The Nation Newspaper

Category: Dele Agekameh

Dogara and his moral baggage

In the last few weeks, Nigerians have been treated to an abnormal orchestra taking place right inside the bowels of the House of Representatives in Abuja. Today, the scandal has evolved from what initially appeared like a routine disagreement amongst lawmakers, into a full-blown national embarrassment which has sparked relentless demand from Nigerians that Yakubu Dogara, the Speaker of the House, should resign his position.

It is like, in the words of William Shakespeare, the House has “murdered sleep” and so, shall sleep no more. The House, which is currently on recess, is rocked by one of the greatest scandals to ever erupt in the National Assembly. Simply known as the budget padding scandal, this burning issue has thrown up more than ever before, questions about the processes and the extent of scrutiny the appropriation bill can be subjected to. It has also raised questions on the propriety of legislators appropriating funds for what they call “constituency projects” in the yearly rituals involved in the making of the appropriation bill.

While many Nigerians have been thrown off balance by this maggoty scandal oozing out of the National Assembly, Dogara has remained undaunted. In fact, rather than being sober, he recently poured salt on the sour wounds when he declared that he had not committed any offence by padding, as it were, the 2016 budget with fictitious figures as alleged by Abdulmumin Jibrin, his traducer. Jibrin, until recently, was the chairman House committee on appropriation before he was suddenly yanked off his seat.

Unsurprisingly, Dogara’s arrogant behaviour has led many individuals and civil rights groups to rise against him for daring to say that he has no case to answer. For instance, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP said Dogara should resign. According to the body, “If padding is not corruption, what else would qualify as corruption? Budget padding is obviously corruption. If we take the condition of those who have made the submission that the budget was padded, if we got their story correctly, it means after they had agreed at the plenary on the 2016 budget, if the speaker and some groups, thereafter, decided to make insertions into the budget, that is definitely criminal. It is a breach of public trust and an abuse of public office that can be aptly described as corruption. Categorically, that budget padding is corruption.”

In any case, the issue has raised questions on what actually constitutes padding. As this column wrote last week: “If after the whole House had vetoed and passed the appropriation bill, a privileged few met and made fresh imputations into the bill without the knowledge of the entire House, then that is padding and an illegality. It cannot go by any other name. It becomes more serious and criminal if the funds so added, are meant for the exclusive use of the coterie.”

Ever since this controversy broke out, a lot of under-hand dealings have been going on in a desperate bid to extinguish the raging inferno. At a point, Dogara visited the President, supposedly on account of this scandal. He emerged from the villa thereafter, brimming with confidence. The police later invited him for explanations but he ignored them. Meanwhile, Jibrin has remained unrelenting in making more scandalous revelations to the public domain. The latest is the accusation of massive money laundering in the National Assembly.

While Jibrin has been spilling the beans, Dogara’s camp has not been folding its arms either. In the last one week, Nigerians have been inundated with counter allegations against Jibrin, allegations that are believed to have emanated from Dogara’s camp and designed either to blackmail or hoodwink Jibrin into desisting from pursuing his self-professed anti-corruption crusade. Although many Nigerians rightly see Jibrin as a later day convert to the anti-corruption crusade, nonetheless, he has opened a can of worms that will be difficult for Dogara and his clique to sweep under the carpet in the usual Nigerian way.

Many Nigerians believe that Jibrin may also be an accomplice in this unfolding scandal and, therefore, cannot be totally exonerated from it all. But one thing is that he has been able to expose the shenanigans of some of the leaders of this country whose stock-in-trade is to wear two faces in office: one as patriot and the other as thieving rogues.

Perhaps, the futility in trying to sweep the issue under the carpet must have dawned on Dogara last weekend when the embattled speaker suddenly made a recant and offered himself to be probed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and other anti-graft agencies. This is a sharp departure from his earlier comments that lawmakers cannot be probed for carrying out their legislative duties. That was one of the statements he made in an apparent bid to contain the fallout of his claim that the public outrage over the budget padding scandal was misplaced.

A statement issued by Turaki Hassan, Dogara’s media aide in Abuja last weekend, read: “As an officer in the temple of justice, Dogara not only owes unalloyed allegiance to the judiciary but also to the institutions of law enforcement. He indeed swore an oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.” It is pertinent to point out that Dogara’s last minute shift in tone underscores the impact the scandal, which has remained in the headlines since it first broke out few weeks ago, has had on his political life.

This is coming after concerted efforts to push back on allegations that he fraudulently manipulated the 2016 budget to the tune of N40 billion. Initially, he described those leading the call for his prosecution as ignorant. In his words: “Recent efforts seeking to discredit the document are a consequence of inadequate knowledge of the legal framework governing appropriation in a presidential democracy.”

This remark and other ones he made before it, had earned the embattled Speaker widespread criticism from Nigerians, with many describing his defiance as a hint of his guilt.

By his latest statement, it appears Dogara is trying spuriously to defend the privileges of legislators while at the same time, also reassuring the public that the legislators aren’t above the law. That was why his media aide apparently added some polish to his paymaster when he said: “Dogara should not be portrayed as insensitive or arrogant as this is contrary to his true nature of humility and humaneness that has endeared him to his colleagues and Nigerians.”

Polish or no polish, the fact remains that there are lots of unwholesome practices going on in high places in government in spite of the present administration’s posture of fighting corruption. There is no gainsaying that the National Assembly has, over the years, become a citadel of corruption as members engage in a race for the survival of the fittest by callously dipping their hands into the public till to satisfy their inordinate quest for wealth at the expense of the suffering people of Nigeria.

Now that Dogara is ready for a probe of his affairs in the House so far, it behoves on him and his co-travellers in the leadership of the House, to climb down from their Olympian height in order to enable the anti-graft agencies do a thorough and unbiased investigation of all the accusations and counter-accusations involved in this scandal. Nothing short of this would be acceptable to the teeming masses of Nigerians who have watched helplessly for many years as their leaders make away with their common patrimony while they are left pauperised and dehumanised.

The point is, Dogara, his co-travellers and Jibrin himself, have a moral baggage to bear like a goitre hanging precariously on their necks.

August 17, 2016
A House on Fire

Since the Muhammadu Buhari government took over the reins of leadership on May 29, 2015, it has left nobody in doubt that it is all out to wage a titanic war against corruption. Today, many Nigerians who had hitherto thought that corruption was a way of life are learning the hard way that it can no longer be business as usual. While many of them have since gone underground for fear of being apprehended by the anti-graft agencies, others have simply voted with their feet in order to escape the long arms of the law. Relatives of those who are already in the net are running from pillar to post to secure reprieve from the captors of their loved ones.

Many people have said that the on-going corruption war is like scratching the surface rather than dealing decisively with the root of the epidemic. Arguments have been advanced back and forth on this issue. It is for this reason that the on-going padding or no padding crisis currently rocking the House of Representatives presents an interesting scenario. What started like a smoke has now metamorphosed into a wild fire.

Not even the recent moves by the All Progressives Congress, APC, the party that controls the leadership of the lower house, to resolve this budget padding crisis is yielding any fruitful result. The reason for the failure of the party to successfully step into the issue at this moment is that AbdulmuminJibrin insists on investigation of the petitions he submitted to security agencies. Jibrin is the immediate past chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, who triggered off the whole crisis when he squealed against the leadership of the house shortly after he was removed from his plum job. The party was said to have held a meeting with Jibrin last Tuesday, but all appeals to him to withdraw his petitions from the security agencies so that the crisis could be handled as “a family affair” did not yield any results.

