The Nation Newspaper

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  • The criminality of budget padding

    Last week, Honourable Yakubu Dogara, the Speaker of the House of Representatives arrogantly maintained that he would not subject himself to the investigation being conducted by both the Nigeria Police Force and the Economic and Financial Commission. As far as he is concerned, he enjoys immunity under the provisions of the Legislative Houses Powers and Privileges Act. The embattled Speaker also claimed that the padding of the 2016 is not a criminal offence. Honourable Dogara’s confidence is likely to have been anchored on the statement credited to the Presidency that the budget was not padded in any material particular.

    Before then, the All Progressive Congress had decided to follow the discredited path of the Peoples Democratic Party by treating the serious allegation of monumental corruption  as a “family affair’’ of the ruling party. But unlike the PDP, the party failed to act timeously. In other words, a cover up is no longer possible at this stage as the cat has been let out of the bag.  For now, Honourable Dogara has no choice but to defend the criminal allegations. Contrary to his misleading contention, the Legislative Houses Powers and Privileges Act has not conferred immunity on him with respect to allegations of criminal offences. Since the immunity conferred by the Act is limited to contributions to debates by members of the National Assembly the Speaker cannot ward off the invitation of the Police and the EFCC to react to the criminal allegations levelled against him by Honourable Abdulmumin Jibrin.

    The Speaker  ensured that Honourable Jibrin was removed as the chairman of the Appropriation Committee of the House when it was confirmed by the House that he had allocated projects worth N4 billion to his constituency. The House kicked against Jibrin on the ground that the remaining 359 members have been left to share the remaining N36 billion out of N40 billion. While not denying the allegation, Honourable Jibrin disclosed that the Speaker and some principal officers had unilaterally inserted 2,000 items, otherwise called constituency budgets in the budget. He also accused the Speaker of corrupt enrichment through the acquisition of farms and other properties. Although the Speaker has failed to deny the serious allegations, he has threatened to sue Honourable Jibrin for defaming him.

    It would be recalled that the initial budget was withdrawn by President Buhari when the National Assembly members accused some top civil servants of padding the 2016 budget. It was so scandalous that the federal government undertook to sanction the public officers who had altered the budget. At that juncture, the President promptly removed the illegal insertions and resent the corrected budget to both chambers of the parliament. Thereafter, the budget was debated and passed and sent to the President for his assent.  It was signed into law by President Buhari when he believed that it had been properly passed by the members of the National Assembly.

    But it has now emerged that about 20 legislators in both chambers of the National Assembly altered the budget by inserting constituency projects worth N100 billion in the Appropriation Bill. Both the Senate and the House allocated to themselves N60 billion and N4o billion respectively. If it is established that the alterations were effected after the passing of the budget by both houses, the issue at hand goes beyond padding. A clear case of conspiracy, fraud, forgery and corruption can be established against the suspects.

    Padding takes place when legislators resolve to rewrite the budget by introducing new items outside the estimates prepared and presented to them by the President. The controversy over the padding of budget was laid to rest with the enactment of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007 which has imposed a duty on the finance minister to source input from certain institutions including the National Assembly during the course of preparing the budget. That is when negotiations and horse trading with the executive by the legislators is allowed.  But neither the Constitution nor the Fiscal Responsibility Act has empowered the National Assembly members to rewrite the national budget by including constituency projects whose costs are arbitrarily fixed by the legislators.

    Under section 81 of the Constitution, the President is given the exclusive power to cause the budget to be prepared.  Upon the preparation of the budget by the executive, it shall be laid or presented to the National Assembly by the President. In debating the Appropriation Bill, the legislators may reduce the estimates if there are errors or inflation of the cost of items or if certain items provided for has been purchased before or for any other genuine reasons. But the National Assembly cannot increase the budget in any manner whatsoever.  So the unilateral introduction of constituency projects is totally illegal and unconstitutional.

    By introducing new items, the National Assembly has usurped the powers of the President to prepare the budget. In other words, the legislators would have prepared the budget and laid it before themselves and then passed it.  That is a negation of the doctrine of separation of powers. The appropriation bill or amended appropriation bill is not like other bills. Whereas other bills shall emanate from either of the two houses, money bills shall emanate from the President. So a money bill is a special bill which cannot be subjected to additions by the National Assembly because it has no power to prepare it.

    Padding is an unconstitutional infraction when the estimates are increased on the floor of the House. The infraction becomes criminal when the Appropriation Bill is altered by a few legislators after it had been passed by both houses of the National Assembly. In the instant case, Honourable Jibrin is alleged to have altered the budget by inserting projects worth N4 billion while a handful of other legislators led by the Speaker are alleged to have included 2,000 items in the budget. Since the President was then misled to sign it as the Appropriation Bill properly passed by both houses, the principal officers of the National Assembly cannot turn round to seek protection under the Legislative Houses Powers and Privileges Act.

    It is unfortunate that Honourable Dogara has never heard of the word “padding” before now. It is not new in our legislative history.  While the 2005 Appropriation Bill was under consideration in the Senate, some senators including the Senate President padded the budget of a ministry after allegedly collecting N55 million bribe from a minister. The scandal led to the removal of the Senate President who was later charged with his indicted colleagues and the minister. The Supreme Court has recently ordered that the suspects be tried for corruption having thrown out the preliminary objections filed against the charges by them at the trial court.

    If legislators conspire with themselves to pad the budget to fund the purchase of exotic cars and payment of unauthorised jumbo emoluments, it is a criminal offence. The allegations of Honourable Jibrin have gone beyond the padding of the budget. The serious issue which the Speaker and other principal officers have not addressed is that the alterations of the budget took place outside the plenary session of the house. This is the crux of the matter. A former senator was arrested recently and the EFCC stumbled on a document which set out how N60 billion was shared among some legislators. The EFCC should investigate the source of the fund. Where did fund come from? Jibrin’s complaint should provide the country a golden opportunity to get to the root of criminality in the National Assembly.

    Regardless of the interference of the ruling party and the denial of the allegation of the padding of the 2016 budget by the Presidency, the Police and the EFCC should proceed with the investigation of the allegations of Honourable Jibrin against the leadership of the House and the counter-allegations of his colleagues against him. Up till now, the N115 billion budget of the National Assembly in the 2016 budget has been shrouded in secrecy. The ongoing investigation should reveal the details of the budget.

     

    • Falana, SAN, writes from Lagos.

  • This is the way it goes…

    Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.
    Mahatma Gandhi

    With the way things are in the country now, there is nothing left than to sit out with friends and exchange banters. It is not as if this is a new thing; we do it almost on a daily or weekly basis, but of recent we found out that we need to do it more often. Why? Well, we have come to discover that it is a good therapy for these times, because as the Chinese say, ‘we live in interesting times.’

    Our sit-out of nowadays is no longer as festive as it used to be, many things are responsible for this: one, we are all getting old, meaning we have more responsibilities to shoulder because the children are grown up and are in higher institutions, signifying that our finances are getting stretched and because of the lean times we have to cut down on so many luxuries. The ‘usual’ that goes with our soiree were not present but that does not mean our discussions were dull nor inspiring. In fact, on this day I bet they were more engaging because we are all sure all the things that were being said were all coming from the bottom of our hearts. They were not inspired by any substances, and you know what I mean.

    The first topic of discussion obviously was the parlous state of the nation’s economy. After bemoaning the fact that we are all guilty and have taken the wrong way in terms of how we contribute to the national economy. The ‘little ways’ we contribute in our own ways to the depletion of our foreign resources. For instance, that ball of apple that you buy in traffic is part of the way our foreign reserves thins out. If we all decide to shun apples and buy the local varieties where available, our foreign exchange will last a while; we should try to work and be conscious that small things matter. The more we think the apple we eat is just too small to matter the deeper we sink. The call to patronise our own local goods should not be viewed as only what we only say and not act upon. Our argument was long and drawn on this but we ended up agreeing that we have to contribute in our own little way.

