ladies and gentlemen.” A thunderous, sycophantic ovation ensued and the attendant tumult as the big man made his exit. Thus ended the ghost story and the story of ghosts in Naija; they never had a ghost challenge any more or did they?

     

  • Futile calls for divine intervention

    SIR: In Achebe’s classic, ‘Things Fall Apart’, we read of Unoka, Okonkwo’s lazy and improvident father sought solution to his poor harvests from Agbala. Here is what he was told by Chika, the priestess of Agbala: ‘you have offended neither the gods nor your fathers. And when a man is at peace with the gods and his ancestors, his harvest will be good or bad according to the strength of his arm. You, Unoka, are known in all the clan for the weakness of your matchet and your hoe. When your neighbours go out with axe to cut down virgin forests, you sow your yams on exhausted farms that take no labour to clear. They cross seven rivers to make their farms; you stay at home and offer sacrifices to a reluctant soil. Go home and work like a man.’

    The above captures the Nigerian situation. In fact, I could swear Achebe was speaking of Nigeria if not that when he penned down these immortal words, the country was so full of promise.

    In the very illuminating essay, ‘Religion in age of social and moral crises’, published October 20 by this esteemed paper, Dr. Akinola did justice to the force driving the prevailing religiosity among Nigerians. The commercialization of religion, and rise of charlatans who claim ability to solve so much problem but evidently have not only woefully failed to make the slightest dent on the avalanche of maladies plaguing the country but in fact seem to be contributing to it. Suffice it to say that the religiosity of Nigerians is hardly a function of hunger for spirituality but quick solutions to worldly cares, and ambition. It is mostly product of harsh economic situation. Little wonder why corruption, crime, iniquity are escalating even with the explosion of religious houses.

    It has become some sort of culture for Nigerians to seek quick solutions to their numerous cares and worries through ‘prayer’. One could sympathize with despairing and disoriented masses who think they could secure metaphysical solutions to socio-economic problems. But it is utterly preposterous to see people in leadership positions (who should know better) among the multitude calling for divine intervention. Political leaders who thread this religious path are either being devious and only wish to divert the attention of a credulous public from their irresponsibility or actually so lacking in knowledge as to expect God to fix our mess (of which they are major contributors).

    Does God arbitrarily intervene in the affairs of men? History and everyday affairs prove the contrary, yet, like Unoka, we continue to offer ‘sacrifices to a reluctant soil’. We have been calling for divine intervention for decades all to no avail. But like the proverbial fool who does the same thing expecting a different result, we obstinately refuse to learn. How many of the developed countries we aspire to be like got where they are by divine intervention? I’ve never heard any leader of a serious country tell his/her people that prayer is what they need in order to surmount some social or economic problems.

    We are quick to acknowledge the Bible account of creation where God gave to man dominion over the earth. Why then do we keep making ourselves less human by bothering God over issues He has already equipped man to tackle? Nigeria’s problems are not other-worldly. Many countries have surmounted similar challenges through positive philosophy, creative thinking and diligence. But while they work, like Unoka we ‘pray’, and consult deities. Like Unoka, we shy away from productive venture, like him we are so wasteful, like him, we have unhealthy appetite for revelry and the easy life. Every other people see how we are the architects of our woes except perhaps ourselves. Rather than waste valuable time on the shameful begging we call prayer, we can do well to practice a kind of sympathetic magic. Yes, if we can summon the will to do like the developed countries, we’ll surely become like them. It’s about time we went home and worked like men.

     

    • Nnoli Chidiebere

    Aba, Abia State.

  • ASUU crisis as rhyming game

    Hardball had intervened twice in the Academic Staff Union of Universities’ (ASUU) imbroglio with pieces titled, “AS-UU Make your bed,” parts one and two but nothing, it seems, will cut the ice in this matter. What with Federal Government’s indescribable insouciance in a crisis that should command urgent national attention. ASUU on its part would not be assuaged this time or persuaded to yield grounds after having determined that governance in this part of the world is a ruse and leaders hardly mean what they say.

    Many Nigerians continue to rue the fact that this strike by university lecturers which has lingered for more than four months has become a festival of fruitless talks and comments by all without concrete steps at resolution. The last we heard from President Goodluck Jonathan, all he had to say was appeal to the teachers to return to work. The president only sued for peace after he had lost precious time accusing the dons of playing politics with our children’s education.