But a lot of Nigerians may have been taken aback when YakubuDogara, the Speaker of the House and the man at the centre of the entire crisis emerged from a closed-door meeting with President Buhari last Friday and declared that padding was not a known offence in law. The Speaker’s latest position tallies with the opinion of some senior lawyers who have been labouring to win the briefing from the Speaker in case the matter ends up in the law court. So, the Speaker’s position is not totally surprising. The only thing now is that since Dogara, who himself is a lawyer, said padding is not a crime, it is now left for the appropriate security agencies to do their job by promptly investigating the matter without further delay. Of course, Jibrin appears to be more than eager to pursue the case to its logical conclusion.

From the onset, my thought had been that this sort of issue can never be purely a party’s issue, reason being that issues raised by this matter are very critical and fundamental. The issues have more to do with the institutional integrity of the House of Representatives and the National Assembly as a whole.If we are really serious about fighting corruption in this country, this issue is simply not an issue that could be buried alive on the altar of party politics or so-called family affair. Over the years, many Nigerians have been of the opinion that the National Assembly is an assemblage of some very corrupt and, in fact, rotten Nigerians. Take a look at our budget proposals over the years especially since the advent of this democracy in 1999. What you notice is that in spite of the huge budgetary allocations year in, year out, Nigeria has been stagnant. It is like motion without movement as all development indices in the country indicate miserable retrogression. There are infrastructural deficits while the few available are allowed to depreciate badly. Yet, every year, on paper, money is allocated for all these.

All the assembly members do is to inflate project costs and collude with contractors and officials ofMDAs to share the money. Many times a minister will be invited to defend his/her ministry, department or agency’s budget. You will be surprised that what they do there is not budget defence at all. Rather, it is usually an avenue for the assembly members to smuggle more allocations into the budget. These allocations are then shared according to the understanding reached with the government officials.

Of course, if you confront any member of the National Assembly or state assemblies with these allegations, they will deny them. But that is what goes on in the ministries, departments and agencies, albeit now on a reduced scale, perhaps. This is not to talk of when they carry out their so-called oversight functions, which is essentially an avenue to breathe down the necks of officials of ministries and parastatals who are made to cough out money to earn favourable reports.

Also, the constituency projects usually allocated to each member of the assembly are a window to encourage corruption in the system. Most of these projects are either not done at all or are haphazardly done. It is the individual (dis)honourable member that nominates contractors, usually relatives and cronies who are then milked dry or starved of funds until the contracts are abandoned or executed below standard. All you notice is the changing lifestyle of the assembly members, their harem, fleet of exotic cars and fantastic buildings springing up in highbrow areas of the country. In addition, their children are sent to school abroad while their constituents wallow pitifully in a slew of ignorance, poverty, bondage and disease.

It is a good thing that Jibrin has spilled the beans but I don’t consider him as a whistle-blower. Otherwise, why did he need to keep quiet all along before he started singing like canary? While the going was good, he enjoyed every benefit of the inherent corruption in the system, only for him to turn round to betray his partners-in-crime. From my point of view, such a person can never be called a whistle-blower. If at all, he became a whistle-blower by default. Put bluntly, he is an accomplice who suddenly made a U-turn and claimed to be born-again. It is like the story of a kettle calling the pot black!

As for Dogara and his clique in the National Assembly, while we await the result of investigations into this monumental fraud, one thing is certain and that is: if after the whole House had vetoed and passed the appropriation bill, a privileged few met and made fresh imputations into the bill without the knowledge of the entire House, then that is padding and an illegality. It cannot go by any other name. It becomes more serious and criminal if the funds so added, are meant for the exclusive use of the coterie. In that case, it would be too early for the Speaker to thump his chest and say padding is no crime in law. All the hue and cry about this padding shows that Nigeria is now getting to the root of corruption in the society.

By the way, how is a top member of the leadership of the House financing the seven-floor, ultra-modern, high-rise hotel that may be the first of its kind to use an elevator in the whole of Osun State, which he is currently putting up in Osogbo, the state capital? This and many more are the reasons the current imbroglio in the House must not be swept under the carpet. It cannot and must not be treated as a family affair. This is an issue that cannot be easily wished away. Not by fiat!

August 10, 2016
The way we are going (2)

Last week, this column dwelt on the lop-sidedness in the appointments of heads of security agencies and other sensitive positions in the country. It also mentioned how it was initially tough to get the northerners to agree to join the southern part of the country for independence in 1960. What really attracted the northerners was the realignment of the boundaries which gave the total area up the River Niger to the north, while the remaining portion was divided between the east and the west. In other words, the north had 60% of the entire land mass while the south, making up east and west, was squeezed into a miserable 40%. That abnormal arrangement somehow gave the north an advantage over the south. Besides, they were assured that even though the south was visibly ahead in education, power will reside in the hands of the northerners.

The Ibos actually attempted to concentrate power in the south-east. At a point, the top hierarchy of all the civil service, the police, the army and other relevant organs of government were dominated by the Ibos before the advent of the civil war. It was the civil war that changed all that.

What actually dissuaded the northerners from secession was the fact that the British told them that should they secede, Britain will no longer have anything to do with them. In fact, in the counter-coup of 1966, the plan of the northern coupists was to move their families from Ikeja Cantonment to Kano for safety in the event of an imminent breakup. That was why on coup day, a British Airways DC 10 aircraft that was due to fly passengers from Lagos to London was diverted after much pleading to Kano even though the Nigerian air space had been closed to traffic.

The coup leaders had promised that the aircraft would be allowed to fly to Kano, drop its passengers and then return to Lagos to pick its passengers to London. When the pilot asked what will happen to his London passengers, he was assured that they will be kept safe at the Airport Hotel while waiting for his arrival from Kano to pick them. The pilot also complained about unavailability of aviation fuel and he was assured that aviation fuel will be available for his trip to London. The aircraft landed safely in Kano, came back to Lagos, picked its London passengers and was allowed to leave before the airspace was closed again.

The plan by the northerners to secede was why it took the counter-coup leaders a whole three days to announce a new Head of State in the person of then Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon. In the confusion that followed the counter-coup, Gowon had played the role of a moderator and successfully dissuaded the radicals like Murtala Muhammed and co, who were bent on foisting another agenda to break up the country. Gowon was said to have found an ally in Adeyinka Adebayo in maintaining the stability of the country.

Recall that when Buhari took over the reign of government in 1983, he announced that his regime was a continuation of the Murtala Muhammed/Obasanjo military regime. As a result of this pronouncement, the image of the Buhari regime at that time soared. This was because Murtala Muhammed had enjoyed wide public support during his short-lived regime even though that regime took a lot of wrong steps from which the country, especially the nation’s civil service, is yet to recover. That position taken by Buhari in 1983 has not changed.

Coincidentally, last week, as I was contemplating on adding my voice to the growing whispers in the country on this northern domination, I visited my doctor, an old hand in the medical profession, who has spent close to 30 years in America plying his trade before he returned to Nigeria a few years ago. He is now in his early 70s. As you know, some of these doctors like talking and exchanging ideas. As we got talking, he lamented about the deterioration of the standard of living of the average Nigerian, the dying economy, the violence and killings all over the place and warned that if care is not taken, Nigeria could be approaching a pre-1966 situation which eventually led to the 30-month civil war.

