The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

Moribund civil society

•Beko Ransome-Kuti’s memorial recalls the golden era of civil society and what we miss today

ONCE upon a time, Nigeria had a plethora of vibrant civil society organisations that even the country’s erstwhile military rulers could not ignore. We are talking of groups like the Campaign for Democracy (CD), Civil Liberties Organisation, (CLO) and Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), among others. The civil society groups, in collaboration with the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) fought the military to a standstill by mobilising students, workers and even artisans for civil disobedience, protest marches and strikes during the June 12 struggle. Some of their members were maimed, some killed while others fled the country as a result of the persecution by the military junta. In short, the history of civil rule that we have today will not be complete without a pride of place accorded the civil society groups. If these groups were so effective in the military era, why have they simply gone to sleep, as it were? This was the question being asked when, on Monday, some eminent Nigerians gathered at a memorial symposium on the 8th anniversary of the death of one of the country’s foremost activists, Dr Beko Ransome-Kuti, in Lagos. Beko, as he was fondly called, could easily be referred to as ‘Mr. Civil Society’ if there is anything like that. He helped to form the CD, Nigeria’s first human rights organisation; the group opposed Abacha’s dictatorship in 1993. Beko was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1995 by a military tribunal for bringing the mock trial of General Olusegun Obasanjo to the attention of the world, but was freed in 1998 after Abacha’s demise. However, Amnesty International adopted him as a prisoner of conscience. It is indeed an understatement to say that the struggle was Beko’s life. He was so entrenched in it that many people knew him more as an activist than as a medical doctor that he trained as. As a matter of fact, it was his social activism that made the eminent Nigerians at his memorial symposium to so gather in his remembrance. We salute the organisers of the symposium for keeping Beko’s memory alive. There cannot be a better way to immortalise him. Beko kept to the family’s tradition in championing the cause of the down-trodden. As chairman of the Lagos State Branch of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), and the association’s national deputy chair, he kept campaigning against the lack of drugs which was the hallmark of our public hospitals. He was also the president of the CDHR where he twitted power and served as a conduit to articulate mass displeasure against human rights infringement and the frigid military establishment’s clampdown on political voices. He was in and out of jailhouses in the course of the struggle. Sweet should be the memory of such rare a Nigerian who had the choice of the easy life, given his background and all, but chose to pitch his tent with the masses. When we keep celebrating such people in a country that has lost its moral soul, it is like giving an elixir to the young ones who might want to take after him. It is also a way of ensuring that the country is never in short supply of such a moral compass. But the question now is: what has happened to the civil society groups in the country today? Part of the reasons for today’s ennui as against then was that the civil society groups left the trenches, perhaps because the military rulers were our common enemy. Now they have been forced back to the barracks. But what we have today is not the kind of democracy that we fought for. So, we need to reinvent protest. Unfortunately, today many of them have been enlisted in the parochial agenda of the political elite. Sometimes they are tools in the elite’s internecine fights. But then, the role of the civil society groups is crucial because they have to provide the leadership, alongside the opposition, to effect the desired change that the country yearns for. Sometimes too, they can check an overwrought opposition. We know they have their challenges, but these have always been there; what is now lacking is the will to make the kind of sacrifice that Beko and others made to overthrow a repressive era.

