The Nation Newspaper

Category: Comments

  • Between David Mark and David Cameron

    The resentment of the Nigerian political class is easily provoked whenever comparisms are drawn between the standards of political behaviours prevalent here and the integrity quotient that charaterise actions of state actors in other developed climes. Anyone who attempts such comparisms is denounced as a nihilist and immediately admonished to face reality by appreciating that the socio-economic and cultural conditions obtainable in Nigeria are radically different from what obtains in those other places. Needless to say that what follows is the usual but boring refrain that “democracy as a political culture has been in operation and nutured for over 200 years in those jurisdictions sought to be compared with ours.”

    Such pedestrian rebuttal of factual claims further underscores the need to thoroughly interrogate these divergent standards. Curiously however, none of the foregoing vituperations has effectively dislodged the desire and inner quest for appropriate national code of behaviour  expected from the average Nigerian politician. Indeed, it is the adherence to such irreduceable minimum standards that can secure the kind of future that we all desire regardless of the wilful pretentions of present political actors whose actions continue to undermine the foundation of such standards. We have been inundated by the spate of defections from one political party to another depending on where the pendulum of power swings. It happens in our clime and in circumstances that erode all constitutional justifications for such carpet crossing as well as the moral limits for such actions. Yet, the corresponding culture of voluntary resignation by state actors who imputed with poor performances or incompetence has been in very short supply or completely absent in our society.

    Recently, precisely on September 12, David Cameron, former Prime Minister of Great Britain resigned as a member of the British parliament formally terminating his representation for Witney, Oxfordshire. The official reason given was that his continued stay as a backbencher after his tenure as Prime Minister from 2010 to 2016 will constitute a serious distraction for Theresa May the new Prime Minister. He however pledged his unalloyed support for the new Prime Minister and her cabinet. This is an elevated test of integrity and honour in a public space, a moral high ground and sound judgment of a conscientious public servant driven by the patriotic desire to secure the future of his country above selfish ends. To be sure, David Cameron made avoidable mistakes in the trajectory of his political careers which combined to torpedo his politics largely described in Britain as a fiasco for two unfortunate reasons: First and unlike his predecessors, Gordon Brown and John Major who left office after losing elections they could not avoid, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair were forced out of office after staying too long, but it was David Cameron himself who called for a referendum on Britain’s continued stay in the European Union at a time when he lacked both popular appeal and party support plus cohesion to successfully push through his agenda.

    On July 6,  less than a forthnight after that resounding BREXIT defeat, Cameron allowed the Sir John Chilcot Panel of Inquire on Iraq to release their 2.6million- word-report which established that about 179 Britons were avoidably killed in that misadventure in which Tony Blair (even though of a different political party) was directly indicted.  It was an inquiry that was instituted seven years earlier costing British tax payers about £10m to produce. Certainly, the timing of the release of that report coinciding with the damning verdict of Brexit combined to force a terrible dwindle of Cameron’s political fortunes and reversed most of his accomplishments. Regrettable as it is, no one, who chooses to be charitable to him, can easily discountenance the hugh moral integrity and honour with which he haddled his last two public actions.

    First, the verdict of “BREXIT Referendum” was given on June 24, and the next morning, Cameron indicated that he would resign his position as the Prime Minister sometime in November on the ground that he had lost the moral platform to continue to lead Great Britain in that capacity. The point being that he could no longer exact his leadership authority over a people who rejected his view about the future of Britain in the European Union. To further validate that conviction, he threw in the towel much earlier than he had announced before the general election  to pave the way for a new leadership that could pilot the affairs of Britain out of the EU. The second surprise, also in pursuit of honour was on September 12 when he decided to quit his positions as a Member of Parliament (MP) for the morally valid reason that his continued stay as a back bender in the British parliament will constitute a serious distraction to the new leadership after his tenure as a Prime Minister.

    For the purpose of this piece, our attention is also drawn to our own “David Mark” generally representing the Nigeria political elite. His political journey started about 17 years ago following the return of civil rule in Nigeria. Prior to 1999, Mark had a remarkable military career that spanned over three decades terminating in the mid 90s when he retired from the Nigerian military as a Brigadier General. From January 1984 to January 1986, he was military Governor of Niger State. In 1987, our own David was the minister of communications under the dictatorial regime of General Babangida and ended up with the infamous statement that telephone lines are not meant for the poor. For four years between May 1999 and May 2003, he was a Senator representing Benue South Senatorial Zone and for another eight years between June 6, 2007 and June 2015, he presided over the Nigerian Red chambers as the Senate President and chairman of the National Assembly. The enviable credentials of a military background and qualifications are added advantages in the rating of any person who transmuted from soldiering to public services including politics.  That is however in societies where the contribution of the military is sterling and not otherwise like in Nigeria where their violent incursion into the body polity has been identified as the provenance of our national woe.

    As a fact, Mark like his colleagues was an entrenched member of the military class that stoutly and violently opposed the principles and practices of democracy in our country hence I was never deluded when he touted democracy and its values from the hallowed chambers of the Parliament.

    Needless to say that the 68-year old Idoma-born politician is generally described within the circle of his military peers and collaborators as “a master of the game on the political chessboard.” Leveraging on his military background and now his long stay in the parliament, they insist that David Mark (GCON) has aptly mastered the art of blending military strategy with political detfness. Recall that since the return of civil rule in 1999, no single Senate President successfully side stepped the proverbal “banner pill” which consumed all his predecessors including Senators Evan(s) Enwerem, Okadigbo Adolphin Wabara, except Puis Anyim. It was only in 2015 that his “assured stay” in the Senate was jolted by the close political pursuit he received from his opponent Daniel Onojah which saw him out of the Red chambers for only three months. But the old man will not step aside like his name sake David Cameron. On the contrary, he is presently doing everything politically possible to retain his senatorial seat after the re-run elections. Even at 49, David Cameron realized that the only way to retain his integrity is to toe the line of honour by stepping aside both as Prime Minister and a member of the British parliament. Our own David at 68 is vehemently opposed to those ideals as he gladly relinquished his Olympian presidential seat into oblivion where he makes not comment or contribution. In fact, he had to walk away from the Senate when the controversies surrounding Saraki’s emergence ensued. Today, the only campaign known to me for which David Mark is active is how and why PDP must reclaim political power in 2019.

    • Ugwummadu is President, Committee for the Defence of Human Rights.

  • Trump vs Clinton: Preparing for debate differently

    As the highly-anticipated debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump approaches, the two rivals are preparing in starkly contrasting ways.

    The Clinton camp has taken a more traditional approach to going after Mr Trump in an attempt to prove his unfitness to serve as president. The New York businessman has done relatively little preparation in the sense of debate practice, and has instead looked for any possible vulnerabilities of Ms Clinton’s based on previous debate performances.

    Ms Clinton has taken some time off this week to prepare for the debate, making only two campaign stops in battleground states Pennsylvania and Florida.

    Ms Clinton faces the particular challenge of preparing for Mr Trump’s dueling personalities: the loudmouth who derailed the Republican primaries with his interruptions and insults, and the one who is considered more presidential by simply sticking to the teleprompter.

