The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • One up for job creation

    One up for job creation

    BOI, NYSC joint initiative on graduate employment is worthy of praise

    ONCE upon a time, it was up to government to “give jobs”. Not much later, the graduate just needed to finish his final paper before he or she was snapped up by queuing players in the private sector, hungry for his or her services.

    But those golden eras of easy graduate employment appear gone — at least for now. It is another era of private job creation and self-employment. That is why the collaborative effort by the Bank of Industry (BOI) and the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), is so fresh and innovative; it is worthy of praise.

    The initiative is based on two pillars: rural and general. The rural initiative is hinged on a Village Renewal Programme (VRP), which focus is agricultural business and introduction of agric-boosting technologies like greenhouses, storage facilities, crop preservation, agricultural processing, animal husbandry and fisheries. The idea is to track business opportunities in these sectors; and train graduates with requisite skills to key into them. As pilot, VRP will be launched in three villages, in each of the 109 senatorial districts, nationwide.

    The other leg is a Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) programme, which seeks to collaborate with the likes of Industrial Training Fund (ITF), Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) and Entrepreneurship Development Centres (EDCs) to help train and equip corps members with the skills to run own businesses.

    The target is 200, 000 fresh graduates each year; and the idea is to make these beneficiaries run their own businesses and employ labour. It is also to inculcate the spirit of public-private partnership, in which Nigerian youths can partner with governments to stave off future unemployment crises.

    What is more? The programme is already showcasing a beneficiary, Simon Ocheni, a 2012 Batch “C” corps member and graduate of SAED, who from gari processing, has come up with two food brands, Soaking Wakkis and Kasso Flakes; and is already in business. What, according to NYSC sources, started as a one-man business, now engages 10 workers — and that is only the beginning.

    NYSC has also walked its talk pertaining empowerment: Mr. Ocheni’s products, the NYSC has announced, would be purchased and served in NYSC’s orientation camps. Such a ready market can only provide incentives and motivation for more corps members to avail themselves of the training opportunity.

    Under the job creating collaboration, BOI would mobilise foreign development agencies to fund the training, aside from integrating VRP and SAED into states’ matching fund schemes. It would also link the NYSC Directorate with states it has partnerships, to maximise gains from VRP launch, just as it would link up with Nigerian private sector partners to partner in the entrepreneurial trainings.

    On its own part, NYSC would feed beneficiary communities of VRP with affordable labour, who will in turn sharpen their skills, by having hands-on experience to test-run future entrepreneurial careers, aside from structuring the NYSC community development programme to fit into both VRP and SAED.

    By this impressive initiative, NYSC, often charged with lack of compassion on corps members’ plight, has redeemed its image. It has demonstrated that it is a community-savvy agency, which has the best intentions for young graduates in its care. BOI too has proved adept at strategic investment in Nigerian youths, perhaps at their most difficult period in the history of their country. Both deserve hearty congratulations.

    Still, the beginning is nothing, if the end is not glorious. That is why both parties should continue to work hard to attain the programme’s goals. But the beneficiaries too should, with two hands, grab this rare opportunity.

    It could well make a difference between future prosperity and hopelessness.

  • Fixing Immigration, in Principle

    Fixing Immigration, in Principle

    That you need to know now that House Republican leaders have unveiled a list of “principles” that have raised hopes for a breakthrough on immigration reform this year:

    Principles are no substitute for actual legislation, and we’re still a great distance from a deal. Repairing a system so huge and so broken is a big undertaking for any Congress, much less this dismally dysfunctional one. The Republicans’ grab bag of ideas still leaves Democrats nothing to negotiate with.

    That said, the list’s release Thursday, after years of stalemate, leaves us with a palmful of blessings to count.

    LEGALIZATION! The question about the nation’s 11 million unauthorized immigrants has always been this: Are they out or in? Criminals or potential Americans? The new principles say that these immigrants must “get right with the law.” This is a big change from “get out,” the central immigration position of the Republicans’ 2012 presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, who embraced the “self-deportation” mantra of his adviser Kris Kobach, author of Arizona’s brutal immigration law. Mr. Romney’s moral and electoral failure left his party in dire straits with Latino voters. From absolute denial to the brink of grudging acceptance is a big step away from neo-nativism.

