The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • The new helmsman

    The new helmsman

    As Kachikwu takes over at NNPC, the task ahead is enormous

    President Muhammadu Buhari took his first measured step to reposition the nation’s oil industry when on Tuesday August 4, he replaced Joseph Thlama Dawha with Ibe Kachikwu as Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.

    At a time the nation would seem in dire need of its best and brightest to give fillip to the direction of the reformer-administration, Nigerians were certainly not disappointed that the President settled for one of the nation’s best. It certainly goes without saying that the new helmsman – a First Class Graduate of Law from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and the Nigerian Law School with Masters and Doctorate Degrees in Law from the Harvard Law School and who until his appointment was Executive Vice Chairman and General Counsel of Exxon-Mobil (Africa) – more than fits the bill.

    What remains in the coming months is what Kachikwu and his team make of President Muhammadu Buhari’s vision of a repositioned oil corporation.

    At this time, just about every Nigerian must have witnessed the ills of the monstrosity that the NNPC has become in one form or the other. So, we appreciate the kind of changes that have become imperative. Nigerians, after all, are only too familiar with the story of a national oil corporation that has long abandoned its rationale to become a Special Purpose Vehicle for virtually all purposes under the sun – except its core mandate; one that routinely subverts the nation’s laws for the whims of political players; a citadel reeking with graft and unparalleled corruption – playground for all manners of shady characters with access and connections to top functionaries of government; a corporation that cannot even keep its four refineries in optimal shape, let alone maintain its depots and pipeline network – whose not-too-infrequent paralysis has become a regular rod of affliction on innocent households and motorists.

    It is against the foregoing that recent calls for the scrapping of the NNPC can be situated; much as that option would sound rather drastic, we must acknowledge that they merely reflect the depth of public anger, frustration and disenchantment with the sliding fortunes of their state oil corporation.

    It is also at the heart of why the current changes go beyond a mere salvage effort. To be sure, only fundamental changes can bring about the kind of changes that Nigerians expect of the corporation. We are encouraged that the President has already outlined six tasks for the incoming NNPC team. These are: a clean-up of the NNPC system of corrupt elements; recovery of all stolen oil funds; collaboration with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Directorate of State Services (DSS) to trace and recover stolen cash as well as a review of the structure of the NNPC to compete globally.

    The President also wants to see new targets set for all subsidiaries and performance benchmarks; and, finally, the fixing of the refineries.

    These are laudable visions to start with. At the very minimum, we expect the new team to run with it. Time, of course, is of the essence. To the extent that there can be no talk of any closure to the fiscal brigandage alleged to have been wreaked on the treasury by the immediate past administration  without a full accounting of all that happened, we expect the new team to set out in earnest to assist the investigators get to the bottom of all on-going investigations. It is about time the shadowy operators behind the pillaging of the treasury are exposed and punished. That would be the surest step to put the sordid chapter behind us.

    Next is the future of the state oil corporation itself. Without question, the NNPC has a lot of catch-up to do when compared with what other state oil corporations founded at about the same time have achieved. Indeed, to say that the corporation is in a mess is to put things mildly. More than 50 years after the first barrel of crude was drilled, the corporation remains a fringe player in the upstream sector. Indeed, local content remains abysmally low.

    The same is no less true of the refineries. After being out of action for several years, they are only just returning to action. Even at that, the exact status of the four refineries remains at best – a matter of speculation. The pipelines are perhaps in worse – no thanks to age and vandalism.

    We expect the new leadership to tackle these challenges headlong. We expect the journey to a truly transformed oil corporation, one that is able to hold its own among the world’s best to begin now. As far as we know, the manpower is not lacking; what is lacking is the leadership imbued with the right vision.  The new NNPC  GMD’s  rich experience in the private sector should be able to supply that.

    We wish him and his team good luck.

  • Killers on wheels

    •FRSC’s Operation Scorpion is a good start. But much more should be done to save innocent road users from the menace of truck drivers

    It is good news that Operation Scorpion, a special  patrol executed by the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway between July 27 and 31 (just five days), recorded 537 arrests and convictions.

    But it is not so good news that barely four days after the close of Operation Scorpion, a fuel-bearing tanker on Ikorodu Road, Lagos, smashed three other cars before spilling its diesel content on the road and subjecting other road users to a hideous six-hour  gridlock.

