The Nation Newspaper

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  • Change must start now!

    Days have turned into weeks since May 29, when Muhammadu Buhari assumed office as President of Nigeria.  But the much promised change is nowhere in sight and seems to have died with the election campaigns. The President’s most ardent supporters and loyalists are already running out of excuses for the apparent inaction that has characterised his government, unless you are counting foreign trips, which are becoming the hallmark of his presidency.

    To be clear, no one expected a transformation of the country in a few weeks after years of rot.  But no one can see the baby steps that would indicate that change is in the offing.  We are seeing the same unprincipled horse-trading in the sharing of political offices, with scant regard for competence and track record.  Even the promised public declaration of assets, which was supposed to signal a new style of leadership, has not happened. What is supposed to be a simple proactive release to the public of the assets declaration form submitted to the Code of Conduct Bureau has become a complicated, long-winded explanation clouded in sophistry.

    We are now being told that the declaration of assets made by the President and the Vice President and submitted to the bureau will be and can only be disclosed to the public after the bureau has verified them.  A critical question here is: Why? There appears to be logical answer to this question.

    What Candidate Buhari promised to disclose to Nigerians was not assets verified by the bureau.  What he is supposed to disclose to Nigerians is what he has declared to the bureau. A major reason why a public declaration of assets is critically important is so that citizens can be part of the verification process.  If a public officer has assets that he or she has not declared, there is no way the bureau can know this on its own, unless citizens are aware of what the public officer has declared and can come forward with information on assets that have not been declared or any aspect of the declaration that is false, inaccurate or incomplete.

    At this time, there is no legal or constitutional impediment preventing the President from making public the Declaration of Assets he has submitted to the bureau.  The only impediment right now appears to be the fact that the President has developed cold feet. Unless, of course, he never meant to disclose his assets publicly, to begin with.

    The failure of President Buhari to immediately fulfill his promise, voluntarily made in order to win the trust and confidence of Nigerians, and therefore secure their votes, will have grave implications for his credibility and consequently, the credibility of his government.  For his own sake and for the sake of Nigeria, we have to urge him to make good on this promise.

    Since the President also promised to encourage all his appointees to declare their assets publicly as part of his pledge to run a clean government, it is obvious that if he has not made a public declaration of his own assets, he would have no moral authority to encourage anyone else to do so.  He would also be sending a wrong signal to his appointees that he does not always mean what he says publicly.  This would be disastrous for governance.

    Such a situation would also be sad for another reason; namely the knowledge that they would be required to declare their assets publicly is one thing that could perhaps have discouraged some political jobbers intent only on lining their pockets from taking up political offices.

    Another issue which has implications for governance is the mode of appointment of government officials, particularly ministers.  Already, the signs are that the sharing of political offices remains that same nasty and messy business of “survival of the fittest” that it has always been in Nigeria.  There is no debate about who is best qualified to run what.  The considerations appear to remain who comes from where and who is loyal to whom. That is not change.

    For a while, the impression was promoted that the President could not constitute his team because the National Assembly had not been inaugurated and, as such, the Senate to confirm his ministerial nominees was inchoate.  The National Assembly has now been inaugurated with the Senate and its leadership in place, but there remains no progress on this front.

    In any event, when the President finally gets round to appointing his ministers, how he manages the process would be another indication of whether we are in for more of the same or whether change is truly coming to Nigeria.

    The established practice is that the President sends a list of ministerial nominees to the Senate for confirmation with no indication as to the portfolios that they will occupy.  In the screening process, therefore, the Senate really has no way of assessing their competence or qualifications for the positions that they will ultimately occupy, having no information whatsoever in this regard.

    Although this practice does not violate the requirement of the Constitution, it has encouraged the use of such political appointments for mere political patronage which does not serve the best interest of the country.  We have frequently seen the most incompetent of persons appointed to sensitive ministries, including Defence, with no consideration given to their qualifications, experience, competence or track record.  Besides, such officials take office with no clue as to what is required of them.  Citizens also do not know what is required of the appointees and are therefore unable to effectively assess their performance.

    President Buhari needs to address this problem within the framework of his reform agenda. Two options are open to him in this regard and he can apply either or both options.

    The first option is for President to send this list of ministers to the Senate for confirmation with their prospective portfolios indicated.  That way, a meaningful screening process can take place, with public engagement, where the qualifications, experience and track records of the prospective ministers for their positions are assessed and they are required to outline their plans and priorities before they are confirmed.  Their performance can subsequently be assessed by both the President and the public against their stated plans and priorities or the deliverables they promised.  Although the Constitution does not require this, it does not preclude it either and a President who is serious about bringing about fundamental changes in governance can implement this reform and establish it as standard practice for future Presidents.

    The second option is for the President to issue every political appointee, including his ministers, with “Terms of Reference” and very concrete deliverables that are disclosed to the public.  These terms of reference and deliverables will be based on the clear priorities in the different sectors, even if there is no public input and they are based solely on what the President and his inner caucus consider to be the priorities. In this way, the President, his officials and the public all have a common understanding of what is expected of the appointees and can assess their performance.  The current practice where people are appointed to offices and they simply dither in office for the duration of their appointments has contributed significantly to the mess that the country finds itself.

     

    So the change must start now!

    “President Buhari must appreciate that he has raised the hopes of Nigerians and that he stands on the cusp of a new era.  Never before have so many Nigerians been so invested in a government and so hopeful of positive change.  Given the clear tasks before him and the goodwill he currently enjoys, if he disappoints Nigerians, he would have done more damage to the country than all the leaders before him put together and history will judge him harshly for it. “

    • Ojo is Executive Director of Media Rights Agenda, a non-governmental organization based in Lagos.

  • Villa and its spokespersons

    Aso Villa, the seat of Nigeria’s presidency, continues to elicit public interest. As Leon Usigbe of the Nigerian Tribune June 1 reminds the reader, “It is the seat of power, a security zone, highly sensitive and secretive”; an “esoteric conclave” where news hunt “may mean digging for trouble”.

    In his piece, “The Villa and the media”, Usigbe provides useful material on challenges of information management for the media and the presidential spokesperson. He reminds readers that the spokesperson’s job is seen as glamorous because of the visibility and access the demands of the office confer on the occupant. The downside is the frustrations the spokesperson faces from meddlesome colleagues who fancy themselves all as experts on the media and are ever ready to offer gratuitous advice to the president but who are not called to answer for the failure of such counsel. He posits that the situation is worse where a spokesperson lacks “strong personal relationship with the president (and) is not able to counter the forces against him by exploiting his personal contacts with the president”.

