The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • The U.S. must continue to take tough steps against Russia’s aggression

    The U.S. must continue to take tough steps against Russia’s aggression

    TAKEN BY surprise by the Russian occupation of Crimea, President Obama has rebounded strongly. He has led Western nations in condemning Russian President Vladi­mir Putin’s move as a violation of international law. Mr. Obama signed an order clearing the way for U.S. financial sanctions against Russian individuals and businesses before the European Union met to consider its response — a step that strengthened the position of Europeans calling for tough E.U. steps.

    The president has been on the phone not just to Mr. Putin and customary counterparts including German Chancellor Angela Merkel but also to the leaders of China, Spain, Kazakhstan and the Baltic states. On Wednesday he will meet interim Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk at the White House, a step that is particularly significant because Mr. Yatsenyuk’s government has not been recognized by Moscow.

    In short, no one can fairly accuse Mr. Obama of “leading from behind” on Crimea. Thanks to the president’s efforts and Mr. Putin’s intransigence — he has refused multiple offers of mediation — the United States appears poised to join with Europe in imposing significant economic sanctions on Russia if it continues to move toward annexing the region or invades other parts of Ukraine.

    If they are sufficiently robust, those sanctions have the potential to do serious damage to Mr. Putin’s regime. Oligarchs close to the Russian ruler have billions stashed in banks and invested in real estate in the West. The Russian navy is awaiting delivery of French-built ships. Crimea, meanwhile, gets almost all of its water, energy and food from within Ukraine. If the border were closed, Russia, which lacks a land bridge to Crimea, would find it hard to prevent an economic collapse there.

    It is simply not true, as some defeatists suggest, that the West does not have the potential to force a Russian change of course. The real question is whether Western leaders are prepared to accept the damage to their own citizens and economies that would be the side effect. Russia would probably freeze Western investments on its territory; it might cut off gas exports to Ukraine, through which supplies to several E.U. countries flow. Seventy percent of Russian exports are oil and gas, most of which go to Europe.

    With elections approaching in both the European Union and the United States, it will be easy to shrink from measures that would command Mr. Putin’s attention. Clearly he is counting on such a reaction. But the price of failing to take robust steps now will, in the end, be higher. If Mr. Putin is not stopped in Crimea, he will set his sights on other parts of Ukraine and maybe other former Soviet bloc states with Russian minorities. That could lead not just to economic disruption but also to war.

     

    – Washington Post

     

  • APC’s roadmap

    APC’s roadmap

    •This is a wake-up call to other political parties to let Nigerian into their plans

    Last Thursday, the All Progressives Congress (APC) launched with fanfare a roadmap by which it intends to place issues at the centre of the forthcoming electioneering campaign. As leaders of the party gathered in Abuja, the party affirmed that the programme would lead to the creation of a new and prosperous nation.

    The 10-point agenda, as expected, was placed in the public domain to showcase the party’s determination to change the face of the country. The 10 issues presented were: job creation; war against corruption; free, relevant quality education; restoration of agriculture; housing, improved healthcare; social welfare plan for the less privileged; greater attention to roads, power and infrastructure; better management of natural resources and strengthening peace, security and foreign policy.

    The agenda was accompanied with an explanation that it stemmed from a scientific poll conducted across the 36 states and the federal capital. The APC said three sectors identified by the poll would command special attention. They are job creation, war against corruption as well as security.

    We welcome the bold step taken by the party as we move closer to the next election. Nigerians have for long lamented the absence of issue-based politicking. Now that the APC has put something forward, there is a basis to debate the suitability of the plans as well as the road it hopes to take if installed in power next year.

    A breakdown of some of the highlights of the plan include immediate creation of 20,000 jobs in each state of the federation for youths who agree to participate in vocational training. In addition, a Federal Government controlled by the party would pay N5,000 to 25 million poorest Nigerians. Discharged, but unemployed youth corps members are also to be paid allowances for 12 months while they seek jobs and acquire skills. Technology and industrial estates are to be established to promote small- scale industries and entrepreneurship. The party’s elaborate job creation scheme is an acknowledgement of the unemployment crisis confronting the country.

