The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • Military’s aggression against the media

    Military’s aggression against the media

    SIR: There is something poisonous that is painting the canvas of the Jonathan presidency and it relates to the military leadership in Nigeria.   It seems that many of these uniformed men with a gun in their hands want Nigerians, including military wives, politicians, and journalists, to worship them.

    Freedom of expression is assumed to be protected in Nigeria, a nation that, at least on the surface, has a written constitution which was mainly adopted from America’s Constitution.

    It was not long ago that the Nigerian Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Kenneth Minimah, allegedly addressed soldiers in the following manner: “If they repeat it” (referring to soldiers’ wives who protested for the safety of their husbands), “all those wives will leave the barracks. This is not a civil service organization. This is not a Boy Scout organization. Any repeat of such act, I will tell soldiers to use koboko on the wives and bundle them out of the barracks.”

    Recently, the Director of Defence Information, Maj.-Gen. Chris Olukolade, warns that, “In view of the series of insinuations, allegations and false claims being made by certain activists and politicians on the legal and disciplinary process in the Nigerian military, the Defence Headquarters finds it necessary to make this call…Politicians should avoid using the forum or medium of their political campaigns to incite or endorse acts of indiscipline in the nation’s military establishments.”

    This warning came because a Nigerian who happens to be a politician, Governor of Rivers State, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, stated in a speech, “The soldiers have the right to protest for the federal government’s failure to fully equip them.”

    Then we have the Director of Public Relations, Brigadier Olaleye Lajide, who, because of an Army-related story published in an online newspaper, Sahara Reporters, asserted maliciously that, “It is noteworthy but unfortunate that Sahara Reporters has committed itself to support terrorism and fight Nigeria, its people, its military and particularly the Nigerian Army.”

    Yes, Nigeria is still a young and growing democracy but that is not an excuse for the current wave of military aggression against individual, group and institutional freedoms.

    The military is supposed to distance itself and adopt a position of neutrality from divisive politics; instead, it is overstretching its constitutional role and thereby diminishing the quality of service.

    The military ought to know that constitutionally, journalists are protected from revealing their sources, and digital freedoms are directly protected by federal law, and if not for the chaotic democratic style in Nigeria, there should be some form of whistleblower protection for all Nigerians. No wonder President Jonathan recently reflected on the challenges he continues to face as a leader due to the contradictory advice he continues to receive from men such as these.

    • Dr. John Egbeazien Oshodi,

    Jos5930458@aol.com

  • Restoring prisoners’ rights

    Restoring prisoners’ rights

    •The order by the Federal High Court that prison inmates be allowed voting rights is commendable

     

    The order by the Federal High Court sitting in Benin-City, Edo State, that inmates of the Nigerian prisons should be enabled to vote at elections is indeed a landmark in enforcing the fundamental rights of all Nigerians. As Justice Mohammed Lima who heard the matter pointed out, it is unconstitutional and illegal to deprive any Nigerian of the right to vote or be voted for.

    It is unfortunate that the ruling came so late in the day. It ought to have occurred to all involved in the administration of justice and conducting elections that being remanded in or jailed in any of the prisons is not enough to strip any Nigerian of his or her citizenship.

    Sections 14 and 25 of the 1999 Constitution, as well as section 12 of the Electoral Act 2010 have spelt out the rights of all citizens. Other Nigerians who have been inadvertently deprived a hand in deciding those who rule them are those in the diaspora and those in uniform. This is no longer so even in other African countries that have given effect to section 20 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights. The physically challenged also deserve attention in the design of ballot papers and boxes. They are full citizens, not second class compatriots and must be encouraged to participate in the electoral system.

    We call on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to make provision for the inmates to participate in the 2015 elections as the court has ruled. It is not enough to hold that the commission would find it difficult to register and give effect to the order before the February 2015 elections.

    It is the more pathetic to note that of the 56,000 inmates of the Nigerian prison system, almost 40,000 are awaiting trial. They are, therefore, in the eye of the law, deemed innocent at the moment. Why then should they be deprived of their voting rights? We find it difficult to understand how they would be compensated for this deprivation if eventually they are acquitted of the crimes for which they have been accused.