    “Maybe he will try to be presidential and try to convey a gravity that he hasn’t done before or maybe he will come in and try to insult and try to score some points,” the former Secretary of State said at an August fundraiser.

    The Clinton campaign has been tight-lipped about their choice to portray Mr Trump in debate practices, but it is their hope to keep the Democratic nominee on the offensive as the former reality television star will likely try to put her on defence.

    It is the campaign’s hope that Ms Clinton can knock Mr Trump off balance and get under his skin, challenging his worth and pouncing on him when he tells a lie.

    Barack Obama, who has been aggressively campaigning for Ms Clinton over the past week, had simple advice for the upcoming debate. He encouraged her to be herself in an interview on Good Morning America.

    “She’s in this for the right reasons,” he said.

    Donald Trump has considerably less experience than Ms Clinton on the debate stage against a single opponent. He triumphed through the fall and spring debates – which often descended into mad shouting matches – but Ms Clinton faced off against Barack Obama in 2008, not to mention her debates running for the New York Senate seat.

    Mr Trump has done very little in the way of actual debate practice this week as he continues his rigorous schedule along the campaign trail, with plans to take a full day Sunday to cram for the first appearance with Ms Clinton.

    Anticipating accusations of lying from his opponent, Mr Trump’s handlers are coaching him to respond measuredly, but he will not simulate a full mock debate. Mr Trump had previously spoken out against fact-checking by moderators in this first debate.

    In a Monday interview, Mr Trump told Bill O’Reilly that he was not sure he would shoot insults as Ms Clinton during the debate.

    “I don’t think I’m looking to do that,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do exactly. It depends on what level she hits you with, if she’s fair, if it’s unfair, but certainly I’m not looking to do that.”

    However, Mr Trump has the benefit of low expectations going into the debate. Ms Clinton, on the other hand, faces an impossibly high bar.

    “My biggest concern is not a view of any moderator,” Ms Clinton’s senior adviser, Jennifer Palmieri, said. “But just that people accommodate their questions, and lower the bar of their questions to suit the candidate in front of them and that’s what happened with Trump in the past.”

    • Source: independent.co.uk

  • Change begins with who?

    This column some time ago, recommended to President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB), the seminal work of the former Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, which he titled: From Third World To First World, as a guide, in the onerous task of engineering a new Nigeria. So far, there are no signs that PMB has accepted that advice. That advice is repeated, if truly PMB hopes to make a mark, even if not in the mould of a modernizer.

    Nevertheless, by his tentative efforts so far, PMB and his party, obviously wish to be regarded as agents of transformation, and that perhaps explains the newest mantra: ‘change begins with me’; recently launched through the Ministry of Information and Culture, by the President and his minister, Lai Mohammed. Unfortunately, as if to manifest the gravity of our national disorientation, the idea is already doddering over charges of copyright claims. Indeed, I have even greater fears for its future relevance, when it faces further pummelling in the murky waters of Nigerian politics, infested with sharks.

    Of note, our leaders have never lacked ideas, whether original or copied. In my view, the greatest challenge facing our country, is the unwillingness of those in power, to show personal example, by their conduct. While the President can reasonably claim to be a cult hero, particularly in the northern part of the country, before the elections, that aura has substantially dissipated by his personal faltering, as a president. Apart from the charge of nepotism, which the president has not done anything to remove, he has also not exhibited any marked difference from his predecessors, in the enjoyment of his executive powers.

    Something as simple as reducing the number of the aircraft in the presidential fleet, has proved too difficult for the president to effect. Even his handling of sundry accusations of corruption against his prominent officials, like the chief of army staff, and the minister for interior, has not elicited the confidence necessary to galvanise the rest of the country, to buy into the change mantra.

    Perhaps, if the President is too burdened by other things, he could just read Lee’s chapter 12, titled: Keeping the Government Clean. There, the former prime minister wrote graphically how his close aide who betrayed the thrust of the people, were threated. Like PMB has tried to convey, Lee wrote: “when PAP (his party) government took office in 1959, we set out to have a clean administration. We were sickened by the greed, corruption, and decadence of many Asian leaders”.

    Writing about one of his close friends who got entangled in corrupt practices, Lee said: “Tan Kia Gan was the minister for national development until he lost the 1963 election. We were close colleagues from the early 1950s when he was the leader of the Malayan Airways engineers’ union and I was its legal adviser. We appointed him a director on the board of Malaysian Airways”. Following an accusation that Tan had engaged in corrupt practices, Lee wrote: “unpleasant and painful as the decision was, I issued a statement to say that as the government’s representative on the board of Malaysian Airways, he had not discharged his duties beyond reproach”.

    On that issue, he further wrote: “I removed him from the board and from all other appointment. Kim San told me later that Tan was down at heel, unable to do much because he was ostracized. I was sad but there was no other course I could have taken”. PMB should also read chapter 4: Surviving Without a Hinterland. The chapter perhaps represents what our country is going through, trying to survive, with low income, from the Niger Delta hydro carbon.

    Like Nigeria, Singapore was on the brink of economic collapse, following her separation from Malaysia and the departure of the British. Lee wrote: “We were stripped of our role as the administrative, commercial, and military hub of the British Empire in Southeast Asia. Unless we could find and attach ourselves to a new hinterland, the future was bleak”. In graphic term, he said: “The loss of British military expenditure between 1968 and 1971 was a blow to our economy. It was 20 percent of our GDP, providing over 30,000 jobs in direct employment and another 40,000 in support services”. Our oil revenue is merely 15 percent of our GDP. So, if PMB and his managers show economic sagacity, that loss though huge, shouldn’t become a death sentence.

    While PMB, need not follow the exact trajectory of Lee’s Singapore, he needs, as he was recently quoted to have said: “to think out of the box”. Speaking last Thursday, at a ministerial retreat on the economy and the budget, PMB had said: “Indeed, the challenges we face in the current recession require ‘out of box’ thinking, to deploy strategies that involve engaging meaningfully with the private sector, to raise the level of private sector investment in the economy as a whole”. But is the president and his advisers ready to do that?

    For while PMB recently stated his government’s willingness to collaborate to amend our laws, to ensure the security of monies allocated to the local governments, he and his government have not realised the urgent need to grant more economic powers to the states. By that assertion, the president is still concentrating his energy only on the sharing of the available resources, instead of, on how to create more economic opportunities.

    Thinking out of the box should make PMB lead a revolutionary charge to give more economic opportunities to the states and even regions. As I have previously argued here, it is unfair to hold on to the mineral resources and economic destiny of all parts of our country, just because out of desperation, our then military government, in 1969, by an unjust law, confiscated the oil resources of the Niger Delta.

    To think out of the box, is to change the paradigm, especially when a template is not working. That is the change we need. While I am not for the dismemberment of the country, I agree that there is over-concentration of power at the centre.