    Quoting an unnamed international organisation, the party says Nigeria has one of the highest levels of corruption in the world. Its plan to tackle the menace include placing the burden of proving innocence on people deemed to have inexplicable wealth, reviewing the law to cut down legal technicalities that tend to delay trials of suspects and guaranteeing the independence of anti-graft agencies.

    These are laudable plans as they have formed the crux of suggestions over the years. Perhaps, more commendable is the mission statement that the party would embark on reforms that would restore credibility to the electoral process. This is in recognition that political corruption is the fountain that sustains other forms of corrupt practices.

    As the roadmap correctly points out, no development can take place in a society where peace and stability are elusive. This has been the lot of Nigeria in the past two or three years in the main. In the three states of the North East where the Boko Haram insurgents have been dishing out sorrow, tears and spilling the blood of the innocent, the nation has been unable to find solution to the menace. In other parts of the country, kidnapping is rampant, armed robbers operate largely unchecked and cyber crime is on the increase. To check these, the APC intends to take the revolutionary step of encouraging each state to establish its own Police Force that would reflect the local culture and traditions of the people. It also intends to establish a well-equipped serious crime squad. These are laudable ideas.

    And, outside the three areas of concentration, education is also to receive special attention. The party has pledged to introduce an ambitious free, relevant, quality education. At the primary and secondary levels, education would be free all over the country, while tertiary education for students of science, technology, engineering and mathematics would be free, too. This however requires more insight. Would the plan apply to federal universities only? Would it be implemented by the states controlled by the party only, or would the Federal Government fund the scheme in all institutions in the country?

    Besides, the scheme appears discriminatory against students in the humanities. Is the party suggesting that the courses in the arts and social sciences are irrelevant for national development? In our view, what the government should do is to support scholarship across board and make funding available for brilliant indigent students in tertiary institutions. Basic and secondary education are already free in public schools in most states of the federation.

    It is however curious that a progressive party like the APC has no plan for restructuring the country. What is the position of the party on the clamour for true federalism and quest for fiscal federalism? What does it intend to do with regard to the 68 items on the exclusive legislative list? This is at the heart of the national question and the bold push for development. It could be inferred from the roadmap that the party still intends to keep the Federal Government financially dominant since it is being invested with the power to create so many jobs and provide free education even at the tertiary level.

    In all, we agree that the issues raised largely represent the main challenges confronting the country. But then, the party would require a huge financial outlay to meet these programmes and projects. We would have loved to see, for example, the quantum of resources needed to achieve at least some of these ambitious plans. How much, for example, would the plan to immediately create 740,000 jobs gulp? What kind of jobs and how much would the new employees be paid, because there are jobs and there are jobs? Perhaps these are gaps that would be filled by the time more inputs are received from Nigerians before the party prepares the final document – a pact with the people – in order to convince Nigerians that the plan is not designed merely to win votes in the coming general elections.

    Whilst it may be preposterous to ask the APC to give details of how it intends to go about financing or executing these programmes and projects, we can only hope that the party did its homework well, especially with regard to funding. Other parties should respond by coming up with improved roadmaps or manifestoes. When political parties publicise their intentions ahead of elections, it makes it easier for the people to hold them accountable. Let ideas contend in the coming elections to enable Nigerians make informed decisions.

     

  • Do as I say

    Do as I say

    • Jonathan wants leaders to make people-centred policies their watchword!

    Although he was recently in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, for a purely partisan purpose – to receive decampees from other political parties to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) – President Goodluck Jonathan made a thought-provoking and statesmanlike remark. He called on political leaders in the country to make the welfare of the people the thrust of their policies and programmes. This is in tandem with the maxim of the pursuit by the state of the greatest happiness for the greatest number of the people.