    The Scorpion success and the Lagos setback just underscore the menace of drivers of tankers and container-bearing trailers, and even unruly Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) drivers to other road users.  Indeed, drivers of articulated trucks appear to be on a reckless campaign to maul fellow citizens, perhaps for their temerity to use the roads.  The government must call these irresponsible drivers to order.

    The infractions of the arrested 537 truck drivers are instructive.  According to FRSC: trucks moving with unsecured containers, rickety trucks, overloading, battered tyres, lane indiscipline, reckless driving and over-speeding with wanton disregard of the weight for the heavy vehicles, and driver’s licence expiration.

    If the operations had been carried out in the night, much more would have been nabbed for poor (almost suicidal) front and rear lighting (if any at all); and thick smoke emissions, coupled with no rear-lighting,  that temporarily blind other drivers.  For that, many have rammed into stationary vehicles in fatal crashes, in which the few who escaped death copped horrendous injuries.  That has continued for too long, as if no one was in charge of regulating conduct on our roads.  It should not be allowed to continue.

    The FRSC should be commended for its successful patrol to make Nigerian roads safe for everyone.  But instead of special operations, such patrols should be routine, an everyday affair — and duly publicised as such — so that errant drivers can have the consciousness that the road is not exclusively theirs to water with fellow citizens’ innocent blood.

    Still, the most vital task is enforcing vehicular regulations, even before they hit the road.  That would be travelling on the road of prevention, which is by far better than cure.

    Those reckless drivers on the road, do they have valid drivers’ licences, granted after passing rigorous driving tests? Are they by any chance under-aged?  Did they get the right education and training on how they must relate the weight of their vehicles, to speed, to achieve a harmonious balance?  Do they even know the worth of weighbridges to gauge vehicular weights — and even, do the traffic authorities make weighbridges available these days?

    And battered vehicles on the road: with smashed windscreens, battered front and rear lights, and worn-out tyres — is there anyone tasked with making sure these vehicles are roadworthy?  And if suspect vehicles hit the roads, what are the mechanisms to get them off and promptly punish the offenders?

    Then, the most notorious set of offenders: trailers with their containers falling off, often crushing smaller vehicles and their occupants — whose duty is it to ensure that no trailer is driven on Nigerian roads, which container is not firmly secured?

    These are the troubling questions the FRSC, their state equivalent like the Lagos State Traffic Management Agency (LASTMA), the Police traffic unit and other traffic-control and regulatory agencies must ponder and promptly answer.  Besides, federal and state traffic agencies must so harmonise their operations such that each discharges its duties without any clash or friction.

    Operation Scorpion was a good wake-up call.  Now is the time to go after the killer drivers on our roads.

     

  • Bring Back Our Money

    SIR: In my community, they say that when the big masquerade comes into the arena, the timid one scampers away.  I say not so fast in the Nigerian context.  The looters must return the money to the treasury.  President Muhammadu Buhari from his motions seems bent on making the campaign on recovering Nigeria’s wealth his chief policy priority.  It is a worthwhile venture looking at the drab picture of the country’s economy.  The difficulty of the president’s task is that the spread of corruption is traditional and crosses all boundaries.

    Suggestion by his administration to compartmentalize investigation to the past government, even that, is a mountainous endeavour.  In a system where corruption is the way of running business, many hands are bound to be smeared, some inadvertently, perhaps.  Though, it is no excuse to pocket stolen money in as much as the perpetrator is riding the bandwagon effect.

    Nigerians are beginning to be reassured of what they believe to be the extent stream of abuse runs in politics.  Judging from the number of politicians being interviewed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and how diverse their background, one can see that the deepness of malfeasance is catholic.  News media is awash with stories of ex-governors, heads of agencies, former chief security officer and numerous other political office holders facing investigation by EFCC.  This is just the beginning of the tornado because the list, so far, does not contain the names of notorious honchos.

    There is enormous desire in the heart of many Nigerians to see these political exploiters stripped of the last kobo they stole and thrown away to rot in jail.  The morbidity of their action put the country in a state of economic comatose.  Flair of their nonchalance traumatized citizens with civility.  They elevated politics to the highest chamber for losers to celebrate ineptitude.

