The Nation Newspaper

Category: Comments

  • The panacea to traffic menace in Lagos

    With over four million cars and 100,000 commercial vehicles on the roads (the national average is 11 vehicles per kilometre), Lagos daily records an average of 227 vehicles per every kilometre of roads. One of the major fallouts of this scenario is the unending and highly scary Lagos traffic gridlock. Areas mostly affected by the traffic gridlock include Apapa, Orile-Mile 2-Badagry axis, the Alimosho conurbation, Lagos Island, Ojota-Ketu-Mile 12-Ikorodu axis among others.

    Like it is with most cosmopolitan cities across the world, it is, perhaps, not strange that Lagos experiences continuous queues of vehicles, which block an entire network of intersecting streets, bringing traffic in all directions to a complete standstill. Popularly referred to in local parlance as ‘go slow’, traffic gridlock has become one of the sour identities of Lagos, which succeeding governments in the state have been trying to do away with. In an attempt to tackle the traffic problem, the state government, in the last 16 years, has rehabilitated and reconstructed major roads across the state.

    Furthermore, many agencies were created mainly to deal with the traffic situation in the metropolis. The Lagos Traffic Radio initiative is also an integral part of the arrangement to address traffic congestion in the state.

    In-spite of this, however, the traditional Lagos traffic gridlock has continued unabated. To effectively address the transportation and traffic challenges of a complex mega city such as Lagos, the issue of mass transit has to be properly and effectively brought into the picture. One of the major causes of traffic gridlock in Lagos could be traced to the dearth of an effective and efficient mass transit system. It is essentially because many Lagosians do not have sufficient confidence in public transportation that makes virtually everyone who owns a car to put it on the road. The result is that there are more vehicles on Lagos roads than any other major city in Africa. This, of course, is partly responsible for the chaos that we experience on a daily basis on our roads. Irrespective of the works so far done in the area of road expansion and rehabilitation by the state government, if nothing is done to reduce the number of vehicles that ply Lagos roads, daily traffic gridlock would continue to be a biting reality.

    Consequently, there is an urgent need to expand the operational scope of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system. Though the system does not use all the features of some of the renowned BRT systems across the world, it still has many advantages over the traditional bus system. Universally, the BRT system has the capability of moving huge numbers of people from one place to the other at a time in a faster and more convenient way. The system operates on the concept of utilizing dedicated lanes in areas where competition with highway traffic would be greatest while it makes use of existing highways and roads in areas that are less congested in order to reduce costs.

    The BRT scheme, if well expanded and strategically developed could help in drastically reducing traffic gridlock in the state. A first step towards achieving this would be for the state government to inject over 1000 brand new busses into the already existing fleet of the scheme. Once this is done, the next strategy would be for the operatives of the system to create more routes across the state for the scheme to thrive better and meet more needs. In creating these new routes, priority should be given to areas with greater population density such as Badagry, Mowe-Ibafo axis, Sango-Ota axis, Alimosho among others.

    Additionally, the BRT scheme could be planned to include commuting within short distances within a particular local government or location. For instance, people commuting within Apapa, Ikeja, Lagos Island, Alimosho, Yaba, etc. could rely on BRT buses within the locations for their daily and routine movement. Once this is done and the operation of BRT in these locations becomes credible, effective and efficient, more commuters would opt to leave their cars at home and would willingly embrace the BRT alternative. For the system to become more reliable, effective arrangements must be made for constant repair and refurbishment of buses in the BRT fleet. A well-planned culture of maintenance must be embraced and strictly adhered to. The sorry state of some of the busses in the BRT fleet makes this quite imperative.

    With time, especially with an effective and efficient BRT inspired mass transit system in place, government should make efforts to gradually phase out commercial buses (Danfo) on Lagos roads. A large percentage of the chaos that we daily witness on Lagos roads are partly caused by commercial vehicles. In Lagos State, it is not uncommon to see commercial vehicles illegally parked on either side of the road. Some even drive in such careless fashions that make nonsense of traffic laws while others drive on or across the road median. In Lagos, the recklessness of commercial bus operatives is legendary.

    Public transportation is too important and strategic to be left in the hands of a poorly organised set of individuals. This could jeopardize our renewed drive for foreign and local investments in the state. The traffic situation of every city determines the volume of investment that is attracted to the city. No sane investor would want to put his money in a place that is renowned for irresponsible traffic behaviour. It is, therefore, imperative, all other things being equal, for the state government to address the nagging question of commercial busses in the state, once and for all. To avoid any public outcry that such step might attract, especially from transport unions, willing commercial bus owners and drivers could be incorporated into the enlarged BRT system to avoid job losses.

    Similarly, we need to strictly enforce, to the letter, the 2012 Lagos Traffic Law, especially the sections that have to do with the restriction of the operations of commercial motorcycle’s operators in 495 designated strategic highways and routes out of a total number of 9,700 available routes within the metropolis. Compounding the disorderliness on Lagos roads is the activities of commercial motorcycles. The menace commercial motorcycles constitute to the public transport system is manifested in disobedience of traffic law, carrying more than a passenger, ridding without the use of helmet, indiscriminate use of horn, driving unregistered motorcycles and without license, destruction of road facilities and physical attack on other road users. These are in addition to ferrying arms and ammunition for criminals who use them for nefarious and life-threatening activities.

    We need to commit more investments into the ferry system if we are to properly address Lagos’ underutilization of water as a means of transport. The ferry system currently only carries about 18,000 people, even though about one-fifth of the city is made up of water in the form of lagoons, creeks and the Atlantic Ocean. Creation of new jetties will compliment the existing ferry infrastructure. Until we increase our investment in water transport, the innate water transportation potential of Lagos State would continue to be grossly under- utilized and as such chaos would always continue to be the culture on our roads.

    Additionally, the Lagos Light Rail project needs to be expanded. Major mega cities of the world operate on an effective light rail transport scheme which is cheaper and faster and has the capacity to move more people at a time. It has the capacity to capture up to seven times as many passengers daily as the BRT system. We need to attract interested foreign investors to come up with the needed funding and technical expertise that would make the vision of a light-rail  scheme for Lagos a reality. Without a doubt, the introduction of an effective and efficient rail system could further ease traffic congestion and help meet the rising demand for affordable mass transit in the metropolis. Integration between multiple transport solutions will offer Lagosians a greater variety of mass transit options, and will improve quality of life and the ease of doing business in the city.

