The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • Buhari: Triumph of a resilient fighter

    Buhari: Triumph of a resilient fighter

    SIR: General Muhammadu Buhari is one man that is highly respected and loved by many within and outside Nigeria for his simplicity, uprightness and zero tolerance for corruption. Born on December 17, 1942 in Daura, Katsina State, Buhari, a professionally trained soldier and former military Head of State between 31 December 31, 1983 and August 27, 1985, has over the

    years proved himself as a man of rectitude, and demonstrated his commitment towards the struggle to build a better Nigeria in the interest of the masses.

    As a dogged, resilient fighter and uncompromising politician with unalloyed forthrightness, he pursued his presidential ambition with great tenacity, despite his failure at every attempt since 2003. The retired

    Army General’s actually sojourn to the Presidency started in 2003, when he vied on the platform of the defunct All Peoples Party, APP.  In that year’s election, Buhari garnered about 12.7 million votes, which represented 32.1per cent to lose to the then President Olusegun Obasanjo of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who was seeking a second term at that time. Obasanjo scored about 24.5 million votes representing 61.9per cent of total votes cast.

    Four years later in 2007, he contested under the umbrella of All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP), but again lost to Umaru Yar’Adua of blessed memory also of the PDP, polling a meager 6.6 million votes, a far worse performance than that of 2003. Yar’Adua had about 24.6 million votes. Not taking his eyes off the Presidency, by 2011, the unrelenting and persevering Buhari contested on the ticket of a new party he founded-the Congress for Progressive Change. Despite being a new party single handedly formed by the retired General with the support of people of like minds, just less than six months to the election, he scored 12.2 million votes to lose to the incumbent President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan of PDP who got 22.5million votes in that contest.

    However, the figures Buhari had in 2011, as the CPC candidate was an impressive improvement compared to his 2007 outing. In fact, he received commendations from a lot of Nigerians who had maintained that the support

    for Buhari from the people since he began his journey to occupy the seat of power at the centre in the current democratic dispensation was purely based on his personality and reputation. He is believed to have distinguished himself in all the various positions he held in the past and thereby succeeded in getting endeared into the hearts of the populace.

    After the conduct of the 2011 general elections, some major political parties in the country – Buhari’s CPC, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the ANPP and a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA)

    commenced talks on a merger that would provide them with a formidably strong platform to unknot the dominance of the ruling PDP. On February 6, 2013, the All Progressives Congress (APC) was founded from the merger arrangement and Buhari eventually emerged as the party’s presidential candidate after a well-organized, transparent, free and fair primary election in Lagos last December.

    Today, the former Head of State has made history by becoming the first Nigerian politician to defeat an incumbent President. He polled a total of 15,424,921 votes to defeat Jonathan, who scored a total of 12,853,162 votes to place second in the race involving 14 contestants. His victory has been described by many observers as a welcome development heralding the beginning of a new era in the affairs of the country under a democratic setting. Indeed, most Nigerians cannot wait for this new horizon to unfurl.

     •Michael Jegede,

    Abuja

  • Reward for voluntary taxpayers

    Reward for voluntary taxpayers

    • A good idea if well-executed

    The Federal Inland Revenue Service’s (FIRS) newly inaugurated leadership has shown early, its desire to broaden its tax dragnet. This is a welcome development at a period of drastic reduction in oil revenue for the nation due to drop in oil prices. And to achieve this goal, the service is reportedly planning incentives for firms and individuals that voluntarily come forward to pay their taxes.

    Samuel Ogungbesan, newly appointed Acting Executive Chairman, FIRS at a media parley in Abuja a few days after assuming office said: “The duty of every Nigerian at the 1st of January is to go to the tax office and pick a form and assess himself. We are undergoing a self-assessment tax regime at the moment. There is a continuum we call compliance continuum. These are those who are complying, and there are those at the extreme end who, no matter what action you take, no matter the intervention, no matter the encouragement, they still will not comply. And in-between, there is a hybrid – a mix.’’ He continued: ‘‘so, in between, we have to develop a strategy. So, for those who are complying, our posture is that we will continue to support them; we may even go to the point of giving them concession such as one per cent bonus for complying. They need to be recognised as examples for tax administration. For those who need help and are not able to comply because they don’t understand, we will support them with tax education and assistance in any form until we get to the extreme ones.”

