The Nation Newspaper

Category: Commentaries

  • Letter to my friend, the Governor

    Letter to my friend, the Governor

    My dear Kay, Let me humour our civil servants by starting my letter with a parody of a trite phrase that introduces all their speeches including those delivered at funeral ceremonies; “It gives me great pleasure” (to write you this letter). It beats me hollow how an individual can derive “great pleasure” at the death of a fellow human being. What a wicked joke this is! Is the service that intolerant that it does not allow room for linguistic upgrading and lexical restructuring? Or is it the civil servants themselves that are prisoners of linguistic conservatism? Little wonder that most of their speeches contain lethargic influenza.

    I write in respect of the defection of Michael Opeyemi Bamidele (The MOB) from All Progressives Congress (APC) to another party of his choice. We both know that he has gone even though he is yet to make a formal declaration of his defection. The MOB visited Chief Bisi Akande and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu (at different times) with a 35-man-entourage, including an octogenarian Bishop from Ilawe, thus foreclosing the possibility of reconciliation. He had gone to inform them of his decision to leave the APC. What is happening to our culture and sense of dignity these days? Why should an 83-year-old man allow himself to be dragged from Ekiti to Lagos for a meeting that took place between 3.00a.m. and 5.30a.m.? What does a Bishop, whose less than ¦ 20,000 per month pension was raised by the Fayemi Administration to ¦ 100,000, want that he allowed himself to be parcelled into the betrayal train of a young man of his son’s age at such unholy hours?

    I can imagine how devastated ‘Oga’ (Tinubu) was when he was confronted with the reality of Bamidele’s exit from APC. Whatever relevance Bamidele had today in Nigeria’s politics was made feasible by Tinubu who ignored early warnings about Bamidele’s treacherous romance with the Judas of Ekimogunland. Sometimes I wonder how and where Tinubu finds the strength to absorb the perfidy of those he helped to power, because they are legion. Many pretenders and unctuous power seekers had exploited Tinubu’s unstinting readiness to help, to get to power only to stab him in the back by betraying his trust in them.

    When at the 3rd Anniversary Mega Rally at the Ado Ekiti Stadium, you and Rauf Aregbesola were hoping for a last minute miracle that will see MOB renouncing his prodigal adventurism by changing his mind and staying put in APC, your supporters, encouraged by KWAM 1’s songs of hostility, knew you were playing politics. I am sure you saw the ecstasy and hysteria that followed when KWAM 1 sang his famous lyrics: AÌgoÌ loì ma deì ¹di̹ gb¹ÌhiÌn… ¸ maì ce gbaìra leì wÍn ÍÌdaÌl¹Ì ni wÍìn… ¸ni maì lÍ koì miìa lÍ, ¹ni maì lÍ koì miìa lÍ… Nothing could be more declaratory than what Opeyemi said to Asiwaju during the meeting: “…Asiwaju, I can afford to offend you but I cannot afford to offend my supporters who want me as their next governor…” A progressive who moves from the mainstream party to a Labour Party of suspect identity had already committed political suicide. Though, the late Akin Omoboriowo who left the progressive Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) for the conservative National Party of Nigeria (NPN) was treated with contempt by the Ekiti people till he died, I plead for sympathy for our very good friend with whom we shared some good times in the past. A man who is troubled by complex and ambition deserves our compassion and nothing more.

    From what happened during the 3rd anniversary celebration, there is no doubt that the Ekiti people are in love with your administration because of the numerous projects and progammes that your government has done in the state. Mrs. Bosede Balogun, the second market woman that spoke in Ekiti dialect during the mega rally, did a good job for you when she highlighted all the achievements of your government using the 8-point agenda as her framework. It was a convincing presentation and that was why she received the loudest ovation at the rally. Hers was not a make-believe or stereotyped narrative of achievements. She spoke with passion for your government. She spoke with love for your government; she spoke with an affection for a government that had touched the lives of the people in the rural communities in particular and the state in general.

    Talking about the rural communities, what I witnessed in Annunciation School, Ikere -Ekiti during the second phase of the Grants in –Aid To Communities across the state; 32 (Ekiti North), 36 (Ekiti Central) and 27 (Ekiti North), showed that your government’s acceptability was not just because of what you are doing in Ado Ekiti, but also because of the massive development and transformative projects that has taken place in these rural communities. According to some of them, your interventions in the areas of infrastructure, provision of portable water, school renovations, primary health care, etc. have endeared your government to them. The Alawe of Ilawe, Oba Banji Alabi, was so elated that he was boasting that Ilawe-Ekiti is now like New York, London, Tokyo, Paris where youths can access the internet within a given distance courtesy of an ICT Centre the community was able to put together with the grant-in-aid it received from your government.

    I am aware that some people are accusing you of giving contracts to non-indigenes. Kindly handle this with some maturity. During the commissioning of some roads your government constructed, you mentioned the names of the local contractors that handled some of those roads and also challenged your accusers to name any local contractor with a good track record of performance in his fields of interest that had not benefitted from contract awards.

