The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • A powerful rebuke of mass surveillance

    A powerful rebuke of mass surveillance

    For the first time since the revelation of the National Security Agency’s vast dragnet of all Americans’ telephone records, a federal court has ruled that such surveillance is “significantly likely” to be unconstitutional.

    In a scathing 68-page opinion peppered with exclamations of incredulity, United States District Judge Richard Leon, of the Federal District Court of the District of Columbia, found that the seven-year-old phone-data collection program — which was established under the Patriot Act and has been repeatedly reauthorized by a secret intelligence court — “almost certainly” violates the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches.

    Reaching into the 18th century from the 21st, the judge wrote that James Madison “would be aghast” at the degree of privacy invasion the data sweep represents.

    The ruling by Judge Leon, who was nominated to the bench by President George W. Bush on Sept. 10, 2001, was remarkable for many reasons, but mainly because there were real people sitting in open court challenging the government’s lawyers over the program’s constitutionality.

    The plaintiffs, led by Larry Klayman, a conservative legal activist, sued the government after the program came to light. A similar suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union is in a federal court in New York.

    Judge Leon’s opinion took issue with the government’s reliance on a 1979 Supreme Court case, Smith v. Maryland, which upheld the police’s warrantless capture of phone numbers dialed from the home of a robbery suspect on grounds that the suspect had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the numbers he dialed.

    But the N.S.A.’s phone-surveillance program is “a far cry” from what the court considered in 1979, Judge Leon wrote. While the circumstances in the Smith case involved a “one-time, targeted request for data regarding an individual suspect in a criminal investigation,” the phone-surveillance program is a “daily, all-encompassing, indiscriminate dump” of data from the phones of people who are not suspected of any wrongdoing.

    Further, he reasoned, the Supreme Court in 1979 could not “have ever imagined how the citizens of 2013 would interact with their phones.”

    “Thirty-four years ago, when people wanted to send ‘text messages,’ they wrote letters and attached postage stamps,” Judge Leon wrote. In other words, as technology changes, so does an average person’s expectation of privacy — the standard by which a court determines whether a search is reasonable.

    Judge Leon recognized the government’s compelling interest in preventing terrorism, but he pointed out that it “does not cite a single instance” in which the data collection “actually stopped an imminent attack.”

    In order to reach these issues at all, Judge Leon first ruled that the plaintiffs had standing — that is, they have the legal capacity to challenge both the collection of the phone data itself and the subsequent searches of that data by the government. That is significant, because prior to the revelation of the phone-data sweep this summer, the Supreme Court had rejected a similar challenge because the plaintiffs could not prove that the government had ever collected their personal data. As Verizon customers, Mr. Klayman and the other plaintiffs are now able to show “strong evidence” of that collection, the judge ruled.

    The judge, in granting the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction, ordered the government to stop collecting the plaintiffs’ phone data and to destroy any data it had already collected, but because of the “significant national security interests at stake,” he stayed his own ruling to allow the government to appeal. The decision applies only to the plaintiffs in this case, and not to the American public at large.

    Though the ruling is limited in those respects, it is an enormous symbolic victory for opponents of the bulk-collection program, and a reminder of the importance of the adversarial process. For seven years, these constitutional issues have been adjudicated under “a cloak of secrecy,” as Judge Leon put it. Now, that cloak has finally been lifted in a true court of law.

    – New York Times

     

  • Suspect statistics

    Suspect statistics

    An IGP’s unsubstantiated claim about roadblocks and corruption in the police force

    Obviously, the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, was on an image-laundering mission when he presented the Nigeria Police Scorecard in Asaba, Delta State. His loud remarks had a ring of self-satisfaction, but the public was not impressed. When he declared that “Removing roadblocks in Nigeria has reduced corruption in the police by 80 percent,” he might have been speaking of a wish rather than actuality. Nigerians, who regularly bear the brunt of police improprieties, evidentially do not share Abubakar’s strange optimism.

    Perhaps the positive picture he painted was understandable, given the fact that one of the striking moves he made upon assumption of office was the banning of police roadblocks, which was greeted with public relief and praise. His presentation, therefore, not only sought to re-validate the policy; it was also an indirect way of congratulating himself and stressing his relevance.

    However, being an interested party clearly makes him a suspect source for such details. It is unclear whether there was any methodical approach to the estimation. Or was it just a supposition? Indeed, for credibility, such information ought to be research-based, which it does not seem that Abubakar can claim. An independent assessment informed by scientific expertise would have been more believable.