    But democracy naturally should serve as a vehicle for promoting public welfare and development only when public officers, particularly elected ones, rise above brazen partisanship, subordinate themselves to the rule of law, promote transparency and accountability and elevate the public interest above personal considerations. On all these counts, it is doubtful if President Jonathan is faithful to his own counsel. As President, he has not shown the example he is recommending to other political leaders.

    President Jonathan is the leader of all Nigerians and not just members of the PDP. In that case, should he have been at Ilorin to receive politicians decamping to his party? Could he not have left that task to the party chairman and other partisan functionaries? Is the presidency not too elevated an office to be trivialised this way? Beyond this, what exactly is Dr Jonathan’s notion of the welfare of the people?

    In his words on that occasion, “We ask ourselves why you get yourself into politics. You have to think about your people, not yourself. People who think about the people follow the People’s Democratic Party and PDP is the only people’s party”. This is a rather pedestrian view of ‘people-oriented governance’ advocated by Jonathan. We would have expected the President to emphasise such key indicators of service delivery as power supply, education, health, infrastructure, security and job creation, which transcend partisan boundaries.

    Even then, if supporting the PDP is the magic wand to promoting the people’s welfare as insinuated by Dr Jonathan, why have the conditions of the majority of Nigerians steadily worsened under the watch of the PDP in the last 15 years? And this is despite the fact that the PDP has been controlling the Federal Government since 1999 and has received the bulk of the country’s revenue! Still extolling what he believes are the virtues of the party, the President said, “If you get outside Nigeria and you ask the people from all over the world the names of the political parties we have in Nigeria, they will say PDP and others because you know it is only PDP that has members in every voting unit in this country”.

    Some may excuse this kind of statement as understandable campaign rhetoric but it is unbefitting of the office of President of Nigeria. It is also insensitive to the need for a plurality of viable political parties to engender the kind of competitive governance that can promote public welfare.

    Obviously still in the mood of the occasion, the President said “it is only in PDP that people like me can come from low level and stand here as the President of this country because PDP is not owned by any individual”. But is the PDP really free of the deficiencies that have characterised political parties in this dispensation? After all, it is public knowledge that the party has been seriously hit, especially with recent damaging defections specifically because of the President’s perceived hijacking of the party.

    Things must have gone incredibly bad for the President to become his party’s campaign manager; indeed, it is the height of desperation to get attention and possibly coerce people into joining the fast sinking ruling party. For the umpteenth time, we urge Dr Jonathan to be more cautious and reflective in his public utterances. It is tragic if despite how bad things are in the country, he could still find time to embark on this frivolous mission, wasting the tax-payers’ time and money in the process. No wonder the country keeps regressing in his time.

     

  • A welcome action

    A welcome action

    •It is good that a retired judge is challenging her retirement in court

    The compulsory retirement of two judges by President Goodluck Jonathan, based on the recommendation of the National Judicial Council (NJC) has generated some controversy. This is unlike similar previous retirements. One of the retired judges, Justice Gladys Olotu, has gotten leave of court ex parte to sue the President, the NJC, the Chief Justice of Nigeria and the Federal Attorney General, seeking for an order of certiorari, to bring the recommendation of the NJC for her to be retired, before the court, to be quashed.

    Constitutionally, the NJC is empowered by section 21(b) of the Third Schedule of the 1999 Constitution to recommend to the President the removal from office of certain class of judicial officers, like the affected judge.

    We have severally encouraged the various Chief Justices of Nigeria and the NJC which they head, to stem corruption and ineptitude in the judiciary. Since Justice Aloma Mariam Mukhtar assumed responsibility as the CJN, nine judges have been sanctioned. Among the recent cases were former Acting President, Court of Appeal, Justice Dalhatu Adamu, Justices Gladys Olotu, Ufot Inyang, A. A. Adeleye and D. O. Amaechina, variously of the federal and state high courts.

    But, in most cases where the NJC recommends to the President or Governor the retirement of a federal or state judicial officer, respectively, the indicted judicial official does not stare back at the NJC, or take their case before a court of law, for adjudication. Moreover, in those cases, the corrupt conduct is in the public domain.