To him, Buhari needs to be advised to drop whatever northern agenda he might be harbouring so as not to plunge the country into another avoidable bloodbath. He said, perhaps, now that both Gowon and Adebayo, are still living, they should go and talk to Buhari to embrace the type of wisdom with which they averted a secession by the north in 1966. Agreed, Gowon is currently leading some prayer warriors all over the country, but the exigency of today requires that he should do more in order to retrieve this country from the precipice into which it seems to be marooned.

Many people have been complaining openly and silently about Buhari’s style of leadership. Sometimes, reports filtering in from the villa indicate that the president is like a man on a one-man mission. That he hardly listens to advice, no matter how sincere or genuine such advice might be. Such things manifested when it took him a long time to announce members of his cabinet. Some people even said that the president had initially come up with the names of some people who were actually discovered to be so handicapped that they could not function in a normal cabinet. Some had either fallen sick, had strokes or were in a very disadvantaged position so much that they could not even offer themselves for service any longer.

One thing is that the president might mean well, but the configuration of his cabinet and the lop-sidedness in his appointments which is skewed in favour of northerners or northern Muslims, are antithetical to good governance and transparency. Besides, his snobbishness on some burning national issues especially on the issue of restructuring the country, speaks volumes about his hard heartedness and unpreparedness to listen to any dissenting voice that runs counter to his own opinion.

Few months ago, when his attention was drawn to the report of the 600-member 2014 National Conference Committee, the president simply shrugged and said: “That one, I didn’t read it. I just threw it to my archives”. I do not want to dabble into whether the president is more knowledgeable than any of the men and women who constituted that conference. These are men and women of high intellectual and professional experience who have made their marks in their areas of endeavours in life. To wave aside such people is either stubbornness carried too far or disdain for knowledge and excellence.

Our present crop of leaders should not behave as if they alone possess the answers to all the nagging problems confronting the country. When we talk about Nigeria’s sovereignty as not negotiable, although quite a good number of people have dismissed that as sheer humbug or balderdash, the point is, if we are not to negotiate the sovereignty of Nigeria, then all necessary things should be put in place so that no part of the country is deliberately side-lined, disadvantaged or taken for a ride.

My humble prayer is that this country should never have cause to go to war again. The fact is that in this digital age, nothing is hidden and nothing can be hidden. One bad news or the photograph of a bad incident going viral on the internet these days is enough gasoline to set the nation on fire. A word is enough for the wise!

August 3, 2016
The way we are going (1)

Then Nigerians trooped out enmasse to cast their votes in the 2015 general elections, particularly in the presidential election which was held on March 28, 2015, they all had one thing and one thing only in mind. That thing was that with the way the country was almost being run aground by the leaders or politicians at the helms of affairs at that time, the country needed to be saved from sinking into a bottomless pit. That was why the ‘change’ mantra of the All Progressives’ Congress, APC, gained so much momentum, culminating in the resounding victory of the APC at that election. It couldn’t have been otherwise though.

By the time the presidential election came up, it was obvious that there were visible signs that the country was systematically heading for the rocks. In other words, the ship of state had become so rudderless that only a careful pilot could steer it safely to shore. This was reflected in the wild jubilation that heralded the Muhammadu Buhari administration on May 29, 2015. That day, majority of Nigerians threw away their differences, be it political, ethnic, religious or otherwise, to join in the celebration of a new dawn.

At the Eagle Square, Abuja, venue of the swearing in ceremony, Nigerians from all walks of life, spotting colourful dresses, struggled for space as early as daylight broke in order to secure a vantage position to witness the epoch making event. And by the time the swearing in of the new president in whom Nigerians had unflinching hope and belief got under way, it was clear that Buhari was the man of the moment because every turn during the occasion, attracted wild applause from the ecstatic crowd.

The highlight of the ceremony was the inaugural speech of the newly sworn in president. In the speech, Buhari made it clear that his coming to power was to right all the wrongs of the past, particularly the issue of endemic corruption which has put the nation on a cliff-hanger. His speech was punctuated by ceaseless applause. At a stage, the new president, with all the emphasis at his disposal, said: “I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody”. This statement drew a loud applause. After the ceremony, this same statement dominated discussions all over the country. Newspaper columnists and features writers used all available space in the newspapers to analyse this particular statement, while radio and television commentators turned it into a huge discourse. This was all attempts to find the true meaning of the president’s figurative expression.

It is now 14 months, that is, a year and two months since the president assumed office. From all indications, the president has kept his promise to wage a relentless war against corruption although some people are of the opinion that the anti-graft war is one-sided or targeted at the president’s political opponents. Others have even gone to the extent of calling it a sort of vendetta against those who may have wronged the president in the past or other imaginary enemies. Whatever the case is, the war against corruption is ongoing and it has made those in government to tread more carefully, a departure from the past when stealing was done with impunity.

Having said that, my worry is that the economy of this country seems to be headed for the doldrums. The minister of finance, Kemi Adeosun, confirmed this in a statement which became front page news in most national dailies last week, when she was quoted as saying that Nigeria was “technically in recession”. Before this, the naira had depreciated to N373 to the dollar in the regime of free-fall in which the national currency has lately found itself. The untold hardship in the land has found expression in a situation where people can no longer feed, cannot afford hospital bills and salaries of millions of workers are not paid. In the internally displaced persons’ camps, malnutrition reigns supreme and even at that, the food items that trickle into the camps are diverted or stolen by those in charge of the camps. That illustrates the level of hunger that now pervades the land.

But by far the greatest problem now confronting the country is that the Buhari administration is not pretending to be a northern administration. By all intents and purposes, it is really a northern administration foisted, willy-nilly, on the entire nation. Here lies the danger that is hanging on the nation like the Sword of Damocles. The analysis is simple. Today, all the important security agencies in the country are not only manned by northerners, they are northerners of a particular religious’ extraction. They are all Muslims.

Look at the roll call: Minister for Defence, Brig. General Mansur Muhammed Dan Ali (rtd); Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Tukur Yusuf Buratai; Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal SadiqueAbubakar; Minister of Interior, General Abdulrahman Bello Dambazzau (rtd); National Security Adviser (NSA), General BabaganaMonguno (rtd); Director-General (DG) Department of State Security, DSS, Mr Lawal Musa Daura; Inspector General of Police (IG), Mr Ibrahim Kpotun Idris; Director-General (DG) Defence Intelligence Agency, Air Vice Marshal Muhammed Saliu Usman; Comptroller-General of Customs, Colonel Hameed Ali (rtd); Comptroller-General of Immigration, Muhammed Babandede; Comptroller-General of Prisons, Mr Ahmed Ja’afaru; Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, Mr Abdullahi Muhammadu; Chairman Economic and Financial Crime Commission, EFCC, Mr Ibrahim Mustafa Magu.

There are also many other appointments in the president’s office, other parastatals and agencies. They include the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, (SGF), BabachirLawal; the Chief of Staff to the President, Alhaji Abba Kyari; the Principal Secretary to the President, Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed and many others.

It is now common to see people talking in hushed tones about the direction of the Buhari administration. While many believe there is a hidden agenda of a northern domination, others are saying there are plans to Islamisethe country. Some even say that there are plans for a substantial part of the monies currently being recovered from those who have stolen the country blind, to be spent on the northern parts of the country. To them, the southern part of the country may receive just a little to deceive the people that the government is impartial in the disbursement of the funds.

