The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • Another brain wave?

    Another brain wave?

    •Merely throwing money around will not revamp small businesses

    August 28, Industry, Trade and Investment Minister, Olusegun Aganga, informed the Annual General Meeting of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) of the coming of a “comprehensive real sector funding intervention” under the Federal Government’s National Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP). Tagged “Financing Value Chain Initiative”, the minister said the initiative was designed to tackle the twin challenges of access and cost of funds known to impede industry’s lack of competitiveness.

    Also at the occasion, President Goodluck Jonathan spoke of the Financing Value Chain Initiative, as the answer to the “structural and specific issues that have made it difficult to raise affordable funds in Nigeria”. According to the President, the initiative “will provide affordable, long-term funding, on reasonable terms, to both large and small businesses in Nigeria” when fully implemented.

    We agree with the Federal Government that the manufacturing sector needs all the help it can to get going again. Unarguably, the sector needs cheap funds which the capital and the financial markets are currently too hamstrung to provide. But even more fundamentally, they require funds with relatively longer gestation periods, both for immediate competitive advantage and as a strategy to enable them plan long term.  The issue is what to do in the event that the two conditions do not obtain at the moment.

    However, we certainly do not agree that the best way to go is to continue to throw money at the problem. Neither do we agree with the practice of selling fanciful labels and acronyms to satisfy political whims and expediencies that has become customary. The truth is that the nation had been on this route before. The example of the N100 billion Cotton, Textiles and Garment (CTG) Revival Fund of 2009 bears recall here.  With the 60 percent of the fund already disbursed to more than 38 beneficiaries as at December 2013, the results posted, at least going by industry sources, have remained far less than impressive five years after. That lesson, if anything, ought to have instructed on the folly of throwing cash at fundamental problems.

    The real challenge, in our view, is to understand why, after more than a decade of financial sector-wide restructuring – of which the repositioning of the Bank of Industry (BoI) formed a major component – ad hoc interventionist schemes have remained the rule rather than exception. With 24 universal banks and some half a dozen specialised banks to boot, it would seem obvious that the underlying question of why the financial services sector cannot address the needs of industries – big or small – is yet to be addressed.

    As an aside, we are again minded to ask: would the time ever come when the huge pension fund assets, currently put at N4.058 trillion, help moderate interest rates? Our initial understanding was that the pension portfolio, given their long-term nature, would help exert some pressure on interest rates at some point. Why are Nigerians not seeing the benefits?

    The time has come for both the Federal Government and the Bankers Committee to confront the issue headlong. For, no matter how attractive the option of another interventionist initiative appears to be, aside reducing the decade-long financial sector restructuring to a sham, it boils down to merely skirting round the issue. Therefore, far from being enamoured with the Federal Government’s penchant to play the Santa Claus with public funds all in the name of intervention, what we would rather have is a financial services industry that is not only enabled but primed to deliver on its mandate.

  • Crime pays

    Crime pays

    •That is the import of the FG’s pact with the Abacha family on our looted funds

    The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Mohammed Adoke, has come out strongly to defend the Federal Government’s pact with the Abacha family, concerning the recovery of the funds looted by the late maximum ruler, General Sani Abacha. Under the pact, which terms are shrouded in secrecy, the Federal Government withdrew the criminal charges against the son of the late dictator, Muhammed Abacha, in exchange for a portion of the nation’s stolen wealth in custody of Abacha’s estate. Many have questioned the rationale for that procedure, particularly the issue of transparency.

    In his defence of the Federal Government at the Nigerian Bar Association general conference, in Owerri, Imo State, the minister contended that the ‘freedom in exchange for cash’ procedure “is a fitting testimony to the strenuous effort being made to ensure the sufficient disgorgement of the proceeds of crime to serve as deterrence”. While berating his colleagues and other commentators for what he called ‘ill-informed’ criticisms, the minister claimed that “the settlement has received commendation across the globe and is being used as a case study for stolen asset recovery”. The minister also claimed that the entire process was transparent and was done in the national interest.

    While we concede the minister his right to laboriously defend a policy he supervised, we disagree entirely with his assertion that the process was transparent. Except of course he mistook opacity for transparency. Indeed, if there is any reason to question the entire deal, it is because his ministry was the initiator, executor and auditor of the entire process. In such a circumstance, it is difficult to authenticate the transparency that the minister is claiming. For instance, Adoke has not told Nigerians basic transparency information concerning the deal, such as how much was stolen by the late dictator and how much is the Federal Government conceding in exchange for freedom.