    ‘The introduction of an effective and efficient rail system could further ease traffic congestion and help meet the rising demand for affordable mass transit in the metropolis”

  • PDP, DSS and election matters

    PDP, DSS and election matters

    [dropcap]I[/dropcap]n a syndicated publication in several newspapers and prime-time news-reports in the electronic media, a group known as the Public Interest Lawyers League, accused the Department of State Security (DSS) of intimidating, coercing and detaining vital witnesses of the Rivers State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting at Abuja.

    Earlier, the same group of lawyers had accused the DSS of harassing the Akwa-Ibom Resident Electoral Commissioner, Austin Okojie so that he will acquiesce in the execution of an alleged plot to deny the PDP the governorship seat in the state. Of   course, not to be left out in this DSS-bashing game is a group of senators and members of the House of Representatives from Rivers State under the auspices of Rivers State Caucus, National Assembly, led by Senator George Sekibo (PDP, Rivers South-East Senatorial District), who claim that the secret service is being used to arm-twist the hands of the electoral tribunal hearing the petition against Governor Nyesom Wike.

    A single thread that runs through their protests is the unsubstantiated claim that the All Progressives Congress (APC) has elicited the services of the DSS as a manipulative and arm-twisting tool to reclaim the governorship seats from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Akwa-Ibom and Rivers states.

    In a press statement signed by Abdul Mahmud and Mathew Jibril, President and Executive Director respectively, the Public Interest Lawyers criticized the DSS over what it described as “certain hideous occurrences, outside of the courtroom, that portend clear and present danger to the ends of justice in the election dispute”.

    Similarly, the group claims that the allegations against Okojie “were inappropriate and the APC had no right to conclude that the man’s actions (Okojie) were criminal without any proven evidence”.  Given these protestations, the pertinent question remains:  Are these protests being driven by political considerations or genuine concerns for the promotion of justice in election matters?

    It would appear that the protestations from these groups with regard to the activities of the DSS in election matters border not only on ignorance but on the need to ensure that INEC officials and PDP members accused of the promotion or commission of violent crimes during the governorship elections in Akwa-Ibom and Rivers States are not tried and punished.

    These critics of DSS activities do not seem to appreciate the fact that the same activities by INEC officials could lead to two different outcomes – the one, electoral; and the other, criminal.  For instance, the non-release of election result sheets by a resident electoral commissioner to the polling centres and booths as required by the electoral law could lead to the distorted outcome of the result of an election, as well as the maiming and killing of voters arising from the violent disruption of election proceedings.  In this circumstance, are the police or the DSS expected to keep hands at akimbo and allow injustice to prevail?

    Now, it must be mischievously absurd to suggest that the investigation of a resident electoral commissioner whose activities wittingly or unwittingly led to the death of innocent voters on Election Day is tantamount to the police or the DSS interfering in an electoral matter before an election tribunal or the courts.

    The truth of the matter is that while election tribunals and the courts are meant to redress distorted election results arising from the manipulation of an election process – rigging, the police and the DSS are required by law to investigate, arrest and prosecute all those, including INEC officials, whose actions engendered crises and violent crimes in the electoral process.

    And there is no law that I know in this country or elsewhere in the world which says that election tribunals and security agencies cannot carry out their different constitutional responsibilities in election matters, simultaneously.

    From the benefit of the appraisals just made above regarding the different outcomes – electoral and criminal – that could manifest, for instance, from the single action of a resident electoral commissioner, it becomes clear that almost all the groups or interests using the media to demonize the DSS and its operatives over the election matters in Akwa-Ibom and Rivers states are simply crying wolf where there is none.

    In the light of what we know about the killings on the day of the governorship election in Akwa-Ibom State allegedly arising from the actions or inactions of the resident electoral commissioner, what do we make of the ranting of the Public Interest Lawyers League that the DSS has been unduly harassing Okojie because of “the interest of the ruling All Progressives Congress in Akwa-Ibom’s natural resources”?

    Similarly, in the light of the reported widespread violent crimes and killings that graced the Rivers State governorship election, can any rational mind take seriously the moronic insinuations by the Rivers State Caucus, National Assembly, led by Senator Sekibo that “they have witnessed the modus operandi of the DSS and have come to the conclusion that what’s happening can be best described as dictatorship in a democratic regime”?

    No matter what anybody might like to say to the contrary, the Public Interest Lawyers League and the Rivers State Caucus, National Assembly, among others, are just the public arrow-head of the hierarchy of the corrupt and discredited past PDP henchmen in Akwa-Ibom and Rivers states.

    Their strategy is to cry foul and sound alarmist in order to embarrass the Buhari Presidency in the hope of getting it to interfere and obstruct the DSS from carrying out its constitutional duty to Nigeria regarding the atrocities that were committed by INEC officials, – high and low – in Akwa-Ibom and Rivers states during the 2015 general elections that led to the death of innocent voters.

    The members of these groups are no democrats interested in protecting the peoples’ mandate.  They are simply the fronts for PDP politicians in Akwa-Ibom and Rivers states interested only in protecting their anticipated loot and underserved privileges they hope to reap and enjoy over the next four years if the PDP governments of Emmanuel Udom and Nyesom Wike are given the oxygen of life by the election tribunals.

    Nigerians must, therefore, resist these characters masquerading as public do-gooders for the peoples of Akwa-Ibom and Rivers states by extending their undiluted support to the DSS in its crackdown and investigation of Okojie and Mrs. Gesila Khan, the Rivers State Resident Electoral Commissioner, with regard to their activities during the 2015 general elections that reportedly led to the death of innocent voters.

    After all, there is nothing special about INEC officials to warrant their being treated with kid gloves or as persons above the laws of Nigeria.  The DSS must, therefore, continue its investigation of the activities of INEC officials in Akwa-Ibom and Rivers states, whether or not they are witnesses in the petitions filed at the election tribunals.

    There is no known law in Nigeria, including the Electoral Act that precludes the DSS from doing its work because suspects in the cases its operatives are handling are witnesses in matters before election tribunals and the courts.

    • Nkemjika, is Co-author of “Oil Exploration in Northern Nigeria: Problems and Prospects”.

  • NCC: Regulating in whose interest?

    What exactly is happening in the Nigerian telecoms industry? Whose interests are the operators serving? And more importantly, in whose interest is the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) regulating the industry? These questions have been nagging at one’s mind for a while. Things however came to a head when not long ago news filtered in that the NCC was attempting to stop an operator from offering lower tariff rates to its customers. Technical-sounding reasons were given for the ban, but it is clear that there is more than meets the eye.