    Nigerians no doubt have a particularly endemic habit of tax evasion. And this is rampant in the largely uncoordinated informal sector where people make millions everyday without bothering to give back to government from what they have made. Yet most organised countries fund most of their spending from taxes. Nigeria should not be an exception if she truly desires to meet up with her financial obligations to self and to the citizenry in the face of dwindling oil fortune.

    This is why we are happy that Ogungbesan is already planning to create a bonus regime for voluntary taxpayers and also begin an engagement process with all taxpayers to secure confidence rather than embark on unyielding pursuit of the old regime of closing businesses and taking tax evaders to court. The new FIRS order should also see how to make the best of the existing tax initiatives, including the Tax Identification Number System and the voluntary tax assessment system.

    We strongly believe that the FIRS as a money generating institution can still do more for the country by injecting significant transparency into its operations. We are particularly bothered that the service could still not effectively address the challenges of multiplicity of taxation on institutions and the people in general. Perhaps, Nigeria remains the only country where such a thing is happening simply because taxation process is not well streamlined between federal and state governments.

    More importantly, the service yearly declares trillions of naira as taxes collected from institutions and individuals. Yet, the impact of the collected taxes is not felt, thereby creating doubts in the minds of the people regarding the whole essence of taxation. This is without prejudice to some state governments that have really deployed taxes collected from their jurisdictions to better use.

    The new initiatives of FIRS are good but, more people and institutions would be encouraged to voluntarily pay taxes if accountability is accorded a pride of place; and when money collected as taxes is deployed to the benefit of the greatest number of Nigerians.

  • Condemnable impunity

    Condemnable impunity

    •DSS detention, without trial, of INEC’s smart card reader vendor, must not be tolerated in a democracy

    Is it a crime to vend smart card readers to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)? Law and common sense say no. But the Department of State Security (DSS) seems to say yes.  That is the odyssey of Citizen Sani Musa, in DSS detention since March 24.  It is politicisation of security taken too far.

    Mr. Musa has, therefore, approached the courts to press his fundamental human rights, in view of this cavalier assault, asking the Federal High Court in Abuja to order DSS to immediately release him, aside from suing the security agency for N100 million, as general and exemplary damages.

    Though the suit has been assigned to Justice Adeniyi Ademola, no date has been fixed for hearing.

    Mr. Musa’s DSS arrest burst on the Nigerian consciousness in the heat of the campaigns, four days before the presidential election of March 28. Femi Fani-Kayode, the Jonathan presidential campaign chief spokesperson, in his usual glib bluff and bluster, claimed Mr. Musa was a visceral hater of President Goodluck Jonathan, in his own way of justifying the man’s arrest.

    But even if he were so, and the man has not committed any crime, it is difficult to find a nexus between an allegation of presidential hatred and how his vending of smart card readers to INEC could possibly negatively affect the president’s chances at the elections. Yet, that was the fallacy Mr. Fani-Kayode was trying to establish when he claimed that though he had no information if Mr. Musa had been picked up, it was indeed good news that he had. Of course, Mr. Fani-Kayode’s was the language of power, hardly of reason — reckless power of those not only in government, but also in power (apologies to Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, in his military presidential days).

    But it is exactly this recourse to raw impunity that must never be countenanced in a democracy.  The DSS, by law, has its functions. Ultimately, it is set up for citizens’ safety and security; and every citizen must appreciate that. Even its cloak-and-dagger operational modus operandi must be appreciated by all, in the context of collective security. Still, not even all these would justify the DSS swooping on a citizen, lock him or her up and virtually throw away the key.