    But when a judicial officer is charged with ineptitude or inefficiency, which she denies, the public is less emotive than when a case of corruption is alleged. So, the sympathy may sway. Nonetheless, the NJC is still primarily the body that is constitutionally empowered to investigate all allegations of official misconduct against judges. The council’s power in this regard is enormous and far-reaching. That is why it is hoped that the august body must at all times act judiciously, considering the calibre of its members. It is also hoped that the learned CJN and the other justices and very senior lawyers who sit in the council would, at all times, remember that it is the career of their colleagues that they preside over.

    While it may be intriguing to see a successful judicial adjudication against the NJC, because of the peculiarity of the statutory body, it is within the right of any person who feels that his or her right has been abridged by any authority to approach the court for redress. That is the clear purport of section 6(6)(d) of the 1999 constitution when it says: “the judicial powers vested (in court) in accordance with the forgoing provisions of this section – shall extend to all matters between persons, or between government or authority and to any person in Nigeria, and to all actions and proceedings relating thereto, for the determination of any question as to the civil rights and obligations of that person”.

    Justice Olotu, having exercised her constitutional rights is entitled to have her day in court. While the judges that will preside over her case are also answerable to the NJC, it is hoped that they will rise above that challenge to act judicially and judiciously in accordance with their oaths of office. In essence, they must eschew bias or intimidation in meting out justice to the case brought by their learned colleague. On our part, we restate the need for even-handedness by the NJC in all dealings, as we believe that is a surest way to avoid a seeming indictment of its process, by one of its own.

     

  • Justifiable fear

    Justifiable fear

    •Fashola is right in raising the alarm over how the Jonathan govt is wasting resources

    THE alarm raised by Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola, of the danger posed to the economy by its dwindling fortunes deserves serious attention. The place of Lagos as the country’s commercial and economic nerve-centre, and the governor’s reputation as one who would not be unduly drawn into political brickbats make it necessary to pay attention to the warning.

    The governor last week had to address the state lawmakers on the possible effect of the mismanagement of the national economy on the 2014 budget. He pointed out that the National Economic Council constitutionally saddled with the task of monitoring the economy has not met for months. He also said the allocation to states from the Federation Account has continued to slide without adequate information on receipts, especially from oil exports. Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State has been raising a similar alarm in the last few months.

    If the Lagos State governor could so cry out, the condition of other states of the federation is better imagined. Statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics in the last quarter of last year showed that the state generated about N18 billion monthly, enough to cover its recurrent expenditure and have some leftover for capital development. The only other states that generate substantial revenue from internal sources are Rivers and Delta. Others, according to the NBS are almost totally dependent on handout from the Federation Account. As Governor Fashola pointed out, some states are beginning to have problem paying salaries. This is serious, especially with general elections next year.

    Politicians have intoned that President Goodluck Jonathan might have deliberately embarked on this course to starve the states and incite the electorate against opposition governors while giving grants to states considered friendly. The President did not help matters when he told a delegation from Anambra State last week that state governors ought to be at peace with him if they want federal support.

    However, we must point out that the statistics available show that the problem is more fundamental. The Excess Crude Account has been depleted from $11.5 billion in December 2012 to $2.5 billion in January 2014. The foreign reserves, too, are no longer healthy and these have continued to put pressure on the exchange rate which now officially stands at about N163 to the dollar. If the trend continues, as the suspended Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi pointed out early in the year, the rate would no longer respond to measures by the apex bank to keep it low. Devaluation would be the result.

    The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) remains an opaque institution. No one knows the actual production and sales figures and, as Governor Fashola pointed out, disputes on the accounting process led to inability of the Federation Account Allocation Committee to meet, for the first time in 2011, and a couple of times last year.

    It is unfortunate that the economy of a country as big as Nigeria could be run in such a shoddy manner. Under President Jonathan, the national debts are climbing again, unemployment has become a hydra-headed monster threatening to consume the country and states are on the verge of collapsing. It is obvious, as many public hearings by the relevant committees of the National Assembly have shown, that corruption, lack of political will and ineptitude are at the heart of the problems confronting the economy.