    Usigbe highlights various former presidential spokespersons and gives his verdict on their place in Villa history. Three things are of interest to me in his article: the official designation of the head of the president’s media team, the media’s expectations from the officer, and the issue of welfare of journalists. He reminds us that the designation now reads Special Adviser (Media and Publicity) as against the previous Senior Special Assistant. Beyond the routine organisation of press briefings after the weekly federal executive council meetings and issuance of press releases, Usigbe identifies people-management skills as it involves the State House correspondents as most important for a spokesperson to succeed. “The success or failure of the adviser on media starts with the way he deals with members of the State House Press Corps who necessarily feed virtually all the news outlets around the country and throughout the world,” he submits.

    Usigbe decries snobbery, accusing Reuben Abati, the immediate past occupant of the office, as spurning “the opportunity for a productive relationship with members of the State House Press Corps, who as the primary sources of direct news of the president and his wife, could have helped to manage the more sensitive aspects of such stories before they became distractions for the First Family”. He charges that “there was not a single meeting between Jonathan and the State House correspondents in his five years as president, not even for a press conference”.

    The third issue was the charge of lack of attention to correspondents’ welfare, which Usigbe said “was enough motivation for many to turn against the president and become susceptible to the machinations of the then opposition”.

    At the appropriate time, I am sure Abati will oblige the public with an account of his years in government, explaining why he did what he did and didn’t do. As a professional with abiding interest in the state of information flows, I have heard stories of correspondents with exaggerated importance of their mission. I have heard of subtle and not subtle attempts at blackmail to make spokespersons do their bidding. The issue of welfare in government circles often revolves round getting some under-the-counter benefits beyond legitimate income and I wonder how it has grown to nurture a sense of entitlement. I recall that the issue also featured in The Guardian’s May 28 front page report, “Inside Jonathan’s Aso Villa” where The Guardian’s duo of Madu Onuorah and Mohammed Abubakar tell us of despondency in the Villa on learning “there is not going to be any parting gift for them” in the twilight of the Jonathan administration.

    We must thank Usigbe for sharing his perspective. Perhaps we should encourage him to go a step further to throw more light on issues hinted at by emulating a former State House correspondent, Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, who shared his experience in the 2003 book, Inside Aso Rock. Such books by our journalists are not only necessary for their professional accomplishment, they equally help to deepen public understanding of our public institutions and how they can be strengthened to serve the public better.

    That is in the future realm. The matter at hand now is that the Buhari administration has announced two appointments for the media office combining the two designations in two officers. Whilst Femi Adesina is the special adviser, Garba Shehu is the senior special assistant.  It is not clear who will be doing what in the long run, but so far Shehu is the one issuing most of the releases about the president’s activities and clarifying issues. I recall that in recent years, it was during the Umaru Yar’Adua presidency, 2007-2010, that we had a cabinet-status adviser in Segun Adeniyi; a position retained by Goodluck Jonathan in appointing Abati. Both men were served by other aides who operated behind the scene. Now under Buhari both offices indicative of departmental headship are to be occupied for the first time by two different individuals with interesting credentials. Both have headed their professional bodies, the Nigerian Guild of Editors; Shehu, 1995-98, and Adesina, 2012-2015. Whilst Shehu was part of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s blistering media team, 1999-2006, Adesina was managing director and editor-in-chief at the Sun newspapers, 2011-2015. Whilst Shehu’s previous experience at the Villa and his coordination of candidate Buhari’s media campaign confer some advantage, Adesina’s recent position as NGE president gives him close access to current gatekeepers that can be well utilized.

    How to blend the great attributes of both gentlemen into a cohesive whole to run an effective information machinery for the presidency is a challenge that must be settled early. Otherwise it might prove a handful placing two presidents under the same roof.

    ‘I have heard stories of correspondents with exaggerated importance of their mission. I have heard of subtle and not subtle attempts at blackmail to make spokespersons do their bidding. The issue of welfare in government circles often revolves round getting some under-the-counter benefits beyond legitimate income and I wonder how it has grown to nurture a sense of entitlement’

     

    • Idowu is Supervising Trustee of the Diamond Awards for Media Excellence.

  • The President needs an innovation adviser

    A few years ago, a group of African scholars, including myself with a sprinkle of international, non-African, colleagues, gathered in Accra, Ghana, under the auspices of the then nascent African Centre for Economic Transformation (ACET) to initiate a flagship report of the Centre on Africa’s economic transformation. At that propitious gathering, I canvassed that any definition of transformation must include a clear indication that the country has mastery, a command, if you like, of the production architecture of a few goods and services or a set of goods and services. By this, I explained, that the technology of production of these few goods and services must be under complete control of that country- she can produce it, adapt it, modify it and redirect it to produce profitable goods and services. I was inexplicably defining an Innovation Economy- an economy that creates things.  In essence while I appreciated the necessity of made in Africa, the destination must be made by Africans and a transforming nation should have the benchmarks for moving towards this destination.

    My concern is that Nigeria is not establishing these benchmarks and no one is worrying about them. The global innovation index of 2014 ranks Nigeria 110 out of 143 countries. Compare that with the ranking of these selected countries: Rwanda (102), Egypt (99), Uganda (91), Indonesia (87), Kenya (85), India (76), Brazil (61), South Africa (53), Barbados (41), Mauritius (40), Malaysia (33), China (29), South Korea (16), Israel (15), and Finland (4). This index, while not perfect, clearly underscores our innovation gap and points to the sets of issues that the new leadership should address in the drive to transform the economy and provide prosperity for all.

    To transform is to diversify the economy. But diversification is not a natural phenomenon as many of our leaders’ pronouncements tend to suggest. It must be caused to happen through organized public actions. Development and inclusive prosperity is, therefore, about diversification and structural change, the creation of new things on a competitive basis from both the traditional and non-traditional sectors. It is technology-led development which is a leadership endeavour. Leaders and their governments must provide the vision, the strategy and the infrastructure, both human and physical that underpins any industrial or technological advantage. The more underdeveloped a nation is, the more the government is expected to do. And let me emphasize that no nation has ever diversified without active government brokerage and intervention, often couched in terms of industrial and technology policy or what may be termed industrial policy by other means – the sort that industrialized countries engage in. The pillars of government’s intervention include training of critical mass of high quality scientists and engineers, significant and purposeful research and development spending, creation of incentives for invention and patenting, nurturing and encouraging venture capitalists that can support a start-up culture and, sometimes, acting as the venture capitalist through an innovation fund, creation and support of dynamic business clusters, bolstering firm-level competitive behaviour that encourages learning and innovation, investing in specialized infrastructure and institutions, acting as a broker between knowledge generating institutions such as universities and other research institutions and business and entrepreneurial entities that have the capacity to translate ideas and promising research results into goods and services.