    The other issue that generated controversy and tension among us was naturally the Niger Delta. This was so because a few of our sparring partners who sit down with us anytime we convene to banter on issues of national and international dimension are from this part of the country. The argument which I proffered and which I intend to highlight here has to do with what is going on in the Niger Delta region now.

    It is my strong belief and I expressed that very clearly that the region’s neglect did not start today or yesterday, it has been long and what their forefathers stomached the present generation would not brook. Therefore, we must be ready to put up with some of their offspring’s excesses; that’s the price we have to pay for our collective neglect of the region. However, where my argument branched off from that of my friends from the region is this: should they cut their nose to spite their faces? What do they hope to gain by the atrocious and senseless bombings of oil installations in their region? What, for goodness sake, do they think they are going to gain from these criminal and unforgivable acts by despoiling their own environments? How much do they think they would need to repair the incalculable damage they are invoking on their own people? When the repercussions come, do they not think or know that it is their own people and environment that are at the receiving end of these indignities they are inflicting on the land?

    Will other parts of Nigeria which they feel had ‘profited’ unjustly from their wealth of the region be touched? I was recently in Kaduna State and I saw the massive road construction that the government of the state has embarked upon. It is a long time I visited Kano but I heard and read that the former governor of the state, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso, did marvellously well and that his successor, Abdulahi Ganduje, is following this up and continuing with the good works. In Lagos where I work, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode is also carrying on the good works with construction of roads all over the state. I have cited these examples to buttress my argument that our brothers in the Niger Delta are always very touchy and quarrelsome when you direct them to ask their governors what they have been doing with the humongous allocations they have been receiving.

    It is true the nation might have been unfair to them, but how did they spend the ones received? They should begin to ask their leaders some questions and tell them to explain. Allocations that go to various agencies created for the region are enormous and we should start asking questions. The three governors I mentioned above are doing things with the little resources they get from the centre and the internally generated revenue (IGR), why not those from the Niger Delta region?

    And for those who call themselves Avengers, they should ask themselves if what they are doing to their environment now is not worse, in the long run, than what the oil companies and the federal government or whoever they want to blame for the despoliation of their environment in the last fifty years since oil was discovered in the region. Should they not pause a while and think of the incalculable damage they are doing to their own people and environment? When their grievances are finally addressed or they get what they are demanding, who will help them remedy their environment, the same Nigeria they are fighting and want to bring to its knees?

    Think again, please.

  • Ambode’s quest to secure future of Lagos

    What Nigeria’s economy is not healthy is no longer news, however, the effects of the dwindling economic situation is fast manifesting across the country. While some states can no longer cope with the obligations of paying workers’ salaries regularly, some are hanging in the balance, forcing them to visit Abuja with cap in hand, hoping for some bail out from the government at the centre.

    Observers had even argued that without the bailouts, many of the state would by now be insolvent. But despite the economic challenges, Lagos State seems to be daring the odds and breaking new grounds.

    With an increasing population of over 22 million people, the state has continued to witness an influx of Nigerians from other states and citizens from neighbouring countries on a daily basis, stretching its inadequate infrastructure.

    Economic experts readily attribute the state’s ability to remain buoyant in the midst of the economic uncertainties to the dexterity of the man at the helm of affairs, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode.

    Since assuming office Ambode has proved his financial acumen in many ways than one, which has among other things, led to the growth of the State’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).

    Governor Ambode is not oblivious of the fact that Lagosians expect nothing less from him, but to build on the legacies of his predecessors, hence his economic policy is focused on exploring new ventures to shore up its IGR to N30billion by 2017 and N50billion by 2018.

    At every given opportunity, Governor Ambode does not hesitate to tell anyone who cares to listen about the potentials of Lagos emerging as Africa’s biggest economic hub in no distant future.

    To achieve this, the governor is already mapping out strategies to complete some landmark projects already under construction, while plans are also in top gear to embark on new ones. This was the focus when he recently embarked on an extensive tour of the Eko Atlantic City (EAC) Project.

    The Eko Atlantic City Project is a multi-billion dollar project sitting on over 10million square metres and is expected to accommodate over 150,000 people who would reside there and another 250,000 who would work and commute within the city on a daily basis.

    So far, out of the over 10 million square meters of the project, about six million square meters have been reclaimed, while there are 15 bridges and two tunnels designed with the project.

    For Ambode, the EAC Project, on completion would go a long way, to not only boost the economy of the State, but also increase its IGR. Accompanied on the tour by members of the State Executive Council, the Governor pledged the total commitment of his administration towards the success of the project, saying that it would go a long way to facilitate the quest to grow potentials of the state’s economy.

    Satisfied with the infrastructure already in place at the EAC, the Governor said it now behooves on investors to take advantage of the massive opportunities, while commending the promoters of the EAC Project for their confidence in committing huge resources to the Nigerian economy, which according to him, was a positive sign that Nigeria remains the investment hub in Africa.

    “Notwithstanding the economic recession that has befallen the country right now we have come to also show that outside the recession, there is a whole lot of progress going on in the investment climate in Lagos State. We are very happy that the signs are looking very good for investment in Lagos,” Ambode said.

    The Governor also took time to inspect the 8.5km long shoreline wall, otherwise known as the ‘Great Wall of Lagos’, built to protect the EAC, saying it was gratifying that the project will not only protect the new city, but also protect the whole of Victoria Island against any ocean surge, which was one of the primary reasons for the project.

    He continued: “This is a new and a bigger version of Victoria Island. We are going to have an Energy City here, a financial hub that is more or less going to run under a Free Trade Zone and so on. Basically, all these put together turns Lagos to that leader that we want it to be in Africa and the quality of infrastructure that has been put here is also encouraging.”

    Chairman of Eko Atlantic City, Mr. Ronald Chagoury said one of the first two residential buildings in the new city will be completed by the end of August, while the second will be ready before the end of the year, adding that the first office block will be ready between September and October, 2016.

    Chagoury described the project as an impressive financial district which upon completion, would compare with the financial district in Paris, France and the 5th Avenue in New York, United States.

    He added that the Great wall of Lagos was scientifically designed to withstand any ocean surge and that it was built to last for 1,000 years.

    Managing Director of Access Bank, Mr. Herbert Wigwe, whose bank is the major partner with the promoters of the EAC project and the Lagos State Government, said aside the fact that adequate arrangement had been made to protect the City, the project was all about saving the State and creating a new tomorrow for people to live in Lagos.

    In similar corollary, Governor Ambode has set his eyes on seeing the Lekki Free Trade Zone (LFTZ) take flight. Prior to his visit to the EAC, the Governor had accompanied the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo to the LFTZ to inspect the level of work on the projects being carried out by the Dangote Group.

    The Zone which has the capacity to shoot the State to global economic reckoning, among other budding industries and multinational companies is host to Dangote Group, developers of an $11 billion world class refinery with a processing capacity of 650,000 barrels of oil per day.

    Aside the refinery, the Dangote Group is also embarking on a Fertilizer Plant and a Gas plant, all in one location. Speaking to journalists after a tour of the projects which lasted about two hours, Ambode said projects being undertaken by Dangote at the Zone would significantly boost the economy of Lagos and have great multiplier effects on the nation’s economy.

    He said the projects would also be critical to the economic growth of the Lagos East and West Senatorial Districts, which according to him, will be open to massive investment opportunities on completion.