    The claim of transparency should also involve Nigerians knowing whether the Federal Government employed agents to broker the deal, and if there were such third parties, who recruited them and on what terms. Indeed, considering that the minister is an appointee of the Federal Government, the federating units should also worry, if their interests were appropriately represented, considering that the stolen money belonged to the federation. Again, the minister’s claim that the settlement has received recommendation across the globe is unbelievable, except of course he is referring to rogue nations, where criminal actions of high profile individuals are often met with arranged state pardons.

    Many Nigerians are also of the opinion that if our country is to be taken seriously about the fight against corruption, there should have been no deal with the Abacha family. Rather, the Federal Government should have pursued the recovery process to its logical conclusion, to send out the message that crime does not pay. Now, with the family keeping part of the criminally acquired wealth, and suffering no punishment for that, would it not send the message that crime pays? In our opinion, a full exploitation of our criminal justice system would have been more salutary for our nation’s beleaguered image.

    Nigerians are also genuinely worried that even the monies agreed to be refunded to the federal coffers may never get there. As we have harped on severally on this page, there have been many instances of officials looting recovered funds. Considering our experience with brokered deals in exchange for criminal indictment of treasury looters, we hope this case will not go the way of former Inspector-General of Police, Tafa Balogun. The National Assembly and the civil society should demand for details of this transaction.

  • Stephen Davis’ charges

    Stephen Davis’ charges

    Boko Haram: The naming of Sheriff, Ihejirika and a shadowy CBN official should not be taken lightly 

    We cannot dismiss these allegations merely by making press statements or assuring Nigerians of investigations or by solemn declarations about official aversion to terrorism. The charges now in the air from the lips of Stephen Davis, a hostage negotiator for the release of the over 200 kidnapped Chibok girls, are serious and hint at the level of high-powered backing of the infectious sect, Boko Haram.

    The charges, in their gravity, are simple. One, former governor of Borno State, Ali Modu Sheriff, was accused of being a long-term sponsor of the sect. Two, former chief of army staff, retired Lt.-General Azubuike Ihejirika was accused of also another sponsor. The third charge is laid at a shadowy individual described as a top official of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Davis shied away from naming the CBN official.

    Davis stakes his claim on his familiarity with the Boko Haram sect, especially in negotiations for the release of the beleaguered Chibok girls. His bona fides are also stressed by his work with two successive Nigerian presidencies, Olusegun Obasanjo’s and Umaru Yar’Adua’s. He has also established strong links with al-Qaeda cells, up to three of them, around Africa. He is an Australian, and holds a PhD in political geography. Above all, he has gained the trust of the militants and governments in Africa, and he has leveraged this credential in raising the stakes of his activity in the topsy-turvy terrain of the religious zealots.

    When he issued those charges, he said he was a negotiator working at the behest of the Jonathan presidency. This led to a flurry of furious arguments from Nigerians, politicians, journalists and human rights activists. Both Sheriff and Ihejirika have denied the charges. The charge against Sheriff is not new. In fact, he ignited partisan furies when the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) called the All Progressives Congress (APC) a Boko Haram sponsor on the strength of Sheriff’s membership. Sheriff has now moved to the PDP. With the Davis allegations, the ruling party is at the butt of the same charges.

    Ihejirika’s charge is curious because he was a point man as army chief in the war against terror. How come his name has popped up in this awful conversation?

    Marilyn Ogar, the spokesperson of the Department of State Security (DSS) has denied that Davis was running an errand for the President. She has also denied that Ihejirika has any link with the terror group, while reaffirming the common knowledge that Sheriff has been quizzed a few times by the nation’s intelligence agency, the State Security Service (SSS).

    We cannot say that Davis has all the facts unless we see them. So, it will be foolhardy and presumptuous to believe the words of the Australian simply because of his biography. For the same reasons, we cannot ignore them. He is clearly in the position to know, and he has staked his life and name in his personal journeys into the lairs of the dangerous humans.

    He is also no loafer having bagged a PhD. He is also a Christian cleric, which is antipodal to the world views of the terrorist. He apparently has no happy stake in the success of terror. We also wonder if he was specific in the case of Sheriff and Ihejirika, why was he nebulous on the matter of the CBN high roller?

    The other reason we cannot ignore the charges is that by accusing the former army chief, his points a specific finger at the door step of President Goodluck Jonathan. Ogar has said that the allegations seek to devalue the service of the former army chief who laid his life for his country. Her point is well taken, but that does not stop us from raising questions. So, where is Davis’ evidence that the army chief helped fuel the escalation of the enemy’s fire power? Ogar also denied that a top sponsor was related to at least two of the nabbed Nyanya bombers. If that is true, where are Davis’ counter facts? Or is Ogar fibbing?