There is a precedence to what is going on now. In January 1966, when the late Major General Johnson UmunakweAguiyi-Ironsi, as the most senior army officer, seized the mantle of leadership from Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu and his band of coupists, the first thing he did, was the promotion of 22 Army officers. Surprisingly, 18 of these officers were Ibos, his ethnic group. This infuriated most of the northern officers led by the late General Murtala Ramat Muhammed, late General Joe Garba, General TheophilusDanjuma and others.

When the regional military governors were later appointed for the three regions, Hassan Usman Katsina, was appointed the governor of the northern region. This turned out to be a turning point because as soon as the appointment was announced, some frontline emirs in that region simply came together and led a delegation to Katsina to brainstorm with the Emir of Katsina, where Usman Katsina hailed from as a prince.

The aim of that meeting in Katsina, was for the northern region to secede from Nigeria. Recall that it actually took a lot of persuasion to convince the north to accept to join the rest of Nigeria during the various talks and conferences preceding the independence of the country on October 1, 1960.

July 27, 2016
France: The terror this time

It has happened again and again and the destruction to property and human lives, colossal. In less than 18 months, France has been hit by a number of terroristattacks which has left people wondering whether there is any solution in sight to the incessant and debilitating attacks. Three of these attacks, considered as major ones, are worth mentioning.

The year 2015 opened in France with the Charlie Hebdo offices and Hypercaher supermarket, both in Paris, coming under attack. The attacks, which ran through three days – January 7-9 – involved two brothers, Said and CherifKouachi. The terrorists attacked the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a popular French satirical magazine, killing 12 people including the editor and their most celebrated cartoonists. The following day, tragedy struck again in Paris when a policewoman was murdered by a man simply identified as AhmediCoulibaly. Coulibaly then went ahead and held up a Jewish supermarket where he shot and killed four more people before the police who were hot on their trail, succeeded in killing Coulibaly and the Kouachi brothers in separate hostage stand-offs.

Other isolated attacks took place in February, April and June. Now, if thoseattacks could be categorised as isolated cases with less casualties, the same cannot be said about the attack in November 2015. The attacks which took place in Paris occurred on the night of November 13 into the early morning of November 14. On that fateful day, gunmen and suicide bombers almost simultaneously hit a concert hall, the neighbourhood of a major stadium, restaurants and bars in the heart of Paris. By the time the smoke died down, 130 people were leftdead while hundreds others were wounded. The deadliest and most devastating attack of the night occurred at the Bataclan Theatre, a concert venue on Boulevard Voltaire where Californian rock band, Eagles of Death Metal, was in session reeling out good tunes to Rock lovers. In that place alone, 89 people died as the gunmen fired Kalashnikov-type assault rifles from all directions into the jolly crowd.

After what looked like a one and a half months’ respite, the year 2016 opened on a bloody note asgunmen unleashed terror in Valence, south-eastern France on January 1, 2016. Few days later, on January 7, a man who was apparently trying to attack a police station on the anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, was shot dead by police. There was relative peace for about six months after those two attacks in January.

However, that relative peace was punctured last Thursday, July14 when at least 84 people were killed, including children, after a truck ploughed through a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in the southern French city of Nice. The driver ploughed on for 2km (1.2 miles) on the Promenade des Anglais at about 23:00 local time, before he was shot dead by police. Witnesses say the speeding lorry swerved and zigzagged in an apparent attempt to hit more people.Police said the attack wasorchestrated by Mohamed LahouaiejBouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian-born French man, on a day the whole country was celebrating Freedom Day.

Bastille Day is a national celebration and holiday in France. It is a day set aside to celebrate the breaking into the Bastille- an 18th century medieval fortress and Parisian prison where political rebels were held. The day has been celebrated annually for the past227 years. It all happened during the reign of Louis XVI. That time France was confronted with a major economic crisis, partially initiated by the cost of intervening in the American Revolution, and exacerbated by a regressive system of taxation which was imposed on the populace.

On May 5, 1789, the Estates-General convened to deal with this issue. But they ran into a brick wall as they were held back by archaic protocols and the conservatism of the Second Estate. The Second Estate consisted of the nobility which were not more than a mere 2% of France’s population at the time.

On June17, 1789, the Third Estate, with its representatives drawn from the commoners, reconstituted themselves as the National Assembly, a body whose purpose was to see to the creation of a French constitution. The king initially opposed this development, but was forced to acknowledge the authority of the assembly, which subsequently renamed itself the National Constituent Assembly on July 9, 1789. By this time, Paris was close to insurrection.

The Palais-Royal and its grounds became the site of an endless meeting. Violence and conflict later ensued between the Royalist and anti-Monarchist element across Paris. On July 14, the crowd broke open the Bastille prisons to release some grenadiers of the French guards, reportedly imprisoned for refusing to fire on the people when they were asked to do so in order to break the people’s protest. The Assembly swiftly recommended the imprisoned guardsmen to the clemency of the king who was left with no choice than to accede to their request. Thereafter,the grenadiers returned to prison and received instant pardon. The rank and file of the regiment, previously considered reliable, now leaned toward the popular cause.

Today, rather than commemorating the storming of the Bastille itself, the three tenets of the republican national motto; “liberty, equality and fraternity,” is celebrated nationwide. This was what the people trooped out to celebrate in Nice before the truck driver deliberately ran into them in an orgy of massacre, the signpost of terrorists. To put it succinctly: A windy night filled with fireworksand then, suddenly, terror. It is worthy to note that,in addition to patriotic pride,Bastille Day in France will henceforth bear the marks of Thursday’s bloodbath.

Surely, the wide rampage of a truck on a tourist, festive Mediterranean shoreline is a sinister boost to xenophobic narratives about terrorism that will reverberate across the globe. This is because Nice, where this madness occurred, is a cosmopolitan city. It is a huge ethnic and social mixture, a place where you find tourists from all over the world. The city’s palaces and palm tree–lined squares have long been celebrated as part of France’s cultural heritage. Therefore, a terror strike in this city is not just at the diverse fabric of a society but at a vivid tourist industry and at an entire country’s sense of self.

Last Thursday’s attackrepresents a new reality in terrorism and terroristattacks. For all the years of trepidation that terrorists would develop more sophisticated methods to ply their lethal trade, the attack in Nice is the realisation of a fear that actually turned out to be far worse: a form of violence that could render the usual defences of a nation useless. Now, an everyday vehicle commonly seen on the roads everywhere around the world has been turned into an object of fear and menace. This is a new dimension in which the tactics employed by terrorists become more rudimentary and their targets more random. I am sure defence planners will recognise the fact that intelligence gathering and security measures which have long been the thinking of security experts are of limited utility and can never provide absolute safety from a terrorist or terrorists who decide to kill at any point.

While the precise motive of this latest act of terror is yet to be known, it is very clear that France has become a primary target for the international jihadist terrorist movement for some reasons. The country is close to the Middle East. It is militarily active and proudly self-assertive. Above all, it harbours Europe’s largest Muslim minority.

As terrorism itself becomes harder to prevent or to defend, policy experts are of the opinion that governments across the globe should address two deeper but murkier problems: the ideology that encourages such violence and the social-cum-political factors that drive an individual to accept such insidious ideology.

