The Nation Newspaper

Category: Commentaries

  • Still on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway

    SIR: Last year, when the Federal Government terminated the May 2009, concessionary agreement it entered with Bi-Courtney Limited for the redevelopment and modernisation of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, the general consensus across the land was that it was a welcome development in view of the concessionaire’s foot dragging on the project.

    The Federal government subsequently went ahead to appoint two reputable construction firms namely Julius Berger plc and RCC to do some palliative works on the road in order to reduce the stress of motorists along the road.

    The palliative works did to a large extent, lessen the trauma of motorists along the road, especially during the December 2012 festive period. However, the understanding then was that by 2013, real work geared towards the commencement of the redevelopment and upgrading of the road would begin in earnest. However, till date, there is nothing concrete on ground to suggest that government is about to start work on the road. The result is that the road is gradually returning to its hitherto distressing and frustrating state. In particular, the portion of the road from Sagamu intersection to Lagos is worst hit. This is quite understandable as this is the busiest section of the expressway consisting of a vast business and residential hub made up of emerging communities such as Mowe, Arepo, Magboro, Ibafo, Asese, Olowotedo, Pakuro among others.

    For all our efforts at attracting foreign investments into the country, if we cannot take care of minute details such as improving a major highway that could enhance such investments, then we had better forget it. Being the main expressway, providing the primary link between Lagos and other parts of Nigeria and hence, a road of primary economic and social importance to the nation, it is imperative that the Federal Government take urgent steps to ensure that the situation of the road improves.

    To put the Nigerian economy on the lane to speedy recovery and growth, Federal Government would have to immediately commit itself to a result-driven programme that would make the road a driver’s delight. There must be a time-frame known and acceptable to Nigerians for the completion of this road. While the federal government is fine tuning efforts to redevelop and modernize the road, one would like to implore the Federal Road Maintenance Agency, FERMA, to as a matter of necessity mobilise its men and resources to address the failed portions of the road in order to avert imminent disaster, reduce travelling time as well as lessen every trouble associated with travelling on the road.

    • Tayo Ogunbiyi

    Alausa, Ikeja.

  • APC: Nigerians must be allowed to choose

    SIR: When the ACN Convention held in Lagos a few weeks back, I made some comments about the necessity for INEC to act above board in ensuring that this merger succeeded and to afford the parties seeking to merge every lawful opportunity and assistance to do so.

    Recent developments, largely by well-meaning and many concerned Nigerians who have asked me about the purpose and importance of this merger compels me to go back to the issue of INEC’s role.

    Although I said INEC must act above board; that alone will not be enough. INEC must also be seen to have acted above board.

    If it is true that our worried opponents have any plans or any hand in scuttling the merger, they must re-think and desist.

    If they believe that the merger offers no ideology, it is not for them to decide that.

    That is the decision the people of Nigeria, who own Nigeria’s sovereignty have to make and live with.

    More importantly, every personnel of INEC, from chairman to the most junior officer must see the consummation of this merger as a historic milestone in the political history of Nigeria.

    It is true that all previous merger attempts have been unsuccessful. That is a matter of old but relevant history.

    It is also true that a new merger is increasingly becoming possible.

    If I was in INEC today, I will seize the moment and write my name in history for many generations to come as being a part of the team that delivered Nigeria’s first successful political merger.

    Of course there is the possibility that some people see history in the making and turn their backs.

    In that case they can only be recorded amongst the list of people who did nothing.

    For our part, we will do everything to depart from a history of mergers that have failed.

    This is why I feel privileged to be present to witness the CPC convention being held to approve the merger.

    All of you here have participated in a historic event. By coming here and voting for the merger, you have done your bit.

    The most important thing that this merger will achieve, is that it gives the people of Nigeria a real choice as to who to trust with their affairs.

    This is instructive because a choice between the PDP and the PDP is not a choice.

    As you can see, we do not know in May, what the state of our country’s budget is.

    If they know that the people have a choice, they will understand the people’s intolerance for this dysfunctional arrangement that they call a government.

    They will know that you can make a change at the ballot.

    That is the essence of this merger.

    A government without a budget is like an automobile workshop without basic tools.

    It cannot fund power projects.

    It cannot fund security agencies.

    It cannot fund anything.

    When we create that choice and the people of Nigeria decide that they want to stay with the party that has brought us this far then they will have made their choice – A REAL CHOICE.

    • Babatunde Raji Fashola,

    Alausa, Ikeja.

  • State of emergency and the Nigerian media

    President Goodluck Jonathan’s state of emergency proclamation has exposed how relatively inexpert the Nigerian media have become in recent years. So far, by Hardball’s reckoning, no newspaper has failed to endorse the declaration of a state of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States. They differ only in the degree of their enthusiasm. While some have embraced Dr Jonathan’s proclamation unreservedly, others have simply stopped at embracing the action without betraying any emotions. While a few mentioned concerns about potential threats to civil liberties in the affected states, others simply ignored that fear and instead concentrated attention on underscoring the president’s justification, and also lending their front pages to bulletins from the battlefields issued by the military.