    If you are a subscriber to any of the “Big Four” networks in Nigeria – and who isn’t? –Then you must have noticed how aggressively competitive the operators are. The industry is acclaimed to be one of the most competitive in the world, for good reason.As we all know, the good thing about competition is that consumers are ultimately the highest beneficiaries. Who can so soon forget that per-second billing was introduced into the Nigerian market as a result of competition, not regulation? Or that of all the goods and services produced in Nigeria, only telecoms services have recorded significant price drops– from about fifty naira per minute in 2002 to less than seven naira per minute currently. Also, it was competition, not regulation, that drove the price of SIM cards from about N20,000  (yes)  in circa 2002 to less than N100 in 2015. If telecoms networks have grown to provide coverage all over the nooks and crannies of Nigeria and literally democratized “talking”, it is because of competition, not regulation.The value added services, the houses, cars, millions of naira and other gifts showered on consumers to keep us talking on their networks has been the results of competition, not regulation. Indeed, if the industry is today one of the brightest spots in Nigeria’s corporate future, it is because of competition, more than anything else.

    It is for this reason that we as consumers must be apprehensive when we notice that competition in the telecoms industry is being jeopardized. We should be even more concerned because there are indications that the industry regulator may have been captured by interests other than that of the consumer, and that it is protecting these interests above that of consumers in very blatant ways.

    Flashback to 2013 when  the NCC declared two of the operators as dominant operators and ordered them to make certain changes in order to prevent them from abusing their so-called dominant status. As a result of that declaration, the biggest operator (MTN) which then had  about 50 million customers on its network was asked to charge the same tariff rate for its on-net and off-net calls. Now, the reason given by NCC was that they needed to make the market more competitive. But the impact of that decision was that MTN was forced to charge its customers higher tariff rates than what was charged by its competitors. So whose interest did NCC protect by that decision? Was it the interest of the over 50 million Nigerians on MTN who had to either pay more to MTN (as if MTN wasn’t making enough from them already!) or were forced to buy SIMS on other networks – and new handsets to go with it, just to enjoy the lower tariff rates that the other networks were charging. For some reason, neither MTN nor consumer protection advocates did anything about the folly in this decision.

    Recently, we again heard that NCC had directed MTN to withdraw a tariff rate plan that it allegedly launched without NCC approval. We will not hold brief for MTN here – their publicists are paid well enough to do that! Apparently, NCC’s letter was leaked to the press and it went viral. This is a shame in itself. Why any self-respecting regulator would leak official communication in the media is beyond us, but again, the NCC as one of Nigeria’s most well-heeled regulators can speak for itself. What concerns us is that the tariff rate that NCC asked MTN to withdraw is probably the lowest tariff rate MTN has ever charged its customers. This is in the interest of consumers. We all know how stingy the folks at MTN are, so why should the NCC ask MTN to withdraw this rare gift to its consumers, when NCC should be the one asking operators to charge less!? What is even more troubling is the fact that the tariff rate of N6.60 which NCC is trying to deny MTN’s over 60 million consumers is freely available to subscribers on other networks!

    So we ask, whose interest is NCC protecting, and on whose behalf is it regulating? Given the curious speed by which the news back then hit the airwaves (it was reliably gathered that it even trended on twitter – pushed by professional publicists and “twitter marketers”) it is almost certain that it was one of MTN’s competitors that tried to force a reversal of this low tariff rate. There are still indications that the competitor is still up in arms using proxy, but it would be a sad day indeed if a government institution funded by tax payers is now turned into a willing tool to force anti-competitive actions against the interests of the largest block of consumers in the market.

    No doubt, the Nigerian telecommunications industry has witnessed remarkable growth over the years. Understandably, pundits are quick to credit the NCC for this success. However, the NCC’s recent actions are beginning to call into serious question its capability to protect the interests of consumers. Regardless of whatever technical issues there may be between MTN and the NCC, it is unfair to deprive its over 60 million consumers of the benefits of lower tariff rates. Competition is at play here, and we must all insist that the NCC should stand firmly behind consumers, regardless of whose ox is gored. NCC should protect consumers, not MTN’s competitors.

    • Ezedi, a telecoms analyst wrote in from Lagos.

  • Labour and the clamour for wage increase

    The subject of wage increase has been a contentious one in our nation over the years. In 2011 for instance, agitation by various labour interests over the minimum wage palaver nearly threw the country into a state of confusion. While labour stuck to its gun, some State governors outrightly claimed that they did not have the resources to pay the N18, 000 minimum wage being demanded by labour. Till date, it is yet to be ascertained if all Sates of the federation have fully complied with the spirit of the agreement reached with labour on the issue in 2011. As for the private sector, most employers of labour are yet to actually embrace the 2011 minimum wage act.

    Based on the provision of the Minimum Wage Act signed into law by former President Goodluck Jonathan in March 2011, the minimum wage is supposed to be reviewed every five years. The implication of this is that the current wage will be due for appraisal by next year. Consequently, some labour leaders have been advising the federal government, and rightly so, to begin the process of the preparation in terms of gathering information and analysing them, in order to have the law reviewed for another five years. Indeed, at a recent parley with the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) president, Ayuba Wabba, revealed that labour is already working on a wage increase proposal which he urged the senate to quickly approve considering the biting economic situation in the country. Particularly hinging their argument on the dwindling economic fortune of the country and its ensuing hardship on workers, some labour leaders are already benchmarking N90, 000 as the most reasonable minimum wage for workers in the country.

    Undoubtedly, labour is both morally and constitutionally correct to negotiate for a new minimum wage with the federal government. On the moral side, it could be argued that since the political class has learnt how to take care of its share of the national cake, labour leaders equally have a moral obligation to protect the interests of their members. Indeed, considering the hard reality of our current economic predicament, labour is well justified to demand for wage increase. Similarly, as previously stressed, by the spirit of the 2011 Minimum Wage Act, labour has a legal ground upon which it could justify any agitation for the appraisal of the current minimum wage.

    However, in as much as labour has a good ground to start clamouring for wage increase, it is, however, important to stress that labour should, for once, change strategy and consider other options. If, indeed, the welfare of Nigerian workers is paramount, as one would want to believe it is, to labour leaders in the country, insisting on wage increase as the only way out of workers’ current and obvious economic woes would be counter- productive. As a public servant, one is a critical stakeholder on this issue. Hence, one is actually arguing from a pragmatic point of view.