    “The coming of the Vice President to inspect this project is instructive and a sign post that the Federal Government is in support of what is going on us and the truth is this, we might not be able to show you all that is going on here but in another few weeks, we will do an aerial view of this project and also do a documentary because for the very first time we are going to have a Petrochemical project that is coming on stream by December 2017; a Refinery that is coming on stream by the first quarter of 2019 and also the Gas project that is coming on stream by 2018. You can just imagine or visualize what that means to the economy of Lagos,” Governor Ambode said.

    The governor is also excited that apart from the 135,000 direct jobs that will be created from the projects, another 100,000 indirect jobs would be generated while income accruable to the Federal Government would be in the region of over $500millionin three years.

    Only last week, the President of Togo, Mr. Faure Gnassingbe was the latest visitor to the Zone. His interest as expected was the Dangote Projects.

    The governor seized the occasion to inform the visitor that the Dangote project was another confirmation that Lagos is a prime investment destination, expressing optimism that the project, one of the biggest in the African region, will positively change the face of oil and gas business in the West African region.

    He maintained that Lagos is home to all nations, races and creeds, including substantial Togolese population, adding: “I’m positive that we are providing them with the opportunities to get ahead in their endeavours.”

    While inviting Togolese investors to take advantage of the positive investment climate in Lagos, Ambode said the State is open for businesses, and that his administration, in a bid to encourage investment, had massively invested in infrastructure and security of lives and property.

    For Alhaji Aliko Dangote, the decision to site the massive projects in Lagos was not a difficult one to make. He said the decision was due to the investment friendly climate in the state.

    Aside the Eko Atlantic City Project and the Lekki Free Trade Zone, the Lekki Deep Sea Port, Badagry Deep Sea Port, Oshodi Regeneration Project and the historic 4th Mainland Bridge are other landmark projects the Ambode administration looks poised to bring to fruition.

    For sure, with the above multi-billion dollars projects coming into fruition within the next two to three years, it is not too difficult to discern that the projected N50b IGR would be achievable. And as the governor has severally said, despite the uncertain economic climate, the future of Lagos is secured.

    • Anibaba, an economist, lives in Gbagada

  • AMCON’s remarkable path on debt recovery

    Even before assuming the reins of power, President Muhammadu Buhari, then candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), left no one in doubt during his campaigns that his second coming, just like his days as military head of state, would exercise zero tolerance for corrupt practices. It was not surprising that he shopped for skilled, experienced and upright hands to man strategic offices as soon as he was sworn into office as the 6th civilian president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on May 29, 2015.

    Today, even the President’s worst critics have scored him high and lauded the ongoing anti-corruption war of his administration. Some analysts have also praised the manner in which corrupt practices are being dealt with in every stratum of the Nigerian society and trickling down government’s offices, establishments and agencies, among others.

    One of such establishments, which remains strategic and central to the economic stability and investment climate in Nigeria, is the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON). The Corporation was set up by the government in 2010 by the Act of the National Assembly to save Nigerian banks and businesses from total collapse in the wake of global financial meltdown, which started escalating since 2008.

    Hence, when the administration of President Buhari appointed Ahmed Kuru as Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of AMCON at the inception of this administration, the amiable banker clearly understood his briefs and had his blueprint ready for implementation. The day he assumed duties, Kuru literally hit the ground running when he sent clear signals to all debtors about his readiness to go after anybody that is in the book of AMCON, irrespective of their clouts. Few days later, he read the riot act to debtors and obligors again affirming that AMCON will no longer tolerate debtors or handle them with kid-glove.

    The bold decisions from Kuru gave renewed hope to Nigerians that as difficult as the job of recovering debt was, AMCON would tremendously reduce the number of obligors in its portfolio. But with the backlash these commendable steps have received from a few elements, analysts are of the opinion that Kuru and his team may have underestimated the crudity and pettiness of some of the corporation’s notorious and recalcitrant debtors.

    Reacting to a recent media ‘war’ between AMCON and some obligors, Mr. Emeka Brian, a Lagos-based public analyst said, “It is obvious that AMCON underestimated how low some of their debtors could stoop in desperation to continue to defraud Nigeria. For me, it is heartwarming that we have a government agency like AMCON stepping up its recovery efforts. I am enjoying the plethora of revelations they have made in the last couple of months. Nigerians need to know those that have grounded the Nigerian economy because we cannot continue like this.”

    While calling on AMCON not to be intimidated by these attacks, Brian said he was not surprised that these characters are fighting back. Again, he said, “These are ‘big men’ with socio-political and economic wherewithal.  Sadly, some of them are petty and crude and are capable of displaying less than noble traits when desperate for survival. They have the capacity to fight back, but we thank God that AMCON now has a management that is determined to join the change band wagon of the present administration.”

    Other analysts said that just like corruption is fighting back at all levels that it is being fought by the federal government, AMCON should have known that its debtors will not just fold their arms and watch while it embarrasses and humiliates them before the Nigerian public. So it is expected.

    They lauded Kuru’s passion to improve Nigeria’s investment climate by making AMCON to be alive to its responsibilities and statutory roles; also his resolve to impress it on everyone that it’s no longer business as usual, thereby turning the table against recalcitrant debtors of the corporation.

    It will recalled that in his strive to improve the performance of the Corporation upon assuming office, Kuru had sought and received President Buhari’s backing to set up a Presidential Inter-Agency Committee (PIAC) on recovery of loans owed Asset AMCON. The Committee, which was inaugurated by the President earlier in the year, was meant to help AMCON confront the effrontery of these die-hard debtors who were hitherto regarded as ‘untouchables’ before now.

    Since inception, the job of recovering the huge funds owed the Corporation by debtors has beena herculean and challenging task; it is pretty much still a difficult task except that the present Kuru-led management seems to have succeeded in establishing the fact that debtors can no longer take the Corporation for granted as it was the case in the past.

    Even at that, AMCON has kept emphasising debt resolutions through negotiation strategies thus strategically playing down on the AMCON Act 2010, which empowers it to compel its debtors.

    Left with no choice, AMCON backed by support from the PIAC moved in on some high-profile obligors who have been whining and resorted to media war with the Corporation for exercising its statutory powers. In the past couple of months, AMCON has intensified its legal battles to recover debts owed it and succeeded in securing court orders to freeze accounts, take receivership and/or initiated the winding down process of some companies.

    Rather than seeking ways to resolve their issues with the Corporation, by way of exploiting the negotiations strategy offered to them; some of the affected debtors have resorted to blackmailing AMCON in the media, perhaps with a view to arm-twisting the Corporation to surrender to their will.

    Analysts believe the media should take time to measure these obligor’s complaints against the background of AMCON’s position that many of the corporation’s debtors are living large and flying private jets all over the place while refusing to pay up or service their debts.

    Of all the rich and powerful that have been affected by the ‘wind of change’ emanating from AMCON, Senator Ben Murray-Bruce stood out. He was contrite enough to accept responsibility and appear to be working frantically to re-negotiate his loan terms with AMCON.The Senator kept his head and remained composed when he heard the news that AMCON has taken over his businesses. Indeed, he calmly sent his reaction in his Twitter handle thus: “I have been on an international flight and have only just landed. The situation is being resolved and things will be back to normal.

    “In 36 years, Silverbird has grown and like anybody, it will face challenges. Tough times don’t last. But we, as tough people, outlast them.”

    However, as obligors of AMCON are devising ways to shift attention from the crust of the matter, which is their huge debt profile, AMCON must continue to re-invent itself and remain focused in carrying out its statutory obligations as firmly entrenched in the Act establishing it.