    At no time in Nigeria’s history have the media been so universally uncritical and impressionable. “The state of emergency the president declared in the said areas seemed the best option,” began the National Mirror optimistically. “The widespread acclamation the proclamation received, as against the handful of criticisms it has attracted so far, seemed an indication that many Nigerians had for long been waiting on the president to wield the big stick.” Dr Jonathan would be delighted. The Nation also hitched a ride on the same soul train. Writing under the dramatic headline, Jonathan’s last card, and a kicker that spoke volumes – Emergency must be made to work because it is the ultimate action in the terror war – the paper argued thus: “We cannot escape the point that Boko Haram rampage derives from the failure of government at all levels. Ironically, the rage and devastations of the group have immiserated the people further and crippled the capacity for meaningful governance. That explains the need for this effort to work, or else we shall be at a vulnerable place as a people.” Having received this kind of unusual and unexpected support, all that remains for Dr Jonathan is to put his shoulder to the wheel.

    The Punch was effusive and even angry. After endorsing emergency, it lashed out at the opposition for engaging in “political point-scoring” and losing “all sense of patriotism” in the desperate bid to gain power at the centre. For a paper with a rich liberal tradition of defending the defenceless, it is remarkable how it equated the troublemakers in the affected states with the rest of the populace. It is even more worrying that in words that Dr Jonathan’s handlers would be reluctant to use, the paper robustly denounced the opposition. “The main opposition parties have fallen short of what is expected of those that have a passion for the well-being of the country,” the paper thundered.

    “The mischievous politicisation of a purely national security threat has given the terrorists the initial elbow room to manoeuvre and gain a foothold in Nigeria’s territorial space.” The Punch has the distinguished honour of being the only paper to describe the opposition in such uniquely unflattering terms.

    In a disquisition, the Daily Sun simply embraced emergency right from the opening paragraph. “The declaration of emergency rule in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states by President Goodluck Jonathan during a nationwide broadcast last Tuesday is a welcome step in the effort to halt the reign of anarchy in the Northeast geo-political zone of the country,” the paper averred. “Though the intervention is somewhat belated, it is commendable that the president has, at last, taken this pragmatic action to ease tension and stop the upsurge of violence in parts of northern Nigeria.” The problem of course is not that the paper supported emergency; the problem is the way it put. It spoke of welcome step, commendable, and pragmatic action – all in one grand paragraph.

    The Vanguard (Humanised Emergency Rule) and the Nigerian Tribune (Global Agenda on Boko Haram) also weighed in, with the latter doing so more restrainedly than any other paper. At a time when even the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has implausibly become a spokesman of the government churning out far-fetched stories about the situation in the north, it was expected that the media would be more rigorous in their analyses, cautious in their support for emergency and, given their antecedents, would be guided by their illustrious history of standing up for the oppressed, especially in view of government’s unremitting high-handedness. It is no surprise that the media were so carried away that they used emergency rule interchangeably with state of emergency. This certainly must be Dr Jonathan’s finest hour. If on a portentous tomorrow there is no crisis deserving of emergency proclamation, let the president furnish another grave crisis. He can rely on the media to be his spokesmen.

  • Jonathan’s carrot-stick offer

    Jonathan’s carrot-stick offer

    If anything, the declaration of emergency rule in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states has brought to the fore the inherent contradictions in our perception of and response to the war against terrorism in the country. It has also exposed the unreliability or deceit in some of the information we have hitherto been fed regarding what ought to be done to tame the scourge. More so when it is realized that terrorism, being a global phenomenon, ought to be confronted according to universally tested rules of engagement. But ours, for curious reasons, was touted to be different and therefore required some local therapy.

    Perhaps, due to pressure, outright confusion or to fulfill all righteousness, the federal government found itself incapable of taking the right decisions at the right time. This was in spite of clear evidence that some of the solutions being proffered were not only self-serving but inherently incapable of substantially redressing the threat to the nation’s sovereignty. And the cavalier handling of the matter was further portrayed as evidence that armed confrontation was incapable of taming the monster.

    So it was that President Jonathan fell for the amnesty lobby group. Not even the repudiation and rejection of the offer by the insurgents was considered enough signal that something was amiss. He pressed on, inaugurated the amnesty committee even on the eve of the bloodbath in Baga, Borno State. The subsequent sacking of Bama and other terrorist killings in parts of the north could not change the situation.

    The questions which nobody was interested in responding to were, if northern leaders who rooted for amnesty had the mandate, respect and confidence of the insurgents, why did they find themselves incapable of reining them in? Why were they unable to persuade the terrorists to sheathe their swords temporarily for the committee to conclude its work? Who really wanted the amnesty in the face of the resurging tempo in the criminal escapades of the insurgents? Or were these heightened attacks to underscore the point that the government has been brought to its knees and must therefore do the bidding of the terrorists? These were the nagging contradictions.