    There is more. The leadership must be entrepreneurial and visionary with a strong sense of purpose. It must have the capacity and the moral authority to change the citizens’ and other layers of governments’ “mental model” including self-doubt, reward for production rather than consumption, resolution of coordination failure between the federal government and states and local governments and their understanding of their role in innovation and job creation, tap into Diaspora knowledge, access and network, and to address cultural traits that inhibit innovation such as risk-averseness, fear of failure, paternalism and hierarchy, gender inequity, poor attitude and work ethics. The leadership must imbue citizens with the right innovation orientation: to grow their insights, to build interpersonal trust and cooperation, to continually learn in order to improve productivity and competitiveness and incentivize and challenge them to dare. When President John F. Kennedy on May 25, 1961, stated that America would land a man on the moon, he did not have all the facts. He knew that it was going to be a challenging technological achievement. His goal was to demonstrate technological superiority over the Soviet Union. And leaders set goals. That mission statement from a respected leader galvanized NASA and the American scientific community and mission was accomplished by 1969. Israel has been described as “start-up” centric, with more business start-ups per capita than any other nation, with half of her exports in the high tech sector. They have turned their desert to forest. But the government of Israel including her early leaders such as Ben-Gurion and Shimon Peres worked tirelessly to build the foundation for their technological revolution. Finland, the home of Nokia, was a natural resource based economy, exporting forestry based products such as paper a few years ago. Thanks to the foresight of her government and leaders in the 1990s, they created institutions and used active technology policies to transform their economy, moving from investment driven to innovation driven economy. Today, Finland is one of the most competitive in the world and her major exports are in high tech.  The story of Nokia, a large technology company, a former rain boot manufacturer is a story of effective partnership between an intelligent government and an innovative private sector.

    In his 2012 State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama spoke about how to motivate what he called “an economy built to last”, an economy with a strong manufacturing base and an economy that generates quality jobs. But more importantly, Obama outlined strong and intelligent policies that would underpin this economy, and the robust relationship between the government and the private sector that gives birth to this economy. Such government interventions, according to him, include training skilled workers, strengthening education especially in science and engineering and supporting innovation and “using public resources to develop technologies that industries use.”  He went further to illustrate this when he said that “it is public research dollars, over the course of 30 years, that helped develop technologies to extract all this natural gas out of Shale rock…government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground”. It is, therefore, clear that both in developed and developing countries where structural transformation has taken place or is taking place, it is government’s business to support business innovation and competitive edge. But it must be done in an intelligent and strategic manner. And it requires leadership at the highest level.

    So what is Nigeria’s model for an innovation economy? What kinds of assets and benchmarks are we building? And what are the institutions that can be used to create an innovation economy – one that would create wealth and spread prosperity? Nigeria has at least four important parastatals that can be organized and re-directed to support and accelerate our innovation assets. They are the Raw Material Development and Research Council (RMRDC), National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP), Petroleum Technology Development Trust Fund (PTDF), and Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND). These institutions have quasi-independent sources of revenue and can be galvanized to collaborate and be more strategic. In addition, I would like to suggest that we create an Innovation Fund. The nucleus of such a fund can be all the recovered monies and assets from corrupt acts, including those from corrupt politicians and private sector actors. This would be a classic case of turning evil into good.

    In order to provide leadership at the highest level, the President would require a Senior Adviser – a Chief Innovation Adviser (CIA). This Cabinet level appointee would be responsible for dealing with the issues raised in this piece. Acting on behalf of the President, he or she would coordinate the relevant MDAs and engineer the States to be centres of innovation for the purpose of creating quality jobs and spreading prosperity, work with the private sector to improve innovation at the firm-level, serving as a bridge between public initiatives and generation and use of knowledge capital in the private sector. Above all, he/she would be the constant reminder to the President that on this matter he must provide strong leadership as the Innovation Commander-in Chief. And that the buck stops with him.

  • Tinubu and parable of the ‘first supper’

    When I wrote the piece: ‘Tinubu: A Parody of Shakespeare’ a few friends and colleagues said I was un-characteristically ‘patronizing’. Some wondered if I too had not fallen for the Tinubu ‘cult of personality’; or as one of them put it ‘cult of the insatiable power-seeker’. And to quite a few of those friends and colleagues whose opinion about my professional integrity I do give a damn about, I did vouchsafe some cogent explanation: first I said that even as I was sure they knew me not to ‘advocate for the devil’, yet they should not forget that I was not one either not to ‘give the devil his due’.

    I should say, for the records, that I believed –and I still do- that Tinubu deserved that tribute which I paid to him; that I still think him worthy of all the sentiments contained therein and that I still feel proud that I wrote that piece. Tinubu has fathered a peaceful political revolution in Nigeria which has not only moved our democracy beyond a notch by its shattering of the myth of the invincibility of incumbency, but it has saved the nation from the malignance of a ruinous era of political impunity which was bent on balkanizing our country.

    And let me say that if Tinubu, afterwards should, for any reason lend the instrumentation of his time, his prowess and his resources in the promotion of any contrary ideal odious or antithetical to the noble one of growing our democracy and developing our nation-, I should also, with a measure of antipathy equal to the enthusiasm with which I had praised him, deploy the venom of my pen to harangue and to disapprobate him.

    But come to think of it, if you ask me whether I think Tinubu is ‘evil’ –politically, I should answer as much with the affirmative ‘Yes’ as with the negative ‘no’. For as ‘beauty is in the eyes of the beholder’, logically-speaking I think, so should ‘ugliness’ be also ‘in the eyes of the beholder’. And so to a bitter PDP whose defeat the Asiwaju’s deft, adept and adroit politics had caused, Tinubu is most definitely ‘evil’; and thus in the subjective eyes of members of PDP, Tinubu is uglier than the mythical Gorgon. But to the APC whose political fortunes Tinubu’s (even if) neo-Machiavellic master-tactic has now raised from ‘nothing’ to ‘everything’, the Jagaban is most definitely no ‘evil’ but ‘good’ and thus in the objective eyes of sincere members of APC, Tinubu should be the personification of beauty itself –politically that is.

    Alas, as we see presently in the treacherous hustle and jostle for political positions, this is not so with the hawks and vultures in the APC who now masquerade as altruistic progressive change-agents of the Buhari government. To these neo-conservative opportunists, all of a sudden ‘Asiwaju’ ‘The Leader’ is now simply Tinubu ‘The meddlesome interloper’! He is as they now claim ‘unnecessarily interfering with our democratic processes’ and must thus be cut to size. And on this you cannot but have a sense of the poignantly disgusting and the de ja vu: especially if you recall what the then Rhodesia’s oppressive head Colonialist Ian Smith said to the anti-colonial world of the 70s about Zimbabweans: “These blacks are spoiling my democracy!” ‘My democracy indeed!’

