The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • Killer labels

    Killer labels

    • Food firms that fail to label their products appropriately must be penalised before they kill Nigerians

    Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) seems to have its job cut out for it with the disclosure that most food manufacturing companies in the country are yet to comply with recommendation to adopt the Nigerian Heart Foundation (NHF) Heart Check Food Labelling Programme that was introduced in 1988. This is a thing that is taken for granted in many parts of the world: people who buy any manufactured food item know the contents of what they bought and are about to consume. Why is such policy yet to take root here, more than 26 years after it was introduced in the country? Why would consumers just eat or drink without knowing the composition of what they are consuming, not to talk of its health implications for them?

    Emeritus Professor of Medicine, Professor Oladipo Akinkugbe, painted a grim picture of the situation when he said in Lagos that out of 300 Nigerian food manufacturing companies, only five have so far adopted the NHF recommendation. Akinkugbe, who is President, Board of Trustees of the NHF spoke during the formal endorsement of Power Oil, a product of Raffles LFTZ (Dufil), Nigeria.

    The NHF’s labelling programme is a systematic endorsement of food items certifying them healthy for consumption and heart friendly, with emphasis on low fats and cholesterol, low sodium and low glucose. As Akinkugbe noted, “It means eating the right amount of foods that are heart–healthy and nutritious, which is part of the global strategy to reducing non- communicable diseases (NCDs), including heart diseases, cancer and diabetes mellitus”.

    If only five of 300 food manufacturing companies in the country are complying with the recommendation, the implication is that Nigerians are exposed to a high number of unhealthy food products, which is bad not only for the individual but for the nation. As they say, ‘a healthy people is a healthy nation’. Already, experts fear the failure or refusal to label food, is responsible for cardiovascular diseases among Nigerians.

    In a country where these diseases and stroke are prevalent, food products such as vegetable oil, water, beverages, fruit juices and fish necessarily have to carry the heart-friendly logo. Consumption of food products carrying such logo will help in halting the spread of the diseases, even as it improves the welfare of those already afflicted by them. If heart disease is the number one killer disease and is responsible for the drop in life expectancy in Nigeria and Africa as a whole, it is important that we check the trend by creating awareness and sensitise both manufacturers in the food and beverage industries and the consumers to the importance of reformulations and marketing of foods which are heart–healthy.

    We join the health experts in calling for immediate mandatory requirement of heart check food labelling in the country. Specifically, we identify with the NHF position that heart check food labelling should no longer be voluntary, especially as we have witnessed increasing reluctance on the part of those concerned to voluntarily comply with the requirement.

    We are however not oblivious that there are challenges that have to be overcome for the dream of enforcing the heart-friendly foods to come true. These include the dearth of analytical laboratories to carry out detailed food analysis as stipulated by international requirements. These laboratories have to be provided for the policy to work. We look forward to the time when poor dietary manners will be corrected in the country, and heart-friendly food products will dominate the Nigerian market.

  • Bad move on Jonathan Pollard

    Bad move on Jonathan Pollard

    The emergence of the convicted spy Jonathan Pollard as a bargaining chip in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations is a lamentable sign of America’s desperation to keep both sides talking. Peace between Israelis and Palestinians can be achieved only if they want it for themselves, something that is very much in doubt right now.

    An Obama administration proposal to free Mr. Pollard, an American intelligence analyst serving a life sentence after spying for Israel, as a political gesture toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is a bad idea and would do nothing to advance progress on the core issues of a peace deal.

    After nine months of talks, there is no sign of progress on any of these issues. In addition, Israel has refused to follow through on a promise made in July to free 104 prisoners in four groups in exchange for a Palestinian vow to refrain from pressing the statehood issue in United Nations agencies and the International Criminal Court.

    Mr. Netanyahu and other Israelis have long demanded the release Mr. Pollard, who has spent nearly 30 years in prison; the Americans have long resisted. He is up for parole next year and said to be ailing, so it might conceivably be worth releasing him early if it could help Mr. Netanyahu take the leap on a truly big decision, like a final peace agreement. But releasing him as a small-bore tactical step to persuade Israel to do what it had already promised? That is not a price worth paying.

    The Americans have proposed that Israel free more prisoners and show restraint in building in the West Bank. But the proposal would not prohibit new construction in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians consider their future capital. The Palestinians were asked to extend peace talks into 2015 and refrain from moves at the United Nations.