    The position of the law is crystal clear in all this: the DSS can detain — but not beyond 24 hours, without arraigning the detainee in court. But that is exactly what DSS has done. To make matters worse, in an affidavit sworn to by Mrs. Sa’adatu Musa, wife of the detained citizen, she said her husband was just a consultant to Act Technology Ltd, the firm that supplied INEC the card readers. But even if he was not, DSS has no right to detain the man, except if it can prove such supply was tantamount to a crime.

    That is why the court should accelerate action on Mr. Musa’s suit and do justice to all the parties involved. If eventually DSS is found to have illegally detained Mr. Musa, then the body should receive the full sanctions of the law, to discourage any brazen future attempt to imprison the law and citizens’ rights, for the pleasure of the sitting government. In rule of law terms, such an act is execrable.

    Still, that such could happen in a supposed democracy is due to the notorious politicisation of the armed and security forces — a thoroughly culpable, despicable and condemnable legacy of the Jonathan presidency, especially at election times. Such executive outlawry must be rooted out, if Nigeria’s bourgeoning democracy must survive.

    Justice for Mr. Musa is justice for all. The courts must not tarry, to prove the point that law, not impunity, rules in a democracy.

  • The new magnanimity

    The new magnanimity

    Times are changing fast indeed! The country’s security agencies, including the Department of State Security (DSS) and the police are suddenly turning a new leaf, returning the security details of some deserving Nigerians that they earlier illegally withdrew, apparently more in deference to political dictates.

    The latest beneficiary of the emerging magnanimity is Adewale Omirin, the authentic Speaker of Ekiti State House of Assembly whose security detail was withdrawn about five months ago, following his illegal impeachment by a fraction of the members of the house of assembly. Just immediately after the speaker’s security men were restored, the police in Ondo State toed the line, by restoring the security detail of the state’s deputy governor, Alhaji Ali Olanusi, that had also been withdrawn on the order of Governor Olusegun Mimiko of the state, sequel to the deputy’s defection from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) – to which the governor now belongs – to the All Progressives Congress (APC). The governor also ordered the state police commissioner to ground all the official vehicles attached to the office of the deputy governor as well as the stoppage of the salaries of all his aides. Governor Mimiko contested election and won on the platform of the Labour Party (LP) but defected to the ruling PDP for political expediency, without any sanction whatsoever.

    The first high profile politician to taste the bitter pills of the withdrawal of security details in recent times is the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, whose security men were all withdrawn on the orders of the Federal Government in October last year, after his defection to the APC. Indeed, the police assumed the roles of the prosecutor and judge in the matter, by saying that Tambuwal should automatically lose his seat in the House since he was elected on the platform of the PDP. However, the security men were restored four months later.

    The big puzzle in all of these is why the police and other security agencies find it rather convenient to be operating as a rudderless ship. As the chief enforcers of the law, the police, for instance, should know what the law states and be ready to defend it. Unfortunately, they are the ones too eager to trample on the same laws just to please their political masters. We have seen too many instances of blatant partisanship on the part of our security agencies in recent times to make us begin to look for ways of checking such abuses. Almost all the security agencies, including the military, have been compromised, leading to serious erosion of professionalism and harassment of the members of the public that they are paid to defend.

    The media too can help check some of these excesses by denying the people illegally put in offices of the title that they so craved and illegally acquired, as in the Ekiti case which was so glaring. This may prove particularly useful in our kind of environment where the law travels at a snail’s speed.

    It is refreshing though that some of these illegalities are now being reversed by the same security agencies that committed them despite the fact that the political leadership at the centre has not changed. But what is best for the country is to have enduring structures rather than those that depend on the generosity of spirit of the political leadership.

    Perhaps one of the things to do is to insulate these agencies completely from the whims and caprices of politicians. We may have to tinker with the law to ensure that the authority to hire and fire the inspector-general of police, for instance, does not reside solely in the president. For as long as the police see the president as their employer, the temptation to dance to his tune would be high. Such powers should be whittled down to drive home the point that the agencies are to serve Nigerians and not to protect the government in power, sometimes against the constitution that the security agents swore to uphold.

     

  • Handset death?

    Handset death?

