The Nation Newspaper

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  • Wike’s love for ugly politics

    Governor Nyesom Ezenwo Wike of Rivers State may have learnt a few outlandish tricks from Adolf Hitler, the late German tyrant, master propagandist and one of the best firebrand orators the world has ever known. Like a joke, prior to World War 11, Adolf Hitler haggled the Nazi Germany and railroaded the country and the entire world into the most abominable carnage and bloodbath in human history.

    Before, during and after the governorship election in 2015, Wike’s inciting comments and his charge to members of his party to resist arrest by security operatives was scary. His threat to officials of INEC and security agencies who failed to do the bidding of his political party or even the threat to supporters of political opponents were some of the earliest signs that the Rivers State might soon be soaked in blood. As governor, Wike has kept the state under serious tension ever after. He didn’t disappoint on those promises, like Adolf Hitler.

    Adolf Hitler’s primary rules were never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

    Like Hitler, Governor Wike is a thoroughbred nihilist and an advocate of Machiavellianism where the end justifies the means. He assassinates his political opponents’ characters in order to attain political position at all costs at the detriment of the citizens of Rivers State who elected him to show leadership. Relentlessly and randomly, he picks on perceived enemies, one after another, with a measure of consistency and currency and systematically chase them away from political reckoning.

    If you are a follower of Governor Wike’s uncanny and unregenerate politics since 2015, you will observe the unwholesome manipulation of perceptions, the steady use of “big lies”, distortion of facts, false alarms, ethnic instigations, electoral brigade, assassination and outright violence that have signposted Rivers State with a tag as the most politically blood soaked state in Nigeria.

    The Police, like everyone else suffered a major loss as DSP Akali Mohammed and his orderly were abducted and later beheaded by suspected cultists in Uju community in Ogba Egbema Ndoni local government area. The late Police officer was at the head of a police team from Mopol 48 to the community to take on cultists who allegedly held the area under siege when they met their untimely death in the hands of the cultists who laid ambush for them. The cultists hijacked their patrol vehicle and disappeared with their riffles. About 16 NYSC members were also reportedly abducted in the state during the elections and rescued by security men afterwards.

    The election that brought Governor Wike to power, along with the state and National Assembly were the bloodiest in the history of electioneering in Nigeria. Many INEC officials, journalists, party faithful and police men were hacked down in broad day light for Wike’s ambition to be realised. Since he assumed office as the Governor, he has practically thrown decency overboard, fighting real and imaginary political enemies, federal forces, his political party, the PDP, his political opponents, the ruling party, the APC, the Independent National Electoral Commission, and the nation’s security apparatus.

    Evidently, from the very beginning, it was clear that Wike would be a terrible disappointment to both Rivers State he seeks to govern and Nigeria at large. Rightly, he has taken incompetence in governance to a new height in Nigeria, turning Rivers State to a slaughter’s lab where human lives are not worth much and where kidnapping, assassination and robbery have become the norms.

    Recently, Wike was at it again. The governor accused the Inspector-General of Police of a plot to eliminate him. The state Commissioner for Information and Communication, Dr. Austin Tam-George made the allegation that Governor Nyesom Wike has been targeted for elimination by the Nigeria Police authorities. He claimed that Governor Wike had survived five assassination attempts in 11 months, accusing the police of complicity in attempts to eliminate the governor. He further disclosed that after several attempts to assassinate Wike had failed, an offer of N150 million was made to two of the six dismissed police officers, to directly kill the governor, but that the officers declined the offer.

    Governor Wike himself had said at several fora that the federal government had laid out plans to execute him. He accused the police and the Department of State Services (DSS) of being at the fore-front of the plans, especially with the withdrawal of his security detail and failure to restore his guards despite appeals from different strata of the society.

    The Nigeria Police Force would dismiss the allegation by Governor Wike:  “The allegation, coming from Governor Wike, is malicious and capable of misleading and causing disaffection between the Nigeria Police Force and the good people of Rivers State who the governor swore to lead and serve democratically without prejudice. The Nigeria Police Force wishes to categorically state that, there is no iota of truth in all the allegations and false assertions in the interview granted by the Governor of Rivers State, Mr. Nyesom Wike, as regards his accusations against the Inspector General of Police and the Nigeria Police Force”, the Police Public Relations Officer, CSP Jimoh Moshood said.

    The latest of Governor Wike’s dramatic incursion as a purveyor of pure falsehood came with the discovery of $45 million dollars in an Ikoyi residence which he claimed was stolen by former Governor Rotimi Amaechi. He claimed the money belongs to the Rivers State Government and gave seven days ultimatum to the Federal Government to return the funds to his government.

    What further evidence do we need to come to the conclusion that Governor Wike present preoccupation is an extension of his known acrimonious anger against Amaechi? Why is it that out of the 36 States of the federation it is only Rivers State Government that is claiming ownership of the recovered/discovered loot? Why is Governor Wike preemptive of EFCC’s investigation?

    Painfully, nothing significant has been credit to Wike’s governorship of Rivers State, two years down the line. The destruction of the educational sector by stopping the scholarship and free education scheme put up by the Amaechi administration that has become a reference point in Africa tops his agenda as policy thrust. The model educational and health facilities put up in all the local government areas of the state built by previous government has become the dens of cultists.  Wike has refused to pay the salaries of over 13,000 teachers employed by the administration of Amaechi in a bid to darken his benefactor’s contribution to the development of the state at the expense of the suffering masses.

     

    • Erasmus Ikhide writes from Lagos.

  • Hood and monk: Senate versus Hameed Ali

    It is like a play dramatized on Broadway akin to the comic theatre of the absurd, a burlesque, a street staged variety show, yes all these rolled into one and more only partially describes the war of attrition against retired Col. Hameed Ali, the Comptroller General of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS).

    This comic relief has temporarily eased Nigerians of the pangs of the nation’s economic maelstrom. And some of Nigeria’s best intellectuals have been at daggers drawn tearing at each other’s jugular justifying either the Senate or the NCS boss but most of them queuing on the side of the Senate.

    Some persons and groups even called for Hameed Ali’s immediate resignation if he refused to wear the customs uniform as the Comptroller General of the Nigerian Customs Service.

    I premise this piece on the fact that sensationalizing the case of the Comptroller General’s Uniform is uninformed, diversionary, escapist and a theatrical ploy to disguise the colossal failure of the Red Chamber to tackle problems created by them. Instead of creating chances to enhance democracy and the fulfilment of their electoral promises, these senators are embroiled in amassing choice personal items of exotic luxury for themselves and their families.

    Hameed Ali is just a circumstantial scapegoat unfortunately bearing the burden of the fallout of the bullet proof car imported with fake documents. The Senate President did not deny that the bullet proof Range Rover Jeep belonged to the Senate. His aides desperately argued that the Jeep was for the Senate and not for the Senate President. Even kids know that sugar melts so easily in the mouth.