    It needs to be emphasised that, from experience, previous wage increases, over the years, only helped to assuage workers economic miseries over a short period of time before the inflationary reality of such increase begins to agonizingly dawn on them. Consequently, any rigid insistence on wage increase by labour leaders, especially with the present economic downturn in the country, might eventually consume rather than console the workers. Since wage increase agreement is always announced with much fanfare by government and labour, one does not need to be a classical economist to conjecture how market forces and other variables would immediately react to such increase. Your guess, of course, is as good mine.

    Alternatively, therefore, one would like to canvas that our labour leaders should concentrate more energy on ensuring that government make more concessions in areas that would have direct and immediate impact on workers’ welfare such as provision of housing loans or indeed, affordable houses. As a matter fact, labour should constructively engage all tiers of government on the needed to effectively and creatively meet the housing needs of workers across the country.  Aside, food and clothing, shelter remains one of the most essential elements required for human survival. Hence, labour leaders need to properly engage the government on how to creatively fashion ways through which this all important human need could be practically met. Once a man is assured of shelter, half of his problem is considered solved. Of what essence is a salary raise that ends up in the hands of shylock landlords?

    Equally, labour must as a matter of urgency engage the federal government on the need to improve the power situation in the country. With the current unstable state of power supply in the country, many Nigerian workers spend a quarter of their earnings to fuel and service their various generating sets. One would rather advocate for labour to embark on industrial action over the state of power in the country than doing same over wage increase. Once there is a marked improvement in power supply across the country, workers would have more money in their pockets as they wouldn’t have to spend excessively on their generating sets anymore.

    In same vein, labour leaders must engage both federal and state governments as well as federal and states lawmakers on the need to the increase funding of the education sector. Labour should enter into helpful dialogue with government at all tiers on the need to lift the standard of public education in the country. In the 70s and 80s, most Nigerians attended public schools. By then, private schools were not really in vogue. It is the collapse of public schools in the 90s that led to the springing up of private schools. Today, the average Nigerian worker spends quite a fortune educating his children. Once the quality of education on offer at public schools improves remarkably, most workers and, indeed Nigerians, would be willing to send their wards to public schools. No matter, what the national minimum wage is, if the state of public education remains unchanged, Nigerian workers would continue to spend a large chunk of their earnings on the education of their wards.

    On a final note, the NLC and other workers unions in the country must begin to look beyond wage increase agitation as the only answer to the improved welfare of their members. The NLC and its affiliate bodies should begin to take on critical issues in the society such as decayed infrastructure, incessant power failure, corruption, bad governance, declining education standard, poor state of the refineries, security, poor public health system and other such vital issues with the same vigour and passion as they do with wage increase. Realistically, irrespective of how much the workers take home, if these issues are not bluntly tackled, the misery of Nigerians workers might continue for sometime.

    Ogunbiyi is of the Features Unit, Lagos State Ministry of Information and Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja

  • Health is wealth…nope…wealth is health

    ‘Health is wealth’, goes the popular maxim, nope, not in Nigeria, ‘Wealth is Health’.  I do not know of other countries, don’t want to know, don’t care to know, not my problem, but by the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) recommended standards of doctor-to-patient ratio of 1:600, we have an abysmal ratio of 1:3500 due to the abject shortage of medical personnel.  I mean, without the support of the health-related Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), basically the rich countries taking pity on us for having ‘no government organised’, where would we be?

    Within this dearth of medical personnel, where ideally every health sector professional – doctors, pharmacists, dental surgeons, nurses, medical laboratory scientists, etc., should be like hot cake, we have them leaving the country in droves. So in this shortage of medical personnel, we have a surplus! After expending huge resources in training them, we can hardly pay them their true worth.  Where do they justifiably go? The private sector or drawn by the international money vector – 50,000 Nigerian Doctors are in the US alone according to one of the US officials interviewed during the recent trip by the President to the United States…Oh! Hello dollars, here we come!  Back home, when they are in the private sector, can we afford them? Majorly, no – so no wealth, no health. What about when abroad, are they of any use to the Nigerian health sector? Nope. Well…until they come back and they discover the knowledge, skills and experience gained are well and truly way above and beyond what medical infrastructure is available for them on ground here assuming they are not equally frustrated by those back home. What then happens? Go back abroad or be in the private sector.  Of use to whom? Wealthy healthy ones invariably.

    On the path to developing our economy, in the midst of scarce resources, the necessity to move our industrial and agricultural sector forward by all means, how much value for money does/can one get from the health sector?  Granted we need people to be healthy, if they can afford it. Ok, now we are healthy, what next? Would this mystically revolutionise our thinking, make us visionaries, improve our work ethic, engender creativity, inventiveness and generate innovative ideas in us, implement our policies and plans better? Maybe? Or more likely we are healthy morons – physically healthy, economically and productively moronic. Granted it is the duty of medical professionals to keep patients alive but they can’t make them live.

    Take the Boko Haram, MEND guys, kidnappers, criminals, etc., for example, all engaged in a multitude of nefarious activities.  While their psychological state of mind is patriotically and productively questionable, what is not in question is their physical well-being.  Try picturing the amount of energy it requires to be carrying guns, running with it, riding bikes, power boats, canoes outsmarting patrol boats… You really would have to be in pretty good shape physically to engage in such arduous activities.  And it does not end there.  Let’s apply the same physically challenging activities to the street hawkers, daily chasing cars, wheel barrowing all kinds of goods for miles on end, balancing 25-50kg loads on their heads, you’d have to be unbelievably healthy to engage in such menial but physically draining activities.  Put the nomadic cow herdsmen in the frame and you wonder if one can possess any ounce of laziness to take on the daily long strenuous and perilous walks over all kinds of terrain in order to make a living? While medical people may think they are not holistically healthy according to the WHO definition of health, physically, most of these guys would outrun most of us, come rain or sunshine, while carrying heavy loads.

    Medical personnel or no medical personnel, these people would still be there, toiling away endlessly and of minimal productive value to the Nigerian economy at large, individually valuable may be, but certainly not nationally.  To take these millions of teeming masses of underemployed or misemployed energy, channel and launch it on an agricultural or industrial setting, the economic growth would simply be exponentially mind blowing. In the need to prioritise industrial growth and reduce massive unemployment, do we expend more immediate resources on the health sector or divert a lot of it to the agro-industrial sector, assuming there is a plan in place for effective implementation?

