The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • Beyond a sack

    Beyond a sack

    Why was Youth Development Minister Inuwa Abdulkadir relieved of his appointment by President Goodluck Jonathan? This remains a puzzle as the statement by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation conveying the decision failed to advance reasons for the measure. There has therefore been a myriad of reasons unofficially advanced for the action.

    The minister is said to have been shoved out because he reportedly aligned with Governor Aliyu Wamakko and House of Representatives Speaker Aminu Tambuwal, who are believed to be working against the political interest of the President. But, government sources have been quoted by newspapers as suggesting that the decision was forced on the President by the failure of Abdulkadir to take firm charge of his ministry and meet performance targets set for ministers.

    The argument that politics informed the removal has gained ground and appears more credible since the Jonathan administration is not known to be driven by an urge to sack non-performing ministers. Since the ministers were made to sign performance bonds last year, how many have been removed or queried for performing below par? Despite the controversy generated last year on the involvement of the petroleum ministry in the sleaze that seized the oil sector, the minister, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, still sits pretty in office. Not even the recent allegations of recklessness and extravagance have attracted an official query, let alone a sack. Neither the minister nor her boss has offered any explanation for allegedly burning public fund for personal fancy and pleasure as in the charge that she spent about two billion Naira to charter jets in two years.

    No one can query the right of the President to choose whom to work with as ministers and heads of ministries and other agencies of government. However, we are convinced that the constitution assumes that in doing that, he would take into consideration the philosophy of the administration and the general good of the citizenry. The power to fire his appointees is also predicated on the belief that some may not measure up to expected standards. But, when such powers are exercised whimsically in a way that could injure the health of the nation, the alarm must be raised.

    The President owes the country an explanation on why he gave the boots to Abdulkadir. If he has infracted the law, then he deserves to be brought to justice. If the President also decides, on political ground, to part ways with any of his appointees, the reason should be advertised such that the aide is not necessarily brought to disrepute.

    The speculation is rife again that the President could be effecting a reshuffle of his executive council soon. It is disturbing that the exercise of such presidential powers in the past neither brought quality to governance nor served as check on those kept on board. The current team lacks lustre such that, more than half way through its tenure, the government is yet to produce that spark that could mobilise the people for national development. The duties of a President include coming up with a vision, dreaming heights to attain and setting goals for all. The President, as the Chief Executive of the Federation, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and Father of the Nation has failed in discharging these responsibilities.

    Probe panels and commissions of enquiry set up have been used merely to buy time; nothing has been done to re-jig government machinery. Dr. Jonathan and his team should note that section 14 of the constitution ought to inform all actions of the Federal Government. All motion without movement or progress can only lead to stagnation and earn the country a place in the ranks of failed or failing states.

  • WASSCE fraud

    WASSCE fraud

    •Punishment must await Ogun State government officials who carted away examination fees

    Based on a tip-off, the Ogun State government set up a panel of inquiry to investigate allegations of fraud said to be going on in the state ministry of education, science and technology. By the time the panel submitted its report on Tuesday, it discovered, to its chagrin, that the state government had been fleeced to the tune of about N231million. The drain pipe, according to the panel, was the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) fees which the state government pays for final year secondary school students in its public schools, as part of its free education policy. About 3,571 “external candidates” were said to have been fraudulently added to the list of the legitimate beneficiaries by the school principals and their collaborators in the ministry. The WASSCE fraud cost the state government about N31,608,876 which the perpetrators were alleged to have collected after the government had paid the total amount.

    This is stunning considering the fact that Ogun State is not particularly buoyant and one would have expected that public officials would join the government in judiciously managing the scarce resources. It is particularly sad that this is happening in a ministry of education and in collaboration with teachers who are supposed to be exemplars of morality and integrity to the students they are supposed to teach. As they say, “if gold rusts, what would iron do?” Years back, the society looked on to teachers as the compass through which they had direction on anything noble; the teaching profession itself was then seen as conservative and the concept of the ‘village headmaster’ still resounds nostalgically in the hearts of those who knew what the profession was like then.

    This fraudulent practice is not peculiar to Ogun State. Early in the year, the Osun State government suspended the Principal of Community High School, Eripa, Mr. T. A. Afolabi, along with some teachers, for allegedly ‘smuggling’ the names of six candidates into the school’s Senior Secondary School certificate examination list. The inference from all these is that it is probably a pervasive practice in places where the state governments have taken the burden of paying for the examinations off the parents. Of course, taking the WASSCE fee off the parents is not done in isolation; it is only part of the measures taken by the respective governments to encourage parents to send their wards to school and also ensure that no one is denied education on account of their parents’ inability to pay one fee or the other. This is a kind gesture that should be commended.