     

  • PPP as panacea for Nigeria’s airport debacle

    That the Federal Government is insisting on concessioning the four biggest airports in the country to private investors is a serious indictment of the managers of the facilities, who could not manage them to profitability. Discerning minds will agree that airports across the country are wasting away under the watch of Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), some of whose officials are protesting the government’s new thinking because their taps of cheap and underserved income will soon dry up.

    Despite the advantages of a huge population and massive resources, Nigerian airports are known to be among the worst in Africa. In fact, a survey conducted late 2014 by The Guide To Sleeping In Airports, the website documenting information on airports and the people who sleep in them, which is still relevant till date, rated three Nigerian airports among the worst in Africa. Ironically, these three airports are regarded as the best in Nigeria. And these three are among the four up for grabs by concessionaires any moment from now.

    They included the supposed flagship airport, Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos, Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport, Abuja, and the Port Harcourt International Airport, which were rated as the 10th, seventh and sixth worst respectively. Although FAAN shouted blue murder when the result of the survey was released, many Nigerians who regularly pass through the three airports and others in the country were not surprised at the result of the survey. Good enough, these and Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano, have been pencilled down for concessioning by the Federal Government.

    Sadly, the three international airports were in the group of others rated as the worst airports in Africa. They include the Khartoum International Airport, Sudan (first); Kinshasa N’djili International Airport, Democratic Republic of the Congo (second); Tripoli International Airport, Libya (third), all in war-torn countries; Dar es Salaam Julius Nyerere International Airport, Tanzania (fourth); Luanda Quatro de Fevereiro International Airport, Angola (fifth); N’Djamena International Airport, Chad (eighth) another war-torn country, and Accra Kotoka International Airport, Ghana (ninth).

    Unfortunately, this rating was coming after a past aviation minister, Princess Stella Oduah, had wasted billions of naira on the airports in what she called Airport Remodelling Project.

    The result of this survey clearly showed how all the past and present efforts of FAAN have failed to achieve the desired result at the airports, while the agency consistently and shamelessly defends the rot in the facilities, and at the same time frustrate all its concessionaires who would have assisted it in closing the wide aviation infrastructure gap. This is the more reason why the present administration of President Muhammadu Buhari said it would privatise the four major airports for optimum delivery and profitability. Such policy change, which is long overdue, should be expected, if we must be seen as a serious people.

    Interestingly, some aviation workers unions are kicking against the concessioning in a clear demonstration of their inability to see beyond their noses. In fact, their misinformation that the government wants to sell the airports to private investors speaks volume of either their level of ignorance or deliberate mischief. Surprisingly, past attempts at having a successful PPP, especially in the aviation sector in Nigeria, have been frustrated by these same government officials who take delight in using the airports as drain pipes to siphon funds each time they carry out one renovation or the other on the facilities. Political appointees and inefficient government agencies have also continued to battle private investors who borrowed money at high interest rates to assist the government in infrastructure provision. The ripple effect of this is that many potential investors have been scared away because of the sad experiences of those who have ventured to help.

    However, why should the government leave the country’s airports that are frequently in darkness in the hands of incompetent managers anyway? Why should the government allow its agents to run airports where touts harass passengers and other visitors without restraint? Why should incompetent managers run airports where aircraft cannot take off and land in the night due to lack of facilities?

    The answer to these questions is simple: give the airports to tested and experienced hands to manage them and shame the leeches who have been feeding fat on the facilities for years. In many parts of the world, the governments have consistently used the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model to provide infrastructure for their citizens, and such has always worked perfectly well. Even in Nigeria, this has been demonstrated through the first and only successful PPP project – the Murtala Muhammed Airport Terminal Two (MMA2) – executed and operated by Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited (BASL). Obviously, MMA2 is the only airport that is working in the country today because it is in private hands. It is therefore not a coincidence when the immediate past Aviation Minister, Chief Osita Chidoka, tongue-lashed the government agency managing airports in the country, saying of all the airports assessed by the Ministry of Aviation, MMA2 was the only one that passed the assessment test in terms of facility maintenance and others. Chidoka seemed to be saying that if those airports being managed by FAAN had half of the commitment and attention required to keep an airport alive from the managers, perhaps the result of that survey by The Guide To Sleeping In Airports would have been different.

    Although some experts have said that the airports to be privatised under this dispensation should be divided into clusters for effective privatisation, the bottom line is that experienced hands in the private sector are needed to lift the airports from the decay they have slipped into.

    Clearly, there are certain benefits of PPP, as have been espoused by the managers of MMA2, which is the only airport terminal that actually meets international standards in all departments of its operations. No wonder, the government of Sierra Leone sent a team to understudy the operations of the terminal in 2014.

    Besides, while PPP intervention in the country’s aviation sector will fill its huge infrastructural gap, the model will also make it possible for local investors to inject funds into the sector, thereby creating more jobs and reducing the burden and size of the public service. It is also noteworthy to say here that any facility under PPP is always more efficiently managed and actually costs the government little or nothing.

    For optimal performance, we need to strengthen the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (Establishment, etc) Act 2005 and the Public Procurement Act 2007, especially in the area of conflict resolution, as a way of encouraging private investors to stake their money and reputation in the aviation sector, instead of their vilification by misinformed and selfish government officials.

    Countries in Europe, especially Britain, which pioneered the idea of PPP in 1992 with its Private Finance Initiative (PFI), and America have since embraced PPP, and they are better for it today. Many developing countries are also embracing the model because of its numerous advantages. In fact, the Jamaican government published the initial PPP Policy documents, popularly called PPP3, in 2012, which has led to the government divesting its large interests from the Sangster International Airport. In process is the Kingston Container Terminal and the Norman Manley International Airport, both in that country.

    Besides, a Nigerian, Adebayo Ogunlesi, who owns Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), a private-equity firm, operates the London Gatwick Airport today, and the British Government has given him full cooperation to operate freely. GIP, which manages about $18.7 billion, led the acquisition of Gatwick Airport Limited and had a stake in Australia’s Port of Brisbane.

    In India, despite opposition from the country’s Airports Authority Employees Union (AAEU), the government is going ahead with the privatisation of four more airports, including Chennai, Kolkata, Jaipur and Ahmedabad.

    So, Nigerians, especially the recalcitrant aviation workers, should embrace what is spreading like wildfire the world over by supporting the Buhari administration to privatise the four proposed, almost derelict airports as a way of making them more efficient and earn more money to the government. This is the most reasonable thing to do now that the price of oil, our main revenue earner, is at its all-time low.

     

    • George, sent in this piece from Lagos.

  • Where change should begin

    Sanctimony and platitudes resonated at the recent launch of the national re-orientation campaign by President Buhari.Tagged “Change Begins With Me”, the event represents part of the larger plan by the government to elicit and effect positive attitudinal change among Nigerians.

    Its thrust is that unless the people cue in and become integral part of the change agenda of the government, not much progress can be recorded on these shores. At another level, the theme of the campaign conveys the impression that the change mantra must be driven by the people for it to succeed.

    It was therefore not surprising the occasion was a mixed grill of exhortations, preachment and pontification on all that had gone wrong value-wise in this country and the need to reverse the ruinous trend.  Buhari spoke copiously on the social ills that have afflicted the country overtime and how they have impeded progress in all spheres of our national life.