    Furthermore, the blanket figure was statistically vague, for it suggested that roadblocks alone accounted for 80 percent of corruption in the force but gave no clue about the other aspects of police sleaze. For instance, what about the contentious issue of bail, which is generally known to encourage corruption in the force? What about the problem of bribery for the perversion of justice?  It is instructive that Abubakar also said that the force had dismissed thousands of officers in the past one year for corruption-related conduct. Again, his failure to elaborate on the specific acts that led to the said dismissals further put a question mark on his assertion about the scale of reduction of corruption connected with roadblocks.

    If Abubakar was right, it raised disturbing questions about the pervasive corrupting influence of roadblocks and the fact that the fraudulent practice existed for so long before his intervention. There is no doubt that the roadblocks were notorious for police extortion tactics. In the case of commuter buses, for instance, it was no secret that policemen at such checkpoints had a fixed minimum charge of N20 to allow unchallenged passage. In fact, in extreme cases, there have been reported killings by armed policemen at roadblocks, resulting from alleged uncooperative attitude by road users.

    Regrettably, the undeniable reality is that the evil roadblocks, despite the prohibition, still exist under other guises. In other words, the ban merely inspired greater inventiveness on the part of policemen who still do checkpoints for so-called “stop and search.”  Ironically, even Abubakar’s words tended to support what may be described as limited roadblocks. According to him, “The essence of roadblocks is for a temporary arrest of crime and as soon as this is done it is dismantled; this is the situation in other countries of the world.”

    Apart from the doubtful accuracy of Abubakar’s scorecard, it is perturbing that the no-road-block policy may prove to be a personalised operation without the guarantee of continuity. The undesirable implication of possible institutional review is that even the level of success claimed by Abubakar may well decline after his tenure.

    At bottom, the significance of the Inspector-General’s apparently exaggerated assessment must be the fact that, perhaps inadvertently, he again helped to turn attention to the nature of official corruption in the force and its diverse dimensions. It goes without saying that positive transformation of the country’s police is a laudable objective, but it is well beyond mere unsubstantiated talk.

  • Curious investment

    Curious investment

    •Nigerians want to feel the impact of govt’s policies in agric sector, not rhetoric that is the minister’s hallmark

    COULD it be true that private sector investment in Nigeria’s agricultural sector since 2011 is worth over $8billion (about N1.25trillion)? This agitating question arose as a result of Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development’s assertions at a News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum in Abuja. He said that: “In the last two years, we have been able to attract $8 billion of private investment commitment into the agriculture sector and $4 billion is being implemented as we speak.’’ Where then is the visible impact of such big investment?

    Adesina attributed the curious investment to the ‘positive impact’ of the Federal Government’s Transformation Agenda on agribusiness. He gave names of companies that have greatly invested in the sector to include Dangote Group (about $9billion investment in petrochemical plant and fertiliser manufacturing plant); Indorama, an Indonesian company which he claimed invested $1.3 million in fertiliser manufacturing; and Notore’s $1.5 billion investment to expand its fertiliser manufacturing plant in Nigeria.

    The minister also said that Syngenta, the world’s leading seeds production and specialised chemicals/pesticides company equally established a company in Nigeria that has so far employed 14 Nigerians, but did not put value on the worth of its investment. He attributed the companies’ interests in the country to the ‘working’ policies of government in the sector. But the truth is that these private initiatives, even if they are true, are long-term investments that cannot meet the immediate, short and medium term agricultural aspirations of Nigerians. Where is concrete evidence of government’s quick intervention to quell the thirst of Nigerians for agricultural benefits?

    We are surprised that Adesina gleefully disclosed further without specifics/facts that the best performing stocks in the Nigerian market today were agriculture-related stocks, and this came about because of his purported government-induced enabling environment that has made agriculture to be seen now as ‘a viable and profitable sector capable of creating the money that the banks could lend to investors.’

    He also said, without providing facts, that banks now offer loans to farmers unlike before because of the inherent potential in the agric sector, consequent upon the Growth Enhancement Support (GES) scheme introduced by the Federal Government. According to him; “last year, the banks lent to those agro-dealers N3.5 billion. This year, the banks lent N20 billion to those agro-dealers.” We ask: Who are the beneficiaries of these loans and what are the names of the banks that gave the loans out? These, in our view, would aid public scrutiny of the entire process. It would not augur well if all government does is to reel out figures and claims without any means of ascertaining the truth, as has been the case in the grandiose achievements by the agriculture ministry under Adesina.