    AN OVERDUE EPIPHANY ON DREAMERS The principles also acknowledge that children should not be punished for their parents’ acts, a central premise of the Dream Act, a bill to legalize some young immigrants brought here as children. It’s wonderful that Republicans, too, now endorse giving young people — raised as Americans, but with sharply diminished hopes for advancement after high school — a full shot at a future.

    But as we await an actual Republican bill, or bills, there remain serious pitfalls to watch out for:

    WHAT ABOUT CITIZENSHIP? Any legalization plan has to include the real possibility of immigrants’ becoming Americans. The principles rule out a “special” path to citizenship but do not reject outright the possibility of eventual naturalization for the 11 million. The details matter, and we haven’t seen them yet. Republicans need to remember: Maybe some European or Asian societies are happy to rely on imported laborers with no right to vote, no representation or hope of equality, but that’s not the American way, and must never be.

    NEW ENFORCEMENT AND TOO FEW VISAS The Republicans are demanding “significant fines” and other punishments for the undocumented, and the meeting of enforcement benchmarks as a condition for legalization, along with mandatory national expansion of the E-Verify hiring database and a new entry-exit visa system. New layers of enforcement, onerous to the point of spiteful, cannot be allowed to prevent immigrants from leaving the shadows. Increased powers for states and localities to enforce immigration laws — an invitation to racial profiling and other abuses — have no place in any bill. And reforms to legal immigration — with visas for farmworkers, high-skilled workers and others — must be expansive enough to ease crushing backlogs that discourage millions overseas.

    THE DEPORTER IN CHIEF As we wait for a bill, which could come in months or years or never, deportations continue. The Obama administration has expelled nearly two million people, breaking up thousands of the families President Obama has repeatedly promised to protect. If Congress fails, will he protect them through his own administrative action, as he already has by deferring deportations for a relative handful of unauthorized youths?

    THE TEMPTATION TO DESPAIR We are a long way from the hopeful days when John McCain and Edward Kennedy embarked on big bipartisan Senate legislation that was eventually killed by a Republican filibuster. Reform has died several deaths since then, and millions have suffered. Now Republicans, the party of self-deportation and Arizona-style laws, may be edging closer to saying yes to legal status for millions of the undocumented. Who knows if they’re serious, or if any bills will get past the party’s “hell no” caucus. It will be clear soon enough whether this is the first step back toward the rational, humane reform that should have passed years ago.

    – New York Times

  • Filibustering is legal

    Filibustering is legal

    APC’s directive to its members to block executive bills conforms to legislative norm

    The directive by the All Progressives Congress (APC) to its members to block all executive bills, including the 2015 Appropriation Bill, has continued to generate controversy. The ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), its supporters and allies, have alleged that the directive was meant to promote chaos in the land and portray the Federal Government as a failure, especially if the 2014 budget is successfully blocked.

    Other analysts have suggested that any attempt to stop the screening of service chiefs at a time like this is simply unpatriotic. Many are miffed that a party that has consistently criticised President Goodluck Jonathan for doing little to contain the insecurity across the land, especially in the North East where a state of emergency had to be imposed, could suggest that the security agencies be left without leadership, with the disengagement of the former heads of the army, air force and navy.

    However, the APC leaders have explained that the directive is that members of the National Assembly should block the bills should President Jonathan fail to take decisive action on the crisis in Rivers State. The party said it could not understand the President’s abdication of responsibility in that state, as lives are lost and property are being destroyed. Resolutions by both Houses of the National Assembly, following investigations by relevant committees, have been disregarded and Commissioner of Police Joseph Mbu is presented as an agent of the ruling party.

    We do not see anything wrong in the APC directive. As a leading opposition party, the APC chose the means to draw the attention of Nigerians to the reign of impunity in Rivers State. The people are left unprotected, activities of opposition groups are being checked by the police while groups loyal to the PDP are aided and protected by the police force. Besides, the APC has called attention many times to the relationship between Governor Rotimi Amaechi of the state and CP Mbu.

    We commend the APC for taking up the task of bringing the situation to the front burner. Filibustering is a standard legislative practice. The contest for power between the executive and legislative arms of government sometimes leads to delays in considering bills. Political activism is not strange to democracy; it is a mode of getting the public sensitised to issues of public importance.

    The contention that the APC lacks the majority standing to effectively block bills is immaterial. The issue has been raised. The attention of the President has been drawn to the risk the country runs if the crisis in Rivers State is left unattended to. And, the fact cannot be lost on all that the measure has achieved modest success as the Save Rivers Movement was allowed to hold its rally last week without the noxious police permit.