    But the president’s speech was curiously lacking on how the country came to this sordid pass. All we were treated to amounts to a rehearsal of those fading values without which the task of nation building in a plural society will be neigh impossible. We needed to proceed beyond mere identification of those lost values to highlight the factors that gave rise to the near state of backwardness and anomie the country is stuck.It is imperative to identify how we arrived at the current predicaments given that proper diagnosis of an ailment is half way to its solution.

    In effect, in persuading and cajoling people to shed those negative dispositions that have serially injured the health of this country, their causes ought to have been identified. With that, the challenge of providing therapeutic responses to them will become much easy.

    This point is germane given that in as much as we have been able to identify where we are today and where we seek to go; how we arrived at the current sickening situation is equally of vital importance if anything, to serve as a safeguard against the same pitfalls. It will also provide a veritable ambience to assess the programmes of today vis-à-vis their capacity to achieve the desired results.

    In this wise, the question is, what are the factors that inhibit the cultivation of positive attitudinal change among the citizenry? What are those things we are doing or not doing well that have had the cumulative effect of alienating the citizens from the government thus providing fertile ground for corruption, dishonesty, lack of patriotism and the scandalous competition for the loyalty of the citizens between the primordial and the civic realms?

    Why is Nigeria now deeply divided along ethnic, religious and regional lines so many decades after independence? And how possible is it to melt these social fragmentations to elicit the type of attitudes and orientations envisioned by the new campaign. Who takes primacy in this daunting task: the government or the citizens? The last poser has been raised because of the thematic issue raised by the campaign slogan ‘Change Begins With Me’

    My reading of this slogan is that the campaign must be people driven for it to succeed. If the purport is that the people must of necessity, cue into the campaign for it to succeed, I do not have any quarrel with that. But, if the impression is being created that the people must take the lead for such a campaign to have meaning, then we have got it wrong. The leadership must take the lead before the people can follow. Example is better than precepts they say.

    Thus, Buhari must have missed the point when he asserted that before you ask of the change they (government) promised us, you must first ask how far I have changed in my ways. The comparison is patently incongruous. It is one thing to ask the citizens to embrace change and a different kettle of fish to infer that the lead for that action must come from them. They do not simply add up.

    It is difficult to fathom how the virtues of patriotism and national unity can be internalized in a milieu governments have overtime been anything but nationalistic. It is a contradiction of sorts expecting patriotic feelings to flourish in an environment competition for the highest political office is based on ethnic or religious credentials of the candidates or some other nebulous considerations. What of feelings of alienation and marginalization that have given vent to resurging agitations for self-determination along the lines of religion and ethnicity.Can national ethos and national consciousness reasonably germinate and flourish in such environment?

    Again, to what extent can we reasonably push issues of nationalism and patriotism in a multi ethnic, multi religious and socially fragmented society with a pervading air of mistrust, suspicion andcomplaints of injustice? What role is there for social justice in eliciting positive attitudinal change and dispositions that are in dire need for national re-awakening campaign?

    These posers have been raised to underscore the contradictions in some of the issues that were canvassed at the campaign launch. They will also aid our understanding as to why Nigeria is in its current predicament. The way they are answered, will again provide the needed lead as to the level of progress possible from the current national re-orientation campaign if certain fundamental changes are not made by the government.

    More fundamentally, they tend to reinforce most poignantly, the primacy of the government as a veritable catalyst for any national re-orientation campaign. In effect, the success or lack of it of any re-orientation campaign largely depends on the actions or inactions of the government. Much of the challenges that have been highlighted are issues that can only be addressed through political action.

    The government should provide answers to the challenges of citizenship; it should evolve solutions to increasing recline to parochial and primordial proclivities and rising agitations for self-determination. It should have answers for why these cleavages are in constant competition with civic structures for the loyalty of the citizens. It should account for why it is considered a taboo to steal from the funds of the ethnic unions while those who loot government funds are hailed.

    These are the challenges to contend with and it is difficult to divorce the government from actions or inactions that brought about these situations. So it is not just enough to mount the podium to pontificate on high sounding ideals. It is also not sufficient to reel out the virtues the citizens should imbibe for there to be progress in this country. Neither will passing the buck for the needed change to the citizens produce immediate result.

    The lead to the success of the campaign must be taken by the government by first;identifying and addressing those endemic dysfunctions that have overtime, stood against the cultivation of attitudes and cultures supportive of nation building and national integration. It must resolve to holistically and realistically address all the issues that have whittled down the faith of the component units in this unity in diversity. There must be a collective resolve to run an inclusive government; one that imbues confidence in all citizens that they have a stake in the union, one erected on social justice and equity, guaranteeing citizens unhindered access to public goods and services.

    Only then, will sanctimony and preachments on the virtues of nationalism and patriotism have relevance and appeal. Then also, the fight against corruption in our national life and restoration of public confidence in civic institutions will begin to take root. For now, it would appear this generation is already lost in its perception of the reciprocity which citizenship represents.