    Frantic diplomacy, including two trips to Israel in a week by Secretary of State John Kerry, has not salvaged the talks. On Tuesday, Israel reissued a call for bids on more than 700 housing units in Jerusalem, and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, took concrete steps to join 15 international agencies. Keeping Mr. Pollard on the bargaining table won’t salvage the talks either.

     

    – New York Times

  • Looted funds

    Looted funds

    •Countries where they are stashed should not hide under legal niceties to keep the money

    The United States and other countries should remit monies seized from businesses linked with the late General Sani Abacha now.

    The recent action by the United States government to make companies linked to funds looted from Nigeria by the late military Head of State forfeit such assets is welcome. In an action filed before a district court in Washington, the American government asked that the said fund, about $500 billion, be forfeited and served notice that the Nigerian justice ministry should file necessary papers to assist in repatriating same to the country. We hope the United States would not hide behind legal niceties to continue holding on to the stolen assets.

    While we welcome the moves, we note that neither the American government, nor the Federal Ministry of Justice has done enough to ensure that the money is recovered and duly used for promoting the growth and development of the Nigerian economy. It is 16 years since General Abaca died, and almost 15 since civilians took over from the military, yet, not much has been done to retrieve the funds to reflate the Nigerian economy; rather it is being expended since then to further stabilise other countries.

    Countries that are noted to be repositories of the Abacha loot include Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, France, United Kingdom, United States, France and Switzerland. The only one known to have cooperated in recovering the money stashed away in its banks is Switzerland.

    It does no good to the image of a country that pontificates on corruption and transparency but encourages corrupt leaders to bleed their countries’ treasuries, thus depriving them use of their resource endowments and keeping such countries perpetually poor. Of the 10 most corrupt leaders ever, Nigeria’s Abacha was number four and the Nigerian funds he looted has been put at two to five billion dollars. This is about N800 billion, which is more than the annual budget of seven of the country’s poorest states.

    It is unfortunate that the Federal Ministry of Finance has failed to satisfactorily account for recoveries so far and the use to which they have been committed. This is however no excuse for the United States, United Kingdom, France and other economic powers to sit on the looted funds.

    We restate our consistent call on the federal and state governments to be more transparent and prudent in financial management. The people deserve to have the full details of looted funds, the countries to which they have been traced, efforts being made at recovery, the level of cooperation by the beneficiaries of the loot and what has been done with what has been repatriated so far.

    In all other facets of life, government should deliberately promote openness as a means of growing local and international confidence in its activities. This would also help in mobilising the citizenry for development, and the international community in respecting Nigeria and Nigerians. The task before the Federal Government at this point is to improve the image and economic rating of the country. It is obvious that we missed previous marks because of the insincerity of successive governments. As the national planning ministry has said, the 20-20-20 Plan has failed again. What it did not say was that this government contributed largely to the failure.

  • Charity begins abroad

    Charity begins abroad

    •We support Nigerians in Diaspora’s plan to stage protests abroad over the country’s ills 

    Nigerians in the Diaspora appear set to lead the way in staging protests over the unpleasant developments back home. In a full page advertorial signed by one Ms Onyenye-Chukwu Okereke for Nigerians in Diaspora for Accountability, based in the United Kingdom, the group made reference to the recent revelations of an unremitted $20billion to the Federation Account by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), which led to the purported suspension of Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

    It also referred to the allegation that the petroleum minister, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, spent N10billion to hire and maintain private jets for her personal use.

    The group, which is apparently piqued by the Federal Government’s complacency in fighting corruption, made a clarion call on “… all Nigerians in Diaspora to prepare for a public protest in London and Washington DC, if the minister is not immediately sacked by the President”. The protests would take place at the Nigeria High Commission, Nigeria House, 9, Northumberland Avenue, London and the Nigerian Embassy in Washington DC at dates to be communicated soon by the group’s coordinators in both countries. Although the group noted that the group executive directors of the NNPC had been sacked, it believed, and rightly so, that they were not the issue. “If Diezani is not sacked to redeem the nation’s image and reverse the rot in the NNPC …” Nigerians in Diaspora have been fully mobilised to embarrass the minister whenever she is on any international assignment abroad.