    They said that the Asiwaju wants to install surrogate leaders for the legislature so he can remote-control them. And I say: ‘assuming, without conceding, that this is true, to what end, if we may ask, would Tinubu want to remote-control the NASS?’ Is it to prevent it from passing good progressive bills that will give effect to the promise of ‘change’ by Buhari? Or is it to egg the NASS on to anti-Buhari tantrums so that the General’s government cannot effectively function? I really don’t get it!

    And I even wonder more: did they not invest Tinubu with all the sobriquets and appellations of a ‘Leader’? Did they not say that he was the courageous ‘Jagaban’; the one who led from the front? And did Tinubu not lead them from the front? Selflessly giving his time, his energy and his resources? Did he not put his life on the line of a hysterically dangerous incumbency desperately angling to keep power by hook or crook? Did they not say that Tinubu’s was a goal-oriented and decisively go-getting ‘Leadership’?

    And need one also ask: did we not, to the occasional rousing applause of Nigerians, see them severally winning one political battle after another under the leadership of the Jagaban? From when Tinubu fought to win series of judicial victories to restore the political control of the South-west into the hands of the progressives; a feat which gave the earliest fillip to the initiative for the formation of a formidable coalition of opposition political parties?

    Did we not see the series of political mutations afterwards initiated and set in motion from the pre-natal stages, the singular efforts of one man to corral several ideological eggs into one political embryo, so as to give life to a new all-embracing political party around which both progressives and even repentant fascists could congregate to make practicable what was thought well-nigh impossible, namely enacting the parting of the political Red Sea to say to the behemoth PDP ‘let my people go!’

    But maybe what we were seeing from aloof was different from what exactly was happening within! But I thought that we all saw Tinubu burning the political candle through nights and nights of vigils to disprove all the known theories of war which posit that more than one battle cannot be fought at a time; I thought we saw the Asiwaju take on both INEC and government in a proxy war with surrogate usurpers of the baptismal of the new political ideology, the A-P-C! -and which he won!

    We thought that we saw Tinubu walk the miles from the North-west to the North-east; from North-central to the South-east and from the South-west to the South-south to build strong bridges of geo-ethnic and geo-political consensus; planning and strategizing to form alliances, to create leagues of political amity and to  search out for men and women of weight and of mettle; political and non-political actors with diverse gifts and varying competences, to man the many points of the opposition’s political rudder.

    These efforts were rewarded with successes in the creation of the first ever successful merger, the formation of the first ever peoples party, the conduct of one of the most transparent party primaries, the emergence of the most popular presidential candidate, the running of the most competitive presidential electioneering campaigns, and the first ever defeat of incumbency by an opposition party in one of the most transparent presidential elections.

    But now that the political dinner table is set, surrounded, unfortunately, by opportunistic political vultures and hyenas, they are telling us that although Tinubu is an excellent political cook, he is not as good in the culinary art of dishing. That the Party Leader must stay away from the party’s first political supper! In fact like Caesar they accused the Asiwaju of ambition. The same Tinubu who had publicly announced that Buhari had offered him a chance to be on the Presidential ticket –an offer which he said he politely declined.

    Tinubu does not deserve this kind of treatment. Asiwaju as the Party Leader and the party are the veritable taproots of the President. If they who care about the President’s success are left at the mercy of the party’s vultures and hyenas who only care about the spoils of politics, sooner or later the shrub of the presidency and its blooming foliage will feel the wilt. It is both morally and politically expedient that Buhari steps in to restore rank discipline and to assure the Asiwaju and the party hierarchy that he has ‘got their back’; just like they, through thick and thin, had always had the President’s back.

  • For Osun to overcome

    I do not subscribe to the notion that Nigeria is a great and rich country. I hiss at the mention of these two words by anyone, no matter how highly placed and/or intelligent, which makes me to immediately lose interest in the person’s speech, no matter its veracity. Nigeria is neither great nor rich. What can best describe her station is that she has the potential to be great and rich. And potential is just that – potential. Like a person, a nation can bring her potential into existence within the “shelf-life” of that potential. Or she may never. A country that is far behind in all indices of societal development cannot be considered great. But of course, Nigeria is a ‘great’ country for that someone who simply evacuated billions of naira of his country’s pensioners into his private account and still walks around with soldiers and policemen as bodyguards, with a National Honour to boot. It is also no doubt the ‘greatest’ country on earth for that chief of state who’s richer than all his state’s indigenes combined, having commandeered their common patrimony by virtue of his position. And when the nation’s judiciary finally summoned enough courage to ‘prosecute’ him, he was fined less than one tenth of one percent of his loot and told to steal no more. Nigeria cannot be a rich country when her entire annual budget is what a university expends annually on Research and Development (R&D) in a country in Europe or a company’s operating budget in North America. What has this to do with Osun State?

    The state, like most states in the federation, has always found it difficult to embark on any meaningful growth and development since their creation because the centre insists that they must be spoon-fed. So, they keep struggling to meet their basic financial obligations such as paying their workers’ salaries and pensions. Some of them are, for all practical purposes, insolvent that were they to be companies they would have gone belly up a long time.

    When the governor of Osun State, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola lucidly laid bare all the financial facts of his state at the inauguration of the sixth assembly, it showed courage in leadership where others would have been scared stiff. Governor Aregbesola said, inter alia, that the “problem began in 2012 when our expenditure increased as a result of the spike in minimum wage…Then, our total emoluments rose to N2.7 billion from the N1.4 billion I met in November 2010. By December of that year, it hit N3.5 billion. At the same period, our statutory allocation…increased marginally from N2.1 billion in 2010 to N2.5 billion in December 2012. By July of 2013, our total emoluments hit N4 billion while our statutory allocation was N2.1 billion. By then we had extended the increase to other workers.”