    You also needed to let them know that the reason you inherited many abandoned projects was because local contractors patronised by previous administrations failed to discharge their contractual obligations even when there was evidence that they had collected between 80 and 100 percent of the contract sum. While local contractors have the courage to abandon projects, non-indigenous contractors do not have such courage because of the implications. An indigenous contractor, for instance, can claim that because he is an indigene of the state, he should be forgiven for abandoning a project that he was adequately mobilised for. But a “foreign” contractor feels unsafe and unprotected should he dare abandon any project that he had been mobilised to do.

    Another complaint which seems to be very prevalent among a particular group of people in the state is that of “stomach infrastructure”. Some of them are complaining that you do not behave like a typical Nigerian politician who throws money from his open jeep as he goes on a campaign trail around town. I must confess that this is a knotty issue to crack because an intellectual-politician like you should not be seen throwing money to people on the road during campaign. But meanwhile, try and look for a good construction company to construct roads, dig boreholes, renovate schools inside such people’s stomachs since that is where they want their own ‘infrastructure’.

    If you must know, you are not the only one accused of not doing “stomach infrastructure”. They are also accusing Senator Femi Ojudu and Yemi Adaramodu, your Chief of Staff. The impression that was created about Femi Ojudu was that of an “absentee Senator” or in their own language “Senator moÌ nìbÍÌ”. When I told Femi what the people were saying about him in town, and he told me the numerous projects and programmes he had done for his Senatorial District in two years, I was amazed. All these activities, projects and welfare programmes were captured in a publication on his two-year stewardship – titled: Half Term Score Card. I am bringing this to your attention because they were saying that Femi was creating problem for you because of his non-performance in Ekiti Central. When Femi told me of how much he had spent in his one week stay in Ekiti for the Ileya festival, it was shocking. Seriously, I pity Femi when he was debunking all these snide comments by people who use stomach infrastructure to measure the performance of their elected representatives. If Femi’s case was deserving of commiseration, that of Yemi Adaramodu was nothing but a baloney. At every event, the same Yemi that they accuse of not ‘doing anything’, is always hailed and applauded by the same people accusing him of non-performance. May GOD deliver all the “Alajese” people in Ekiti land.

    If today, the Ekiti people are hailing and applauding your achievements, it is because you have performed far above the expected benchmark, and I can imagine how tough it has been. To satisfy an average Ekiti man who also believes he can perform similar feat given the same resources and opportunity could not have been an easy hurdle. It becomes a more herculean task when you have to impress all the “Professor Iguns” and “Professor Alukos” that hibernate in every Ekiti village.

    What I observed was that the people are happy with your government and what it has done in the state. But you can never tell with our people. I know you already know what to do: keep working hard as you have been doing, remain focused, be strategic, be prayerful, be watchful. Regaining the legacy is commendable but please don’t stop there. Move on until you have raised the legacy.

    Finally, I thank you for giving me a copy of your latest book, Regaining The Legacy. Nice book, I must say. It contains all the speeches, papers and tributes which you delivered at different fora both at the local and international levels. It is a professional delight both in contents and packaging.

    However, I am sure the book is not meant for those suffering from Stomach Infrastructure Deficiency Syndrome (SIDS) in the state. How do you expect somebody afflicted with this kind of disease to find the space in his brain, nay stomach, to digest the theme in the Part II of the book: The Sub-National: Structural Reconfiguration, Good Governance and The Imperative of Sub-Regional Strategies? If you have no cure for “stomach infrastructure”, why are you adding “stomach constipation and intellectual congestion” to their problem? Is it now a sin for the Ekiti people to have put an intellectual in power? Haba!

    Thank GOD, Ekiti is blessed with “Book people” who can read and understand the loaded contents of your book. I suggest you compile the names of all serving and retired professors, bishops, civil servants and traditional rulers in Ekitiland and send copies to them. This is the strategy of “occupy till I come”. They have a veritable companion to keep them busy till the end of the election, otherwise the restless ones among the retired professors will turn themselves to emergency auditors scrutinising all contracts awarded since you came to power including the total cost of the food and drinks you consumed in the Governor’s Lodge since the past three years. An idle hand is a sure tool for the devil. Extend my greetings to Bisi – your wife, girlfriend, sister and one and only Erelu Bambam.

  • Re: The Christians against Aregbesola

    I read this piece on the back page of a national daily of 17th Oct 2013 by Abimbola Adelakun and commend the writer’s informed views on many of the issues.

    I, however, have serious disagreement with the writer on some of the issues highlighted.

    The writer wrote “My preliminary assessment of the re-classification remedy masquerading as a revamp of the education sector is that it is meretricious, and does not demonstrate genuine commitment to resolving the problems of education …. Why do governors go for artificial restructuring while they neglect the real issues of funding, curriculum content development, continuous teacher retraining among others? “

    The question is a valid question when asked generally. However, in the spirit of responsible intellectual discuss, I would have expected the writer to have made an effort to find out (through any sources) what Aregbesola’s government may have done/or failed to do on these specific issues raised and then comment agreeing, disagreeing, or advising in relation to them.

    Otherwise how do you expect a thinking government to respond without restructuring to optimise resources, between for example a school with 15 teachers and 120 students population and another with 30 teachers and 600 students, both with dilapidated structures which are in such sorry state that even animals will complain being there.