    In what may shock many fair-minded persons, particularly those without training in legal jurisprudence, a High Court in Delta State, sentenced one Mr. Vincent Okwekwu, to death by hanging, for robbing a victim of a handset and N10,000.00. The court, which sat at Akwukwu-Igbo, found the accused guilty of three count charges, including conspiracy and robbery. So, in addition to the death sentence, the accused also bagged a 21-year jail term on each of the other two counts. In fairness to the judge, while the weight of the judgment may appear far heavier than the worth of the items stolen, the sentence falls within the extant provisions of our criminal law.

    Yet the sociological impact for such grievous punishment, for what many would regard as a lowly robbery incident, should be a point of interest for legal jurisprudence. For us, and we guess for many others, we would have been more comfortable with a criminal law that would punish a robbery without a murder, with perhaps a long term of imprisonment. In saying this, we are not unappreciative of the psychological harm, a robbery with or without death does to a society. Our concern is how the law can mitigate the finality of death sentence, taking cognisance of the actual impact of the offence committed.

    In prosecuting Okwekwu, the court was told that the accused, with other persons at-large, broke into the apartment of the victims, and robbed them of a handset and N10,000.00, armed with a cutlass and a gun. So, despite that the sentence appears very harsh, the legal ingredients needed to find an accused guilty of the crime of robbery were met. Still, many in the society would find the punishment and the actual crime committed somewhat irreconcilable. In seeking a solution to this psychological aberration for the society, experts in the jurisprudence of sentencing, should device an acceptable median.

    What again may rankle many honest bystanders is the reality that well-heeled people who commit other kinds of crimes that, in their view, impact more on the society, get comparatively a slap on the wrist. Take, for instance, serious economic crimes and sabotage, with a high propensity to harm a greater number of members of the society. In some of such instances, which impact may cause multiple deaths, like petroleum products racketeering, the offender may walk free, while what may be referred to as petty robbery, gets a death penalty.

    Another instance is the stealing of public funds like the pension fund, which no doubt results in multiple deaths, of senior members of the society. For many, it is a challenge to legal jurisprudence that a person who has stolen billions of naira of pensioners, gets a few years jail term, or even an option of fine; while a robber who steals items worth not more than N50,000, gets a death sentence. Regardless of the fine points of law, the disparity in punishment, represents the society as an uneven one.

    Such disparity in the punishment for crimes, between that committed by a lowly person and that most likely committed by the high and mighty, may also be very traumatic for the society, just as the aberrance in the disparity between the crime and the punishment in question. In the peculiar Nigerian environment, there is also a challenge for legal jurisprudence with regards to the impact of poverty. This is particularly in circumstances where the lowly criminal, may have poor or no legal representation, while the well-heeled would use quality legal minds to place all manner of subterfuge before the court, to escape even the lesser punishment for more impactful crimes.

  • Amosun as architect of modern Ogun

    Amosun as architect of modern Ogun

    SIR: As many Ogun indigenes will acknowledge, our state is very different today. It is a more peaceful, prosperous, industrialized and better place to live, learn, earn, rest and play in than it was before. To some, Governor Amosun’s sterling qualities and progressive views are grotesque, defective and different. Some have accused him of always playing to the gallery; some detractors would have people believe that the man is an enigma with a stigma. They distort and misrepresent his steadfastness for stubbornness, his tenacity for dogmatism, his vision for delusion and policies for extravagance. But above all, Ogun has risen, the beautiful ones are here in Ogun State.

    Among the 36 states in Nigeria, Ogun State is blessed with human capital and natural resources. The state has produced leaders in governance, business, sports, education and other fields of human endeavour and the

    Senator Ibikunle Amosun-led government has done a lot in ensuring that the Education sector of the state becomes the best in the country.

    Education they say is the bedrock of any nation. No wonder, successful nations of the world invest a lot of resources in ensuring their children are given the best education so that they can be useful to themselves and

    the nation in the nearest future. The quality of education is a function of the facilities and inputs that go into teaching of our children. Gone are the days in Ogun State where students sat on the floor while teachers teach them because the schools lacked adequate furniture; the era of students not having textbooks and notebooks are over since the government of the day introduced free education at the primary and secondary schools’ levels in the state.