    But why sensationalize Col. Ali’s uniform issue? The great 18th Century English Poet, Alexander Pope in his most ingenious, witty and delightful poem, “the Rape of the Lock” fumes at Belinda making a mountain of a molehill and at the same time wondering why a well-bred Lord should assault a gentle belle. Hear Alexandra Pope “What dire offence from amorous causes spring…… what mighty contests rise from trivial things”.

    I totally commit myself to Alexander Pope’s satirical lampooning of Belinda for causing so much furore over the loss of a strand of her hair.

    The Senate overstretched its vengeance streak to a callous and very insensitive limit by sensationalizing the uniform issue. Now tell me, is it fair to put the customs boss through such painful inquisition because of non-wearing of his custom’s garb?

    For great minds, the victory of the monk over the hood has been settled as far back as the 14th century by Geoffrey Chaucer himself when he refers to his monk in the Pardoner’s Tale as a “mainly man”. Geoffrey Chaucer here paints a freedom and result-oriented   monk who excelled in his democratic freedom to do what is right for the role he was created for.

    Hameed Ali fits squarely into the hood of Chaucer’s monk. This is because Chaucer’s monk wears a hood different from other monks and is in good shape with a “bald shiny head and face” as against the other monks who were thin and gruffy.

    So many pundits have tried to straight jacket Hameed Ali into several unsavoury genres. Some call him proud, peacockish, patrician, feudal lord, snobbish, violently stubborn, imperial lord. But Ali is none of the above. He is just a highly disciplined and patriotic Nigerian who was chosen for the customs top job because of his no-nonsense anti-corruption mien which he amply embodied even when he was in the Nigerian Army.

    The unseen and undeclared motive in this mock-heroic or burlesque is the problem of subjugation. Senate President Bukola Saraki is shocked that his gavel feels feeble and weightless before the custom boss and thus has tried all constitutional means to subjugate him to kowtow to constituted authority.

    What do Nigerians really want?  Is it the monk or the hood? Is it transparency or continued corruption? Nigerians should rally round Hameed Ali to reduce corruption in the Nigerian Customs Service to a barest minimum. In just 213 days, that is about seven months, the mufti wearing Ali boosted federal revenue with a whooping N903 billion, while our former CG paid in a paltry and criminal N2 Billion in three years. And yet Nigerians are shouting and “crucifying him instead of “Hosanna”.

    I think the Nigerian psyche has been bastardized, battered and warped by military rule to a state of apathetic passivity. Nigerians should arise and irrevocably denounce the pundits supporting our mortally discredited Senate to force Col. Ali to resign in order to elect a corrupt regime of brigands in the Nigerian Customs Service. This Senate leadership is not at ease with this tough-kicking customs boss, as the former duty-free facility extended to them by Abdullahi Dikko, the former custom’s boss has been thrown overboard by Ali. Now everybody must pay his or her customs duty whether high or low, whether Senator or Clerk.

    This present Nigerian Senate is the most empty, cacophonous and an excellent definition of uncontestable ribaldry. The last time I heard from the Senate, they were passing a bill banning facial  mutilation (tribal marks) which for most Nigerians is their  least worry. It is not only unimaginative and disingenuous but naïve to worry about tribal marks when very weighty national issues like budget padding, Boko Haram, Niger Delta etc. should be at the front burner. Is it any wonder then that the sponsor of this uncalled – for bill is no other than the head of the theatrical group of the Senate, Dino Melaye?

    The Nigerian Senate is the probably the highest paid in the world with a total package of $2,183,685 dollars per annum as against Sri Lankan Senators who earn $5,000 per annum. Even America, the world’s richest nation pays its senators a total package of $174,000.00 per annum. The Nigerian Senator gets N862,555,575.00 while the civil servant who voted him into power gets only N16,000.00 monthly or N192,000.00 per annum or an equivalent of $486 dollars per annum. This out-of-the world package for the Senator is exclusive of the proceeds of budget padding and huge payments for unexecuted contracts.

    It is also interesting to note that wearing of customs uniform for the Comptroller Generals started in 1981 as the first four customs bosses from 1964-1981 never wore customs uniform in the execution of their official duties. Senate President Saraki should therefore leave Hameed Ali alone for him to do the job he was appointed to do.

     

    • Nanaghan writes from Lagos State University, Ojo.

  • Are the gods angry with PDP?

    What’s gwam is the title of a song by the Nigerian reggae artist Ras Kimonos released some years ago. The message it conveyed when the musician first used the word was unmistakable: something wrong of alarming proportion in the air- real apprehension everywhere in the land.

    That is how I see the rapidly sinking fortune of the PDP- a once beautiful and powerful political party but now sick, pale, weak, disorganized, powerless, disoriented and seems on the path to disintegration. What a pity! It once held high hope for real national unity, meaningful development and prosperity and thus commanded the respect, love and support of many citizens. This was largely because of its national spread.

    Now it is no longer in that position of grandiose power and favour having fallen from the graceful high-horse of authority to the plebeian grass land of ordinariness. Today the party is ridden by a seeming unending self-generated crisis and self-imposed conflicts. The internal strife is deep and well entrenched and it is fuelled by well endowed, wealthy rivalry groups of elite within the party and outside it as some have suspected.

    In a way, the ambition of some Nigerian elite is really the problem and greatest source of threat to the party. Political wars are elite’s game and it could be very bloody because each party has the wherewithal to test the will of the other. However, as the Bible teaches, everything on earth has its season. In politics every party has its turn and in a democracy, the voters determine whose turn it is to be in power.  This sure is the season of woes for the People’s Democratic Party in Nigeria.

    For 16 years it ruled the country unchallenged and unchallengeable. One way or the other, it was the ‘choice’ of the people, the acclaimed ‘darling’ party of the voters- with the immediate plan to rule for the first 60 years from 1999. But today, things have changed for the worse for the party. It is no longer in power. Since 2015 when it lost the presidential elections, its fortunes had rapidly sunk deeply into the troubled sea of confusion, treachery and death. It has not been able to manage failure- to get up to its feet since its fall from power.

    From all indications, it looks it is going to take some long time to retrieve it from the danger zone.  The reports from the war zone are depressing and disappointing. Attempts to mend fences had continually failed. A good example was the peace meeting called in April by former President Goodluck Jonathan which again failed to achieve the desired result as one the key gladiators –Ali Modu Sherriff – the party’s court certified chairman walked out of the talks. Consequently an important member of the party-Governor Ayodele Fayose chairman PDP Governors Forum vowed never to discuss with Sherriff on the matter again. These are bad enough for a patient on oxygen at the intensive care unit.

