The Nation Newspaper

Category: Commentaries

  • Still on the revolution we need

    Still on the revolution we need

    SIR: Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno state spoke truth to Nigeria’s self-absorbed political elite during the week, when he received a 32-member Senate Joint Committee on the Massacre in Baga. He told the committee: “the nation can be consumed by a revolution”, noting that, in the near future, Nigerian “youths will chase politicians out of power,” if the socio-economic malaises fuelling violence in the country are not adequately addressed. According to him, “only and until we address some of these issues, believe me, the future is very bleak for all of us as the current crisis is just an appetizer of things to come. Very soon, the youths of this country will be chasing us away.”

    He further noted that, the political class is indifferent to the plight of the poor, but animated by sit-tight syndrome and the desire to illicitly acquire more assets: “How we can perpetuate ourselves in power. How much we can steal, how many mansions we can buy in Florida, Dubai and London, this is what agitates the minds of the elite of this country, including you and I.”

    This is quite contrary to Rivers state Governor Rotimi Amaechi’s opinion, recently, during the second Nigeria Symposium for Young and Emerging Leaders. Amechi had ruled out the possibility of a revolution, because, “Nigerians are too timid.” Nonetheless, he thinks revolution is the magic bullet to all woes. He said, “Yes, revolution can happen outside Nigeria. But here, I do not think so. Tell me what happened in Sudan, Libya, Zimbabwe and other countries that have not happened here. Our elasticity has no limit”.

    Indeed, all is not well in Nigeria. Leaders at various strata of our society seem to have chosen an education in corruption, instead of one in service. As a result, the Nigerian state is weak. Public institutions are inefficient and seen as mere “avenues for chop-chop.” And public servants are perceived as parasitic sleazebags.

    Let it be said: We do not need violent revolution to move Nigeria forward. We do not need youths to chase politicians out of offices before everyone can truly enjoy the dividends of democracy. We do not need a campaign of violent negativism to bridge the high income inequality between the haves and have-nots. We do not need ethno-religious warlords to determine our secular orientation as a nation state. We do not need the revolt of the masses for it subjugates passion to reason, almost always.

    What we need is simple. We need servant-leaders who are responsive to the legitimate aspirations of the citizenry. We direly need empathic leaders who are animated by the desire to elevate the socio-economic status of the poor. We need leaders who will approach youth empowerment and wealth creation from a programmatic stance and not the occasional doling out of handouts. We need leaders who will massively revamp our dilapidated infrastructure.

    One way to ensure Governor Shettima’s prophetic warning does not become a reality is for us to engender ethical reformation. We must concertedly work at creating a society that elevates principles above people, justice above tribal sentiments, right above might, work above wealth and the common good above the narrow self-interest of the political elite.

    The revolution we need is ethical. The present ethical basis of the Nigerian society cannot foster sustainable economic development for all. The impunity of Nigeria’s elite, which is well-known around the world, has entangled us in the web of poverty, backwardness, social injustice, crony capitalism and political instability. Our chequered political history shows: Sustainable national advancement is elusive, when the ethics of transparency and public spiritedness do not sufficiently influence policy formation and implementation. I dare say that as long as many public programmes and projects are conceptualised and executed to advance the narrow self-interest of the power class, Nigeria will keep descending the slope of self-annihilation. We need to collectively, urgently and hugely revamp the ethical framework of leader-follower engagements.

     

    • Omozuwa Gabriel Osamwonyi

    Abuja

     

  • Asari-Dokubo’s unguarded comments

    Asari-Dokubo’s unguarded comments

    SIR: The recent comments by the ex-militant and leader of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NDPVF), Alhaji Mujahid Asari- Dokubo, have further exposed both the Federal Government’s and the nation’s security agencies’ selective attitudes in crime prosecution in the country. Recall that few weeks ago, some journalists from the Leadership were arrested, detained and subsequently charged for an offence bothering on treason, by Nigerian Police over a publication, which Aso Rock found damning to its regime. But staring before our very eyes is a clear case of treason and the same Police and it’s Aso Rock paymasters are carrying on as if nothing has happened. Or what other evidence do our security agencies need to know that an utterance such as Dokubo’s, which tend to threaten the corporate existence of the country is a criminal act?

    In a saner clime, Asari- Dokubo would have been cooling off in detention for such statement of war against the country. He would have been quizzed and charged to the appropriate court for the provocative comments that Nigeria and Nigerians would know no peace if his kinsman, President Goodluck Jonathan was not re-elected in 2015. Expectedly, neither Dr Doyin Okupe nor Dr Reuben Abati has issued a statement or in their usual styles addressed the press on the ex-militant’s statement. The reason, of course, is that the man is making their jobs -of promoting the President’s 2015 ambition-easier. And it doesn’t really matter to them whether such promotion works against the unity and indivisibility of the country, the generality of Nigerian populace or not.