    Senator Amosun, in his bid to ensure all pupils in the state excel in their studies distributed study materials and textbooks to them to relieve their parents of financial burdens. Each of them received textbooks covering their subjects, which include English Language, Mathematics, Science, Geography, French, Social Studies, Reasoning, Biology among others.

    A state-sponsored unified examination was introduced while school infrastructural renewal; teachers’ welfare and training are now key aspects of the education policy. Knowing the importance of providing world-class education to all and sundry in the state, the government embarked on the construction of 15 model schools with the state-of-the-art facilities, best teachers and best materials. Ogun state government under the leadership of Senator Amosun has really done a lot to improve the standard of education system of the state and this is yielding a positive result.

    •  Bolaji Odunuga,

    Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State

  • Strides in science

    Strides in science

    •In spite of a poor education ambience, Nigeria still shows world-class potential

    It is stirring that Nigerians are making strides in science worthy of international attention. Two developments highlight this reality: a discovery of new viruses and a decoration for scientific achievement.

    The reported discovery of two new viruses by a team of scientists from Nigeria and the United States of America is even more remarkable on account of the central involvement of a local research centre. The team leader, Dr. Christian Hapi, who is the Director, African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases, Redeemer’s University, Mowe, Ogun State, gave a useful insight into the significance of the development as well as the importance of the enabling environment. Hapi was quoted as saying, “This discovery points to the fact that the genomics for pathogen discovery platform that we have set up at Redeemer’s University is rapidly advancing health sciences in Africa.”

    It is striking that the fever-related viruses, Ekpoma virus-1 (EKV-1) and Ekpoma virus-2 (EKV-2), are named after a local area in Edo State where an investigation was carried out among a study population living in and around Irrua, which is near Ekpoma. Hapi said: “These two new viruses are also related to rabies, which is a very dangerous disease.” He added: “The discovery also shows clearly that there are a lot of potentially dangerous viruses circulating around that science has not yet discovered and there is no diagnosis yet.”

    Fortunately, if the experts are to be believed, these viruses do not constitute a threat at the moment. It is noteworthy that the Director, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Abuja, Prof. Abdulsalami Nasidi, who commended the scientific work that led to the discovery, also addressed possible public anxiety. Nasidi said: “There is no potential threat to the country from these viruses for now.”

    However, this official reassurance should not be a reason to go to sleep. It would be counter-productive and amount to a defeat for the discovery if the country fails to take advantage of the knowledge. Indeed, what the Ekpoma discovery demonstrates, and which deserves emphasis, is a capacity not only to detect diseases but also to discover their causes; and such capability should be exploited maximally for the benefit of the populace.  Hapi correctly observed: “It’s important that the ministry of health should work with us to put in place a surveillance system so that we should be able to identify the pathogens that are responsible for some unknown causes of fever.”

    It may be considered a reflection of the abilities of Nigerian scientists that Associate Professor Adeboye Osunkoya of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, United States, was honoured with the Arthur Pardy Stout Award by the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology (USCAP). The prestigious yearly prize is given to a pathologist under age 45 whose publications “have had a major impact on diagnostic Pathology.”  Also, it is worth mentioning that Osunkoya, who is Director of Genitourinary Pathology at Emory University, previously won another USCAP prize, The Benjamin Castleman Award, for the best paper published in Human Pathology.

    There is no doubt that Osunkoya’s recognition and decoration by his peers, particularly in an international context, speaks volumes about what is possible in a space of possibility. It is a testimony to what Nigerians can achieve when structure and infrastructure are available for the encouragement of scientific work.

    These attention-grabbing developments should inspire a greater focus and a more practical concentration on scientific development in the country, especially among scientists and the hierarchs at the policy-making levels. The scientific age requires no less; and there is no room for excuses.