    But soon after, government was to follow up quickly from pleading with ASUU to slamming a bruising no-work-no-pay policy on the union members. Even government spokesman Mr. Labaran Maku who doubles as both Information and Defence minister in his recent intervention said resignedly that the Federal Government had done enough to make the teachers return to work.

    Oozing so much insobriety, seeming not to fully grasp the magnitude of the matter he went on rather glibly to say, “We are doing infrastructure in the universities. For example, we have 38 new buildings in the University of Benin. No one would want our teachers to suffer because I have worked as a teacher, same as the president.”

    Countering Mr. Maku, Professor Munzali Jubril who was a former executive secretary of the National Universities Commission, someone who ought to know a thing or two about the matter weighed in saying: ASUU has been much abused over the years and that the government has been playing ping-pong with tertiary education for long. Munzali may have fixed the noose perfectly around the neck of the government when he said,”The government does not listen to its own agencies. If the executive secretaries, right under government, write 100 memos, appear before 100 committees and make 100 submissions, they will amount to nothing.”

    He said further that government always waited for ASUU to go on strike before giving universities what they deserved. That is most damning and suggests a very confused government suffering from a total systems collapse.

    But the Federal Government’s chicken may have finally come home to roost when Senate President, David Mark intervened recently with bruising words for the government team that negotiated the contentious 2009 Agreement which the government has refused to honour. Hear Mark: “Listening to the agreement that was signed by the Federal Government as Comrade Chukwumerije read out, I was wondering whether it was signed or it was just a proposal.

    “But when he concluded, he said it was signed. It only showed the level of people the executive sent to go and negotiate on their behalf because ab initio, people must be told the truth, what can be accomplished and what cannot be accomplished… on the other hand, I think ASUU simply took advantage of the ignorance of those who were sent and simply just allowed the agreement to go on because it is obvious that this is going to be a very difficult piece of paper to implement…They found that those who were sent there simply didn’t know their right from their left and they just went ahead…”

    That is obviously a high-fused statement. Assuming Mark’s suggestion that government sent mere goons to dialogue with ASUU is on the mark, we may then safely conclude that ASUU first induced their opponents’ like zoo animals and then made a sumptuous asun of them. well, anyone for the ASUU rhyming challenge?

  • ASUU spokesman got it wrong

    I was quite bemused by the reference by ASUU spokesman, Dr. Olusegun Ajiboye, to my enjoyment of Duquesne University’s reputed Flex benefits for its members of academic and non-academic staff while denying similar benefits to ASUU members. First, in most instances, as its very name suggests, the Flex Benefits Program at Duquesne was flexible. It was also contributory. The university simply matched, up to a predetermined ratio, whatever amount had been contributed by the staff. For example, each faculty or staff made individual decision about how much he or she would contribute towards retirement, pension, life insurance etc.

    In my case, I contributed 12% of my salary towards retirement and pension but the university was obligated to contribute not more than six percent of my wages towards my retirement portfolios which had been divided by me into different mutual funds like Vanguard, Lincoln, Travelers and TIAA-CREF. At the same time, there were colleagues who contributed only 3, 4 or 5% of their wages towards retirement and thus enjoyed less than the maximum of 6% which the university was obligated to match. In accordance with the flexibility of the program, at no time did I contribute towards or enjoy the benefits of Duquesne University Health program. Likewise, whereas some colleagues at Duquesne paid over $1,000 per annum to park on campus, I neither paid for nor enjoyed the campus car park facility. After losing my protest to the university President that the parking charges were excessive, I simply bought a monthly bus pass; I rode public transportation to work. Doing this drastically reduced expenditure on car maintenance while still enabling me to get to and from work at a cost of less than half of what I would have been paying just to park.