February 13, 2014
Nigeria’s anti-gay law demands a response from the West

NIGERIAN PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan is expected to seek reelection next year despite opposition from northern Nigeria’s majority Muslim states. His attempt to win them over has now taken a toxic turn: sanction of an extraordinarily repressive new law against homosexuality. Gay sex has been banned in Nigeria since British colonial times. It is prohibited in 38 of Africa’s 54 countries. But the new Ni-ger-ian law, which Mr. Jonathan signed Jan. 7, goes further. It mandates a 14-year prison sentence for anyone entering a same-sex union and a 10-year term for “a person or group of persons who supports the registration, operation and sustenance of gay clubs, societies, organizations, processions or meetings.” Public displays of affection by gay men and lesbians are also criminalized. The law has triggered a wave of anti-gay violence in parts of Nigeria. According to the Associated Press, police in the northern state of Bauchi arrested 38 men beginning in late December after the law obtained final approval in Congress. Several men were allegedly tortured into naming gays they knew. The New York Times described Sunday a man who was publicly whipped for gay sex and said a mob tried to attack other gays who were brought into court. One of the Islamic sharia courts operating in northern Nigeria administered the whipping. Both they and the new law appear to violate Nigeria’s constitution, which, as Secretary of State John F. Kerry has pointed out, guarantees freedom of assembly. Nigeria is also in contravention of international treaties it has ratified : As United Nations human rights chief Navi Pillay put it, “Rarely have I seen a piece of legislation that in so few paragraphs directly violates so many basic, universal human rights.” Sadly, gay men and lesbians are easy targets for demagogues in Africa, where large majorities still hold the bigoted attitudes until recently prevalent in the West. Pressure from the international community is needed as a countervailing force. How that can work was evident recently in Uganda, a country dependent on Western aid. President Yoweri Museveni vetoed a law threatening gays with life imprisonment even as he described them as the product of “random breeding” when “nature goes wrong.” Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa and a major oil producer, is harder to influence. But Britain still delivers hundreds of millions of dollars in development aid, while the United States buys 70 percent of Nigeria’s oil. Both should be aggressively using their leverage to protect the vulnerable gay community. As a starting point, they should let Mr. Jonathan know he and his government will be unwelcome in Washington and London until the law is repealed.

– Washinton Post

February 13, 2014
N100bn bond for expressway

•Is it politics or business?

As if in response to widespread skepticism over its plan for the abandoned Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, the Federal Government has thrown a new dice into the conundrum. According to the Minister of Works, Mike Onolememen, the government is ready to issue a N100 billion bond towards the completion of the road. The minister made the claim before a delegation of campaigners for President Goodluck Jonathan and his vice, Namadi Sambo, known as Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Reloaded Committee, which is led by former deputy senate president, Ibrahim Mantu. Shockingly, the minister also claimed that since the contract for the expressway was re-awarded, work has been going on, on that road.

Considering the several failed promises made by the Federal Government on the rehabilitation of that road, we do not know whether this new claim is a mere political gimmick. Interestingly, the minister chose a meeting with politicians to announce such an important decision. A few months ago, President Jonathan came to do a groundbreaking ceremony on the construction of that road, but notably, the current budget awaiting the approval of the federal legislature captured only N25 billion out of the about N170 billion required to fix it. Again, the Federal Government had not long ago, also claimed that it was going into a Public-Private Partnership as a source of funding to build the road.

So, which of the claims shall Nigerians rely on towards the reconstruction of perhaps the most important federal highway in Nigeria? Should we rely on the political assertions of the minister made before President Jonathan’s praise singers or that of the President which came with much fanfare, with no action? Or, is it even possible that when the President flagged off the reconstruction project, there was no funding plan in place? Nigerians demand an answer to this flip-flop of the Federal Government, more so as the integrity of the office of the President has been dragged into the conundrum.

As we have previously argued, if indeed the Federal Government has no plans to reconstruct that road, why all the fanfare and excruciating deprivations that road users suffer on the day President Jonathan came to perform what is turning out a duplicitous enterprise? Now, it seems the minister has taken over where the President stopped in a classical case of double speak. By the minister’s claim last week, the Federal Government is now to fund the entire project, partly through direct funding and the major chunk of fund, by borrowing. Yet, in the 2014 budget estimate, the entire provision for the ministry of works is not up to the cost of the project; or shouldn’t the cost have been captured in the budget, if truly there is a genuine plan of action?

The case of abandonment that the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway has suffered is applicable to most of the other federal highways across the country. While the present regime can claim that the crisis predates it, it is shameful that it has not done much since it came on board. Again, since the emergence of democratic governance in 1999, the Peoples Democratic Party has been in power, and over the 14 years it has budgeted hundreds of billions of naira to the Federal Ministry of Works, with very little to show for it. The failure of the party to deliver on infrastructure cuts across, in spite of the trillions of naira budgeted annually for these. Considering the importance of this road, we again urge the Federal Government to expedite action on its reconstruction.

February 12, 2014
Boko Haram again!

•All security agencies and strategies should be employed to prevent invasion of Lagos by insurgents and fundamentalists

The reported plot by terrorist group, Boko Haram, to attack and cripple Lagos deserves the attention of military authorities and the Federal Government. Security chiefs who had monitored the parks in and around Lagos were said to have uncovered the plot last year and raised the alarm on the need to step up security around the economic and commercial capital of Nigeria.