    The Stephen Davis charges touch three sensitive institutions. With the charge of Sheriif, it stalks the executive and potentially compromises governance. On Ihejirika, it nudges the military. With the shadowy CBN official, the infrastructure of money is tainted. If these charges are true, then it means that Nigeria is helping the enemy through its high rollers.

    Some quarters have argued that the history of Boko Haram leaves no institution innocent. First, it seemed only southerners and Christians were victims. Later, it alleged collaborating Muslims. Then, emirs and Muslim clerics and anybody became victims. The narrative has also taken on regionalist and ethnic accusations. Those in the inner sanctum of the Jonathan administration as well as its supporters have seen the insurgency as a political move to besiege the Jonathan presidency. They argue that a northern oligarchy unhappy to cede power did not want President Jonathan to succeed. They have also cited some statements from northern henchmen as evidence.

    But the northerners say the Jonathan administration has been encouraging the insurgency. This, they argue, is orchestrated to gain sympathy for the government. It is in that context that some have placed the charge against his former chief of army staff.

    President Jonathan himself had said in the past that Boko Haram has moles in his government. Who are they? Does Davis know them? Or is he working on inconclusive evidence? We cannot find this out by simply asking our government to investigate it. We cannot trust the Nigerian institutions on this matter for three reasons. One, the administration’s innocence has been impugned by the allegations. Two, because of the tentacles of Boko Haram, the investigations could be compromised by the working of fifth columnists within our institutions. The third point is that terror has morphed into an international network, and the best way to unravel its seedy dynamics is to internationalise its investigation.

    We therefore support those who want this matter to be taken to the International Criminal Court. We believe that it will help bring out some of the shadowy information since top Nigerians may be involved in the operations of the sect. These allegations are too serious to be left in the realm of speculations. Boko Haram is waxing stronger and our soldiers are looking weak as the insurgents take territory after territory in the northeast.

    It is not important whether Davis is working as an independent or at the behest of the Jonathan administration. The allegations are grave. The deaths and fall of northern towns are also grave. Our corporate security and prosperity are in danger. We should do the right thing and save this country from the barbarous hordes and their sponsors, whoever and wherever they are.

  • Stephen Davis’ charges

    Stephen Davis’ charges

    Boko Haram: The naming of Sheriff, Ihejirika and a shadowy CBN official should not be taken lightly 

    We cannot dismiss these allegations merely by making press statements or assuring Nigerians of investigations or by solemn declarations about official aversion to terrorism. The charges now in the air from the lips of Stephen Davis, a hostage negotiator for the release of the over 200 kidnapped Chibok girls, are serious and hint at the level of high-powered backing of the infectious sect, Boko Haram.

    The charges, in their gravity, are simple. One, former governor of Borno State, Ali Modu Sheriff, was accused of being a long-term sponsor of the sect. Two, former chief of army staff, retired Lt.-General Azubuike Ihejirika was accused of also another sponsor. The third charge is laid at a shadowy individual described as a top official of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Davis shied away from naming the CBN official.

    Davis stakes his claim on his familiarity with the Boko Haram sect, especially in negotiations for the release of the beleaguered Chibok girls. His bona fides are also stressed by his work with two successive Nigerian presidencies, Olusegun Obasanjo’s and Umaru Yar’Adua’s. He has also established strong links with al-Qaeda cells, up to three of them, around Africa. He is an Australian, and holds a PhD in political geography. Above all, he has gained the trust of the militants and governments in Africa, and he has leveraged this credential in raising the stakes of his activity in the topsy-turvy terrain of the religious zealots.

    When he issued those charges, he said he was a negotiator working at the behest of the Jonathan presidency. This led to a flurry of furious arguments from Nigerians, politicians, journalists and human rights activists. Both Sheriff and Ihejirika have denied the charges. The charge against Sheriff is not new. In fact, he ignited partisan furies when the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) called the All Progressives Congress (APC) a Boko Haram sponsor on the strength of Sheriff’s membership. Sheriff has now moved to the PDP. With the Davis allegations, the ruling party is at the butt of the same charges.

    Ihejirika’s charge is curious because he was a point man as army chief in the war against terror. How come his name has popped up in this awful conversation?