    President Jonathan’s declaration of a state of emergency in the three states was therefore, a direct consequence of this dialectics. It was a huge contradiction to accept that amnesty could pull the surprise when there is no change of heart by the insurgents. If the pontifications of apologists of amnesty had been relied upon, the terrorists could have mustered the needed capacity to over run the entire country. That was what drove Jonathan to order massive deployment of soldiers to among others, arrest, detain, search, cordon off any building and stamp out the impunity of the insurgents. He said that the activities of the terror group amounted to a declaration of war against the Nigerian state and an attempt to undermine its sovereignty. That is correct. Curiously, all the negative tendencies which Jonathan cited to justify emergency rule had all along been there.

    Yet, we were sold to the idea that dialogue is the most efficacious therapy to this unprovoked act of insurgency. The first issue thrown up by the impending military action in the three states is that it amounted to a loss of confidence in dialogue or the amnesty programme. And this loss is two dimensional. There is loss of confidence from the side of government that dialogue or amnesty is all it takes to redress the madness. And its resort to full scale military action illustrates it all. There will also be loss of confidence on the part of the terrorists in government’s genuine commitment to dialogue. These are not in doubt. Before now, the terrorists had complained they did not trust government’s sincerity to dialogue. That was why Dr. Ahmed Datti withdrew from the earlier panel on the matter. He cited the same reason for declining his nomination in the current one.

    But the government says military action will run simultaneously with discussions on amnesty. To underscore this point, the committee met with the president the same day emergency rule was proclaimed. How workable this will turn out is a matter of time. But it is difficult to conceive how the committee can reach out to the insurgents now their lives are in mortal danger.

    There are two axioms to contend with here. The first is that government has come to terms with the fact that it has to re-establish its authority in those states. It has also accepted that dialogue or carrot cannot do it hence the need to offer the insurgents the stick. But then, what are the likely outcomes of the combination of these two strategies in the fight against terrorism? There are some possibilities. The first could be to demonstrate government’s capacity to tame the monster. The idea is that if battle is taken to the hide-outs of the terrorists and they are smoked out, those left will be quick to accept the peace process. This draws support from the widely held view especially in the north that government is incapable of winning the war at the battle field and must therefore negotiate.

    The other could be to demonstrate very unambiguously that it has the capacity to re-establish its authority by militarily incapacitating the insurgents. The message is that the offer of dialogue should not be misconstrued as weakness on the part of the government. They are being told in very clear terms that it is either they embrace peace or be routed out by the superior fire power of the government forces. There are two possible scenarios. The first is that the insurgents may be so frightened by the new direction that they will quickly scamper for the peace option. If they embrace this option, they will save lives and bring a quick end to the hostilities. This appears attractive.

    The other is that unsure of the real intentions of the government and for fear of reprisals, the insurgents will fight on. Their hit and run strategy and the fact of the successes they had made before now, may embolden them to sustain the fight beyond the expectations of the government. And since the insurgents are driven by some weird ideology, there is every thing to expect that they will not succumb to the fear of escalated military onslaught. They will fight on. This possibility is also very high.

    If this happens, the government may have to wage the war much longer than envisaged. And in a desperate attempt to subdue the terrorists militarily, both the civilian population and the insurgents will suffer irretrievably. Then, it would have given skeptics ample room to mock the new offensive. Already, skepticisms are rife that the emergency rule will fail like the earlier ones declared in some local governments. Fears have also been expressed on the safety of the civilian population as the onslaught lasts.

    Whichever way, it is clear that government has a big burden to discharge in the way it confronts the Boko Haram insurgency in the days ahead. The choice of military action is justified. Somehow, the government has no other option than to restore peace and order in those areas or abdicate and throw in the towel. But the fight is likely to be encumbered by the strategy of the insurgents that blurs differentiation between them and the civilian population. It is therefore difficult to fathom how the military can wage this war successfully without being accused of violating the rights of civilians. That is the new challenge even as the Boko Haram insurgency must be stamped out.

  • Clearing drainages in Delta

    With the effects of the flooding last year still fresh in our minds, most governments and individuals have started taking steps to mitigate further problems with the predictions that there will more rains this year as compared to last year. It has been discovered that blocking of drainages and channels in our cities and towns that were supposed to allow free flow of water and indiscriminate disposal of refuse are major causes of flooding. I believe it is this awareness that has prompted the Delta state government at all levels and individuals to rigorous clearing of channels and drainage as can be noticed in Warri and Effurun in particular. I must say that these efforts are highly commendable most especially as individuals are now taking it up to clear the channels around their shops, offices and homes. Quite commendable as these efforts are, it may not achieve its ultimate result because poor implementation. When dirt and garbage are packed from these channels they are simply left at the sides without disposing them immediately sometimes for weeks. Only for one single rain to fall and everything is washed back into the drainages. For me, this is what the scriptures call the labour of the foolish. At the end no work done, energy is dissipated and no results achieved. This should not be the case. Clearing of drains and channels should be immediately followed with the disposal of the refuse to the appropriate dump sites and not allowing them to stay there. Most times, residents are helpless in disposing these heavy dumps hence government collaboration is highly needed in this regards.