    Every well-meaning Nigerian understands that AMCON is operating within the ambit of the law and will continue to pray that AMCON succeeds because these rich and powerful men have mortgaged our today; we must not allow them to mortgage the future of our children.

    This is why one must commend President Buhari for setting up the PIAC to assist AMCON to achieve its set goals and objectives. It is a welcome development and it’s exactly what AMCON needs to carry on effectively. The way the Corporation’s debtor companies, obligors and their promoters with strong political and economic influence have perfected the art of frustrating and circumventing AMCON’s recovery efforts before now; AMCON surely needs support of relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government to join forces to assist it tackle issues of debt recovery from these recalcitrant debtors and obligors irrespective of their power and influence.

    If cheap blackmail and name calling is what AMCON has to endure to succeed, let the debtors go ahead and wail. But pay…they must.

    • Okoli is a Lagos-based public analyst

  • What’s it about restructuring?

    After June 12, 1993 I became a rabid agitator for restructuring of the entity called Nigeria. This stemmed from my belief that the South West once again was dealt an unkind blow by the annulment of the June 12 election. With the killing of Kudirat Abiola, Alfred Rewane and eventual death of MKO Abiola, I believed the Northern oligarchs and their collaborators from other parts and ethnic enclaves glaringly showed us in the South West that we are not part of the Nigeria. I was all up for Oduduwa Republic if that was what it would take.

    That was where my belief and support for the likes of Bola Tinubu, Bola Ige, Abraham Adesanya, Alani Akinrinnade et al in the now defunct NADECO started from. Their doggedness in the face of tyranny is worthy of emulation. They spent and they were spent. That is why at present even with some of their shortcomings it’s always easy for me to overlook it because I feel they genuinely love their race and ultimately their country.

    Over the years, my anger has been tempered. Thanks to the eventual enthronement of democracy, my faith and belief in the Nigerian project was once again rekindled. Also, having done a lot of research and extensive reading, I came to the conclusion that I will NEVER be in support of any move to balkanise this nation. I can’t imagine myself being a citizen of a pocketsize country. Size and population confer power and influence. The only reason why developed nations still continually reckon with Nigeria in spite of our not getting it right is because of our size. You don’t joke with a country of over 200 million people! Small nations of the world like Singapore are stable and getting it right economically but they don’t wield our kind of influence. Give me a nation that is great and influential, and you can rest assured that USA, China, India, Russia, etc, will come to mind. If possible I even want us to annex Benin and Togo and make them part of Nigeria. Already, our present bad economy is affecting both nations. Their Presidents ran to Nigeria on the same day last week to plead with Buhari to please quickly fix Nigerian economy because it’s already affecting their own economy. Their survival and that of other countries in West Africa lies with the prosperity of Nigeria.

    For some time now, the issue of restructuring has taken over the political space in Nigeria. In fact, it’s coming from the mouths of unlikely people like former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar. True to nature, this voice is loudest in the South West but as in our character in the SW, the approach is intellectual. We believe in intellectual discourse by bringing about superior arguments to reinforce our agitation, thereby swaying others to believe in our ideas. A young man called Nnamdi Kanu is leading a revolt in the South East for the resurgence of Biafra. He just wants out! The South South militants have started to register their agitation again by doing what they know best to do: bombing of oil and gas pipelines. With all these agitations coming from major zones of the country, it is pertinent to note that we need a radical approach to sorting out this nation once and for all and we must be fast about it.

    Be that as it may, I have a lot of questions on my mind. Yes, we need to restructure but how and in what form? Do we have to go back to the old regional government? Is it not ironical that the same SW asking that we go back to regional system of government are the same people asking the National Assembly to create more states for them? As at the last count, there are 5 proposals from different parts of SW at the NA for state creation, chief among them Ijebu people from the present Ogun State and Oke Ogun people from the present Oyo state. The South East justifiably is also asking for at least one more state to be created for them to balance the numbers in other geo political zones. Now, what do we do?

    Is it restructuring that this nation really needs or good governance? There is a school of thought that believes that if we can get governance right, all the sectional agitations will vaporise and become a thing of the past. Also, another school of thought is of the opinion that what we need is a true fiscal federalism. They believe once we can get the revenue sharing formula right, then we are good to go. They believe states should get more allocation than FG because states deal directly with the people and that’s where development and infrastructure is needed most. It is a fact that revenue and how it should be shared is the primary reasons why we have agitations from most parts of the country for restructuring. Some like the SW feel that the “Nigeria Project” is slowing them down. They believe given the same scenario as we had in the first republic regional government, the SW would have gone far ahead of other regions in terms of developmental strides.

    I have heard so many stories of how in the First Republic each region handled her own resources and got revenue from such and, based on agreed terms, contributed to the centre to maintain the FG. They tell stories of how Awolowo used revenue from Cocoa and agriculture to fund free education and develop the Western region while the South East was getting revenue from palm oil, cotton and rubber. The North was known for their groundnut pyramid which Ahmadu Bello used in developing the whole Northern region.

    As good as it was then, I don’t believe this can work as it worked at that time…times are different. I stand to be corrected on that. Also, folks who tell these stories forgot to tell us that in spite of the fact that regions were getting higher revenues the proceeds from every resource from the regions were still going to the centre. The regional governments were not the one issuing receipts for the revenues but the FG. It was just as it is today: all monies go to the consolidated revenue account of the federation. The difference at that time was the revenue sharing formula. Regions were allocated 50 percent of revenue that comes from them. That was the difference!

    I am so much persuaded that revenue sharing formula is at the centre of the whole issue of agitation for restructuring. That for me is about fiscal federalism! We have so much moved away from the regional government years that I sometimes wonder how you want to now start merging states to form a region in 2016. Rather, what should be seriously worked on is the sharing formula for allocation while states should begin what I call integrated development of their regions. I am glad that Lagos State has finally been admitted into the Odua Investment Corporation framework. Let each State House of Assembly come up with a law stipulating that a percentage of their monthly allocation go into a regional purse. Each state would have a representative on the board of this corporation and their mandate should purely be aggressive infrastructural development of that region especially as it concerns structures that link them together like roads, railways, airports, education, commerce etc. I still can’t get my head around the fact that in 2016 AD there is no fast train interconnectivity between the two largest cities in SW, Lagos and Ibadan. The sovereignty of Nigeria as a nation is tied to that joint purse called Consolidated Revenue Account. That is why even in the first republic it existed and from that common purse revenues were shared. The moment you remove that common purse, you take away Nigeria.

    Once allocation is made to reflect revenue from each state and the FG is made less attractive by repealing all those archaic stuff in the exclusive list of the FG, and are transferred to the states, we would have solved one of our major problems. Let the FG take care of the Armed Forces, Internal Affairs, Border controls etc. With this, states will get to work and only leaders who have something tangible to offer will vie for elective positions. There is no state in this country that does not have what it takes to be self sufficient. Any idiot can be a Governor in the present day Nigeria. It’s a no brainer to wait for allocation every month and share it the way you want after paying salaries, if you even bother to pay salary at all. It’s like free money. How can you spend money you did not work for? That’s why the likes of Fayose would continue to be Governor in Nigeria. Governance is about management and ability to judiciously allocate resources for the greater good of the greater number. The likes of Awo were not just sitting down waiting for manna from heaven. They had to develop what’s called the Cocoa board in each local district, cooperative association were formed which made it easy for farmers to access loans as a group. This enabled Cocoa farmers to sell their Cocoa beans to the Cocoa boards for export at a profit. Farm settlements were created all over the region and tax was utilised efficiently. Western Region was so rich she lent the FG £2 million at a time. The day my father showed me a newspaper clip to that effect, I was wowed!