    Marilyn Ogar, the spokesperson of the Department of State Security (DSS) has denied that Davis was running an errand for the President. She has also denied that Ihejirika has any link with the terror group, while reaffirming the common knowledge that Sheriff has been quizzed a few times by the nation’s intelligence agency, the State Security Service (SSS).

    We cannot say that Davis has all the facts unless we see them. So, it will be foolhardy and presumptuous to believe the words of the Australian simply because of his biography. For the same reasons, we cannot ignore them. He is clearly in the position to know, and he has staked his life and name in his personal journeys into the lairs of the dangerous humans.

    He is also no loafer having bagged a PhD. He is also a Christian cleric, which is antipodal to the world views of the terrorist. He apparently has no happy stake in the success of terror. We also wonder if he was specific in the case of Sheriff and Ihejirika, why was he nebulous on the matter of the CBN high roller?

    The other reason we cannot ignore the charges is that by accusing the former army chief, his points a specific finger at the door step of President Goodluck Jonathan. Ogar has said that the allegations seek to devalue the service of the former army chief who laid his life for his country. Her point is well taken, but that does not stop us from raising questions. So, where is Davis’ evidence that the army chief helped fuel the escalation of the enemy’s fire power? Ogar also denied that a top sponsor was related to at least two of the nabbed Nyanya bombers. If that is true, where are Davis’ counter facts? Or is Ogar fibbing?

    The Stephen Davis charges touch three sensitive institutions. With the charge of Sheriif, it stalks the executive and potentially compromises governance. On Ihejirika, it nudges the military. With the shadowy CBN official, the infrastructure of money is tainted. If these charges are true, then it means that Nigeria is helping the enemy through its high rollers.

    Some quarters have argued that the history of Boko Haram leaves no institution innocent. First, it seemed only southerners and Christians were victims. Later, it alleged collaborating Muslims. Then, emirs and Muslim clerics and anybody became victims. The narrative has also taken on regionalist and ethnic accusations. Those in the inner sanctum of the Jonathan administration as well as its supporters have seen the insurgency as a political move to besiege the Jonathan presidency. They argue that a northern oligarchy unhappy to cede power did not want President Jonathan to succeed. They have also cited some statements from northern henchmen as evidence.

    But the northerners say the Jonathan administration has been encouraging the insurgency. This, they argue, is orchestrated to gain sympathy for the government. It is in that context that some have placed the charge against his former chief of army staff.

    President Jonathan himself had said in the past that Boko Haram has moles in his government. Who are they? Does Davis know them? Or is he working on inconclusive evidence? We cannot find this out by simply asking our government to investigate it. We cannot trust the Nigerian institutions on this matter for three reasons. One, the administration’s innocence has been impugned by the allegations. Two, because of the tentacles of Boko Haram, the investigations could be compromised by the working of fifth columnists within our institutions. The third point is that terror has morphed into an international network, and the best way to unravel its seedy dynamics is to internationalise its investigation.

    We therefore support those who want this matter to be taken to the International Criminal Court. We believe that it will help bring out some of the shadowy information since top Nigerians may be involved in the operations of the sect. These allegations are too serious to be left in the realm of speculations. Boko Haram is waxing stronger and our soldiers are looking weak as the insurgents take territory after territory in the northeast.

    It is not important whether Davis is working as an independent or at the behest of the Jonathan administration. The allegations are grave. The deaths and fall of northern towns are also grave. Our corporate security and prosperity are in danger. We should do the right thing and save this country from the barbarous hordes and their sponsors, whoever and wherever they are.

  • A TAN hypocrisy

    A TAN hypocrisy

    The president should call the group to order for double standards and flouting our laws

    They are known all over the country as the president’s foot soldiers. The presidency would openly confess to know nothing about them. In fact, in the light of the slow lynching of the Ebola virus, a directive emanated from the chamber of the highest office of the land that no campaigns should hold in favour or in the name of President Goodluck Jonathan.

    Yet it is obeyed in the negative. In Ibadan, a crowd gathered in which a festive atmosphere emphasised the hypocrisy of the project. The President’s chief of staff, Brigadier-General Jones Oladeinde Arogbofa, secretary to the government of the federation, Anyim Pius Anyim, and a few other top fliers of the Jonathan administration, including the agriculture minister, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, showed up. Were they defying the president’s order or they wanted to demonstrate their love in the breach?

    The organisers are called the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria, TAN, and they are seen as the successors of the peacock Neighbour to Neighbour that underlined the 2011 campaigns. There is no doubt that for a decent society a lot is wrong with these campaigns, one of the most obscene being the one held about a week ago in the Rivers State capital, Port Harcourt.