July 20, 2016
Before darkness falls

It is now a common refrain by many Nigerians to say that what we are currently experiencing in Nigeria is far from the dreams and aspirations of our founding fathers. It is apparent that the country is engulfed in confusion.We have suddenly become a nation that is dying because we have deteriorated to a polity with no values and national identity. The only thing we seem to value is money at all costs. Of course, this is not the Nigeria we all came to love in the 60’s and 70’s. The implication of this is that our generation of Nigerians has failed the nation and failed in our national duty to sustain and enhance the foundational values handed to us by our ancestors and the founding fathers that emerged in the late ’50s and early ’60s.

Therefore, it is not by mere coincidence that everybody is talking or pontificating about building a new Nigeria. Some call it restructuring. Quite recently, Yemi Osinbajo, the vice president, harped on the significant role elites play in the development of a country. According to him, the weight of what happens in the society, whether good or bad, rests squarely on the shoulders of the elites. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo made the remarks at a recent dinner hosted by the Nigeria Bar Association Section on Business Law. In his submission, he said that elites like lawyers who formed the better part of the audience that day, “are the repository of knowledge and information,” and therefore, must use their knowledge for the common good of the nation.

That was not the first time the vice president was making such an allusion to the roles elites should play in the development of the country. At other fora in the past, he had spoken about the need for elites’ consensus in the country, while calling for a “new tribe of Nigerians,” working together to rid the country of corruption and other vices. The society, Osinbajo said, “would depend a lot on the elites in the coming years and that is a huge responsibility.”

In the same vein, AlhajiSa’adAbubakar III, the Sultan of Sokoto, recently said that those causing problems in Nigeria are elites who always cause trouble for their selfish interests. The Sultan was probably speaking in defence of the ordinary Fulani man or Fulani herdsmen who have been in the news for the wrong reasons in recent times. The Fulani herdsmen who move around with their animals have come under serious criticisms for destroying farmlands along their grazing routes and also causing death and destructions all over the place.

The Sultan who spoke at his palace laid the blame for the resurgence of violence among the herdsmen squarely at the doorstep of the elites. He said such elites, whenever they lose control of power, look for ways to create problems for the common man in the country. “When such people losepower, the next thing is to start using some few people to cause problems. They politicise everything in the country. That is when you hear things like insurgency in the North-east or Avengers in the Niger Delta. All these are problems caused by some individuals who do not wish the country well,” he said.

One cannot but agree with the views expressed by both the Vice President and the Sultan. The Nigerian political terrain is far more complex today than it was when the country first embarked on the path of nation-building. The challenges facing the country in pursuing the task of nation-building are daunting. Nigeria today, faces a serious dilemma caused by the development ambitions of the various nationalities making up the entity called Nigeria and that has become a big threat to her very existence as a political entity. The principal factors identified in the nation’s roiling political crisis are the struggle for ethnic determination, true federalism, religious intolerance, resource control and the struggle for the centre, among others. Mixed with this is the fact that corruption and greed have steadily found their way to the long list of ills plaguing the country.These and many more, are the causes of the country’s political upheavals and stagnation.

To understand the reality of the political situation in Nigeria, we must first recognise that the socio-political conditions that currently prevail in this society are uniquely Nigerian, not those of any alien society. It is becoming increasingly clear that democracy as practised in developed societies cannot be transplanted wholesale in Nigeria as such transfers have proved inapplicable to our setting. In other words, a stable democracy which we envisage will not be feasible until such a time the society is ready to invent its own form of democracy, rooted in its own set of values and reality.Fact is, the norms and values that govern a society are distilled from the evolutionary development of that society. As the social conditions of the state evolve, the rules that govern its society must also evolve. Therefore, to survive, the government of each society must evolve and adapt along the lines of its own peculiar set of realities.

A close examination of the socio-political evolution of every developed nation, including the ones whose systems Nigeria has been trying to emulate, reveals the impact of the efforts of certain prominent intellectuals to formulate and design strategies for the positive development of their respective societies. These were men of outstanding intellectual ability who understood their societies and used their knowledge to generate viable ideas that were to prove invaluable in their guidance of political leadership in the task of building sound foundations for those societies.

The problem Nigeria faces stems largely from the failure of her intellectual class to make suitable distinction between the utility of the ideas developed by classical European intellectuals and that of the new ideas needed to meet the country’s contemporary political needs. The goal of the Nigerian intellectuals in studying classical theories should not be the theories themselves but, rather, the anatomy of political theorisation. As it is, our intellectuals must not be slow in reading the handwriting on the wall. Everything that is happening in the country today, from the bad to the ugly, are indications that there is need for a philosophical analysis of our situation in Nigeria. This analysis will result in the formulation of creative, rather than emulative socio-political theories for the country.

The rapidly changing nature of the society makes this suggestion more expedient more than ever before. We must come clean and straight to our genuine friends in the international community and explain our situation. This is because, today, no single nation state can pretend to be in control of all events within its own borders. It is only then that necessary assistance can flow in without necessarily jeopardising our sovereignty. This makes the task of the Nigerian elite more thought-provoking andeven challenging.

Just as Osinbajo and the Sultan said, the Nigerian intellectual elite must accept the great responsibility of charting a new course for the country. This they can do by educating and motivating the various groups in our society to live in harmony with one another. They should help in changing the present narrative in which the affairs of the Nigerian state have been characterised by ethnic and religious rivalries, selfishness, laziness, jealousy and impatience. This trend must be reversed if the country is to survive and become able to meet the needs and aspirations of its citizens. One thing is that an urgent change in attitude is required of every citizen of this country. To this end, Nigerian intellectuals should devote enough time and constructive effort to the creation of a society in which Nigerians will live in peace with one another. This will help a great deal to douse the present atmosphere of rivalries, intolerance and unhealthy competition blowing across the country.

July 13, 2016
Reporting economic crimes in Nigeria (2)

Last week, this column dwelt on the need for journalists in the country to dig deep into issues while processing them as news for the reading public. It is because Nigerians know very little about goings-on in government and what public officials are doing in their name. The fact that many Nigerians get to know what went wrong after the perpetrators have left office is a failure of investigative journalism in Nigeria. Suffice to say that investigative journalism is not event-oriented, unlike routine news reporting. Though an event could trigger the curiosity of the investigative journalist, he must go beyond the event. Reporting only the event and nothing more is what could be termed situation reporting. It goes beyond this. It calls for more details, more research, and more attention to processes, trends and context.

May I crave the reader’s indulgence to call up some personal examples to illustrate what I think good investigative journalism should entail. I wrote a story titled ‘The Axis of Evil’ which was published by Tell Magazine on August 25, 2003. The story chronicled the exploits of armed robbers, who usually invaded Nigeria from neighbouring countries, particularly the Republic of Benin and leave with a convoy of snatched cars across the border. I was able to uncover the methods used, the routes taken by the robbers each time they struck, the receivers of the stolen goods and all that. It was a diligent and painstaking reportorial work, which took me a long time and a lot of legwork through their routes which essentially constitute an axis of evil on the border between Nigeria and Benin Republic.

The second example is the story of late Hammani Tidjani, the notorious cross-border armed robber, who was finally arrested by the Nigerian security agencies on Friday, September 12, 2003. He was brought to Nigeria in handcuffs after many years of posing a security threat to the country through car snatching and smuggling them to neighbouring West African countries, including the Republic of Benin, Togo, Ghana, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Mali.

