The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • Quack lawyers

    Quack lawyers

    •Nigerians have good reasons to worry

    The news that until recently, we have as many as one thousand quack lawyers in the country, is troubling. After all, if there was that large number of quack lawyers, then that presupposes that there can also be thousands of quack doctors, engineers, journalists and other professions in the country. It is therefore important that efforts be made to weed out all the quacks, to enhance the quality of professional services and to give value for money, to the clientele.

    According to the Nigerian Bar Association’s (NBA) vice president, Akintokunbo Oluwole, during the special sitting to mark the 2015/16 legal year, in Akure, “so far, the NBA stamp policy has been able to revive the system and has increased the revenue stream of lawyers across the country”.

    We urge the NBA to hand over the quack lawyers so far identified by the association to law enforcement agencies for investigation and prosecution. While hailing the stamp policy of the body that gave away the quacks, we are surprised that such a large number could operate in a profession well equipped to fight such a scourge. According to Mr Oluwole, “The issue of quacks has been a serious cankerworm which has eaten deep into the fabric of legal profession”. We wonder why the NBA allowed the problem to fester to this extent, in the first place.

    We hope that other professionals will learn from the NBA’s experience, considering the ripple effects of quackery on the economy. Apart from the harm done to the integrity of the profession, it causes grievous harm to the clientele, be it in business, health services, construction industry, and other economic activities. When a service is offered and paid for, the public invests high hope that an efficient professional service has been rendered. So, it can be traumatic when instead of a gain, the beneficiary suffers losses.

    The effect of quackery in the construction industry, for instance, leads to the collapse of buildings. In the health sector, the result is in failing health and deaths. In the accounting profession, we see business failures and setbacks. There is also quackery in the production of goods, which is sold to unsuspecting public. Many times, some of those goods, which are consumables, result in ill health or even deaths. Some of the products of quacks, like electrical appliances, cause huge financial loses.

    There are also a large number of quack artisans, like mechanics, electricians, masons, carpenters, plumbers, drivers and several others. Most of them parade themselves as well trained, and their quackery is only detected well after they had rendered services, and had been remunerated. At better times in our country, the artisans were regulated, with professional examinations conducted before the operators were licensed and allowed to practice. Unfortunately, this has not been so in recent years, and the ripple effect of quackery on the national gross domestic product, we dare say, will be enormous, if the statisticians care to compute the costs.

    Considering the enormous tentacles of the legal profession; cutting across the drafting of contractual agreements, representation in courts, standing in for clients as trustees, and other specialised services; the profession is too important to be left in the hands of quacks. As was noted by the NBA vice president, the stamp policy “has improved the authenticity of documents which are now being filed in court registries, since all legal documents now bear the stamps of lawyers to be considered valid”. While congratulating the NBA for cleansing their profession, we urge other providers of goods and services, to take a cue from them, in the interest of the general public.

  • Saro-Wiwa: 20 years after

    Saro-Wiwa: 20 years after

    •The state murder of the Ogoni activists should be revisited and Saro-Wiwa declared a hero

    The brutal actions by the Abacha junta which brought the country odium from the international community, further justified the case made for the isolation of the country and represented a dark phase in her history. The hurriedly assembled Ibrahim Auta Panel is widely believed to have acted a script written by the powers-that-be. It failed all the tests of a properly constituted court or tribunal, and had no time to consider the objections by the defence team. It was obvious that the hangings of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others were a task that must be done.

    General Sani Abacha made himself a maximum ruler and sought to cow his opponents who were canvassing democratic rule and whoever suggested that he had no business leading the country. Thus, Saro-Wiwa who founded the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People was made a scapegoat. Saro-Wiwa, a former state commissioner, writer and intellectual, founded the movement to campaign against the oil exploration companies and the Federal Government that went about exploiting the natural resource without caring for the people of the Niger Delta. He had gained ground in the campaign against the Royal Dutch oil company and sensitised the people to join the protest. It is widely believed that this was the crime for which he paid the maximum penalty. He was executed for standing for the rights of his people; for seeking protection of their environment.

    It is instructive that, 14 years after the execution, the international oil company in 2009 agreed to a compensation of 15.5 million dollars for the families. Similarly, the families of the Ogoni Four  for whose murder Saro-Wiwa and his colleagues were killed, reconciled with the families of the executed nine.