    Already there are signs of wide blisters from a freezing cold winter and it promises to be a long nasty season for the party. It has been observed that those that the gods want to punish, they first make mad and there are grounds to wonder if the gods are perpetually angry with the PDP.  It can be said that in democracy, the political parties the voters want to punish, they first make to lose power. Ever since 2015 when Nigerian voters showed the PDP the red  card, the party has never known  peace.  It has been behaving like mad person and jumping from one crisis to another without resolution. Internal strife, leadership crisis and disunity had been its lot.

    When the feuding parties went to court, I thought the end of the crisis was near in sight. Alas, I was wrong.  When judgement was made in favour of Sherriff, some interested party big wigs to the feud refused to accept the court’s judgement. The crisis has thus continued to the detriment of our institutions. For many reasons, many patriots are no longer at ease. How can they feel easy when there is fire in the next house gutting it down?

    I think the court actually offered some windows of opportunity to resolve the party’s crisis. There is the need to respect the judgement, appeal if necessary… But first thing first: the respect for the rule of law is the first principle of representative democracy. This is playing by the rules of the game – rules set before the game- and not during or after the game.  Without respect for laws, we are in the wild jungles where only the fittest survives.

    Not long ago President Trump just after being sworn in as President of the USA issued some orders concerning visits to the U.S. It was challenged in a court and the court made a ruling that was not in favour of the president. Eventually the American President complied even as he seeks other ways to achieve the same goal. The judiciary was strengthened, the American institutions were better off.

    Methinks the PDP should get all parties to the feud to respect the court ruling and use other legal means to redeem the party from its avoidable path to perdition. Men erect and nurture institutions by words and actions. A disdainful attitude to national institutions is not the way to build and strengthen them. Let the Nigerian elite learn to respect our public institutions. It is the best way forward.

    There is nothing wrong with a party losing an election. The greater strength is in its ability to learn and reorganize for the next contest with the hope of winning it. The PDP has found this very hard to do. But this is usually easier for a party with strong ideological foundation. From what we see, it is clear that the People’s Democratic Party lacks a noble and binding ideology beyond the personal greed for power and wealth by some individuals.

    Other than the greed for political power and wealth for selfish reasons, the party had no sound philosophy to bond members together under the rain or in the sun, no party sentiment and discipline to cause attachment and deference to it.  The party’s interest was subjugated to interest of many individual members.  In a word it was a hollow party of many money bags bereft of noble political ideals.

    The negative effect is too obvious to be ignored today.  The PDP is down and in very bad shape and thus it can hardly be counted on as alternate power- party. Yet, the country needs a strong opposition to avoid the baneful effect one party dictatorship. Thus it is in our collective interest that the PDP is saved from crashing. I believe in two party system and a place for strong opposition party. And the PDP initially held that prospect until it went into disarray. Now with very serious internal strife rocking it since its fall from power, it has lost the steam to play well the opposition role.

    The political elite are adept here but we must all do our best to nurture the growing positive culture of two party system. The PDP must be saved from self- destruction in the national interest.

     

    • Dr. Abhuere is of Centre for Child care and Youth Development, Abuja.

  • Asiwaju: Initiator of Greater Lagos @ 65

    Watching proceeding from a comforting position during the 9th Bola Tinubu Colloquium at the Eko Hotel & Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos recently, I could not but admire the assemblage of great people and minds, all out to salute the astuteness and courage of a greater mind, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu at 65.
    I watched accomplished elder statesmen, technocrats, politicians, political office holders, head of parastatals and agencies, governors, senators, company CEOs, LG chairs and grassroots leaders and professors smother to get his attention, so they can wish him many more sagacious years. Politicians came from far and wide; from his ruling party and opposition PDP and all frolics around him to echo their personal birthday wishes. President Muhammadu Buhari aptly captured this mood when, in his delivered message, described the APC national leader as the ‘Asiwaju (Trailblazer) of the universe’.
    Tinubu’s political knowledge and influence transcends boundaries. He is like the proverbial king that sits in his palace, yet knows what goes on home and abroad. He is a national leader, operating at the very height of party system, yet remains close to his roots, and able to direct affairs of local government politics. In-fact, that is where he derives his power-from his people-who, it does not matter where they are coming from, he knows them and they know him.
    It does not matter if he is a governor sitting on top of the country’s novel state, or senator, or local government chairman, or still, a ward leader, Asiwaju easily identifies with each one of them, he acknowledges them by name and understands their constituencies like the back of his palm.
    That is why he has remained head-above-shoulder of other politicians in this clime.
    Like American poet Criss Jami had written, “Great minds think alike because a greater mind is thinking through them.” Asiwaju is the greater mind behind great minds. And, quite many can attest to this.
    Though, difficult to unravel the puzzle called Tinubu, the story of Lagos is the story of Tinubu, and as a ‘Lagos Boy’ and keen follower of ‘Tinubu’s Politics’, I would attempt to paint him through his political path in Lagos.
    How do you know a great leader? Jack Ma, Chinese billionaire and founder of Alibaba Group says, “A leader should be a visionary and have more foresight than an employee.”
    From the moment Tinubu took over the mantle of Lagos State 18 years ago, you’ll know he’s a man of immense vision and he was crystal clear about the future of Lagos. He had projection of a Greater Lagos and came up with a blueprint to arriving there.
    And, like French Emperor said, “In today’s complex and fast moving world, what we need even more than foresight or hindsight is insight,’ Tinubu has mastered the act of foresight, hindsight and insight because they all work to bring out the greatness of man.
    Like Nostradamus, the man that saw the future, he saw clearly the greatness of Lagos, but with hindsight, he discovered the stumbling blocks and that answer lies within and not without-the insight to project greatness from inside. For Lagos to work, he understood that he must make leaders like him and he was not afraid to galvanise ordinary people and transform them into extraordinary minds to facilitate his dream.
    True, many, maybe out of sheer pettiness and selfishness, fell by the way side, he did not stop believing in people, and that is why he remains relevant today.
    In this wise, many have called Tinubu different names, The grand planner, The Builder, The Trailblazer, The Game changer, and The Transformer, but I chose to call him ‘The Initiator’.
    He dared the odd to see the possible rather than the impossible and initiated the Lagos blueprint and ensured that it is followed through. Though, few could see where he was going, he stayed true to his plans and was always talking about it. He saw the stumbling blocks, both small and great, some he even created, and he employed dynamic methods; for some, persuasion, for others, association and at times, force to move them away.
    Like Lee Kuan Yew, the initiator of Modern Singapore and the greatest leader the Southeast Asian country has known, Tinubu is fearless yet respects and has so much love for his people. Yew was once asked if he truly interferes in the private lives of citizens, his answer, “Yes, if I did not, had I not done that, we wouldn’t be here today. And I say without the slightest remorse, that we wouldn’t be here, we would not have made economic progress if we had not intervened on very personal matters-who your neighbour is, how you live, the noise you make, how you spit, or what language you use.”
    Lagos is indeed working and is today the pride of other states in Nigeria. While, many states are grasping with unpaid salaries and unfinished project due to low federal allocation occasioned by economic recession, Lagos is flourishing, building bridges, constructing new roads and paying salaries and allowances of its staff by 25th of the month. It is also creating more jobs and empowering thousands of youths.
    New cities are springing up, new lands and new mega companies. This is the Lagos that Asiwaju Tinubu saw many years ago and worked acidulously to create. I’m bold to say that there is no other state like Lagos in Nigeria today, yet Lagos does not get the biggest federal allocation. Like its initiator, Tinubu, the bridge builder and great leader, Lagos had simply looked within to generate great people, great plans, and great wealth.
    Like all great men, adversary dogs Tinubu’s path like a shadow, even his beneficiaries have turned around to haunt him, but Asiwaju is a man with a large heart. A heart that is even larger than him. He loves to give and give and that has been his staying power and his saving grace. That is the edge that he has maintained over other Nigerian leaders, and what has set him apart and above.
    Asiwaju is a man of many parts: a bridge builder, philanthropist, master strategist, and patriot who in many ways have raised the standard of civilization and human dignity.
    Nigeria owes Tinubu a huge gratitude for his determination, consistency, doggedness, vision and fearless disposition in the strengthening and enthronement of good governance in the country.
    Like South African leader Nelson Mandela, he is a believer of humanity. He is astute in politics, yet soft as a dove, I don’t know how many politicians can exhibit these two traits well like Asiwaju. He is a consummate talker, especially when he has an idea to sell, yet he listens and is always willing to bow for common good.
    He knows when to bare his fangs and when to hold his tongues and when to hold his feet down.
    I wish Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the encyclopaedia of politics, our leader, well, as he celebrates 65 and many more years ahead.