    The flexibility in Duquesne University benefits program paled into insignificance when compared to the flexibility in salary structure. I joined Duquesne University employment with superlative credentials that aided my bargaining power in matters of salary. Indeed, I was the highest paid Assistant Professor in Duquesne University’s College of Liberal Arts which at the time included all Science as well as Arts Departments. God enabled me to enjoy such exceptional successes in grantsmanship that I was offered an assurance of at least a 10% annual salary increase for three years at a time when annual salary increase in the university averaged 3.5% and some faculty were given no increase at all! The university knew that I would take my service elsewhere if it failed to make attractive offers to retain me. The consequence of this was that by the time I became an Associate Professor, my salary had already outstripped those of my colleagues in the same Department. Even so, whatever I earned was far less than what an Assistant Professor was earning in the College of Pharmacy where a beginning Assistant Professor’s salary exceeded those of some full Professors in the College of Liberal Arts! It is noteworthy that when the stock market bubble got burst in the USA, with the concomitant reduction of university revenues, Duquesne University like many universities across the USA, froze salary increase for a few years! My wife is a Professor and chairperson at Roosevelt University, Chicago, Illinois, where salary and wages have been frozen for the last three years. Since Dr. Ajiboye admired Duquesne University Flex benefits program so much, would he canvass that ASUU adopt such flexibility rather than the current system where a Professor of Engineering at the University of Lagos enjoys similar salary structure as a Professor Religious Study at Ibadan and a Professor of History at Ile-Ife?

    There are five universities within a four mile radius of Duquesne University. One of these is Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) where I taught before moving to Duquesne. Each of these universities had salary, wages and benefits structure that were unique to its own institution. For example, CMU contributed a fixed percentage of a staff’s salary towards retirement regardless of whether or not the staff contributed. By contrast, Duquesne University contributed nothing towards the retirement funds of a staff or faculty who chose not to contribute. In any case, would ASUU embrace the disparity in salaries paid at Carnegie Mellon University versus Duquesne University?

    I took a 38% salary reduction when I moved from Carnegie Mellon University to Duquesne University. Such disparity is constitutive even among universities owned by the same state government. The University of Georgia in Athens, the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, the Georgia State University in Atlanta and the Georgia Southern University in Statesboro are owned and funded principally by the Government of the State of Georgia. Even so, there is significant disparity in the salary structures of these universities.

    At CMU, the saying that science is a bad concubine reflected the long hours that faculty spent in their laboratory sometimes at the expense of social and family life. However, all things being equal, those who spend long hours in their laboratory achieve enhanced research and scholarly productivity that results in timely or even accelerated promotion. Only in Nigeria would an academician demand overtime allowances under the euphemism of Excessive Work load Allowances. Such a demand would seem incongruous across the world.

    There is no question that the enormous rot in Nigeria’s education sector cries for urgent and immediate attention. But as unpopular as saying so might make me to the membership of ASUU, the truth is that ASUU has been a part of the problem. I would gladly love to engage Dr. Ajiboye in a prime time televised debate on my assertion.

    Now, even as I did during my contribution on the floor of the senate, let us direct our attention to some practical solutions to this most pressing national crisis.

    First, the National Assembly of Nigeria should henceforth appropriate at least 26% of Nigeria’s current revenue to education alone. Second, government in Nigeria, especially the Federal Ministry of Education, has been denigrated into a beast of burden. The metastasis of asphyxiating bureaucracy demands the streamlining of the endless parastatals that drain resources while making little or no contribution to national well-being and progress. Third, to raise revenue for funding a national redemption program in education, all imports should attract a mandatory education tax of one percent. Fourth, beginning from January 1, 2014 till December 31, 2018, all workers in Nigeria must contribute 5% of their income as education taxes. Embezzling any amount of these revenues targeted for education should be taken as an act of treason. This should attract the most severe penalty such as impeachment, imprisonment and perhaps death penalty. Fifth, the costs for running the offices of all elected and appointed political office holders should immediately be pruned by 50%. Something tells me that the implacable demands by ASUU are fuelled by resentment at the cult of obscene privileges which Nigerian politicians have become. But our task is to curb needless privileges rather than add to them.

    Finally, as a member of the Education Committee during my tenure in the House of Representatives and now as Vice Chairman of the Senate Education Committee, I have almost always been the strongest advocate for the well-being of Nigerian universities. At a senate hearing not long ago, a chieftain of the National University Commission disparagingly lampooned academic staff of Nigerian universities for depending too much on government rather than obtaining extramural funding as is the case abroad. I was the one who immediately and robustly came to the defence of the academicians. I explained that the comparison was in error for two reasons. First, well funded private grant agencies like Ford Foundation, Carnegie Foundation, Howard Hughes Foundation, etc do not exist in Nigeria. Second, it was egregiously incorrect to assert that most research grants in the USA came from outside government. I pointed out that the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the United States Department of Agriculture were federal government agencies which principally fund research in science, health, and agriculture, respectively. With the absence of such agencies in Nigeria, I submitted that it was unfair to blame the academicians.