    It is unfortunate that some Nigerians would want to make a mess of such laudable actions taken by governments to ameliorate the sufferings of citizens. In the Ogun State incident alone, the state government was said to have lost a colossal N231million over a three-year period to the WASSCE fee fraudsters in its ministry of education, science and technology, as well as through various sums of money found to have been held illegally by certain officials of the ministry. We know that this is only a reflection of the deep-seated corruption in the country. We can only imagine what the government could have done with the N231million!

    We do not know what the panel recommended as sanctions against the affected officials, but it is clear that the allegations are serious. Therefore, the suspects must not be treated with kid gloves. The state government should get them prosecuted to serve as a deterrent to others in the state and elsewhere. Corruption has festered in the country because it is hardly punished. The earlier the appropriate message is passed across to people with itchy palms, the better for the country.

  • Responding to Syrian Atrocities

    Responding to Syrian Atrocities

    There is little doubt now that President Obama is planning some kind of military response to what the administration says without equivocation was a chemical weapons attack by the Syrian government that killed hundreds of civilians. On Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry began forcefully making the case for action.

    Speaking at the State Department, Mr. Kerry said the attack “defies any code of morality” and should “shock the conscience of the world.” He said this “indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders” was a “moral obscenity,” “inexcusable,” and “undeniable,” despite efforts by President Bashar al-Assad and his enablers in Russia to blame rebel forces.

    “Make no mistake,” Mr. Kerry added, “President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world’s most heinous weapons against the world’s most vulnerable people.” Administration officials said Mr. Obama had still not made a firm decision on how to react, but it would be highly unlikely — if not irresponsible — for him to authorize Mr. Kerry to speak in such sweeping terms and then do nothing.

    Mr. Obama put his credibility on the line when he declared last August that Mr. Assad’s use of chemical weapons would constitute a “red line” that would compel an American response. After the first attacks, earlier this year, killed between 100 and 150 people, the administration promised weapons for the rebels but delayed in delivering them.

    This time the use of chemicals was more brazen and the casualties were much greater, suggesting that Mr. Assad did not take Mr. Obama seriously. Presidents should not make a habit of drawing red lines in public, but if they do, they had best follow through. Many countries (including Iran, which Mr. Obama has often said won’t be permitted to have a nuclear weapon) will be watching.

    Using chemical arms is considered a war crime and banned under international treaties, including the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Geneva Protocol and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Even so, if he decides to use military force, Mr. Obama will have to show that he has exhausted diplomatic options and present a defensible legal justification, and that is not a simple matter. Ideally, the United States would muster a United Nations Security Council resolution to authorize military action. But Russia and China, which have veto power, have long protected Mr. Assad from punishment there and show no inclination to change. It is hard to believe that they would defend his use of chemical weapons, but there is no guarantee that they would not.

    Mr. Obama may instead bypass the U.N. and, as in the case of the 1999 NATO air war in Kosovo, assemble an ad hoc international coalition to support military action that would provide legitimacy, if not strict legal justification, for intervening to protect Syrian civilians. American officials are discussing the possibility that states like Turkey and Jordan may make a collective self-defense argument because they could be victims of Syrian chemical weapons.

    If Mr. Obama does forgo the U.N., he will need strong endorsements from the Arab League and the European Union, and more countries than just Turkey, Britain and France should join the effort. And if he does proceed with military action, it should be carefully targeted at Syrian air assets and military units involved in chemical weapons use. This, too, will not be easy, but the aim is to punish Mr. Assad for slaughtering his people with chemical arms, not to be drawn into another civil war.

    A political agreement is still the best solution to this deadly conflict, and every effort must be made to find one. President Obama has resisted demands that he intervene militarily and in force. Though Mr. Assad’s use of chemical weapons surely requires a response of some kind, the arguments against deep American involvement remain as compelling as ever.

    – New York Times

  • Teenage stowaway

    Teenage stowaway

    •Aviation authorities should accept responsibility for the shame that attended  the security breach at Benin Airport

    The gripping and pathetic story of how a 13-year-old Junior Secondary School Student beat the security system at the Benin Airport to hide in the tyre compartment of an Arik Flight to Lagos last Saturday has once again exposed the inefficiency of the security personnel in the country. Daniel Ohikhena, who, it turned out, had nursed the dream of one day travelling by air to the United States of America, believed that the flight was US-bound and saw it as a dream come true. He hid in a bush near the airport, waited patiently until the aircraft was about to depart Benin, and then moved stealthily to fly free of charge.