    •Hon. Ajide writes from Lagos.

  • Why the Fayose ‘business’ must be finished

    The governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose may have seen his own government in an apparition that jolted him back to the land of the living where he cried out on the pages of the nation’s newspapers and on the airwaves that Kayode Fayemi is the “bogeyman” to be held responsible should there be a termination of his government – once again – before its four-year tenure. Fayose’s latest jitters came into the fore on account of Fayemi’s response to a question during an interview which was published on Sunday, March 26 edition of This Day newspaper. The Minister of Mines and Steel Development was asked if it was true that he was “itching to come back in next year’s election as governor” and he responded that he owes “it to the party and to Ekiti people to assist in getting to the root of what actually transpired” on the day of the election and that it is “a much more important exercise” for him as it is “still unfinished business.”
    On Saturday, June 21, 2014, a governorship election was held in Ekiti State in which Fayemi was the incumbent seeking re-election. Fayose was his main challenger. What’s now known is that the election that brought Fayose to power violated all the principles, moral and legal codes known to man in conducting an election that the outcome left the bookmakers scratching their heads. The pundits also were shame-faced not because an incumbent could not lose an election in a democracy, but because the electoral exercise was deemed a no brainer on the strength of the incumbent’s unprecedented performance during his first term. What is more, the challenge to Fayemi’s re-election was also thought to be a non-starter because of the challenger’s chequered past that left crimes and misdemeanour, brutality and mayhem in its wake that the state is yet to recover from, not to talk of an apparent impeachment that should have excluded him from running in the first place. But when the nation’s umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) blew the whistle, Fayose was declared the winner having won all the 16 Local Government Areas in the state.
    For the rest of the nation and Ekiti people, the election was too good to be true. People became quite dazed and dumbfounded. They saw smokes everywhere but they did not see any fire, let alone a smoking gun anywhere. Since there was no fire, the victor could not be accused of anything that would have made his victory nugatory – ab initio. Fayemi too knew, intuitively, that he did not lose the election. But he had to accept the outcome since the umpire had declared a winner. More importantly, he had to accept the outcome because he believes that peace must reign supreme in any society at all times which he alluded to in his concession speech. It was also because he knew that something was not quite right about that election that he, also instinctively, declared in the same speech that “a new sociology of the Ekiti people may have evolved” in which the understanding of this new sociology “will be that of scholars” to handle.
    About a year after Fayemi left office and had moved on, Nigerians in general and Ekiti people in particular – through sordid revelations – became witnesses to history that the election that brought Fayose to power had been brutally ‘murdered’ by the Jonathan administration. It was such a grisly ‘murder’ that its crudely decapitated body parts were found in unlikely places from the inner recesses of the nation’s security forces to the closets of some highly placed public and private individuals in the polity. It was a patently illegal, morally reprehensible, ethically repugnant and crudely executed election in recent memory that its ‘ghost’ refused to go away to find eternal resting place.
    In a saner clime, all the state security outfits that were involved in this sordid affair that has since become known as “Ekitigate” would have been thoroughly embarrassed that it would have warranted major sanitization of the security forces coupled with the prosecution of those involved. It should be noted here, however, that only the military actually saw the need to salvage its sullied image by probing what happened in Ekiti. It set up a military panel headed by Major General Adeniyi Oyebade, GOC 1st Division in Kaduna which indicted many military officers and ordered the immediate retirement of Brigadier General Momoh whilst the rest of the indicted officers and men were cashiered and demoted. The Supreme Court would have felt that it had also been deliberately embarrassed, misled and deceived that it would have called – on its own volition – for a retrial of “Ekitigate.” What is more, the people themselves would have felt so aggrieved that their suffrage had been irredeemably violated that the actions they took (by way of sustained protests and several class action litigations) would have long collapsed Fayose’s government by now. But he continues to ride roughshod on them with reckless impunity.
    It’s also important to point to Fayose’s election saga as a classic illustration that the Nigerian polity will remain hobbled in its developmental trajectory so long as impunity continues to be the new normal to be tolerated. That Fayemi said in his interview that he owes “it to the party and to Ekiti people to assist in getting to the root of what actually transpired” on that day should also be seen as a lone voice crying out that a society that cannot identify its core values, let alone act in unison whenever anyone of these values are egregiously violated with wanton disregard by anyone of its members can never aspire to any modicum of modernity. The state’s socio-economic and political castration already playing out before the people’s eyes by Fayose because they continue to tolerate his impunity should be a cause for concern for Ekiti. After all, a people that takes pride in possessing the highest knowledge per capita – which have rightly earned their state the moniker as the “Fountain of Knowledge” in the Nigerian society – presupposes that they should also have the finest moral values and ethical standards that others should be falling over themselves to emulate. It is befuddling that some people are still trying to make a case for a governor – again of a state with the highest educated elites per capita – whose understanding of human development indices is what he calls “stomach infrastructure.” His claim of his love for his people was not based on the power of his ideas to transform them into the next level of prosperity and growth, but rather his frequent forays into the streets of Ekiti to scavenge for foods and unwholesome drinks at decrepit places as a demonstration of his love for them. Governance does not get any more pathetic than this.
    Fayemi’s standing up for what he believes in accordance with his moral values may well be the reason for his insistence that there should be a judicial review of how Fayose came into power. That he said Fayose remains an “unfinished business” may well be a clarion call to his people that they need not remain perpetually lethargic to those socio-political and economic conditions that affects their existence and wellbeing with this “Oh! Well” disposition that is diametrically opposed to those values that have defined them for ages. He may be saying in that interview that a people can only advance into greatness if the people are courageous enough to confront their demons which Fayose embodies. If Fayemi had decided that Fayose’s patently illegal usurpation of power must not go unchallenged even if it means that he is the only one left standing to be counted for the sake of posterity – in what has now proven to be a rape of the state and its people – all that the rest of us who are not as courageous can do is to wait with bated breaths and let the chips fall where they may.