There is no doubt that the state of emergency in three states in the North East, and the red alert around other Northern states has destabilised the high command of the terrorist group and raised a need to relocate to other states where the guards are lowered.

This has logically made Lagos a prime target. All the major banks have their prime branches in Lagos, the busiest ports, sea and air, are located in the city. It has the highest population density and is reputed to be the 13th largest economy in Africa. This recommends it to local and international terrorists seeking to make Nigeria ungovernable.

The report, founded on intelligence, suggests that the city would be invaded using vehicles painted in military colours, presumably allocated to very senior military officers. We, therefore, call on military, police and security chiefs to step up search of military vehicles. It is known that the police are conventionally disallowed from conducting search on military vehicles. It is also usual for all other agencies on the roads to merely give way to avoid the wrath of the military top brass.

We call on the armed forces to submit fully to the rule of law. Miscreants would always explore the fault lines with a view to exploiting it to the discomfiture of the state and the security forces. The reported plan to attack Lagos by using military vehicles must have resulted from such a study. It is therefore not enough to focus on the identified direction, but ensure that all laws, rules and regulations put in place to ensure peace and good order of the society are fully complied with by all.

The various arms of the armed forces should also take inventory of the hardware purchased for national defence and security and ensure that they do not fall into wrong hands. At a time when no one could say those working for the enemy, means must be devised by which those in custody of the hardware are kept in check.

In an era of general insecurity, the security-industrial complex has grown into a multi-billion Naira business. In the past two years, the security budget has been close to a trillion Naira annually. As is the case elsewhere in the world where so much money is available in a sector, a number of people profit from the current state of affairs and would do anything to extend this. The agent provocateurs must be kept in check as we take steps to arrest the unrest in the land and keep away the insurgents.

Lagos is the pride of Nigeria; the soul of commerce and business. If that platform is assailed, the edifice may crumble. While all efforts are made to defeat the terrorists in the region where they have gained ground, no excuse would be acceptable to allow a spread to other parts. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

February 12, 2014
Housing revolution

•Fashola programme should trigger other governments’ imaginations

Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola’s administration admirably launched the Lagos Home Ownership Mortgage Scheme (Lagos HOMS) last week. The revolutionary initiative deserves commendation. For Lagos State aspiring home owners are newly completed 1,104 units. Another 3,156 units are reportedly at various stages of construction while work will soon commence on additional 4,454 units across the state. The units include blocks of four floors containing 12 flats of one, two and three bedrooms, and a block of 12 flats of two units of two bedroom flats and one unit of a three-bedroom flat.

Fashola gleefully affirmed that the project was not financed through loans at the flag-off: “We started saving N200 million monthly, whether the internally generated revenue increased or decreased, and today, we are now saving N500 million monthly, and it is possible to increase this as more people pay their taxes.” He stated further that the payment plan is “…a minimum period of 10 years… and the mortgage payment will attract a maximum interest of 9.5 % per annum…”

Equally heart-warming is the desire to capture those that truly need homes in the state as those who already have houses and cash in banks may have to think twice because of the several legal impediments. The scheme is designed for first-time home owners with no pre- owned home, whether acquired privately or bought from government. Applicants will be required to swear affidavit to that effect. Aspiring beneficiaries must be Lagos residents for a minimum period of 180 days or about six months, irrespective of where the person’s original roots are, and must show a residency card under the Residents Registration exercise.

Also, applicants must show proof of payment of tax for a continuous period of five years preceding their application while house choices eligibility must match with applicants’ proven income sources. Moreover, no successful applicant will be allowed to rent out the houses as this could amount to a violation that might lead to re-possession, pay off and re-offer to others. According to Fashola, the first draw will hold in the public glare “… from 4th March, 2013 and that subject to ability of contractors to keep building, there should be a minimum of 200 new home owners in Lagos every month,’’ and even beyond his tenure.

Lagos housing deficit is placed at one million units. So, the available housing units of 1,104 completed homes might look grossly insufficient. But we believe in the efforts of the governor in seeing to a quick completion of another 3,156 units that are reportedly at various stages of construction, with plans to commence the construction of additional 4,554 housing units across the state. The housing initiative will no doubt give ordinary hardworking middle class people with legitimate income who cannot afford to acquire homes at the current prevailing rate in the country an opportunity to benefit without hassles. The Lagos State government should be appreciated for giving an across-the-board discount of 25 per cent to the total actual cost of land, infrastructure and building, which is the total cost of the home.