    It is unfortunate that Nigeria is once again in the news for the wrong reason. As a gateway to countries and major cities, the news of the teenage stowaway has travelled very wide, thus contradicting the image being painted that much has been accomplished in the trumpeted reform package of the aviation sector. Since 2011 when the Jonathan administration was inaugurated, billions of Naira has been committed to remodelling of the airports.

    Last Saturday’s incident has shown that we are still many steps away from attaining the desired level of safety in a country confronted with such serious security challenges as the Boko Haram insurgency in the Far North, the communal and religious clashes in the North Central, armed robbery in the South West and the incessant kidnap raids in the South East and the South West.

    The Ohikhena venture was not the first time the attention of the authorities and the general public would be called to the porous security outlay at our airports. In July 2005, stray cows found their way to the Port Harcourt International Airport runway. One actually hit an Air France aircraft without claiming the life of any of the 200 passengers on board. However, the aircraft was damaged. The news made headlines throughout the aviation world and the Obasanjo government pledged to prevent a recurrence.

    But, in March 2011, a Hawker 850 aircraft that had taken the vice presidential candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Mr. Fola Adeola, to the Bauchi Airport was confronted by a similar scenario. Goats and sheep found their way to the tarmac, ran across the runway and threatened the safe landing of the plane. Again, as usual, government promised it would never happen again.

    We find it difficult to share the confidence exuded by the General Manager, Corporate Communications of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Mr. Yakubu Datti, who said, “as a result of the incident in Benin, we have further tightened our risk amelioration procedure to ensure that a similar incident does not occur.” Should the authorities wait for such incidents before adopting and applying rules and procedures in operation in other countries?

    The Federal Government should go beyond propaganda in ensuring the safety and security of the millions of Nigerians and foreigners who use our airports. We find the blame game by FAAN and the management of Arik Air, following the incident unacceptable, and urge the aviation authorities to accept full responsibility.

    It is incredible that the movement of the boy was noticed, yet the security personnel and the control tower failed to act according to best practices that could have averted the situation. The aviation ministry should ensure, as a matter of priority, that the perimeter fencing of the four major international airports commenced in 2011 is completed in no time and that all others should not be left out. The fund accessed from the World Bank to upgrade infrastructure in our airports must be deployed for the purpose if Nigeria is to be saved the embarrassment of cattle, goats, sheep and stowaways straying into restricted areas of the airports.

    The orientation of our young ones should be made a priority by relevant government and non-governmental organisations. Many of them regard USA and Europe, through dreary eyes, as El Dorado. They thus become desperate to leave for those countries. It is high time government reversed the trend.

     

  • Electoral offenders

    Electoral offenders

    •INEC has a duty to prosecute those caught in Anambra before the November 16 governorship election

    Eighty-one days to the Anambra State governorship election, worries stalk the standard of preparations by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Although the commission’s chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, has promised best practices during the November 16 governorship election in the state, and admitted that the compilation of a credible voter register is the bedrock of free and fair polls, stakeholders are still concerned that a lot could still go wrong in the state.

    The fears were based on the experiences during the 2011 general elections and the more recent governorship elections in Ondo and Edo states where the registers were still regarded as accommodating fake names, thus leading to apprehensions that threatened the conduct of the polls. In a bid to arrest the trend, the INEC chairman told stakeholders last week that people who engaged in multiple registration, would, for the first time, be prosecuted as a deterrent to others who may be planning to toe the line.

    Reeling off relevant statistics, Professor Jega said the latest technology deployed by INEC had detected 93,526 offenders of the 2,011,746 registered during the last registration exercise in the state. He vowed that 72 of the offenders would soon be taken to court. Bemoaning the commission’s lack of capacity to punish all involved, the chairman, who also disclosed that about 870,000 of the 70 million names on the electoral roll nationwide were fake, said the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) had promised to assist.

    The road to conducting credible polls in Nigeria is still windy and rough. While many stakeholders, including the electorate, the mass media, political parties, candidates, non-governmental organisations and credible monitors, must be fully engaged in the process of sanitising the system, the responsibility devolves mainly on the electoral body.

    The Anambra State election is a foretaste of what to expect during the Ekiti, Osun and ultimately, the 2015 general elections.

    It is time to put a stop to the contention that a lot might have gone wrong with the conduct of general elections, but the result approximated the will of the people. In 2007, the Nigerian election was dubbed the worst in the annals of the country, failing global, regional and national standards. Yet, it received the official endorsement of the Supreme Court that agreed it failed basic constitutional tests. The apex court however held that the infractions could not have given victory to the petitioners.

    We note the pledge by Professor Jega that the biometric features component of the direct data capture at the 2010 registration has been fully deployed to weed out fake names. No more, he said, would there be the Mike Tysons and Nelson Mandelas on the electoral rolls. However, we can only welcome the promise with caution. Similar assurances in the past failed the test. Logistics remains a nightmare in the conduct of elections in the country. Transportation of officials and materials to polling units and non- payment of due allowances and inadequate security still pose challenges to the conduct of free and fair polls.