    Two decades after the execution is a long time to draw the curtains on the matter. The Federal Government has a duty to set up a panel to review the kangaroo trial. The state has a responsibility to protect lives and property, not take them. Wherever a rape of justice is found to have been committed in history, apology is extracted and, when necessary, compensation paid. In this case, the activists were not properly tried even as they were denied the right to appeal. If successive generations of those who carted Africans into slavery could apologise for the sins of their forebears, and the government and people of Japan could seek forgiveness for turning many into sex slaves decades back, there is no reason the Nigerian government should not accord dignity to the memory of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his colleagues by tendering unreserved apologies for the state murder.

    Last year, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) corroborated the claims that formed the basis of the activism in the Niger Delta for which Saro-Wiwa stood out. A report by the United Nations body acknowledged the atrocities the oil companies had committed in the area as they abandoned all concerns that ought to have been taken into consideration.

    We call for a speedy consideration of the Petroleum Industry Bill before the National Assembly and its enactment. There must be standards in the operations of the oil companies. The government must rise to its responsibilities. The states, local governments and communities bearing crude oil and other minerals must be involved in all aspects of their exploration.

    The passage of the Bill and enthronement of globally accepted standards in the process of exploration would be the most befitting memorial to the murdered activists. A judicial review towards declaring him innocent should be instituted without delay. Ken Saro-Wiwa is a hero, not a villain. In the same way that the verdict on General Olusegun Obasanjo and others found guilty of a phantom coup was reversed, this travesty must be, too.

  •  Strengthening EFCC

     Strengthening EFCC

    •Fix and deepen that institution, and everything would be added unto it

    With the sack of Ibrahim Lamorde, some three months to the end of his tenure, the musical chairs over the headship of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the anti-graft agency Nuhu Ribadu pioneered, continues.

    The new acting chairman is Ibrahim Magu, an assistant commissioner of police and another EFCC veteran, not unfamiliar with the agency’s tempest.

    The iconic Mr. Ribadu, the portrait of the citizen as passionate and fearless anti-sleaze czar, is to EFCC sweet and sour.

    Sweet: because even if institutions must run on rules and effective bureaucracy, a driven and passionate individual must, at the crucial pioneering juncture, epitomise and ingrain that vision.

    And bitter: because in the seeming pursuit of personal glory — or in any case, the triumph of Ribadu’s drama, impulse and excitability — the first EFCC chairman succeeded in imposing his person on the anti-corruption war but subverting EFCC as an institution.

    So, Mr. Ribadu both passed and failed in entrenching the EFCC dream, as a fearless and formidable graft-fighting agency. The test of that success: the fond wish that Mr. Ribadu would be in EFCC “forever”, which is impossible. And test of failure: a post-Ribadu EFCC was always a testy proposition. The present shell has therefore confirmed that worst nightmare.

    Yet, Mr. Ribadu’s personal zest brought much respect and admiration for the agency.  That attracted a harvest of foreign grants, which helped to build the agency’s capacity, in terms of internal and international training; and working tools and gadgets. Though the bulk of EFCC personnel came from the police, wonder kid EFCC was already showing its doddering dad how to earn respect, even reverence, as a crime buster. But all of that went with Mr. Ribadu.

    Still, even at the height of its glory, what EFCC gained by solid technical training, it lost by excessive drama and politicisation of cases. While flowing with President Olusegun Obasanjo, ever eager to dramatise his anti-corruption war, the agency left itself open to not illegitimate charges of fighting the former president’s personal wars; and under the guise of fighting corruption, muscling presidential enemies, both within and outside his ruling party.

    Post-Ribadu, when the presidential “body language” changed, the allegations also changed. Whereas EFCC was hyper-active fighting corruption, it became perceived as docile, or even complicit, in corruption cases. That bred a lot of scandals and rumours of scandals. That was the perception during the tenure of Mrs. Farida Waziri.  The ouster of Mr. Lamorde too had come with a whiff of sleazy allegations.

    But a villain should not be made of a good man. So, for the sake of Mr. Lamorde’s personal probity and the EFCC institutional integrity, these allegations should be probed. They should not  be stopped simply because Mr. Lamorde has been unhorsed.