  • Re: Beware Governor Ugwuanyi

    I READ with keen interest the views of Gabriel Amalu The Nation’s columnist on Tuesday, September 13, entitled ‘Beware Governor Ugwuanyi’. The columnist, among other false and misleading allegations, stated that the performance of the state government, under Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi is not very exciting.
    The writer further alleged that the governor’s kinsmen from the Nsukka senatorial zone were “doing very unreasonable things to corner the state public service”, adding that the governor was waging “a war against the two other senatorial zones, the Enugu East and Enugu West.”
    I feel betrayed to note that Amalu, who I believe is from Enugu West Senatorial zone of the state, could be so hasty in his judgment about the present administration in Enugu State. His erroneous impression about the governor’s kinsmen pushing nepotism as a policy of government is quite unfortunate and unacceptable. The governor has since the inception of his administration demonstrated his commitment to the principles of equity, justice and fairness in the discharge of his responsibilities.
    It is on record that the governor a few days after his assumption of office, precisely on June 6, 2015, had an interactive meeting with the stakeholders of the state at the old Governor’s lodge, Enugu, where he was given the mandate, as a matter of priority, to embark on rapid development of Abakpa-Nike Enugu, Nsukka town, 9th Mile Corner, Emene, Awgu, Oji River and other satellite towns in the state. The state House of Assembly consequently endorsed the decision and approved a supplementary budget for the immediate development of the affected places.
    While the likes of Amalu who were not present at the meeting remain biased in their peripheral assessment of the present administration in Enugu State, posterity could only be kind to us who witnessed the event, to abide by the accord reached with the governor and defend it in all circumstances.
    It is pertinent to note that the state has witnessed unprecedented achievements under the watch of Governor Ugwuanyi. It is obvious that the writer’s eight-day stay in Enugu was not enough to objectively assess the performance of the present administration.
    It is public knowledge that Ugwuanyi’s administration in the spirit of equity, justice and fairness, from the numerous ongoing roads construction across the state, had completed over eight major roads. Among these roads completed, none is located in Nsukka Senatorial zone.
    For record purposes, the roads completed, which are of high quality, included the Ogbete Enugu main market road; Airport Roundabout-Eke-Obinagu-Emene road; Nike Lake road, Enugu; Abakpa Nike road; 9th Mile Corner Bypass road in Udi Local Government Area; Nawfia street; Holy Trinity and Bishop Michael Eneje roads all in Independence layout, Enugu, among others.
    These are in addition to the 35 capital projects comprising the construction of roads, bridges, school buildings and boreholes in the 17 Local Government Areas of the state, which the state Executive Council recently approved.
    I am overwhelmed by the vision of Ugwuanyi in constructing the intractable Inyaba Bridge that would, when completed, link so many communities in Nkanu East Local Government Area, including my community- Amechi-Idodo, and give them access to the council headquarters in Amagunze. This gigantic bridge, which is nearing completion, is not located in Nsukka senatorial zone.
    I am convinced that Amalu while in Enugu did not visit the rural areas to see for himself the wonders of the governor in extending development to the frontiers of the rural dwellers, which is one of the policy thrusts of his administration.
    All these remarkable achievements are being recorded in the state despite the daunting economic challenges in the country, which have made it impossible for about 27 states to pay workers’ salaries, not to talk of embarking on capital projects.
    Since the wind of the current economic crisis reared its ugly head, Governor Ugwuanyi has not only been paying workers’ salaries regularly, he has also remained resolute in fulfilling his promises to the people of the state.
    Are we talking of the recent successful Enugu Investment summit – the first of its kind in the state, organized by the state government to woo investors? As at the time of writing, Ugwuanyi’s administration through the state’s Universal Basic Education Board (ENSUBEB) is recruiting 2000 primary school teachers to improve the standard of education in the state – a feat very few states have achieved.
    It is also in the public domain that the state government is presently constructing 345 primary schools in the 17 L.G.As of the state, among other ongoing projects.
    On the issue of nepotism in the appointment of government positions, may I state that the governor as a cosmopolitan politician does not and would not succumb to such political chicanery. His actions so far in balancing the appointment of public offices in the state have remained equitable, fair and just, unlike what was obtainable in the past.
    On the issue of herdsmen’s menace, I would say that the governor has been doing all that are necessary and lawful in addressing the matter and should not be pushed to take actions that could lead to disunity or bloodshed, which are at variance with the oath of office he swore to uphold. Enugu State was the first and the only state that has constituted a Judicial Commission of Inquiry to unravel the remote cause (s) of the incessant herdsmen’s attacks and recommend measures to end the heinous acts.
    On the calls for the enactment of an anti-grazing law, may I recall that carrying of firearms by unauthorized persons is already a crime in our law books and does not require a new law to that effect. This is more so when Enugu State government with the endorsement of the security agencies, the Fulani community and other relevant bodies had banned night grazing and movement of cattle, carrying of firearms by the herdsmen, among others.
    In times like this, what is expected of a leader is to preach peace and abide by the rule of law. I am glad that the governor has disappointed those who wished that the herdsmen saga would distract him from fulfilling his campaign promises to the people of the state. Enugu State being the gateway to and from the northern part of the country in the South-east, South-south geopolitical zones, and haven lived with herdsmen for over 30 years, it is understandable that such issues could crop up occasionally, compared to other states that have less presence of the cattle-rearers.

    Nnamani, a public affairs analyst, writes from Abakpa-Nike, Enugu.

  • Fostering inter-state socio-economic union

    The bedrock of a strategy that can productively engage the world’s population in assuming responsibility for its collective destiny must be the consciousness of the oneness of humankind. This can come in the form of the adversarial structure of civil government or in a non-antagonistic competitive spirit for economic prosperity, being the mainspring of human interaction.

    Currently, Israel continues to help the United States deal with traditional security threats. The two countries share intelligence on terrorism, nuclear proliferation as well as Middle East politics. Israel’s military experiences have shaped the United States’ approach to counterterrorism and homeland security. The two governments work together to develop sophisticated military technology.

    The U.S.-Israeli alliance has paved way for the two countries to cooperate on far more than just traditional security issues. So today, Israeli civilian technological innovations are helping the United States maintain its economic competitiveness, promote sustainable development and address a range of non-military security challenges. So, the bilateral relationship is based on steadily increasing security and economic interests and not just shared values.

    In our clime, building on seemingly inter-state bilateral relationship for economic prosperity in some key areas is very key and would engender an all-round transformation of the country, reduce incidences of migration basically because of the perceived prosperity of one State to the other.

    In Nigeria, there is no single State that is not blessed in terms of nature’s gifts. This makes all States in the country indispensable to the other, thereby underscoring the need for social and economic integration the more.

    Consequently, it is vital that each state taps into the aspect of maximising its potentials and nature’s gift for economic upturn to fill the vacuum left by others. For example, some states are blessed with large expanse of land and are agriculturally viable, some gifted in oil and commerce while others are aquatically blessed. Some others are rich in human resources.

    Presently, Lagos State is leveraging more on the prospects of inter-state bilateral relationship with the aim of expanding the prosperity of the State while also boosting the revenue of other States. Lagos is Nigeria’s economic focal point, generating a significant portion of the country’s GDP. Most commercial and financial businesses are carried out in the central business district situated in the State. Lagos is where most of the country’s commercial banks, financial institutions, and major corporations are headquartered.

    Currently, n Nigeria, there are renewed calls for government to diversify the economy. Indeed, many are clamouring for the resuscitation of our ailing agricultural sector as well as other non-oil sectors. Recently, Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun charged state governments to explore available sources of revenue generation in their states to avoid over dependence on the federal government.

    Thus, in the midst of its perceived prosperity, Lagos is still inventing new sources of wealth. Despite recent discovery of oil in the State, the State government is still not relenting in its drive to make the State a haven for investors.

    Presently, three of such moves are noticeable. First is partnership with the Kebbi State government in commodity value chain production like rice, wheat, groundnut, sorghum and livestock. Second is partnership with Niger State government for the development of agricultural commodity value chain. Third is the acquisition of lands in some states for agricultural purposes.

     Economic growth and development, no doubt, accelerates technological innovation and human capital development. But a growing number of studies and research works have proven that geographical proximity, cultural diversity, political affiliations among other factors also play key roles in economic growth and infrastructural transformation.

    When considering the gains of proximity with Lagos State, no States in the country stands a better chance of tapping into the prosperity of Lagos than Ogun State. Regrettably, Ogun State, over the years, is yet to adequately explore the benefits of its proximity to the Centre of Excellence, share from its cultural dexterity and language and above all, maximize the gains of the APC’s broom revolution as a way of making the entire process of economic integration seamlessly achievable.

    Ogun State occupies a unique position in the economic and geographical map of the country with its GDP contribution to the nation’s economy put at US $10,470 making it the 9th highest contributor of Nigeria’s GDP.