    First, the president on whose behalf or dubious honour this campaign is conducted has not uttered a word of restraint, if not condemnation for this so-called open defiance of his order not to undertake campaigns in the light of the Ebola tragedies and the open rampages of the Boko Haram sect in Borno State. It pays no honour or tribute to the integrity of a leader where he says one thing and his aides do another, especially when the something is a campaign that serves his private and selfish aim.

    If the president was truthful, he should have restrained them after the first campaign. That is granting that it was a sort of house ‘coup’ for the boss. But it took on another dimension in another festivity in Port Harcourt. This is a city where panic overtook with an Ebola eruption of suspected cases of infected citizens. This same presidency that asked Nigerians to eschew gatherings to forestall the spread of Ebola infections inspired a big rally where contact of such potential contagion was possible. This was, to say the least, insensitive not only of the presidency but also all the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stalwarts that attended.

    The other sin was that the high rollers of the Jonathan administration could not distinguish the high office from its partisan entanglements. In Ibadan, minister Adesina danced with gusto, but his position is not as lofty as that of finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who also was unmistakable in the front row of the celebrators of Jonathan in Port Harcourt. She is also signposted in this administration as the coordinating minister of the economy. In the 2012 Democratic Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, that picked President Barack Obama for his second term, the treasury secretary Tim Geithner was absent. By tradition, he was not expected to be there because only one treasury secretary has ever attended it in the history of the party conventions in the United States. Hilary Clinton was absent because she was secretary of state and the statutes forbade her to show any overt or subtle partisanship.  The same applied to the positions of attorney general and secretary of defence. These positions are too sensitive to be sullied by partisanship. Yet Okonjo-Iweala would cavort with full PDP gear.

    The TAN group also peddled fraud in order to boost its profile. It claimed to have amassed signatures of millions of Nigerians who endorsed Jonathan. Apart from announcing that over 8,000 groups have lined up behind President Jonathan, it regionalised its endorsers. From the southeast, it claimed to have secured 1.6 million persons, in the south-south 4.15 and in the southwest 1.8 million. These statistics have been exposed as fraudulent and signatures garnered from several Nigerians seeking employment. This is cynical and irresponsible. The numbers, on the other hand, are an indictment of the failures of the Jonathan administration. It cannot give jobs but it can turn the numbers of the jobless into boosters for his campaigns.

    What is most unacceptable about this group is that it is carrying out these rallies against the electoral laws of the land. The campaigns have not been opened by the statute books, so the least area of campaigns should be the president himself. This is impunity. We have seen campaigns months past on television screens comparing the president to some of the world’s great leaders. This laugh that is laughing at itself reflects an imbecility in high places.

    Some families are hurting from the spread of Ebola. In the north, insecurity lurks every home even as the Boko Haram sect is turning our military into a laughing stock, besting them as they beat retreat. A smaller nation that should cry to us for help has done better in fighting the militants than our own soldiers.

    Those are the issues of transformation, and not the partisan obsession of TAN. When the time for campaign comes, TAN can go full throttle.

  • Ebolaphobia

    Ebolaphobia

    •We need to educate Nigerians not to see every sick person as EVD victim so as to save lives

    Tragically, the fear of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in the country is proving to be as dangerous and deadly as the condition itself. Two sad incidents during the week, coincidentally on the same day, September 2, should justifiably heighten concern about the negative effect and potentially counter-productive consequence of the EVD crisis on the society.

    When the British Deputy High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr. Peter Leslie Carter, slumped and died at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, it was perhaps the wrong moment, given the tension in the country on account of the Ebola viral challenge and the calculated avoidance of contact with others, particularly sick people, which the health emergency has tended to encourage among the populace. Carter, who arrived aboard a United Airlines flight from Houston, Texas, USA, reportedly showed signs of distress after disembarking, and clutched his chest, calling for help.  An eye-witness was quoted as saying: “He was shouting help! Help! And then slumped; people did not want to go near initially because of the Ebola scare that has been in town.”

    It is possible that Carter could have survived if help had reached him more speedily, although a statement by the Federal Ministry of Health, Port Health Services presented the case as an unfortunate instance of unavoidable death. As part of the unit’s response to the development, the statement said, “Efforts were made to administer oxygen, while a second doctor was called and suction applied via a suction machine to clear the airway…Subsequently, the patient suffered a cardio-pulmonary arrest…Attempts at resuscitation proved abortive.”