    In any case, what are the administrators of the justice system doing to ensure that those responsible for pauperisation of the masses are duly punished? Rulers of yesteryear, responsible for the country’s underdevelopment, are those still dictating the tune today. They not only vote, but use looted public funds to dictate who should be elected.

    It is also proper to point out that the utter neglect of the prisons by the Federal Government is itself criminal. The poor attention to welfare of the prisoners is one reason for jail breaks recorded in various parts of the country recently. Even in the Kirikiri Prisons, inmates protested poor treatment and pounced on the warders recently, thus calling attention to poor funding of the facilities.

    The electoral commission should realise that the order made was a mandatory injunction and could not be set aside except by a superior court. The order has deepened the nation’s jurisprudence and further provided for the participation of all Nigerians in their own affairs.

  • Up and down

    Up and down

    • WASSCE candidates continue to fail English Language and Mathematics

    The recent announcement of the November/December 2014 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) contained no real surprises, given the usual mix of large-scale failure, miniscule improvement and significant malpractice.

    Out of the 246,853 candidates who sat the examinations, only 75,522 or 29.37 per cent obtained the standard pass of credits in five subjects including English Language and Mathematics;  75,313 (30 per cent) obtained credit passes in any six subjects while 110,346 (44.7 per cent) obtained credit passes in any seven subjects. The results of 28,817 candidates, or 11.67 per cent of the total, were withheld, while the results of 5,691 candidates are still being processed due to registration errors.

    The 2014 results represent a marginal improvement over those of 2013: the five-credit standard pass rate was better (26.97 per cent), as was the fall in the percentage of those involved in examination malpractices (12.88 per cent). However, the most worrying statistic – the inability of two-thirds of candidates to obtain standard five-credit passes – is a recurring decimal that has continued to appear, regardless of minor improvements.

    The causes of this educational calamity are well-known: decrepit schools and inadequate infrastructure; insufficient numbers of well-trained, properly-remunerated and competent teachers; the widespread absence of parental and societal engagement; consistently low levels of funding at federal, state and local government levels; declining levels of commitment on the part of the students themselves.

    Public examinations like the WASSCE are a critical indicator of the progress or otherwise of Nigeria’s educational system. As the standard qualification signifying success at the senior secondary school level, it is crucial to students seeking to acquire tertiary education and professional certification. It is an affirmation of the basic literacy, numeracy and critical-thinking skills that were to have been acquired at the primary level and refined at the junior secondary school level. The inability of two-thirds of candidates to obtain standard passes is therefore nothing less than a disaster.

    Several states are taking steps to reverse the situation. Edo and Ekiti have introduced teacher-competency tests designed to ensure that teaching skills are raised and kept high. Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Delta, Kano, Lagos, Osun and Rivers have all embarked on ambitious school-rehabilitation programmes aimed at providing standard educational infrastructure. More efforts are being made to assimilate information technology into the educational process.

    These measures must become more widespread if they are to result in appreciable success. The opposition of teachers’ unions to the competency tests cannot continue; it is strange that they would oppose measures aimed at enhancing the professionalism of their own members. If teaching ceases to be a dead-end profession for all comers, it will be to the benefit of the unions and the nation. The investment in infrastructure and technology must be further integrated into all education-improvement measures. Succeeding administrations should continue with the educational policies of their predecessors instead of ignoring them.

    The paucity of funding has been arguably the major obstacle in the face of the educational improvements that are vital to improving overall WASSCE performance. Apart from the obvious problem of inadequate funds, there is the surprisingly consistent inability of states to provide counterpart funding for critically important interventions like the Universal Basic Education Programme.

    In January 2014, the Federal Government claimed that states were not accessing the N44.9 billion available in counterpart funding for the UBE, with the biggest offenders being Ebonyi, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Plateau and Benue. Inadequate investment in primary school results in poorly-equipped secondary school students.

    Parents and guardians must also develop a greater interest in the educational pursuits of their children and wards. Too many of them are too involved in the rat-race to show interest in school work. This is replicated at the societal level, where educational attainment lacks the social prestige of sporting or musical accomplishments.

  • Sitting duck

    Sitting duck

    •National Assembly should do the needful on bills the president has failed to assent to

    Zakari Mohammed, Chairman, House Committee on Information disclosed a perilously inhibitive trend in blissful legislative/executive relationship during a lecture he delivered at the forum organised by Correspondents’ Chapel of the Oyo State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Ibadan. He said that ‘40 bills were awaiting President Goodluck Jonathan’s assent to become Act of the National Assembly;’ and cited “the political mood of the country’’ as the reason why the House of Representatives had refrained from deploying its constitutional powers on the issue.