    Be that as it may, reason must be called to the table of judgement.  These breed of politicians did not fall from the sky.  They are the offspring of a decadent society.  There is a political saying that a country gets the leadership it deserves.  One is not lost to the political climate that metamorphosed to this undesirable condition.  I believe that colonialism was not designed to pave way for Nigeria to succeed.

    But to move forward, we must collectively work for.  I attribute the welcome of change in the polity to the nation reaching a state of catharsis.  The deplorable position of the system has not been enviable considering the frustration to the masses.

    Sensibility is required to keep the momentum going.  A situation where immense portion of the nation’s resources is diverted to chasing the looters of the treasury may shift the focus off course.

    The president should go after corrupt politicians but plea bargain should not be off the table.  A culprit who agrees to return his or her loot should be given minimum penalty.  This idea is not about tendering justice with mercy but acceptance of culpability of society.

    • Pius Okaneme,

    Umuoji, Anambra State.

  • Welcome apology

    Welcome apology

    •A well deserved closure to the grave injustice done Ajayi Crowther, Africa’s first bishop

    By a public expression of repentance for its unjust treatment of the illustrious 19th century African cleric, Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, the Church of England demonstrated a capacity for self-examination and re-examination that deserves attention. The historic admission of guilt highlighted the long history of racism and the scope of racially inspired but misguided chauvinism. It was also a lesson in injustice of a colonial colour.

    It is noteworthy that it took the Church well over a century to arrive at the point of public remorse. A June 30 ‘thanksgiving and repentance service’ to mark the 150th anniversary of Crowther’s historically significant ordination as the first African Anglican bishop in 1864 provided the stage for the moving show of self-purification. It is a measure of the institutional regret that the apology came from none other than the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who is the most important leader of the Church of England and the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

    Welby’s words concerning Crowther, who is regarded as the father of Anglicanism in Nigeria: “We in the Church of England need to say sorry that someone was properly and rightly consecrated Bishop and then betrayed and let down and undermined. It was wrong.”

    He also said in his sermon: “In spite of immense hardship and despite the racism of many whites, he evangelised so effectively that he was eventually ordained Bishop, over much protest. He led his missionary diocese brilliantly, but was in the end falsely accused and had to resign, not long before his death.”

    It is relevant to observe that Crowther died of a stroke in Lagos in 1891, which was possibly connected with his desolation.

    To openly admit that Crowther didn’t deserve the blow he suffered from fellow Anglicans, as Welby has done, reflects the virtue of acknowledging fallibility. In this context, it is worth noting that Welby further said: “We are sorry for his suffering at the hands of Anglicans in this country. Learning from their foolishness and from his heroism, we seek to be a church that does not again exclude those whom God is calling. We seek new apostles, and the grace to recognise them when they come.”

    Crowther, described as “extraordinary”, played an undeniably effective role in evangelism in the early days of Christianity in Nigeria. “Today, well over 70 million Christians in Nigeria are his spiritual heirs,” Welby said in tribute to his pioneering efforts.

    Crowther’s achievements are remarkable, considering his path to priesthood. Born in Osogun in present-day Oyo State, Nigeria, and in 1821 seized in his village by Fulani slave raiders who sold him to Portuguese slave traders at the age of 12, the young Ajayi of Yoruba ancestry was rescued by the British navy and taken to Freetown, Sierra Leone.

    His conversion to Christianity and his baptism in 1825 led to his adoption of the name of a visible British clergyman of the Anglican Church Missionary Society (CMS). He studied in England and attended the Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone, where he advanced his exceptional interest in languages, which became of immense use in evangelism.

    Crowther made history when he was ordained as the first African bishop of the Anglican Church at a ceremony in England. It is a testimony to his quality that in the same year he was also given a Doctorate of Divinity by the prestigious University of Oxford.

    To his credit, Crowther’s language skills produced the first Yoruba translation of the Bible, which was completed in the 1880s, and a Yoruba version of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. These projects illustrate how seriously Crowther took his Christianity. He also produced primers for the Igbo language and the Nupe language.

    The apology of the Church of England is very welcome. It is good for Crowther’s name, which is protected by history.

  • The lazy rich

    • The published names of debtors reflects a country that rewards the laggard and punishes the worker

    The nation waited, and when the news broke we did not cheer. The Central Bank of Nigeria gave an August 1 deadline for all banks to publish the names of bank debtors and the amount of their indebtedness. Many of them have complied and at the time of writing, the total amount of indebtedness was over N143 billion.