    Alexander Ighoro

    Warri, Delta State

     

  • Nexim Sealink project and intra–Ecowas trade

    Nexim Sealink project and intra–Ecowas trade

    The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was established on May 28, 1975 as a regional trade organisation comprising countries in the West African sub-region. The aim o f setting up the Community was manifested in its original treaty. According to provisions set out in the treaty of Lagos, and later, the revised treaty in 1993, the objectives were to promote co-operation in economic, social and cultural activities towards a desirable establishment of an economic and monetary union through the total integration of the national economies of member-states. Inherent in the letter and spirit of the Treaty were the ideals to raise the living standards of the ‘ECO-citizen,’ maintain and enhance economic stability, foster relations among member-states and contribute to the progress and development of the African continent in line with the principal provisions of the African Economic Community (AEC) Treaty under the African Union.

    Within four years of the operationalisation of the treaty, it became clear that as laudable as it sounded, the goal of achieving total integration of national economies of the constituent countries would require more concerted effort and commitment. Hence, the 1979 Protocol relating to free movement of persons, goods, services and right of establishment was conceived as an instrument to enable free movement of ECOWAS citizens within the sub-region. Loaded into the protocol were the goals of institutionalising a single regional socioeconomic space, providing ECO citizens with opportunities in member-states, including the utilisation of arable land by indigenous agriculturists, access to coastal areas by landlocked member states, employment of English and French language experts and, most significantly, unfettered access to natural resources by member-states. In a nutshell, the Protocol was intended to create a ‘Borderless West Africa.’

    Leveraging Nigeria’s Commitment

    No other economy within the sub-region has been weighed down more than Nigeria from a disconnected West African market. Given the huge size of its population and GDP, the various Administrations in Nigeria had demonstrated ample political will to ensure the Community thrives. Indeed, the country has been the galvaniser of the ‘ECOWAS dream’ and has doggedly deployed human and material resources to keep the trade bloc together in the face of recurring political, economic, socio-cultural upheavals since the days of ECOMOG till the current intervention of its military in the Malian crisis.

    What is lacking, according to international relations experts, is for Nigeriato lead the process towards realistically breaking down the trade walls under the Free Movement Protocol and unleashing the potential of free exchanges of goods and services as have been witnessed in similar trade regimes under Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) or the trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).Understandably, the implementation of most of these agreements is being spearheaded by the various export credit agencies of the constituentcountries.

    Hence, it behoved Nigerian Export-Import Bank, (NEXIM Bank) – the trade policy bank of the Federal Government of Nigeria – to facilitate the process for the establishment of a dedicated sea link within the ECOWAS region.This is borne out of concernsby the current executive team of NEXIM Bank led by the MD/CEO, Mr. Roberts Orya, on the partial realisation of ECOWAS’ intra-regional trade facilitation and operational objectives, high intra-regional freight costs and shipment delays, which make cargo delivery within the sub-region to take an average of 45 – 60 days.

    At the recent sensitisation and pre-investors’ forum on the Sealink Project on Wednesday, March 27th, 2013 in Lagos,for the entire council and executive of the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture, (NACCIMA),Mr. Orya provided an update on the initiative and invited its membership to invest and partner with the Bank and other stakeholders in the SPV and Regional Maritime Company. He stated the Bank is facilitating the establishment of a dedicated Regional Sealink project as a means of overcoming the challenge of road infrastructure as well as absence of rail links within the region which has perpetually bedevilled intra-regional trade. The appeal for a sealink is further strengthened by the comparative low budgetary cost and short implementation timeline for a sea link-project vis-à-vis either a regional road or rail project.

    According to Mr. Orya, the availability of a maritime vessel will significantlyreduce the high transportation costs and excessive transit time which make intra-regional trade non-competitive, with West and Central African transport and logistics costs identified as one of the highest in the World. According to available statistics, these have resulted in low level intra-regional trade at less than 12% and 10% for African and ECOWAS trade respectively, compared to other regional blocs such as European Union (EU) andASEAN whose intra-regional trade flows are respectively at 50%, 40% and 25%.

    Why embrace the Sealink Project?

    Inviting the NACCIMA to invest in the project, Orya stated that the funding requirement for the regional sealink project is $60million out of which $36 million will be required to purchase vessels, equipment, office space and other infrastructure and $24 million for working capital to cover general and administrative costs to be raised through equity and debt financing respectively.