    We have since noticed an evolving pattern of executive languor in the handling of, especially private bills, passed to the president for his assent to complete the process of such bills becoming Act of the National Assembly. For instance, in 2012, not less than 10 of the bills passed by the assembly were returned by President Goodluck Jonathan. In 2013, there were agitations in the National Assembly over the president’s refusal to give his assent to 28 private bills passed by the legislators. This had created a mounting obnoxious pattern where only bills that originated from the Presidency or from the Executive Council of the Federation (EXCOF) receive prompt presidential assent.

    President Jonathan should realise that most private bills have direct impact on the yearnings of the people at the grassroots, quite unlike executive bills which are mostly meant to tackle policy initiatives of the president and his team. Those private member bills are the bills sponsored by a senator or member of the House of Representatives, while executive bills are the ones sent from the Presidency to the National Assembly for consideration. What the presidency needs to appreciate is the fact that whenever such private bills are delayed, it is drawing back areas of necessary legal needs in the society and where denied outright, starting afresh the whole process of legislation could only be at high cost and time to the country.

    Nigeria cannot afford the luxury of this presidential torpor. Therefore, we demand to know if the cause of delay is the president’s inability to read and understand the bills. If this is the situation, what then are his aides doing if they cannot bail him out of his seeming phobia for private bills? The legislators should deploy constitutional provisions empowering them to override this presidential disdain for and impunity against bills, whether private or otherwise, that are duly passed by the National Assembly.

    The 1999 Constitution (as amended) in Section 58(4-5) provides, “Where a bill is presented to the President for assent, he shall within 30 days thereof signify that he assents or that he withholds assent”. It states further: “Where the President withholds his assent and the bill is again passed by each House by two-thirds majority, the bill shall become law and the assent of the President shall not be required.”

    Now that the president has failed to exercise the powers conferred on him by the constitution by not signing the bills passed by the legislature in order to give them the force of law, in flagrant violation of the stipulated 30 days and without any cogent reason, the National Assembly should do the needful if only to show that it is not subservient to the executive arm of government. The only time the legislature upturned presidential veto was in the case of the establishment of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) during former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s era. The relationship between the executive and the legislature, and even the judiciary, should be symbiotic and not a master-servant one that the president, through impunity, is attempting to foist on the legislative arm of government.

  • Power sector sinkhole

    Power sector sinkhole

    •Why would the Fed Govt think merely throwing money at the problem will give us light?

    For a sector that has gulped more than N5 trillion ($31.45 billion) from 1999 till date with pretty little to show for it, the report that the Federal Government is set to take another $7 billion to support the on-going Power Sector Reform should stoke alarm. If anything, it has merely validated our earlier warnings about the increasing appetite of the Jonathan administration for foreign loans.

    World Bank’s Country Energy Task Team Leader for Nigeria, Eric Fernstrom, reportedly told participants at a two-day capacity building workshop on post-privatisation monitoring for the power sector jointly organised by the World Bank and the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) that “arrangements have been concluded to release about $1.75 billion, which is 25 per cent of the total $7 billion pledged for Nigeria over the four years”.

    The offer, as one would expect, did not come without a rather gratuitous statement that “the bank was greatly encouraged to offer the additional assistance to ensure that the reform objectives were realised following the high level of transparency exhibited in the transaction process and the robust post-reform measures put in place by the NCP/BPE”.

    To start with, where is the transparency being touted by the World Bank about the process? The same process currently stuck in judicial tango? Is the World Bank not aware of the controversies surrounding the sale of the Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company, (Kaduna Disco)? Or is the bank feigning ignorance of the court order restraining BPE from transferring the controversial Kaduna Disco to the preferred bidder following its alleged failure to execute the deed of sale and the refusal of the BPE to invite the reserved bidder to complete the Share Purchase Agreement? Did the sale of Afam Power Generating Company (Afam Genco) not suffer the same fate? So which transparency is the World Bank talking about?