    If he is found blameless, his integrity would have been restored; and the EFCC, which could have suffered institutional stain, were the allegations to be proven, would have earned well-deserved bragging rights. Even if he is found culpable, the EFCC would still have been rid of a rotten head.

    Now, that the presidential “body language” has changed again under Muhammadu Buhari, who canvassed votes on a strong anti-corruption ticket, EFCC should not just change (as it seems to have) like some yo-yo. Rather, it should evolve a systemic and independent approach to its core duty. A president could be friendly or hostile; but EFCC should have the robust legal armour to do its work.

    That then is the pressing historic duty of President Buhari. He should strengthen and deepen EFCC as an institution; and fortify it with requisite laws. That way, even when Buhari has long left the office, EFCC as a vibrant institution would help to build the corruption-free Nigeria of his dream.

     

  • Pirates’ paradise

    Pirates’ paradise

    • Nigeria must step up action against rampant piracy

    The recent news that the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has confiscated pirated home videos and books worth N11.6 billion at Nigeria’s seaports since the beginning of the year only confirms its status as a pirates’ paradise. The seizures included textbooks for primary and secondary schools, novels, dictionaries and Bibles, and had been shipped in containers originating from China, India and other Asian nations.

    Piracy refers to the unauthorised copying or manufacture of products for profit and includes broadcast piracy, optical disc piracy, as well as book and software piracy. While no country can be said to be totally immune from it, Nigeria has proved to be especially vulnerable to piracy.

    The indigenous film production industry has been particularly hard-hit by its pernicious effects; film producers continually lament their inability to reap appropriate rewards from their labour, even when their works are resoundingly popular. The profusion of illegally-copied software in Nigerian markets is an open secret, and the prevalence of pirated books has long been a staple of the country’s dysfunctional education system.

    The consequences for the country are profound. By some estimates, Nigeria loses N82 billion yearly to software piracy alone. As at 2007, an estimated N4.2 billion was being lost annually to illegal digital duplication, online piracy and unauthorised rental of home videos in the country.

    These losses translate into declines in profitability, business failure and unemployment, as local firms struggle against an ever-increasing flood of cheap pirated products. Book piracy often results in reduced learning outcomes, since many of the texts are poorly printed, and are often full of errors.

    A comprehensive response to the piracy problem must incorporate education, surveillance and effective sanction. Far too many Nigerians are unconcerned with piracy as an economic phenomenon; the relative cheapness of the pirated product actually makes it even more attractive to purchase. More needs to be done to inform the citizenry of the ethical and practical consequences of buying pirated goods. If more Nigerians were aware of the damage pirated software is capable of doing to expensive computers and associated equipment, they might be less eager to avail themselves of it.

    Surveillance is vital in ensuring that imported pirated goods do not enter the country’s markets. The NCS appears to be doing a good job, given the increased value of its seizures over the years. The Nigeria Copyright Commission (NCC) has also stepped up its prosecution of offences relating to piracy and intellectual property theft. Both organisations must receive the funding that will enable them to improve on current performance.

    In addition to prosecution, market closures might be an effective additional sanction in the anti-piracy war, especially as the country’s biggest markets for pirated products are only too well known. They include Alaba International Market, Computer Village, Ikeja; Ajegunle, Ojuelegba and Ijora in Lagos State; Ariara Market, Aba, Abia State; Ochanja Market, Electronic Market, and Upper Iweka Market in Onitsha, Anambra State.

    The late Prof. Dora Akunyili utilised this tactic in her successful war on fake and expired drugs; there is no reason why the threat of market closures cannot be similarly successful in the campaign against pirated products.

    The Federal Government would also do well to reconsider its cumulative 62.5 per cent tariff on imported books. While its ostensible aim of enhancing local book production is appreciated, the obvious drawback is that it makes the smuggling and importation of pirated books all the more profitable. If it is less expensive to import genuine books, it will be less lucrative to import pirated ones.

    Nigeria has been too attractive to pirates for too long. It is time for the nation to send out the message that such desirability has come to a definite end.

  • CBN’s new rule book

    CBN’s new rule book

    •What matters most is not the rule, but its enforcement

    Last week, the media reported a set of fresh-mint regulations being proposed by the apex bank to protect bank customers from exploitation by banks. The draft regulations, said to be currently under consideration by the stakeholders, is as detailed and comprehensive as it could be –a rule book– a rather ambitious attempt to re-order and or erect a new operational and ethical foundation for the industry.