Whatever hiccups that might ensue, we believe that they are surmountable because housing is so essential to human existence; that it is yet a big problem in a cosmopolitan state like Lagos should worry us. By this initiative, Governor Fashola will be taking a big leap in creating home owners out of hitherto hopeless people. He deserves applause for laying this ground-breaking institutional housing foundation in a country where people believe in outright purchase of anything in sight. The ambition, courage, rigour and steadfastness that went into the initiative should be emulated by other governments in the country.

February 11, 2014
Sanusi’s alarm

•Where is our $20 billion dollars?

As if living to its billing as a nation where scandals are never in short supply, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, again on February 4, stirred the hornet’s nest when he drew the attention of members of the Senate Committee on Finance to an alleged discrepancy of $20 billion in crude oil receipts.

This time, he was point-blank when he told the members: of the $67 billion crude confirmed to have been shipped by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) between January 2012 and July 2013, only $47 billion was remitted to the federation account. Taking his chance to present what appears to be, by far, the most robust rebuttal to the disclaimer put out by the NNPC that any oil money was missing, he also revealed other details bordering on legal and constitutional violations by the corporation – all of which speak to how gangrenous the sore of impunity has become.

Among the highlights is the so-called kerosene subsidy which, although had been eliminated by a 2009 presidential directive, still nonetheless bled the nation by $100 million monthly within the period; the petrol subsidy albatross which the NNPC claims as justification for withholding $8.49 billion of monies due to the federation account – whose rationalisation came only after the discrepancy was highlighted; the contentious $6 billion worth of crude oil said to have been shipped by the NNPC on behalf of its prospecting arm – the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC); the “Strategic Alliance Agreement” under which public revenue is transferred into private hands; and of course the practice of crude swap that has remained opaque.

We note the attempt by the Group Managing Director, NNPC, Andrew Yakubu, to latch on to the now worn defence of so-called ignorance by Sanusi, of oil sector accounting, after the so-called overstatement of the amount due to the federation account last month. That is deplorable. We cannot accept that as a defence to the weighty issues raised any more than his strange position that the CBN’s role – as banker to the Federal Government – stops at collecting the receivables on behalf of the government.

For sure, the contention that the CBN governor cannot raise queries on the activities of the corporation, or sound alarm when entities like NNPC perpetrate brazen outlawry on the treasury is absurd. We certainly expect more than the hollow, opportunistic and dangerously self-serving defence being put out by the NNPC on the issue.

The truth of course is that the CBN, as banker to the Federal Government, has a primary responsibility to track the nation’s revenue. What role does the CBN governor’s membership of the Economic Management Team confer if not to enable him draw attention to such open and direct threats to the economy?

So, who is the author of mischief – the individual calling for scrutiny of the finances or the corporation’s top guns and their principals that would rather go on doing as they please with our common wealth?

Now, very much unlike the previous outing, Sanusi did not pretend, nor did he claim, to have the final word on the matter. That, he has made clear, is for the authorities – the National Assembly – to determine. On this, we find common agreement. If, as he claims that the value of crude export for the period between January 2012 and July 2013 is $67 billion, let the corporation present its books to prove that it has nothing to hide. The same goes for the so-called “Strategic Alliance Agreement”; the burden is on the NNPC to explain how the strange partnership with a firm with unknown pedigree can be said to have added value to the nation. And, as for the racket called subsidy, now perhaps is the time for forensic auditors to be called in to finally lay all matters to rest.

February 11, 2014
Whose conference?

•The delegate count and structure as well as modalities show the incoming national conference as a rubberstamp affair

Since the secretary to the Federal Government, Pius Anyim, unveiled the modalities and period of the proposed national conference, a sense of reality replaced the ambiguous air it originally generated. But that ambiguous air continues in new guises.

The breakdown of the delegates has shown two things that cast doubts over its credentials as a democratic affair. One, it is not going to attract men and women voted by any sort of plebiscite or election that will pass any republican test. Two, about half of the delegates will be handpicked. This detracts from the officially ballyhooed view of the affair as a conference of the people for the people and by the people.