    Of greater concern to us however is the $7 billion loan. We understand that the power sector needs all the help that it can get to bail it out of the current morass. The problem here is that neither the World Bank nor the National Council on Privatisation/Bureau for Public Enterprises deems it fit to avail Nigerians of information about the specific projects the package was meant for and what the terms of the loans were.

    In May this year, the same World Bank at the sidelines of the World Economic Forum Africa (WEFA) summit announced that it had mobilised about US$1.7 billion to boost the reforms of Nigeria’s power sector.  At least the nation was told about the US$245 million for the 459-megawatt (MW) Azura Edo Power Plant near Benin City, Edo State; and the US$150 million for the 533-MW Qua Iboe plant in Ibeno, Akwa Ibom State. If only for reasons of transparency, we at least expect that BPE/NCP to avail Nigerians of the details of the latest loan.

    But then, the more fundamental question is – how many more loans would the Federal Government require before Nigerians begin to see some light at the end of the dark tunnel? And where is the guarantee that this latest loan will make a difference given past experiences? Moreover, isn’t the whole idea of the Power Sector Reform essentially about divesting the Federal Government of some of the burdens it currently bears? How does one reconcile a sector being primed to become the toast of the so-called investors remaining essentially a sinkhole in which taxpayers and foreign monies continue to be poured? As it appears, Nigerians may not have been told the whole truth about the loan.  We believe that something is wrong somewhere. It is something the National Assembly should help find out.

  • Without conscience

    Without conscience

    •The over N21 billion donated by government and private persons to the campaign fund of President Jonathan defied the law and undermined decency

    Any patriot who watched or witnessed the fundraiser that yielded over N21 billion for the presidential campaign of President Goodluck Jonathan would know that the event took away from our dream of a decent society. December 20th paraded a night of shame for our nation and a section of its political and business elite.

    The shindig was an example of cold-blooded jollification with its displays of excess in sartorial, rhetorical, culinary and dramatic vanities. But the surfeit of glitz was the least of the night’s obscenities. It was its lack of awareness not only of the law, but the stark inequity of its action.

    It took the public rage of lawyers and civil society groups for the insiders of the Jonathan administration to understand, at least in public, that it had to explain its iniquities. It is now scrambling for a lacuna to justify how corporate entities, individuals and government agencies could amass such obscene wealth on one night for a campaign fund.

    On that night, governors were looking for money to pay civil servants ahead of a bleak Christmas, the value of the naira had dipped to about 190 to a dollar and the price of oil, our main foreign exchange earner, had cascaded to about 60 dollars per barrel as against over 110 dollar per barrel a few months earlier. In these times of goodwill towards all, the president and his donors defined generosity in their own selfish lights.

    So how did a president who endeared himself to Nigerians as a man who once had no shoes show such insensitivity, and allowed it to beam live on network television? It was not only an abuse of generosity but also a desecration of medium.

    Did the president not know that it was illegal, according to the Electoral Act, that he was only entitled to N1billion of all the money raked in that night? If, that is, the entire activity of that night has nullified all the money acquired as illegal. The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and of course the Federal Government under President Jonathan are primed with lawyers who understand that the Electoral Act 2010 says that the “maximum election expenses to be incurred by a candidate at a presidential election shall be N1 billion.”

    So what happened was not only an act of lawlessness but a fly in the face of the law. Even if we ask the PDP to refund the money obtained that night, it would not obviate the essential impunity committed. But the greater tragedy is that those who committed the crime know that no overriding authority is going to reverse the perverse gains of that fundraiser. Not the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission nor the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission (ICPC), nor the Security and Exchange Commission, the regulatory police of the Nigerian Stock Exchange has expressed even curiosity about that night of impunity.

    They have not raised even perfidious eyebrows over the fact that the chairman of the Skye Bank, Mr. Tunde Ayeni, donated N2.5 billion. He also promised that, as representative of  the president’s friends, the donation would climb to N3 billion. They did not wonder how the PDP governors, some of whom are owing civil servants’ salaries, were coming together to belch out over N1 billion.