    Some of the names were prominent.  Such names as Isyaku Rabiu, Helene Esuene, Lanre Tejuoso, Hope Uzodinma, Samaila Sambawa, Sayyu Dantata, Emeka Offor were a fraction of the long lists of debtors. Directors of companies were also included. One of the names mentioned was Abike Dabiri-Erewa. The other was Dayo Adeyeye.  But their assertions that they did not know that company and owed no one have not been countered by their banks.

    We hope all due diligence was carried out in releasing the names, and nobody has been unduly exposed. Other than the two denials, we have not had any denials at the time of writing.

    The following financial institutions have published debtor names at the time of writing this article. They include Sterling Bank, Guaranty Trust bank, Zenith Bank, Fidelity Bank, Union Bank, Skye Bank, Stanbic IBTC Bank, Heritage Bank,  First City Monument Bank, Eco Bank, First Bank, Enterprise Bank, Access Bank, Diamond Bank and Unity Bank.

    Before the deadline, reports were rife of debtors who rushed to the banks to update their accounts so as to avoid the disgrace of seeing their names published. All debtors had till July 31 as grace period to reconcile their accounts with their respective banks. The banks were also required to publish the debtor lists in at least three newspapers.

    This is not the first time we have had this sort of exposure. It happened under the tenure of the former CBN governor, Lamido Sanusi, who is now the Emir of Kano. When he rolled out the names of the debtors, Nigerians gasped for air.

    The situation is no different today. The money owed by these individuals does not belong to them, but the majority of the toiling millions of Nigerians. They deposited their money in the banks on the basis of trust. But a certain sense of entitlement has prodded the debtors to see the money in proprietary terms. They loaned billions of Naira, used it for their own purposes and failed to service the loans. Some owed as much as N6 billion. This is not only irresponsible, but also callous.

    If the CBN and the federal government did not view this indebtedness with extreme prejudice, these persons would cart away our patrimony, furnish their lifestyles of decadence, and turn these loans into bad debts in the event of their deaths.

    This sort indulgence only thrives when the political society does not respect the values of honesty and accountability and allows a few to fatten on the miseries of the majority. They have always worked with the bank executives in making the banks cesspits of corruption.

    The point often made is that corruption in the political class is not possible without complicity of bank chief executives. But rarely have the names of the CEOs of banks been penciled down for collaboration with the business and political elites in the fleecing of the nation.

    The other tragedy is that these debtors parade themselves as role models not only in character but also in business. They are failed entrepreneurs perceived to run enterprises well.

    All debtors should be compelled to pay back their loans or face the severe penalties of the law.

  • No hiding place

    No hiding place

    Finally Habre gets justice

    For eight years between 1982 and 1990, he waged arbitrary and tyrannical power over his people like some blood-thirsty deity. Among Hissen Habre’s many crimes as President of Chad was presiding over a network of secret police known as the Direction de la Documentation et de la Security ((DSS) reportedly responsible for thousands of executions, enforced disappearances, torture and arrests. Prosecuting judges and investigations by Human Rights Watch estimate that Habre was liable for at least 12,000 victims of cruelty, including 1,200 deaths. His misrule particularly targeted ethnic groups perceived as opposed to his rule such as the Hadejia and Zaghawa. His government dealt with any suspected threat to his personalised power summarily and decisively without adherence to due process.

    After over 25 years following his toppling in a coup by Deby Itno, the long hands of justice and the law are catching up with Habre. He has been picked up from his opulent residence in the suburbs of Dakar, Senegal, where he lived in exile with his family. The case is being tried by the Extraordinary African Chamber (ECA) set up under the auspices of the African Union (AU). The opening of the case at the Palace de Justice in Dakar, has been described as a major turning point in bringing dictatorial African leaders to justice right on African territory. We cannot agree more with the assertion by Reed Brody, senior legal counsel with Human Rights Watch who rightly stated that “ This trial is a wake-up to tyrants that if they engage in atrocities, they will never be out of the reach of their victims”.

    An elated Clement Abaifouta, President of the Chadian Association of Victims of Crimes of Hissen Habre also declared that, “ Finally, finally, the men who brutalised us and then laughed in our faces for decades have got their comeuppance”. Ironically, however, Hissen Habre, seemingly unfazed by the development is still living in denial. This was evident in his histrionics at the opening of the trial. Raising clenched fists he declared “God is the greatest” even as his supporters yelled in the court premises.