    All hands must be on deck to grow and deepen democracy in the country. What is unacceptable is a resort to extra-legal means of seeking redress or fighting alleged injustice. The National Assembly is put in place to assess and pass or reject bills. The constitution foresees the possibility of contentions in the Houses and would accept delay in the course of resolving disagreements. What Nigerians should do now is put pressure on President Jonathan to use the huge powers granted him under the constitution to rise above partisanship in addressing matters that could imperil national health.

    It is unfortunate that critics of the APC directive have forgotten the primary reason for delay in consideration of the budget. Why did it take the President so long to present the Appropriation Bill? Why is the National Assembly just starting debates on the Bill if the federal executive had been alive to its responsibility? In any case, what performance percentage was recorded last year? Was the delay last year also precipitated by an APC directive? How has the government responded to concerns of Nigerians on the structure and management of the economy? What new measures have been put in place to check leakages?

    These are germane questions to ask the Federal Government and the ruling party. It must be restated that the constitution does not foresee a situation whereby the Commissioner of Police would not be subordinate to the governor. The supreme law of the country mandates a Commissioner of Police to take “lawful instructions” from a governor.

    In the interest of peace, again, we call on President Jonathan to do the needful by directing the Inspector-General of Police to redeploy the super cop from Rivers State. Nigeria can ill-afford conflagration in the Niger Delta, the region that funds the nation’s import bill. Fuelling instability is not one of the tasks handed the President when he was elected in 2011. He should speak out now and allay speculations that he is deliberately provoking and promoting the crisis to reap political capital.

  • Medical check-up

    Medical check-up

    •It is an idea Nigerians must embrace to stem sudden deaths

    To say that Nigerians pay little attention to health issues is an understatement. It is however heart-warming that the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has taken up the challenge of sensitising Nigerians on the need to embrace the culture of voluntary routine medical check-ups. Dr. Osahon Enabulele, the NMA President, upped the ante in Minna through the association’s healthy living and health check-up campaign when he said: “NMA enjoins all Nigerians to place health-related issues, especially periodic medical check-ups at clinics and hospitals, at the prime-most positions of their annual plan of activity and programmes… Nigerian Medical Association advises that conscious efforts should be made to accord healthcare its rightful place in the scheme of things. This, the NMA believes, is the way forward towards creating and upholding a healthy workforce for families, communities, organisations and the Nigerian nation.”

    Until now, most Nigerians accord little or no priority to their medical upkeep; they could go for years without bothering to find out from medical doctors what their true state of health is. Whenever they fall ill or feel any symptoms of sickness, they usually resort to self medication or visits to quack medical personnel, relying on their often times misguided prescriptions for medical survival. This has, unfortunately, has resulted in several avoidable untimely deaths in the country.

    Due to this apathetical attitude to medical wellbeing, several Nigerians have died untimely. Hajiya Bilkisu Mahmoud, a civil servant in Niger State, reportedly slumped while on an assignment at the Government House, Minna, and later died at the specialist hospital. Mr Ranti Akerele, a former commissioner in Ondo State went to sleep in his house and never woke up the next day. Nigerian pop star and former Big Brother Africa (BBA) housemate Goldie Harvey reportedly complained of mere headache and later died. Several Nigerians have died in curious circumstances without the public taking notice of their deaths. Yet, most governments, at the centre, state and local levels do not see this trend as an ominous threat to healthy citizenry.

    We commend Governor Muazu Aliyu of Niger State for directing the state’s civil service commission to urgently develop an effective modality for conducting annual medical check-up for the state’s work force. Expectedly, civil servants in the state will henceforth go for annual routine medical checks. This should help in the reduction of the incidence of sudden deaths and non-communicable diseases. Other levels of government should make adequate provision for health check-up programmes, at least once a year for Nigerians under their jurisdiction. To make the programme more appealing, the government should foot the bills of such check-ups, if only to show governments’ commitment to breeding a healthy citizenry.

    We agree with the NMA that Nigerians must embrace preventive medicine through visits to general practitioners on a regular basis. Regular health examinations and tests can help detect problems when chances for treatment and cure are higher.  So many of such preventable medical afflictions such as high blood pressure, alcohol abuse, smoking, unhealthy diet, obesity and cancers could be detected and prevented or subjected to early treatment.