    For now, the recommendation of WHO for 15% of the national budget on health is not economically feasible.  Is the return on investment the most healthy of the Nigerian populace up to 15% and able to justify that huge chunk of the budget on health considering our current economic challenges? To borrow from the maxim of an economically-minded health professional, a consultant lecturer no less, “the value of a medical professional is based on the productive value of the life saved.”

    What is the worth of a life? As a rich man with an ailment or disease, it is guaranteed that I am prepared to pay any amount to any medical personnel available to save my life. As one of the hawkers trawling our streets with misemployed energy but engaged in an accident – at the point of death, I would be begging not to pay.  Hippocratically, for most of the time, I would be saved, but unable to pay. While life is precious to the medical personnel, the national economy demands its productive value. Hippocrates may have saved the life, but economically, national non-productivity has won the day.  So, who now pays the medical personnel?  When push comes to shove and the health sector goes on strike, it would be hypocritical economic necessity that would dictate the turn of events and not the Hippocratic oath.  The conundrum, economically, is, when not on strike, what is the productive value of the lives toiling away to the nation?  This minimal difference, if any, between the economic value of our citizens when the health sector is fully functional and when it is on strike is why such strikes can be allowed to go on for weeks with what can sometimes be deemed a callous response by the authorities.  Unfortunately, at the end of the day, economy rules not health.

    The day the economy appears so good enough to be able to conveniently afford the international compensation rates of our health professionals, attractive enough for them to stay and not jump the nation’s ship, then we can spend all we like on the health sector able to focus more on preventive than curative health. Until that El-Dorado time comes when health will truly be wealth, wealth is health for now…just hope on the wings of a dove that you can afford it…or be on the death queue of the public health sector.  Ask those unfortunate enough to be acutely sick or for any reason are in the accident and emergency ward during any health sector strike…you really do not want to be there, trust me.

    No country on this planet does not value its health sector, the problem is, are we productive enough to pay their value’s worth?

    • Dele Owolowo, Author ‘Nigeria’s Odyssey…’, is an Educationist, Trainer and Rural Entrepreneur with widely travelled background. owolowo.dele@gmail.com

  • South South’s expectations from Buhari

    The South South Region remains pervasively poor and under developed, lacking virtually in all forms of social amenities and infrastructure. Though the region is known for producing the oil wealth that accounts for the bulk of Nigeria’s foreign earnings, its glory remains far-fetched. The vast revenues from this region have barely touched its own pervasive local poverty. The South South region today is a place of frustrated expectations, poverty and all forms of social backwardness. The region is endowed with enormous natural resources. It has the world’s third largest mangrove forest with the most extensive freshwater swamp forests and tropical rain forests characterized by great biological diversity. It also has vast reserves of non-renewable natural resources particularly hydrocarbon deposits in oil and gas. Despite these gifts of nature the people are endowed with, life in this region is like living in the riverbank and using spittle to wash one’s face, a life of scarcity in the midst of plenty.

    However, these people are indeed optimistic that they will experience landmark and unprecedented achievements under President Buhari. The confidence reposed on President Buhari will in no doubt bring about enormous development in all spheres of life across the region. The South South is strategically located and its full potentials can be fully harnessed under this new administration. As different governments have come and gone with promises unfulfilled, President Buhari has already made himself trust-worthy and hence, confidence has been renewed by these indigenes. Long have they suffered and waited for government to bring development into their town. Knowing fully well that our nation relies on the resources of these oil-rich areas, it is rather appalling when the knowledge of crude oil theft comes into the know; other people stealing their resources while they wallow in poverty. These were reasons that birthed the freedom fighters: they wanted their resources to reach them too, and proper maintenance of the areas of extraction of the oil and cleaning up pollution.

    The people are expressing optimism that the government of President Buhari will speedily look into their plight by bringing the long awaited succour, which could not even be achieved under past administration due to their insensitivity to the cry and yearnings of these people, by allowing them to wallow in abject poverty and total neglect, out of no hope in sight turning our people into violent species with a radical departure from the peaceful loving people we were known for in the past, irrespective of the ex-president being an indigene of this region.

    During the last electioneering campaign, the President painstakingly trans versed the length and breadth of the region and he is personally acquainted with the plight of the people and the challenges before his administration to remedy these pitiable state, the slumps, the environmental degradation, the neglect, the moribund seaports begging for urgent attention, the high unemployment rate that have turned quite a size able number of its youths into militancy, kidnappers, bunkers and violent demeanour with the sole objective of survival.

    Never has Nigeria exhumed so much confidence in a president. As Buhari’s reputation precedes him, it is only sensible for the government of the day to place urgent priority on the South-South. At least, the fowl that lays the golden egg needs to be treated with care, special attention should be given to the youths of this region, so it wouldn’t be a case of a fisherman catching fishes, only to throw them back into the river. The attention of idle youths in this region needs to be addressed. If there are idle hands, they need to be engaged gainfully, before becoming the devil’s workshop. Also, President Buhari should consider maintaining some programmes of the previous government as regards the South South. May God grant President Buhari the wisdom to handle it all for the progress of Nigeria.

    •Votu Obada  sent this piece from Lagos

  • JAMB: Opposing a beautiful idea at infancy

    Last week, as the protests raged about the new policy of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (Board), I remembered Mathew 22:14, “many were called, few were chosen.” The policy, which seeks to redistribute candidates whose UTME scores are less than the demand of their institutions of first choice, which have limited spaces to other institutions within the same location, which have spaces but not applicants ruffled a few feathers.  If there is anything that practically demonstrates the truth of that saying that many are called but few are chosen, it is the annual Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) organized by JAMB. Annually, over one million sit for examination but less than half of them stand a chance of being admitted, not because they will not pass, but because there are not enough spaces and in most cases, few notable institutions with limited spaces are jam-packed while others do not have applicants.

    Formerly University Matriculation Examination (UME) until 2010, when the entrance examinations into universities, polytechnics, colleges of education and monotechnics were merged into what is today known as UTME, the platform allows candidates to sit for one examination and have a fair chance of getting admitted into any higher institution in the four categories. Though it was criticised at first, that initiative has, today, become commendable. By merging the two examinations, not only did JAMB, under the leadership of the incumbent Registrar/Chief Executive Officer, Professor Dibu Ojerinde, relieved the country of the huge resources it expended on the two separate exams; parents were saved money spent on two examinations and candidates were saved of stress and needless journeys to write the two examinations.