    Beyond making business sense, the project has some inherent accruable national benefits that further justify its implementation.

    These include unlocking opportunities in the maritime sector through effective indigenous participation, thereby stimulating maritime-related employment as well as localising some of the maritime freight payments of an average of $5 billion annually from import / export tonnages.

    It will also facilitate the realisation of the various Maritime-related laws like the Cabotage and MIMASA Acts and the implementation of the National Shipping Policy; stimulate and attract private sector funding for the development of key maritime infrastructure with the national benefit of improving the level of intra-regional formal trade, thereby enhancing contribution of trade/exports to GDP.

    Also, it will assist in palliating the disastrous effects of road/rail infrastructural deficit challenges that affect regional integration and a major cause of the muted growth witnessed over the years in intra-African and ECOWAS trade levels.

    Most importantly, it will enhance competitiveness of Nigerian exports, thereby improving the contribution of manufactured exports from the current level of under 6%, and enhancing local industrial capacity utilisation and attracting new investments.

    Additionally, the project will enhance Nigeria’s status as a maritime hub for West and Central Africa with attendant benefits of facilitating Atlantic short-sea trade and development of pool of talent / manpower for the industry.

    Furthermore, it has the immense potential to stimulate multimodal transport development to cater for non-littoral regional member countries;hence it will facilitate growth of hinterland haulage business as the market segment is not yet targeted by major shipping lines, thereby offering a huge opportunity to the proposed Sealink Project.

    The Transformation Agenda

    The Sealink project is in line with the Transformation Agenda of the government which projects investments in roads, railways, inland waterways, ports and airports developmentin collaboration with various stakeholders to evolve a multimodal, integrated and sustainable transport system, with emphasis on rail and waterways, through an effective Public-Private Partnership arrangement. This aims to create synergy and ensure an even and nation-wide distribution of gains from the Administration’s investments in the key sectors, termed ‘main growth drivers’ such as the manufacturing, agriculture, solid minerals, manufacturing, services, trade and commerce, etc. Affirmatively, the Sealink Project will take the gains of the Transformation Agenda beyond the shores of the country. It will immediately open up our shores and immensely contribute to Nigeria’s march to become the premier economy in Africa through creating a seamless export platform for movement of Nigeria’s manufactured/semi-processed goods, services, and personnel with a certainty to boost competitiveness and productivity across these sectors. Specifically, it will spur more private sector initiative and innovation, enhance the development of the key sectors’ value chain, create/sustain more Nigerian jobs as the ECOWAS markets become one and Nigeria’s products and services are brought to the world.

    Sponsorships/Collaborations

    The project has been endorsed by the government of Nigeria. It has also been adopted and is being sponsored by the Federation of West African Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FEWACCI) withother endorsements/collaborations by the ECOWAS Commission,the ECOWAS Parliament, various multi/bilateral institutions including theMaritime Organisation of West and Central Africa (MOWCA), strong private sector support through various trade associations and heightened expression of interest by potential investors (locally and internationally).

    In his remarks, the National President of NACCIMA, Dr. H.A.B. Ajayi, lauded Mr. Orya for the patriotic zeal which moved NEXIM Bank to come up with the Regional Sealink Project and the vigour with which he is pursuing its realisation.

    He also concurred that the ECOWAS market is huge and has not been fully tapped as a result of logistical challenges being faced in movement of goods and persons, especially due to the absence of a direct shipping line for the West and Central African corridor. In this regard, NACCIMA, as a member of the FEWACCI, will like to join forces with NEXIM Bank and other progressive entities in actualising the project. According to him, “As the apex business association in Nigeria, NACCIMA is supporting the setting up of the shipping company as we did during the establishment of ECOBANK Transnational which has become a household name in all the West African States and beyond. We would like to also stress the need for chieftains of industry here present to take ample opportunity by participating in the raising of the $36million that would form the equity capital for the setting up of the transnational shipping company.”

     

    Moghalu is Head, Corporate Communication, Nigerian Export – Import Bank

  • Museum’s enduring partnership with the public

    Yesterday (May 18 2013), the world celebrated another International Museum Day with the theme “Museum, memory plus creativity equal social change”. Perhaps, the theme is a reflection and also a reminder of the relationship that ought to exist between the museums around the world and the wider society. This relationship should be mutual and of benefit both to the museum as an agent of social change and the public as a veritable partner in that endeavour.

    The museum is in the service of society and its development, and open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits, for the purpose of study, education and enjoyment. This definition has conferred on the museum and the public a relationship that should be of mutual benefit to both.

    Historically, the origin of the museum could be traced back to 290 B C when a prominent Greek statesman Ptolemy Soter (Preserver) 1, decided to display his own private collections. The word museum was coined from the Greek word ‘muse ion’ which was applied to a sanctuary dedicated to the nine ‘muses’ who were daughters of Zeus.