    The Federal Government should embrace transparency and fairness in all its dealings if it is to lead Nigeria out of the doldrums. Denying the obvious is like attempting to cover a growing pregnancy. The President owes Nigerians a duty to ensure that the right steps are taken to pull the country back from the precipice.

     

  • Rework Nigeria now

    Rework Nigeria now

    •Anyaoku’s charge should set the agenda for the National Conference

    THE impending National Conference, it would appear, means different things to different people. For the Goodluck Jonathan Presidency, it could well be a legitimisation act, put in place to polish its image and stand it in good stead for the 2015 election. In that case, it could well be stratagem to do a movement without any motion; and return to the status quo, after three months of hair-splitting; and a gash of N7 billion in the public till.

    The South-West, on its path, appears to have caught the bug of change, given its adopted conference agenda of a radically re-tinkered state, restructured along the lines of regional and fiscal federalism; and the presidency giving way to a parliamentary system, to cut down cost of governance.

    The South-East also endorses restructuring, a look again at the presidential system, vis-a-vis its possible replacement with the parliamentary system, fiscal federalism, resource control, strong citizenship right, in view of the wide dispersal of its people in the “Nigerian Diaspora” and reparation for incessant Igbo killings.

    The South-South proposes 50 per cent derivation for mineral-bearing communities (up from the present 13 per cent), restructuring, fiscal federalism and, issuing from the new derivation proposal, every state or community to exploit the minerals under their earth, with adequate taxation to the central government.

    The North, unlike the southern belts, appears to, as usual, play its cards very close to its chest. But after a meeting in Kaduna, it has come up with a 30-point shopping list, which include fiscal federalism, a revisit to the governmental structure: presidential Vs cabinet systems, state police, decentralisation of electricity generation, resource control and social security, among others.

    Even from sectional agenda, it is clear the confab would be a Babel of voices. For starters, the South has three different geo-political agenda, even if there are some meeting points in the three. In contrast, the North’s three geo-political segments: North-East, North-Central and North-West, have collapsed their shopping list into one.

    Then, you have the Jonathan Presidency, whose body language appears to want to retain most of its centrist powers, as it uses the confab to improve its chances of a Jonathan second term. In the spirit of permanent interests, therefore, is it possible for the extant federal powers to strike a deal with some northern — and indeed other centrist — elements to retain the centrist philosophy that has left Nigeria prostrate and underdeveloped for too long? Anything is a possibility. Yet, that would be a tragic mistake.

    This is where the Emeka Anyaoku admonition comes in — remake Nigeria, now! Chief Anyaoku, former secretary-general of the Commonwealth, is no sabre-rattling radical. He is rather a tempered citizen and a Nigerian establishment person of the best crust. None for him, therefore, the bitterness that has made many call in anger for Nigeria’s break-up.

    Yet, even Chief Anyaoku knows Nigeria cannot run on its present dysfunctional wheels for the next century without something tragic giving. Therefore, his call for a federation of six regions (hinged on the present six geo-political zones), to fight “impediments to progress and development”, has a lot of merit.

    The seasoned diplomat’s call for “true federalism” as “the only way to progress and development”, his insistence that “the present structure compels us to expend excess amount of our revenue on administration” and that the extant system “destabilises competition for the control of the centre by fuelling our religious and tribal difference” are spot on.

    In other words, what Nigeria needs is not just another conference to buy time and deceive. It is a game-changing conference where citizens, with eyes focused on Nigeria’s future and survival, and in the spirit of give-and-take, will embark on the patriotic chores of reworking the Nigerian union.

    That should be the task before the impending National Conference. Any other way would be baiting needless disaster.

     

  • Natural Gas as a diplomatic tool

    Natural Gas as a diplomatic tool

    In response to the crisis in Ukraine, some American lawmakers and energy companies are urging the United States to export natural gas to Europe in an effort to undercut Russia’s influence over the Continent. The Obama administration should move to increase exports, which would help allies like Germany, Turkey and Britain, but the effects of such exports would likely be modest and wouldn’t be realized for several years.