  • Ghana has gone

    Ghana has gone

    • Nigeria’s neighbour demonstrates superior ability in WASSCE

    Given the nature of Nigeria’s fierce rivalry with Ghana, it must have been particularly galling for Nigerians to hear that Ghanaian students once again swept the honours at the West African Examinations Council’s (WAEC) International Excellence Awards that took place in Lagos recently.

    The awards are given annually to the top three performers in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination in WAEC’s member-states of Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia and The Gambia. Ghanaian students took the three highest positions out of the 2,016,497 students who sat the examination in 2014.

    Hasan Mickail, Kenyah Blaykyi and Archibaid Enninful Henry each recorded eight A1s in the subjects they sat for, scoring 682.0933 points, 680.4287 points and 676.9348 points respectively. Ghana had 397,275 candidates, representing 16.21 per cent of the total, compared to Nigeria’s 80 per cent representation. Ghana has completely dominated the WAEC awards since 2008. The last time Nigeria got a look-in was in 2007.

    Such consistency cannot be solely attributed to luck. Ghana is much smaller than Nigeria, and thus has a correspondingly smaller pool of students to draw upon. It is not as rich, either, and so has fewer resources with which to provide the educational facilities and consumables that are so vital to success. The real secret of Ghana’s superiority is a commitment to excellence that has characterised its history despite its ups and downs.

    School fees have been abolished since 2004 as part of the country’s Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education programme, and a Capitation Grant has been instituted to fund public schools. Although the country still faces significant difficulties in financing schools, it appears to have gotten the main issue right, namely that of maintaining the high standards established during the colonial era.

    Nigeria’s tragedy is that it has failed to preserve an environment within which educational accomplishments can flourish. Funding is a major problem; in 2014, it was stated that about N44.9 billion in counterpart funding for the Universal Basic Education Programme (UBEC) was not being utilised by the states, even though schools are in dire need of infrastructure, rehabilitation and expansion. The nation is notorious for the frequency of the strikes launched by teachers in primary and secondary schools, as well as lecturers in polytechnics and universities. Attempts by some states to improve teacher proficiency have been stoutly resisted by teachers’ unions.

    The situation is worsened by negative social attitudes to educational achievement. Sport, music and reality shows appear to be far more attractive to the youth. Intellectual accomplishment is often derided as being irrelevant to socio-economic status. The hard work that is vital to academic success is frequently truncated by widespread examination malpractice. Parental guidance, organised mentorship programmes, scholarships and other forms of assistance are difficult to come by, if they are available at all.

    It is vital that Nigeria takes measures to improve its educational system if it is to produce the knowledge workers which are the bulwark of global pre-eminence. Ghana’s regular triumph in the WAEC International Excellence Awards shows that the implementation of carefully thought-out policies will bear fruit over time, and if Nigeria wishes to achieve similar results, it must do the same.

    Funding options like the UBEC cannot lie fallow while primary and secondary schools are in dire financial straits. Teachers’ bodies cannot continue to oppose efforts to raise standards in their profession. School calendars cannot be continuously disrupted by avoidable strikes. The epidemic of examination malpractices must be confronted with the right mix of preventive and punitive strategies. In essence, Nigeria must do all that it can to restore education to its rightful pride of place.

  • MultiChoice Vs subscribers

    MultiChoice Vs subscribers

    The April 1 hike of DStv tariffs underscores the imperatives of sound consumer protection

    The 10 per cent increase in the tariff of MultiChoice Africa Digital Satellite Television (DStv) has caused a subscriber distemper, with many of the consumers launching a campaign for regulators to hold the pay-tv platform on the leash.

    But apart from a reiteration of its “determination” to do its regulation job, mum has been the word from the Nigeria Broadcasting Commission (NBC), the regulator of the market, despite admittance that it has received a torrent of complaints from MultiChoice’s DStv subscribers. Yet, it is imperative consumers be protected, just to ensure that they get a good deal from DStv and other pay-tv players.

    Caroline Oghuma, MultiChoice Nigeria’s public relations manager said the tariff hike was overdue, at least in the Nigerian market. “MultiChoice implements annual subscription price increase in all its operating countries,” she said, “however, a price increase was not implemented in Nigeria last year.”