    It is widely reported that Aregbesola’s government increased running cost of schools – given to principals to maintain schools – which he met at between N200 to N600 per month depending on the size of the school (Two hundred to six hundred Naira) to N400 per pupil per term implying a movement from N600 Naira per term to N40,000 (forty thousand) per term for a school with hundred pupils. It has also been reported that more than 2000 teachers have been retrained in collaboration with Osun State University in a continuous process of teacher re-training while substantial work has been done in terms of curriculum and provision of instructional materials including books, learning aids and Opon Imo, the internationally acclaimed Tablet of Knowledge.

    Same government has been commended by UNICEF and several international agencies and won awards for providing nutritionally rich free meals to pupils in primary 1-4, provision of free school uniforms to about 750,000 students in public schools, increase in examination and running grants to schools and reduction in school fees in state-owned tertiary institutions.

    Going by the National Education Policy there is no secondary school as we used to know it in the 70s and 80s. Now what we have is the 9- years Universal Basic Education – which enjoys financial support from the Federal Government – and 3 years Senior Secondary School which is entirely state funded. The 9-years is further divided in Lagos and some states which have attempted to implement it properly as 6 years primary, 3 years Junior Secondary and 3 years Senior Secondary. The Junior and Senior Secondary Schools are run as distinct schools with different structures and administrative heads.

    Aregbesola’s government’s reclassification has not done anything to affect this 9-years, 3-years structure and it is not the basis of any of the current complaints from CAN or any of the religious organisations.

    The current complaints are fallouts of the infrastructure upgrade and the need to maximise physical, human and financial resources.

    Has the writer checked the state of any of such schools before and the replacement structures constructed by Aregbesola’s government which necessitated the restructuring and reclassification before using words like meretricious or madcap to describe such efforts

    Must we in the name of demonstrating writing skill use such a word that if incorrect in usage portrays the user as not only unfair and discouraging of genuine efforts at nation building, but also as indecent?

    Osun Baptist Conference has a mixed-sex secondary school in Osogbo founded in year 2000 – Zion Baptist High School (in the premises of a school formerly called Newton Memorial ) but are against mixing boys and girls in government -owned school which name was retained as Baptist school.

    Same Baptist changed Baptist Boys High School in Iwo to Baptist High School to put girls there several years ago and it is still a mixed –sex school till today after government take over. So in Iwo the complaint is different from Osogbo, it is Hijab and not mixing of sexes.

    It is because we run a deceptive and lawless society that any group of people can claim ownership of whatever kind, on schools taken over 38 years ago through the instrumentality of the law which they have not challenged in court.

    They have for all intent and purposes not contributed to further development of the schools and do not pay teachers or any of the workers in the schools. They have gone ahead to found and run new schools with permissions from government.

    In other places where people have respect for rules and laws and respect for the rights of other citizens, they will be prosecuted and fined for disrupting the peace. They will be held in very low esteem by the populace as liars and people working against the interest of the common man. But here religious leaders buy private jets without any other means of income beyond exploitation of the gullible and the society idolises them.

    If we must call a spade its name, CAN, Baptist, Muslims and any other so called religious organisations claiming ownership on the schools, are being economical with the truth and except society rises up irrespective of our faiths against the indefensible, the self emancipation desired to make positive changes in our lives will continue to be illusory.

    Kola Omotunde-Young is an IT and Human Development practitioner resident in Oke Fia, Osogbo

  • National Conference… Jonathan’s talking shop

    National Conference… Jonathan’s talking shop

    Mine is a country of 175 million people, who speak more than 500 languages and are renowned for their inability to get along. Blame usually falls on colonial map makers, and it is well-deserved. But the reasons for our national discord are complex — certainly much too complicated for most of the international media to fathom — so news accounts of the multiple antipathies among our 250 ethnic groups are usually telescoped into what is known in the trade as boilerplate: the Muslim North battles the mostly Christian South for control of Nigeria’s oil wealth.

    As a journalist, I know the difficulties of summarising the world’s mad doings. Take the bewildering violence of Boko Haram. I’m as confused as anyone by the Islamic terrorist movement’s motivations, tactics and goals — perhaps because they themselves seem just as confused. In the beginning they were against southern Christians living in the north, and blew up churches to prove it. Now they’ve gone beyond attacking establishment figures to slaughtering their own people — even children — on the grounds that they are against Western education.

    Though he won’t exactly admit it, our president, Goodluck Jonathan, shares this confusion, but — given the dignity of his office and the reality that elections are little over a year away — he apparently feels he must make a show of shoring up national unity. Thus, earlier this month, Mr. Jonathan inaugurated the Advisory Committee on National Conference/Dialogue. The name is unwieldy, the goals uncertain, and the chances of success dubious.

    The fact is that our divisions are more nebulous than we Nigerians are sometimes inclined to admit. There are, for example, as many Muslims as Christians among the Yoruba people in the south. Still, it would be unfair to suggest that Nigerians, like people everywhere, don’t have stereotypes about our fellow countrymen.

    I happen to be a member of the “fun-loving” Yoruba (as the British characterized us back in the early days of colonialism). We have a reputation for being hotly argumentative, charmingly treacherous and highly pragmatic, as loose in our morals as we are in our religion — at least according to the Igbo, the other dominant ethnic group in the south. On the other hand, it is said by some Yoruba that the Igbo would be willing to sacrifice their own parents in the pursuit of money, which they get largely by trading, sometimes in drugs.