If the president will pick the chairman, deputy and secretary of the confab, it follows that the dynamics and the operations will chime in with the president’s world view. The three constitute the major officers. That gives the leadership “a hand of Esau and voice of Jacob” artificiality, and those who will follow the proceedings, especially when it appertains to presidential powers and the legitimacy of existing executive order of things, will read meanings to the way the confab leadership acts.

Other than that, the president will also pick elders and a few other delegates numbering 47. The state governors are going to, as well as some groups in the country, including the Nigeria Bar Association and the Guild of Editors. In all, so-called stakeholders will select 282 of the 492 delegates.

As some members of the Council of State wondered, what is the difference between presidential delegates and those by the Federal Government? That nebulous difference was not addressed in the scenario. They include 18 military/ security personnel, 13 traditional rulers, retired civil servants at one per zone, eight from organised private sector, 12 from Nigerian youth organisations, 24 from women groups, 10 from political parties, 12 Muslim and Christian leaders, 24 from civil society organisations, eight Nigerians from the Diaspora and six people with disabilities from the different zones in the country.

For obvious reasons, the Jonathan administration has refrained from adding the prefix sovereign to the conference because of its implication to dig beyond mere allegiance to country. Those who have sought a sovereign conference want to pitch everything for debate, including questioning the indivisibility and indissolubility of Nigeria. What the president wants is a tame and caged conversation about the way we should run the country.

Those who object have raised a question as to whether we can ever ferret out a workable consensus from a conversation that does not bare all the pains, suspicions, fears and hatred smouldering ominously in the hearts of the country.

Profound to this worry is the failure of the delegate structure to cater to the ethnic diversity of the country. Professor Ben Nwabueze, one of the original nominees for the Okurounmu-led committee on the conference, has articulated his objection because the conference will not represent the wide girth of ethnic hues in the land. We have over 300 different languages and over 500 dialects. These numbers alone trump the whole delegate count.

If, as the purveyors of the conference assert, the tribes and tongues are included, it will be hard to cater for most of them. In Rivers State, for instance, who will represent the melange of Ijaws, Andonis, Ogonis, Ikwerre and the others? If some others have asserted that ethnic representation should take a back seat to other considerations, they fail to take cognisance of the recent history of Nigeria with deep suspicions among our heterogeneous peoples. The fissures in the north, epitomised by the insurgency of Boko Haram, as well as the Itsekiri-Ijaw incendiary in the Niger Delta or the Ife-Modakeke bloodbath in the southwest, are enough clarion calls to sobriety over our differences.

Again, what are the modalities for determining who will represent the women organisations, as we have different women organisations across the country, representing different classes and nuances of culture? We have market women organisations, women’s professional organisations, elite-based organisations, etc, some of them with innocuous facades but essentially partisan. The same applies to the youth organisations. How would the Federal Government pick the disabled or the Nigerians from outside the country without an air of partiality? Could we not with a view to striking a balance in one area – for instance ethnicity – not tilt the balance against a certain economic class or region?

That is why this sort of conference only works with the legitimacy issuing from the people of the country, in a well-ordered and transparent referendum. When the people decide, they are more at peace with the consequences and learn from their follies.

But when a few pick for them, they suspect the outcome as a choreographed process to achieve a goal that may not coincide with the popular will. Since the president will have to endorse the results ultimately, how shall we say this is the people’s conference? The presidency has asserted that the confab will determine whether the results should be decided by a plebiscite or not. This is being clever by half. The president asserted to the Council of State that the Independent National Electoral Commission would not be able to conduct a referendum to determine delegates because of the tight electoral schedule this year. Yet he gives the confab an option to call for a referendum after the work? Is the INEC schedule lighter later in the year than now? This is being disingenuous, deliberately misleading the people or being dangerously naïve.

A people’s constitution must arise from a people’s confab. A situation where about half of the delegates are handpicked and the other half left to a manipulation of selection that may bear presidential influence or imprimatur does not appear to us like a people’s confab. It is more like a way of finagling a confab on the people and presenting it as a fait accompli.

This is a conference with artificial legitimacy, and will not confer on the people a sense of ownership.

February 10, 2014
Currency Wars, Revisited

In recent years developing countries like Brazil complained that the United States and other industrialized countries were waging a “currency war” against them by artificially driving down the value of dollars, euros and yen. Now officials in some nations, like Argentina and Turkey, are blaming foreign “vultures” and “the interest rate lobby” for the sharp depreciation of their currencies.