    There is no doubt that Hibre, who claims he is not guilty of the charges, is emboldened by the reluctance of African leaders over the years to bring to book their peers guilty of human rights abuses and other crimes against their people. Thus, even though he was sentenced to death by the Chadian government for his alleged role in a 2008 rebellion, Chad never requested for his extradition back to the country to face trial. In a similar vein, Chad continued to resist the request by a Senegalese court to extradite another five persons also indicted for gross human rights abuses during Husein Habre’s rule.

    Equally intransigent was former Senegalese President, Abdoulaye Wade, who refused to act on an indictment by a Senegalese judge and rebuffed requests by Belgium to have him extradited to that country and tried. However, with the election of Machy Sall as Senegalese President in 2012, the story changed. The latter vowed to take action on pressures from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and a ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Senegal meet its international obligation under the United Nations Convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman treatment or punishment. The African Union must be commended for encouraging its member states to give their courts universal jurisdiction in addition to initiating a network of prosecutors to work on war crimes.

    With this new attitude on the part of African leaders, the days of African leaders who perpetrate impunity on the continent are clearly numbered. They have no more hiding place. Such leaders can thus be tried in Africa thereby relieving the international community of bearing a burden that belongs to Africa as happened in the cases of Charles Taylor and Laurent Gbagbo of Liberia and Sierra Leone, respectively.

     

  • Justice Oloyede must quit

    Justice Oloyede must quit

    FIR: For a serving judge to write a petition straight to the House of Assembly for the impeachment of her state governor when she ought to know where to send petitions of perceived wrongdoing for investigation and ought to know the constitutional procedure for impeachment, to say the least, is  a clear indication that the said judge was motivated by personal malice and spite.

    The judge, – Justice Folahanmi Oloyede, called the Osun State governor, Rauf Aregbesola, a spendthrift and alleged “cruel and harsh debasement of pensioners and civil servants in deliberately and maliciously withholding their salaries for months on end…” and that “there is nothing on the ground in Osun to indicate or justify (the) huge gargantuan quantum of loan” the governor took to build infrastructure in the state. She said the governor was “guilty of unjustified assassination of the character of a sitting president and of moral murder” – an obvious reference to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan.

    How can she prove that the salaries and pensions of workers were deliberately and maliciously withheld? How can she prove that “there is nothing on the ground in Osun to indicate or justify (the) huge gargantuan quantum of loan” the governor took to build infrastructure when she has not listed what is on the ground first for us to compare and justify?

    The lady is the one who has a case to answer. She has already adjudged herself  ‘guilty of unjustified assassination of the character of a sitting governor and of moral murder’ by the very content of her allegation against the governor. If her allegations against the governor are enough to impeach the governor, then she must answer for committing the same offence of “unjustified assassination of the character of a sitting governor and of moral murder”; this is enough to remove her from office. I call on her to resign honourably from the judiciary of which I am a part of and go into politics.

    I call on the governor’s supporters not to attack her physically in any manner in and out of office, as was done by the supporters of one of the P.D.P governors in a neighbouring state. With time the governor, if he is good to his people, will triumph over the lady permanently. She will triumph neither as a judge nor as a politician.

     

    • Barr. Orchardson Umoh

    Calabar.

  • Deeper in the mire

    Deeper in the mire

    Nigerians must be used to the antics and misbehaviours of the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) that no news about the fallen ruling party would seem untoward anymore. However, having lost its 16-year perch at the centre in the last national elections, one would have expected a group that once claimed to be the biggest party in the Black world to be more sober and introspective.

    But nobility of nature seems to be anathema to PDP as has been manifested in most of its affairs through its existence. It appears the shock of defeat and fall from grace has not mellowed it as the news emanating from its Wadata House National Secretariat indicates. According to report, workers at the PDP Abuja head office are threatening a showdown following reports of imminent salary cut and downsizing exercise. A circular from the office of the National Secretary, Prof. Wale Oladipo, on behalf of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the PDP, had conveyed the notice of a reduction in the secretariat staff strength and slash in salaries and allowances of staff.