    Nigerians are more interested in empirical results from the sector and not mere rhetoric that has become the minister’s hallmark. The impact of the $4billion out of the $8billion invested into the economy has not been felt. For instance, who consumed the 240 metric tons of rice that the minister claimed was produced by 14 new rice mills in 2012? Has government installed the 100 large scale rice processing mills expected to produce 2.1million metric tons of rice annually with the $1.2billion it secured from ADB since 2012?

    It is a known fact that most of the rice consumed in the country is smuggled in through Benin Republic because of the high tariff imposed on rice importation by government. This makes nonsense of the erroneous official claim that the nation has reached 60 per cent sufficiency in rice production. Also, we call on the minister to tell us who the beneficiaries of the about two million new jobs promised by him to have been created for rural dwellers since 2012 are? Above all, the minister should engage in more rewarding agricultural ventures for the benefit of motherland than his current rhetoric.

  • Bad example

    Bad example

    •Jonathan’s criticism of Nigerian politicians at Mandela memorial service is unpresidential

    PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan certainly ought to have sufficient experience in office by now to know that he is the chief salesman and public relations officer of the country. Like a competent Chief Executive Officer of an organisation, his primary responsibility is to project the strengths and virtues of his enterprise while working unobtrusively to deal with problems, challenges and weaknesses. A company executive who specialises in showcasing his outfit’s faults will most likely soon be out of business.

    But this was exactly what President Jonathan did in what was supposed to be his tribute to Dr Nelson Mandela at the memorial service organised in honour of the legendary freedom fighter at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on December 8.

    The President did not exhibit good example when he chose the solemn occasion to run down Nigerian politicians, claiming that they lack the virtues of the late Mandela. While rightly extolling Mandela’s widely acknowledged attributes of humility, a forgiving spirit and the ability to unite people, he described Nigerian politicians as being disposed to issuing threats, boasting and playing little gods. He put down members of Nigeria’s political class as “tiny men” who give the impression that “Nigeria is their bedroom from where they make proclamations and intimidate others”.

    For one, the occasion where the President cast aspersion on his fellow politicians was most inauspicious. In attendance were members of the diplomatic corps who must have gone away with a very bad impression of the country’s leadership class. If the President has such contempt for his fellow politicians, why should outsiders take them serious? For, it is from the political class that the country’s leadership elite are recruited. If they are as mean, conceited and frivolous as depicted by Jonathan, how can they be expected to behave responsibly and decently in public office or uphold the rule of law? Again, members of the audience must have gone away with an equally poor opinion of Dr Jonathan himself. This is because he is also a Nigerian politician and did not drop from the moon.

    Yes, Nigerian politicians have their faults just like politicians everywhere, including Mandela’s South Africa. Even then, Jonathan’s generalisation is inappropriate and indefensible, especially for a trained academic and a scientist at that. With the kind of unprincipled and irresponsible politicians he has portrayed as running the country, why should foreign investors channel their capital to Nigeria, for example? This is how weighty such careless presidential pronouncements can be.

    It is not unlikely that Dr Jonathan is unsettled by the often fierce criticisms his administration has been subjected to. But he should expect no less in a vibrant democracy. After all, members of his party also vigorously criticise the opposition in states where the latter are in power. That is how democracy can thrive and grow.

    When the President faces unfair criticism, he must have the equanimity to take it in his stride and decently put the records straight. If subjected to objective criticism, he must demonstrate the humility to admit errors and make amends. If confronted with mean and vile attacks, he must exhibit the generosity of spirit to forgive and never demean his office by throwing mud. After all, those are the virtues for which he and the rest of the world have heaped fulsome praise on Mandela.

    Of course, this is not to say that the office of President should not be given its deserved reverence at all times. It only stands to reason that those who seek to be respected if privileged to occupy the position must avoid doing anything to demystify its dignity.

  • Flying a kite?

    Flying a kite?

    •Longer single-term begs the issues of accountability and free elections. It must be defeated

    IKE Ekweremadu, deputy president of the Senate, appears starting a fresh campaign for elongated single executive tenures, instead of the present two four-year term limits. It was defeated before. It would be defeated again, if Nigeria must fulfill the most basic requirement of democracy: free elections.