Mention must also be made of Anas Aremeyaw Anas, a Ghanaian undercover journalist and crime buster, who has continued to make investigative journalists proud of his exploits in crime reporting. He uncovered the racketeering in Cocoa export in Ghana by exposing those behind the illicit deals. He also unmasked those luring unsuspecting victims into buying fake gold in the country, the electricity thieves at the Electricity Company of Ghana, ECG, and many others. Through his activities, the government and the security agencies were able to plug some loopholes in the system while the government made more money in revenue as cocoa smuggling was curtailed.

I must quickly add that investigative journalism, which is what following up on a routine story requires, does not come cheap. Media organisations need to spend money on investigative journalism for it to flourish. An investigative journalist may be on a story for months and may require thousands of naira for accommodation, transportation and what have you. It is a task that requires patience in order to get it right. You either get it right or get yourself into a mess.

The biggest motivation for being a journalist is the love and passion for the job. A poorly remunerated journalist might be an enemy to the society itself. He might become a watchdog that turns against its owner. There is no disputing the fact that Nigerian journalists are easily among the worst paid in the world. If you doubt this, do a simple comparison of the pay structure of the Nigerian journalists with those of several other professionals like accountants and bankers, then, you will know what I am talking about.

In a society where only a few media organisations are truly doing well enough to pay their reporters well and timely, investigative journalists need be aware that sources of funding for their follow-up stories or 100 per cent fresh works do not have to be their employers alone. There are international organisations and foundations that support investigative works such as the International Investigative Journalism Centre. These organisations accept pitches from time to time from journalists working on investigative stories. Once your pitch is successful, you get a grant to do the work. Local organisations, such as the Wole Soyinka Investigative Journalism Centre, are also working along this line.

Funding is, however, not the only constraint to investigative journalism. Other factors such as proprietor’s interests and even a reporter’s personal relationship with a subject of investigation play a crucial part. Not a few media houses will bury a story in order to ensure that advert flow from a client does not stop. Many stories have died such unnatural deaths because of these reasons and the society is the worse for it.

I must also point out the fact that our laws are full of loopholes and do not encourage investigative journalism. There is so much secrecy in government that even with the Freedom of Information, FoI, Act, journalists still confront challenges in accessing government information because agents of government have found a way to beat the FoI. Be that as it may, a creative investigative journalist can still find a way around these bottlenecks and produce good investigative copies and save the society. While I will agree that, in Nigeria, as elsewhere around the globe, allegations of corruption are employed as ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in political warfare, the only way to separate genuine reports from fictional ones is to speedily investigate them.

As we all know, Nigerians don’t have the culture of public officials whose integrity has been badly impugned resigning their offices in order to defend themselves. Rather, they sit in judgment over their own trials. The unfortunate impression that has been created in the country through the years is that anyone who is politically connected enough can get away with just about anything. Let it be noted that Nigeria cannot attain the much-bandied greatness or perhaps, even survive, if criminality and corruption are not checked or reduced to the barest minimum. That is why we must all be committed to rolling back the tide of corruption.

The point should also be made that investigative journalism has not flourished in Nigeria as it should have been, perhaps, due to the ownership structure and control of the mass media in the country. In the 1970s, up to the early 1980s, government had an overwhelming influence in newspaper ownership while broadcasting, either through the radio or TV, was also monopolised by it. Now that there is deregulation in media business in Nigeria, those who own the media houses, whether businessmen, politicians, or even media professionals themselves, have allowed, in many cases, personal interests to override their news judgements. This, no doubt, constitutes a debilitating cog in the wheel of investigative journalism in the country. Added to this are laziness, corruption and lack of professional enterprise spirit in the average journalist.

Investigative journalism will continue to merely mark time if we do not ensure that there are guarantees for its survival, particularly through organisations lending relevant support to it, such as funding. We should always remember that in spite of the constitutional role placed on the members of the Fourth Estate of the Realm, there are institutional and other bottlenecks that we all must help overcome.

Let me sound a note of warning here. When we ask for accountability from politicians, banks, government agencies and others where economic crimes are rampant, it is because we recognise that men and women are capable of all manners of evil. So, we must be careful and creative in exposing them without being hurt in the process as evil men and women will not just fold their arms and watch you ruin them!

Concluded

July 6, 2016
Reporting economic crimes in Nigeria (1)

Today, I wish to share my perspective on a professional issue that I’m deeply passionate about: the need to breed a new crop of journalists knowledgeable and courageous enough to dig deeply into knotty issues of public interest in our country. This is because with its current multifarious challenges, our country sure needs a bunch of intrepid investigative journalists well equipped to hold government officials, individuals and corporations accountable.

I started journalism about 33 years ago. The great Dele Giwa, who co-founded Newswatch and was its Editor-in-Chief until the cruel hands of death took him away through the instrumentality of a letter bomb on October 19, 1986, played more than a cursory role in my journalism career. Giwa, we all know, loved investigative journalism till he breathed his last. It is, therefore, not an accident that investigative journalism was a turf I chose in my years at TELL, a news magazine whose founders were all from Newswatch.

Let us attempt to lay bare some of the facts about investigative reporting and investigative reporters, so that we can all determine whether or not we will crucify the quality of investigative journalism we have in Nigeria today in the context of economic crimes reporting or give it a pass mark.

The Investigative Journalism Manual, a handbook facilitated by Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, a German foundation, defines investigative journalism as: ”An original, proactive process that digs deeply into an issue or topic of public interest; producing new information or putting known information together to produce new insights; multi-sourced, using more resources and demanding teamwork and time; revealing secrets or uncovering issues surrounded by silence; looking beyond individuals at fault to the systems and processes that allow abuses to happen; bearing witness, and investigating ideas as well as facts and events; providing nuanced context and explaining not only what, but why; not always about bad news, and not necessarily requiring undercover techniques – though it often is, and sometimes does.”

The manual also highlights the traits an investigative reporter must have as: Curiosity: – that is, an incisive mind; passion: – must have intense interest in the field; Initiative, Logical thinking, Organisation and self-discipline, Flexibility. Others are: Good teamwork: – (please note that while teamwork may be quite effective in investigative journalism, many investigative journalists, including this writer, believe in working solo. With this, you can personally authenticate and vouch for the information you are collecting), communication skills, well-developed reporting skills; broad, general knowledge and good research skills, determination and patience, fairness and strong ethics, discretion and courage.

Above all, the investigative journalist should be self-motivating because that keeps him going even when he encounters challenges in reaching his desired goals. There is no doubt that the reporting of economic crimes by Nigerian journalists today is at best formulaic and stereotypic. More often than not, our colleagues wait for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, or the Police to announce the arrest of economic criminals. We scream with headlines of the arrests. We often continue with the coverage of the suspects’ arraignment, prosecution and court judgments. Unfortunately, some media organisations are now unable to send reporters to court to cover court proceedings involving economic crime suspects. Instead, our newsrooms now depend on handouts in the form of press releases by the public affairs or publicity units of the enforcement agencies for news about the trial of economic criminals.

While this cycle of reporting might be permissible, it is far too predictable, shallow, stereotypical and counter-productive. The situation has become so bad that the media now depend entirely on the anti-corruption agencies rather than initiate their own investigations on economic and other forms of crime in our country. This kind of reporting may make journalists vulnerable to manipulation and other machinations of the anti-corruption agencies. This is apart from the fact that this kind of reporting does not add value, beyond publicity, to the work of the anti-corruption agencies themselves.