    Leadership is not for rabble rousers. It’s not for people who can’t think deeply nor engage and utilise both human and material resources. Governance is a serious business that must not be left for the mediocre and political jobbers. Governance affects lives therefore those who aspire to leadership must be people who have the ability to make things happen. I am from Ekiti and I will continually disagree with people that it’s just a civil service state. For a leader who knows his onions, Ekiti is a virgin land waiting for a leader that would deflower her and harness her potential for development and positive impact. The name Ekiti is derived from the word “Okiti”, that is, a mound. Our name is synonymous with what surrounds us, miles and miles of rocks “okiti.” Yet we import marbles and granite to construct roads and to build luxury homes and hotels in Nigeria. Ekiti can supply all the granite for road construction in Nigeria, while Ondo State has the 3rd largest deposit of bitumen in the world, yet all these are lying fallow untapped. These are the two major components for road construction. Is it not a curse that we import marble and polished stones while Ekiti has it in abundance? The whole of Ijero/Aramoko Ekiti environ is littered with precious stones. I know few friends who travel to Ijero Ekiti to buy precious stones from local miners for export to Europe and US. What of logging? Ekiti has hundreds of kilometres of wood forest of different species from Iroko, Obeche etc which we can harness as the bedrock for the furniture industry and earn foreign exchange from. Ilesha in Osun State is filled with gold but who’s mining it? Yet, I know some so called Yoruba nation agitators that invested millions of dollars in a goldmine in Ghana. What a shame!

    • Kayode Adebiyi is a Lagos-based PR/perception management executive.

  • Igbo, Ngige and Buhari’s government

    Recently the story went viral on social and traditional media alleging that the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Dr. Chris Ngige was booed while trying to defend President Muhammadu Buhari’s alleged lopsided appointments at a Town Hall forum organised by the Federal Ministry of Information in Enugu.

    Now, who booed Ngige and why – if true? Why not the other ministers at the Forum which included Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, who is from Enugu or Minister for Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed who is the image maker of Buhari’s government? This question underscores the purpose of the sponsored story against the personality of Ngige, a man who has never shied away from the truth and what he believes is right no matter the circumstances.

    There is no doubt that among the wailing Igbo political elites today who were majorly responsible for the political and economic woes of the south-east zone in last 16 years, Ngige stands shoulder high above them, with his unprecedented track records in political leadership and vision. Politically, Ngige has always carved a niche for himself and avoided bandwagon syndrome like a plague.

    Dissecting Ngige’s foray in Nigerian politics after an outstanding public service career that spanned over a decade, he took off as a foundation member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 1998. Becoming the governor of Anambra State in 2003, Ngige redefined governance and leadership through his verifiable and unparalleled infrastructural development in the state. At the risk of his personal life, he dared and conquered political godfatherism, liberated the state from the stronghold of the notorious political godfathers that held the state down for years. That singular action of Ngige marked the beginning of new, responsible and responsive leadership in the state and the rest of the country.

    Defecting from the PDP to co-found the defunct Action Congress (AC) in 2006 alongside the likes of Ahmed Bola Tinubu, AlhajiAtikuAbubakar and others, Ngige never looked back at the PDP led-government throughout its locust years that benefitted majority of the South-east PDP elites at expense of the rest of the Igbos. Within this period, Ngige remained steadfast, focused, patient, and dogged, despite several efforts by these elites and their cohorts to pull him down by all means.

    To prove his popularity and acceptance in the South-east, Ngige won Anambra Central zone senatorial election in 2011 on the platform of Action Congress of Nigeria, defeating the candidate of the ruling APGA government in the state, late Prof. Dora Akunyili. His party also won five House of Assembly and one House of Representatives seats in the state to the surprise and disappointment of the PDP and APGA apologists in the zone. While in the Senate, he attracted infrastructural and manpower developments to his state and the zone in general.

    Ahead of the 2015 polls, the South-east PDP elites who lacked political sagacity to read the country’s political barometer, and for their own selfish interests deceived the Igbos to put all their eggs in one basket, by voting for President Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP, against Muhammed Buhari and the APC.

    It was the same Ngige who never hid his unalloyed support for the APC and Buhari that consistently appealed to the Igbos to reconsider their stand and avoid putting all their eggs in one basket, because the odd favoured APC and Buhari. But nobody believed him, instead some sponsored and disgruntled Igbos called him all sort of names.

    Again, when these political jobbers and merchants who have continued to parade themselves as Igbo political leaders heard that APC has zoned the Senate President to the South-east ahead of the elections and Ngige was the favourite, they deployed everything at their disposal to ensure that Ngige did not win re-election to the Senate. That was a typical Pull-Him-Down political practice that has held the Igbos down since 1999 till date.

    Immediately after the 2015 presidential poll, which was won by Buhari and the APC, it dawned on the Igbos and their merchant PDP leaders that they have misfired politically.

    These were the same leaders who have occupied all the positions in the PDP led-government for 16 years, won all the contracts, cornered all the funds meant for the zone without any tangible thing to point at as their achievements for the Igbos. But instead of keeping quiet and re-strategize for a better political alignment with the APC-led government to attract federal presence to the south-east zone, one of the PDP leaders, who is also a ranking senator, now embattled, once boasted that Igbos have no regret voting for Jonathan and the PDP in the 2015 elections, stressing that if the opportunity comes again, Igbos would vote the same way.”

    As if that was not enough to show the southeast zone’s belligerence to Buhari’s government from the onset, NnamdiKanu and his sponsors commenced the nefarious activities of the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) in the zone without any caution from the merchant leaders of the zone, all in a bid to distract the Buhari’s government. Not long, IPOB members became allies of the Niger-Delta Avengers members making it obvious that they are working together to bring down Buhari’s government by all means.

    Instead of the continued lamentations over alleged lopsided federal appointments by Buhari’s government, the Igbos should ask their leaders who have been appointed and awarded contracts in the last 16 years of the PDP rule to account for their stewardships. This is the time for the Igbos to take stock and hold their merchant leaders responsible, because they have always been the bane of progress in Igbo land. They have neither shown nor provided leadership for the people of the zone. Rather they have continued to exploit the gullibility of an average Igbo person using the Biafra sentiment. That is why the lamentations should be more on the terrible state of basic infrastructures in the zone, than federal appointments, considering that past appointees from the zone have always cornered public funds for their personal use without rendering account.

    Has any Igbo man asked who embezzled Enugu-Onitsha road contract fund during Jonathan’s administration? What about Enugu-Port Harcourt road and other federal roads across the south-east zone that have become death traps? They are the same people who are today sponsoring media attacks on the likes of Ngige and Buhari’s government. Their major motive is not about the well-being of the Igbos or development of the zone, but for them to be appointed into government positions to continue with their looting spree. But unfortunately for them, they have met a brick wall in Buhari’s government because of its pragmatic and transparent style of governance that has made easy money difficult to come by.

    It is not too late for the Igbos to have a rethink, do away with their merchant leaders who have misled and held them down before now, support their genuine leaders and constructively engage Buhari’s government for the development of the zone. Igbos should not cry more than the bereaved now or throw away the baby and the bath tub again as it is becoming obvious that the Niger-Delta region, whose son was defeated in the last presidential election is already engaging the Buhariadministration for their betterment. Enough of political deceit, self-aggrandisement, political jobbing, greed, vindictiveness and political differences among the Igbos for 2019 is fast approaching. Once beaten, twice shy. A world is enough for the wise.

     

    • Dr. Ezeh, a university don wrote from Ogui, Enugu State.