    Every lover of peace and unity of this country must add a voice of condemnation against Dokubo’s drum beat of war. His highly sensational comments that “…there will be no peace, not only in the Niger Delta, but everywhere if (president) Goodluck Jonathan is not president in 2015, except if God takes his life…”, should not be dismissed as a mere threat, not when the ex-militant had gone further to call the bluff of the National Assembly for “daring” to pass a resolution mandating the security agency to investigate his highly inflammatory comments.

    Dokubo’s attempt to justify his comments on the ground that some persons in the past equally made similar statements and nothing was done to them was like turning logic on its head. Assuming, without conceding the fact, that the duo of Gen Mohammed Buhari and one Farouk Aliyu (as he claimed) made such statements, it would still not be enough to exonerate the ex-militant from the criminal liability which his comments carry. No individual, however highly placed, can take law into his hands. It suffices, also, to state that one does not justify a wrongful act by committing another wrong.

    The self-styled Ijaw leader should have known by now that nobody or region is indispensible in Nigeria. He should have been properly guided by the country’s political history that Nigerians are never stampeded into submission by such a cowardice and provocative utterances.

    It is, indeed, gratifying that the respected elder-statesman, Edwin Clarke, has reminded him that the country would neither break nor hell gets loosed if President Goodluck Jonathan loses re-election in 2015.

    • Barrister Okoro Gabriel,

    Lagos

     

  • The brazen subterfuge of emergency rule

    The brazen subterfuge of emergency rule

    The moment President Goodlcuk Jonathan started surrendering wholesale to the cajolery of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) gerontocracy – the Anenihs and the Tukurs – and began giving heed to the scaremongering of hawkish ethnic advisers, his government also started embracing vicious schemes and intrigues of every conceivable hue. It was not as if he was himself blameless before he encountered those who inspired him to excesses, but in his innocent years, he cut the figure of a moderate whose underhandedness appeared imposed. Thanks to the hawks and the ageing dupes that now surround him and weave their talisman around him, Jonathan has become an eager intriguer quite prepared to hang his enemies upon flimsy legal scaffolds as he is anxious to eviscerate his friends who acquire ambition that threatens his presidency.

    Last week, someone close to the presidency flew the kite of emergency rule in the five northern states of Borno, Yobe, Nasarawa, Benue and Plateau. The emergency rule declaration, it was suggested, would be a firm, if last-ditch, attempt to rein in the insurgency of Boko Haram, the acerbity of nomadic Fulani, and the homicidal frenzy of Middle Belt cults. The presidency has been quick to deny the news, but it didn’t quite say the government had not flirted with the idea. However, media reports strongly assert that the idea is actually under active consideration, and that the Jonathan presidency is somewhat amenable to it, indeed, that it finds it intriguingly attractive. The reasons are not far-fetched. Given present realities, the Northeast is all but lost to the president should elections be held today. However, even if the polls were to take place further down the years, it is inconceivable that the electorate in those forbidden regions would entertain Dr Jonathan with as much as a grin.

    Not only did Dr Jonathan fail to restrain his security agents when the people and elders of the Northeast complained about their high handedness, the president even toured a few of those outlandish regions and lathered them with criticisms. Borno elders have not forgotten the surliness of the president, nor will they forget or forgive his lack of empathy. It is, therefore, suggested that knowing how implacably opposed the Northeast is to him, the president has made up his mind he faces only two choices: either to consider the bright side of the stalemate as implying that no election will take place in those parts on account of unremitting violence or, through the instrumentality of emergency rule, and similar to what Chief Olusegun Obasanjo did in Ekiti State in 2006, put his men in power unconstitutionally to procure electoral triumphs. The two choices are truly enticing to Jonathan’s ageing advisers and hawkish ethnopolitical man Fridays. But these are ominous choices destined to miscarry badly for obvious reasons, for every subterfuge enacted in the Northeast alienates the restive region the more, thereby making wider swaths of that region vulnerable to Jonathan’s enemies, particularly the Boko Haram.

    The emergency rule idea is of course not the president’s first scheme to tackle the growing uncertainties of 2015. Recall his shenanigans in the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) and the bold and intrusive manner the president provoked dissension among the governors, pitching the boisterously impatient Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers against the ingratiating and colluding Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom. The battle and its concomitant furies are still raging in the Forum, and will not end even after the NGF chairmanship election had been won and lost. But much more than the fracturing of the NGF, the emergency rule boondoggle is certain to provoke the most fascinating pre-election jousting of the Fourth Republic, far worse than the serial deposition of PDP chairmen embarked upon by Obasanjo many years before.

    As governors of the South-South and Southeast showed in Asaba, Delta State on Sunday by their chorused endorsement of the president, Dr Jonathan has the two zones locked in his hat. Given the plum placement of officials from the two zones in the government, the cohabitation between them will survive every snide attack from the other regions. If the president is to work his sorcery on any Zone, therefore, expect him to target the Southwest and the Northwest, the two remaining bastions of anti-Jonathan forces and hegemonies of aristocratic politics. Dr Jonathan knows he will split the North-Central on account of the country’s widening religious dichotomies. In sum, the Northeast is the femme fatale expected to cast the deciding vote. But if Dr Jonathan cannot have her, he seems determined to ensure that no one else will. This behaviour may not be statesmanlike and could ruin the republic, but the president’s hawks don’t give a damn – as always.