    Among many, it starts with the broad goal for the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) – which is to “ensure that operators (banks) establish structures to prohibit predatory lending and hence support a positive credit culture in the industry”; for financial operators, it spells out its role in “credit counselling to prevent consumers’ indebtedness due to limited financial knowledge” as well as disseminate information on the existence of the services while also encouraging them to take advantage of them. It also wants lenders to “provide detailed information on the terms and conditions of a loan agreement to consumers prior to executing the loan agreement”. This must include the “pricing, repayment schedule, repayment amount, tenure and opt out options”.

    On the thorny issue of loan recovery, whereas the CBN is to set guidelines for ethical debt collection practices in the industry based on “dialogue, respect for the consumers’ privacy and longevity of consumer-operator relationships amongst others”, actual debt recovery processes, the rule prescribes, must be courteous, fair and non-coercive. Moreover, personnel assigned to recover debts are expected to be properly trained while consumers shall be informed in advance before a recovery process is initiated.

    In case of contract variations, operators are expected to give prior notice to consumers within the time specified in contracts, before implementing variations in terms and conditions of contracts. Contractual language, it proposes, must be “precise, clear and unambiguous”. “Information”, in all cases, “must be communicated in plain and simple language to limit the possibility of misinterpretation. Contract documents must be in legible font size. Where technical terms are used, the financial operator shall take due care to ensure that such technical terms are clearly explained to the understanding of the consumer to avoid the occurrence of confusion or miscommunication”.

    To generate increased business volumes or attract new customers, financial operators are mandated to “provide factual information and shall not seek to mislead consumers. Financial operators shall also not take advantage of consumers’ inexperience, gullibility or lack of understanding”.

    These are just a few of the many provisions of the new rules.

    We observe primarily that the rules are not necessarily novel or even different, at least in any fundamental sense, from the well-known conventions that have evolved over the course of the years and which have come to govern the operations in the financial services industry globally. That our practitioners have been carrying on in the absence of a codified body of guiding rules for financial service providers; the very idea that such important rules are only being set out in the form that is being proposed by the apex bank given the state of development in the industry is not only incongruous but unsettling. Indeed, it may well serve to explain a number of the puzzles that have hobbled the industry, factors that have rendered the goal of financial inclusion for majority a non-starter. Need we further ask why consumers of financial products are constantly treated to the short end of the stick; or question the arbitrariness that has characterised relations between service provider and the consumer, not to talk of the brazen criminality that some of these factors have given rise to?

    We must however say that rules are important only to the extent that they are kept. The challenge really is getting the operators to obey them. In other words, the true test of the effectiveness of the rules would come later when practitioners are seen to abide by them. At the moment, we can only say of the proposed regulations: better late than never.

  • LAMATA’s meaningless colour lines

    LAMATA’s meaningless colour lines

    SIR:  I want to appeal to the authorities at the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA) to shelf the idea of naming the Lagos Light Rail lines after every colour of the rainbow – red, blue, green, yellow, purple, brown and orange. It is a disservice to our culture and a slap on the face of indigenous Lagosians. Where do we protect and project our history, heritage and culture if the state will consider such bland and ordinary English words to name such an extraordinary project?

    When former Cross Rivers State Governor Donald Duke built the resort cum business park and named it Tinapa I was elated. Giving structures and place indigenous names add to their tourist value and experience. When a tourist visits Cross Rivers State and goes to Tinapa, he will request for the meaning, thereby enhancing his knowledge and experience. In South Africa, the game reserves have indigenous names.

    Even in the UK where English is spoken, London tube lines have colours but they are not named after their colours. Every line has a distinct name with history behind it – Bakerloo line – because it passes through Baker Street and Waterloo station; Jubilee line – to commemorate the Queens Jubilee; Piccadilly line – passes through Piccadilly Circus; Central line – runs centrally, west to east; Northern line – runs north to south, Victoria line – runs through Victoria station.