    The discovery and exploitation of shale gas has swelled American reserves of natural gas and sharply driven down its price, making it possible for Washington to contemplate lifting restrictions on exports. The United States imported 16 percent of the gas it used as recently as 2007, but it could become a net exporter of the fuel by 2020, according to the Energy Information Administration.

    Increasing natural gas exports could serve American foreign-policy interests in Europe, which gets about 30 percent of its gas from Russia. Countries like Germany and Ukraine are particularly vulnerable to supply disruptions that are politically driven.

    This week, for example, Russia’s state-owned energy company Gazprom said it would no longer sell gas at a discounted price to Ukraine, which gets 60 percent of its natural gas supply from Russia. This is hardly the first time President Vladimir Putin has used Russian gas supplies to pressure other nations.

    Under American law, energy companies can freely export gas to Canada, Mexico and other countries with which the United States has a free-trade agreement. That does not include Washington’s allies in Europe. The Energy Department can approve exports to other nations if it determines such sales are in the public interest. The department has approved only six out of 21 applications for such exports, the first of which should begin next year.

    The department could speed up its review of export applications, and Congress could help by easing restrictions on exports to American allies. But even if the government approved more exports, setting up more facilities to liquefy and ship gas would take years and cost billions of dollars. Moreover, unlike Mr. Putin, American officials will not be able to dictate to energy companies where they sell their gas and at what price. (Energy companies would prefer to sell gas to countries like Japan, China and India because natural gas is more expensive in Asia than in Europe.)

    And if American companies did flood Europe with gas, Mr. Putin would not stand idly by. Russia could respond to American exports by, for instance, lowering the price of its gas to keep its customers in Europe from switching suppliers, according to Michael Levi, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

    American officials should use natural gas exports as one component of diplomacy that also includes assisting other nations with conservation and renewable sources of energy like solar and wind. The State Department, under Hillary Rodham Clinton, set up the Bureau of Energy Resources to do just that; it has, for example, helped European nations reduce their dependence on Russian gas by, among other things, buying more gas from Africa.

    The Obama administration can certainly help allies by making more natural gas available to them, but it should be realistic about what it can achieve.

    – New York Times

  • Good choice

    Good choice

    The confab could not have a better chairman than Justice Kutigi

    For an alleged National Conference whose intentions have been mired in doubt even before it is inaugurated, the Federal Government’s announcement that it has appointed a former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Idris Legbo Kutigi, as chairman, is a most welcome development.

    Even in a pantheon of eminent jurists distinguished by their scholarship, commitment and integrity, Justice Kutigi stands out. His tenure as CJN between January 2007 and December 30, 2009 was built on a 15-year stint as a Justice of the Supreme Court, and was devoid of controversy or scandal. His personal life, within and outside public office, has been characterised by the modesty and decorum that is so sadly lacking in much of the Nigerian elite.

    President Goodluck Jonathan is to be commended for the choice of Justice Kutigi. If there is one individual whose very presence can bring a much-needed credibility to bear upon the forthcoming conference, he is that person. The selection of such an indisputably honest personality as chairman of the National Conference is critical to countering the dubious intentions and bad faith in which it is steeped.

    Justice Kutigi has the onerous task of coordinating an unwieldy mass of nearly 500 delegates who will be participating with a variety of objectives and purposes, some of which are not as altruistic as they may seem. A significant proportion of the delegates are politicians of the old school who have forgotten nothing and learnt nothing. To make matters even more difficult, the conference is taking place against the background of an increasingly horrific militant insurgency in north-eastern Nigeria which has polarised the country’s ethnic, political and religious groupings like never before. In addition, there is also the poisonous atmosphere generated by the highly-charged politics of the run-up to the 2015 general elections.