    We fully back this initiative if only for the simple fact that Nigerians at home are becoming increasingly docile for comfort. Indeed, it is amazing the way they have become so passive about the developments in the country. Corruption has continued to worsen, leading inexorably to chronic underdevelopment, power supply remains epileptic as ever, the number of idle youths keeps increasing and there is general insecurity in the country.

    There are several other issues that ought to have brought Nigerians out of their shell, perhaps to the streets, to tell the government ‘no more’. One of these is the recent death of 19 applicants seeking employment into the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS). Nigeria is one of the few places where most of these strange things could be happening with the government going on with business as usual, and without anyone lifting a finger. It would appear that they have seen the worst of it all such that nothing shocks them again. This is bad for the country. So, if it takes this type of elixir by Nigerians in Diaspora for Accountability to make them alive to their responsibilities, so be it.

    Of course this would not be the first time that Nigerians outside of the country would be protesting against government’s policies and programmes at home. The 2012 fuel subsidy protests in the country were followed by such protests, first in London, from where it spread to parts of the United States and other countries, including South Africa, Ghana, Canada, Australia and Finland. Like the protests in the country, the protesters abroad also carried placards and sang, even as they spiced the protests with intermittent speeches in front of the Nigerian embassies in these countries and the International Monetary Fund office in Washington, as well as the UN headquarters in New York. The same thing happened during the efforts to revalidate the June 12, 1993 election result.

    Although with the advancement in IT, the world has become more or less a global village, such protests are not only symbolic, they also draw the unsavoury developments vividly home to the international community, in the hope that such externalisation of the issues could force the hands of government back home to do something about them.

  • Well done

    Well done

    • FIRS’ performance for 2013 is impressive, but there is always room for improvement

    In a year more remarkable for declining revenues– courtesy of the menace of oil theft and associated production shut-ins – the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) obviously has every reason to roll out the drums to celebrate a performance that could pass for sterling. Last week at a retreat in Abuja, FIRS acting executive chairman, Kabir Mashi, while giving his agency a pass mark, stated that it raked in N4.8trillion from taxes in 2013 –a leap of 7.56 percent over the preceding year’s haul of N4.46 trillion.

    In the breakdown, non-oil sources alone accounted for N2.139 trillion – a three percent shortfall from initial projection of N2.188 trillion. In terms of overall performance, the FIRS boss would also admit that it fell short of its target of N5.8 trillion by 17.18 percent.

    On the surface, the performance figure looks impressive. What the figure indicates is that the fruits of the massive reforms undertaken by the FIRS in the last few years have not only endured but have also assumed some degree of permanence. However interpreted, the trend would merely confirm the immense possibilities in the realm of taxation – of the vast potentials waiting to be harnessed for national development.

    Overall, we must say of the FIRS performance that it offers only cold comfort given that the dominant portion – indeed, close to 60 percent – of the entire tax revenue is inextricably linked to oil one way or the other.

    The FIRS can do exceedingly more provided the conditions are vastly improved. We recognise the main challenge as one of deepening and diversification of the economy – something beyond its remit. Unfortunately, without deliberate steps by the Federal Government to address the nation’s infrastructure challenge, the prospects of expanding the tax base would remain illusory.

    Just as there would always be room for improvement, the FIRS, has, in our view, demonstrated both the will and capacity to deliver on its mandate. Perhaps what is needed now is another look at its environment with a view to removing possible cogs impeding its progress.

    Obviously, one of the most important issues that would need to be addressed is the Santa Claus disposition of the Federal Government which allows billions of needed revenues to be thrown away via income tax exemptions every year under its omnibus quest for foreign direct investment. Just last week in Abuja, the African Civil Societies Organisation reported a Non Governmental Organisation – ActionAid – as putting the losses from statutory income tax exemptions of developing economies at $138 billion annually, even when the benefits of the exemptions remain to be seen.

    Even without the topsy-turvy experience of declining accruals into the federation account since the beginning of last year, particularly the scourge of oil theft said to have reduced oil export by nearly 20 percent, the nation would still have had to address in some comprehensive manner, the issue of tax and tariff exemptions. This is because the exemptions, aside draining the economy of needed revenue, are known to constrain the revenue agencies from performing their statutory functions. Worse still is that they have come to be associated with corruption and influence peddling at the highest quarters of government.