    • Prof Adeyeye is vice chairman, Senate Committee on Education

  • Re: Olakunle Abimbola ‘s Ekiti Ronu

    SIR: Since the MOB-JKF political saga trundled itself on the political scene, Abimbola Olakunle ‘s Ekiti Ronu piece that appeared in The Nation of October 29, is the most objective commentary I have read on the subject. In many essays that  I have read on the issue,

    JKF is held up and emblazoned and lionized as an achiever per excellence and a committed progressive element, while MOB is demonized as a fifth columnist, a betrayer of causes, and a puffer of satanic smoke into the hallowed political shrine of the Yoruba race and an unrepentant reactionary element. These are all products of the partisan imagination. The truth of the matter is that the true test of democratic values and tenets as espoused in the APC is at hand. The party must throw the political arena open to both JKF and MOB to test their popularity amongst their partymen and women in an open, free and fair primaries. The choice should be left to them to decide and not to the whimsical discretion of a few party leaders. This is the spirit of democracy. And if truly, JKF has done excellently well as is reported in the media, he should have no problem winning the primaries. To do otherwise, is an infraction of MOB rights and giving a dog a bad name in order to kill it. It is important to stress that, Nigerians are keenly watching the unfolding MOB-JKF event. How it will logically be resolved-to give everyone a sense of belonging and justice-will tell much about APC in particular and Yoruba politics in general and it will greatly influence the direction of the debate of the 2015 elections. So once again, to reecho Herbert Ogunde, Yoruba Ronu.

     

    Atah Pine

    Makurdi, Benue State

  • Calumny and Anambra guber politics

    Anambra State is indeed a hotbed of Nigerian politics. The state has often proved inscrutable even to those who have taken more than a casual interest. It has made and destroyed many and consigned many more to the dustbins of history.

    On the whole, Anambra is a flagship state in many respects and has produced a catalogue of firsts, especially in human development and nation building. It has an array of citizens who have played key and leading roles in national and international arenas, rather too numerous to recount here. It has incidentally also produced the only Nigerian Saint-in-waiting, already beatified and awaiting final canonization by any Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic faith.

    In the world of crime and political brigandage the record of Anambra is equally quite respectable. Its official name used to be Home for All – the good, the bad, the ugly – but later changed to the Light of the Nation. Either way, the names are quite apt and capture Anambra as unique and indeed the Gateway to the Eastern Nigeria.

    Since the return of the nation to civil rule, Anambra has proved to be one hell of a workshop of democracy. Its irrepressible people have commendably insisted of the ethos democratic governance and have been able to pressure their leaders and governors to be people-oriented and many have pursued populist policies as a result. A case in point is the Senator Chris Ngige who in his short stay as governor (2003-2006) embarked on massive road and infrastructure development and many other populist programmes to the admiration of most people.

    The current electioneering campaign has however degenerated into politics of very bizarre coloration. All Progressive Grand Alliance took over from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which ruled between 1999 and 2006 through Chinwoke Mbadinuju and Senator Chris Ngige. Then came the APGA government of Peter Obi, which is still in power and struggling to convince the people that APGA is their party for being the party of Igbo foremost leader, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu.

    The proponents of this theory have equally gone ahead to ascribe to the ethnic and regional divides the various political parties, especially the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), which produced Dr. Chris Nwabueze Ngige as Senator in 2011. The emotional blackmail has been orchestrated to the point that the new All Progressives Congress (APC), the product of the merger between All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) is now being branded Yoruba or Hausa Party, despite South-east parading some of the most important national executive offices.

    Branding of some parties as ethnic is seen by many as necessary political brinkmanship of APGA members, a party standing on quicksand that is threatening to cave in with the evitable exit of Governor Obi.  The submission of the Peter Obi factor to the inescapable corrosive power of time is something the party appears unprepared for.  That is why many adduce the reason for the branding of APGA as Igbo party as one last ditch effort to retain Anambra State, which is their last bastion, its underwhelming performance in the last eight years on the saddle notwithstanding.