    As for all the “minorities” in between, there’s no telling what they get up to in their myriad languages, which few understand, even if we all speak English.

    So what, then, was the reasoning behind the president’s call for dialogue — a call that took everybody by surprise? For one thing, the timing was odd: Why, after 53 years of independence, after civil wars, military coups, rivalries over oil, Boko Haram’s murderous insanities and the brutal military response that may well tear the country apart, do we suddenly need such a conference?

    Actually the answer is simple. We don’t, but the president does. Elections are expected in early 2015, and Mr. Jonathan intends to run for a second, four-year term. But civil chaos and spreading corruption scandals do present certain difficulties. Still, Mr. Jonathan is a schooled politician, and it is clear that he has learned his lessons on how to navigate through seemingly unsolvable problems: When you need to divert popular attention and buy time, you can always call … a conference!

    The president has been careful not to spell out any specifics. He has merely constituted an advisory committee to deliberate on “the nomenclature, structure and modalities” of the eventual Commission for a Dialogue or Conference. Nigerians are taking this bureaucratic gobbledygook in stride: The conference is widely dismissed as just another “talking shop.”

    If national unity is so important, many people are asking, what stopped Mr. Jonathan from calling for one at the beginning of his tenure? Few of us are really fooled; we understand the realities of power in a country where the scramble for office is a do-or-die affair. Political power, after all, is the only game in town that ensures unfettered access to the nation’s oil riches.

    Yet it would be unfair to suggest that Mr. Jonathan has overseen the most corrupt government in Nigeria — not least because it would be difficult to be more corrupt than its predecessors. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, between independence in 1960 and the return of democracy in 1999, Nigeria’s leaders and their accomplices stole close to $400 billion.

    Nevertheless, recent scandals offer plenty of room for comparison. One concerns newspaper accounts alleging that Nigeria’s minister for petroleum resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, routinely awards crude oil contracts to hastily registered companies fronted by people not previously known to be involved in the industry.

    Another involves accusations that the aviation minister, Stella Oduah, squandered $1.6 million on two bulletproof cars worth about a quarter of that amount. This comes just weeks after yet another fatal plane crash, the seventh under her watch. Repeated calls for the dismissal of these ministers have been ignored.

    Nigeria is convening a conference on national unity when we should be clamoring to end the corruption that lies so close to the heart of our ethnic, sectarian and civil discord. The decision to empanel a “talking shop” made of handpicked delegates who are uncertain about the exact nature of their assignment — beyond the fact that it will continue to provide them with their own slice of the national cake — fools no one.

    Given the ever-present danger of Nigeria’s implosion — brought about by militants in the oil-producing Niger Delta, Islamic fundamentalists in the northeast, ethnic cleansing in the north central region and kidnappers everywhere you turn — we fractious Nigerians are unified by one salient truth: We all know that we cannot continue like this.

    •Maja-Pearce is the author of Remembering Ken Saro-Wiwa and Other Essays

    •Culled from New York Times

  • Kwara: Tokenism gone bloody

    Kwara: Tokenism gone bloody

    An old adage insists that even in doing good, beware that you are not imperiled. This is a truism the Saraki dynasty of Kwara State must be ruing right now. In fact the situation they are currently faced with must be so dire that in a manner of speaking, the next time they reach for a garb of charity, they would have to first take it to the drycleaner, have it thoroughly treated, washed, dried-out and iron before donning it.

    Hardball of course ponders the Sallah day tragedy at the Ile Arugbo, Ilofa Road, Ilorin, Kwara residence of Senator Bukola Saraki in which about 20 people died and scores suffered degrees of injuries. Doling out handouts to the mass of the downtrodden people in their community has become something of a family tradition (if we shy from saying ritual) dating back to their late patriarch, Oloye Olusola Saraki. But it must be said that for all the decades that Oloye fed his people, we never heard of any tragedy not to talk of a casualty. And most of his lifetime, his people would line his route from the airport and then converge at his residence each time he was in town. He tended to them as a good shepherd would and they would in return, recite ceaseless prayers and make solemn supplication to God that He apportioned to them, the death that was destined for their Oloye.

    Such was the bond between the Turaki of Ilorin and his people. It can be stated that Oloye was the founder of modern Ilorin if not Kwara State and he held sway over the city and state from thereabouts 1979 up until his death. Though Oloye in designing his political empire, ensured that his scions were positioned to succeed him but as we all witnessed two years ago, the transition had a last minute twist to it leading to Oloye and his heir apparent Bukola (shall we call him small Oloye) slugging it out to a bitter end. It was a tricky little situation of Oloye’s daughter, a senator wanting to succeed son as governor; while the governor on the other hand coveted the senate seat after two terms in the government house. But son, in defiance of father forswore to handover governorship of the state to daughter and sister. Son already had his sight on a candidate he wished to conveniently install in government house not unlike a talking artwork.

    Father, daughter and son could not settle the matter in the family; they chose to test their strengths at the poll. The long and short of this quirky tale is that Oloye fought what was his most bitter political battle at an old, infirm stage of his life and he lost it most ignominiously to his son whom he raised in the finest art of Nigeria’s political warfare. He transited shortly after.