    A most notable illustration of this trend is the Nigeria Customs Service said to have issued waivers and exemptions of N1.4 trillion between 2010 and 2013 – as against the initial figure of N170 billion provided by Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Just as the benefits of the humongous waivers and exemptions to the economy remain to be seen, also noteworthy is that the Federal Government has not thought it fit to offer explanations for the huge discrepancies till date.

    Having proven what is possible, an agency like the FIRS obviously needs all the help it can get from government to help it succeed. The agency on its part should never see its work as done until all eligible taxpayers are brought into the tax net.

     

  • Importing power

    Importing power

    •Someday, we’ll import presidents!

     

    THe news came with bold, if not alarming headlines on the front pages of national newspapers last week. It said that Nigeria may have found a remedy to her seeming intractable power headaches; she would soon begin to import electricity from the central African state of the Democratic Republic of Congo, (Congo DR, formerly Zaire).

    Though information was limited and scanty on such a major strategic move, the Minister of State for Power, Mohammed Wakil, who made the revelation at an investors’ conference organised by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) in Abuja last week, noted specifically that, “Nigeria is in bilateral and multilateral relationships at various stages of advancement with other governments for the importation and exportation of power. For example, Nigeria has signed a MoU (memorandum of understanding) with Democratic Republic of Congo for the importation of electricity from the Inga Dam Power Plants for both local consumption and export to other countries.

    “The Inga is envisaged to exceed 40,000 mw on full exploitation. TCN network spreads to all parts of the country and across the border to some neighbouring countries to form part of the West African Power Pool, (WAPP). With the realisation of Inga and other initiatives, Nigeria will become a regional hub in international electricity trade, exporting large swathes of internally generated as well as imported power to WAPP countries”.

    Most Nigerians who are for decades, hapless victims of what has become Nigeria’s electric power conundrum would only chuckle cynically at Minister Wakil’s seeming oversized ambition. Since the current civilian dispensation in 1999, successive Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governments have been embroiled in efforts to provide the populace a modicum of reasonable electricity supply but the harder they try, the worse the power supply situation gets. Of course, the situation not helped by a mixture of rampant graft, ineptitude and a total lack of patriotic zeal has left Nigeria in more prolonged darkness today than before 1999.

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s eight-year rule supposedly spent billions of dollars on power projects billed to generate at least 10,000 megawatts by 2007. But by the time he left office, generation had dropped below the old level of about 3,000 megawatts. The Goodluck Jonathan administration, after pumping even more dollars into the power cesspit, eventually privatised the generating and distribution arms, a process that was completed November last year. If anything has changed for the consumers, it is the fact that service has worsened as outages have become persistent and longer.

    The lingering troubles seem to obviate the suspicion that the divestment was less than transparent and that party stalwarts may have hijacked the process. The new owners, it has been revealed are badly exposed to banks and do not have new funds to invest. Therefore, they cannot add much value. We are still bedevilled by the perennial problems of low water level at the dams during the dry season, breakdowns at the antiquated thermal plants and more recently, lack of gas supply and vandalism.

    For about a decade now the gas brouhaha has lingered. Some gas-powered plants have been built without the provision for gas; thus a few plants like Geregu are ready and no gas to fire them. Transmission has also remained an albatross as improvements are not made on infrastructure network over the years. Today, Nigeria’s electricity generation, transmission and distribution is in a miasma. At the lowest ebb; yet we speak so glibly about importing power.

    It is under this confused milieu that we are signing a MoU with Congo DR to import electricity. Several questions are begging for answer: are we handing over our strategic national facility to another country? How much are we going to invest? What is the cost of transmitting power across about five countries? Are we not perturbed that we are already importing petroleum products from Cote D’Ivoire and Niger Republic; we also import most of our staple food, do we have to import power too? How come Nigeria, the ‘giant of Africa’ is the one importing power? What else are we going to import?

  • Another wasteful proposal

    Another wasteful proposal

    •Fed Govt wants to allocate another N167bn to fight oil theft?

    THE government of President Goodluck Jonathan will never cease to amaze on its share scale of corruption and waste. When his party men and media handlers deny that his government is clueless, we always wonder whether they just came into town. The latest of his blundering is the President’s claim that his government will fight oil theft with $1billion. He spoke at a meeting in The Hague, with the Netherland’s Prime Minister, Mark Rutte. This is the same government that had awarded former Niger-Delta militants and sundry other warlords humongous contracts to guard national oil pipelines. In all this misadventure, Nigeria still boasts of the strongest military in the sub-region.