    •Odere is a media practitioner. He can be reached at femiodere@gmail.com

  • ‘Ali Baba and the 40 thieves!’

    We are not about the win the war against corruption and official brigandage in Nigeria. Not with the theatrics in the hallowed chambers of the Senate and veiled attack on the President to abandon charges against prominent politicians and principal officers of the House facing corruption charges. Our senators approach issues of state like buccaneers and gangsters trying to conquer territory and loot every valuable along their path. They employ political brinkmanship of intimidation and cajoling of the Federal Executive Council giving the impression of preserving the sanctity of the separation of power. They ignore the sublime and serious issues of governance chasing shadows.
    Just the same way the some members of the Federal Executive Council carry on as if they are special breeds from the outer space. The face-off between Senate of the Federal Republic and the contumacious, self opinionated, cocky and arrogant imperial Comptroller General of Customs, Hammed Ali is in bad taste. No doubt, it was a gross failure and incompetence to attempt to collect duties from vehicles already in the country whether smuggled in through the porous borders usually by men of the Nigerian Customs. It was a good dinner when Ali appeared in the hallowed chambers without uniform of the Nigerian Customs Service.
    The Senate has found the Achilles heel of the APC-led government and is not allowing the opportunity to be frittered away. It has decided to swoop on the President’s men; rejecting the confirmation of the acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission, inviting Professor Itse Sagay to appear before it for the comment he made about the Senate and of course the call for the investigation and removal of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation. All these are under current for the inflexible attitude towards the travails of some principal officers of the Senate their cahoots undergoing either investigation or trial of alleged criminal infractions.
    The antecedent President Muhammadu Buhari is very well known to be brash to the finesse of the rule of law and unorthodox. He is not in the mould of a typical politician; almost naive on brinkmanship hence he has almost lost measured control of the National Assembly even though his party is in the majority. Beside the campaign against the insurgents in the North-east, the APC-led government lacks rhythm as the nation is on dire straits. For the senators, I am not sure that wearing uniform should be fundamental as they can always make law to stop non-career person from being made a Comptroller General. Hammed Ali is a political appointee and to compel him to wear uniform is balderdash and comparing him with the former boss of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Major General Haladu Hananiya who wore the FRSC uniform is misplaced. To engage in a duel with the custom boss on issue of uniform over a more serious issue is to suffer from acute complex of pedestrian nature.
    Sincerely, there are only few senators in the 8th Senate that carry themselves with the dignity of that office to earn respect from members of the public. Respect is earned not by the office but by character of the person who occupies the office. As the fight is getting dirtier, it is obvious that the APC is at war with itself and everything points to the fact that the party is on life-support as they calibrate towards 2019.
    If we think that Nigeria can be changed without anybody being hurt and without taking some extreme measures it will be a huge joke and we will continue to be in the jungle. The 8th Senate appears to be of the worst grade in our democratic history, lacking in principle and organisational discipline. For their personal ambition, they pull the carpet off their party in the election of Principal Officers of the National Assembly. They gravitate from there to fight over committees and purchase of expensive vehicles for their use rather than face the business of making good laws for the country. Next was to make laws to remove the prosecutorial power of the EFCC and whittle the power of the Code of Conduct Tribunal because the leadership of the Senate are facing either trial or investigation by these government departments and about half of the members fear that they have one issue or the other to hide. When Honourable Abdulmumin Jibrin fingered the National Assembly for budget padding, they suspended him. Next was the turn of Senator Ali Ndume who raised alarm over imported bullet proof vehicles for senators and academic record and credentials of one of its members who has turned the hallowed chambers into theatre of the absurd.
    What a Senate! Is this the National Assembly that can take Nigeria on the part of growth and development? My worry is that public affairs analysts, commentators, Civil Society Organisations and NGOs have not found it necessary to intervene and take the National Assembly to task over the state of the nation which appear not to matter to them. No individual or groups have demonstrated the capacity to mobilize for a peaceful protest over the failure of the government and its institutions to improve on the lots of the people. We seem content to watch the histrionics of the jesters and clowns in Ali Baba and the 40 thieves which our state has become.

    •Kebonkwu Esq is an Abuja-based attorney.