    In African mythology nothing happens for nothing especially matters of death and tragedy. Is it not uncanny that since after the retirement and eventual demise of Oloye, the Oloye Kekere has never been able to reenact the philanthropic tradition of the grand old man of Kwara politics without tragedy and blood-bath? Not once, but three times – 2010, 2011 and 2013 – deaths totaling no fewer than 40 persons have occurred with perhaps twice that number injured. It is not unlikely to hear such gossips in Ilorin today that Oloye remains inexpiable for how come that for about three decades that we have been at this not a drop of blood was spilled. Hardball has read even more sinister insinuations.

    Hardball commiserates with the victims and prays that this last deathly stampede would put paid to this tokenistic nonsense by the Saraki family and among all our leaders and elite. It is hoped this gears their minds towards empowerment instead of further impoverishing the people through worthless handouts. How about this: Last Monday, the Kwara State government initiated a N5 billion youth job creation scheme! Is it for real?

  • National conference: Igbo charter of demand

    SIR: After years of suffering the worst form of marginalization in Nigeria the Igbos of the South East will be attending the proposed conference with a view to redressing the gross injustice meted out to them since Nigeria’s independence in 1960.

    The Igbos are underrepresented both in the Executive and Legislative Arms of government because we have only five states as against six and seven by other geo-political zones. Kano State alone has almost more local governments than the South East put together.

    Our roads are the worst in the federation. Thesecond Niger Bridge promised us since 1999 has become an illusion.

    Sadly, the rest of Nigerians have failed to reciprocate the supreme sacrifice made by Igbos in the early 60s when the NCNC which had the majority in parliament was set to form the central government and produce the prime minister by going into alliance with AG. But because of themood of the nation, especially given the reluctance of the North to embrace independence, NCNC now formed an alliance with NPC and ceded the primes minister to the North.

    Ever since, Igbos have shouted themselves hoarse to be allowed to produce the president of the country. It is the only one of the three tripods that held the nation (East, West and North) that is yet to taste the presidency, whereas the others have enjoyed it between 11 years and 39 years.

    Whereupon, the Igbos will be appearing at the proposed conference with an irreducible minimum three-point agenda: That after the presidency of Jonathan in 2015 or 2019, it will be the turn of Igbos to occupy the presidency; That after the presidency of Jonathan in 2015 or 2019, it will be the turn of Igbos to occupy the presidency; and that after the presidency of Jonathan in 2015 or 2019, it will be the turn of Igbos to occupy the presidency.

    Because we believe in the unity and continued existence of this great country, the Igbos are further compelled by circumstances to make another sacrifice, which is to serve for one tenure of six years at the presidency. This will make it easier for all zones to access the presidency at the shortest possible time.

    If we are re-negotiating Nigeria and given the traumatic marginalization of Igbos over the years, other Nigerians must cede the presidency to Igbos after President Goodluck Jonathan. That is our only agenda Igbos should present at the conference.

    • Ambassador Greg Mbadiwe

    Lagos.

     

  • Relief at last on Sango-Ojodu Road

    SIR: I am one of the many that wrote severally in the newspapers to call the attention of the Ogun State government to the deplorable state of Sango-Ijoko-Akute-Ojodu Road. I recall saying in one of the publications that Governor Amosun should not ignore the road just because previous governors refused to construct it in spite of its strategic importance to the economy of Ogun – so much money could accrue to government coffers along that axis.

    “If you pride yourself as the people’s governor, a progressive, then the difference must be clear,” was

    once my challenge to the governor.

    And so, you could imagine my joy when I read in the papers in the morning of Monday, October 21 that construction work would begin on the road and I returned in the evening to see the work of the bulldozers. I was elated.

    The fact is, I have suffered horrendously on account of that road. I lament every morning as I set out for the day and return home depressed and drained because of the appalling state of Sango-Ijoko-Akute-Ojodu Road. The experiences of residents of the area are only better imagined than experienced.

    This is huge relief for me.

    I am however shocked by the reaction of a few of our people. If you build your house so close to the road, you know you risk demolition anytime the road is to be properly constructed or expanded. This is the reason why people should observe town planning laws and obtain necessary clearance papers from the government before building. I wonder why people just build houses anyhow in Nigeria.

    As for the ranting of the disgruntled politicians who have nothing to show for their eight-year rule in Ogun State, let’s ignore them like tax.

    I’m however of the view that owners of houses that did not breach any extant law but are affected in one way or the other by the road project should be compensated.

    I thank Senator Ibikunle Amosun for achieving this great feat. Your name will certainly be etched in the Ogun State Hall of Fame.

     

    • Yemi Abraham

    Ogun State

     

  • Anambra and the metaphor of Nov. 16

    By certain twist of fate, November 16 has assumed a good measure of significance in the individual and collective social diary of Anambra people. On November 16, 1904, the great Zik of Africa, without whom Nigeria’s independence from Britain would have taken a different turn, was born. And on November 16, 1930, Professor Chinua Achebe, the man whom at death earlier this year, was reckoned as the most popular African, next to Nelson Mandela was also born. Similarly, November 16, 2013 is regarded as a watershed in the historic determination of the people of the state to reclaim its lost glory through the exercise of democratic rights in an election scheduled for that day. Chequered best describes the history of the state since the return of democracy in 1999.