     

     

     

  • Plumbing the depths of despair

    Scores of policemen killed by a cult group in Alakyo village in Nasarawa State; scores more murdered in Bama, Borno State by Boko Haram militants; perhaps hundreds killed in Baga, Borno State in questionable circumstances; and scores and scores of other security agents, including Department of State (SSS) operatives and soldiers, killed in action. Add to the mess a dozen relatively new forms of criminality such as kidnapping, gory bouts of rape, and bloody ethnic cum border disputes, and you begin to wonder whether the country has not yet plumbed the depths of depravity and horror. Despair? No, said some; its much worse, its Nigeria’s awful moment of angst. The country seems to be locked in a cul-de-sac, battered by bloodbath, wearied by its interminable woes, and unsure whether there is any way out, or if there is, whether the country’s leaders have the courage to take the audacious steps needed to free Nigeria from its self-imposed torments.

    This dangerous and menacing point was, however, not reached by sudden flight. It had been slow in building, indeed long in coming, and it gave as many signs of its portents as nectar inescapably draws bees. It is easy to blame economic and social dislocations for the outbreak of sectarian wars. Of course there are always elements of those factors involved in any eruption of violence, particularly violence levelled against the state. But how many Nigerians have scrutinised history to discover the many points where the country’s leaders took the wrong turns down the road, many points where opportunities existed to do right by country and avert rebellion? As recent as the Fourth Republic, would things not have been different had the founding leaders of this republic not played God? Indeed, had they been altruistic, patriotic, and conceived a brilliant vision of what Nigeria should be and where it should head, would things not have been different?

    The country is structurally deformed and needs fundamental changes to promote economic growth, tackle unemployment and guarantee political stability. But many of the social and political upheavals of today, starting from the 2009 Boko Haram revolt to the rampant militia activities of the past one year or more, are products of the thoughtless manipulation of the electoral process that began in 1999 and was accentuated in 2007. Power brokers imposed Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999 and got away with that short-sighted act, but he proved to be the wrong man for the right job. Obasanjo, however, in turn imposed Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan in 2007, and also got away with it, though once again they proved to be the wrong men for the job. The country is consequently stuck with the follies of 1999 and 2007, which follies contributed significantly to the woes of today. If these follies are repeated in 2015, they could prove fatal to the survival of Nigeria, as the killings, kidnappings, maiming and defiance of lawful authorities push the country to the depths of despair.

  • Dokubo, Kuku et al

    Dokubo, Kuku et al

    Outrage over statements by two key personages from the Niger Delta on the likely outcome of the 2015 elections should President Goodluck Jonathan fail to make it, is to be expected. The duo of Asari Dokubo, a repentant militant and Kingsley Kuku, special adviser to the president had at different occasions threatened dire repercussions for the country if Jonathan is not returned to power come 2015.

    They were reported to have said that the country will know no peace if Jonathan is not returned as president of the country. Even with the denial by Kuku that he did not say there will be a return to violence in the Niger Delta if Jonathan did not make it, not many are persuaded that he did not author the statement credited to him. This is more so as Dokubo has not denied his own version.

    There is the feeling that coming the way they did, those statements should not be dismissed with a wave of the hand. That perhaps accounts for the condemnations that have trailed them. Even then, such inciting statements are neither entirely new nor limited to the Niger Delta region.

    Before now, two northern leaders Adamu Ciroma and Lawal Kaita had issued threats insisting that the north must produce the president in 2015 else there will be dire consequences. Apart from these, there have equally been inciting statements from some other quarters on the 2015 elections and their possible outcome should things not go the way expected.

    Coming on the heels of earlier predictions that the Nigerian state might fail by 2015, these recurring threats must be a serious cause for worry. It is only hoped that we are not walking the path of self-fulfilling prophesy. But more importantly, the threats expose the nature of desperate politics we play in this country. They speak volumes on what progress or lack of it has been made in our quest for national integration in the last 52 years of our independence. Above all, we are being exposed to the motivational and propelling reasons for our pattern of political competition. And central to all is prebendalism-the quest for political power for the sole aim of satisfying ones immediate families and primordial interests. That is why the South-south is threatening fire and brimstone should their kinsman Jonathan fail to make it again. That is why the north is laying strident claims to power in 2015. And it is for the same reason other sections that have not taken a shot at the presidency are equally fighting for it.

    Implicit in all these struggles, is the feeling that it is by electing one of yours into strategic national offices that the interests of that section can be adequately protected. It also exposes the fact that we are yet unable to build national leaders and national institutions. Our people are yet to repose confidence in the capacity of our political leaders to rise above sectional, ethnic and primordial predilections despite pontifications to the contrary. By the same token, they are yet to come to terms with the reality that the resources of the country will not be disproportionately deployed to service sectional interests.