    Specifically, the neighbouring towns to Lagos from Berger end of the metropolis, Sango and its environs along Lagos-Old-Abeokuta road often referred to as ‘New Lagos’ because of their proximity to Lagos are worst hit in terms of underdevelopment. Expectedly, one would logically assume that the closeness of these towns along Mowe-Ibafo corridor in Obafemi-Owode Local Government and some other towns within Ifo Local Government and Ado-Odo LGA to the country’s Centre of Excellence would imply boost rapid development within these axes. Sadly, the reverse seems to be the case.

    Some towns in this category have been in total darkness for over ten years, while a host of others had never had a tiled road for decades. Many go as far as Lagos State for healthcare services and to access other basic social amenities.

    Under-development in Nigeria is occasioned by factors such as poor and visionless leadership, political instability, corruption, power failure amongst others. The result is gloom, despair and frustration among the citizenry. This trend, if not urgently checked might jeopardise democracy as well as the peace and progress of the country.

    This is an awakening call to Ogun State Government to explore the political and economic benefits of its closeness with Lagos. This could be done through inter-state partnership that would translate into quick development of popular ‘New Lagos’ communities. Considering the inherent economic benefits accruable to Ogun state from such initiative, it is imperative that the state government gives it a topmost priority.

    Ogun State is presently home to thousands of people working in Lagos and in a way; this reduces the burden of accommodation that could have mounted on Lagos. Beyond the geographical proximity between the two States, the cultural, historical, ideological similarities, competitive economic linkages, and the common language should be also be tapped into for effective socio-economic integration.

     Similar and productive partnership like this should continually be explored by all state governments to foster rapid socio-economic development across the country.

    • Afuwape is of the Ministry of Information & Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja.

  • Made in Nigeria: A dream or possibility? (I)

    The Nigerian development predicament has so many dimensions from which one can begin to unpack its meaning and solutions. But there is only one way Nigerians experience all these dimensions of economic disarticulation and policy incoherence: extreme suffering. This suffering is aggravated by the indices of our development dilemma—jobless growth phenomenon, infrastructural deficit, illiteracy, unemployment, zero-level poverty, income inequality, very low mortality, institutional crisis, and so many more. Understanding the implication of Nigeria’s development predicament is theoretical, but alleviating the sufferings of Nigerians requires, as a first condition, a mix of theoretical and experiential understanding of what has gone wrong and how the elements of positive development can be put together in an enabling policy framework that will deliver the dividends of democratic governance to the Nigerian citizens. We need to first understand, for example, why government policies fail to deliver the dividends of democracy, and how these policies can be calibrated to do what government intended them to do in the first place.

    One good way, therefore, to understand Nigeria’s development problem, since independence, is to beam the searchlight on the gradual but steadily growing discrepancy between Nigeria’s productive capacities and her increasing but debilitating consumptive patterns. Since the 80s, and after the terrible logic of oil has become firmly established, Nigeria’s productive energies have gradually lagged. Today, the Nigeria state has reached an unenviable point at which we consume what we do not produce. This is one of the most significant and counterintuitive occurrence in development studies. There is no country that achieves any real and sustainable development by depending essentially on others to produce what it consumes.

    In economic theory, the principle of comparative advantage, for instance, states that an agent or a country ought to produce more and consume less of any good or product for which they have a comparative advantage. Comparative advantage comes from the production of a good or product at a lower relative opportunity cost than any other country. A country might even produce and export what its citizens are not skilled at producing. Nigeria has a definite comparative advantage in mineral production, automotive industry, light manufacturing, agriculture and agro-processing, textiles and garment, oil and gas, and petrochemicals, etc. for example, Nigeria is the world’s fourth largest producer and exporter of cocoa, the sixth largest producer of oil, the world largest producer of cassava, etc.

    But unfortunately for Nigeria, we discovered crude oil, and every other thing became moribund. With oil, Nigeria became a high consuming state, its economic structure became essentially mono-cultural and driven by what Alfred Marshall calls “negative production”—a weak productive capacity that ensures that, in order to feed its growing consumptive pattern, a state imports what it possesses the capacity to produce. A gloomy statistics tells the rest of the story. Nigeria’s importation of especially major staples like rice, wheat, fish, and sugar has grown to an alarming $11million recently. The cumulative total amount spent on the importation of rice and wheat between 1960 and 2013 is $28.4billion. And even though Nigeria is a major world producer of rice, we have now become the second largest importer of rice in the world from an annual average of one thousand metric tons between 1961 and 1971 to a peak average of 2.5 million metric tons in 2012.

    Nigeria’s production of cocoa and cassava where we have huge comparative advantages has lagged tremendously, especially due to the fact that only 50% of Nigeria’s 71million hectares of cultivable land are under current use. Cocoa production has slide to an 8% global output from its original 20% after independence. The domestic manufacturing industry has suffered from lack of electricity, low technological development and high interest rates. Even the oil and gas industry has remained disappointingly sub-optimal with a growing discrepancy between average crude oil production per day (2million bpd), installed refining capacity (445’000bpd) and actual average refined product (82’400bpd). This has undermined the tantalizing possibility of Nigeria becoming a hub for refining and exporting petroleum products through effective development of the crude oil value chain.

    No one ought to be surprised therefore at the multitude of Nigeria’s economic challenges: declining global demand for crude oil resulting in negative price shocks, decreasing foreign exchange inflows, plummeting foreign exchange reserve, increasingly weakening currency, poor and inefficient infrastructure especially power and transportation, high dependence on oil revenues by all levels of government, increasing State Governments’ debt obligations especially of workers’ salaries, weakening domestic consumption, etc. All these have dealt a huge blow to Nigeria’s quest for a self-reliant and self-sustaining economy functioning on the optimal production of local goods and services. The Nigerian economy is essentially a consumerist economy: pencils, toothpicks and toothbrushes are major imports for Nigeria; our MDAs now effectively run on imported generators!

    And so in a globalizing world given to a neoliberal capitalism economic ideology, Nigeria does not stand any chance of making her democratic experiment a truly empowering system that not only liberate the citizens capacities to become whoever and whatever they want to become, but to also protect them from the vagaries of a global system that is unequal in terms of its benefits and advantages. The global capitalist dynamics is mightily skewed against less developed and non-industrialized countries, especially those beholden to the Washington Consensus and its many crippling conditionalities. Globalization is often couched in glorious terms.

    Thus, Kenichi Ohmae could say bluntly: “In a borderless world, traditional national interest—which has become little more than a cloak for subsidy and protection—has no meaningful place.” Everything is thus deterritorialized and denationalized. But citizens are not satisfied based on global trappings; they are satisfied on the basis of a national development interest that plans for their future. Take the consumerist ideology, for instance. Inspite of their modernising and globalising potentials, when Shoprite and KFC and Coca Cola, multinational companies, and other features of the global consumerist culture invade our national space, local industries and local initiatives suffer and die.

    National development has one fundamental goal—the harnessing of a nation’s human and material resources towards the empowering of its citizens’ capacities. And national development paradigms are always at the mercy of global capitalist interests and alliances that attempt to swamp it under the burden of aids, loans, and bilateral relationships. No nation can ever hope to survive except it is prepared to look inward towards a self-sustaining economic paradigm that draws in the strength of global economies to stand. Bill Clinton hits the nail right on the head: “The only preparation for prospering in the global economy is investing in ourselves.” And investing in ourselves begins from directing the entire policy architecture of Nigeria to reversing the consumption-production discrepancy. It implies a rigorous attention to local goods and services, and to the enabling of local content.