    But that only fuelled a distemper among its subscribers, with many threatening to drop the platform for others. Others launched a social media campaign, rallying subscribers to boycott MultiChoice, until the new rates are rescinded. Yet, others accuse NBC of a lackadaisical approach to consumer protection, in view of MultiChoice’s alleged progressive sharp price practices, bordering on alleged monopoly.

    Structurally, MultiChoice’s DStv is not a monopoly. It has other competitors in its premium market; and also throws a market dog, in Gotv, to compete in the low end of the market segment, apparently to protect its premium brand.

    Operationally however, it has a towering dominance of its preferred premium segment.  Its content niche borders on the monopoly, such that not a few of its subscribers accuse it of arbitrarily hiking tariffs.

    Indeed, the only time its tariff came down was when the defunct Hitv, as a market entry strategy, got the English Premiership franchise, a niche in sporting content, which all players in the market covet. But since Hitv’s demise, following MultiChoice’s regain of the English Premiership franchise, the firm has been virtually untouchable. This latest tariff hike, subscribers allege, is the latest indication of its price whims — and even NBC, its customers allege, seems unable to call it to order.

    MultiChoice, which has a subscriber base of no less than two million in Nigeria, may well have been hampered by the recent devaluation of the Naira. In fairness to it too, the increased tariffs cut across all its markets, in countries across West, Central, East and Southern Africa. So, a charge of a formal monopoly cannot be proved.

    But not so, the charge of an operational monopoly, leveraging heavily on its rich content, made possible by its comparatively huger chest of capital. Take this subscriber family as example. Latching on to MultiChoice campaign for subscribers to pay early to beat the new charges set to take off on April 1, the family paid the old rate on March 31. The MultiChoice agents collected the rate but later sent a text to the payer that  since banks closed early because of the elections, and it had not paid the money into the bank account, the payer should come back to make up for the new rate, since the money would enter the MultiChoice account on April 1!

    These are the sort of arbitrary behaviours that make consumers complain about MultiChoice and its pay-tv platforms of DStv and Gotv. That is why NBC should take a special interest in these complaints.

    At the end of the day, MultiChoice is no charity organisation. It has a right to recoup its investment at a profit. At the same time however, subscribers too have a right to quality at the best price. That is where NBC must come in — and ensure fairness on both sides of the transaction.

  • Can South West be hoodwinked?

    SIR: It was John Bitten that once said: “In politics, I think it is wiser to leave five minutes too soon than to continue five years too long.” This aptly describes the belated pacification approach of President Goodluck Jonathan to winning the southwest before the conduct of last presidential election. The ubiquitous visit of President Jonathan to the southwest has now shown that our President loves the south westerners only for his re-election. The visit to our Obas’ palaces must have given the President the rare opportunity to compare the heterogeneous collection of artifacts in those palaces visited.

    And of course, the President needs to be told that his government has shortchanged the southwest people in terms of human resources and economically. His government is as hellish as that of Abacha. The hoi polloi have been more impoverished. Small and medium scale enterprises have been crippled by the debilitating exchange rate, which is the worst in history.

    The southwest roads are worse than its government met them six years ago. People’s Democratic Party appointed offices were not given to the southwest. It remains an illusion that implementation of the latter-day CONFAB report that was hurriedly put in place to douse political conflagration has now become a campaign issue. It is cheap and spurious. But South westerners nay other Nigerians are wiser. It is difficult to believe that a government that has failed to move us forward in six years can do any magic in the next four years. The hate campaign against General Mohammadu Buhari is only making the man more popular among the people.

    Nobody can stop an idea whose time has come. To appreciate the mortality of man, our present political players should hear the word of Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) to wit: “What’s man? A foolish baby, vainly strives, fights and frets, demanding all, deserving nothing, one small grave he gets”. The nub of the matter is that the window dressing of the President in the southwest is hoodwinking and not sincere.

    • Adelani Olawuyi,

    Odooba – Ogbomoso.