  • INEC and Rivers re-run polls

    It is a tread-bare fact that the rate of inconclusive elections is increasing. Some writers have thus taken as a duty to slam the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over such polls. A national daily published one of such satires recently which caught my attention while doing my usual rituals of flipping through the pages of newspapers. The opinion, “INEC, violence and Rivers re-run,”   authored by one GilberthElechi in Daily Sun captured my mind not because of the striking headline but my eagerness to learn more about  political developments in Rivers State.

    But no sooner I had fully settled down to digest the supposedly compelling piece to further enrich my knowledge on the burning issue of the delayed re-run election in the state thatmy  dispassionate expectation was shattered by the jaundiced diagnosis of  the subject  displayed by the writer.

    It was crystal clear that the writer was on mud-slinging mission to mislead Nigerians that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) deliberately tailored the delayed re-run election to soothe some political interests while at the same time absolving the two major political parties in the state – the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) of any blame for the postponed election.

    While I am not in any way holding brief for INEC or any political party, I think writers like the saidElechi need to be purged of the penchant for ill-concocted theories, misinformation and selective amnesia by objectively drawing their attention to the events that culminated to the postponement of the re-run as according to Wolfgang Von Goethe, “The historian’s duty is to separate the true from the false, the certain from the uncertain, and the doubtful from that which cannot be accepted.”

    For instance, Elechi, in the said write-up was quick to hit hard on the INEC’s Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu for delaying the rerun election in the self-acclaimed ‘peaceful’ Rivers State , but forget  so soon that the same insecurity symptoms and war rhetoric by politicians that were at play in the aborted March re-run election, that led to the loss of lives, including the death of a National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) member, Okonta Samuel, were openly manifested before INEC decision to postpone the July 31 rerun.

    Should INEC have gone ahead with the election even when the ominous sign of violence were clearly written on the wall with the burning of INEC office in Bori and other political skirmishes across the state? Is the political ambition of any politician or power tussle of politicians worth the lives of Rivers people?  The conduct of elections is invariably a collective venture that involves not just INEC, but also a diverse range of stakeholders, notably security agencies, political parties and their candidates, voters, as well as interest groups. To guarantee credible and transparent polls, there are things that are strictly the responsibility of the electoral body, and the issue of security, which has been the bane of the Rivers rerun, is outside the purview of INEC.

    That was why the immediate past US Ambassador to Nigeria, James Entwistle, said that INEC is not to be blamed over recurring inconclusive elections in some states. Entwistle made the declaration while having a roundtable, a kind of send-off for him.   Expounding how politicians’ activities force INEC to declare some elections inconclusive, he said, “Politicians often fail to adhere to the principle of non-violence which leads to disruption of the electoral process.”

    He said politicians, rather than INEC, is to be blamed for the recurring impasse in election results in states such as Kogi, Bayelsa, and others. Coincidentally, INEC has come under severe attacks for declaring elections held in some states inconclusive, especially in Kogi and Bayelsa states.

    Nobody is saying that America or Americans are infallible in their views about democracy in general or its application in Nigeria. Politics is a dirty game anywhere in the world, including Uncle Sam. But the difference here in Nigeria is that it is worse than that: Politics is the devil’s game. That’s why some politicians will not hesitate to spill the blood of the people they seek to govern if it will guarantee their chance. They even sometime do so just to undo their opponents.

    Though Elechi admitted that the issue of inconclusive elections first crept into the  nation’s electoral system in  2011 through the supplementary election that saw to the emergence of Governor RochasOkorocha of Imo State, he however misfired  when he said that the  Prof Yakubu’s headship of INEC has eminently entrenched them.  The reason for more cases of inconclusive election under the current INEC chairman is as a result of the desire of the electoral body to ensure that elections in the country are more credible and reflect the wishes of the electorates.

    In other words, INEC new system has made it impossible for election riggers to have their ways through mere allocations of votes or the use of brute force to declare results that negate the wish of the electorates. That personifies integrity, which Yakubu has always stood for.

    While I share in the well-founded paranoia of the Rivers people who are now suffering from lack of adequate representation at both the national and state assemblies, the electoral process will be best served when politicians in the state do away with the dangerous win-at-all cost mentality for the re-run election to hold peacefully instead of passing the blame to  INEC.

     

    • Ukoha, a public affairs analyst, writes from Abuja.

  • Ogundeko: Exit of soldier, educationist

    Today, the remains of the late Foundation Director General of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, Maj. Gen.(Otunba) T.B Ogundeko (rtd), OFR will be laid to rest. He died in his home town Ijebu-Mushin on July 8, aged 84 years.

    The Alumni Association of the National Institute, AANI in a condolence message conveyed by its  President, Major-General Lawrence AnebiOnoja(rtd) to his family, people and government of Ogun State  singled out “the remarkable contribution of late Maj. Gen. (Otunba) T.B. Ogundeko OFR to the growth and development of the country”.

    The late African writer, Chinua Achebe in his book “There Was a Country” stated that Nigeria that once produced public officers who not only worked harder but smarter with integrity and selflessness for public good. The late Maj. Gen.(Otunba) T.B Ogundeko was the face of Nigeria that once worked and delivered service for Nigerians and indeed all Africans. Sadly, names of some public holders almost in sectors are identified with self-enrichment and ruination of public institutions. Commendably T.B Ogundeko’s signature was synonymous with institution-building long before Barack Obama’s belated admonition to African leaders about strong institutions during his Ghanaian visit in 2009. His imprints are verifiable, indelible and sustainable. He was past Commandant Nigerian Military School (1962-1972); past Director Nigeria Army Education Corps (1972-1978) and Founding Director General, National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) Kuru among others. In his popularized tribute to the late General, Lt. Gen T Y Danjuma described Major General Timothy Babatunde Ogundeko as “…the best Direct Commissioned Officer that ever served in the Nigerian Army”. He recalled that all…”the professional soldiers who served with Timothy remember him as a mature and seasoned teacher who transformed the Nigerian Army Education Corps through his foresight, dedication, determination and diligence. He also transformed the attitude of the officer corps towards continuous learning and the acquisition of knowledge”.

    The former Chief of Army Staff recalled how late General facilitated the establishment of the Command Secondary Schools “to meet the needs of the children of Army personnel, a feat “soon copied by other Services of the Nigerian Armed Forces”.  His remarkable and historic role in the establishment of the prestigious National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru however stood him out as a committed public administrator.  Established in 1979 by the Federal Government, NIPSS Kuru has continued to serve as a high level centre for reflection, research, and dialogue where academics of intellectual excellence, policy initiators and executors and other citizens of practical experience and wisdom drawn from different sectors of national life in Nigeria, meet annually to reflect and exchange ideas on the great issues of society, particularly as they relate to Nigeria and Africa in the context of the dynamics of a constantly and rapidly changing world. Today, the National Institute has graduated over 1500 participants that include three former Heads of State, former governors, traditional rulers, serving and past top level executives from various walks of life such as the presidency, states and local governments, civil service, Armed Forces, academia, labour and para-military institutions among others who are adding value to the country. As the pioneer Director of the National Institute, Major-General Timothy Babatunde Ogundeko presided over the institute between 1979 and 1981. An educationalist to the core, General Ogundeko was the Director, Army Education Corps before his appointment late in 1978 by General Obasanjo, then Head of State, to bring into fruition his (Obasanjo) dream for the establishment of the National Institute. In an interview with 2015 National Institute Yearbook, General Ogundeko who creatively coined the motto of the National Institute, “Towards a Better Society” and also designed its logo narrated how he travelled to notable countries like the UK, the US, India, Pakistan, Malaysia and Germany to understudy their national institutes with the objective of pioneering the National Institute at Kuru, Jos. As first Director General, he established the 38-week intensive Senior Executive Course (SEC), inaugurated the Alumni Association of the National Institute during the graduation ceremony of SEC 1, March 1980.  He successfully graduated SEC 1 and SEC 2 before retiring voluntarily on health grounds at the age of 49 in 1981, just before the commencement of SEC 3.  General Ogundeko recalled to the NIPPS editors how on account of his commitment to NIPPS to the inauguration of SEC 1 in 1979, he had complications from an eye surgery.  He reminisced: “….just before the first course started in 1979, I had to go for medical treatment in the UK, I had an eye surgery.  I needed about 14 days to recover from the surgery. However, I kept receiving telephone from Nigeria reminding me of the September target date for the official opening of the new institute. So I requested for discharge, explaining to them that I was urgently needed back home.  When I came back, what I remembered was that I was still bleeding in the eye in which the surgery was conducted because I was seeing red.  It was certainly bleeding but I could not complain. We had a successful inauguration on September 3, 1979”.