    The Local Content Act of 2010 was enacted specifically on behalf of the oil and gas industry. It was meant specifically to reverse the trend that sees foreign expatriates and interests dominating the petroleum industries, as well as increase the capacities of the industry through local human and material resources. The Act is geared towards “…the quantum of composite value added to or created in the Nigerian economy by a systematic development of capacity and capabilities through the deliberate utilization of Nigerian human, material resources and services in the Nigerian Petroleum Industry”. If properly implemented, the fundamental clauses of this Act—value creation, development of capacities, utilisation of local resources—are sufficient to serve as the kernel of a national development plan that addresses Nigeria’s production troubles. These are the essential elements a nation requires to champion an economic philosophy of self-reliance and self-sustenance that could backstop democratic governance and its imperatives.

    But the “if” of policy implementation in Nigeria is a very huge one, considering that reforms are easy to come by but not easy to see through to their logical conclusions. The policy environment in Nigeria is a tough one that is encumbered by political and other extra-policy matters that drag and impede policies from achieving their true democratic intentions. With our increasing orientation towards everything foreign, we have no choice if we must move forward and become development—we need to produce what we consume or consume what we produce.

  • Nigeria of Nigerians’ dream

    Nigeria of Nigerians’ dream

    We need one another, no matter the ethnic group we belong. The way God designed different parts of human body to work together is the same way he designed our different states and individuals with different professions, religion, background to work together and contribute to the well-being of the people and the country as a whole. For us to live in harmony, God also blessed each state with more than one type of mineral resources or the other. These resources are meant to be harnessed for the well-being of the people and the country as a whole. The original aim of our fore-fathers was to encourage every state to control and harness the mineral resources and pay royalty to the federal government. All the states in the federation contributed to the federal treasury according to their resources. Nigeria did not depend on one mineral resource “the oil” for its survival. Most states in the North concentrated on agricultural produce more so as they are blessed with vase land as well as the West. Nigerian’s agricultural produce earned a lot of money equal to that of the oil. States created after independence was done by the military for reasons best known to them.  Indeed the ability of states to sustain themselves and contribute to the national treasury would have been the philosophy behind state creation.

    Now that the country is in a democracy, it is time to govern the country along the line of democratic principles, in order to enjoy the benefit of democracy as it is practiced by the people from whom we borrowed it. Luckily, democracy has its own language such as the rule of law, governmental checks and balances, federalism, separation of power, etc. Fortunately, nature has separated for us different types of mineral resource. The greatest attributes of democracy is its conflict resolution mechanism through discussion and dialogue.

    Absence of good political leadership has resulted in endless cry of marginalization and people tend to believe that rotation of principal political offices, like the president and governors along the line of ethnic groups will be the panacea to the leadership problem in the country. In a country ridden with endemic corruption like ours, this practice will not move Nigeria forward, rather it will legalize corruption by producing “you chop I chop government” as a way of distributing “the national cake”. Nigeria is a county with few individuals that are richer than the country. Rotation of principal political offices will produce mediocrity. The citizens and the country will be worse off. The average Nigerians see public offices as an avenue to enrich themselves and their generations unborn (to the detriment of the majority of Nigerian citizens). Whilst for the citizens to enjoy the presidential system of government, our political leaders ought to be men and women of high integrity, clothed in selflessness, patriotism and love which will then produce our national ethics and values. Once we have patriotic leaders with love, restructuring or full federalism as well as various agitations and militancy will be things of the past and development and progress of the country will fall in place.  Progressive countries have inbuilt system of political leadership recruitment that encourage youths to participate in politics at local levels. This affords the youths the opportunity to learn political leadership from the grass-root without bitterness.

    The 36 state governors are in a strategic position to fast-track the required change through the medium of the Governors Forum. First and foremost, the North and South dichotomy could be bridged by discussion and dialogue which will lead to proffering solutions to the country’s protracted problems, especially on those issues that are tagged “no go area” whenever they are being discussed either at an organized national conference or at the floor of the National Assembly. It is by discussing our problems with one another informally that we can reach a consensus that will help solve our national problems. Besides, the Governors Forum has not thought of exploiting cross-fertilization of ideas between the North and the South to eliminate barriers and mutual suspicion which make governance and national cohesion difficult.

    The importance of effective government at local level in any country cannot be over-emphasized. Apart from letting the local people participate in government, it enables the youths to receive formal training in the act of governance as they are afforded the opportunity to participate in a given election into the office of councillors or chairmen of local governments. This is better than the system that allows the state governors to hand-pick local councillors and chairmen to work for their personal interest instead of working for the people that elected them. Local government is the primary area where the country’s political leaders are trained up to the state and federal levels. By so doing their track records are established. The country ought to benefit immensely from the forum if the governors seek each other’s co-operation in their areas of needs, especially supporting bills for states to development and control their natural resources. This is invoking the principle that where one state is weak the other is strong; so that mutual assistance and co-operation will correct the imbalance and misunderstanding that arise when discussing solution to national problems.

    Each governor should embark massively in agricultural production. In fact, food production should be the main-stay of our economy, instead of the whole country depending on oil from few states. Nothing stops each state government from establishing agricultural or farm settlements. America did same during the industrial revolution. Nigeria has surplus of manpower, especially youths who will be fully engaged. It is absurd for states to go cap in hand to the federal government for money to pay salaries.

    Over the years electioneering campaigns have not been issue-oriented; instead, it is based on attack on personalities. At the end of the day, the elected politicians cannot be held accountable for failure to perform while in office. They have not been able to provide the basic necessities of life bordering on security and welfare of the people not to talk about breaking a new ground for the development of the country. Henceforth, those aspiring to govern the states should include in their election campaigns, detailed plan on how they will develop the mineral resources in their states. Politicians should spend money on research on how to provide solution to the nation’s problems by liaising with the research institutions and the universities, instead of spending money on bribing the electorates, training thugs and buying arms and ammunitions for election rigging. The link between politicians, research institutions and universities should provide a buffer for development of research findings instead of depending on imports of finished goods. That is why huge money spent on research institutions and universities have not helped the country, our research institutions, college of technologies and universities should have relevance to the country’s needs. Our political leaders are ill-prepared for governance and development continue to elude us.

    This is the first time Nigeria elected a president based on his track records. He has promised to fight corruption which has eaten deep into the fabric of this country. In the fight against corruption, the primary aim should be to recover the funds and property where necessary. Nigerians are in full support of the fight against corruption. Plea-bargaining should be employed. The president should avoid act which will attract public sympathy to those involved.  Most importantly, those avenues in government that breed corruption must be blocked by initiating appropriate bill for the National Assembly to enact into law, especially those areas that people have access to huge cash. Ministries, parastatals and government agencies should be required to publish annual statement of financial affairs which will include sources and application of funds to enable the public know how the annual budget was spent. Elective offices should not be attractive.