    However, it must be admitted that the very major reason why the November 16 governorship election in the state is being hotly contested is the inability of the incumbent governor to engage unimpeachable leadership as its most portent tool in neutralizing the capacity of the opposition in the state. Had the Peter Obi administration posted an enviable and unassailable record, it would have been easy for APGA to solidify its hold on Anambra as its impregnable forte, making its mantra of continuity an easy ride. The reverse is however the case. Obi appears to have squandered a golden opportunity to etch APGA in the minds and souls of the people of the state. Besides, the APGA choice of candidate for the election came with its own dose of controversies. The insistence of Obi to restrict the choice to Anambra North, and went further to force out all other aspirants from the same zone, only to settle for his former officer in Fidelity Bank, ruffled many fathers and brought suspicion as to whose interest is served. Verily, APGA committed a tactical error in retiring Professor Chukwuma Soludo from the contest. It has been written somewhere that all the noise about November 16 gubernatorial election in Anambra would have been rested were this brilliant professor of economics the candidate of APGA but those who hate the collective interest of the state, who know that the erudite economist would neither be dictated to nor cover anyone else’s dirty track, and would have none of “Fidelity business “ conspired to impose Governor Obi’s puppet.

    As it is, Obi is finding it difficult to convince Ndi Anambra that his party is their best choice and that Obiano whom he wants to succeed him will lift Anambra beyond the extant ordinariness that he and his supporters are unwilling to accept. To many discerning minds, it is difficult to imagine that while rural states like Jigawa has built an international airport to shift attention from Kano, Peter Obi conceded billions in revenue accruable to our posterity to Delta State whose Asaba Airport is enjoying unprecedented boom from Onitsha commercial city. It is hard to fathom the sense in a development paradigm where a rural state like Ebonyi whom Obi deported their indigenes from Anambra is building a power plant, the home of industry, technology and commerce in the whole of West Africa under Peter Obi’s APGA is engrossed in building business parks!

    It defies every economic sense that while a rural Gombe State under brilliant Ibrahim Dankwambo is driving a regime of industrialization to take over from the nearby Plateau; few surviving businesses in Anambra are closing down and migrating to Asaba. It is shocking that a governor who has spent close to eight years in power has waited till the eve of his departure to announce intention to recruit 10,000 workers, worst, the interview for the jobs scheduled three days to the election. It is unnerving considering the manner monies not appropriated by the state assembly is being thrown about to woo governmental and non governmental institutions in the state. Many shudder at the religious and clannish dimension the campaigns have taken in a contiguous and mono-cultural state, forcing others to imagine endlessly without an answer, the meaning and essence of the continuity drum beat.

    But the campaigns are on and different candidates doing their very best. The APGA candidate, Willy Obiano, no doubt a gentleman is doing his very best to break away from the cocoon and shadow of his godfather, Obi. But his manifesto and promises are premised on continuity of Obi’s programme and policies. His later day programmes just released last week which included free education and free medicare appears a poor imitation of that of the candidate of the APC, Dr. Chris Ngige who anchored his on free education, free medicare for mothers and the aged, overhaul of the health sectors, re-engineering of the civil service with particular emphasis on training and manpower for the schools, reduced tuition fees at the state owned higher institutions and an airport.

    Notwithstanding the barrage of damaging propaganda from the APGA well-oiled media machine, Ngige remains the man to beat in the election. It is very difficult in this clime to see a politician who after eight years out of power is still as popular and relevant. This is also not withstanding ceaseless cash donations to churches, to schools and individuals by the APGA regime, aimed at intimidating and narrowing the influence of the man, probably chase him into his native Idemili River, but he looms larger in influence. Ngige no doubt has benevolent spirits all around him. For the first time in the history of the state, poor market women are voluntarily contributing money to the success of a governorship candidate. At Oye Olise Ogbunike, a local government market, just recently, market women pulled their wrappers for Ngige to march on- the highest respect one can earn from women folk in our tradition. Youths and children are not left out. His message is unrelenting. “I have done it before. I can do better even better. It is not about me. It is about our children and the future of the state. We have the human and financial resources to make Anambra State a place everyone would like to go to. Statistics don’t lie. While I was there, Anambra was the richest state in the country, today we are the 20th in poverty ranking in the country. We must look at people based on who they are and their ability to deliver”. He added, “The Party they belong to is secondary”, referring to Gov. Obi’s labelling of APC as a Yoruba party.

    The battle will be fierce but all the determinant factors for victory are pointing at his direction. In a state where Obi has polarized politics along denominational lines, Ngige is Catholic just like the APGA candidate. His native Idemili North and South where he is a prince commands a voting capacity that neutralizes all votes from for the four core councils of Omanbala where Obiano comes from while the remaining Onitsha North and South as well as Ogbaru of the same North are Ngige’s forte. Ngige will clear the rest of his central senatorial zone while the South will be free for all, with Ngige having an edge.

    • Obidiwe writes from Awka.