Policy makers fear any big and sudden changes in the value of their currencies. A rapid appreciation makes their country’s exports less competitive on the world market, while a fast depreciation raises the cost of imported commodities like oil and makes it harder for governments to repay loans they took out in dollars or euros.

So it should come as no surprise that officials are upset by the recent market movements. But their anger is misplaced. There is no foreign conspiracy against the Argentine peso, the Turkish lira or other currencies that have fallen against the dollar. The Federal Reserve’s recent decisions to slow its bond-buying program have strengthened the dollar. But most of these currencies have declined primarily because of domestic problems.

For example, the Argentina peso has been under pressure for months because misguided government policies caused inflation to surge to 28 percent last year. The peso has fallen nearly 22 percent against the dollar since the end of November. The Turkish lira has fallen about 9 percent in the same period because Turkey’s central bank has been too slow to raise interest rates despite an annual inflation rate of 7.4 percent. And investors have been unnerved by the autocratic style of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has tried to squash corruption investigations of senior officials.

What leaders of developing countries ought to be doing now is addressing economic problems like inflation and corruption while investing in infrastructure and education. Going forward, emerging markets could better protect themselves from the rapid flow of foreign capital into and out of their financial systems by regulating them. Unfortunately, many countries, including India and Turkey, made themselves more dependent on speculative foreign capital flows in recent years, according to the economists Dani Rodrik and Arvind Subramanian. That has made their economies more vulnerable to sudden changes in the sentiments of investors.

Blaming the Fed is particularly misguided. Its bond-buying program, which was always meant to be temporary, has lowered interest rates and offset some of the damage from the financial crisis, though not nearly enough. Had the Fed not intervened, the global economy would have suffered a much deeper and longer recession.

– New York Times

February 10, 2014
Mandela’s example

His $4.1m estate is testament to his honesty and modesty; African leaders should emulate him

His commitment to principle was unparalleled. His tenacity of purpose was unrivalled. His abiding faith in the cause of justice never flagged. He spent over 27 years of the prime of his life in solitary confinement, with hard labour, all in pursuit of the liberty and dignity of his people. Yet, he emerged from prison without bitterness, extending an olive branch of peace to his erstwhile oppressors and helping to lay a firm foundation for a peaceful multiracial South Africa. For these and more, the late Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was a symbol of greatness in life. But it is turning out that even in death he is surpassingly great. His will revealed an estate valued at $4.1 million – approximately N600 million. This comprises of a house in Johannesburg, a home in his native Eastern Cape Province and royalties from his published books. This is clearly a rarity in Africa where many Heads of State have been known to be several times richer than their countries! Indeed, scarcely do African leaders reveal the value of their estates either in or out of office. Those are closely guarded state secrets. But in handling his will, Mandela has proven to be as transparent in death as he was in life.

Some would contend that Mandela spent the best years of his life in prison and therefore did not have much opportunity to accumulate wealth. Such a view would be grossly misleading. For one, Mandela had been out of prison for 23 years before he died. Again, he was President of his country for five years, a period during which he could have amassed as much wealth as he wanted as is so common in Africa. Beyond this, he voluntarily vacated office after just one term, thus demonstrating that his purpose in office was to serve the people rather than feather his own nest. Even then, Mandela could have exploited his immense goodwill to acquire as much wealth as he wanted even after he left office. Mandela’s will, first written in 2004 and amended in 2008, indicates that he chose not to.

The way Mandela authorised the execution of his estate was quite consistent with the life of fairness, justice and compassion he lived. Most of his estate will naturally go to his family from his three marriages. Although Mandela’s wife, Gracha Machel is entitled to half of the estate, the will allows her to waive this right and she has graciously done so. In his lifetime, Mandela granted each of his children a loan of $300,000. His will releases them from the loan. This reveals another side of his character as a parent who would not unnecessarily indulge his offspring in unearned affluence. It is interesting, as his lawyer revealed, that Mandela was meticulous about his will and tried to give a rational justification for every bequest he made.