    The lack of or unwillingness to speak our language affects us, even economically as individuals. If in doubt, please hear Virgin Atlantic, when it recently laid off Nigerian cabin crew – “The additional complexity required to operate an international crew base where there are no foreign language requirement means it is no longer sustainable going forward” – Kudirat Scott-Igbene, Virgin Atlantic spokeswoman (Thisday, November 8). In simple language, since all Nigerian passengers speak English (some even relish the accent), why carry sand to the desert – why employ Nigerian crew speaking English learnt in local schools when there are thousands of jobless natural English speakers in the UK?

    On the other hand, because of the large Yoruba speaking population in London, the Metropolitan Police has recruited some Yoruba speaking Britons!

    My appeal to LAMATA: Use your colours but please promote the heritage of Lagos and name the lines accordingly. What is wrong with EKO AKETE Line, MAGBADO Line (Marina-Agbado), MUSHIN Line (Mushin will witness urban renewal someday!), AWORI Line, OLOFIN Line, IKORODU OGA Line and so on?

     

    • Hon. Lanre Laoshe

    Ikeja, Lagos.

  • Hope beckons

    •Recent developments an indication of better transportation system in Lagos

    One of Mr Akinwunmi Ambode’s first initiatives on assumption of office as Lagos State governor was to try to instil sanity and civility into the enforcement of traffic discipline on the state’s highways. Towards this end, he admonished officers of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) to refrain from harassing traffic offenders or impounding their vehicles but rather issue them tickets and utilise sophisticated technological devices to bring offenders to book.

    Commercial vehicle drivers, bus conductors and motor bike (Okada) riders, in particular, latched onto this as license to violate the state’s traffic laws with impunity and unleash a reign of anarchy and paralysing chaos on road users with deleterious economic and security consequences.

    Mr Ambode’s firm riot act to these unruly traffic offenders to strictly obey the state’s road traffic law is thus timely and commendable. His response corrects the mistaken impression that he is indulgent towards any form of traffic law infraction.

    Speaking after a meeting of the state’s security council, the governor stressed that the lawless activities of commercial drivers, commercial motor cyclists and street traders, which have facilitated the escalation of traffic crimes and robbery, will be sternly dealt with in accordance with the law. Consequently, he said, mobile traffic courts are being introduced to promptly prosecute and punish such traffic offenders, including commercial vehicles that operate outside the traffic lanes, persons that infringe on the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) lanes and commercial buses which do not drop or pick passengers only at officially designated bus stops.

    Ambode also gave tank farm owners in the Apapa axis a 90-day ultimatum to build loading bays for their tank farms to decongest the roads in the area or face the wrath of the law. Arrangements, he said, have been made with relevant security agencies to sanction defaulting port users, importers, tank farm owners, terminal operators and shipping companies. The situation certainly calls for the most stringent measures to restore sanity to what has become an environmental, traffic, health, security and economic nightmare.

    On a more positive note, the news that the Federal Government has finally approved the construction of the planned $2.4 billion Lagos Red Line Rail Project after eight years of protracted negotiation offers a source of hope that a more enduring solution to the state’s complex transportation challenges will soon be actualised. The Red Line will run from Agbado – Marina on a route that falls on the Right of Way of the Federal Government-owned Nigeria Railway Corporation. The inability of Nigerian politicians across party lines to place the national interest above partisan considerations is responsible for the undue delay of this project with such significant potentials to boost national economic productivity.

    It is noteworthy that it was the military regime of General MuhammaduBuhari that terminated the Rapid Transit Metroline Project conceived for Lagos by the Alhaji Lateef Jakande administration in the Second Republic, with the state losing over $78 million in the process. And history has given Buhari a rare opportunity to remedy this error by ensuring the approval of the Red Line Rail Project during his tenure as a democratically elected president.

    With Governor Ambode’s promise that the on-going Blue Line Rail Project, which will link Okokomaiko through Iddo to Marina, will be completed by December 2016, hope undoubtedly beckons for the revolutionary modernisation of transportation infrastructure in Nigeria’s commercial nerve-centre, with positive implications not only for Lagos but  the entire country. We urge the sustenance and intensification of this kind of positive inter-governmental cooperation in diverse spheres at all levels in the interest of accelerated development all over the country.