    All we are saying is that periodic health evaluation should be elevated to an admirable level of national recognition if truly our governments are ready and desirous of a healthy population.

  • Goodbye, Segun ‘Ali Must Go’ Okeowo

    Goodbye, Segun ‘Ali Must Go’ Okeowo

    •A great student activist departs

    An epoch in student unionism in Nigeria came to an end last Tuesday as Segun Okeowo died in Sagamu, Ogun State, aged 73. Juxtaposed against today’s mercenary students’ activism which has most university unions fractured and their leaders compromised, Okeowo represented a glorious era of the late 70s. His was a world that was influenced by deep ideological divides; a time students took principled stand on national issues and pursued their collective interests with maturity and self-assuredness.

    Thirty-five years ago, Okeowo, as President of the National Union of Nigerian Students (NUNS), had led university students across Nigeria to a protest against what was considered an arbitrary hike in students’ meal ticket by the military administration. After several meetings and consultations with the Federal Government as represented then by the Federal Commissioner for Education, Col. Ahmadu Ali, without achieving a reversal, NUNS called out students on a national protest which was to be tagged ‘Ali Must Go’.

    The mass protests spiralled beyond the campuses, spilling into towns and causing apprehension and fear among the populace. The military administration led by General Olusegun Obasanjo was rash and impulsive in its response, calling out armed police detachments to quell the riots and shutting down campuses thereafter. When the dust settled, many students had been killed while many others sustained injuries. Though the increment was never reversed, ‘Ali Must Go’ protest was a watershed in the annals of students uprising in Nigeria as it conveyed to the military government of the day, the capacity for students to mobilise across the country and carry out effective agitation. The protest was also significant for it helped to further mainstream student unionism as a national discourse, just as it showcased the power of students to agitate and force change.

    Segun Okeowo who led this historic action was promptly rusticated from the University of Lagos; he was to earn his first degree in Education two years later in 1980 at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University). Okeowo’s activist trajectory dated back to his days in Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo, where he was also the students’ union leader. He was to become President of the University of Lagos Students’ Union, then National President of NUNS.

    After graduation, he went on to a remarkable career as an educationist, rising to be principal in many schools in Ogun State such as Ogijo High School; Makun High School, both in Sagamu and Christ Apostolic Grammar School, Iperu Remo. He was appointed a commissioner in the Ogun State Electoral Commission, 1983; he was also member, Federal Government Panel of Enquiry on Ahmadu Bello University Students’ Crisis in 1986.

    He was quite prominent in the activities of the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) and the All Nigerian Conference of Principals of Secondary Schools (ANCOPSS). His last call of duty was as Chairman of the Ogun State Teaching Service Commission from where he retired in 2011. Illustrious and highly regarded in his Shagamu community, he was honoured with the traditional titles of Akogun of Makun, Obamuwagun of Iperu-Remo and Bobajiro of Idena.

    Okeowo was an iconic figure who defined protests and students activism for his generation. Regrettably, he had not latched on to his early rise to fame and prominence to drive social change and make a lasting impact at the national level. He was rather subsumed under the bureaucratic inertia of the civil service where he could be said to have served time and lived a sedentary life. It was anti-climactic if not disappointing to his numerous acolytes that Segun Okeowo, the great student leader ended up as a dyed-in-the-wool establishmentarian. He was a great pioneer nonetheless.

  • State of the Union: A call for collaboration by the president

    State of the Union: A call for collaboration by the president

    – Obama made a number of conciliatory gestures toward Republicans, but he was also resolute where he had to be

    Two themes dominated the advance speculation about President Obama’s State of the Union address: that he would hammer away at income inequality and joblessness, and that, despairing of cooperation with congressional Republicans, he would defiantly trumpet what he could accomplish unilaterally.

    Fortunately, the forecasts were only half right. Obama indeed emphasized the importance of strengthening and enlarging the middle class, which he said had been battered not only by a concentration of wealth at the top but by “massive shifts in technology and global competition.”

    But while he did announce some unilateral actions, including a directive to create a new vehicle for retirement savings, Obama asked Republicans who control the House to “make progress together.”

    Engaging the opposition isn’t only politic; it’s indispensable. Take an issue that loomed large in Obama’s speech: the need for an increase in the federal minimum wage to $10.10, restoring its purchasing power to late-1960s levels. Economists argue ad nauseam about whether raising the minimum wage depresses hiring. But surely minimum-wage workers are entitled at the very least to increases that cover inflation.