    Ogundeko belonged to the generation that selflessly served the nation even at the expense of their personal well-being.

    President Muhammadu Buhari in his tribute to the late , Maj. Gen. Timothy BabatundeOgundeko said the deceased “will be long remembered for his towering role as an educationist and public administrator, who immensely contributed to the procedure and processes of training potential leaders in security and socio-political environment of Nigeria”. Undoubtedly an accomplished patriot, the late General was saddened at the recent commitment deficit to nation-building by contemporary public office holders. Witness him: “When I listen to news….the most depressing thing is corruption.  There is much corruption in the country to the extent that the funds available to this country and to the states have been terribly eroded.  Some state governments cannot pay salaries of workers six months. That sort of thing should not happen, but it is taking place. Listening to the news daily on radio and television depresses one.  Those who are appointed to positions are exploiting such for personal gain.  But what can one do?  What can one say about that?  I think with determination the government’s effort to fight corruption will succeed, even though it is not going to be easy”. The celebrated South African poet, BM Themba, once wrote that “Blessed are the dead. For they will; Never be suspected…”

    May his soul rest in perfect peace. Certainly the late Gen. Timothy Babatunde Ogundeko is blessed because he would no longer be suspected of lamentation about our free fall from development of the past to underdevelopment of the recent times. But he would be better honoured as the nation resolves in his words “with determination” to make a difference from corruption to development agenda.

     

    • Aremu, mni is Secretary General, Alumni Association of the National Institute, (AANI), Abuja.

  • When killer herdsmen visited my family

    Nothing prepares you for that kind of news. Nothing. Bedlam upon bedlam. Heart-wrenching tears and rage simply greeted the modern day war brought to our homestead. To my own blood.

    For several years now, I had joined the loud campaign railing against the slaughter of innocent lives by Fulani herdsmen- from Plateau, and louder still when the marauders moved their sceptre of genocidal dance to my home state of Benue, leaving in their wake hundreds of innocent dead, including women and suckling infants, especially earlier this year. Then Enugu, then elsewhere… I had no idea that my family or any of its members would be their next target.

    Friday, August 5, my elder brother, Obekpa James Onuh, same-father-same-mother as we put it in Nigeria, was macheted by two Fulani herdsmen during his visit to our village, Orokam in Benue State. He was riding on a motor bike and going on a visit to a cousin in a nearby village around Adupi, and was just leaving our village Ukalegwu, when two men he identified as middle-aged, gangling Fulani men (near one of their camps in the village), attacked him on the lonely path, one with a big stick, felled him from his bike and the other with a sharp machete, proceeded to hack at his neck as he lay struggling on the ground. He fended off several blows with his left hand and sustained deep cuts to his arm. But before he could make an escape to a nearby house, the machete man gave him a big blow to his forehead. How he managed to run to a nearby house, how he survived the profuse bleeding especially from several severed veins in his arm in a rickety village health centre till the next day and has held on to life in a hospital in Otukpo where he lives, has remained a miracle to us.

    So, compatriots, so this is it (deep breath): we are no longer safe even in our ancestral homeland. Place of our peaceful childhood visits, play grounds, farmlands, innocent mischiefs and sacred land of our ancestors around which we have jealously nursed so many sweet reminiscences and visited from time to time. Fulani cattle-rearers have set up camps all across our small village after being sent away from the nearby Okpoga village after a series of murder and rape cases followed by incessant clash with locals. But my village as I know it since childhood is a sedate, laid-back land with locals who greet you quietly and smile from ear to ear. A poor, agrarian community sandwiched between Enugu and Kogi State and claimed by Benue, cocooned by a million and one palm trees, perennially short-changed by pot-bellied politicians and long forgotten by government, yet no one wants trouble.

    But life sometimes is unfair, so, true to type, the herdsmen, on arrival, came with their baggage of trouble. Besides annexing ancestral lands with the connivance of a local chief, farmlands have been ravaged by their cows, our women have been raped and locals fear the Agatu ‘treatment’ (massacre) may befall them, so they hardly say ‘pim’. I now learnt some murders have occurred but many bury their unfortunate dead in silence, not wanting further trouble, until in recent times when the cattle rearers and the criminal elements among them appeared to have upped their murderous game, become emboldened and clearly stretched their hands beyond the tolerant limits of the fragile elbow. But clearly, no one knows what next to expect. Scary.

    My brother’s case was obviously not a robbery incident: nothing was taken from him. The bike which belonged to the wife of another cousin was found the next day at the spot. It is a criminal gang bent on unleashing terror for reasons that absolutely beggars belief, leaving with you with several puzzles.

    The security agencies? They are basically looking the other way. Though the case was reported at the local police post, no arrests have been made so far.

    Dear compatriots, why are herdsmen allowed to bear arms (including AK-47, automatic rifles in daylight) and in clear violation of the laws of the land and after so many cases of murder of their hosts across the country?

    Why has no one been arrested, tried and brought to book over the series of carnages across the country at least in the last one year? Why has the Presidency yet to issue a strong word of condemnation against these herdsmen for the heinous crime against humanity they commit across Nigeria?

    Why does the presidency choose to be silent in the face of most of these attacks that have left hundreds dead in their wake in some instances but would offer profuse tear-soaked condolences to other countries after terrorist attacks on their citizens?

    Why has the president ordered the Minister of Agriculture to go to governors, asking that ancestral lands be annexed to cattle rearers, when fellow Nigerians who are involved in similar private businesses like chicken, pigs, goats and rabbits rearing are not extended same privilege (meanwhile a bill on Grazing Rights that would also set aside special fund for the grazing reserves sits majestically in the National Assembly waiting to be passed to give legitimacy to it all)?

    Why is the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, seat of Federal Government now being besieged by herds and herds of cows eating away at flowers and ornamental plants, disrupting traffic, threatening commuters’ safety and messing up every corner with their ‘expensive shit’ while all the enforcement agencies headquartered in the same city look shyly away? The same city which chased away hawkers and Okada riders to enforce and ensure the sanity deserving of capital cities?

    I believe that President Buhari would be doing himself a lot of good, now and in the ever-hovering face of posterity, to rein in the cattle rearers and dispel these dangerous rumours and perceptions making round. He must put in every effort to dispel the general perception around his discriminatory treatment of his Fulani cattle rearer-kinsmen, run Nigeria like the secular, multi-ethnic state that it is. He must act, and must be seen to be president of ALL NIGERIA and not just of his Fulani rearer-kinsmen, or of the North alone.

    These extremities, these impunities are eating away quietly and steadily at the very fabrics that hold us together as a nation. An eventual conflagration would do no one, including the President himself, any good.

    The security of my peace-loving and soft-spoken teacher brother and indeed EVERY NIGERIAN is government’s preeminent duty as enshrined in our Constitution. It must be upheld. Nigerians and Nigeria must be safe!