    Without doubt, this regrettable death has brought bad publicity for the country in an adverse season; and the undesirable impression was reinforced by another death in perhaps similar circumstances that suggested a critical fear-induced delay in attending professionally and properly to a sick individual.

    In the second case, an unnamed man was taken by port health officials from the same airport to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba, Lagos. A doctor who was on duty at the time was quoted as saying: “They rushed him to the Accident and Emergency Unit, and since he was vomiting and purging and he also had high fever, we quickly took his temperature, it was very high. We were all scared to take his blood samples because we were not wearing any Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).”

    The man eventually died. Revealingly, the doctor admitted: “We could not manage him effectively because of the severity of the symptoms we saw and considering the fact that he was coming from the airport. He could have been coming from an Ebola-affected country.” Even more tragic in this case is the fact that it was later established that the patient had no history of Ebola or any contact with a person who had Ebola.

    It is most disturbing that the scale of panic and paranoia engendered by the climate of EVD dread has not only affected even health workers but has also seemingly paralysed their ability to provide life-saving health services. In this connection, it is apt to consider the issue of PPE, which possibly proved decisive in the LUTH case. It is a condemnable reflection of inadequate containment measures in such a high-profile public health institution. There is absolutely no question that the major public hospitals should be well-equipped to investigate patients with a view to determining whether they have Ebola without endangering the lives of the health personnel.

    Furthermore, as evidenced by the circumstances that led to these deaths, the health authorities need to step up public enlightenment to address the unhealthy social apprehension that makes it possible for every sick person to be unfairly viewed with suspicion. The burden of dealing with mass uneasiness triggered by the July 25 death of Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian-American who was the first patient to succumb to EVD in the country, cannot be easy; and with seven EVD deaths from 18 cases and 296 people under surveillance, the education campaign must be taken more seriously to ease the fears of the people.

  • Our civil defence

    Our civil defence

    •The death of Citizen Babalola allegedly caused by the security agents should be probed

    For an organisation with the motto: “defending the defenceless”, one would naturally expect officials of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) to be more civil in the line of duty. But the conduct of some of its officials that eventually led to the death of a 37-year-old accountancy graduate of the University of Lagos, Babalola Felix, last month, is a sharp contrast to this motto. The civil defence men were on a mission to rid the Meckwen Bridge, Victoria Island, Lagos State area of hoodlums. In the process, confusion set in as people around fled in different directions when they saw the security operatives.

    Unfortunately for Babalola who also joined the fleeing crowd, he slipped as he was running through a side of the bridge, and fell into the lagoon.

    The tragedy is not just that Babalola died; the real tragedy lies in the circumstances under which he died. As it is with anyone drowning against his will, Babalola struggled to live; he made up his mind to come out of the water and be arrested if it must get to that, instead of drowning. It was a hard decision he had to make in a split second to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea. But, in what was clearly a case of man’s inhumanity to man, some of the civil defence men preferred him drowned. Not only did they prevent people from rescuing him, one of them reportedly pointed a gun at him, threatening to shoot if he tried to come out of the water.

    It is sad to note that the Babalola family is a victim of everything that is bad and ugly in Nigeria. Here was a young man who struggled to send himself to school and even after graduating from the university and could not get a job, was assisted by his uncle to start selling recharge cards. A country where things work would not have left its youths to rot away the way Babalola did after going through the rigours of university education. He did not take to crime like some of his colleagues would. Now, he has died like a common criminal.

    His younger sister who is a student at the Kwara State College of Health Technology, Offa, had also sold recharge cards in the area before proceeding to the school for further studies. She is apparently financing her education with the proceeds of the business. Then their aged mother who had eye problem and had been assured by Babalola that he would fund her treatment as soon as he made enough money to do that. Sensing that her hope was gone, the poor woman passed out immediately she was told about her son’s death.

    We wonder why all manner of people will bear arms in a country where life means so little to some of our law enforcement agents. Our security agents should be trained such that they would know the implications of their actions. It was a similar incident that set the chain of reactions that culminated in the Arab Spring in 2010, which was sparked by the first protests that occurred in Tunisia on December 18, in Sidi Bouzid, following Mohammed Bouazizi’s self-immolation in protest of police corruption and ill treatment.

    The least the Nigerian state owes Babalola and his family is a thorough investigation of this matter with a view to ensuring justice for them. We know that nothing can be done to bring the dead back to life, but when the matter is investigated and culprits prosecuted and, if culpable, punished, it would send the right signal to other people in uniform who abuse their privileged positions. We have had more than enough of police brutality; we have had more than enough of military brutality. It would be suicidal to add that of the civil defence.