    Restructuring the country is important but moral rebirth of the citizens is more important because restructured institutions are as good as those that manage them.  Our country should be a country under God and not a country under gun.

     

    • Obasi, a Legal Practitioner is National Secretary, Association Of Concerned Citizens for Moral Rebirth.

  • Remembering the ad-hoc conference

    Lee Kuan Yew(1923-2015) was the first Prime Minister of Singapore and he governed Singapore from 1959-1990. In January 1966, he visited Nigeria as part of the Commonwealth delegation to discuss Rhodesia unilateral declarations of independence. Rhodesia is now called Zimbabwe. He stayed in Lagos like all the Commonwealth leaders for three days. It was after their departure that Nigeria’s Prime Minister Alhaji Tafawa Balewa was assassinated. His views on Nigeria was published in 2000 in a 729-page book titled ‘From Third World To First’ which I am sure many Nigerians have read. On page 352 of that book, he described Nigerians as ‘different people playing to a different set of rules’. On page 357 of that same book, he said Nigeria’s ‘tribal loyalties were stronger than their sense of common nationhood’. To most of us, Yew’s verdict on Nigeria is nothing new. This month is 50 years of the anniversary of the ad hoc constitutional conference in Nigeria. The conference was summoned by the then Lt-Col. Yakubu Gowon less than 65 days after he took over power. The conference met between September 12 and 28 and again between October 28 and November 4, 1966. At that time there were four regions in Nigeria mainly North, Mid-Western, West and Eastern Region. No delegation from the East attended the second session of the conference because of the political situation at that time. Sixteen major issues were discussed at that conference. They were: form of government and component units, Head of State, central government, central legislature, judiciary, central civil service, finance (power to raise revenue, the allocation of revenue and national debt), defence, police, external affairs, immigration and emigration, banking, currency, monetary policy, external loans, transport and communications, higher education, concurrent powers and planning (including the equitable distributions of capital investment).

    The northern delegation included Sir KahimIbrahim, AlhajiInua Wada, Mallam Aminu Kano, Chief Joseph SawuanTarka, Alhaji Abdul Razak and Chief Josiah Sunday Olawoyin. The Lagos delegation included Alhaji Femi Okunnu and Alhaji Lateef Jakande. The eastern delegation was led by Professor Eni Njoku. Other members from the east include Chief C.C. Mojekwu, Chief E. Eyo and Chief Matthew Mbu. The Midwest delegation was led by Chief Anthony Enahoro, Dr. Mudiaga Oge was part of the midwest delegation. The western delegation was led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo and it included Professor Hezekiah Oluwasannmi assisted by Professors Ayo Ogunseye, Sam Aluko and Akin Mabogunje.

    The following were proposals of each region as it affects the form of government and component unit—

    East: An association of the existing regions, with a right to secede. Opposed to the creation of new states on three grounds: (a) inadequate time; ‘will involve a long-drawn-out process of inquiries, commissions and plebiscites, taking up many months or even some years which we cannot afford under the present crises’; (b) entails a strong central government: ‘not in the interest of harmony and peace of the country to have a strong central government. The splitting up of the country into new states will automatically have the effect of transferring functions which the smaller states cannot be expected to execute with their limited resources. This would, once again, engender inter-regional rivalry and political warfare to control the centre; (c) fails to satisfy all minorities: it is impossible to devise any political arrangement which will be devoid of minority problems… these problems can best be contained and satisfied within larger regional units’. The points raised above notwithstanding, it should be provided in the future constitution of the country that any region can agree to split into more states which may be accepted into the future Nigerian association on equal terms as the existing region if the people of such an existing region and the areas concerned so desire…the initiative for the creation must come from the region within which the state is to be created.

    Mid-west: A federation of the existing region, Lagos continuing as Federal Territory or becoming a region. N.B. The memorandum considered a redrawing of the constituent units desirable and set out the following criteria: ethnic, linguistic, and cultural affinity or homogeneity, historical association (e.g. Hausa/Fulani, Efik/Ibibio), viability of states both absolutely and relatively, geographical contiguity, comparability in size, reciprocal self-determination (i.e. not only should each minority group be given the opportunity to determine its future but also a majority group must be given the opportunity to determine whether it is willing to associate with a minority seeking such association. On the basis of these criteria, 12 states might be created (four in the North, two in the West, four in the East, the Mid-West, and Lagos). Although desirable, such a rearrangement was considered impracticable in the prevailing circumstances.

    North: (i) Original proposal. A union or association of the existing regions, ‘and such other states as may be formed subsequently’ with a ‘right to secede completely and unilateral’.

    The ‘right of self-determination of all people in the country must be accepted and a referendum or plebiscite shall be the method through which the wishes of the people concerned shall be ascertained. These rights include the right of any state within the country to secede. But the implementation of these principles shall not delay the determination of the future of Nigeria. All necessary guarantees shall, however, be written in the future constitution to establish the right of self-determination by any section.’

    (ii) Revised proposal. A federation with an ‘effective federal government’. The above-mentioned method of creating new states was to be ‘discussed and formally adopted’.’ Grave doubts about the wisdom of creating states based on “ethnic and linguistic affinities”. In any arrangement based on this principle, there are bound to be large numbers of small pockets of minor ethnic and linguistic groups who will necessarily find themselves grouped uncomfortably with the larger and dominant ethnic groups. Whilst in the past, such tiny tribes were undisturbed within larger units not based on tongues, they are most likely to develop genuine fears of tribal domination in any political arrangement based on the principle of language. Most of the smaller ethnic and linguistic communities have coexisted peacefully without any ill-feelings towards their bigger neighbor only because they and their neighbours belong to a larger political entity’.

    ‘In the exercise of ascertaining the wishes of the people for the creation of states as well as the actual creation of states, no region except the Mid-west should be left out of the operation.’

    West: (i) Original proposal.

    (a) First alternative: A federation with ‘the immediate creation of more states (including a Lagos State) based on ethnic and linguistic affinities, account being taken also of territorial contiguity and economic viability’. Also ‘clear-cut and less cumbersome provision for the creation of additional states in the future under conditions which should be clearly set out in the Constitution’.

    (b) Second alternative: A ‘commonwealth comprising the existing regions and such other regions as may be consequently created, with Lagos forming part of the present Western Nigeria’. Each state should have a right unilaterally to secede… at any time of its own choice.’

    (ii) Revised proposal. A federation; ‘the creation of more states (including a Lagos State) based on ethnic and linguistic affinities, account being taken also of territorial contiguity and economic viability’ was’ strongly recommended’. ’In the event of states not being created, Lagos shall form part of the Western Region.’

    On November 30, 1966, Lt. Col. Gowon adjourned the conference and disclosed that ’they had run into difficulties which made it impossible for them to meet.’

    It was the failure of the conference that led to the Aburi meeting in Ghana.

    Dr.MudiagaOje told me in 1977 that if the ad hoc conference had succeeded, the civil war could have been avoided. Suffice it to say that the issues raised at that conference are still relevant till today.

     

    • Teniola, a former director at the presidency, stays in Lagos.