    Many have also reasoned that it was such accruable political gains that made Anambra State government to renege on the agreement it had with the Lagos State government to relocate some rehabilitated destitute from Lagos, only to cash in on it to tar the Fashola/APC government of Lagos State as anti- Igbo, despite appointing an Igbo man a Commissioner and some other Igbos into executive positions in the Lagos State government.

    The attempt by Senator Ngige to interface and mediate in the so-called deportation crisis predictably scalded him politically and the passion  incensed by the saga showed abatement only when Fashola apologized for the manner the translocation of those challenged Igbo citizens from Lagos was carried out and Fashola did so on the prompting of Senator Ngige. Even at that, some APGA strategists still think the matter should be accentuated and made a cardinal issue in the gubernatorial election.

    The claim of such people that All Progressives Congress (APC) is Hausa/Moslem party is also unfounded when one considers that 17 National Executive members are Christians and 18 are Moslems. This is an even spread since the decision of the APC on all issues is by simple majority, with the national chairman wielding the power to vote only when to break a tie. What this also means is that both Christians and Muslims have equal rights in APC and equal voting powers and can only be swayed by issues.

    On the other hand, APGA has been presented by the same people who call APC Hausa or Yoruba party as Igbo party. Igbos constitute over 90% of the South-east and are also found in more than just a sprinkling in some neighbouring states, especially in Rivers and Delta states. At home and in the Diaspora, they may number well up to 40 million, making them a race and not just an ethnic group, and APGA is supposed to be the political party appropriated by these 40 million people. Yet, its membership strength in the entire South-east is said to be less than 100 thousand and appalling in significance round the country. In Anambra State particularly, when INEC carried out party membership audit recently, it was discovered that APGA had no authentic register to clearly identify its members in the state with.

    One irrefutable fact also is that APGA has less than a sprinkling of Igbo leaders in its fold. Apart from Peter Obi and perhaps Victor Umeh for being the party chairman and one Nwobu Alor (all from one town called Agulu in Anambra State), notable Igbo leaders have not identified with the party. Both the APC and the PDP parade arrays of Igbo leaders far more than APGA despite having been led by Emeka Ojukwu.

    APGA cannot therefore be said to be Igbo party (whatever that means), when the Igbos are not predominantly in the party and are found much greater numbers in other parties. It cannot also be said to be an Igbo party when the Igbo leaders are not members of the party. On both counts, APGA can be said to be trailing both APC and PDP both in Anambra State and in the whole of the South-east.

    Many of the proponents of APGA as Igbo party also insist it is the party left behind by Ojukwu and of the view that for the sake of the late Ikemba, Igbo politicians should join and remain in the party. Those who attempted to heed this call came to grief as there appears to be a policy within the party to keep Igbo leaders away, the latest may be Professor Chukwuma Soludo who was politically guillotined for joining APGA and attempting to contest the November poll on the platform. There was no doubt that the Soludo treatment awaited any other Anambra politician who ventured to grab hold of the APGA gubernatorial ticket. So, those who argue that people like Chris Ngige should have dumped the so-called Hausa/Yoruba Party and join the so-called Igbo party argue amiss.

    What is more, when Ojukwu was alive, he was obviously the only notable Igbo leader in APGA and did not quite succeed in convincing the others to join the bandwagon. If Ojukwu could not succeed in pulling the Igbos into APGA, can those who succeeded him and jealously shielding the party be able to achieve it with their mortal fear of the authentic Igbo leaders? It is doubtful.

    More importantly, If ACN and the PDP could win all the Senate seats at the last election, can APGA stop the same parties at the November governorship election by merely whining about APGA being an Igbo party? Can the APGA pundits convince Anambrarians to vote party instead of persons as has always been the case?

    One may further ask: in what ways has APGA as a party advanced the Igbo interest in the Nigerian polity? Is the future of Ndi Igbo better served by politics of inclusiveness or that of exclusivity? Time shall tell.