  • Ebola: Keep our schools shut!

    Ebola: Keep our schools shut!

    With the deadly Ebola virus in our land the federal government had shifted the resumption of schools from its earlier September date to October 13. Which was the proper thing to do. But after its meeting on Wednesday the September 14, it said schools may be able to resume in September.

    Since the date was moved to October 13, private school owners have continued to lobby for resumption of schools. Nigeria is a land of lobbyists. But not only them, those parents who cannot spend quality time with their children. A colleague once said “private schools are paid to let parents rest”. But while on my annual leave, I have enjoyed the “noise” of my two boys and watched both of them struggle to ride piggyback on me. They are safe here with me! But may not be if the federal government stops listening to its heart instead of its head!

    The health of our children and the entire nation is going to be sacrificed on the altar of money! If those private schools’ owners were given billions of naira monthly to keep their schools shut forever, they will go to the Caribbean for holiday while praising the government.

    We must know that the structure we have in privately owned schools is different from what we have in many public schools.

    Many public schools in towns and some so-called cities are over-crowded ramshackle. Some don’t have seats, while some use blocks as desks! Some even have classes under a tree! Some of the children are malnourished with poor immune system. Some have ring worms on their scalp and many other skin infections. We have not talked about the ones in remote villages! These children will go back to schools when there are fresh Ebola cases! They will go back to schools when those under surveillance are on the run! Only a morally depraved government and people can even consider that!

    We are still lucky things did not get out of control. In worst hit countries, it is not only schools that were closed but hospitals.

    Commentators have cynically called Nigerians’ mode the “panic mode”. But this is what we have used to contain the virus so far. And we won’t stop being in this mode. The word is eternal vigilance. Since my children have been at home they have not had a fever. But during school they are more prone to disease from other children, including mosquito bites. As long as fresh cases of Ebola are being reported now, if schools resume now, you are no longer in control of your children. Every time your children get back home, it’s no longer the same!

    Whether we like it or not Ebola has tasked all of us and our healthcare system, and it will still have a long-term effect. We must all be ready to adjust ourselves to the situation we have in our land. We now live in perilous times!

    From now till October 13, or even somewhere after that we would have known the prognosis of the new Ebola cases in Port Harcourt, and all those who are now under surveillance would have completed their statutory 21 days and we hope they would be truthful enough to tell us if they have visited other states! And those on the run would have come to their senses!

    Dr Adadevoh sacrificed her life for this cause! Anyone who dies now after Adedevoh had died will hurt her where she is. But a little more sacrifice from all of us will go a long way in ensuring that she and others who died that we may live did not die in vain.

    Why the hurry to resume schools? Even the Health Minister Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu himself warned: “We have not eliminated the disease! We have not eradicated it!”

    So far no child has contracted the Ebola virus. At least our tomorrow is preserved! But we can still keep them safer. With Ebola, you can never be too careful. But if the federal government out of sentiments decides to make schools resume hurriedly and God forbids Ebola strikes again and it is traceable to schools, the blood of those who die thereafter will be on the federal government, and those selfish private school owners!

    • Dr Cosmas Odoemena

    Lagos.

     

  • In the cooler

    In the cooler

    •Is the Presidency seeking to wish away the revised revenue formula?

    Why has the Presidency hedged so blatantly in receiving the report of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) on the proposed revised national revenue formula? For a report which has been ready since the beginning of the year, it is either that President Goodluck Jonathan has no interest in it or that he does not understand the import of activating such a crucial national document.

    According to media reports, after two years of gruelling work which included touring all the zones of the federation and parleying with stakeholders across the country, the RMAFC had concluded work on the revised national revenue allocation since last December and has since conveyed the report to the Federal Executive Council (FEC).

    However, the commission has not been able to formally present it to the president even though it is an agency under the Presidency. Unlike the just concluded National Conference which was able to hand in its report to the president almost immediately, RMAFC has been unable to be scheduled for a presentation. A formal presentation is necessary in this part of the world because, without it, a report is practically non-existent.

    This has set observers worrying that something must be amiss. The reason is that it is a well known fact that at the heart of Nigeria’s structural and fiscal imbalance is the subsisting lopsided and inequitable federal revenue sharing formula.  Though Nigeria supposedly practises federalism in which the federating units are deemed to be equal partners, over the years, the reality has been an aberration in which the centre has become a much too dominant member.