    Did they ponder how the power sector that could not provide meters to darkness-bound citizens and has received several billions in subventions from the Federal Government found N500 million for the campaign. The oil and gas sector was the star of the night. Bola Shagaya rolled out N5 billion at a time that the government has said it has no money from excess crude account because of subsidy. Yet the price of petroleum is still high, and the investigations into the fat cats who primed their accounts and flaunted extravagant lifestyles on subsidy have not been brought to book. Yet the same industry preened with billions for the Jonathan campaign. Another star contributor was OluchiOkoye on behalf of the real estate sector. Is this happening in a society where many are without shelter or have only a mockery of rudimentary homes? Others include Didi Ndimou who gave N1 billion on behalf of the transport and aviation sector, Chief Ominife Uzoegbu(N500 million) for agriculture in a country where we import even tomatoes. The National Automotive Industry smiled with N450 million donation even though we know that the transport sector is one of the most besieged with rickety buses and troubled movements.

    In a democracy that should thrive on laws, the president should have reined in that night before it started. For a government that has been accused of undermining the rule of law, it should have found out what the companies were in the oil and gas, real estate, automotive, agriculture and food, power, etc. that donated and whether they got approval from their board of directors. Even if they did, it would have contravened the Companies and Allied Matters Act.

    Section 38 (2) says: “A company shall not have or exercise power either directly or indirectly to make a donation or a gift of any of its property or funds to a political party or political association, or for any political purpose, or if in breach of this subsection makes any donation or gives of its property to a political party or political association or political purpose, the officers in default and any member who voted for the breach shall be jointly or severally liable for the refund to the company the sum of value of the donation or gift and, in addition, the company and any such officer or member shall be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine equal to the amount or value of the donation or value of the donation or gift.”

    What this law says is clear. All the culprits should not only refund the money, they are owing their companies the amount they donated in fine. If there are no consequences for these actions, it would mean that we have gone deeper into the moral sewer than in the times of former President Olusegun Obasanjo when the shareholders rejected the amount donated to the Obasanjo Presidential Library by the now defunct Intercontinental Bank PlC. Another corporate player, The Nigerian Breweries PLC, presided over the retirement of Festus Odimegwu, its managing director, over the same matter.

    Three things remain unresolved. One, why has the president or his associates not insisted on releasing all the names of the donors and the companies they represent? This is a requirement of the law that prides itself on the virtue of an open society. The Independent National Electoral Commission’s Political Finance Manual compels any donor’s name to be disclosed by the political party. Up till the time of writing, the INEC has not made any announcement on that night.

    Two, this does not answer a crucial question as to whether this is public wealth masquerading as private wealth. Who is going to do the accounting and trace the origins of the money donated? In the case of the Niger Delta Development Commission that donated N15 million and the governors that donated N1.05 billion, it is clear they do not have the authority of the law. But the private donors make mockery of the public-private mantra of modern governance.

    Three, when those in authority commit wrong, to whom shall we complain? It is the dilemma of this unwholesome drama. With a clipped EFCC and voiceless INEC, and a National Assembly obsessed with reelection politics, a sense of anarchy overwhelms this moral absurdity. It seems the donors, the president and the PDP top brass will get away with this metaphorical murder.

    While the donation night persisted, many victims of Boko Haram insurgency complained they could not benefit from the so-called victim’s funds and the flood victims of last year still suffered from deprivation in spite of the donations publicly celebrated by some corporate bigwigs. The state governments where some of these victims live say they do not have enough money to cater for them because the Federal Government has cut their monthly allocations.

    The political elite and business class must understand that the society belongs to the majority and not a minority of greedy and insensitive persons as was blatantly dramatised in Abuja on December 20.

    We need a mechanism as a people to check this obscene excess in high places, or else we shall become subject to those who raid our patrimony without conscience.

  • Do they deserve our prayers again?

    Do they deserve our prayers again?

    SIR: I believe Nigerians are more aware of this season of wishing ourselves all the best and praying fervently for one another to have our heart desires granted by our good Lord. So also, the politicians are tactically approaching fellow Nigerians with best wishes and enjoining them to be of good behaviour and to pray for them and the country.

    Truly speaking, Nigerians are good people. They will pray for their leaders wherever they find themselves and in any prayer room, not because the leaders have asked them to do so, but because they are being commanded to do so in their holy books and they want to be obedient to the almighty God.

    However, the prayer points have changed dramatically these days and the politicians are yet to hear and understand the the way we pray.  Prayers are now being properly channeled to God with precise request and true desires for this nation.  No wonder some politicians have now turned to churches and mosques for solutions to their problems and not necessarily the problems of this nation.