  • Whistle-blower or atonement

    Whistle-blower or atonement

    Nigeria, most times, spins like a Nollywood movie, which by the way has given Hollywood and Bollywood a run for talent and entertainment. Thanks to some corporate organisations, which have expended resources, to promote the entertainment industry, particularly Glo, Nigerian entertainers, of all genres, are having great business times giving Nigerians swell time especially at this Easter period. Beyond these professional entertainers, the Nigerian bandit-elites, now and then, spring their theatre of absurdities for public consumption.
    One of such new absurdity has sprung from the new whistle-blowers policy of the federal government. From the trends, Nigerians are getting entertained by the drama accompanying the bursts of what I will call unlicensed Dungeon Banks and they are yearning for more. Being an open theatre, the poor and the rich are all welcomed. Now, with the so-called middle class completely wiped out by poverty and hunger roaming the land like hungry lions, the comedy of absurdities that the corruption war is spurning gives people something to look forward to.
    Apart from the salacious crisp, dollar, pound sterling, Euro and the weather-beaten Naira that are splashed every now and then on the front covers of the newspapers and in the television, there are the YouTube videos and other social media versions of the humongous hauls by the irrepressible EFCC. At least, with the economy still doddering, the budding practice of whistle-blower may soon gain some full time practitioners, with complementary card, office address and professional association to show for it.
    With so many looters of the immediate past era looking for the most unlikely places to hide their loot, and with the federal government promising a handsome reward for any whistle-blower, a new business is born. And this one is easier than the traditional debt recovery for which the banks also pay 5% or thereabout. For a bank recovery agent, or those working for AMCON, for instance, the recovery process is tedious as the agent is paid based on what he/she is able to recover unlike a whistle-blower whose only job is to discover a looter and squeal on his/her Dungeon Bank.
    So, I guess that it may be wise now for any person interested in gaining some extra income to occasionally wake-up at night, and look around the neighbourhood with the hope of catching some suspicious neighbour moving suspicious bags in and out of his/her premises at ungodly hours. If the expected should happen, such person must quickly call any of the hot numbers earmarked for reporting, those who have looted our common treasury to be in business.
    Last Holy Thursday, with no light at the Ikeja High Court premises, the potentials of the new business became a hot topic among lawyers in one of the courts while we waited for the lights to come. Some of our colleagues who have good knowledge of mathematics quickly came up with what the whistle-blower of the sums allegedly recovered from Flat 7B, No 16 Osborne Road, Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos, would get. The humongous sums reportedly recovered were $43,449,947, £27,800 and N23,218,000, respectively. According to the emergency mathematician, the whistle-blower, is most likely on his/her way out of the biting recession.
    But the recovery drama must be confounding even to the worst of the rogue nations. After last week’s haul, EFCC through her lawyer approached the courts for an order of interim forfeiture in favour of the federal government. In the affidavit filed before the court, the commission stated that: “no one had approached the commission to claim the said money with reasonable evidence confirming the genuineness of the origin of the money that we are seeking to forfeit in the interim.” Imagine such a humongous sum of money without a genuine owner, at least as at the time the commission filed her papers before the court.
    The same last Thursday, in the theatre of absurdities that the bandit-elite regale the people of Nigeria with, the Ali Modu Sheriff faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), through Dr. Cairo Ojougboh, made startling revelation that should qualify him as a variant of a whistle-blower. According to Ojougboh, Governor Nyesom Wike, among other grave expenses, allegedly disbursed the whopping sum of $5 million to unknown persons in relation with their case against the Makarfi’s faction of the PDP, now at the Supreme Court.
    I am sure some enterprising members of the emerging whistle-blowers’ association will already be sniffing around to locate the dungeon where the money is warehoused with the fee to be paid in mind. Obviously, the two factions of the PDP that helped to bring our country to its knees are getting even more desperate by each passing day and that is very dangerous. In this period of Easter, I suggest a form of an atonement committee to unburden the country and it’s bandit-elite.
    With plea bargain already in place, through the new Administration of Criminal Justice Act, the federal government should under it, set up such a committee so that the repentant and willing looters can go there to negotiate to pin-point their Dungeon Banks, and save themselves the embarrassment from whistle-blowers. With so much money being abandoned like Boko Haram bombs, at the airports, in flats and other unimaginable places, a window of opportunity to negotiate and confess may not be a bad idea.
    While we are all being greatly entertained, by the bursting of the Dungeon Banks operated by the Nigeria bandit-elite, the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, including the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, must realise the limitations of our criminal justice laws. The burden of proving that the monies recovered are stolen or are proceeds of crime lies with the prosecution. A burden the prosecution must discharge beyond all reasonable doubt.
    In my view, the whole gamut of our criminal justice laws needs to be reviewed. If the technology of the West, is increasingly proving too expensive for us, and we are going to the East, to gain cheaper and more adaptable technology considering our state of development, should we not also borrow their more efficient criminal laws in dealing with corruption? Let’s face the facts, corruption is aggravated by underdevelopment, and if we can’t get indigenous tropical medicine, we should seek Asian alternative, as the Western medicine has failed woefully.
    In the meantime, let us enjoy the drama from the whistle-blowers’ policy. The least we can gain is the shame that goes with the exposure not to talk about the hypertension associated with seeking the safest dungeon to hide the loot. My advice: any politically exposed person who has amassed unconscionable wealth should better confess and atone, or in the least, share the loot with other family members. For very soon, brothers will rise against brothers as whistle-blowers become the burgeoning businessmen in town.

  • Edo tribunal and PDP’s tragic drama

    The Edo State Election Petition Tribunal examining the 2016 governorship election has justifiably and rightly terminated the spurious drama that was being staged by the PDP in the past few months. The temple of justice gave infallible legal affirmation to the incorruptible political aspiration of Edo people as overwhelmingly expressed in the choice of Governor Obaseki in the historic September 28, 2016 election. The dignified lordships of the tribunal upheld the unchangeable conclusion of INEC that the APC transparently and freely earned a total of 319,483 votes as against the PDP’s 253,173 votes. The gap of nearly 70,000 votes was perceived as an insurmountable lead that the PDP could not possibly overcome to obtain anything significant from the tribunal.
    Indeed a considerable number of respectable election observers, scores of non-partisan political leaders and civic organizations had described the exercise as a paradigm of peoples democracy in action. Additionally, authoritative legal sources had postulated that the petitioner would be miserably deficit in meeting the necessary capacity to overturn an election based on the free and fair nature of the exercise. It was thought that the PDP governorship candidate, Ize-Iyamu, and the party’s factional chairman Dan Orbih would be cognizant and respectful of the freely and legitimately expressed aspiration of Edo voters-that the PDP leaders would consequently display rudimentary sense of civic courtesy and a modicum of altruistic patriotism and therefore resist the vain seduction of political drama at the election tribunal.
    Unfortunately, there’s a sickening strain of the PDP that could not awake itself from the destination of political delusion to accept the reality of the outright rejection of the party during the governorship election. The verdict of the Election Petition Tribunal on a ‘Good Friday’, April 14, morally and formidably validates the selfless concerns of those who predicted that the party’s petition would be dismissed for patently lacking merit. All through the proceedings, the PDP could hardly substantiate any remarkable instance of corrupt practices, situations of non-compliance with the electoral law or wilful manipulation of the exercise. The judges rightly held that Governor Obaseki was the unquestionable winner of the highest votes in the election and was duly and legitimately declared winner by INEC.
    While the option of going to the tribunal is perfectly within the constitutional right of the candidate, it is expected that any worthy petition will be based on genuine grievances to be supported with credible evidence at proceedings. Very shamefully, that was not the case in the Ize-Iyamu/Dan Orbih’s current instance. The PDP hardly won any of the major pleas that it presented to the tribunal because of crying deficit of evidence. For example, in the allegation of over- voting by the PDP, the tribunal remarked that the legal representatives of the party blew ‘’hot air with no value in their argument’’. After all, the worthiness of such allegations before a tribunal can only be tested in the crucible of evidentiary facts. The PDP tale woefully failed such tests in many significant instances during the proceedings of the election tribunal.
    But could the PDP have performed differently and successfully before the tribunal? It couldn’t have. The real purpose of the PDP leaders in going to the court seems to be embedded in the intention of making the party members believe that their mandate was stolen. The duo of Ize-Iyamu and Dan Orbih needed to conceal the fact that almost all the so-called giants and ‘irokos’ of the party lost their units and wards during the contest. They would not want their supporters to remember that very pointedly and prominently in this gallery of failures, that Dan Orbih lost his ward in Etsako Central Local Government Area as he has always in most elections. For the petitioner, going to the tribunal was therefore envisaged as the theatre to write new songs and fresh homily for the extension of the funeral ceremony of a dead party, but there can be no redemption for a decadent beast that never had a soul.
    Edo people and voters knew for a fact that there was no mathematical possibility or political plausibility for a PDP victory at the tribunal in the face of the stark reality of an unquestionable Obaseki’s landslide victory. While miracles and magic could constitute spectacular moments of exhilarating euphoria, there should equally exist measures of sobriety to ones fantasies. What the PDP leadership was seeking from the election tribunal was clearly in the realm of the hallucinatory. It was with such sane reasoning and awareness that the citizenry refused, resisted and rejected the surreptitious campaign to create ruckus and disorder on the streets of Benin in demonstration of support for Ize Iyamu’s concocted legal battle. Rather than join in a misdirected political action, the Edo voters who delivered the APC massive victory and a considerable portion of converted PDP supporters were more interested in taking their seats on the rapidly travelling train of progress that Obaseki’s government had engineered.
    Eternal vigilance must continue to be the price of the people’s liberty –Edo people at home and the Diaspora must not be submerged in the dungeon of amnesia being constructed by the PDP. Beyond all the gyrating sounds and threatening fury of the PDP, we must never forget that the party lost 13 local governments out of the 18 in the state during the governorship contest. The point must remain indelible that the APC governorship candidate had remarkable outcomes in all the 192 wards across the three senatorial zones of the state while the PDP failed to emerge as a state-wide party beyond some its electoral enclaves. It is no surprise therefore to watch a progressive leap in the sociology of solidarity for Governor Obaseki during months of the tribunal proceedings. Edo voters and people were anxious to see the end of the diversionary but precarious picnic of the PDP-and that end has come.
    There was nil to zero chance of the tribunal nullifying any portion of such a well and transparently conducted election or to gratuitously grant any of the nefarious supplications of the petitioner. Edo people and voters have been very patient; the day of judgment has come. It is hoped that the PDP leaders would have learnt a profound lesson that those who seek equity must come to the temple of justice and the jury of the people with clean hands. The era of electoral impunity is over.