    So, we ask, is it not the responsibility of the military to guard the country’s territorial integrity and national assets? Or is the government saying that our military lacked the capacity to fight the perennial excuse of oil theft accounting for our dwindling oil revenue? If in 2014, nearly N1trillion has been budgeted for national security, what is this assertion by the President that $1billion (about N167bn) will be used to fight oil theft, meant to convey? Would it not be fair to say that Nigerians have not been told the real objective for this presidential brief? Unless the government takes up this challenge and offers reasonable account, would it not be fair for the President’s political opponents to see this as a money laundering effort of this government in preparation for the 2015 elections?

    President Jonathan’s presidency has been associated with kleptocracy, and by its everyday conduct, it is as if his government is determined to take the gold medal in this category. Regrettably, corruption has become accentuated under Jonathan’s watch, and it is perpetuated through processes such as the bogus project of fighting oil theft, by security contractors that have no idea of what they have been handsomely overpaid to do. The glaring example is the unreasonable award of oil-pipeline security contracts to ex-militants, who have otherwise been over-compensated for raising-up arms against the state.

    As we warned at the onset of that misadventure, the idea of asking elements who had engaged in oil industry sabotage as a means of political protest, to protect our pipelines was unreasonable. Indeed, the security contract awarded to the ex-militants can be likened to surrendering one’s patrimony to a neighbourhood brigand, just to pacify him. There is the possibility that you may have provided the thief, a complete cover to comprehensively steal to his heart’s desire, without any fear of interference. Whether the oil-pipeline contractors are fighting the oil thieves or they have become accomplices, we may never know. But what is glaring is that under their care, our oil revenue has continued to plummet, while they smile to the banks as the protectors of the oil pipelines.

    Now, despite the failure of this misadventure, which many Nigerians forewarned against, President Jonathan has again set out on another wasteful proposal. We hope that the National Assembly will have the courage to stop this expensive gambit. As we have maintained on this shameful surrender to criminality in the oil industry, the Nigerian military should be mobilised to discharge their constitutional responsibility.

    If more resources are needed to guard oil pipelines that run within our national territory, then the resources should be spent on the Nigerian military. We condemn the resort to questionable security retainers, who are part of the problem, as the solution to the problem. As we have seen, even among the emergency security contractors, disagreements and sabotage is rife. We hope it is not too late for the government to retrace her steps.

  • Temptation

    Temptation

    •President Jonathan must resist acting illegally in states under emergency

    AS the politicking intensifies ahead of the 2015 general elections, the administration of President Jonathan must be very careful to ensure that it does not engage in actions that could further aggravate tensions in an already-volatile polity.

    Such caution is especially important, given the allegations of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) that the Federal Government is contemplating the removal of the governors of Adamawa, Yobe and Borno states under the guise of its fight against the Boko Haram insurgency in north-eastern Nigeria. Apparently, the plan is to declare a total state of emergency in those states, making the removal of the governors a necessary corollary of that action.

    If indeed the Jonathan administration is considering such a move, it would be a disastrous mistake. In 2004, former President Olusegun Obasanjo declared a state of emergency in Plateau State and removed the-then governor, Chief Joshua Dariye, replacing him with General Chris Alli (rtd.). In 2006, Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State was also removed and replaced by retired General Tunji Olurin. The unconstitutionality of both moves was widely condemned, regardless of the alleged culpability and incompetence of the politicians involved. The imposition of unelected outsiders also failed to resolve the crises for which they had been brought in.

    Given the patent illegality of such unconstitutional removals, it is a surprise that the Federal Government would even contemplate it. This is, after all, an administration which had ostentatiously promised to adhere strictly to the rule of law at all times. Indeed, it did start off on an admirable note: the prompt acceptance of electoral tribunal verdicts which did not favour it were widely applauded across the political spectrum.

    It was, however, a false dawn. As President Jonathan became more deeply entrenched in office, it appears that he has been readier to embark on riskier ventures. This was signalled by his infamous “I don’t give a damn” response to enquiries on publicising his declaration of assets in June 2012. It was followed up by an increasingly inexplicable refusal to come to grips with egregious cases of corruption and unethical conduct within his administration: the pension scam, the oil subsidy fraud, the armoured-cars fiasco, the Malabu Oil scandal, and most recently, the U.S. $20.9 billion case.