    So how do we expect this country to make any meaningful progress with such a ruinous political culture? How can meaningful development take place with the subsisting suspicion, mistrust and in-fighting among the component units? These are the issues to ponder especially when it is recalled that the spate of insecurity in the country is directly tied to events of the last presidential primaries of the ruling party.

    Is it not surprising that the credentials being bandied by all those threatening the country should their region fail to produce the next president are predicated on ethnic interests? Both Dokubo and Kuku are flaunting their Niger Delta credentials while Ciroma and Kaita are talking of northern interests. So where do we locate the Nigerian interest within this cacophony in sectional voices? That is the question to ponder. The issue is not just that sectional considerations dominate our perception of the power equation in this country but they now constitute serious threat to its continued survival.

    It is even more pondering that the feeling is permeating that political power can be cornered through threats by the component units. Ironically too, these threats are not limited to the political front. The dreaded Boko Haram religious sect that has been levying war on the country in the past two years had issued such threats. In its case, it is championing the institution of an Islamic state in the country for which it asked southerners to leave the north. The attacks on churches and southerners before now were predicated on its commitment to have its warped agenda come through. Even as we condemn the Niger Delta chieftains for threatening hell if Jonathan does not return for a second term, such inciting statements are not new in our political chessboard. As a matter of fact, they are fast assuming the necessary and sufficient conditions for groups within the country to seek accommodation and relevance from those who hitherto dominated its leadership. It is also very interesting that northern chieftains have also fallen for the same tactics. What matters now it would seem, is no longer merit or competence but the geo-political zone which the leader comes from. This is where this country has just found itself and that is very unfortunate. Perhaps, what all these underscore is the point that has been severally canvassed on the need for us to take another look at the basis for our continued stay as a country. Before now, several well meaning Nigerians have rooted for a national conference or its sovereign variant to determine Nigeria’s future. Those who make these calls hinge them on the imperative to resolve once and for all, the contentious issues of our federal structure so that the country can progress in an atmosphere devoid of their disruptive influences. But each time these issues are raised, those who purport to be the conscience of this country stridently oppose the idea. However, the issues that give rise to such calls refuse to disappear. Is it not time we face reality and save this country the distractions it faces on account of our inability or outright refusal to square up to our nagging problems? Or why do we delude ourselves to the effect that all is well when in all actuality, the component units live in mutual distrust and utter suspicion. Why do we oppose fresh negotiations on how we can live in harmony and achieve faster development when each day, issues arising from this continue to stare us in the face? Is it not confounding that sectarian and primordial cleavages are now at an all time high despite our touted unity over the past 52 years?

    Perhaps, if we had addressed some of these problems through the conference, the Niger Delta militancy and the Boko Haram insurgency which are serious threats to our nationhood would have been taken care of. Perhaps also, there would have been no need to resort to ad hoc amnesty palliatives for issues that would have been holistically tackled.

    It is therefore not enough to brood over threats from Niger Delta, Boko Haram, Arewa Forum, Oodua Peoples Congress and Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra. That is how bad our inability to address issues of our collective being has taken us to.

  • Diverting the nation to final bus stop

    Nigeria of today is in perceptible disarray. There is so much confusion and discouragement indicating that the nation is being dragged to the end of its journey. The desperation to retain power at all cost is diverting the essence of fulfilling the promise of transforming the nation. As goal posts keep shifting, developments keep degenerating. It is as if the only things being transformed rapidly are the private pockets with looted funds from the national treasury, leaving the masses to perish in penury.

    The problem afflicting the nation is the non-commitment of the chosen few in leadership who tend to be holding the electorates in hostage. Concentrating on nation building has become pettiness while ambition and corruption are prioritized. When on May Day the labour leaders requested the President to fight corruption harder, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan’s response was the current trend counter-attack as he told the workers to advise their colleagues to stop stealing. He might have forgotten that those stealing downstairs are following the pattern at the top.

    An article by Dutch journalist and writer Femke van Zeiji, titled “Mediocrity overtakes corruption to wreck Nigeria” published in The Guardian few weeks ago recapitulated the factual situation of the nation. “Nigeria is the opposite of meritocracy: you do not earn by achieving,” she wrote. “You get to be who and where you are by knowing the right people. Whether you work in an office, for an enterprise or an NGO, at a construction site or in government, your abilities hardly ever are the reason you got there. Performing well, let alone with excellence, is not a requirement, in fact, it is discouraged.”

    The lady who lives and works in Nigeria must have experienced the trauma stalling the country from moving forward. To her, “it would be too threatening: showing you are more intelligent, capable or competent than the ‘oga’ at the top (who as a rule, is not an over-achiever either) is career suicide.” She could see the drift of the nation’s failure from “an attitude that trickles down from the very top, its symptoms eventually showing up in all of society, from bad governance to bad service.” Her conclusion was that frustration of unrewarded excellence is making Nigeria to become a “pretty cumbersome place for anyone striving for perfection.”