     

    •Mefor, a journalist wrote in from Abuja;

  • Jonathan, Okonjo-Iweala and non-military pensioners

    SIR: I am writing once again to draw the attention of the President Goodluck Jonathan and the Minister of Finance Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala  to the plight of non-military pensioners. This category of senior citizens have been waiting for the 53 percent increase which has been pending for the past five years or so. To worsen matters, the 53 percent increase has been down-graded to 33 percent and yet, this downgraded version has not been paid to the non-military pensioners. Meanwhile, the pensioners who retired from the armed forces have been paid their  own increases since August. The question now is: when are the non-military pensioners going to get their own?

    Specifically, I have in mind pensioners of the university system. Many of these pensioners from the various universities continue to die by the day. On the other hand, Nigeria continues to exult in her new status as a member  of the UN Security Council whereas human security is patently lacking in the country, since our senior citizens continue to wait endlessly for pension entitlements that are long over-due. I can only hope that the 33 percent increases in pension will be captured in the new budget that will be presented shortly to the National Assembly. On this note, Dr Okonjo-Iweala in view of her extensive American experience may wish to draw inspiration from this aspect of her life. Even during the recent shutdown in the United States, measures were put in place to ensure that pensioners and astronauts continued to receive their entitlements. Madam Okonjo-Iweala, I urge you to do no less as regards the pensioners in our university system. These pensioners have waited for too long.

    • Professor Kayode Soremekun

    Covenant University, Ota

  • Is covering up Aviation minister’s sins the way to go?

    Is covering up Aviation minister’s sins the way to go?

    An article titled ‘’Nigeria, Where Plane Crashes because of Bullet Proof Cars’’, which was written by one Kayode Daramola and which was published in your newspaper on 27th Oct 2013, has been brought to our attention. It contains nothing but malicious falsehood and it is clear that the author seeks to impugn the character and reputation of Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, the former Minister of Culture and Tourism, former Presidential spokesman to President Olusegun Obasanjo and former Minister of Aviation. In an attempt to launder the image of the embattled and disgraced Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah, Daramola felt it necessary to tell a series of lies and construct a string of malicious fabrications against Chief Fani-Kayode. This was simply because Chief Fani-Kayode was amongst those that were the first to call for the sacking or the resignation of Oduah as Minister of Aviation after the Associated Airline crash in which 16 people lost their lives. Daramola wrote, inter alia, that ‘’Stella’s accomplishments are not unknown to people, what is unclear to the entire citizenry of this country is that the writing on the wall are political machinations scribbled to dent the glittering image of the working amazon supervising the aviation sector as well as set her on the same pedestal with non-performing ministers of yesteryears indicted for the mismanagement of 19.5 billion Naira Aviation Intervention Fund. Even the most vociferous voice in the name-calling of Stella Oduah, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, was banned for five years from holding public office and charged to court by the EFCC for misappropriation. Has the five-year ban not expired and Chief Fani-Kayode ready to return to the Minstry of Aviation to take what he forgot?’’

    One really does wonder whether people like this ever went to school or whether they are capable of being reasonable and logical. A former minister voices his concerns about the loss of lives and lack of safety in the Aviation sector, and in the petty and sick minds of people like Daramola it is because he wishes to go back to the Ministry of Aviation! How does Daramola know that he and his whole family will not be in the next plane crash? Has it occurred to him that people like Fani-Kayode are simply trying to save and protect lives, including his? The sort of disingenuous drivel and utter rubbish that Daramola has written is rarely seen or read. Under normal circumstances one would have ignored this worthless and desperate hired hand and agent of the devil who is simply out to do a hatchet job, but it is important to set the records straight. And the facts are as follows. First of all, more people have died under the watch of Daramola’s vampire ‘’amazon’’, Stella Oduah, than any other Minister of Aviation in the history of Nigeria except for one. Under her watch there have been no less than six crashes (both military and civilian) and just under 200 lives have been lost. All that in just two years! Three months after Stella Oduah took control at the helm of affairs in the Ministry of Aviation planes and helicopters started falling out of the sky and they have not stopped since. That, to Chief Fani-Kayode and millions of other Nigerians, is, quite rightly, a matter of grave concern. Clearly, Daramola attaches no value to human life, otherwise he would have been concerned as well. It is a matter of public record that by the time Chief Fani-Kayode took over as minister at the Ministry of Aviation in 2006 there had been five crashes with 453 deaths in just one year before his resumption of duties and he not only put a stop to that terrible cycle of crashes but he also put the necessary reforms in place to prevent them from recurring before he left. In his entire seven months at the Ministry of Aviation not one person lost their life from a plane crash in Nigeria. As a matter of fact he is the only Minister of Aviation in Nigeria in the last 11 years that did not lose one person under his watch. Three months after he left office, the reforms he put in place were discarded and the crashes started again and they have not stopped since.