    Rather than come to grips with these issues, the president has chosen an unworkable strategy of dissimulation instead. Promises are made, and committees and panels are set up, not to get to the bottom of the matter, but to cynically buy time until the public memory is distracted by yet another scandal or crisis. When concerned citizens and groups point out the unhelpfulness of such measures, they are lambasted in the most intemperate terms.

    It is against this background of an increasing readiness to fight dirty that the state of emergency gambit must be seen. For a government that has become notorious for dodging hard questions and for privileging symbolism over substance, getting rid of those it cannot legitimately confront is an obvious course of action.

    Such action would be tragically wrong. It would divert attention away from a failing anti-terror campaign by needlessly inflaming political passions. The tension that would be consequently generated can only aid the Boko Haram insurgents. It would hamper cooperation with other governors, who would be naturally resentful of the cavalier treatment of their colleagues. And as the Obasanjo experiment has shown, the chances of resolving the fundamental issues would remain as slim as ever.

    The Jonathan administration must remember that political opposition is the lifeblood of democracy. Disagreement is not manifested for its own sake, but as part of the completion of ideas which puts incumbent governments on their toes. Rather than attack those who point out the problem, it makes far more sense to address the problem itself.

  • Obama attempts a new start with EU

    Obama attempts a new start with EU

    • In response to Ukraine crisis, transatlantic unity is vital

    Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea has challenged what many assumed was a self-evident truth: that borders in Europe cannot be changed by force. Barack Obama was right to point this out in his speech in Brussels on Wednesday. What was left unsaid is that the Ukraine crisis has brought the leaders of the US and EU together in a way that could scarcely have been imagined even a few months ago.

    Twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, transatlantic co-operation has faltered amid mutual suspicion and frustration. The US still believes the EU’s management of the euro crisis has been bedevilled by laborious decision-making, political division and narrow self-interest. On the defence front, Washington has long been concerned at the way Europeans are cutting military spending in response to domestic budgetary pressures, leaving the Pentagon to do the heavy lifting inside Nato. EU leaders, for their part, have been incensed by revelations of spying by the US security agencies, notably by the bugging of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone. Prominent Europeans bluntly assert that the US can no longer be trusted.

    President Obama’s speech was therefore a timely opportunity for the US to restate the importance of the transatlantic relationship and reassert an old truth that America remains a European power. Or, as he put it, Nato nations never stand alone. Much of his speech focused on the immediate challenges Russia poses to the west and the need to isolate Mr Putin politically. More broadly, he correctly restated how the US and Europe stand together in the promotion of freedom and democracy.

    Mr Obama scored some other notable points. It was absurd for Russia to claim the US was conspiring with fascists in Ukraine. He also observed that Russia could not achieve security, prosperity and status through brute force. Those rhetorical flourishes aside, the president and his EU counterparts now need to look to deepen the newfound transatlantic unity.

    First, the US must recognise that Europeans, and other allies, have become less confident in its willingness to engage. Mr Obama has created the impression that he is a domestic policy president. Within Nato, in particular, the US will now need to spend money, time and capability to underscore that Washington regards the defence of Europe’s eastern perimeter as non-negotiable.

    Europe also has much to do to regain American trust. The EU has the economic and political mass to be a global player. But in response to Russia’s new and aggressive actions, EU members need to halt the precipitous decline in defence spending. The bloc as a whole also needs to acquire much greater strategic coherence in foreign affairs, especially in its stance towards the Kremlin.

    There is a special responsibility for Ms Merkel, Europe’s most powerful figure. In the Ukraine crisis, she is for the first time emerging as a leader on security matters. But Germany needs to start shouldering more responsibility within Nato, abandoning its traditional comfort zones and taking its seat at the high table along with the UK and France.

    Dealing with the Ukraine crisis is the major challenge ahead. If Mr Putin engages in more aggressive action over Ukraine, the US and EU must impose sanctions in lock step. Over time, they must also collaborate to reduce Europe’s energy dependence on Russia, if necessary through the export of US shale gas to Europe.

    In Brussels, Mr Obama, as ever, struck the right tone. Now comes the hard part – not the resumption of a new cold war but a hard-headed, patient and unified approach to an unpredictable adversary who is bent on rapidly restoring Russia’s influence in his neighbourhood.