    The National Conference chairman would do well to learn from the experiences of his predecessors like Justice Nikki Tobi, who was Chairman of the National Political Reform Conference (NPRC) set up by former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2005. Like the National Conference, it was beset by widespread doubts over its legitimacy and its effectiveness, not to mention the less-than-honourable objectives of those who established it. The NPRC was characterised by quarrelling instead of debate; it featured rhetoric rather than reason; compromise was overtaken by manipulation. In the end, it was no surprise that the whole contraption was rejected by everyone, including those who had ostensibly promoted it.

    If the National Conference is to avoid this fate, Justice Kutigi will have to lead by his own distinguished example of intellection and sobriety. Many of the delegates are seasoned politicians, veterans of the dark arts of horse-trading, double-speak and bombast. They will do their best to make the conference serve their own narrow ends; it is crucial that they are denied the opportunity to achieve this ignoble aim. One way to do this is to establish comprehensive procedures governing general comportment and behaviour, and prescribing the sanctions that will be imposed for any infraction.

    Justice Kutigi must ensure that the various committees which will be set up to look at various topics are made to focus squarely on their tasks and on the terms of reference guiding the conference itself. He must not allow the conference to be derailed by particular issues, no matter how controversial they may seem. In this regard, he must be especially careful about perennial hot-button issues like resource control, rotational presidency and tenure. If the delegates use such subjects to turn the National Conference into a shouting-match, very little will be achieved.

    As chairman, Justice Kutigi will have to display a finely-tuned combination of rigidity and flexibility. He must be the former when confronted with those who may wish to manipulate the conference to serve selfish desires or primordial yearnings, and he must be the latter when compromise appears to be the best option.

    The next three months will be crucial to the life of this nation. For the duration of that period, Justice Kutigi is likely to become Nigeria’s most important person. It will certainly not be easy for him. Every word he utters will be scrutinised; every gesture he makes will be studied. He will be taken to task for the things he said, and criticised for those he did not. He will be blamed for the excesses of delegates, but will face criticism when he tries to rein in those excesses.

    However, such is his towering stature as a jurist of unimpeachable integrity that there is widespread confidence in his ability to ride the coming storm and ensure that the country is presented with an outcome that will contribute significantly to its never-ending search for justice, equity and development. We have our reservations on the conference, but we can only hope that something good will come out of Nazareth this time around, with a distinguished jurist in control.

  • Untenable excuse

    Untenable excuse

    •Fuel scarcity symptomises an incompetent govt and corrupt NNPC

    It a time Nigerians were stridently seeking for answers to the riddle of the $20 billion unremitted oil earnings by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), it would seem ordinarily unthinkable that the Jonathan administration would dare to inflict a punishing regime of petroleum products shortage on the populace. But then, that was exactly what happened. Days after what started off as rumours about an imminent scarcity – which was swiftly denied by the NNPC – the nation would be thrown into another spiral of fuel scarcity.

    To start with, we consider it unfortunate that this is again happening to an economy that continues to suffer massive haemorrhaging from sources as diverse as the industrial scale theft of its oil and criminal misappropriation of various shades. Now, add to these the needless fuel scarcity-induced spasm directly traceable to the failure of the leadership, compounded by the failure to invest in critical infrastructure necessary for economic growth, a holistic picture of across-the-board meltdown in governance emerges.

    As would be expected, Nigerians have been, and continue to be served with harebrained rationalisations to explain the factors behind the latest round of scarcity. Initially, hoarders were blamed when the first signs of fuel queues were noticed across major cities in the federation. To make the charge believable, the NNPC and the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) actually went as far as blaming the situation on panic buying by motorists. Days after, and only when it seemed unlikely that Nigerians would swallow the yarn about the imaginary hoarders seizing the fuel supply chain, or the other fable about panic-buying motorist allies diverting products into their overnight dumps in the situation that the situation actually got worse, did government come near the point of admitting that it not only had a hand in the horrendous scarcity, but that its bureaucratic tardiness was in fact responsible for the mess.