    We all know and believe that God is good all the time, but the professional politicians have taken the goodness of the Lord for granted and more so, for a long time in Nigeria. It seems Nigerians are now fully awake from their slumber or hypnotism and suddenly we all asking for a true change.

    Nigerians need changes and not just a change at the presidential level. We need a change of hearts, a true change in government policies, a true change of leadership at the local government, Houses of Assembly, House of Representatives, the Senate, the banks, the presidency, the churches, the mosques and at all the places or corridors where peoples money are being spent on their behalf.

    The prayer points should not just be for only the politicians but for all the leaders in our land.

    Imagine the leaders of churches with private jets that are being rented out for profits. Most of them would have told us that the jets are for the promotion of the gospel beyond our coast. But now we know better and hopefully taxes will be paid on the gains.

    Imagine bank directors whose bank stocks have been reduced to cents but are still flying first or business class to Abuja or London instead of economy class.

    Imagine senators and reps without a functional constituency office or a well designed and functional websites to reach out to their folks and no one knows about the use of the constituency allowance until a time like this when they come  to dole out few nairas and bags of rice and cooking oil.

    Now, let us rise on our feet to pray…….  And after the prayer let the people say a loud amen.

     

    •Joe Femi-Dagunro

    Nigeria Beyond 2015 Group,

    Lagos

  • Doomsday 2015

    Doomsday 2015

    Akinyemi’s alert on possible post-election violence in 2015 is probably well founded. Still, his fears are based on symptoms, rather than fundamentals

    Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi, former foreign minister and deputy chairman at the 2014 National Conference, has hit the media with his personal fears of possible post-election violence in 2015.

    In a letter to the presidential candidates of the two main political parties, President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Gen. Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the professor recalled his worst fears before the 2011 election (which came to pass) and insisted that, for 2015, the prognosis was even worse. He pushed a theory that it was because the late Gen. Andrew Azazi, then the new National Security Adviser (NSA), refused to work on his anti-violence suggestions that the situation flared — and with disastrous consequences.

    In his letter this time round, he suggested a 10-member committee — The Sultan, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, The Emir of Kano, Alhaji Muhammadu Sanusi II, The Lamido of Adamawa, Alhaji Muhammadu Barkindo Mustapha, The Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade, The Oba of Benin, Omo N’oba Erediauwa, former Commonwealth Secretary-General, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) President, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, The Redeemed Christian Church of God General Overseer, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, and former Military Heads of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon and Gen. Abdusalami Abubakar — to, prior to the election, meet with the two candidates, and commit them to minimal decorous conduct: non-violent electioneering, accepting the result of elections, and, should there be any dispute over the result, non-violent protests.

    The professor also expressed worry over what he called massive importation of firearms into the country, many of them suspected to violently muscle the vote, and set the country on fire. Lest we forget: Prof. Akinyemi also made reference to the “semi-official” American dire prediction that Nigeria might be history by 2015; fearing that a violently disputed election could just set fire to that tinder. He was convinced that should President Jonathan win, there would be violence in the North; but should Gen. Buhari win, there would be violence in the Niger Delta.

    Strictly speaking, this is no crying wolf when there is none. Indeed, the polity is pregnant; and quite ominous. It is ominous because there appears to be a zero-sum mentality, en route to the 2015 election. Stands are hard. Emotions are extreme. Things indeed, appear headed for a crash.

    For sending an alert early enough, Prof. Akinyemi has earned some commendation. It is what every patriot should do; and he has done his part.

    Still, that Prof. Akinyemi is spot-on, in his prognosis, does not in any way suggest it is based on sound fundaments. For instance, why should there be assured violence in the stronghold of each of the two major candidates?  Is it because each side could be perceived not to have won fair and square?

    If that were so, is it not sounder counsel to push for a clean, free, fair and transparent election (prevention is better than cure, version) than setting up a committee of eminent Nigerians to, with all due respect to their motives and accomplishments, put some gloss on avoidable disaster?

    Indeed, if there is spectre of violence, it is simply because the strengthened opposition appears better placed to challenge the abuse of state security by the federal ruling party; with President Jonathan’s penchant to skew legitimate coercive forces to illegitimate partisan causes — witness the electoral siege on Ekiti and Osun states during the gubernatorial polls earlier this year; and the police attempt to banish Speaker Aminu Tambuwal from the House of Representatives, ostensibly because the Speaker had issues with his former party.