    Three years after, JAMB again stepped forward to introduce another innovation in the public examination sector, the Computer Based Test (CBT). This too, like every new development in Nigeria, was greeted with criticisms and opposition, with nearly everyone becoming instant experts on how CBT could never work in Nigeria. But the JAMB Registrar, a professor of Education Measurement, despite the criticisms of the CBT scheme, was undeterred and led the examination body to achieve what has today become first of its kind in public examination and testing in Africa. Explaining the reason behind JAMB’s decision to embrace CBT, Professor Ojerinde had, in a lecture at the University of Ibadan, stated that JAMB introduced Computed Based Testing (CBT) because it would curb examination malpractices, reduce the waste of resources and the need to follow the technological trend in examination. “Everybody is going technological and if Nigeria decided not to join, I’m sorry we will be left behind, so we should do CBT. It is the answer to exam malpractices,” the JAMB boss had stated.

    Today, UTME candidates get their results same day they finish the examination or within 48 hours. Before CBT, candidates would travel hundreds of kilometres to check results after three months of writing UME or PCE. Is CBT a success or a failure? Did it fail as most Nigerians feared it would? I leave the public to judge.

    While the merger of the UME and PCE and the introduction of the CBT are not the only achievements recorded by Ojerinde, they will remain important landmarks in the life of the board and the country. But he has achieved both amid distrust and opposition from most quarters.

    Therefore, when I saw the protests that erupted at the University of Lagos regarding the new JAMB policy, which is capable of reducing the wastage of high scores and making candidates wait endlessly for non-existent opportunities, the first thought that came to my mind was – are we not being impatient with Ojerinde again?

    I looked for answers to the ugly situation that has seen parents and candidates affected calling for the sack of the JAMB Registrar. What exactly is the crux of the matter? Where did JAMB get it wrong with that policy being protested at? And is it true that JAMB will make N1 billion from the redistribution exercise?

    The JAMB Registrar is a technocrat in every senseof the word, having successfully headed the National Board for Education Measurement (NBEM) and later the National Examination Council (NECO), which today is the only truly-Nigerian examination body for secondary schools. Ojerinde, as the pioneer NECO Registrar, was able to weather different storms and turn NECO into a viable body. Therefore, when he and other board members at JAMB as well as the leadership of all tertiary institutions in Nigeria sense a danger and make plans to avert it, Nigerians should trust them. But that appears not to be the case in the present situation.

    According to the explanations offered by JAMB and the Registrar in separate press statements, the board consulted with the representatives of tertiary institutions to discuss the problems candidates face on admission and possible solutions. Without being told, Nigerians know the biggest problem candidates seeking admission face is that of limited spaces. In 2014, the JAMB Registrar stated that only 35 per cent of the 1,735,892 candidates that wrote the UTME in 2013 were admitted; pray what happened to the rest? Many are called, but few are chosen? If hundreds of thousands of candidates pass UTME annually and fail to secure admission because there are limited spaces in the institutions, whose responsibility is it to find a solution? JAMB; of course, which must be why the policy was adopted. And the Board has also disclaimed those selling cards for candidates to check the institutions they are redistributed to saying that the checking is free. Shouldn’t we look elsewhere for scape goats?

    The JAMB Registrar explained that the board considered candidates’ scores, choice courses and locations of universities of choice, among others, before re-allocating them to federal, state and private universities with enough spaces. But did the protesters really look deeply into the policy before taking to the streets? Do they prefer to waste time and money on post-UTME examinations when already departments have set cut-off marks that affected candidates did not meet or try their luck elsewhere where there are spaces? A lot of questions beg for answers but the protests and criticisms might end up being another case of opposing a beautiful idea at its infancy.

    • Alao writes through adealcommunications@gmail.com

  • After the failed ‘coup’ in Osun

    With the May 26 Judgement of the Supreme Court that affirmed Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola as the winner of the August 9, 2014 governorship election in Osun, the state’s PDP knew it has come to the end of the road in its long sustained but futile bid to come to power in the state. It therefore had to devise some unconventional means to unseat the governor.

    On Sunday June 14, one of the leaders of the party in the state called a meeting of party bigwigs, stakeholders and loyalists at the party’s secretariat for the purpose of repositioning the party for next elections after its brutalisation and crushing defeats in elections since 2011. But to their chagrin, they were told by the frustrated politician to brace up to his plan of action of making the state ungovernable, if they ever hope to win any election in the state.

    However, Osun State Security Council got wind of the plans and read the riot act to them on June 19 after its emergency meeting.

    The first stage of the plan was to import thugs and hoodlums into the state in the week starting from June 22. These thugs were to unleash mayhem in the name of protesting delay in payment of workers’ salaries and pensions. The ‘protest’ was to be accompanied with killing, looting and arson, both of public and private property. An NGO was formed a week before the rioting to be the arrowhead of the felony in order to give the thugs a façade of legitimacy.

    Justice Olamide Folahanmi Oloyede’s petition asking for the impeachment of the governor would have fitted perfectly into the dastardly plot. Coming after the mayhem, destruction and state of insecurity, the petition would have provided a comfortable ground for some of the legislators who had allegedly been promised money and positions if they should carry the impeachment through.

    When the state Security Council aborted the subversive protest with its sabre rattling, the bottom has been knocked off Oloyede’s petition and has therefore been denied the impetus to compel the impeachment of the governor, as it would have been if the mayhem had been carried out.

    The PDP, unrelenting and disappointed that the petition lacked any force, decided to give it a fillip. This, as it were, would be the stage three which was eventually carried out on Tuesday July 7 but it was stillborn. The ‘protesters’ made up of known PDP members and local leaders, a very tiny section of the retirees on the payroll of an Ife politician (about 50) and sundry thugs (local and imported) had gathered around Ola-Iya junction in Osogbo (the area is a hotbed of progressive activism).

    However, Aregbesola, the master tactician and a good student of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu took the wind out of their sail. While going to his office that morning, he turned the trip into a carnival as he slowed his convoy to acknowledge cheers from the people on the route, who trouped out to greet him. Women, men, children, traders, artisans, commercial motorcyclists, just everybody within the vicinity came out to mob his convoy. Some were weeping. Other were praying loudly and openly for him while others were cursing his enemies.