    In response, the staff had raised a billow of dust, insisting on an inquiry into the finances of the party. They allege that about N12 billion realised during the last election had been ‘shared’ by members of the NWC.  They noted too that during the recent party congress in Kogi State prelude to forthcoming election in the state, the sum of N1 billion allegedly flowed into the coffers of the party.

    All these monies, according to the workers, have vanished. A petition is said to have been sent to former President Goodluck Jonathan and some members of the Board of Trustees (BOT) demanding the sack of the party’s interim chairman, Chief Uche Secondus; national secretary, Prof. Oladapo and national publicity secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh. In their word, there has been a “mindless plunder of the party’s resources by the NWC” led by these men.

    Though this ruckus in the PDP may be like a mere family affair that ought to be left for members to worry about, it is significant and worthy of the concern of all Nigerians because it signposts the way and manner Nigeria was run for 16 years. Nigerians must be wary of a party that cannot run its secretariat seeking to run a country. A party that has so much difficulty keeping basic secretariat account and managing huge inflows for the purposes of running its internal affairs cannot be trusted with the national treasury.

    Is there any wonder that the PDP government at the end of its era left the country bankrupt, with workers across the country, (including even federal civil servants) without salaries for months? What is on showcase here is PDP’s prodigality and licentiousness; an utter lack of regard for due process, order and accountability.

    The lessons in the ongoing tiff in Wadata House are indeed deep and numerous. After the electoral calamity of last April, nothing has changed in the PDP. It is the same sordid business as usual. Had they won at the national level, the same perfidy of old would have continued without let; no one would pause to take stock; no one seems to have the presence of mind to effect change.

    The alleged disappearance of a hefty sum of N12 billion from the PDP secretariat in just a few months is a signal that kleptomania, that PDP virus which has left the nation prostrate, is still alive and well among the members. The above narrative only confirms the fact that nothing else matters to the PDP crowd other than the cash. Think of a rampaging swarm of locusts!

     

     

  • Another wayward deal

    Another wayward deal

    •NNPC’s role in the contract between Samsung and Hyundai reflects it is not a good ambassador

    The rot in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has been so bad that it instigated turf warfare between two major companies of a foreign country. In the process, the corporation fell under the charges of impunity and abuse of due process.

    This involved the bids from Samsung Heavy Industries Nigeria Limited and Hyundai Heavy Industries. Both firms are from South Korea, and have been familiar names in Nigerian commerce. The issue is not that both companies operate in Nigeria. Neither is the issue that both firms compete against each other.  Both qualities augur well for business in the country.

    As a capitalist country we even encourage firms from other countries to compete here against each other. It stirs the better spirits of commercial coexistence and a sense of international harmony.

    But what happened with both Samsung Heavy Industries Nigeria Limited and Hyundai Heavy Industries is a metaphor of what can go wrong when a business umpire acts without regards to the rules and tenets of fairness.

    The story concerns a contract amounting to $3.5 billion for the Engina Floating Production Storage Offshore. The contract was awarded to Samsung Heavy Industries Nigeria Limited. News reports have it that a patent unfairness characterised the award and that has made Hyundai Heavy Industries to accuse the NNPC of impunity and corruption of the process.

    According to news reports, Samsung had bid at first with $3,545,678,824. Its competitor, Hyundai Heavy Industries,’ bid was $3,522,321,198. The process started in 2008 and it dragged on to 2014. The Engina FSPO contract is aimed at the Total Upstream Nigeria Limited for the Engina Field Development Plan. There is clear difference in the figures as to what bid was lower.

    As it happens in some bids, both companies were invited to meet with National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS) for clarifications of their bids. Such meetings lead to the companies lowering the bids. Samsung gave a bid of $3,308,946,840 while Hyundai’s numbers were $3,140,199,986.

    The questions still exist. The first is, when did the NNPC officials meet Samsung that its bid dropped to $3,143,499,498? No other clarification meeting was said to have held that could have given Hyundai the possibility of a competitive offer.

    In spite of that, the final figure of Samsung – $3,143,499,498 – was still less competitive than Hyundai’s $3,140,199,986. How come the contract went to Samsung? It is not of importance to us who gets the contract, but how.