    •Adams, a Political commentator, writes from Benin City, Edo State.

  • War games

    President Donald Trump apparently can’t wait to show the United States as a no-nonsense military power always in ready-to-strike mode. This is an obvious retreat from the tag-teaming and hesitant approach of his predecessor, President Barak Obama, which he considers to have robbed America of some of its historical military dread. But Mr. Trump is dangerously hazy about his policy objectives and alliances in global affairs, and could just be on an indiscriminate mission to ‘make America great again’ militarily.
    On Thursday, last week, American forces dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used in combat on a network of tunnels in eastern Afghanistan suspected to harbour Islamic State (ISIS) fighters. U.S. war planes staged a unilateral mission to drop the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb, nicknamed “mother of all bombs” and carrying 11 tonnes of explosives, in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, leaving some 36 ISIS militants dead.
    The civilised world can really do with far many more casualties of those brutal terrorists if they would not repent. But the challenge of ISIS terrorism is a long-standing global scourge that until now involved the international community in concerted action against the group, and the reason for America’s decision to go solo last week remains unspecified by Washington. Mr. Trump cited the strike as redirecting America from its recent history, though. “Another successful job. We’re very, very proud of our military,” he told reporters at the White House. He did not answer directly when a journalist asked if he specifically authorized the use of the massive bomb. “Everybody knows exactly what happened. We have the greatest military in the world…We have given them total authorization…If you look at what’s happened over the last eight weeks and compare that with what’s happened over the last eight years, you’ll see there’s a tremendous difference. Tremendous difference,” he said.
    President Trump was obviously alluding to other military exploits lately staged by his administration. Two Fridays ago, the United States fired dozens of cruise missiles at Syria’s Shayrat air base, near Homs, from which it suspected the regime of Bashar al-Assad launched a deadly chemical weapons attack that killed more than 70 people earlier in the week. On the heels of that action, Trump had said the U.S. strike with some 60 Tomahawk missiles “represented the world.”
    It was America’s first direct intervention in the six-year Syrian war. But Washington insisted the country wasn’t about to dump the policy of indirect involvement, and that the attack was intended to “send a message” to the Assad regime. The Shayrat attack invariably escalated U.S. role in Syria, however, and drew the country into a collision course with Russia. A joint command centre comprising the forces of Russia, Iran and militias supporting al-Assad said the U.S. action crossed red lines. “What America waged in its aggression on Syria is a crossing of red lines. From now on, we will respond with force to any aggressor or any breach of red lines from whoever it is, and America knows our ability to respond well,” the group said in a statement following the U.S. attack.
    The irony of a possible U.S.-Russia military confrontation over Syria is that Russia is strongly suspected to have meddled in the 2016 American presidential election to help Mr. Trump into office against Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton. Indications of Russia’s meddlesomeness are currently being probed by the U.S. Congress, with hints of dire consequences for Trump if proven true. Against the historical bi-polar balance of world power, the nature of the Trump administration’s relationship with Putin’s Russia is widely viewed as an uncharted terrain that the world must watch out for how it unfolds. Earlier, both leaders made clear that they looked forward to much warmer ties than was the case under the former Obama administration.  Syria, as it now seems, could just feed those prospects to the fire.
    And the Trump administration’s interest isn’t limited to the Middle East, it is also exerting its might on the Korean Peninsula. Washington has deployed war vessels to dissuade the rouge North Korean regime from its threatened nuclear test, and American forces were as at the weekend poised to launch a preemptive strike should the mercurial Kim Jong-un show real intention of following through with his plan. Pyongyang, for its part, rebuffed the U.S. threat and said it would not be cowed. The power show touched some nerves in China, which is the only country that has relations with North Korea. Barely a week after President Trump received Chinese President Xi Jinping on a state visit to the U.S., China warned on Friday that “conflict could break out at any moment” over North Korea.
    The message by Trump’s Washington seems to be that America remains a military power, and one that could act without the traditional alliances and coalitions. It remains to be seen how far the country could go it alone.
    Jega, three other Nigerians in world club
    Former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega, and three other eminent Nigerians have just been named to the membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The other three are iconic writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, eminent scholar Professor Akin Mabogunje and Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) President Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede. They are among 228 members newly elected to the 237th class of the academy.
    The former INEC chair was elected to the Public Affairs and Policy section of the revered body, Mabogunje of the University of Ibadan to the History section, and Chimamanda Adichie as Honorary Member in Fiction, Poetry, Short Stories, Non-Fiction, Playwriting, Screenwriting and Translation. It is a new feather in the studded cap of Chimamanda, who was in March elected into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
    An announcement by the academy cited the four Nigerians in the 2017 membership class that includes winners of the Pulitzer Prize and Wolf Prize, MacArthur Fellows, Fields Medalists, Presidential Medal of Freedom and National Medal of Arts recipients, as well as Academy Award, Grammy Award, Emmy Award and Tony Award winners. The new class will be inducted at a ceremony in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 7.
    Professor Jega’s election to the academy, which was founded in 1780, reinforces the positive perception of the international community of Nigerian elections over which he presided from 2010 to 2015. I had the good fortune of working with him during those years, and do not doubt that this is just one more of the many honours yet coming his way.