    When the convoy reached Ola-Iya, which is a market place, the crowd surrounding him had become tumultuous, swallowing and overwhelming the miserable protesters who had gathered in the place before. Possibly out of fear and or shame, many of them took to their heels on being overwhelmed. And so, Aregbesola rode to the office triumphantly that day, overwhelming and shaming those who thought they could ambush and embarrass him.

    To add salt to injury, the story that went to town that day was how Aregbesola rode triumphantly to office and how his enemies put tail between hind legs and fled – ran away as in fright.

    Interestingly, while signing a memorandum of understanding with the state government before calling off its industrial action, the state’s NLC denied that its members participated in the farcical protest of July 7, claiming that the charade was politically motivated.

    The body of pensioners in the state also claimed that the union did not participate in any protest, that Governor Aregbesola’s administration had treated retirees very well before the financial crisis that engulfed the whole nation, and not Osun alone.

    Also, the chairman of the state’s vendors association also signed a statement, denying that his members were attacked by Aregbesola’s supporters.

    Lastly, on July 28, Justice Oloyede refused to appear before the house committee set up to investigate her claim. Apparently, she has developed cold feet. There are unconfirmed reports that the state’s Judicial Commission is unhappy about her petition, which has put the judiciary into a bind. They were shocked to find that a judge displayed open political partisanship, something unheard in the history of the judiciary.

    Her not appearing meant her petition is dead. For all practical purposes, therefore, the plan by the PDP to remove Governor Aregbesola from office through subterfuge and conspiracy may have failed.

    The first lesson we must learn from this is that if God is with someone, no matter how formidable his enemies are, he would overcome them and put them to shame.

    Secondly, politicians must accept that a democratically elected governor, that is popular with his people and has not committed an impeachable offence, can only be changed through tenure expiration, losing election or by a competent court of law.

    Thirdly, a new dawn has come to Nigeria where only values like credibility, integrity and a track record of unblemished public service will commend a candidate to voters.

    It is my hope that the defeated candidates of PDP will accept their destiny and try to amend their ways, instead of working to destabilise Osun State. If, with all the support they got from former President Goodluck Jonathan with cash, dogs, masked gunmen and other security operatives, they could not unseat Aregbesola in Osun, what makes them think that they could overthrow him now?

    • Ogundele writes from Osogbo, Osun State

  • Much ado about restructuring

    The proponents of the restructuring of the Nigeria nation are unrelenting. Some youths, with almost uncontrollable emotion, in collaboration with some sleepy-eyed conservatives have continued to remind us of the opportunism that pervades the political space of this country.

    The doctrine of restructuring Nigeria started in 1951, mostly in the Western Region. The doctrine was a self-serving political gimmick which unfortunately and unashamedly took notice of the natural resources of the three major components to which politicians divided Nigeria. In the Western Region stretching from Lagos to Asaba, the economy was buoyant, relying mostly on cocoa, kolanut, forest resources and human capital. In like manner, the Eastern block starting from Onitsha to Calabar and Port Harcourt was bountifully endowed with palm produce (palm kernel, palm oil and palm kernel oil). The North, a thoroughly agrarian society grew groundnut, millet, other grains, etc. The North therefore constituted the food basket of the nation. In terms of relativity, the economies of the three regions were buoyant enough as to be able to sustain a reasonable level of standard of living. Together these primary products earned appreciable foreign exchange. As of this time, the early 50’s, crude oil and gas have not been discovered in commercial quantity.

    The major advocates of restructuring (the West) thought that the bounties of nature in form of agricultural products would continue. In part therefore it was a self-serving political doctrine which by today’s calculation and climate change is no more realistic.

    Coincidentally, apart from changing political situation in the country, the economies of the major component units began to change dramatically. The eastern block which also comprised peoples other than those in the Ibo states suddenly found themselves in the fortunate circumstance of having crude oil, literally in their compounds and near homesteads. Almost at the same time, the production of primary exports began to shrink dramatically in the West and in the North, making the proponents of restructuring less vocal in the West, but the seed of the political slogan has been planted.

    With the full integration of the Nigerian economy, export of crude oil and gas took the front burner resulting into about 80-85% of our foreign exchange earnings. Yet, the remnants of the political opportunism of yester-years persist. The resurgence occurs occasionally before and during national elections when ‘migrant’ politicians move from one political party to another. For example during the last dispensation in Nigeria, President Goodluck Jonathan thought vainly that the best way to ‘capture’ the West was to inform the politicians that he would implement the reforms recommended by the last Confab, including what the West and Eastern blocks called ‘restructuring’. Indeed during the campaign, tribal chieftains in the South-south and their collaborators in the South-west pleaded passionately for restructuring. Unfortunately our national rulers who gave tacit support for such misadventure were hoodwinked and manipulated.

    During the last Confab, the delegations from South-west were loudest in favour of restructuring the Nigeria polity. I was wondering what kind of restructuring would take place considering the level of representation even of the states in the West at the Confab.  For example, by sheer manipulation, Ekiti was represented by five members, Ondo nine, Ogun 19, inclusive of the opportunists called Civil Society Groups. In a restructured Nigerian society, the imbalance even in the West would be so obvious that we would be exchanging one imperialism with another (with Ekiti five and Ogun 19!). This of course is totally unacceptable.

    The above reference is in fact a minor issue compared with the near-catastrophe that will befall a section of the Nigeria society, if ‘restructured’. Restructuring in its entirety means annexing, managing of internal resources and unlike the present system where the components of the federation dip their hands in to the national till, a restructured Nigeria bordering on confederation will make the federating units assume authority on all matters, except defence and external affairs while contributing funds to the national treasury.

    I keep on wondering whether our politicians in West, some of whom have gone round the parties, ever appreciate the near disastrous condition of our resources, cocoa plantations and our palm produce. For example, Nigeria once third producer and exporter of cocoa, (behind Ghana and Ivory Coast), is today at the bottom of the international league including Brazil. Where will the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) come from to sustain a confederating Western Nigeria?

    I observe some young people who found themselves (husband and wife) at the National Conference now declaring themselves itinerant professors and making themselves available for incoherent lecture circuits in Nigeria. I am amused by the repetitive position of aged, if not saline Afenifere stalwarts who over the last 70 years have said nothing new. Apostles of ‘true federalism’ and ‘restructuring’ remind us of the 50’s and 60’s in the Western Region. In spite of the economic growth and funds available to government, development efforts and projects did not go round in the region. In my part of the region, Ondo Province, now Ondo and Ekiti states, there were no tarred roads, no pipe-borne water, only one hospital and no government sponsored educational institution. Is this the ‘true federalism’ we want?