    In a newspaper interview, Senator Ekweremadu said his campaign for single tenure of five, six or seven years, whichever Nigerians found acceptable, was panacea for the crisis of succession, which had always rocked Nigeria’s democratic polity.

    Saying it would at best be a temporary arrangement that could give way after Nigeria would have discovered her democratic temper, he made examples of South America which, at a time, had a rash of constitutional amendments sanctioning elongated single terms. Now that democracy has been deepened in those shores, he added, they have reverted to limits of two terms. He said that as the South Americans needed a democratic cool-off period then, Nigeria needs a cool-off period now to discover her democratic essence.

    On the face of it, Senator Ikweremadu’s position would appear not unreasonable, particularly the part that insists the legislature should continue its four-year term (the legislature has no term limit, anyway), to create a two-year gap between legislative and executive elections. But looking at it more closely, his panacea was a fixation with symptoms, rather than a clarity of purpose to root out the problems.

    By the senator’s argument, if the executive were to be awarded two — or three — more years (depending on whether six or seven years was settled for), and legislative elections held in 2015, then at least a buffer of two years would have been created. Executive and legislative elections would hold two years apart, and the electoral umpire would have more time to plan, aside from being encumbered with messy general elections. He cited the two-year gap between mid-term legislative elections and general elections in the United States, to ram home his point.

    And how might this “award” be accomplished? Not by any election, but by extra-legal tools as the “Doctrine of Necessity” the Senate used to make Goodluck Jonathan acting president, when the players had neither the will nor the inclination to apply the law as it was. To say the least, it is shocking that the Number Two man in Nigeria’s highest legislative chamber would push for the subversion of the law because of short-term seeming convenience.

    But beyond that is the Nigerian power elite’s mindset to run away from problems they are handsomely paid to solve, hoping that the problems would disappear. They won’t. Bribing the President and warring governors with two more years, simply because of internal power struggle, is rewarding electoral subversion and power rascality. Every elected official, ab initio, knew both the mode of seeking power and duration of his or her tenure. So, it is no patriotism but clear fraud to move for undemocratic means of tenure extension, for whatever reasons.

    Besides, Senator Ekweremadu and the rest of the ruling elite must learn trite lessons about democracy. The voter can mistakenly elect a non-performer. But periodic elections give him the ultimate tool to correct such mistakes. Anything done to short circuit that is anti-democratic. The Senate should therefore devote its energy to ensuring free and fair elections to deepen democracy, instead of looking for easy ways that would eventually worsen the situation.

    Chase service, not tenure. Whoever delivers service to his electors is, other things being equal, rewarded with the longest tenure under the law. That was the trite message President Jonathan missed when about the first thing he pushed, after his election, was a seven-year presidential tenure. That is the point Senator Ekweremadu is missing by pushing this already defeated notion.

    If by this latest campaign the senator is flying an umpteenth kite, he should remember the futility of pushing a dead horse. The Senate’s deputy president should add value, not waste precious time on constitutional inanities.

  • Good news

    • FG should deliver on its promise to build largest seaport in Lekki

    THE decision of the Federal Government to award a contract for a deep seaport in the Lekki area of Lagos is commendable. It is coming about 10 years after the idea was first mooted and lauded by experts and the general populace in Lagos. All aspects of the contract awarded to Messrs Lekki Ports LFTV Enterprise will benefit Nigeria if executed expeditiously and according to specification.

    The Lekki Seaports is intended to decongest the existing seaports that have a combined capacity of handling 60,000 tonnes but currently are made to handle about 100,000 tonnes. The effect is that vessels are delayed and businesses adversely affected. The contract for the sum of $1.4 billion or N216 billion is expected to be financed through a Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) option, with the Federal Government acquiring 20 per cent equity participation, the Lagos State Government 18.5 per cent and private investors, 61.85 per cent.

    When completed, the project is expected to boost the revenue of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and generate 162,000 jobs. It is also expected to handle the largest vessels from any part of the world. The Federal Executive Council, according to information minister, Labaran Maku, is said to have negotiated the concessionary period downward from 50 years to 45, thus drawing more benefits for the country.

    It must be pointed out, however, that it is not enough to approve on paper, prompt redemption of commitments, provision of needed infrastructure, thorough supervision and due attention to details are needed to ensure that Nigeria gets value for the money being invested.