    Obama announced that he would issue an executive order to mandate a higher wage for employees of businesses that receive government contracts. But that unilateral action would protect only a few hundred thousand workers, compared with the millions who would benefit from a legislated increase. Likewise, congressional action would be needed to restore expired unemployment benefits to 1.6 million Americans.

    So too with immigration reform. Although the president has been able on his own to defer the deportation of the so-called dreamers, who were brought to this country when they were young, legal relief for their parents will require congressional action. Like the president, we believe reform must include a path to citizenship of the sort in the bill passed by the Senate. But with key Republicans moving to acceptance of the idea of legalization, Obama rightly adopted a conciliatory tone, acknowledging that “members of both parties in the House” want to fix a broken immigration system.

    Despite these conciliatory gestures, Obama was resolute where he had to be. He warned Republicans that it would be futile to schedule “another 40-something votes” to repeal the Affordable Care Act, “a law that’s already helping millions of Americans.” And he offered a crisp defense of negotiations with Iran over that country’s nuclear program, promising that “if this Congress sends me a new sanctions bill now that threatens to derail these talks, I will veto it.”

    In general, however, despite the hyperpartisan atmosphere on Capitol Hill, Obama’s speech amounted to a call for collaboration between Congress and the White House. Congressional Republicans, who are still suffering from the spectacle of their disastrous shutdown of the federal government, would be wise to respond in kind.

     

    – Los Angeles Times

     

  • Tukur’s new appointment

    Tukur’s new appointment

    President Goodluck Jonathan’s appointment of the former Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, as Chairman of the Board of Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) has expectedly generated negative reactions from Nigerians. Tukur has had a long-running battle with many of the party’s governors and other prominent stakeholders of the party over what they described as his high-handedness and incompetence. But he had the support of the President and his wife all along.

    However, when the heat was getting too much and he saw the handwriting of his imminent removal on the wall, Tukur, on January 16, was forced to resign and replaced by a former governor of Bauchi State, Adamu Mua’zu, whose appointment as Chairman of the National Pension Commission (PenCom) had earlier been confirmed by the Senate.

    The PDP crisis was so serious that five aggrieved governors left the party for the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), while 35 members of the House of Representatives followed suit. The same scenario is expected with an imminent defection of some members of the Senate. It seemed Tukur’s sins were so many and grave that even his exit did not change the minds of defectors and would-be defectors in the party.

    His appointment, forced exit, and replacement barely two days after says a lot about the credibility of PDP’s appointments into public and political offices. We do not know why President Jonathan sent him to railways as board chairman. If he did that on the assumption that the corporation is not important and its board could be chaired by just anyone, then that is a grievous mistake. The railway is as important and strategic as it could be, especially these days and its contribution to the transportation sector is unquantifiable.

    What NRC needs is a dynamic mind that will reengineer it in tune with contemporary demands and not a man being recycled just as job for the boys. How can we expect good performance in railways from someone who had failed in his previous job as chairman of the PDP? It is a pity that the PDP-led Federal Government has once again exhibited a lack of service direction by appointing an old man like Tukur to a strategic national office without consideration for merit.

    Age is definitely not on his side; at 78, he is too tired for any public office. What new things is he going to introduce in the NRC? Are we saying we are recycling such people in public offices due to a dearth of young people to take up such appointments?

    Perhaps it was due to joblessness usually attributed to most politicians. Even President Jonathan confirmed this situation in his speech at the Aso Villa Chapel, State House, Abuja, when he said “we are in politics due to joblessness”. And he stated further, “most of us who are in politics are not supposed to be there but because we have no other thing to do”. How else do we explain the appointment of Tukur other than that unless recycled, he would be jobless?

    But then, it is unthinkable that such an important arm of transport sector like the railway corporation should be handed over to a man who was removed for high-handedness and incompetence. We can only hope that the President is not preparing the ground for another round of crisis in the corporation? The job in the NRC is not, and should not be, a job for the boys or the likes of Bamanga Tukur. We smell a rat with the appointment coming in a year before general elections.

  • Boosting non-oil exports

    Boosting non-oil exports

    •It’s time to take non-oil resources seriously

    The Federal Government’s usual cliché of plans for sectoral incentives to boost local production of non-oil exports and generate revenue to compensate for shortfalls from crude oil export is in the air again. Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Minister of Finance, restated this while fielding questions from journalists in Lagos.