It is instructive that Mandela did not leave his close personal staff out of his will. His personal chef, Xoliswa Ndoyiya and long-time personal assistant, Zelda La Grange, were among his staff who received $4,500 each. According to one of them, “It gave me a shock of my life … I got shocked that he has remembered me, that he can give me something”. This speaks volume of the sheer compassion and humanity of the man. Mandela also left $9,000 for every school he attended, including two others in areas where he lived. Particularly touching was his inclusion of the University of Witwaterand among the beneficiaries of his will despite the fact that this was an institution that discriminated against him on racial grounds. According to the vice- chancellor of the university, Adam Habib, “He gave reasons why he wanted to give to educational institutions because he wanted people, disadvantaged throughout their lives to really be treated in a way as human beings”. Surely, this was an extraordinary human being.

African and Nigerian leaders in particular certainly have much to learn from Mandela’s example. We have too many instances of leaders stealing their countries blind and greedily amassing wealth as if they have a limitless tenancy on planet earth. Some live under the illusion that they can stock up so much wealth for their generations yet unborn to enjoy. In doing so, they underdevelop their countries, impoverish majority of their people and create conditions of insecurity in which stolen wealth can hardly be enjoyed. Most African leaders thus never reveal the extent of their vast material acquisitions. They cannot afford to be as transparent as Mandela was in life and in death. The wealthy among us also have something to emulate in Mandela’s generosity of spirit, his largeness of heart and selflessness that made him look beyond his immediate family in dispensing the benefits of his will. Just as he did in life, Mandela in death stands on an unrivalled ethical pedestal.

February 9, 2014
Contentious confession

•‘Suntai video’ reminds us of the unfinished business that the ailing Taraba governor issue is

The side-splitting but staid drama and turmoil that were the aftermath of ailing Taraba State ‘step-aside’ Governor Danbaba Suntai’s return to the country last August after medical treatment abroad might have been revived by his alleged recent affirmations in a contentious You-Tube interview. Suntai, bounded by some aides in the touchy ‘interview’, admitted through purportedly jumbled responses that his health is far from well.

When asked as reported whether he was ready to resume duty as executive governor, he retorted: “I can tell you that it is well with me to return to my office simply because I want you to support me. You know the truth; I am not well at all to return to office as I am now.” He also uttered some incoherent words depicting his penitence over alleged drinking habit.

We acknowledge the denial of the originality of the video by the ailing governor’s aides who said it was doctored, but they are yet to come up with the original tape showing the true state of Suntai or at least bring the ailing governor out for Nigerians to see how fast he is recovering if truly he is and could return to his desk anytime soon. If indeed, Suntai’s health is not failing; his aides and supporters should bring him before Nigerians rather than continue to engage in bitter battle with Alhaji Umar Garba, his deputy and current acting governor, and some gutsy members of the state’s House of Assembly.

These same ambitious aides misguided the governor to assume duty on his return from abroad last year, after about 10 months in hospitals for treatment, following the injuries he sustained in a plane crash in October 2012, despite his obviously failing health. Not much was known of Suntai as a ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) governor until the plane he piloted crashed in 2012. Since then, his path and that of his state have been dogged by political tumult.

Suntai, a 2011 pilot graduate of the Aviation College, Zaria, narrowly missed death alongside his Aide-de-Camp, Chief Security Officer (CSO), and three others in the Cessna 208, 5N-BMJ plane that crashed near the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) depot on the outskirts of Yola, Adamawa State, minutes after its take-off from Jalingo, Taraba State. Suntai was reportedly involved in an earlier plane crash that should have served as a fore-warning of the peril ahead.

The unfurling drama in Taraba State reflects the metaphor of our politicians’ desperation and greed to stay in office at all cost, irrespective of whether or not they merit or are fit for such public positions. We consider as disdainful, situations where occupiers of elected posts are dissuaded by followers not to quit, even when the handwriting on the wall is showing the contrary, like the case of Governor Suntai.

Just because of seeming parochial interests of those that still want to continue to enjoy government booties, the ailing Suntai has been subjected to undue rigour and public humiliation by supposed aides that should have shielded him from avoidable odium. These ravenous individuals in Taraba and their ilk in other parts of the federation are the ones injuring the country’s democracy and her due process, including the tenets of constitutionalism that are loftily held in better managed climes by decent public officers.

We deem what is happening in Taraba where an acting governor is perpetually made to steer the affairs of state as a constitutional aberration. But no one should blame those behind the You-Tube video if really it was fake; we cannot expect anything less in a situation where information concerning a public official which should be in the public domain is being guarded as top secret. What the video has done is to remind us of the absurdity in Taraba State and that is enough, at least for now.

February 7, 2014