  • Time to roll

    Time to roll

    With the cabinet formed, President Buhari should now unveil his vision and set targets

    At last, President Muhammadu Buhari finally inaugurated his cabinet on Wednesday, with the swearing-in of his 36-member Federal Executive Council members. There would have been 37 ministers in all, (as the constitution makes it mandatory for the president to appoint at least one minister from every state and the Federal Capital Territory) but for the fact that the president also doubles as petroleum minister.

    The ministers and their portfolios are: Kemi Adeosun (Ogun) – Finance; Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers) –Transportation; Chris Ngige (Anambra) –Labour and Employment; Kayode Fayemi (Ekiti) –Solid Minerals; Babatunde Fashola (Lagos)–Power, Works and Housing; Abdulrahman Dambazau (Kano)–Interior; Aisha Alhassan (Taraba) –Women Affairs; Ogbonnaya Onu (Ebonyi) –Science and Technology and Abubakar Malami (Kebbi)–Justice. Others are: Hadi Sirika (Katsina)–State for Aviation;  Suleiman Adamu (Jigawa)–Water Resources; Solomon Dalong (Plateau)–Youths and Sports; Ibeh Kachikwu (Delta) –State for Petroleum;  Osagie Ehanire (Edo)–State for Health;  Audu Ogbeh (Benue)–Agriculture;  Udo Udo Udoma (Akwa Ibom)–Budget and National Planning and Lai Mohammed (Kwara)–Information.

    Amina Mohammed (Gombe) takes charge of Environment;  Ibrahim Usman Jibril (Nasarawa) — State for Environment;  Anthony Onwuka (Imo) – State for Education;  Muhammadu Bello (Adamawa) — FCT;  Adamu Adamu (Bauchi) — Education;  Okechukwu Enelamah (Abia) – Industry, Trade and Investment;  Aisha Abubakar (Sokoto) — State for Trade, Industry and Investment;  Khadija Bukar Abba (Yobe) – State for Foreign Affairs and Claudius Daramola (Ondo) – State for Niger Delta.  Geoffrey Onyeama (Enugu) is to oversee the Foreign Affairs Ministry;  Monsur Dan-Ali (Zamfara) — Defence; James Ocholi (Kogi) – State for Labour;  Zainab Ahmed (Kaduna) – State for Budget and National Planning; Mustapha Shehuri (Borno) — State for Power; Heineken Lokpobiri (Bayelsa)–State for Agriculture; Isaac Adewole Folorunsho (Osun) — Health; Usani Usani Uguru (Cross River) — Niger Delta;  Abubakar Bwari Bawa (Niger) — State for Solid Minerals as well as Adebayo Shittu (Oyo) — Communications.

    With the cabinet now constituted, the signal is that government is set to go. However, the ministers should not be left to go on their own tangents; it is important for the Federal Government to come up with a clear vision, with specific targets that every minister must buy into. With about six months already gone into the administration’s tenure, the ministers have to hit the ground running. Unless there is a paradigm shift in the way and manner our politicians behave, we would be talking about the 2019 elections within the next two years, which means the ministers have only about two years to prove their mettle if that history repeats itself.

    President Buhari has rightly identified the core areas that his administration would focus on, including infrastructure and diversification of the economy. There is no doubt that the country is in a shambles because of the deficit it has recorded in these areas and also because of corruption. It would appear that the president has also identified some ministers with special talents to drive the vital sectors of the economy.  Perhaps the most talked-about of the ministerial appointments is that of former Lagos State governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola, who has been given the twin assignment of making the power sector work, as well as revitalise the comatose works and housing sector. Not a few Nigerians have wondered whether these are not too much for one minister because of the pivotal roles of the two areas as catalyst for development. Perhaps the president saddled the former governor with these responsibilities as a measure of his confidence on Mr. Fashola as a result of his track record as governor in these areas. We hope, however, that the government would give him all the necessary support to facilitate his job in the ministries.

    Of course, no one needs to remind Nigerians about the urgent need for diversification of the economy. If the previous administrations had failed to take any concrete steps in this regard, the Buhari government has no choice but make it a priority. The government came at a time that oil revenues had dropped to a significant low because of new developments in the global oil market. This volatility in the oil market caught the country napping for the umpteenth time at about the last quarter of last year, almost making a mess of budgetary projections. Here, Dr Fayemi, as solid mineral resources minister, and Chief Ogbeh have their jobs cut out for them. Fayemi has a responsibility of ensuring the removal from our statute books those laws inhibiting the development of mineral resources that abound in the country, so that these could be harnessed for national development. In the same vein, the agriculture minister has to go beyond rhetoric in returning Nigeria to its glorious past when agriculture was the country’s mainstay. While this is expected to be done by the private sector, the government has to provide an enabling environment to facilitate private investments in agriculture and the solid mineral resources sectors.