  • Nigeria’s ERGP and China’s Vision 2020

    The Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) articulates our vision for the country for the period 2017-2020, and lays the foundation for long-term growth,” writes President Muhammadu Buhari in his foreword to the ERGP. “Tough times require bold actions,” Minister of Budget and National Planning Senator Udoma Udo Udoma further explains in his preface to the ERGP, “It sets out the tough choices we have to make as a nation over the next four years (2017-2020) and provides a clear road map of strategic policy actions and enablers required to revive the economy and place it on a path of sustainable growth and development.”
    According to the executive summary of the ERGP, “Focused implementation is at the core of the delivery strategy of the plan over the next four years. More than ever before, there is a strong political determination, commitment and will at the highest level.” And this crucial point was reaffirmed by President Buhari himself while formally launching the ERGP in the State House, “I want to assure all Nigerians that we are approaching the solution to our economic challenges with the same will and commitment, we have demonstrated in the fight against corruption and in the fight against terrorism and militancy.”
    As a proved reliable development partner of this country, China will always stand shoulder to shoulder with Nigeria in its request to fulfill the aspirations of its people. We see more mutual opportunities and greater partnership for win-win cooperation as far as the implementation of the ERGP is concerned. We are optimistic that by 2020 Nigeria will have made significant progress towards achieving structural economic change and having a more diversified and inclusive economy.
    Coincidentally, China also has its Vision 2020, the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020). Five-Year Plans play a navigating role in ensuring the huge Chinese vessel sails to the expected destination. China’s first Five-Year Plan was implemented in 1953. With the plans, China’s economy has maintained an annual growth of over 9% on average for almost four decades since the start of China’s reform and opening-up policy in the late 1970s. China has set 2020 as the target year to realize the first “centenary goal” of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, pledging efforts to double GDP and per capita personal income from the 2010 level before the Communist Party of China’s 100th anniversary of founding in 2021. To this end, the 13th Five-Year plan aims to keep medium-high growth in the targeted five years. By 2020, the size of China’s economy is expected to exceed 90 trillion yuan (13.8 trillion U.S. dollars), compared with 67.7 trillion yuan in 2015.
    Embodying the ruling Communist Party of China’s (CPC) new concepts with innovation foremost in strategies for a balanced, coordinated and sustainable growth pattern, the 13th Five-Year Plan is the first Five-Year Plan drafted under the current Chinese leadership, and also the first since China’s economy entered what policymakers refer to as the “new normal,” a phase of moderating growth based more on consumption than the previous mainstay of exports. The roadmap outlines the policy framework, priorities and clear economic and social goals, serving as a fundamental guide to China’s development in the five years 2016-2020.
    One key feature of China’s realization of its 13th Five-Year Plan is that China firmly keeps its door wide open to the world. Since late 1970s, China has attracted over $1.7 trillion of foreign direct investment (FDI) and made over $1.2 trillion of outbound direct investment (ODI). In 2016, China’s economy expanded at an annual rate of 6.7% and contributed 33.2% of global growth. China has not only benefited from economic globalization but also contributed to it. China’s development is an opportunity for the world. Next month in Beijing, China will host the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, which aims to discuss ways to boost cooperation, build cooperation platforms and share cooperation outcomes. We open our arms to the people of other countries and welcome them aboard the express train of China’s development.
    For 2016 alone, China made $170.1 billion outbound direct investment (ODI) and Chinese tourists made over 120 million overseas visits. Africa is among the main destinations of China’s investment and tourists. In the next four years, China is expected to import $6.4 trillion of goods, attract $480 billion of foreign investment, make $600 billion of outbound investment, and Chinese tourists will make 560 million overseas visits. All these will create a bigger market, more capital, more products and more business opportunities for other countries including Nigeria.
    Take industrialization, which is one of the top five execution priorities of the ERGP. Overall, the ERGP estimates an average annual growth of 8.5% in manufacturing. As the world’s largest manufacturing country and second largest economy, China sincerely hopes to share its experience with Nigeria and stands ready to provide capital, technology and personnel in support of Nigeria’s industrialization. Since China is advancing its supply-side structural reform, there is a growing need for China to relocate its overcapacity externally, while Nigeria is endeavoring to build a productive economy. This is an unprecedented opportunity for China and Nigeria to synergize their development strategies and make Nigeria’s long-cherished diversification and industrialization dream come true.
    The “Made-in-Nigeria” project will go a long way for Nigeria and an initiative of “Made-in-Nigeria with China” might be of some help. China supports the relocation of labour-intensive industries to Nigeria on a priority basis and the localization of Chinese companies to create more non-agricultural jobs, especially those suited to the young people. The cooperation based on such complementarity and mutual benefit will give an even stronger boost to the realization of China’s 13th Five-Year Plan and Nigeria’s ERGP.
    As a matter of fact, during President Buhari’s highly successful state visit to China in April last year, China and Nigeria signed a MOU on industry, production capacity and investment cooperation and a forum for this purpose was held in Beijing. Last month, the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment and the Chinese Embassy in Nigeria co-hosted the Nigeria-China Forum on Production Capacity and Investment Cooperation in Lekki Free Zone Lagos. We Chinese often say to build the nest to attract phoenixes. One of the targets of ERGP is to achieve a top 100 ranking in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index by 2020 up from the current ranking of 169. China is willing to assist Nigeria in creating a more enabling business environment by strengthening policy coordination, technological standardization cooperation and even wider participation in infrastructural development in Nigeria.
    China highly values its relations with Nigeria. During his visit to Nigeria in January this year, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Nigerian Foreign Minister, Geoffrey Onyeama signed the Joint Statement by The Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and The Government of the People’s Republic of China, in which the Nigerian Government reaffirms that the one China policy is at the core of its Strategic Partnership with China and reiterates not to have any official relations or engage in any official contacts with Taiwan which is an inalienable part of China’s territory, the Chinese government appreciates the above position and the recent measures taken accordingly by the Nigeria government and reaffirms its commitment to actively developing China-Nigeria Strategic Partnership across the board.
    With remarkably strengthened mutual trust, a solid political foundation has been laid for bilateral cooperation between China and Nigeria. The ERGP undoubtedly opens a new window of opportunity for China and Nigeria to progress together through win-win cooperation for common development.

    •Dr. Pingjian is Ambassador of China to Nigeria.