    This issue has been over-flogged by successive administrations. Okonjo-Iweala’s boss, President Goodluck Jonathan, during an interactive session last year with Mr. Jaroslav Siro, then outgoing Ambassador of the Czech Republic declared: “With current developments in the world, we are more interested in diversifying our economy, not in over-emphasising oil and gas exports. Our intention is to move our country away from being a mono-product economy that depends primarily on oil exports. We are fully committed, therefore, to boosting non-oil trade relations with other nations.” We ask: What happened to the official commitment in this regard?

    Nigerians have consistently been publicly befuddled by this mantra without any meaningful result on ground to show for it. As the coordinator of the economy with the responsibility of ensuring that all Federal Executive Council members do not work at cross-purposes and that every amount meant for the Federation Account was remitted into it, Okonjo-Iweala cannot convince us that concrete efforts are on ground from any of the non-oil concerns’ ministries to truly diversify the economy. Neither can her boss.

    After crude oil, the most visible sector that could earn the country high foreign revenue yields is agriculture. But the touted achievements of the sector are more of rhetoric than empirical. So much noise has been made about cassava export and the fact that bread is now being baked from this agricultural produce when, so far, cassava bread remains a scarce commodity in the public domain. Could it be rightly said that cassava bread is mainly for a reserved few in the society?

    Every year, so much money is budgeted for the agricultural sector while the impact of such spending has been minimal. Unfortunately too, very little has been done by government to develop the country’s agricultural potential in cash crops like groundnut, palm oil, cocoa, among others, that have been high foreign exchange earners in better managed climes.

    Surprisingly too, President Jonathan gleefully announced recently to Nigerians that his administration has increased funding of dry season farming from last year’s N9billion to N14billion this year. The increment was officially justified by the President because of its potential for increasing dry season employment. The truth however is that despite the significance of employment generation to the nation, this widely touted dry season farming has come with inconsequential harvest in spite of the huge budget allocated to it. The essence of dry season farming should be to come up with bumper dry season food harvests and not to generate phantom employment at a time that farming has globally gone digital. What is the essence of this administration’s well funded dry season farming when food prices at this period of the year are usually high?

    We deprecate a situation where the country continues to complain about her over-dependence on crude oil while equally doing nothing about her dependence on imports with attendant adverse effects on her balance of payment. This trend will continue for as long as most chambers of commerce and industry in the country focus more on what can be imported into the country from affiliate countries than what can be developed and exported to such countries. What the country needs for true economic diversification is leadership, honesty and discipline to adhere to thorough economic development planning.

  • A beacon of reason in the Arab world

    A beacon of reason in the Arab world

    – Tunisia may yet complete the transition to democracy

    Anyone surveying events across the Middle East and north Africa since the Arab uprisings began three years ago could be forgiven for being utterly dismayed. Syria remains in the grip of a murderous civil war that has killed about 130,000 people. Libya is on the brink of anarchy, with predictions that the country will split apart altogether. Egypt is reverting to an authoritarianism that exceeds the iron-fisted rule of the Mubarak years. Still, amid all the gloom, there is one country – Tunisia – which suddenly appears within striking distance of successfully completing the journey from dictatorship to democracy.

    Three years ago, Tunisia was the starting point for the upheavals that swept across the Arab world. A street vendor set fire to himself in protest against the regime of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, triggering a wave of protest that soon had the president fleeing the country. In the years since, Tunisia has often looked as though it might descend into the same anarchy that has afflicted other states in the region. The outlook was particularly precarious last summer when the country was struck by a wave of violence, much of it instigated by Salafi militants. At that time, Tunisia looked dangerously polarised between its Islamist and secular political parties.

    During the past six months, however, the country’s politicians have hammered out a remarkable set of compromises that are now setting the country on a new path. Nahda, Tunisia’s Islamist party, has recognised the need to be flexible over the writing of a new constitution, accepting that there should be full rights for women and minorities. Tunisia’s secularists, meanwhile, have accepted that the document can enshrine Islam as the national religion. Last Sunday, the constitution was finalised in the national parliament amid emotional scenes, paving the way for elections this year.