A central question is: Do we have economic crimes in Nigeria? The answer is certainly yes. Today in Nigeria, the courts are all brimming with cases of corruption, fraud and other forms of economic crimes. Besides, the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC’s) Annual Report and Statement of Accounts that are periodically released to the public, is a proof that economic crimes are here with us. They have been for a long time. These crimes are perpetrated through various means, such as suppression of customer deposits, fraudulent conversion of cheques, fraudulent transfer and withdrawal of deposits and outright theft.

The statistics are staggering: In 2012, there were 738 ATM frauds, 331 fraudulent transfers/withdrawals, 280 cases of presentation of forged cheques, 240 cases of outright theft, 219 incidents of suppression of customer deposit, 123 cases of fraudulent conversion of cheques, 112 non-dispensing of money registered by the Electronic Journal, and 108 cases of internet fraud. What this report clearly shows is that more bankers chose to be dubious in 2012 than in previous years. Of the 2,352 fraud cases recorded, 498 were attributed to staff collusion, which was an increase of 141 from 357 cases in 2010. This represents 39 per cent increase from the previous year. Add all these to the money being pilfered on daily basis by unscrupulous Nigerians and politicians in all tiers of government in the country, then, you will know that we are really in trouble.

Almost every other day, the EFCC arrests one economic crime offender, corrupt public official or another. Some years back, the EFCC issued a statement that it arrested a digital television scammer in Kano. What is wrong in reporters finding out on their own who and who have benefitted from the services he was providing before the law caught up with him? Why were people patronising his dubious enterprise? How much was he charging as fee for his services? How many customers did he have? How much did he make over the years while he flourished in the illegal business? Are there others like him around? And how was he able to carry out these illegal activities? Did he have any special training? Who trained him? And so on and so forth.

There is so much to be done about digital television scamming and how much the major players are losing to illegal use of their sweat. Again, the question is: are journalists doing enough to report all these crimes? The answer is an emphatic no!

Most of the time, reports on economic crimes are based on statements by the EFCC, Special Fraud Unit and the ICPC. In my opinion, there is little follow-up being done. What we see basically are reports of court proceedings after the suspects have been arraigned. What about finding out the lifestyles of these suspects by talking to their neighbours, former colleagues, school mates and whoever they had contacts with? What stops us from digging deeply into their investments and seeing if there is any link between these investments and the crimes they are being tried for?

It is worth the emphasis here that an indispensable tool of investigative reporting is that it goes beyond obtaining and publishing the reports of investigations done by other investigative agencies. Rather, the report must be based on the reporter’s original investigation. What this means is that the reporter may follow up a story prospect based on his own judgement or based on an assignment from his editor. While it is important that the investigative journalist, in his choice of subject, is guided by what the public will find interesting, the more fundamental criterion in his choice should be what is in the public’ interest. Although the techniques may vary from time to time and place to place, depending on the operating environment, public interest should be the overriding motivation for the investigative journalist.

June 29, 2016
The Niger Delta stand-off

As is well known, even the greatest wars ever fought on earth ended at a conference table. Sometimes, it comes after avoidable deaths and destruction of human and material resources. That seems to be the case in the Niger Delta where many weeks after embarking on indiscriminate destruction of key oil facilities, the Niger Delta Avengers, NDA,is beginning to see the wisdom in the dialogue option.

The NDA started their hostile campaign with some mundane requests such as the release of NnamdiKanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, and others. With time, more and more demands were made, a situation that betrayed the real motive of the NDA. At a point they wanted the government to release Sambo Dasuki, who is being held in detention over the N2.3 billion arms purchase scam. It was as if the group took up armson the spur of the moment, not with a clearly designed objective.

In its latest demands, the NDA wants the government to create a conducive atmosphere for genuine dialogue and lasting peace talks. They also wantthe government to get the member states of the multinational oil corporations to commit independent mediators to the proposed dialogue.

Lastly, the NDA said they do not want any traditional ruler or politician to be part of the dialogue. They may be right on this. Many politicians and traditional rulers in the country especially in that region have not been able to live above board. Before 1999, it was the traditional rulers in the region that were mostly trusted with issues of development in the area. But over the years, the youths discovered that many of the traditional rulers were insincere and that they were short-changing them.That was why they moved against them. The politicians also entered the stage in 1999.They did not fare any better. In fact, they appeared to be more corrupt than the traditional rulers, hence, the youths decided to take their destiny in their hands.

It would be recalled that it was the politicians in the region that actually started arming the youths by using them as bodyguards and thugs during the various electioneering processes. Duringthis period, the youths were handsomely paid. But as soon as the campaigns were over, they were quickly abandoned and the politicians never retrieved their arms from them. So, in the face of hunger arising from being abandoned by their pay masters (politicians), the youths had no other option than to strive to fend for themselves. And the arms and ammunition supplied to them by the politicians readily became handy. This has been responsible for the festering incidents of cult-related activities, armed robbery, kidnappingandall forms of banditry going on in many parts of the country, particularly in the Niger Delta region.

It was this appalling situation thatgave birth to militancy in the region. And because those who were involved earlier in this militancy have risen to become ‘billionaires’ in a society where money is worshipped, otherswere naturally tempted to follow in their footsteps. In Nigeria today, many of those now parading as influential people and money-bags with strings of traditional titles rose to their new-found status through violence and other questionable means. And they are not limited to the Niger Delta region alone. They are everywhere in the country.

The NDA-induced crisis looks more like a campaign of blackmail against the Federal Government because it is doubtful if they are truly representing the Niger Delta people or a group of attention-seeking individuals who want to get to the government by all means. Nevertheless, the pathetic and appalling situation in the Niger Delta is long overdue for a comprehensive surgery.This is because it is clear that all the palliative measures put in place in the past, have not produced the desired result. For instance, the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, set up as an interventionist agency in 1999, has been hampered by improper funding of its activities. As we speak, the agency is being owed more than half a trillion naira by the Federal Government because of its snail-speed bureaucracy. Yet, this colossal sum of money could have made a whole lot of difference.

Again take the East-West Road. That road has been under perpetual construction since God-knows-when. Every year, there is always a budget provision but the project has remained static. There is also the lingering issue of the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, which debate in the National Assembly has been going back and forth. Yet, one important thing about the bill is the provision for benefits accruable to host communities in oil bearing states in the country.And we talk about developing the Niger Delta region without really committing resources into it.

Unfortunately, since the NDA started their insurgency in the region, the type of figures usually brandished as the amount of money lost to the crisis on daily basis is staggering. One wonders if a quarter, I mean, just a quarter of that money had been judiciously spent on developing the region, the story wouldn’t have been better than what it is today. I have been to many parts of the Niger Delta especially Rivers, Delta and Bayelsa. People who live in the interiors of these places live in abject poverty and squalor. Go to Kokodiagbene in Gbaramatu Local Government Area of Delta State, you will weep for the people. They are completely cut off from civilization. Their waters are polluted, no pipe borne water, no good roads, the houses are mainly thatched houses and there is no government electricity. In short, like the famous Thomas Hobbes quote, life there is “nasty, short, and brutish” simply because there is no government presence there. The same thing with many oil producing areas of the nine Niger Delta states. The most astonishing thing there is that it is the revenue derived from oil exploration and exploitation in these areas that is used to build those tall edifices in Abuja and elsewhere.