    This narrative brings again to the front burner the level of highhanded impunity and recklessness that characterised the operations of the NNPC during the tenure of Goodluck Jonathan as president of Nigeria. The minister at the helm, Diezani Alison-Madueke, cannot say she was not aware of such a major transaction. And if she was not, it still keyed into the lack of seriousness with which they viewed the Nigerian project and our patrimony.

    ‘While the President Muhammadu Buhari administration plans to bring sanity to oil, it should look at such transactions as the Samsung and Hyundai example as the way not to do business in Nigeria and with foreign firms. Poor charity that has begun at home must not spill abroad as it has’

    The instance of the two South Korean companies gives a hint of how companies have been doing business with the pot of this country, the NNPC. We have had stories and litigations concerning corrupt practices with officials of foreign firms in which Nigerians have had questions to answer.

    These have often happened in other continents and countries. This is the first major one with South Korea. The NNPC as the Nigerian signal firm of oil ought to understand that it does not only do business, it is our own ambassador. From all the stories that have issued out of its dealings in the past months, it has not served as an ambassador of virtue.

    While the President Muhammadu Buhari administration plans to bring sanity to oil, it should look at such transactions as the Samsung and Hyundai example as the way not to do business in Nigeria and with foreign firms. Poor charity that has begun at home must not spill abroad as it has.

     

  • Amnesty tension

    Amnesty tension

    The myriad of problems facing the amnesty programme have left a sour taste in the mouth. More worrisome is the fact that the programme has been ingrained in administrative crisis barely a month of the inauguration of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration. The cause could partly be the delay in appointing a new coordinator for the programme by the new government, but more importantly, the major problem is lack of institutional focus and discipline on the part of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s government in its pursuit of the programme.

    Since May 29 handover date to a new government, the public gets besieged by the programme’s challenges such as absence of a coordinator which has recently been solved through the appointment of one by government; the sad issue of over 2,000 ex-militants being thrown out of the Liverpool’s John Moores University and other institutions in the United Kingdom. Also gloomy is the revelation that 13 amnesty trainee pilots have been dropped by Lufthansa following the failure of the Federal Government to pay up their fees, and the issue over N10billion unspent funds in the programme’s coffers, amongst others.

    The Amnesty Office is responsible, at government’s expense, for scholarship programmes of ex-militants’ education in countries, including the United States of America (USA), United Kingdom (UK), Poland, Russia, India, Ukraine and South Africa. It is unfortunate that militants under the late President Umaru Yar’Adua-initiated amnesty programme that commenced in August 2009 have reportedly not been paid their promised monthly stipend in the last three months due to absence of an authorising signatory. Kinsley Kuku, former Special Adviser to the immediate past President Jonathan on Niger Delta, and Coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), left office with his boss.

    The scheme was designed to assuage the militants to lay down their arms. But under the present scenario, most of the ex-militants are reportedly broke, indolent and restive, a development that could put the oil-rich communities, once again, on the edge. President Buhari on his inauguration day stated in his speech that the programme’s December 2015 terminal date, was sacrosanct: “The amnesty programme in the Niger Delta is due to end in December, but the government intends to invest heavily in the projects, and programmes currently in place.’ The evidence on ground is to the contrary so far.

    ‘It is good that a new administrator has been appointed for the Niger Delta Amnesty Scheme; but the government should forthwith fulfill whatever agreement it had with the ex-militants, notwithstanding the change of guard at the centre. After all, government is a continuum. We call on the new helmsman in the amnesty office to move fast to sort out all the pressing problems’ 

    We appreciate the fact that the government has appointed a new administrator for the amnesty office. We expect positive change to manifest earnestly in all spheres of the amnesty duties. We want to believe that the new appointment was not informed by the perceived veiled threat of Government Ekpemupolo, a.k.a. Tompolo, a notorious militant leader who recently called an aborted meeting of the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) ‘ex-generals’ and ‘commandants’. The halted meeting was to discuss the state of the nation in relation to the Niger Delta.

    It is good that a new administrator has been appointed for the Niger Delta Amnesty Scheme; but the government should forthwith fulfill whatever agreement it had with the ex-militants, notwithstanding the change of guard at the centre. After all, government is a continuum. We call on the new helmsman in the amnesty office to move fast to sort out all the pressing problems. He should also not run the place like a ‘one-man show. The time has come to discard the free cascading of the Jonathan era by putting in place a proper and sustainable system to run the amnesty programme.