    With all the above, one would ask what does the country need to survive as a nation? Minus our sluggish judicial system, there is nothing wrong basically with the present system. Problem is our institutions are not strong enough and we have not been led by the leadership that a nation like ours deserves. We only hope the present dispensation will bring out the change in our country and a quick adjudication of the problems that arise in the administration of the country.

    • Fasuan, MON, JP writes from Ado-Ekiti

  • We Nigerians lost it – can we recapture it?

    Today, what most of us Nigerians regularly experience and know is poverty. Our national Bureau of Statistics says that about 70% of us are living in “absolute poverty” – meaning that we are barely keeping alive with just about one U.S. dollar a day. In many days during any month, many of our families cannot be sure of as much as that one dollar. The days are gone when parents who sacrifice to give their children education can hopefully wait for those children to graduate and come back to help. It is sad to watch bright young graduates roam the streets jobless endlessly. It is sad to see pictures of some others of our bright youths among terrorist desperadoes.

    But it has not always been like this in our country. When I was a boy in secondary school and later in the University College Ibadan in the 1950s, we youths of my generation lived in great hope. Commonly, as we were writing our final examinations in Trenchard Hall, we had letters of employment in our pockets. In my case, as in the cases of many of my friends, the minibus sent for me by my employers was waiting outside the exam hall, and by evening I was a highly-placed employee of a prestigious secondary school. Two weeks later, as was commonly the case, my employers asked me to sign some papers to receive a loan to buy a car. Days later, I was learning to drive my car. And meanwhile, I and my university sweetheart, who had just graduated too, were planning our wedding. My house was filled with the younger boys from my father’s polygamous family – young boys bubbling, happy because big brother had come back from UCI to help them with their own education. Life was orderly, predictable and filled with hope – and with determination to succeed in life, and to help others to succeed.

    All this life of reasonable certainty and hope was rooted in the constitutional and political arrangements which upheld regional and local development enthusiasm in all parts of our country. My Western Region, under Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s leadership, was doing better than the Eastern and Northern Regions, but the Eastern and Northern Regions too (under Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Sir Ahmadu Bello respectively) were doing well. I had close friends from all over Nigeria, and with my friends it was usual fun to brag about progress in our respective regions and to tease one another. The eastern boys could never stop bragging about Dr. Azikiwe and about a town called Aba where young folks like us were visibly generating a mini industrial revolution. The northern boys could never cease bragging about Sir Ahmadu Bello and the generally upbeat transformation he was championing in the North. And we from the West could never stop beating our chests about Chief Awolowo and our “first in Africa” region.

     In my home Division in the Western Region, there was only one secondary school when I started secondary school in 1951; by the time I returned home as a graduate teacher in 1961, there were secondary schools in almost all our tens of towns and villages. We did not have mineral oil and its enormous revenues in those days, but region by region, locality by locality, our people were vibrantly engaged in a common push for progress and prosperity – and the results were showing everywhere.

    In my uncontrollable enthusiasm for my country, the first big thing I did as History tutor when I started to teach in 1961 was to organize to take about 20 of my students on a trip to see our country –from the West, to the North, and to the East, back through the Midwest part of the West. For me and my students, one of our greatest “achievements” on that trip was that, in Kaduna, Sir Ahmadu Bello allowed us to the Premier’s office and shook hands with each of us.

    Unhappily, since 1962, and until now, we have gradually and foolishly thrown away all this hope-filled scenario. It all started when the politicians who controlled our Federal Government at independence decided that the regions were too strong and too independent and needed to be subdued under Federal Government’s control. Targeting the strongest of the regions, the Western Region, they embarked on their ill-advised crusade against the regions in 1962. They disrupted, subdued and broke up the Western Region. But the crisis they thus initiated spiraled out of hand, generating military coups, genocidal pogroms, an outright civil war, and federal administrations (military and civilian) hell-bent on federally micro-managing all the affairs and resources of our country. Oil began to pour out its revenue bonanza in these years, and that created, for the controllers of the Federal Government, an added incentive to seize control of all our country’s resources. To sustain the total federal control, the controllers of the Federal Government decided to begin to use part of the oil revenues to bribe, buy, subvert and emasculate the elite from all over Nigeria, so as to get them to surrender to the agenda of total federal control. Public corruption thus became a tool of governance in our land.

    However, at three different times during this growth of insanity, sanity and hope tried to resuscitate. Two of the three times had military origin. First, in 1975, a young military officer named Murtala Mohammed seized power and surprisingly launched into a spirited war to kill public corruption and the widespread indiscipline that accompanied it. Some of his methods were difficult to understand, but his sincerity shone out brightly. Unfortunately, within months, he was killed. Secondly, in 1983 December, another military officer, Muhammadu Buhari, stepped in and, again, hit hard at corruption and indiscipline. Within months again, he too was flung out.

    The third attempt was from civilian sources. As soon as Chief Awolowo’s resignation from the Civil War cabinet made him available for politics, a powerful movement of intellectuals, professionals, working people and masses of citizens began to form around him. Although the initial intellectual seeds of this were of Yoruba Southwest origin, it quickly evolved into a broadly based Nigerian national political party named Unity Party of Nigeria. The UPN turned out to be a party with a huge difference – intellectually powerfully rooted, with a very thorough sweep of Nigeria’s problems and needs, and with a focused vision of, and dedication to, Nigeria’s prosperity, power and greatness in the world. The UPN very clearly spelled out how it would employ the oil bonanza to achieve these laudable objectives – and that would have, as a side effect, subdued public corruption. But yet again the hoped-for revolution was aborted, to make room for a very aggressive version of the kleptocracy. In short, a culture of sectional manipulations, corruption and indiscipline has reigned over our country since independence, and every attempt to push it off has failed.

    As things stand today, most Nigerians have no understanding any more what it is to live under a good government, to have disciplined and respectable rulers, serious development programmes, national, regional or local objectives, politicians who engage in politics for patriotic service rather than for the purpose of enriching themselves, elections that are truly free and fair, electoral officers, police service, secret service, judiciary etc, that professionally and loyally serve the interests of Nigeria and Nigerians.

    We have lost it all. The important question now is: Can we recapture it? It is a question for President Buhari first and foremost – he stands again on the battle front. But it is also a question for every Nigerian.