    The polity, perhaps including Prof. Akinyemi himself, bought the lie that the processes leading to the Ekiti and Osun elections were fair, even if, on E-Day, the process appeared free. But how could an exercise be free when processes leading to it were unfair? The election tribunal may have endorsed the Ekiti election; and the Osun election, despite federal illicit machinations, may have gone to the other side.

    But there was no doubt: the militarised processes of both were skewed to favour the federal ruling party. That is a notorious fact. If such brazen abuses were repeated at the general election, there would be natural reactions.

    Even, the Akinyemi suggested arbitrating committee of eminent Nigerians might just remind a sceptic, even with the best of motives, of the natural sarcasm that leaps off the title of Wole Soyinka’s play, Madmen and Specialists.

    The Nation has profound respect for many members on the list. Besides, it is deeply thoughtful that only Gen. Gowon (who was in charge in the benign and near-innocent years of military rule) and Gen. Abubakar (who had the unenviable chore of, in 1999, leading the military back to the barracks after that institution had thoroughly subverted its essence) made the list. Gen. Buhari is a candidate, the huffing-and-puffing Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, with his latter day crusading, appears fast becoming part of the problem; and Gen. Ibrahim Babangida is quietly left off.

    Even then, what is the value of Pastor Oritsejafor, CAN President, on such a committee, if the committee’s job is to do transparent and fair intervention — Oritsejafor that has virtually made CAN a partisan, religious tag-team partner of the Jonathan Presidency?

    But of course! It is all patently Nigerian: shun the fundamentals but erect needless planks to attempt to solve a problem that needs not have arisen, if the right things were, ab initio, done!

    With all due respect to Prof. Akinyemi and his patriotic fervour, what Nigeria needs to stave off violence is an election process fair, free and transparent — and eminently seen to be so, even by the blind! People who don’t have the numbers but brag they would win a free election are entitled to their bragging. So, are people who claim they are spoilt for choice in numbers. It is a democracy and everyone is welcome.

    But a clean electoral process would put everybody where they belong. The ball is therefore in the court of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). It should, by right, get all the state institutional support it needs.

    If the Jonathan Presidency can do that and everyone, government and opposition, plays by the rule, the Akinyemi jeremiad would happily prove unfounded. Otherwise, nothing is guaranteed.

  • Christmas cheer

    •Jesus was born to save us but we have a role to play

    Once again, Christians and persons of goodwill all over the country and the world are celebrating Christmas today. It is a day of devotion as well as jollification. Its cohesion of piety and vanity makes it one of the most unique days in the Gregorian calendar.

    It marks the birth of Jesus Christ, a child of prophesy that abounds in the Old Testament, flowing from the lips and pens of such patriarchs as Moses (wrote the Pentateuch), Isaiah the prophet, King David and quite a few others. It is the story of humility that emphasises the power of royalty. He was born in a manger, in the subaltern simplicity of herdsmen on a wintry night. Yet the prophesy said “unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.”

    The same son was trailed by three wise men, poetically rendered in the famous poem titled the Return of the Magi by the stalwart dramatist and poet T.S. Eliot. He was hounded, in his ineffable innocence, by the soldiers and taskmasters of King Herod who feared the prophesy that called him king, and said “His government shall be upon his shoulder … and he shall be called Wonderful,Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Prince of Peace and the Everlasting Father…”

    Everything he did in his ministry on earth represented examples for humanity. Whether his baptism in River Jordan administered by John the Baptist, or the miracles of turning water to wine, or raising Lazarus from the dead, or restoring the ears of one of his tormentors as his crucifixion loomed, he demonstrated a magisterial example of character, salvation and  power.

    Eventually he was killed, and it is not his death alone that mattered, but two other things. One, that he did not feel any malice for those that murdered him. He asked his father in heaven to forgive them “because they know not what they do.” Two, that his death preceded his resurrection, and that meant that his followers had something ethereal to look forward to: eternity in the heavenly.