     

  • Need for paradigm shift in Nigeria’s healthcare sector

    SIR: That Nigeria’s healthcare industry needs a breath of fresh air is no longer in doubt. The perennial strikes occasioned by inter and intra professional squabbles, remuneration related matters, poor, inefficient services and the sheer redundancies in this sector reflect this. These are also symptomatic of a larger problem bedeviling the sector, hence the need for a paradigm shift.

    The conceptual and organisational frameworks for healthcare delivery are not well thought through, lacking in vision, drive and innovation. The policy direction is superfluous, incoherent, and lacks the bite for effectiveness without this backbone. The National health bill as submitted at National Assembly fails to represent a paradigm shift. It simply endorses more of the same- the proliferation of large university teaching hospitals better known for their bureaucracies and inefficiencies than service, research and innovations.

    Primary healthcare meant to avail all citizens affordable, accessible and participatory healthcare has ground to a halt as any doctor in search of professional respect and some financial comfort have migrated to the tertiary health institutions or have fled the shores to greener pasture. No incentive to diversify or differentiate.

    There is no longer a team based approach to care delivery as battle for supremacy is the order of the day.

    The wholly welfarist approach to healthcare policy structures and directions bequeathed by successive military administrations persist. This approach assumes an all benevolent government that assumes responsibility for her citizen’s health by employing retinues of doctors etc usually in large poorly managed hospitals for benefit of the people.

    A more pragmatic approach to healthcare as both a welfare issue as well as a business is the only way to save the day for Nigeria. Healthcare is business, and business is healthcare!

    Poor regulation is visible in many areas. It starts from the indiscriminate proliferation of medical schools. There is a glut of medical schools around; I do not believe this augurs well for the profession or nation as a whole.

    Who regulates graduate medical education in Nigeria? Who defines what is standard in terms of institutional facilities, capacity qualifications, criteria for training director selection, resident selection, course content and learning modalities, examination techniques and peer interoperability and exchangeability with other countries? Who scrutinizes the two post graduate medical colleges?

    How come Nigerian doctors cannot just migrate and practice in the UK, South Africa, and Singapore etc without being subjected to a plethora of examinations and assessments? Qualifications of the Royal colleges are widely accepted for practice in Australia, Singapore, and Ireland etc. Why is Nigeria’s not acceptable anywhere?

    As some people would want us to believe, the problem is not always about funding and lack of equipment, but a lot about oversight, standards and regulations!

    The way to go is for government to divest direct ownership and participation in running hospitals. Government must ensure a strong national insurance programme, public and private. India to which many Nigerians gravitate for medical tourism made a choice to have a competitive advantage in healthcare and began the liberalization of this sector. The annual outflow of cash from Nigeria to India for medical tourism is a testament to the success of this philosophy.

     

    • Timi Babatunde MD

    Lagos

     

  • Things fall apart

    GOODLUCK JONATHAN, Nigeria’s president, was visibly stunned when a former vice-president, Atiku Abubakar, and seven state governors recently walked out of a convention of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in open rebellion against his leadership. The party has won every election since it took power after the end of military rule in 1998. But it is bitterly divided over whether Mr Jonathan (pictured above) should run for a second full term in 2015. As a result, there is a chance—most analysts are wary of putting it more firmly—that, whether or not Mr Jonathan stays at its head, the PDP’s mighty cash-laden machine may lose power. And that could turn Nigerian politics upside down.

    Mr Abubakar and the rebel governors have broken away to declare a “new PDP”. “We have taken it upon ourselves to rescue the party from its dictatorial leadership,” says Kawu Baraje, the new outfit’s chairman, who has accused Mr Jonathan and the rump party’s chairman, Bamanga Tukur, of allowing “political repression, restrictions of freedom of association and arbitrary suspension of members”.

    The breakaway faction has a distinctly northern flavour. Six of the seven rebel governors are from the north or the middle belt, exposing faultlines that have widened under Mr Jonathan, a southerner from the oil-rich Niger Delta. Only one rebel governor, Rotimi Amaechi, from Rivers state, is a southerner. Mr Amaechi, who is said to hanker after the vice-presidency in 2015, has been embroiled in an acrimonious row with Mr Jonathan and his wife.

    In May Mr Amaechi was voted in as chairman of the powerful Nigeria Governors’ Forum, beating the president’s favoured candidate, Jonah Jang of Plateau state—an embarrassing defeat for Mr Jonathan. The forum is divided, with 19 governors backing the rebel governor and the other 16 sticking with Mr Jang. “I am concerned for my safety,” says Mr Amaechi, who has apparently taken to driving alone, with non-government number plates.

    On September 1st 57 PDP members of the 360-seat House of Representatives, the federal National Assembly’s lower chamber, pledged their loyalty to the rebel PDP; 22 of the 50 sitting PDP members in the 109-strong Senate then followed suit. Several others are said to waver. The rebel caucus, known as the G7, may be able to swing the votes of delegates from their states at the PDP primary election next year, when the party is due to choose its presidential and vice-presidential candidates. The G7 includes the governors of Kano and Rivers states, two of the most populous. Unless Mr Jonathan squelches the party rebellion, he could lose the primary.

    In an effort to regain the initiative, the president has sacked nine of his ministers. It is no coincidence that four are from states whose governors have defected, while another two were originally nominated by Olusegun Obasanjo, a still powerful former president (1999-2007), who helped Mr Jonathan into the top job but has more recently been making trouble for him. A PDP insider says there is a growing mood of paranoia in the party as leading figures seek to dodge Mr Jonathan’s axe.