    Not long ago, President Jonathan acknowledged openly that corruption in Nigeria is not a serious issue, daringly certifying that a good 80 per cent of what Nigerians consider to be corruption are actually not corruption cases. Perhaps, he said so to denounce the critics in self-defence. Yet, hardly could any impactful development be seen of the enormous budgets that are annually approved for execution since he assumed office.

    Indeed, those in power might be defending their ineptitude, cluelessness and disloyalty to those whose votes were manipulated to get into office by lambasting their critics as colleagues in despotism and fraud. The reality of the state of the nation today is unhidden as corruption is crushing depressingly on the life of the underprivileged, lowly and poor majority.

    Only last week, a report of Save the Children International, a non-governmental organization disclosed that among 176 nations, Nigeria is rated 169th worst place to be born. It also stated that being the 12th highest country where babies die on their first day after birth, Nigeria has become one of the riskiest place to be born on earth. The conclusion was that the agonizing story is based on the poor health circumstances of mothers. Many more Nigerians are today being confronted with early death due to hunger and diseases.

    Of course, the colossal corruption in Nigeria at all levels as alleged by United States of America’s Department of State last month cannot but strengthen destitution in the land of abundance. Documenting major financial scandals of 2012, the department’s report presented to the US Congress by Secretary of State John Kerry estimated official money lost to “endemic corruption and entrenched inefficiency” at $6.8billion (N1.067trillion). Among others, the world was also reminded of the stealing of N32.8billion Police Pension Fund, fraudulent contracts, embezzlement and laundering of N75billion by a former Minister and the many ex-governors arrested and charged for fraud committed while in office.

    It is not strange declaring that though Nigerian law provides criminal penalties for official corruption, the fact that the law is not being implemented devotedly, fraudulent practices are being engaged with impunity across the land. Supposed anti-corruption institutions have proved to be tools in the hands of the authority to deal with fellow corrupt officials they disagree with on personal issues.

    Even when the commissions and the judiciary arraign criminals, there is hardly confidence in concluding the cases justifiably. The consequence has been a criminal nation begetting criminal citizenry. Today, there are multitude criminal cases inconclusive in trial: oil thieves, fuel subsidy scammers, and much more. After boisterous arrests, followed by few days of detention, if at all there is arraignment, bail would be granted and that might just be the end as adjournments would be mounting upon deferments. Were the cases of ex-Delta State Governor James Ibori who pleaded guilty abroad after escaping from home and militant leader Henry Okah convicted for bomb blasting in Abuja handled here at home, penalties of their criminalities would not have manifested as it was. Afterall, many of the ruling party’s former governors like Ayo Fayose, Adebayo Alao-Akala and Aliyu Akwe Doma who were once arraigned for fraud are walking free today upon inconclusive trials.

    It is pitiable that the crops of Nigerians who have now morphed into the leadership class are more interested in personal attainments than rendering faithful services to the people. The nation is under untrustworthy political class who make promises that are never fulfilled. Million jobs are assured, but more million people are remaining jobless – rendering enormous talented human resources wasted and discarding them to criminality.

    Resolving power challenges keeps dragging with government propagandists defending electricity output of 4,500 MW for use by 160 million Nigerians as remarkable achievement. Pledges are made to build more cash reserves, but such reserves are reportedly being pocketed by the very few privileged, leaving the nation in mounting indebtedness. Let’s recollect how Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili’s disclosure was turned to battle of personalities.

    The way the country is being administered is as if the political elites are essentially telling the masses that they are ordinary Nigerians deluded about the nation’s state of affairs. They relegated the masses as the foolish and elevate themselves as the sane.

    The reality is that Nigeria is being detracted from moving forward through terrorism, kidnapping and fraud – all resulting from embedded corruption. Disasters keep crawling across the land. People in poverty are being used as tools in the hands of the wicked.

    The fatal challenges of Boko Haram disparaging the nation today are being faked as religious when in actuality it is largely more about power tussle. Last week, detachment of riot policemen and security officers heading to dislodge the shrine of Ombatse, a deity of Eggon people in Nasarawa State were murdered. Same time, many casualties emerged in Agatu Local government Area of Benue State after attacks. This was happening when the issues of the many lives lost in Baga, Bama/Banki and Marte were still unresolved.

    Yet, life cannot continue the unpleasant way it is. The failing leaders should know that their time will soon be over. The haven of rogues undermining the economic development of the country will soon be forced to vomit all the swallowed good of the land. This is because people are anticipating for change.

    For Nigeria not be extricated as a nation, this time of wasteful challenges is surely for meaningful change in governance. This is why the wise who love the people should not allow the craving for 2015 elections to detract since it will not just be about voting for change of personalities or about tribalism. It will be about reformation of a decaying nation. Now then should be the time to focus more about change in attitude, in character and in conducting sincere and purified business of government.