    If Nigeria was not a place that people placed no value on human life, Chief Fani-Kayode ought to have received all manner of accolades, awards and honours by now for such a phenomenal achievement, yet instead he receives nothing but insults and sponsored lies by the paid agents of Stella Oduah whose position is getting less tenuous by the day. This is a minister who claimed that plane crashes were ‘’inevitable’’ and they were ‘’acts of God’’ and who had the temerity to spend 1.6 million USD on two bullet proof cars for herself with taxpayers’ money. The saying is that when it comes to journalism ‘’opinion is cheap and facts are sacred’’. The author may have his reservations about Chief Fani-Kayode and he is entitled to his opinion. I doubt that Chief Fani-Kayode or anyone else will lose any sleep over what he thinks. However, he is not entitled to fabricate facts or distort the truth.

    Let us take his fabrications one by one. It is not true that Chief Fani-Kayode was ‘’indicted’’ by anyone, including the Senate Aviation Commitee in 2008 or at any other time, for the misappropriation or mismanagement of the 19.5 billion Aviation Intervention Fund. He was cleared of any wrongdoing in the management of that fund by the Senate Aviation Commitee during a public hearing in 2008 even though they were baying for his blood, whilst others were indicted. It is true that in 2008 he was initially charged to court by the EFCC together with others on the alleged mismanagement of the fund but three months later all charges against him on the 19.5 billion Naira Aviation Intervention Fund were dropped by the EFCC for want of evidence whilst others were charged and are being prosecuted for that matter till today. The issues that Chief Fani-Kayode has with the EFCC today and which has dragged on for the last five years have nothing to do with the Ministry of Aviation or the Aviation Intervention Fund. These are matters that have no substance or seriousness and that are clearly politically-motivated. The whole charade was malicious and ill-motivated and it was designed and constructed simply to punish and silence him by the Yar’adua administration for his loyalty and commitment to President Olusegun Obasanjo. The current government has allowed it to drag on due to Chief Fani-Kayode’s relentless opposition to them. It is only Daramola that does not appear to be aware of this in the whole country.

    Again, it is not true that Chief Fani-Kayode was ever ‘’banned from holding political office for five years’’ by anyone. The recommendation that he should be banned from political office for five years ‘’for putting too many Yoruba people in the Aviation parastatals when he was minister ‘’was made by the Senator Anyim Ude-led Senate Aviation Commitee in 2008 whilst they were on their witch-hunt but unfortunately for them the Senate at plenary not only rejected their recommendation and described it as ‘’absurd’’, but they also said that they did not have the power to ban anyone from public office. The fact that a rival for the governorship bid in Osun State, Chief Iyiola Omisore, was also a member of that Aviation Committee and that he tried his best to get the Senate to ban Fani-Kayode from running for public office simply to keep him out of the governorship race tells the whole story. Yet whatever the motivations for this ridiculous suggestion were, it was laughed out of the Senate and the Aviation Commitee was put to shame.

    People like Daramola that attach their names to this shameful and libellous piece ought to know that no matter how many times they tell lies, at the end of the day they will be exposed for what they are. More importantly, those that take money from heartless, greedy and thieving vampire ministers to tell such lies and cast aspersions on the character and reputation of innocent and good men always end up very badly because God’s judgement always falls on them. Daramola would do better to explain to the world why Stella Oduah would rather spend 1.6 million USD on two cars for herself with taxpayers’ money rather than put runway lights on the nation’s runways. He would also do well to explain what pleasure she derives in watching people die in crashes and hearing about the attendant blood flow. When the next plane crash takes place Daramola and those that sent him to write such rubbish will be counted amongst those that have blood on their hands assuming that they are not on the crashed plane themselves. May God forgive them for their bloodlust, their insensitivity and their dirty lies.

     

    Salako is a Lagos-based lawyer