    Mr Jonathan may now put close allies in ministerial posts to limit the influence of governors, especially in states such as Kano and Rivers. On September 16th the rump PDP announced that Mohammed Abacha, son of the late General Sani Abacha, Nigeria’s notoriously greedy military dictator (1993-98), had been brought back into the party from the opposition. It is speculated that Mr Abacha, who is himself vastly rich, may run for governor of Kano under the auspices of the old PDP in 2015.

    It is also possible that Mr Jonathan will get the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), an agency that is supposed to snuff out corruption, to probe the PDP’s defectors, some of whom have already been targeted by it. A weighty northern senator, Bukola Saraki, had already been questioned by the EFCC before holding meetings for the rebel faction in his grand house in Abuja, the capital. “Jonathan will do anything to win,” says a senior PDP man. “But he will struggle in the north where the mood is very anti-Jonathan and anti-PDP.”

    One result of the in-fighting in the ruling party is that the momentum for economic reform, already flagging, has slowed even more. Few people now expect the long-stalled Petroleum Industry bill, which is meant to bring clarity to Nigeria’s oil industry, to pass. Nor will the PDP’s rows help the president to end violence and sabotage in the oil-rich south, where billions of dollars of oil money still fall into the hands of criminals and corrupt politicians, or to win the campaign against terrorists in the north. On September 28th militants from Boko Haram, a jihadist group, killed around 50 students at an agricultural college in the northern state of Yobe.

    The PDP’s feuding factions are to meet for talks on October 7th. Mr Jonathan and his PDP rump may have enough oil money to buy their way out of trouble. But for the moment the pendulum has swung in the PDP rebels’ favour. Moreover, the opposition in the shape of the All Progressive Congress, a recently formed coalition of three main parties, has also been getting its act together—and will surely try to lure some of the PDP rebels onto their side. The president, who often seems a hapless (but rarely hatless) figure on the national stage, has a real fight on his hands to keep his job.

    On October 1st he handed licence certificates to 14 private companies that have been allowed to buy chunks of Nigeria’s dismally incompetent state-owned electricity behemoth. If a lot more people had reliable electricity by 2015, that might win him some crucial votes

  • The Mo metaphor

    About a decade ago, a certain gentleman and business mogul, a Sudanese to be precise who goes by the name Mohammed (Mo) Ibrahim was so exasperated by the abysmal level of governance and leadership in Africa, he decided to do something pragmatic to change the situation. He set up the Mo Ibrahim Foundation which in turn created the Ibrahim Index for African Governance (IIAG). He then instituted the biggest of all prize money awards in the world for the African leader, president or head of state that behaved well and led his people right when in office.

    In deed, the Mo Ibrahim cash prize is a whopping $5 million (about N800m) to be disbursed to the winner over a period of 10 years; there is an added prize of $200,000 (about N32m) to be earned annually for life by such goodly leader. It is Mr. Mo’s pragmatic effort to impact leadership by seeking to eliminate pecuniary worries and providing an assured future for leaders who choose the straight and narrow route. Having reckoned that corruption occasioned by the fear of what the future holds leads many African leaders to covet public treasury thereby derailing their modest efforts at governance; the huge cash reward was meant to be an incentive for quality leadership.

    But after seven years of this noble experiment, Mo must be disappointed if not mortified that the Mo index may have become a metaphor, an indicator for gauging poor, irredeemable governance in Africa. The IIAG may have succeeded only in showcasing to the world that good leaders are hard if not impossible to find in Africa. Since 2007 when the Joachim Chissano won the inaugural edition, only two other leaders have won it – Festus Mogae of Botswana (2008) and Pedro Verona Pires of Cape Verde (2011). Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu were given honorary and special awards respectively in 2007 and 2012.

    Without any disrespect to Mozambique, Botswana and Cape Verde, it could be said that since its inception, the prize had not been won by any leader of note. The leader of such a country that would make a big bang and the reverberations would engender a push and pull effect across the continent. Where are the regional giants like Nigeria, Ghana, Cote D’Ivoire, South Africa, Angola, Kenya, Zambia, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia, to name a few?

    Mo must get increasingly frustrated that an idea that was hailed as brilliant at inception is fast becoming a dead dock. In four out of its effective seven years, the foundation could not find a worthy recipient for the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership across the entire continent. Thus for 2009 and 2010 no awards; it is the same story last year and currently.

    But if only this was half of the story, perhaps Mr. Mo would not be so frustrated but in its latest survey of African countries by the Foundation from 2000 to date, Nigeria, the giant of Africa has been slipping down the ladder, representing a bad example for the rest of the continent. For instance, she fell eight places in the ranking down to 41st out of 52 countries of Africa. And in the sub-region of West Africa, Nigeria ranks 13th out of 16 countries.

    What this sad story means for Nigerians is that such small west coast regional countries like Benin, Togo, Liberia, Burkina-Faso and Guinea are better governed than Nigeria. The Mo index has actually become a metaphor for the very poor quality of governance and leadership in Nigeria more than anywhere else in the continent.