There is no doubt that there are fundamental issues involved in the Niger Delta conundrum. And the issues have been there for far too long while successive governments and their collaborators have done virtually nothing to address them. The Niger Delta people have the moral right and legitimate reason to demand for a better deal with the Nigerian government. With the Boko Haram madness still fresh in memory, in resolving the issues at stake in the Niger Delta crisis, we must avoid unnecessary bloodshed and destruction which will do the country and the region no good.Therefore, to restore lastingpeaceto the region will require a holistic approach.

What the region needs now is improved environment for the inhabitants – good roads, well-equipped hospitals, good schools, electricity, clean water, industries and all that, so that they can reap the full benefit of their God-given mineral resources that have almost become a curse to them. Like the Avengers suggested, the oil multinationals should be involved in this holistic programme to transform the region because the federal and state governments alone cannot do it. It is a massive development.

In doing this, decent people who are development experts within and outside the region should be co-opted if we must get results. At any rate,the Niger Delta issue will continue to be an albatross to the government and all of us Nigerians as long as we continue to ignore the reality in the region. It is like mosquito perching on a man’s scrotum; you cannot use a gun to kill it, otherwise….Unless something is done to redress this glaring injustice and man’s inhumanity to man in the area and elsewhere in the country, we are only postponing the doomsday;

June 22, 2016
Like BokoHaram, like Avengers

The Niger Delta region has been embroiled in fresh crisis in the past few weeks. It appears that what initially looked like the usual “shakara” (the late Afrobeat king, FelaAnikulapo-Kuti’s word for intimidation) embarked upon by some faceless but deadly militants in the region, is gradually snowballing into a major conflagration.

It all began in the month of April, when some desperate indigenes of the region under the aegis of Niger Delta Avengers, NDA, started blowing up oil installations in both Delta and Bayelsa states, South-south, Nigeria. Recall that militantactivities in the region have been on for several years. During these years, the economy of the country, particularly the socio-economic activities of the Niger Delta region, almost came to a standstill.

This was the situation until 1999 when Nigeria returned to democratic rule after several years of military interregnum. Olusegun Obasanjo, who was sworn-in as president on May 29, 1999, attempted a solution to the endemic crisis by setting up an interventionist agency- the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC- to fast-track development in the nine states making up the Niger Delta region. The commission quickly swung into action and tension was reduced.

The late president, Umaru Yar’adua who succeeded Obasanjo as president mounted the saddle on May 29, 2007. One of the first things he did was that he proclaimed the amnesty programme for Niger Delta youths who, by that time, had been rampaging everywhere. As oil is the mainstay of the Nigerian economy, Yar’adua, knew quite well that his government needed peace and tranquility in the country to enable him perform well as president rather than confront the “boys”, so he merely tamed them a while and later came up with his amnesty gambit. The amnesty programme was intended to disarm, demobilise and give the warring boys a sense of belonging by taking them off the streets or trenches and giving them adequate training to prepare them for a responsible life in the society.

Theprogramme became an instant success. The militants were taken off the streets and trenches, rehabilitated and catered for through training both locally and outside the country. Many of the hitherto ‘bad boys’ willingly embraced the programme. Stipends were also paid to the beneficiaries of the programme scattered all over the place. Those who were selected for training especially in several countries across the globe came back full of gratitude for the country with a promise to live decent lives and refrain from bad behaviour henceforth.

Regretably, Yar’adua, the architect of the magic wand- the amnesty programme that cleared the boys off the creeks – suddenly succumbed to death. His deputy, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, himself a son-of-the–soil (he hails from BayelsaState in the Niger Delta region) took over. Jonathan continued with his boss’ programme and pursued it with vigour because since he was from there, he surely knew where the shoe pinches. He knew the evil oil has caused his people (apology to Professor Steve Azaiki who titled one of his numerous books on the plight of the Niger Delta indigenes – THE EVIL OF OIL).

But Jonathan soon introduced a novel but reckless innovation into the Niger Delta issue when his appointees started huge cash disbursement to the ex-Niger Delta militant leaders and their cronies. This was done under the guise of pipeline surveillance contracts. This was how Government Ekpemupolo, otherwise known as Tompolo, one of the miscreants that had caused the government and security agents sleepless nights before the amnesty programme was initiated, became prominent. Not only did he become stupendously rich, he became a tin-god and godfather to several old and upcoming politicians in the region.

By this time Tompolo was a regular face at Aso Rock presidential villa even as he was consulted on many issues that had to do with the Niger Delta. His operational base in Okporoza, the headquarters of Gbaramatu kingdom in Delta State also became a Mecca of sorts where all manner of politicians flockedto, to be anointed by him or to be recommended for appointments. It was Tompolo that nominated Patrick Akpobolokemi, a former classroom teacher at the Niger Delta University,Amassoma, Bayelsa State, as Director-General of Nigeria Maritime and Safety Agency, NIMASA.

While all this was going on, all manner of people especially former office holders from the Niger Delta region that could get the ears of the villa or that of Diezani Allison-Madueke, the then petroleum minister and one of Jonathan’s highest cash dispensers, were swimming in money-hard currency. Each got a whopping sum of money every month as pipeline surveillance fees. They, in turn, had some other categories of boys working for them and they sustained them heavily from their monthly or quarterly financial windfalls. For instance, if the main man collects say $5 to $10 million, he pays like five to 10 percent out of this to the boys. The boys’ supervisors get a large chunk but peanuts that trickles to the boys beneath was still mouth-watering enough according to their levels.

One thing to note is that the pipeline surveillance contracts turned out to be a sort of bribe or financial inducement that the Jonathan government used to keep the militants in the Niger Delta at bay. Now that the largesse is no longer forth-coming, the boys have realised that the honeymoon is over, thus, they have gone back to the trenches to foment trouble. They must have acquired their arms and ammunition through their ill-gotten wealth. Even when they said they were monitoring pipelines, they were actively involved in smuggling crude oil out of the country or aiding and abetting the smuggling of the product. So they were making money from all directions.

Since they know all the creeks very well and by extension, the strategic oil installations in the region, therefore, sabotaging the flow of oil becomes an easy task for them. And the security agents posted there have always been sucked in by the oil barons who usually part with cartons or sacks of money, hard currency, to the security agents who, in turn, look the other way while these nefarious activities are going on.

This is the reason security agents struggle to be posted to the Niger Delta. They, in turn, make returns to their bosses back at the headquarters while the barons also reward them heavily for providing the “enabling” environment for them to operate without hindrance. Occasionally, when you hear the news that badges carrying crude oil illegally are confiscated,it is a mere gimmick. What it simply means is that those involved did not give the security agents enough money to have a freeway.

Taking a critical look at the Niger Delta conundrum, it is true that the area has been neglected for too long.The people there are suffering and living in excruciating poverty. But quite a negligible few they call their leaders, live in splendour and stupendous wealth. What is baffling is that this problem has been there for decades. Why are the Avengers just realising that they are being cheated? Before 1999, what was the standard of living of many of these ex-militant leaders now building universities and living in opulence all over the place? That is why people are saying that the Niger Delta Avengers is to Buhari’s presidency, what Boko Haram was to Jonathan’s presidency.

For justice and fairness, the so-called leaders in the Niger Delta, some of who are behind the avengers, should share in the blame for the rot in the region. The reason is that they simply sold out. Let the avengers start from their leaders who have all these years sold the Niger Delta people into slavery, before they start blaming the present government or any other person for their misfortune.

June 15, 2016