  • Leadership is Nigeria’s problem

    SIR: There is no gainsaying that President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is in difficult times. Ditto the states governors. The truth must be told, Nigerians are expecting purposeful, resourceful, Godly leadership. One is deeply surprised that since May 29, 2011 when we began another democratic dispensation, Nigeria’s development continues to be hampered by bad leadership, moral decadence, hunger, poverty, insecurity and deep-rooted corruption. Our leaders tell lies under oath, trust in deceitful words. They make promises and break them.

    What Nigerians need now is a good and God-fearing leader who will work hard in raising the standard of living of the people, transform the society, enact policies that would give all Nigerians a sense of oneness.

    Some of the challenges of national integration and development in Nigeria include economic crisis and poverty, unequal development, crisis of governance and poor political leadership.

    Nigeria has big potentials to become one of the most powerful countries of the world, and for it to occupy such position, it must transform its system, integrate the people, grow the economy, fight poverty and hunger. Nigerians and the leaders should also allow God to direct the affairs of their governance.

    Nigerians and the rulers should be full of prayers, to empower the Goodluck Jonathan administration to tackle the raging socio-economic and political problems facing the nation and capable of eroding national unity and stability.

    President Jonathan needs to urgently tackle the energy problem, revive industries, encourage entrepreneurs, create mass emoployment for the youth, look into the security situation in its entirety, tackle the war against corruption seriously, adhere to the tenents of the rule of law, improve infrastructural facilities, convocation of prayer summit at all levels of our government among others.

    Sincerely, Nigerians must create the atmosphere of trust, transparency, honesty and accountability in the spirit of the fear of God, otherwise it will remain where it is. We have to harness the God’s given abundant gifts of nature around us to make the country great. Our leaders have to learn and start taking decisions on what is best for the country rather than their self-serving interests. Unless and until we address the challenge of leadership, the country can never move forward.

    Religious leaders in the country should not feel shy to address issue of bad leadership and also make their views read and heard.

    • Prophet Oladipupo Funmilade-Joel (Sekunderin)

    Lagos

  • Achieving robust power transmission network

    Achieving robust power transmission network

    I watched with zeal and enthusiasm the recent Presidential Power Reform Transaction Signing Summit at the State House Abuja. At that summit, the preferred bidders for the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) successor generating and distribution companies that have paid the initial 25% of the bid prices were handed over their 25% payment certificates. The balance of 75% is expected to be settled within six months. That event to me was indeed a major step forward in the

    implementation of the power sector reform. The Minister of Power, Professor Chinedu Nebo in his speech at the event described the summit as a “further boost to the reform momentum and investment confidence.”

    The minister is n right because the critics of the ongoing privatization efforts in the power sector do not agree that the process would reach the present stage of its journey. Their scepticisms were initially hinged on the believe that privatization of the power sector was not an answer to Nigeria’s quest for uninterrupted power supply and therefore concluded that the project would not work.

    Today, we have gone beyond the unbundling of the PHCN to the sale of the successor companies. It is also becoming increasingly clear that the solution to the interrupted power supply in the country lies in the hands of private investors given the enormity of the financial investments that are required to revitalize and transform the sector for efficiency and result.

    For instance to achieve the projected 40,000 MW in the country by the year 2020, it requires an annual US$10 billion investment in the power sector for the next 10 years. This means that a whopping US$100 billion is required urgently with generation alone, accounting for 35 percent of the fund injection. Obviously, this huge capital outlay is not available to the federal government now or in the near future.

    The interest shown by investors in the privatization of the power sector is unimaginable. Impressed with the investors market confidence in the power sector, President Goodluck Jonathan during the Power Reform Transaction Signing Summit stated that he was encouraged by the sustained interest in the sector and the meaningful investments that had been prompted in gas processing, power generation, power distribution and transmission. The President is not alone on this impressive note. Major industry players present at the event as well as senior government officials, friends and partners of Nigeria gave their endorsement and expressed confidence in the implementation and progress so far recorded in the privatization process of the sector.

    In no distant time, the generation and the distribution companies would be handed over to the preferred bidders to be fully managed by them. The only component of the power sector that will remain in the hands of the government is the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN). Already a management contract between Manitoba Hydro of Canada and the federal government has been put in place for TCN, to bring global best practices to bear in the expansion and management of the Nation’s grid. The TCN Board has also been inaugurated and the Schedule of Delegated Authority (SODA) has been issued to Manitoba Hydro.

    What this means is expected massive increase in the quantum of power generation and distribution in the country. But can this expectation be sustained in view of the state of the transmission network available in the country and the huge financial investment required to strengthen it?

    The Minister of Power, Professor Nebo, recently revealed for instance that a total capital outlay of US$3.4 billion is required up to 2016 to fix the country’s transmission grid to be able to evacuate all generated power estimated at 20,000MW. At present, the transmission network in the country remains weak and cannot wheel a power load greater than 5,000 MW. What government needs to do at this moment is to urgently put in place a robust transmission expansion master plan to cope with the expected massive increase in generation.