    As for transportation, the focus should be on alternative modes of transportation, like railways, to free our roads of the heavy loads they are forced to carry, thus shortening their lifespan. Of course the success of transportation is linked with works. We therefore expect the Federal Government to expedite action on the completion of the reconstruction of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, the construction of the Second Niger Bridge, among others, to ease trade and commerce across the nation.

    It is noteworthy that President Buhari has reduced the 31 ministries with about 42 ministers and ministers of state that he inherited from the Jonathan administration to 24 ministries and 36 ministers as part of his government’s cost-saving measures. There is no gain-saying the fact that the previous cabinet was unduly unwieldy and a drain on the public till. What is more distressing is that in spite of the colossal waste that the large number of ministers represented, Nigerians did not have value for money. In other words, there was no correlation between the large cabinet and the delivery of democratic dividend. We look forward too to changes in the country’s security situation as well as in the provision of social infrastructure.

    All said, even though the ministers have been assigned portfolios, there should be no doubt as to who is in charge. Succinctly put, President Buhari must lead the cabinet; he is in charge because the buck stops at his desk. Nigerians and indeed the world at large look forward to the government to let charity of its ‘change’ mantra begin at home. The days of business as usual are gone; it’s now time for business unusual.

     

     

  • Champions all

    Champions all

    •Hurray, Nigeria beats the world both on the football pitch and Scrabble board

    It was double shuffle last weekend as Nigeria’s youth reenacted its supreme prowess and potentialities by conquering the world in two different global tournaments.

    In Chile, South America, the Under-17 football team, the Golden Eaglets, trampled the field of competitors to lift the golden trophy. And down under, in Perth Australia, specifically, 32-year-old Wellington Jighere beat all-comers to be crowned world champion in the English word game of Scrabble.

    Jighere was particularly remarkable for he excelled from a pack of 129 competitors and in the final square-up he mauled Englishman Lewis MacKay in four straight wins in a best-of-seven final round. How resounding, how remarkable; words must have failed Lewis so spectacularly at the moment it mattered most as it would have been difficult for him to describe what hit him.

    Jighere is the first African, if not the first black man, to achieve this feat. Rigour and tenacity won the trophy for Jighere. He had been in the finals in 2007 (Mumbai, India) where he finished third and 2009 (Malaysia) placing 11th. In preparing, he had devised fatigue training to maintain a strong mental and physical energy; he also forgoes so many things that would distract him including some jobs.

    The Golden Eaglets’ conquest of the world in Chile last weekend was not less spectacular. Though it was the fifth time Nigerian youths would loft this trophy, this time, they are the defending champions. No other nation has picked the trophy five times; the closest is Brazil that has won it thrice. Nigeria had also played in eight finals out of a total 16, winning five and losing three. This amplifies Nigeria’s near-total domination in world’s youth soccer.

    The Nigerian lads beat fellow African nation challenger, Mali, by two goals to nil in the finals last Sunday to retain the trophy their predecessors won in the UAE in 2013.  The class of 2015 also won several awards including the Golden Ball by the team captain, Kelechi Nwakali and Golden Boot by Victor Osimhen. Osimhen also set a new record as the all-time highest goals scorer in the biannual global tourney with 10 goals. He scored in every match.

    The young lads’ feat has once again brought cheers across the length and breadth of the nation, casting some bright rays of light onto a nation wallowing in the gloom of an economic downturn. Even President Muhammadu Buhari has hailed the glorious lads with a date set aside to host them next week. It is significant that the first of the five trophies in this category of football was won during Buhari’s time as head of state in 1985.

    There is no doubt that a football team that walloped teams from great football playing nations like Brazil, Mexico and host Chile must be made up of highly talented players. Indeed, this world-beating team like most of previous ones, is made up of individuals of especial football talents; parading prodigious skills with very nimble mind and feet.