    The governor went on to say that “the summary of five years reveal that in the two months of 2010, we received a net allocation of N4.2 billion and paid a total emoluments of N3.6 billion. This left us with a net gain of N573 million from our statutory allocation. In 2011 also, we got N29.9 billion net statutory allocation and spent N25.8 billion on emoluments with a net gain of N4 billion. However, in 2012, we got N28.4 billion and expended N31.6 billion on emoluments. This left us, for the first time, with a deficit of N3.2 billion. The following year, 2013, our statutory allocation had dropped to N26.4 billion while our emoluments rose to N36.9 billion. This gave us a whopping N10.4 billion deficit. In 2014, our statutory allocation fell further to N19.3 billion and by which time we were already defaulting on some of our obligations on emoluments, which had also dropped to N22.4 billion, but still left us with a deficit of N3 billion. In summary, between November 2010 and December 2014, we got a total statutory allocation of N108.3 billion and our expenditure on emoluments was N120.4 billion. It left us with a total deficit of N12 billion…Even when we add our internally generated revenue, we were still only able to muster N204 billion and still short by N2 billion. It simply means that all our earning from all sources between 2010 and 2014 could not carry our recurrent expenditure (emphasis mine).”

    One need not be a financial wizard to know that this state is in deep financial trouble. So, what’s to be done? Methinks the governor would have used that old school anthem of his, titled “Moment of Decision” written by J. Russel Lowell to reel out his plans of action because it’s now decision time – hard one at that. Knowing that their state is heavy laden and its financial future bleak, I had expected that the current civil service strike would have been immediately called off in sympathy for a governor who had not only promptly paid salaries, but gave them a 13th month bonus in the past, even with the limited resources at his disposal. Aside from our monumental corruption, some of the questions to ask ourselves are why is it that our financial health is always precarious as a nation? Do we really understand capitalism and its principles for it to work well for us? Why are we in delusion of creating wealth when we’re not? Are we operating a capitalist system with socialist mindset, or vice versa? Granted, these questions may be pointless by now, but what the states cannot wish away, Osun inclusive, is that they must embark on some hard and tough choices henceforth.  And here are some suggestions for Governor Aregbesola.

    He must reduce the size of government. The size must be so compact to fit in a briefcase. Thus, some ministries, parastatals and agencies must be scrapped. For example, why should a state whose country’s constitution guarantees religious freedom have Pilgrims Welfare Board? Why should the state pay for people to go on holy pilgrimages? What’s the meaning of Ministry of Women Affairs? Why should there exist a Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs when Local Governments are constitutionally autonomous? Why the Ministry of Sports? Why not recalibrate, say, the Ministry of Information to provide life and well-being-enhancement, wealth-creating information and knowhow to the citizenry?

    Why not convert the vast expanse of land that houses the state secretariat into a middle class community in cohabitation with essential ministries? About three or four buildings of four floors each, with one ministry per floor, clustered around the governor’s office, would do just fine. Most importantly, a state’s workforce that brings in less than N30 million in Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) a month should not be paid N100 million as salaries, let alone N1 billion per month. The state must encourage most of its workers to take early retirement by giving them some lump sums (buy-out) for retiring early while their pensions are in abeyance for a few years. After this, Governor Aregbesola must make several forays into Lagos for some of its companies and line them up along the rail corridor of Osogbo. You first have to get out of the box before you can think out of it otherwise you’re still in a straightjacket, which is where the entire country seems to be. Deliberate policies and actions must be activated if Osun State shall overcome. The time is now.

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

  • Indigenisation: beyond the economic

    Nigeria began producing oil six decades ago and is now one of the world’s largest oil producers. But up until recently, indigenous participation in the oil industry, particularly the upstream sector, has been minimal. Previously dominated by International Oil Companies (IOCs) whose financial reach and technical expertise gave them a distinct advantage, the oil industry has finally started to see much needed change.

    Efforts to indigenise the oil industry have spanned two decades and have previously been slow and unsuccessful. The Local Content Act which emerged in 2010 has had the greatest impact on the sector, finally resulting in an increase in indigenous oil and gas companies who now have the financial resources and technical competence to own and operate assets in Nigeria across all activity areas in the industry and are, therefore, now able to make a sustainable contribution to the Nigerian economy.

    This contribution is much more tangible and real, coming from a home-grown company compared to an international one. Recent Nigerian history is rife with stories of infamous disagreements between IOCs and the communities where they operate as residents decried what they perceived as exploitative treatment from the companies. So far, indigenous companies have not had those problems which have perennially bedevilled the IOCs. This is perhaps because as more Nigerian companies begin operations and discover oil in marginal fields, it is clearer than ever that their organisational success is tied to the optimal balance of the communities in which they operate. It is also likely because corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities are more tailored to solve Nigerian problems which are best understood and most felt by Nigerian-owned companies.

    Nigeria needs more socially-inclined companies that grasp the magnitude and complexity of indigenous problems, and are willing to empower those who can best solve them to do so. Strategies such as Petralon’s clearly express faith in Nigerians to successfully handle responsibility for their development and to drive targeted projects in crucial areas such as employment, healthcare, and education.

    An indigenous upstream energy company with a pan-African reach, Petralon Energy acquires, develops, finances, and operates assets in the oil and gas sector. The company has set out to redefine the relationship between oil companies and the community by pledging 5% of net profits from all present and future assets to the communities in which it operates. This is based on the understanding that the members of its host communities are best placed to determine the areas that will benefit from additional resources with Petralon empowering its host communities to decide which projects to deploy funds to, and who the funds should be allocated to.

    Similarly, indigenous Nigerian integrated gas company, Seven Energy, engages with the community investing in their development directly, cutting out third parties which ensures that money meant for the community is received by the community.

    In turn, it is critical that the incoming administration empowers indigenous energy companies by providing guarantees for increased security and fair regulation/legislation. In addition, the Department of Petroleum Resources should be encouraged to empower indigenous companies by allocating more oil assets to qualifying companies, and doing so in a transparent manner and at a faster pace.

    The expansion of indigenous companies into more Nigerian communities can only lead to higher impact social responsibility with more tangible benefits felt by the host communities. Only when indigenous oil companies begin to take the lead in the sphere of social responsibility can there truly be development and societal balance in resource-rich host communities in Nigeria.

    Ahonsi Unuigbe is the CEO of Petralon Energy – www.petralon.com.

  • That Ekiti may indeed be one

    The other day, the crème-de-la-crème of Ekiti citizens congregated at Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Ekiti Panupo, a socio-cultural organization for the unification of Ekitis home and in the diaspora and particularly to chart ways for these monolithic and homogeneous people of the South-West to be able to speak with one voice on most issues.

    But the Ekitis got more than they bargained for as Prof. Michael Omolewa, an Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of Nigeria to UNESCO, served them a repast of what he dubbed the (sometimes misplaced) perceptions of the Ekitis which they have had to live by over the years. Omolewa, himself an indigene of Ekiti, brought his professional calling and adroitness as an Historian to the fore by digging deep into history to pinpoint such perceptions as the Ekitis’ legendary repute for learning, their hardy resistant to any subjugation and their independent spiritedness commitment as well as their fanatical commitment to a cause.