    The truth is that nothing of the rationalisations by the NNPC and its co-traveller in infamy, the DPR, comes anything near the factors behind the current scarcity. And just as we are not surprised at the attempt by the NNPC – a corporation that is not only irredeemably corrupt, but one that has long lost its rationale – to rationalise its legendary ineptitude, we are equally not taken in by the antics of its co-traveller in infamy – the DPR with its new pastime of chasing after so-called fuel hoarders. Together with their principal – the Federal Government, they symptomise the appalling failure of governance for which they all should ordinarily bury their heads in shame.

    But then, the NNPC more than any other body, must carry the can for the current fuel scarcity. Is it not both shameful, and criminal, that a corporation which claimed to have maintained, in the course of the investigations into the illegally expropriated $10.8 billion from the federation account, an extra-constitutional charge of $0.37 billion for strategic reserves could not guarantee flow of products at all times?

    The greatest shame however is that the leadership of OPEC’s sixth largest producer of crude oil continues to treat the matter of local refining with levity. For how long will the nation continue to endure episodic spasms in fuel supply? And whose interest is being served by the current regime of importation? Why has the NNPC not been able to finalise on the three new Greenfield refineries it promised Nigerians several years ago? And why must Nigeria continue to depend on imported fuel, given the associated corruption and rent?

     

  • Jonathan’s Kwara visit

    Jonathan’s Kwara visit

    •There are more pressing issues to keep a serious President busy than going to receive defecting politicians

    President Goodluck Jonathan’s visit to Kwara State has come and gone, but the avoidable hullabaloo generated would for long be subject of rational public discourse. Before his visit to that ‘State of Harmony,’ there were palpable fears that a clash might ensue between the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the centre controlling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The fears were not unfounded as the police reportedly showed tinge of partisanship when it invaded the premises of a printer engaged by APC to produce street signposts and destroyed his equipment, carting away over 300 signposts of the APC.  Mr Ambrose Aisabo, the state’s police commissioner later unsatisfactorily defended his action: “We had information that APC was planning to print several posters and use it to deface that of Mr. President and we went there and indeed we saw several thousands of posters that they had printed. We impounded them but the people explained to us they had no plan of defacing the posters of Mr. President and I now warned them and allowed them to go with their posters …I am not against anyone pasting posters but I am against when people use it to deface those of others … so it is not true that anyone has been detained because we have released all of them,” he reportedly declared.

    We want to admonish the police to be cautious in acting on phantom intelligence reports in the future so that it would not be found wanting, dancing naked in the political arena. After all, the nation has not easily forgotten the injurious ways to which his colleague, Mbu Joseph Mbu, deployed the police during his infamous reign as police commissioner in Rivers State. Otherwise, the police in Kwara could be rightly assumed to have acted premeditatedly since neither the ruling APC nor its members fomented any trouble during the president’s visit to the state.

    As much as the police’s act is condemnable, we consider more despicable the motive behind President Jonathan’s visit to the state. Solomon Edoja, chairman, caretaker committee of the PDP in the state reportedly said that the President came personally to the state to welcome defectors into the PDP fold. And surprisingly, the President was actually in the state to do just that. How ridiculous this was at a period when the country was mourning the despicable killings of innocent pupils and their teachers in Yobe State, and other subsequent barbaric killings by the Boko Haram sect! So, the President is less busy at his duty post that what he now engages his otherwise precious time on are petty partisan assignments such as welcoming defectors into his ruling PDP in states across the federation.

    We still cannot fathom any tinge of decorum in why the President, despite the enormous insecurity, epileptic power supply, battered economy and serious corruption ravaging the nation would engage in uninhibited political escapades. This presidential political visit, because it is not a state visit to Kwara, to attend a so-called ‘Unity/Freedom rally’ is nothing but a denigration of the office of the President by an incumbent that ought to protect the sanctity of that post.

    The President will do well by deploying his precious time on policies and actions that would give Nigerians value for their money being expended on him and his government. Nigerians want solutions to problems facing the nation, not unnecessary political trips.