    These Golden Eaglets like all others before them as well as Jighere the Scrabble king represent an unflagging testimony about the depth of talent available in Nigeria. They emphasis the need for government and managers of sports to do more and plow the rich potentialities available therein for youth employment and empowerment. Apart from sports being a well-known bonding factor in Nigeria, they have proven to be one of the easiest means of escaping the scourge of poverty for youths of developing countries.

    However, not a few Nigerians have raised eyebrows at the recurring phenomenon whereby Nigeria excels in under-aged football but flops at the senior level. It has been blamed on what is considered misplaced priorities of seeking to win trophies at all costs instead of the higher goal of a progressive development through the age grades.

    In other words, as it is the practice in Europe, it is being advocated that clubs should develop academies that would capture talents from very tender age. That way, there will be little doubt as to their real age when they are in their teens.

    The point being made is that a country that wins the U-17 World Cup five times and back-to-back this time should be able to challenge for the senior trophy in a few years, shouldn’t it?

  • Sheer epidemic

    Sheer epidemic

    •That unsafe abortions kill no less than 50, 000 Nigerian girls yearly is tragic

    It is bad enough that many girls in the country get pregnant without being prepared for motherhood. It is worse that these unwanted pregnancies are usually aborted. It is tragic that, to go by recent information, more than 50, 000 Nigerian girls die yearly as a result of abortion complications.

    This sour statistics, supplied by the Chairman of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), Ebonyi State chapter, Dr. Chidi Esike, not only mirrored the high scale of abortion-related deaths in the country but also showed the urgent need for proactive solutions to the problem.

    It is apt that the gloomy picture was presented to schoolgirls during an awareness campaign by the NMA’s Committee on Girl-Child Education at the Model Girls’ Secondary School, Ugwuachara, Ebonyi State.  Dr. Esike observed that a majority of the deaths connected with abortion involve schoolgirls who are victims of unsafe abortions.

    It is noteworthy that research carried out jointly by the Society of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians of Nigeria and Nigeria’s Ministry of Health, indicates that about 20, 000 women in the country risk unsafe abortions yearly.

    To make matters worse, statistics show that only 40 per cent of abortions are performed by qualified physicians with proper health facilities. Considering that abortion is unlawful in Nigeria, those that seek abortion from quacks compound the illegality of the act.

    In a related development, a study conducted by US-based Guttmacher Institute in collaboration with Ipas, a non-governmental organisation devoted to female reproductive rights, indicates that at least 1. 2 million induced abortions take place in various parts of Nigeria every year.

    Olutosin Owolude, a consultant lecturer in the Department of Gynaecology, University of Ibadan, who presented the report in Abuja, said the study was conducted in 2012 and its result was rigorously assessed before publication this year.

    “It takes a long time to do this kind of study and to make sure that we do our analyses in a way that we are very confident of the findings,” he declared.  According to him, the number of induced abortions nationwide doubled from a previous report in 1996, which gave the number as 610, 000 nationwide.

    Abortion is a delicate and controversial issue, no doubt. In cases where pregnancy is considered life-threatening by medical experts, or in cases where pregnancy is the result of rape or incest associated with stigma, there are arguments that abortion ought to be allowed by law.

    These examples represent grey areas that will benefit from public debate. It is worth noting that in Nigeria, abortions performed to save life are considered legal provided two doctors endorse it.

    It is unhelpful to deny the reality of such apparently compelling reasons for lawful abortion.  Pro-lifers who insist on the sanctity of human life and the evil of abortion may need to approach such instances with greater sensitivity and practicality.

    It is relevant that Ipas country lead and senior advisor, Hauwa Shekarau, was quoted as saying: “Because of the restrictive nature of the law regarding abortion in Nigeria, many women suffer, due to fear of stigmatisation, among others. Yet every day the numbers of abortion continue to rise.”

    There is no question that sex education at the relevant levels is a useful solution. With more awareness, unwanted pregnancies can be minimised with consequent minimisation of unsafe abortions.

    However, beyond this, perhaps it would be more effective to discourage sexual activities that lead to unwanted pregnancies. In particular, improved use of contraceptive products should be encouraged.

    Ultimately, the adoption of proper values in sexual matters will go a long way in checking the deaths of vulnerable girls and unborn babies, which amount to a double tragedy.