    Among others, he asserted that the famed repute for education would appear to have been somewhat exaggerated as Ekitis had a late start in the development of education for whereas primary schools were planted as early as 1842 in Abeokuta and Badagry, schools were introduced to Ekiti some 50 years later. Again, whereas the first secondary school in Nigeria, CMS Grammar School, Lagos, was established by Henry Venn in June 1859, Christ’s School, the first Secondary School in Ekiti, was established by Archdeacon Henry Darllimore, a Scottish Missionary, in 1933.

    It would therefore seem that those who ascribe educational attributes to the Ekitis are referring to the resolute determination of its people to learn and their uncompromising commitment to invest in education, as a result of which the State has become a prolific producer of doctoral degrees and professorships and has equally continued to produce exceptionally distinguished people, intellectuals and professionals like Prof. Niyi Osundare, the sole National Merit Award recipient for the centennial year of 2014 and ABUAD Founder, a  triple alumnus of the famous University of London, Aare Afe Babalola, SAN.

    But what do the Ekitis make of these perceptions? Omolewa believes that for the Ekiti to benefit from the perceptions, they need to learn some lessons. They must become aware that the habits which they form are important, as they are used by others to describe them and to negotiate with them. They should therefore learn to be humble enough to identify and discard those habits which do not bring pleasure, but rather, irritation and discomfort to themselves and the wider world. They should then concentrate on those features that bring favour upon themselves as a community, and to the society at large.

    The perception of the Ekitis as fiercely independently minded individuals who do all they can to ensure their pursuit of freedom from all forms of oppression, be it material, professional, emotional, spiritual, and their resolution to fight against humiliation and the denial of human rights, are very important. They must consciously continue to strive to maintain those positive perceptions such as courage, persistence, selflessness and indomitable spirit.

    Perhaps the Ekiti will go one step further and decide to share those unique attributes with the wider world through the persistent display of the virtues. There is no doubt that the entire country and the international community requires attributes such as the courage and selflessness of the Ekitis to stand up for what they believe is right.

    He lamented that the passage of time has vitiated the validity of many of the perceptions of Ekiti. For example, it is being noted that the younger generation are less resolute in the pursuit of academic excellence as there are many failures in the school examinations. Many of the youths are now slothful with some desiring to earn payments for work not done. It is said that there are now the Ekitis who are vicious and contemptuous, envying others without making an effort to excel.

    He lamented with a twinge that there is increasing evidence that the Ekitis no longer work as one body in the defence of their rights and freedom, given the temptations of opportunism and unnecessary display of arrogance evident in the global village and the intolerance of dissenting opinions and views. Even more tragic is the impression given that the preoccupation of the Ekitis is to pull their own people down, developments leading to instability, different shades and types of violence and disharmony among the peoples of the state.

    He counselled the Ekitis to urgently, but steadily review their strategies for development. For it is not enough to be gallant and zealous, dedicated and hardworking, one still has to be wise and resourceful, carefully exploiting circumstances to one’s advantage. Resources and talents must be directed appropriately while the energy dissipated by strife must otherwise be harnessed for purposeful production.  The Ekitis must review their ways in the light of these perceptions, deliberately and consciously working to counter stereotypes and misconceptions that humiliate and subjugate the people. The Ekiti people must stand tall, and join in the building of the country and the wider world.

     

    • Olofintila wrote from Lagos.

  • Comments

    For Segun Gbadegesin

    Buhari and Osinbajo have vision and mission to accomplish, let Nigerians give them time for restructuring of damages done by past government. From Gordon Chika Nnorom

    Nice piece, back page article of The Nation, but fighting corruption up to 774 LGAs, you indirectly said President Buhari cannot because he is not omnipresent. Bad publicity for the President.From Joe Amah

    Please, I’m worried about the current infighting in the APC by NASS members-elect over leadership positions. Please if you can get across to any of the party leaders, warn them that millions of Nigerians who voted for CHANGE will never pardon them for toying with the mandate freely given to them. Remind the leaders that it’ll be a tragedy if, because of selfish interest, they lose the leadership of the two houses to the opposition. They should be careful in dealing with most of those APC members-elect who only recently defected from PDP. Most of them are still loyal to PDP. Unless maturely handled, there may be surprises, but God forbid. Thank you. Anonymous

    Re: “Why Buhari should ignore the national conference report.” Your piece on the above made a good presentation of the matter quite alright. Yet I don’t think it is proper to reject the national conference report whole-hog simply on the assumption that its implementation would favour only a section of the country. Buhari, to the extent the constitutional power conferred on him as the president can allow, should cause the 8th National Assembly to look into the conference report holistically and then get back to him to crosscheck and assent. His Change and Transformation policy should include the revisitation of some of the projects past administration didn’t complete or do properly and making the best out of them in the interest of all Nigerians.  From Emmanuel Egwu,

    Sir, President Buhari’s first week appears slow but your piece has unveiled its trail-blazing potency! The man is surely on his way to becoming one of the genuine fathers of this nation. He knows that power, corruption, militancy, the bad economy, etc must be frontally tackled. But negative elements such as near zero sense of our past history, lack of patriotism, eroded national unity, hopelessness, despair and laziness must be rooted out. Buhari has started well indeed!From ‘Tunde Smith, Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State

    Re-The first week. I noticed that Mr President had swung into action by visiting countries like Chad and Niger in pursuit of solutions to the Boko Haram insurgents. The President was less bothered about ‘who would be the Senate President’. President Buhari is most likely going to live up to expectation as he does not veer into areas outside his purview. He did not also interfere in the Ekiti saga. Were it to be some others, Governor Fayose would have gone! Pa Muhamadu Buhari really went for democracy tutoring before he became the President. Long live, Nigeria. From Lanre Oseni.

    I agree completely with your piece. I believe so much in this president, whose sincerity of purpose is already exuding sweet breeze so magical and soothing. Can you feel it? I feel it every day. From Julia, Uyo.

    Hailing you, for your extra efforts on this affirmative and inspiring write-up, the First week. I don’t know why some Nigerians cannot wait a little bit, exercise patience, they have started complaining about Buhari,and it’s a contagious complains from his antagonists. He has not done this and that, then the question that crossed my mind was that for how many days? At least he should be given more time to settle down very well. Before any querulousness and inquisitiveness. Do they think Buhari is there for self-enrichment? What a great and grave mistake. Buhari is more contented and committed than that. Qualified intellectually. Equally he is a man of his words, integrity, credibility, magnanimity, probity, honesty who fears Allah in his dealings, you can see, despite the notions  and believes from many, that he will jail, intimidate, castigate, captivate, vilify and oppress Jonathanians. President Buhari has disappointed the fake-sooth sayers when he said “None of them should be harassed at the airport or at any points of entry and exit. From Surveyor Amidu Saheed, Ifo.