    In order to make the dream of having the port a reality, we note the need for an alternative road. The current first class road leading there is tolled. But, a road to such a facility, given the volume of traffic to be generated by vehicular and human agents, cannot be tolled. This calls for an alternative route in order to preserve the concept of the existing road meant to make life easy for motorists and commuters.

    The Federal Government should learn from the experience of previous PPP projects that led to disputes and bad blood between it and the private sector. Proper agreements must be signed before commencement of work and, as much as possible, variation should be avoided. It has been said that the contract is to be fully executed within four years; we hope that all the parties sat down to look at the technical and financial components to avoid another spell of undue delay. We recall the fate of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway that was first awarded to Bicourteny until it was eventually revoked. Government should review the controversies that trailed the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway project and ensure that they do not assail this one.

    The Lekki Port project has a redeeming feature for the Federal Government. It has been portrayed as intolerant and unwilling to partner with the states for development. The recent face-off with the Rivers State government over a World Bank-financed project comes to mind. Governor Rotimi Amaechi has accused the Federal Ministry of Finance of pettiness for standing in the way of development in the state. The decision to go along with Lagos State in getting the project off the ground is a refreshing departure from this pattern.

    Given the development along the corridor, including the Atlantic City, the Free Trade Zone and the proposed airport, the seaport deserves the support of all and all stakeholders should scrupulously keep their sides of the bargain.

  • A new Cold War tug-of-war on Ukraine

    A new Cold War tug-of-war on Ukraine

    To its credit, the Obama administration has condemned the crackdown on demonstrators in Ukraine and is suggesting that further repression might lead to economic sanctions. There are signs that international support for the protesters, who are calling for a closer relationship with Western Europe, may induce President Viktor Yanukovich to recommit to an association agreement with the European Union that he backed away from under pressure from Russia. Promising efforts also are underway to provide Ukraine with financial aid to enable it to close a deal with the EU.

    At the same time, U.S. officials are rightly emphasizing that Ukraine can honor its people’s European aspirations without rejecting a harmonious relationship with Russia. Victoria Nuland, the U.S. assistant secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs, who visited Ukraine this week, repeatedly has said that the future of Ukraine is not a “zero-sum game.”

    Contrast that approach with the view of former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, who wrote in a Times Op-Ed article this week that the crisis in Ukraine demonstrated that the West should have brought that country into its “orbit,” including by offering it membership in NATO, a military alliance still seen by Russia as directed against it. Such arguments play into President Vladimir Putin’s fears about an encirclement of Russia by its erstwhile enemies and, at the same time, encourage the notion that Russia itself is not part of Europe.

    Putin is an authoritarian and a bully, and he clearly is unreconciled to the loss of Russian influence — in Eastern Europe and elsewhere — that accompanied the collapse of the Soviet Union. But it isn’t surprising that he would regard Ukraine, a country of 46 million with linguistic and religious connections to Russia, as a special case. Even after independence, many Ukrainians, particularly those in the eastern part of the country, identify with Russia.

    That doesn’t justify Russian interference in Ukraine’s internal affairs or attempts to muscle it into joining a Russian-dominated trading bloc instead of associating with the EU. But it does call for the sort of sophisticated response U.S. and European officials have shown in recent days, one that supports Ukraine’s sovereignty, democratization and self-determination but doesn’t ask that country to take sides in a new Cold War.

     

    – Los Angeles Times

     

  • Cosy with corruption

    Cosy with corruption

    Tambuwal hits the nail on the head; dismisses President Jonathan’s anti-corruption war

    The Speaker, House of Representatives, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, last week took a swipe on President Goodluck Jonathan’s weak fight against corruption. The Speaker spoke at a roundtable to mark the International Anti-corruption Day by the Nigerian Bar Association, in Abuja. He emphasised that the President’s body language does not show the political will to fight corruption. He also decried the President’s undue secrecy in governance, and the unnecessary setting up of committees to probe corruption, instead of referring cases of corrupt practices to statutory bodies empowered to investigate and prosecute such allegations.

    These assertions are unassailable, and it is important that they are treated by the President with all seriousness. Indeed, it will be tragic if the presidency treats these grave allegations with levity. Unfortunately, there are signs of this already, as the President’s media handlers have retorted that the President cannot be judged by body language; instead of denying in specificity the allegations by the Speaker. The Speaker listed glaring cases of scandalous allegations of corruption, and the President’s scant regard to the recommendations of the legislature on them.