    The most important legacy of his ministry on earth was love, and he proclaimed it this way: “By this shall people know that you are my disciples if you have love one for the other.” And his followers have always emphasised the superiority of love over other virtues. “And now abides faith, hope, love,” crooned St. Paul, the most brilliant and illuminating of his apostles, “the greatest of them is love.”

    The purpose of love is, for him, peace. He himself said it in a memorable Bible verse, “Peace I live with you. My peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth give I unto you.”

    There is no better time than now in our history for Nigerians to follow the precepts and examples of Christ. This is a period where the rhetoric of hate and the fear of impending violence have taken over the imagination of many Nigerians as we approach a new election cycle. Jesus himself told a soldier, “do violence to no man.” But are Nigerians going to heed it? Jesus also called for uprightness and holiness and eschewed hypocrisy. He abhorred those who called his name for opportunism. That was why he said his disciples should beware of the “leaven of the Pharisees,” which is hypocrisy.

    An upright society would watch against mismanaging the gifts of God in terms of material abundance, like Nigeria is blessed with. Yet, the Nigerian economy is perhaps in its poorest shape ever with the Naira in an all-time low, with many afraid that it may cascade to N200 to a dollar. It is time to manage our resources and stop corruption, so that Christ’s purpose that he “was poor that we may be rich” does not become limp prophesy.

  • Abuse of strike

    •Oil workers should stop punishing Nigerians over flimsy excuses

    For four days last week, the economy would again be thrown into avoidable spasms as a result of the strike embarked upon by the nation’s powerful oil industry unions – the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG). It would, sadly again, be occasion to settle on their now familiar tradition of exploiting citizens’ vulnerability to the hilt; choosing a most opportunistic moment – the approach of the yuletide – to inflict pains on Nigerians.

    The fact that this has since become their stock-in-trade is what makes it both regrettable and sad.

    And what do these oil workers really want? It goes beyond the same old but familiar story expressed in the so-called failures to execute successful turnaround maintenance of the nation’s four refineries. Or even their new-found tales on the need for the Federal Government to evolve new strategies to combat pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft – a plague which, admittedly, the Jonathan administration has failed to contain.

    As stakeholders, it goes without saying that their rather novel demand for an alignment of pump prices of petrol in the wake of the slump in global prices of crude oil would seem nothing extraordinary. No one can deny that these demands have some merit.

    Again, like most Nigerians, the unions have the right to worry about the delay in the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB); or even the high rate divestment in the industry and its job losses arising from the non-passage of the PIB; the non-implementation of the Nigeria Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act; the appalling state of access roads to refineries and oil depots’ facilities and the general insecurity all over the country, which they point out, continues to claim the lives of their members.

    Protesting the casualisation of oil workers is not only within their prerogative as organised labour; it is also their right to challenge unfair labour practices by companies and government agencies.

    But then, are these the real issues? Even if they were, would they have sufficed to shut down an economy already under the throes of slump in global oil price? For all intents and purposes, the strike has merely revealed one fundamental problem with the unions that has been denied up till now – the belief that simply because they have the power, they can use it to force the hand of the government no matter how unrighteous their cause.

    It seems to us that the two unions have merely used the pretext of the transfer and termination of one of PENGASSAN zonal officers in Rivers State, Elo Victor, by the management of Total Oil Nigeria to punish the nation. It is wrong as it is immoral. Of course, only in the context of the weapon of blackmail that the instrument of strike has become in the hands of PENGASSAN and NUPENG can these be contemplated.

    As for the refineries, this newspaper has long argued that the Federal Government loses nothing by selling them. That position, if anything, remains as valid as it is compelling, even now. More than five years after the botched privatisation of the refineries in Port Harcourt and Kaduna, and with billions of naira thrown in for their Turn Around Maintenance with nothing to show for it, the position of NUPENG and PENGASSAN is not only inexplicable; it appears only the two unions still live in the illusion that the Federal Government can ever get the refineries to work optimally. The irony here is that both NUPENG and PENGASSAN which appear just as culpable as the Federal Government in foisting the current atmosphere in which the nation has found it nigh impossible to let the refineries go still think that the government should continue to pour money into the sink holes.

    Much as we concede to the right of the unions to stand up for the welfare of their members, these cannot be at the risk of plunging the larger economy into turmoil. We consider last week’s strike as unnecessary; if anything, it was an abuse of the strike weapon.