     

    For Olatunji Dare

    It is a done game for change of what Nigerians are looking for. Nigeria is going to have new look under the leadership of President Buhari. From Gordon Chika Nnorom

    As usual, a nice piece. An error, though. The PDP National Secretary is Prof Oladipo and not Olajide. Kindly keep it up sir. Anonymous

    Your piece: Matters miscellaneous, was both interesting and hilarious. First, you know as I do that when Yoruba Kabiyesis’ want to bless people, they don’t point their royal walking sticks at the subject. They lay their usually lily white ‘Irukere’ (horse tail) on him or her. Those walking sticks?  Secondly, you can see how PDP is populated by the problems of Nigeria and not its solutions. Can anybody explain what a nuclear physicist is doing mounting a desk in a noisy political party office? How many of them do we have in Nigeria? That guy should be ashamed of himself! Regards. From Olu.

    Re-Matters miscellaneous. All is a lesson to us. The broom danglers are in power and positive changes are expected at its second year – 2016 June. Mama Peace in future, will know that ‘Power should not corrupt, absolutely’.  The fuel prices had been let loose everywhere -N100-N170. Change is expected to help the masses!  Citizens are difficult to predict now, in Nigeria as no political party could be a tin god henceforth. Voters remain the kings. Ex-governor Aliyu Babangida did not deserve the annoyance-misbehaviour of stone-pelters. They are vultures perching where corpes are available. PDP will now learn that a decisive leader needs to lead. You meant to write ‘Oladipo’ instead of Olajide. My nominee is either Emir Lamido Sanusi or the Channels TV. From Lanre Oseni.

    Sir, Wale Oladipo did Chemistry Education and not Physics and his sure name is Oladipo. He was at the Centre for Energy Research and Development, OAU, Ile-Ife. Anonymous

     

    For Tunji Adegboyega

    Re: leading Nigeria aright: Tunji, your scintillating Sunday articles always hit my heart and portrays you as a genuine patriot. Thank God almighty that the collective wish of Nigerians eventually metamorphosed to produce Buhari as president. This reminds me of a Yoruba adage that says “alagemo ti bi omo re, aimojo ku sii lowo” which literally translates that the people have convincingly given their mandate to Buhari; it is now left for him to make the best use of it or thwart the golden opportunity. It is now stale news to enumerate the destruction of our landscape with a ‘Tsunami’ magnitude under Jonathan. If Buhari wishes, he can disappoint the masses by not taking immediate and drastic action to retrieve the ill-gotten wealth from PDP locusts. History will never be kind to him. What further impetus does Buhari want when the main irritating PDP stalwarts are now the most vociferous by clamouring for a magic wand from Buhari? Is that not enough gratuitous insult on our collective senses?  For how long will the stinking so-called PHCN continue to ‘rape’ us? What about the infectious NNPC? No wonder why an ordinary primary school leaving certificate holder at the Central  Bank could amass opulent buildings, with N132million sleeping coolly in his bank account under a regime that qualified such as ordinary stealing. And what a sore situation when an elected governor sits in his bedroom to brazenly re-allocate state funds into his private pockets only to get reelected into the same office by “muguns’ (fools)? All said, what the ordinary people want now is real, I repeat, real action from our respected, urbane Mr. President. From Ch Soji Oniayiye, Ijabo Street, Igbemo-Ekiti.

    So far, President Muhammadu Buhari, to me, has not faltered! He has begun by tackling insecurity headlong by visiting Chad and Niger Republic on Boko Haram. Secondly, he did not meddle in the choice of leadership of the National Assembly, showing that democracy is being nurtured. Finally, he did not interfere in the Ekiti 19 – 7 legislators’ imbroglio. All these show PMB as considerate, knowing the role Gov Fayose played during the electioneering campaign. We should know that 0.6 percent of four years is too early to judge. From Lanre Oseni.

    President Buhari should hit the ground running by keeping promises made during his campaign. Nigerians are full of expectations of taking the nation to the Promised Land despite the empty treasury he inherited. From Gordon Chika Nnorom, Umukabia, Abia State.

    Tunji, your piece on Buhari getting cracking seems too much in a hurry. Remember, slow and steady wins the race. All of us are anxious for a better life which has been denied us for too long. Mind you, it is easier to destroy than to build. From Olabode Majekodunmi.

    Those who think President Buhari will perform magic within his 100 days in office should rethink because the situation on ground does not guarantee that. This is a country where everything was almost at the dead end before his arrival. The president should pray and watch his back because those who sucked the country are still very much around. The president should also not take Nigerians for granted because those who did it yesterday are nowhere to be found politically. It will be very disastrous if Buhari allows himself to be gagged by the vultures in the country. From Hamza Ozi Momoh, Apapa, Lagos.

     

  • Hope is alive again

    Ever since 1986, when we chose to ditch, as a nation, administrative control and its line of sight management, for a deregulated economy, the economy has always wobbled. Central planners, till date, remain confused as to whether to stay in the lazy comfort of the administrative setting, or go for the growth promise of deregulation.

    All along, with the wobble, we have been driven by drivels from gobbledygook spewing economists, often lacking in common sense advisory, needed for critical change management.The effect of these partial and a la carte transformation programmes has been utter confusion. Schisms and disagreements within administrations have led to divergent policy directions, which have opened-up cleavages in the economy with devastating effects on domestic production.

    President Muhammadu Buhari returns to the saddle into a yet undefined market economy setting. Gone are the administrative lines of control management he may have been accustomed to in the first coming, and so also are the co-administrators in whom he had faith and trust. That’s how fluxed the state of affairs are now that many do not know whether we are coming or going. The resulting hopelessness is written on the faces of citizens across the land.

    Against that background, the burden of public expectation is high, and only a systematic challenge of each and everyone, to be the change that they desire, rather than a rabid rush to get a piece of the pie, will deliver hope to the hopeless, and put the nation back on the mend.

    Late Professor Alan Walters, chief economic adviser to the late British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher got it so right, when he said that the problem with achieving economic growth targets, was largely due to civil servants and their political policy leaders who do not understand markets, and the considerable importance of money in their processes. A large number of classical economists, 364 of them, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer took him on, but he poured enough whisky for the Prime Minister, to stiffen her spine, and she stayed the course. The rest like they say is history.