    It is on record that the gap between the power production profile and the effective wheeling capacity of the country’s grid is in excess of an average of 1,200MW per day of stranded generation. This development is unhealthy and cannot be tolerated in this expected new dawn of increased power generation, especially when the private investors take over. Efforts should therefore be intensified by the government to address the issue of the present radial network and dominant single- circuit network which industry experts said were responsible for grid fragility. There is also the issue of accumulated maintenance neglect throughout the network which the government should also look into, to avoid the increasingly weak handshake at the TX/DX interface, causing frequent feeder-line tripping and declining efficiency of transmission-level fault detection and protection systems.

    As noted earlier, government alone may not be able to achieve this robust transmission network. It therefore becomes expedient to tinker with the idea of declaring a Transmission Emergency in the sector in recognition of the threats this weakness poses to the development of a sustainable power market. In the same direction, government can as well create an enabling frame work for private- sector participation in transmission project development as well as promote an agenda to attract investors to partake in project development.

    It is however, gratifying to note that some positive steps have been taken by the government to strengthen the nation’s transmission line capacities. Already government is working out the funding of the TCN long term expansion plan from a mix which will include the Transmission Development Fund, international banks and multilateral agencies. Work is also currently on going in the refurbishing,

    rehabilitation and expansion of existing plants, for electricity development in the country.

    There are also faults clearing in the transmission network across the nation, upgrading and modernizing many aspects. Many of the National Integrated Power Projects (NIPP) already have transmission components embedded in the project. For example, 118 transmission projects by NIPP are ongoing now in 43 lots. These transmission projects which cover over 274km of lines and transmission capacity of 2,370 MW will soon be completed.

    While commending the present conscious efforts of government to achieve a robust transmission network, it is also pertinent to say that the application of speed in the completion of these critical projects is important to quickly enhance the TCN wheeling capacity and to maintain stability in the entire electricity value chain during and after the privatization of the power sector.

    • Aneke is an Abuja based public affairs analyst.

  • FG, security agencies should tighten security

    SIR: The Community Defence Law Foundation, CDLF, a grass-root based civil society organization calls on the security agencies to immediately begin to tighten security around the country.

    The recent recorded increase in violence in Borno, Plateau and Nassarawa states resulting in the loss of many lives including that of about 30 policemen calls for worry and the need for the security agencies to indeed be on top of the situation. The President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan had had to abort his foreign trip to attend to this security lapse, realizing the carnage. Again, there are worries on threats and counter-threats by some political leaders of the north and militant leaders of the Niger Delta on making Nigeria ungovernable if things fail to go their way politically come 2015.

    We may not also close our eyes at the arrest of a woman on Thursday, illegally possessing police uniforms at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja-Lagos. The woman was about to board an Aero airline flight to Kano, when the security details at the airport accosted her and, she failed to provide convincing answers. All these and many others portend danger to Nigeria’s corporate existence.

    CDLF, calls on our security men to intensify security patrol at our borders; arrest and prosecute all those who have truly erred in law; begin aggressive mop up of fire arms in illegal and idle hands. We also will recommend that the Ministry of Information, National Orientation Agency, National Christian and Muslim bodies embark on enlightenment campaign to educate the people to embrace peace, respect and tolerate each other’s religion and culture. The Police must remind the politicians not to, through their unguided statements, overheat the polity thereby, sending wrong message to their supporters.

    • Uzodinma Nwaogbe

    Abuja

  • IBB on Adenuga, OBJ and allied issues

    IBB on Adenuga, OBJ and allied issues

    Consequent upon the annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election won by the late Alhaji M.K.O. Abiola, Nigeria headed for the precipice. It took the fleeting emergence of Chief Ernest Shonekan for some fragile stability and graveyard peace to be achieved.

    Shortly thereafter, the late Gen. Sani Abacha came on the scene by dismissing the interim government headed by Chief Shonekan through a coup. The bespectacled General clamped a lot of people into jail and routinely made the prison yards nationwide the habitation of real and imaginary ‘troublemakers’, particularly the advocates for the restoration of democracy to Nigeria on the vociferous and popular NADECO platform.

    On the heels of the revalidation of democracy by General Abdulsalami Abubakar, who assumed the reigns of leadership following Abacha’s death, it took massive persuasion to get Obasanjo to return to power as a civilian head of state. One of the dignitaries that visited the Ota farm settlement of Obasanjo immediately after his release from incarceration was former head of state, General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB), GCFR. The mission was to encourage OBJ to accept the responsibility circumstance had thrust on him with Abiola’s controversial transition.

    That trip was long before OBJ eventually became the country’s president and began to drive rough thereafter, forgetting where he was coming from, God’s intervention in his rescue from Abacha’s gulag and his antecedents generally. Astonishingly, almost all the people who played key roles in the enthronement of OBJ as Nigeria’s president gradually became his targets for witch-hunt, assault and needless embarrassment.