    Today, museums all around the world vary enormously. They range greatly from international museums that are found in Europe and the Americas to small sized village museums. In Nigeria, there are over thirty museums scattered across the country especially the state capitals with the prominent and popular ones found in Lagos and Jos. While the museum in Lagos which was established in 1956 once served as the headquarters for the National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM), the one in Jos is the most comprehensive and the largest in the country.

    From the foregoing, it could be deduced clearly that for the museum as an institution in its role to serve the public, a deep collaboration must exist with public agencies. The reason is that one of the roles of the museum apart from research and collection of artifacts is to serve the public. The museum is of service to the public through exhibition in its galleries which are patronized by the people for the purpose of enjoyment. They also render educational services to all categories of educational institutions.

    The museum also provides public enlightenment on the value of historic monuments, which are scattered across the country as part of the nation’s heritage and pride. They serve as a cultural focus and a centre of professional expertise on artifacts and antiquities. The museum also enhances the quality of life of the people by creating a sense of identity for the area in which they are located.

    In its economic role, the museum promotes the overall development in the area of housing, service and manufacturing industries. For example, Jos museum has transport and technology museum, with a railway track exhibiting old locomotive engines used during the colonial era, a tin mining gallery and an exhibit of the shunting vehicles that were used in transporting tins from the mines. This is also done along other public facilities such as libraries, theatres, open air museums, zoological gardens, etc. , that are daily patronized by the public. An example is the Museum of Traditional Nigerian Architecture (MOTNA), and the zoological garden in Jos. Museums can therefore help to encourage the development of local economies and enhance the well being of the people.

    The museum also contributes immensely to the development of tourism in areas with potential tourist attractions. It is on record that millions of tourists visit various museums across the world. Tourists bring in foreign capital in form of hard currency which acts as catalyst to boost local economies.

    In Nigeria, the museum is seen first and foremost as an arm of government. In fact and regrettably, there is a pervading ignorance about the very essence of its existence, even among the elites. For instance, in the eighties and nineties, Lagos Museum was known more in the Lagos area as ‘museum kitchen’ rather than the repository of the nation’s artifacts and valuable collections that reflects the country’s rich historical past and the creativity of her people dating back to several centuries. Obviously, people do not seem to realize that the museum because of the strategic and unique functions, can play significant roles in the economic life of the country. Therefore, it is important that the relationship between the museum and the public should not be limited to patronage.

    The museum and the public can partner in the area of investments by interested individuals or groups in areas such as education, tourism and the hospitality business. Also corporate groups, multinationals, banks, art lovers etc. can collaborate with the museum to sponsor museum programmes or activities and in turn benefit from such sponsorship as part of their corporate social responsibility.

    It is a matter of imperative that the museum and the public cooperate in order to elevate the standard of museum practice in Nigeria. As the world celebrates another International Museum Day, the attention of the public must be drawn to its social responsibility towards the museums in the country wherever they are located.

     

    By:Awoniyi, Taiwo Ademuyiwa

    National Museum, Onikan Lagos

  • Obi’s presumptuous search for successor

    Obi’s presumptuous search for successor

    Sometime in 2004, if Hardball is not mistaken, Hassan Jallo, a former chairman of the National Democratic Party (NDP) in Kaduna State, was credited with an exuberant but galling appreciation of succession politics. “We don’t know who will succeed President Olusegun Obasanjo,” he had said glibly at the time, “only God knows. But we know all those who will not succeed him.” Alhaji Jallo was referring to the dilemma Nigerians were to face in choosing a successor to President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2007. But shortly before Obasanjo’s successor was chosen in the dramatic fashion Nigerians will hate to remember, Tony Anenih, now chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Board of Trustees (BoT), but at the time acting chairman, was quoted as saying that Obasanjo, not his party, would pick his successor. Chief Anenih, like most top Nigerian politicians, was merely acting true to type. Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar, both former military heads of state, performed the same feat of rendering the balloting process a barren exercise.

    If the statement attributed to Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State on Monday is anything to go by, the culture of talking presumptuously about successors won’t go away in a hurry. While receiving a group of religious leaders who visited him at his lodge in Amawbia, Obi had announced that he was already praying that Anambra’s next governor would be someone with character, someone better than he (Obi). He had not yet found one, he said ruefully, but he was still searching anyway. Then he went on to describe the kind of person he would want to succeed him. Hear the governor in his own words: “He (the next governor) must not be a professional politician that sees politics not as a vocation to advance the progress of civilisation, but as an avenue to steal the people’s money.”

    As proof that the awkward culture of influencing succession has so permeated the populace that they even expect it and are prepared to accept it, the priest who led the delegation to Obi, Rev. Innocent Obumneme, told the governor unabashedly that rich men were after the post, and the governor must not make the mistake of leaving the choice of his successor to the people alone. In other words, the priests have no faith in classical democracy. Directing his gaze at Obi, Obumneme said gravely with the catholic simplicity he is accustomed to: “You have a part to play, and posterity will not forgive you if after eight years, you allow a fool to take over the state because of his ability to buy everybody.”