    She privatized underperforming state assets, brought in imaginative ways of creating public assets through PPPs and PFIs, won the admiration of an equally focussed American President, Ronald Reagan, and found a Russian leader with whom the West could do business, Mikhail Gorbachev. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her team proved that classical economics is not the issue but their application (the technology of it) as expressed in markets that work that matter. Put in her words “Men that can make things happen”.

    Governance must focus, at all times, on the well-being of the individual by constantly creating opportunities for them to reach their aspirations. It must move away from extreme ideological positions of sharing without creating, or the belief that wealth created at the top will trickle-down.

    The new executive and legislature must arm themselves with concepts of money and markets as veritable tools of analysis. Having acquired their tools, they should use them to drive their policy decision processes, in such a manner, that the public good is always defended against the exploitative tendencies of private interests. This is the only way to end the fits of starts and stops which has bedevilled our privatization programme and the efforts to keep to the design plan of new cities.

    If we are able to stay the course, while keeping to strict monetary targets, the markets and by extension the economy will equilibrate themselves. The levers of monetary control will begin to work again and hope will be restored. There are many underperforming and sub optimal markets in the economy. Power markets without definition, capital markets lacking in confidence, government gilts that are tarnished, healthcare without cover, farmers exploited by buying agents, skill markets that are inappropriate, etc.

    Any place, real or virtual, where goods and services are exchanged is a market. Economic deregulation, which allows private sector participation in hitherto exclusive areas of government play, does not mean the market space will not be regulated – regulated to extract value through competition, while keeping a watchful eye for anti-trust and manipulations.

     

    • Iyore is of Dion & Associates CTA, United Kingdom.

  • Saraki and the limits of over ambition

    WITH the dawn of  Super Tuesday for the election of the Senate President and Speaker House of Representatives, we have seen party discipline fall by the way side as many leading members, driven by over ambition are willing to work against the ruling party in other to satisfy their narrow political interest. The refusal of the Saraki and the Dogara camps to line up behind the candidates picked by the party, APC, is  an affront on party cohesion and discipline.

    This  is what we are been confronted with within the APC as we choose our senate President and Speaker of the House today. Let no man however deservedly placed in the party  misunderstand the opportunities at play and the fundamental significance of unity in the power play that will determine who becomes Senate President or Speaker of the House.

    Politics is the study of human behaviour and interaction. Politicking is the intervention of forces beyond commonsense and a display of an amalgamation of who secures both power and authority. Power and authority is one tool in the methodology of politics that help develop and shape cohesion in the development of the state and the furtherance of democratic ideals for peace stability and good governance. Power sometimes is transient and is sought after at all cost to make possible authority governance peace and progress.

    Today within the APC, there is power play in the quest for authority. Authority determines how power is and can be used, for one without the other makes the doctrine of separation of powers intangible. Personalities help wield power, authority vindicates power and creates conformity and cohesion. Party leaders are trusted in the determination and formation of government. The essence of democratic government lies solely with the nomination of trusted party faithful into positions of authority to legislate, implement party policy and manifesto and deliver dividends of democracy to the people. The sacrifice is huge and so a consensus ad idem must be met to create a primus inter pares at both houses of assembly. The Senate President must have the confidence of the party in and out of the National Assembly and so must the Speaker.

    The Speaker of the federal house of assembly in the APC has secured such assent. Hon Femi Gbajabiamila has the support of the majority albeit a few dissents (though negligible and good for any democratic process) have had their voices heard. The senatorial presidential race is however portending danger. A disgruntled Bukola Saraki is looking to the opposition party to help him secure a majority in his quest for victory in the race for Senate President. What if he gets his way and he becomes Senate President will ambition be made of sterner stuff or will ambition have planted a seed of discord within the party? How does he forge ahead in leadership? Will his power have authority or will he have authority and his powers eroded? As an experienced Young Turk, is his ambition, like Julius Ceaser’s or unlike it? Will he scuttle the change ideals and programmes he deserted the PDP for or will he have compromised his ideology and so become an unreliable

    leader and third most powerful Nigerian? The party is now being polarised and huge sentiments are rumoured within the ranks and file of leadership as to the value of such an admired person who brought hope and drive to their leadership being young vibrant agile intelligent and full of promise. As in the tale of Shakespeare’s Julius Ceaser, is ambition going to deal the APC a deadly blow?

    We must all wrestle with our conscience in this common sense revolution built solidly from scratch to overcome tyranny, oppression, victimisation, repression, want, stagnation, insecurity, corruption and many ills to develop a new nation. Will the race for Senate President destroy our humble beginnings or will common sense prevail?

    I am a believer in party supremacy. Towing the party line can never be to the detriment of a minority group or individual. On the contrary, it creates strength from the dissenting voice. Working outside of the party is blackmail and as a defector sends a wrong signal. The position of Senate President is sacrosanct and many have voiced and opined privately the raison detre of a former defector being considered to such powerful sensitive position. The wanton disregard for party supremacy begs this question on the lips of party faithful and the inability of Senator Bukola Saraki to conform leaves sour grapes on the lips and minds of the leadership. Trust is key. What is his hurry and why can’t he wait for why must he be Senate President at all cost? If he wins within the APC caucus, then his ambition has been made of sterner stuff but if he goes outside the APC in parliament and secures victory from his former colleagues, he throws a clog into the wheel of change and compromises the new executive in its quest to build a transparent viral incorruptible government. His ambition challenges the doctrine of separation of powers ….his ambition rubbishes the whole efforts garnered to bring about change. He becomes a liability so incalculable and undemocratic he deserves expulsion from the party.

    Let no observer of the 8th Assembly formation doubt the unscrupulous behaviour of this intelligent promising Young Turk and find justification in what political feat he is trying to achieve. The doctrine of collective responsibility should be strictly adhered to at leadership levels. Decision into an exalted office of the Senate President should not be a matter of discord, acrimony, individual ambition or selfish jingoistic pride. The price for ambition beyond reason is high. Julius Caesar paid with life; let the lessons of Caesar be learnt an adopted to build a viral vibrant democracy devoid of personal interest ambition or self absolutism. Humility must prevail, pride buried and hope garnered for opportunity beckons on all selfless contributors into positions that will create great chances that will propel our new Republic to heights for the common good of all. Let our common sense revolution be our benefit. Let our party be united for the common good.

    There should be a limit to ambition or is it over ambition. Saraki’s over ambition seeks to bring down the house. It has exposed Saraki as a desperate power monger who cares only about the room he occupies not the foundation that holds the building.

    ‘Let no observer of the 8th Assembly formation doubt the unscrupulous behaviour of this intelligent promising Young Turk and find justification in what political feat he is trying to achieve. The doctrine of collective responsibility should be strictly adhered to at leadership levels’