    It must be underscored that OBJ is a very amnesic, vindictive and pretentious human being—all traits resoundingly confirmed by events before, during and even after his wasted eight-year presidency!

    While in office, OBJ established the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFFC) with its first chairman as Alhaji Nuhu Ribadu. At the outset of this laudable agency there were dispassionate efforts at rooting out corruption and other criminalities from this clime. Along the line, the agency derailed and became OBJ’s instrument for humiliation, intimidation, oppression, subjugation, suppression and witch-hunt of all manner of ‘enemies’ and their perceived friends.

    So, without recollecting the roles IBB and former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, among others, played pursuant to his disastrous presidency in terms of political strategy and moral backing, he covertly unleashed the EFCC on them, including the ACN leader Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Ribadu graciously confirmed this at the presentation of a book in honour of the late Abiola by Dr. Olatunji Dare not long ago and further made a testament to futile pressures on him to criminalize Tinubu at all costs!

    The relationship between IBB, Adenuga and OBJ informed this essay in the light of IBB’s congratulatory message to Adenuga on his diamond anniversary a fortnight ago, as published in major Nigerian newspapers, including this racy medium, naturally (extracts below).

    Shortly before the end of his tenure as third-time president of this country, OBJ reopened the missing $2.8 billion Gulf War accruals (windfall) and declared that all those involved in the looting of the money will be tried in obvious reference to IBB whose government was in power when the incident happened. In fact, there were talks that IBB may be arrested to explain the alleged misappropriation! That never happened apparently because of the backlash such jaundiced inquisition will elicit.

    The next victim of OBJ was the chairman and principal owner of Globacom, Otunba Mike Adenuga, Jr. (GCON). As usual, the EFFC was let loose on ‘Mr. Glo.’ What were his offences? His enduring friendship with IBB and parleying with Atiku instead of supporting his third-term fiasco! Not surprisingly, the EFFC furiously went after Adenuga. What were the additional charges? ‘The Bull’ was allegedly fronting for IBB in the ownership of Globacom! When that script was torn to shreds, the EFCC and its principal (OBJ) could not understand why and how ‘The Guru’ should be the core stakeholder in the multi-billion telecoms project (forgetting that he is one of the world’s 258 richest men, according to Forbes magazine). So, the next thing was to get to the root of the suspicions through the invasion of Adenuga’s home and offices on Victoria Island in a Gestapo way in search of implicative documents, unsuccessfully. At a point in the ensuing drama, the EFCC made a volte-face and said it was IBB’s son and next governor of Niger State, Muhammed, who held his father’s purported equity in Globacom! The victimization got to a point that when Adenuga travelled to Paris during the EFCC siege, the combative agency issued a vitriolic statement that he had fled the country to foreclose arrest and the misinformation spread like a hurricane and people were calling me to find out the truth and the multi-billionaire’s whereabouts as a corporate affairs strategist in one of his companies then! Overall, the EFCC brouhaha ended in a fiasco as there was no iota of truth in its principal’s weird imagination and despotic machination.

    The point must be noted that Adenuga was vindicated at the end of the day. It took the courageous, unquestionable, unimpeachable and trustworthy intervention and royal guarantee of Kabiyesi Alaiyeluwa, Oba (Dr.) S. K. Adetona, CFR., when Adenuga returned from France shortly after the unwarranted invasion of his person and institutions to broker a final resolution and emancipation of ‘Mr. Glo’ from the unnecessarily vindictive and jealous clutches of OBJ when he was in power for the last time! Never again!

    Now the vintage message from IBB to Dr. Mike Adenuga, Jnr., GCON, on his 60th Birthday, which, I am sure, most people did not flag! It is instructive and partly goes thus: “…The fact that you treasure the virtue of true friendship and loyalty to any cause you believe in gives you the cutting edge. I am eternally grateful for all the troubles you had to go through because of me in the hands of a regime that tried to derail our friendship and relationship.

    “Even when you came under severe pressure by that same regime which I helped to nurture (emphasis mine), to blackmail me in order to hang me, you remained eternally loyal and steadfast. Only a businessman of character, sound upbringing and virtue could choose friendship instead of his economic empire. Only a man of delectable poise, with an open mind and fear of God, would choose to sustain an age-long relationship instead of sacrificing same at the altar of avarice, greed and economic interest.

    “Such tribulations are prices we have to pay for true friendship…I remain grateful for being a true friend indeed.”

    The foregoing extracts speak volumes of the uncanny character of the Ota farmer! Who can name the symbol of devilishness for me? I already have an exemplar in the person of…as if you didn’t know! Do I need to add that the instructive anniversary message from IBB for The Bull—and to the bully from Ota—made my day? I read it voraciously and internalized the import of it all. I implore those who did not read it to get a copy and digest it for personal edification.

    •Wabara is a perception manager based in Lagos.