    The governor of Benue and indeed of all the governors have a duty to protect their citizens. Random condolence visits and endless donation of relief materials are not enough. These are avoidable human disasters, avoidable deaths. The world is watching this silly and soulless spectacle unfolding in Nigeria. Some of us may be canvassing for non-violent solutions but can’t say of the same for our restless youths who witness this carnage all the time. There is certainly a limit to all forms of provocation. All lives are precious, much more than cows.

    I thank God for my brother’s survival. We have fears if he would ever be able to make full use of his left arm considering the level of injury but at least he is alive with us. If we his siblings and our parents are still in this deep shock, I can’t even imagine those who lost entire families in Agatu and several other communities across Benue, Enugu, Plateau, Adamawa and in several other states visited by these crazy fellows and in such gruesome and unprovoked manners.

    It is just crazy, crazy, crazy!

     

    • Abah is a citizen journalist and activist.

  • Dogara, Jubrin and other tales

    “I have accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my ruin, to your ruin, and to the ruin of our children. I gave you this warning that you may prepare your mind for your fate.” – John Adams, 2nd President of the United States of America (1935-1826)

    In penning these words to his wife, Abigail and their five children, Adams was obviously under the clear understanding that the legislature was the anvil upon which every hammer of public discontent descended. Aged only 39 at the time, Adams had just been elected to the USA’s first Continental Congress, as delegate from Massachusetts, in 1774.

    Although Adams, a top-notch Federalist and deep-rooted political philosopher went on to become the first Vice President, and later second President of the USA, succeeding the immortal George Washington, the ‘burden’ which comes with serving in the legislature as against the executive branch was not lost on him throughout his distinguished career.

    Back home in Nigeria, the fear which Adams nursed about public office, especially as it concerns the legislature, continues to titillate the public almost 200 years after the U.S congressman’s demise. Between the Senate and the House of Representatives, there is apparently no shortage of theatrics in-between sessions, with the state assemblies offering occasional side-shows to compliment the orchestra of spectacular comic relief. Remarkably, these brickbats, besides providing the citizenry the elixir needed  to vent pent-up anger and frustration with life itself, invariably end up with few useful lessons which, going forward, aid the institution of public service to imbibe new moral ethics – thus making living more tolerable.

    Yet, to be able to synthesize the positives embedded in any public spat for the general good, society ought to be able to discern between fact and fiction, as well as decipher truth from propaganda. After all, as native wisdom counsels, it is from the black pot that cometh the white pap!

    Sadly, in Nigeria, upon the dawn of a fresh ‘scandal’, the goal is often to applaud the accuser and hasten to convict the accused in the court of public opinion. Just name and shame the fellow(s) concerned, until they are able to prove their innocence, in an inverse application of the standard law which presumes an accused as innocent, until proven otherwise. It does not matter if the pursued, most often in front of the chasing mob, is the one now chanting, ‘thief, thief, thief’ in order to secure a get-away.

    It is against this backdrop that the Nigerian tribe of analysts, commentators and indeed, public opinion influencers ought to, unlike the Roman plebeians, seek an intense understanding of the real issues involved in the Yakubu Dogara/Abdulmumin Jubrin face-off.

    Colunmist, Niyi Akinnaso, writing in the back page of The Punch of Tuesday, August 2, captures this mind-set succinctly when he asserted thus: “Whatever the outcome of the investigation, however, the alleged culprits have fallen short of the honour and respect due to their ranks, at least in the court of public opinion”. Really?

    Although Akinnaso concedes that “to be frank with ourselves, the National Assembly is constitutionally empowered to modify the budgetary proposals submitted by the President, by deleting or adding particular items to the budget”, such realization was sadly not potent enough to dissuade him from dismissing the concerned institution as “House of Representative Thieves?”

    It is such quick-to-convict disposition and blanket condemnation that usually pitch the public against the legislature. Often, such conclusions arise out of the claim – and sometimes correct charge – that some legislators derive personal monetary and other benefits from their positions and projects which they influence into the Appropriation Act.

    Remarkably, the current attempt to rail-road the House of Representatives into committing a kind of class suicide, in pursuit of the avenging mission of a distraught member is a familiar path often trudged by legislators who held the short end of a stick after every internal struggle for power and recognition.

    If recent memory is anything to go by, an Etteh ascends the throne and a Farouk misses the all-important Appropriation Committee chair as a reward for his part in the enterprise, and all hell is let loose.  Enter a Dimeji Bankole, and a Dino (and friends) don’t get the recognition they crave, and the House snowballs into a huge mat for wrestlemania.

    But while these two instances could be regarded as internal affairs of the House, the externalisation of similar disagreement, reached a new high in the 7th Assembly under the leadership of Rt. Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, which I was a proud part of.

    Two quick instances, using the 7th Assembly’s two Presiding Officers, Tambuwal and his deputy, Rt. Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, would suffice. First, on January 6, 2014, preparatory to resumption from Christmas/New Year break, some interest groups went to town to canvass the possible removal of Ihedioha, citing the new-found-majority of the burgeoning All Progressives Congress (APC), following the defection of 37 Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) House members. As deputy chairman, Media and Public Affairs, I have to counter such move, citing, among others, Section 50(1) (b) of the 1999 Nigeria Constitution, as amended, to wit: “There shall be a Speaker and a Deputy Speaker of House of Representatives, who shall be elected by the members of that House from among themselves.”

    The same constitutional provision was to come in handy, when on October 28, 2014 Speaker Tambuwal announced his switch to the APC, and the full weight of the state power was deployed in an undisguised attempt to unseat him.

    Instructively, in spite of the clear provisions of the constitution, as stated above, many cheerleaders masquerading as analysts had, in deference to public hysteria, cried themselves hoarse on the propriety of a Tambuwal resignation.

    Sadly, under another dispensation, we are yet to see a change in attitude – one in which an arm of government is allowed to self-regulate. Speaker Dogara, and indeed, his leadership, serve only at the behest of their honourable colleagues. And the House Rules and the Nigerian constitution clearly spell out how any of them can exit their privileged position(s). I have searched through both documents and I could not find where hounding one out of office is cited as a route towards dethroning any of them.

    Though Jubrin denounces the word “padding”, he seeks to make heavy weather over claims that Speaker Dogara inserted projects into an Appropriation Bill which he authored. Oftentimes, the tendency is to play the ostrich in such matters, when in actual fact, it is generally acknowledged that primus inter pares anywhere in the world, from class monitors, to student representatives, labour leaders and even Presidents get a little more.

    Pray, who in his right senses would expect a state governor or President, who ran on the same ticket as their deputies, to wield the same amount of influence?

    I do need to point out, however, that the essence of my intervention today is neither to denigrate Jubrin nor question his integrity (members of the 7th and 8th Assembly are free to draw up their own conclusions); rather my concern centres around how to preserve the sacred institution of the legislature, rather than have its disgruntled members lie through the teeth, in a classic rehash of the ‘You Tarka me, I Daboh you’ episode.

    It would seem, regrettably, that Jubrin is perhaps too far gone in his open display of hate for Speaker Dogara, that he could gloss over the timeless warning of his presumptive hero, Goebbels, who himself asserted, “there will come a day when all the lies will collapse under their own weight, and the truth will triumph again.”

    To Jubrin and his co-travellers, that time is nigh, in September, when the honourable members of the House of Representatives will resume for plenary. Until then, he may do well to take a deserve vacation, away from the path of propaganda and the denigration of an institution which he ought to help fortify.

     

    • Hon. Ogene, a journalist, was deputy chairman, Media & Public Affairs in the House of Representatives (2011-2015).