    Given the recent history of Anambra, both the governor and the visiting priests demonstrated thoughtfulness to be worried about who becomes governor next year. The state, it will be recalled, was traumatised by the Uba brothers, acting directly or through proxies, when they attempted to hijack the governorship of the state. It took the gregarious and charismatic Chris Ngige to free the state from the claws of Chris Uba, and the sedate and technocratic Obi to prise the state loose from the jaws of the younger Uba, Andy. Also recall that even the highly educated Chinwoke Mbadinuju had his governorship hamstrung by the unwholesome influence of his wealthy sponsor, Emeka Offor. Perhaps reminded of the presence and activities of a few powerful businessmen gawking at the coveted office, the priests and the governor have reasons to be anxious about who rules Anambra next.

    The problem, however, is not that right-thinking Anambrarians worry about the future of their state. More than that, they ought to be worried that if they inadvertently turn Obi himself into a kingmaker by ceding the rights of the electorate to him, it both defeats the purpose of democracy and calls into question the collective wisdom of the people. Obi’s choice can turn out to be wrong, as Babangida, Abdulsalami and Obasanjo were hopelessly wrong in imposing successors. Indeed, out of the more than 20 governorship impositions Nigeria has had to contend with, the public can recall barely three or four that turned out right.

    But if the visiting priests were indiscrete in publicly recommending to their host some form of imposition or guided democracy, the governor on his own should have known better than to endorse patronising views. And even if he was prepared to subscribe to the priests’ suggestions, he still owed his state and the country as a whole the obligation to talk diplomatically, disguise his intentions, or pretend he thought it objectionable for the electorate to have such an unpalatable view of the Nigerian electoral process.

  • Escaping a cycle of violence

    Escaping a cycle of violence

    Struggling to contain a smoldering Islamist insurgency, the president of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, has ordered in more troops and granted the military more powers to arrest, more authority to seize “any building or structure” and more leeway in “any area of terrorist operation.”

    Having cut short a trip to South Africa and annulled a planned state visit to Namibia, President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria declared a “state of emergency” in three northeast states on May 14. In a speech to the nation, Jonathan acknowledged that there is an “insurrection” and that the government has lost control of certain areas to Boko Haram, a diffuse Islamist movement.

    The security services are already doing what the emergency declaration would permit them to do. Jonathan has promised more troops for the three states, but it is unclear where he will find them, as the military is already overstretched. Islamist violence and the brutal response from the security services are making the northeast of Nigeria ungovernable, as the state of emergency confirms. Though the insurgency uses much of the rhetoric of jihadist movements elsewhere and is increasingly adopting their tactics, it remains essentially a domestic revolt against the Nigerian state rather than part of an international jihadist movement.

    CFR’s Nigeria Security Tracker (NST) has tracked political violence in Nigeria since President Jonathan’s May 2011 inauguration, and some trends are clear. First, the graph of violence shows pronounced peaks and valleys; second, the security service’s joint task force of army and police has produced a high number of casualties; third, the insurgents’ tactics are evolving toward the style of internationalist jihadism.

    As the tracker illustrates, violence in Nigeria spiked higher on April 14-20 than any previous week since Jonathan’s inauguration almost two years ago. It mostly involved Boko Haram and its splinter groups, which notably battled state security services in the far northeastern fishing village of Baga, in Borno, a state included in the emergency declaration. But the NST also charts rising levels of violence associated with ethnic and religious conflict in the middle part of the country, and growing security service violence in response to criminal activity, such as kidnapping, in other areas.

    May could prove to be as violent as April. On May 8, the New York Times carried a front-page story documenting how Nigerian security services dumped corpses of alleged Boko Haram militants at already overburdened local morgues. In some instances, the overflow of deceased sent the stench of decomposing flesh across several neighborhoods in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno. According to the article, the military delivers dozens of bodies a day to the city’s medical facilities.

    The NST illustrates a pattern where Islamist violence provokes a brutal response from the security services that in turn drives popular support or acquiescence toward Boko Haram and its splinters. Northerners have described how, in the aftermath of Islamist attacks, security services round up large numbers of young men, many of whom are never formally arrested, prosecuted, or tried. They simply disappear. The Times report is evidence that the security services have likely extrajudicially murdered many of them.

    Several factors account for the brutality of the security services. In addition to being underpaid and poorly trained, soldiers and police are deployed outside of their native region as a matter of policy, in order to prevent their “favoritism” in a country with some 350 different ethnic groups and a population evenly divided between Christians and Muslims. Security service personnel often have little understanding or sympathy for the people they are supposed to protect. Many do not even speak the local language.