    Though the constitution stipulates at least a five-yearly review of the revenue formula, the last exercise was 22 years ago, while two modifications were effected in 2002 and 2004 to align relevant sections of the Federation Account Act to the 1999 constitution. But the constitution, having envisaged the need for justice, equity and fairness in the distribution of the resources accruing from the federation,  entrenched the need for periodic review in order to capture any emerging economic and socio-political dynamics that may be thrown up from time to time.

    However, it is only understandable that since RMAFC is under the ambit of the Federal Government and the current formula seems quite favourable to it, it would be convenient to keep it so. This must explain why for more than two decades, what ought to be a routine constitutional obligation enshrined to keep the system fit and healthy was jettisoned by successive administrations. The Federal Government being the first tier and wielding some administrative influence over the commission had ensured that this unsavoury status-quo remained.

    There is no doubt that the current sharing formula is not sustainable. It allows 52.68 per cent of revenue for the Federal Government; 26.72 per cent to be shared by the 36 states and 20.60 for the 774 local government areas. The Federal Government, with more than half of national revenue – a hefty chunk by all standards – must have grown used to spending big and living large, thus would naturally loath to be pruned down. But the obvious result of this current state of affairs is stunted growth and warped development. One example is the fact that the Federal Government has in the last decade, consistently devoted three quarters of its annual budget to recurrent expenditure whereas the reverse is the case for most states which spend at least 60 per cent of their budget on capital expenditure.

    Though we acknowledge that the states control the local governments and this third tier has gotten the short end of the stick, all these only lend credence to the call for urgent review of the current formula. We urge the president to hasten to receive the report of the review of the revenue sharing formula and set all necessary machinery in motion for its speedy implementation in the national interest.

     

  • 2015 Card readers

    2015 Card readers

    •INEC should deploy the device to make crooked elections straight

    The blight of credible elections has been quite traumatic for the country. For years, the voter’s wish had always been submerged in the context of rigging that has made nonsense of elections in the country. And Professor Attahiru Jega, Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), saddled with election planning and management sometime ago gave a hint of his determination to prove that the commission will do everything possible to conduct reliable, free and fair general elections in 2015.

    His bright spark is the proposed deployment of card readers on the day of elections by the commission. Jega unfurled this in a paper titled: “Stakeholders and the Electoral Process in Nigeria” that he delivered at a lecture at the Department of Sociology, University of Lagos, in which he reportedly declared: “If you buy voter cards, you can’t use them on voting day because the mechanism we are putting in place in every polling unit will detect fraud and whoever that was involved will be arrested on the spot for electoral fraud and prosecution.” The goal of this scheme, according to him, is to ensure that those card readers detect voter’s impersonation at polling units through their fingerprints.

    We are aware of the efficacy of a card reader being data input device that reads data from a card-shaped storage medium. These electronic devices can read plastic cards embedded with either a barcode, magnetic strip, computer chip like the Permanent Voter Card (PVC) that is just being distributed to Nigerians of registered voting age. The PVC is a chip-based card and contains a chip that carries all details and information about each registered voter, including his photograph and fingerprints, amongst others. If properly managed and made available in polling units across the country, the card reader machines will effortlessly ensure authentication of legitimate holder of voters’ cards; thereby mitigating incidents of voting irregularities that Nigeria has become legendary for on issues of election and abuse of voters’ cards.

    The question to ask is whether INEC will not bungle the otherwise lofty scheme. We recollect that during the 2011 general elections, the Data Capturing Machines (DCM) deployed by the commission became nightmares and most actually got jettisoned in most voting centres across the country due to the notorious but avoidable ‘Nigerian factor’. Perhaps, the electoral umpire must invest in human capital by ensuring that its staff are properly trained and accorded the right orientation to prevent unscrupulous ones amongst them from derailing the electoral process through criminal compromise of the machines and by extension, the electoral process. The election management prowess of INEC has largely been doubted and mostly ridiculed in the past because its staff often fall for the alluring inducement offers of desperate politicians.

    Equally, by Jega’s admission, using the January/February 2011 voters’ registration exercise, Nigeria has about 73.5 million voters. It is not cheering news to note that the commission plans to give PVCs to only about 40 million registered voters out of the 73.5million by December, while it intends to distribute the balance early next year. This, uncomfortably, is less than two months to the general election.

    Beyond this, INEC must endeavour to make this initiative work. The commission needs to realise that the card reader machines will be useless without the commission’s speedy and efficient issuance of the PVC to qualified voters. The two are crucial to the success of the new initiative by the commission.