    Tambuwal listed the oil subsidy probe, the aviation ministry’s scandal, the pension scam probe and allegations of corruption in the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In most of the probes by the House of Representatives, allegations of monumental corruption were exposed. As rightly argued by the Speaker, the decision of the President to set up administrative committees to probe the allegations instead of referring their recommendations to police agencies is duplicitous. In the Speaker’s words, ‘the executive, by constituting committees to investigate what ordinarily should have been investigated by the EFCC, the ICPC and the Code of Conduct Bureau is engaged in duplication of efforts’.

    It is encouraging that the Speaker, who is in the same party as the President, has shown the courage to condemn the attitude of the leader of his party, publicly. It shows maturity, and we commend it. We had exerted efforts in the past, even in the last few weeks, to condemn the lukewarm attitude of President Jonathan to fighting corruption. We have also condemned the nuanced assertion by the President that corruption is not the primary challenge militating against our national development; and his further assertion that the allegations of corruption in our country are more of perception than reality.

    One of the pending corruption scandals which the Speaker raised is the illegal purchase of two armoured cars by the Ministry of Aviation, for a humongous N255 million. To underscore the rightness of the Speaker’s allegation against the President, it is unfortunate that despite a national outcry, nothing has been done by the executive and its agencies to bring the culprits to justice. The same attitude applies to the subsidy scam that almost convoluted the country last year. Despite the confirmation by even the committee set up by the President, that the subsidy was a huge scam, what we have as trials, is akin to a circus show, involving some of the scions of the ruling party, who were identified as the culprits.

    As we have noted in several of our interventions, the President has the constitutional responsibility to lead the anti-corruption war in the country; after all he is also the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. The enormity of his responsibilities to rein in corruption must not be taken lightly, and he must appreciate that he insults the sensibilities of Nigerians, when he makes light that challenge. For the purpose of emphasis, even the General Secretary of the United Nations, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, has identified corruption as the greatest challenge to development in Third World countries. It is at the heart of the deficiency in infrastructure, as money earmarked for development is usually creamed off into private pockets.

    We urge Speaker Tambuwal to also take his fight against corruption to his primary constituency. This is not to take away anything from his unassailable indictment of President Jonathan’s attitude to corruption in the executive arm of government. It is unacceptable that Nigerians are left to conjecture what it costs the tax payer to maintain the National Assembly. The sundry allegation that the members of the legislature earn more income than their contemporaries around the world, despite our gross poverty is also condemnable. It will be edifying, if in the spirit of transparency, the legislature comes clean on this blot on its integrity.

    In the meantime, President Jonathan must take heed to the challenges posed by Speaker Tambuwal.

  • Oil crisis (5)

    Oil crisis (5)

    The problem with the oil industry in Nigeria came to a head in 2012 when its mammoth corruption in the form of subsidy fraud touched off a strike. The nation was prostrate, and the omen for the collapse of this democracy was real enough for the genteel façade of the president to be demystified. A crackdown followed rhetoric of presidential defiance.

    It was then that basic issues of our industry riled many Nigerians with its monstrous clarity: round-tripping became a common phrase typifying the lifestyles of indolent men who made money from our patrimony by doubling their intakes for supplies that never happened. Opacity explained the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s (NNPC) failure to reconcile the amount of crude sold with the sum of money remitted to the federation account. We also understood that the president, Goodluck Jonathan, had ceded the control of oil pipelines to persons who were once outlaws fattening on the theft of the oil in the pipelines.

    What was familiar to followers of the industry was the unwieldy structure of the NNPC that made it vulnerable to corrupt manipulation by the top players of government and industry. Cosmetic tinkering had only in the past led to an illusion of solution by previous administrations, leading, for instance, to the birth of Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR).

    But the essential challenge of the industry has been the inability of the government and players in the industry to subject themselves to due process and the essentials of moral integrity. Hence, today, we do not know as a matter of certainty how much crude oil we extract and, consequently, sell. We are subjected to the good faith of the NNPC. But that was before when ignorance nourished a naïve belief by many Nigerians that the custodian of oil told us the truth.

    What we need now is truth, and it is the only principle that can reconcile us to any sincerity in the industry. We recommend a breakdown of the various layers of its operation, and all its books made available to Nigerians.