    This is an impressive achievement. But what lessons does it hold for the wider region? We should beware of making too much of Tunisia’s example. The country has a population of 10.6m, about one-eighth the size of Egypt, which will always be the Middle East’s bellwether state. Tunisia’s economic and social structure also makes the transition from dictatorship to democracy a little easier. It has a much stronger middle class than its neighbours, while the army has never played a significant role in national life in the way we have seen in Egypt.

    Still, two aspects of Tunisia’s progress are worth underscoring. First, the country’s political transformation shows what can be achieved if Islamist and secular leaders are prepared to compromise on some core beliefs. Here, an important example has been offered by Rached Ghannouchi, the leader of Nahda. Mr Ghannouchi made negotiations over the constitution much easier from the start by accepting that it did not need to be based on sharia law. He made those concessions because he has learnt from the mistakes made in Egypt by Mohamed Morsi, whose drift towards authoritarianism triggered a mass uprising and a subsequent military coup against his leadership last summer.

    Secondly, the west and particularly the EU, must now pay close attention to Tunisia’s achievement and look to offer economic and trading support. Tunisia is not out of the woods yet. It faces serious economic challenges, with high unemployment and significant disparities of wealth between the impoverished interior of the country and its more developed coastal areas. As a result, western donors should act to support the country where possible. Most of the Arab world is shrouded in gloom. It is therefore hugely important that one country is allowed to stand as a beacon of what can be achieved if Islamists and secularists set aside their differences for the greater good.

    – Financial Times

  • Action, not talk

    Action, not talk

    We hope that the defence chief will end Boko Haram menace by April

    Nigerians must be hoping that the inaugural statement by the newly-appointed Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Air Marshall Alex Badeh, on the country’s precarious security situation, particularly relating to terrorist activities of Boko Haram, will not  prove  to be mere  bluster.

    Hopefully, it was not just the excitement of his new status that prompted Badeh’s dramatic words when he said, “The security situation in the North-East must be brought to a complete stop before April 2014. So please if there are any of them around, send words to your colleagues that they are in trouble; we are coming after them.”  However, perhaps unwittingly, he indicated the complexity of the task by his rhetorical flourish which suggested that members of the Islamist group could possibly be present at the ceremony. It is noteworthy that his remark, beyond the exaggerated colour, was reminiscent of President Goodluck Jonathan’s controversial comment sometime ago that Boko Haram had successfully infiltrated the government.

    In addition to the obvious developmental arrest resulting from terrorism, Badeh elaborated on factors that determined his deadline, saying, “I was telling my colleagues that we must bring it to a stop by April 2014 so that we do not have constitutional problems in our hands.” According to him, “We do not want to go back to the Senate and start begging and lobbying. If we do our work cohesively, I can say that General Minimah will finish that thing in no time.”

    What informed  his confidence is certainly unclear, but it is plain that his reasoning was based on the need to avoid legislative endorsement of a further  extension of emergency rule in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states , after the first round which started in May 2013,  and the current six-month addition from November. In other words, administrative reasons, rather than any solid grounds for optimism were responsible for his dream of crushing the insurgency by the April date.

    Without doubt, this non-combat basis cannot be sufficient justification for buoyancy, considering the worrying fact that since 2009 the rebels have continued to perpetrate stunning acts of destruction without any significant pause. It remains to be seen whether Badeh’s tenure will indeed make a difference to the presidency’s counter-terrorism campaign.

    It is disturbing that, perhaps in his enthusiasm to sound prepared for the function, he allowed his emotion to take over. He possibly started on a wrong note by making such a definite declaration. It is a well-known fact that surprise is a key element in warfare, which Badeh did not seem to appreciate as his publicised words were capable of alerting the terrorists to the possibility of danger. Was it necessary for him to announce, as he did, that his battle plan is to end the conflict by a specific time? What advantage, if any, did he hope to get from such openness? With such approach to intelligence issues, does he expect the terrorists to wait to be defeated by April?

    It is worth mentioning that this is not the first time a high-profile security figure, or even a political bigwig, would make such a politically correct statement on ending the fighting within the time frame of the emergency.  Tragically, the advertised intention is far from materialisation, and the immediate targets of the rebels as well as the larger society continue to experience the pains of insecurity.

    Regrettably, the Boko Haram challenge remains potent, in spite of the government’s efforts. This reality calls for greater creativity and firmness of purpose on the side of the political authorities. The government must not allow the chilling carnage carried out remorselessly by the group to drag on. Action, not talk, is the solution.