    – Financial Times

  • Diezani squandering

    Diezani squandering

    Nigeria cannot sustain this minister’s taste 

    DiezanI Alison-Madueke, Minister of Petroleum Resources’ flamboyance has become burdensome on the nation’s till. At a time the government she serves wants Nigerians to believe, erroneously, that fuel subsidy cannot be sustained, she was caught engaging in lifestyle that is tantamount to financial philandering by the House of Representatives.

    Representative Samuel Babatunde Adejare gave legislative seal to what has for months been a speculation in public domain through a motion titled: “Urgent need to investigate the waste of resources on the arbitrary charter and maintenance of a Challenger 850 aircraft for non-official use.” The legislator puts it succinctly: “In these days of scarce national resources where public finance is shrinking in the face of ever-increasing national needs…, an official of government could waste public funds on such luxury as chartering a Challenger 850 aircraft for extra official use … Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, has been committing 500,000 Euros (N130 million) monthly to maintain the aircraft, thus in two (2) years, the Minister had committed at least N3.120 billion in maintaining the private jet, which is used solely for her personal needs and those of her immediate family, which is an appalling act.”

    Surprisingly, while investigations into the wasteful spending was on-going, another jet, a Global Express XRS jet, ostensibly chartered and deployed specifically for Diezani’s additional private and official trips overseas, was uncovered. More alarming is that the return trip on this XRS jet is conservatively put at €600,000. This particular jet reportedly gulped N10billion in the last two years to fly the minister. She reportedly flew in the Global Express XRS twice in 2011 and also twice in 2013 on a return trip bill of €600,000(over N136 million) per trip. In two years, the woman had spent, just on two occasions for 2011 alone, not less than 1,200,000 Euros/over N270 million.

    Yet, the proclivity of the petroleum minister for flying in chartered jets seems insatiable because nobody seems officially bothered about her penchant for wasting public funds. A chronicle of such unnecessary travels include: travelling in a private jet at the cost of $300,000 while on a recent trip to South Africa with President Goodluck Jonathan: During the last Easter break, she reportedly flew a private jet to Dubai with members of her family at $300,000: She reportedly abhors attending meetings outside the country in commercial or presidential jets in the last two years and she has purportedly spent over N2billion on maintaining aircraft within the same period. She seems to derive pleasure in being the only minister of the Federal Republic that attends events with the President in private jets.

    The improvidence on mostly trips that were of no benefit to the country by the minister is abhorrent in a country where graduates routinely die in pursuit of elusive employment. Yet, scarce money was paid as allowances to foreign crews for the minister’s trips, this is aside payments for hangar parking and rents, among others. The profligate Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has denied chartering private jets for the minister’s personal use or that of her family, claiming that it had done so for official purposes for her and other officials on official assignments. The House of Representatives has to dig deep into this matter. It should be noted all the same that the world would have known of NNPC’s involvement in most of these shady transactions if only the corporation had not been keeping its books to its chest. The corporation reportedly spends $500,000 monthly in maintaining the Challenger 850 Visa Jet for her.

    President Jonathan owes Nigerians a duty to put a halt to Alison-Madueke’s financial transgressions. It has become pertinent for the president to let her, in unmistakably terms, understand that she is not above the provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act and other laws that demand economic discipline from Nigeria’s public officers. Her continuing unchecked proclivity for wasteful spending of public funds smacks of avoidable culture of impunity that certainly portends peril to the nation’s economic wellbeing. In better managed climes where public ethos is treated with sanctity, such a minister in such vital ministry would have become history.

    We expect nothing less from the president at this point in time because Alison-Madueke has amplified disdainful contempt for Nigerians whose oil she is paid to administer. She does not, till the present moment, deem it necessary to publicly answer to some of the grievous allegations against her. No doubt, she has failed woefully in effectively and transparently doing this job and she should not stay a day longer in office. What she has successfully displayed in her days in office was her haughty profile as a powerful minister that is harboured by an indecisive president.

    The president should, for once, display true firmness by wielding the big stick against his minister that has thrown decorum to the winds in her deployment of public funds. What is undeniable is that the allegations around her are too messy and have become a serious embarrassment to the nation as an oil producing country. Diezani must go.