    We condemn what has become routine rigmarole by the NNPC in answers to questions on its operations on the floor of the National Assembly. Never since we have managed oil in Nigeria have we been faced with charges of corruption at the scale we have had under the administration of President Jonathan.

    We have lost confidence in the ability of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate its seedy finances. We therefore call for a bi-partisan panel to look into the custodian of the nation’s pot, and issue a report about the working of the corporation, with a view to instituting a standard with regards to the upstream, middle stream and downstream sectors.

    Who are the oil licensees? How are they selected? How much oil do we refine a day, who do we supply, when and through what routes do we supply them? Those are some of the issues the panel will resolve. We also need to have a transparent accounting system that matches sales with receipts.

    The panel will also show a template for guarding oil resources. With massive theft of oil daily, it goes without saying that placing brigands in charge of its safety has failed as a model. A security overhaul is urgent.

    The consequence of the laxity in the NNPC and the industry has now been reflected in the finance minister’s inability to account for why proceeds from the excess crude account are being drawn upon to pay monthly allocation to states. How do you draw on that account when the difference between oil price and the benchmark has held steady throughout the year at over $30 dollars per barrel?

    The consequence is biting the states in paying salaries and executing projects. Without a serious onslaught on the failings of NNPC and government laxity, oil might indeed presage economic crisis with its social and political implications for Nigeria.

  • Kano’s Sharia police

    Kano’s Sharia police

    The men were obviously very hard at work. Newspaper visuals showed them amidst the wreckage of thousands of bottles they had destroyed with single-minded devotion. Clad in blue shirts over black trousers, the men belonged to the Kano State Shariah police also known as Hisbah. The objects of their umbrage were 240,000 bottles of beer confiscated from trucks entering the state by these enforcers of morally correct behaviour.

    In addition to the beer bottles, the Hisbah also destroyed 8,000 litres of a local alcoholic beverage known as ‘burukutu’ as well as 320,000 packets of cigarettes. This action was reportedly taken in pursuit of a directive by the state government to cleanse the commercial hub of ‘immoral practices’. Thus, speaking at the bottle breaking ceremony, the Kano Hisbah Chief, Mallam Aminu Daurawa, expressed the hope that “this will bring an end to the consumption of such prohibited circumstances”. Giving notice of even more vigorous exertions in future towards morally sanitising the state, Daurawa declared, “We hereby send a warning to unrepentant offenders that Hisbah personnel will soon embark on an operation into every nook and cranny of the state to put an end to the sale and consumption of alcohol and other intoxicants”.

    Of course, the state government may be well meaning in its determination to safeguard the health of her residents by preventing the sale and consumption of intoxicating substances like alcohol and cigarettes. However, the consumption of these items clearly does not constitute an offence under Nigeria’s laws. At best, the choice to drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes falls within the province of private moral behaviour. Except for products expressly prohibited by the law, all that can be done is for the state and other concerned individuals and groups to engage in moral advocacy to discourage the consumption of these items, for health or other reasons.

    There are also sanctions against drunken driving, for instance, which the state has a duty to enforce. We fear that the discretion given the Hisbah in this regard may encourage religious fanatics to take the law into their hands and impose their own private moral codes on those who do not necessarily subscribe to their ethical worldview.

    The fact that such large quantities of alcoholic beverages and cigarettes could be confiscated and destroyed suggests that there is a large market for the products in the area. For, it is unlikely that businessmen would risk sending the products to areas where there are no buyers and their chances of making profit minimal. The imposition of a single religious code of behaviour on a complex and heterogeneous society like Kano, like the Hisbah seeks to do, is impracticable. It has little chance of success; rather both sellers and buyers will be driven underground and a black market will thrive beyond the reach of the law.

    Beyond this, there is the question of the Value Added Tax (VAT). All states of the federation share from this tax that is paid into the Federation Account. But a huge percentage of this tax is derived from the sale of alcoholic beverages and cigarettes. Is it morally right for a state to benefit from this revenue stream while precluding its residents from consuming these supposedly morally repugnant products?

    Kano’s Hisbah police are reported to number about 9,000 men. This is only another indication that state police is an idea whose time has come, given the glaring inefficacy of the prevalent unitary policing structure. However, there are so much more for Hisbah to do in helping to promote security in Kano than policing the consumption of alcoholic beverages or cigarettes. For instance, they are said to be involved in community development and dispute resolution. Those are certainly more productive lines of engagement for the outfit.