    Meanwhile, the Jonathan administration stonewalls accusations of brutality. Outcry led by human rights organizations over the incident in Baga forced the administration to establish a commission of inquiry. But Nigeria has a long history of such commissions and their findings are rarely—if ever—made public.

    Under pressure from northern leaders who are also directly threatened by the insurgents, President Jonathan has appointed a separate commission to explore a possible “amnesty” program for Boko Haram, but the insurgents have shown no interest in laying down their arms. Instead, they are increasingly using tactics associated with international jihadist groups, such as kidnapping and suicide bombs. In the aftermath of the French intervention in Mali, supported by the Abuja government and the Obama administration, Islamist rhetoric is becoming more anti-Western, and there are more frequent attacks on Christians. The U.S. drone base in Niger is widely viewed with suspicion in northern Nigeria, and not just among extremists.

    The incessant violence is starting to impact the Nigerian economy. While Lagos hustles along without regard to the bloodshed in other parts of the country, economic activity has dipped, as in Kano, Nigeria’s second largest city. Enterprises with exposure in northern Nigeria are seeing profits shrink. Cross-border trade between northern Nigeria and its neighbors is also down.

    Meanwhile, formal politics is almost entirely detached from reality. Goodluck Jonathan is widely regarded as feckless, especially in his response to the Islamist insurgency, but is still favored to win in the national elections scheduled for late next year. Nevertheless, there is more uncertainty about this election outcome than there has been at any time since the end of military rule in 1999. While Jonathan is trying to build support among the political class, his rivals are seeking to create a unified opposition party that could credibly challenge him at the polls. Sadly, both sides are resorting to traditional patronage-clientage politics without reference to the needs of the larger population.

    So anxiety about the future is high. In their more pessimistic moments, some Nigerians express anxiety about whether the country in its current form will survive to election day. There is some sentiment in favor of a military takeover, but there is little evidence that the upper reaches of the military have the stomach for a return to power. While the Islamist insurgents do not offer a viable political alternative and remain divided among themselves, the threat they pose to Nigeria’s political and economic future are significant, as Jonathan’s state of emergency recognizes.

    The federal government should reform the security services, including better pay and training, and end their impunity from legal prosecution. But, that would take time. Many northern leaders have urged that security service deployment be reduced, but Jonathan’s state of emergency moves in the opposite direction. In the longer term, decentralization of government authority, outlined in the country’s constitution but never really implemented, would be a step in the right direction. So, too, would be meaningful implementation of the rule of law, such as the arrest, prosecution, trial, and punishment of those convicted. Such steps would help address the North’s pervasive sense of alienation from the Abuja government and, increasingly, from the Federation.

    As for the United States and other friends of Nigeria, the first principle must be “do no harm.” The Islamist insurrection is the result of internal, specifically Nigerian, factors, especially a history of poor governance, impoverishment, and political marginalization against the backdrop of an Islamic revival. It would be unwise to view Nigeria’s situation through the prism of jihadist movements elsewhere in Africa, even if they share some of the same vocabulary. Nigeria’s friends should urge Abuja to approach the North through political means, rather than through more violence. A U.S. relationship with the Nigerian military would be particularly high risk. It is unlikely that U.S. training would be sufficient to affect military behavior. But even a token amount risks association of the U.S. military with Nigerian human rights abuses.

    Culled from http://www.cfr.org

  • Benin-Ore Road getting better

    SIR: The much-condemned Benin-Ore Expressway is getting better and better. The Federal Government should be given a pass mark for making this impassable road almost passable. The road is over 70 per cent completed and we are impressed with the finishing.

    We hereby call on the Federal Ministry of Works to ensure that the remaining part of the road is completed before the rainy season. The contractors should be duly empowered and monitored to ensure quick completion. We advise that the Minister of Works Arch. Mike Onolememen and his monitoring team pay unscheduled visit to make sure that the right job is done to avoid abandonment or delay.

    We also advise motorists not to use the well-tarred expressway carelessly. It has been observed that some motorists drive at break-neck speed – at 140-160km/h on the road. This is too dangerous for occupants of such vehicles. We have observed that men of the Federal Roads Safety Commission (FRSC) are not always available to caution the drivers/owners of such vehicles. The government must rise up to the challenge to save lives on this road and others across the country.

    We urge transport companies/unions to train their drivers/members before giving them jobs. Not anybody can be employed as a commercial driver. Be sure such a person is psychologically and emotionally fit. A lot of drivers are not. They are angry at the slightest provocation.

    If the Benin-Ore road is 100 per cent completed, motorists, including trailer and tanker drivers are controlled, then the government must have scored a goal that will serve as a legacy not only for it, but also to the people of the southwest and east.

    • Prof Jacob Etinagbedia,

    Director-General,

    Institute of Chartered Administrators and Researchers of Nigeria, Lagos.