    The Anambra State political field is one of the most difficult in the country. The 2011 registration is to be repeated in 53 polling units. The continuous voter registration and voter verification exercises have just ended. How INEC collates the results and transparently handles whatever complaints that may arise therefrom would show whether to expect a credible poll. Each of the major political parties is rocked by internal crisis over who should be presented as candidate.

    The INEC chairman has said the commission has the names, addresses and photographs of all those who infringed the law during the 2010 registration. He should prove this by getting a speedy prosecution of all the offenders.  While the law, unfortunately, forbids the introduction of full-scale electronic voting, INEC has a duty to prove that the money spent to procure the Direct Data Capture machines in 2010 was not wasted. Anambra State provides opportunity for a litmus test.

     

  • Is it true?

    Is it true?

    •Petroleum minister accused of spending N2bn on private jets in two years. This is weighty; EFCC should clear the air

     

    If the report that a Minister of the Federal Republic spent a staggering N2billion on private jet rentals in two years is true, then, it merely confirms the pervasive profligacy in government. According to the Crusader For Good Governance, a non-governmental organisation that blew the whistle, the petroleum minister, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, spent the amount on her numerous overseas trips in the last two years. The NGO, in a petition sent to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), alleged, among others, that the minister rejected a commercial flight when President Goodluck Jonathan visited China a few months ago and instead paid $300,000 to go to the Asian country.

    According to the petitioners, “her frequent trips to meetings of the Organisation of Oil Producing and Exporting Countries, OPEC, in Vienna, Austria, have been through private jets.” “The same happened during Mr. President’s trip to South Africa; she also travelled in a private jet at the cost of $300,000.00.” She was accused of spending the same amount on her trip to South Africa when the president also went there. In the petition, the minister was said to have travelled in a private jet to Dubai during the last Easter Break with members of her family at the cost of $300,000.00, even as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was alleged to be maintaining a private jet, Challenger 850 Visa Jet at $500,000.00 monthly for the minister.

    Perhaps the most ridiculous of the allegations, according to the petitioner, is that “Worse of all, even when Mr. President is travelling and the use of Presidential jet is guaranteed, the Minister of Petroleum never makes use of such cost-saving measures”.

    We find all these incredible against the usual impression given by the government that the country cannot afford certain essentials due to paucity of funds. For instance, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has been on strike for almost two months, thereby grounding academic and other activities on our university campuses.

    We are concerned like most other Nigerians, especially if this kind of frivolous spending could be going on in government. Before the ASUU strike, lecturers in the polytechnics were also on strike for months. There are so many other things begging for attention in the country that the government has not done, always pleading poverty. Schools are in a shambles; healthcare has deteriorated as many Nigerians, especially those with the means travel out for medical check-up, the transportation sector is in chaos for the same reason. The state of infrastructure generally is nothing to write home about. Yet, we see financial recklessness in governments while the vast majority of Nigerians live in abject poverty.

    From the petition signed by Okechukwu Obiora, the petitioners appeared to have done some spadework on the matter as they claimed that the relevant agencies in the aviation sector, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) all confirmed that the minister has never flown commercial aircraft in the last two years. All the agencies are government owned; it therefore should not be difficult for the commission to get the necessary information from them.

    Without doubt, these are weighty allegations; nonetheless, we want to see them merely as that – allegations – until proven otherwise. But then, this is a matter that Nigerians are interested in, and justifiably so. The EFCC therefore owes Nigerians an obligation to say whether it had received the petition or not. If it had, it should so tell the people and as well let them into what it is doing about it. This is not the kind of issue that should be allowed to gather dust in shelves or be swept under the carpet.

     

  • Plateau SURE-P funds

    Plateau SURE-P funds

    •The state govt should be more responsive to legislative scrutiny

    The Subsidy Reinvestment Programme (SURE-P) allocations to Plateau State have become a subject of legislative scrutiny, a thing the executive arm of the government is not comfortable with. Yet, the state government deliberately kept an anxious public in the dark over the safety of and what use to deploy the funds. The state house of assembly finally bowed to public pressure when it beamed its klieg light into the matter, to ascertain what has happened to the over N5billion said to be SURE-P accruals to the state from January 2012 till date.

    The public, through the assembly, sought to ascertain whether or not the money had been misappropriated by the government, since nothing concrete points otherwise. The 17 local government councils in the state that ought to benefit from the funds have nothing on ground to show that they did. The programme, unfortunately, has not taken off at all in the state, over a year and half after the introduction of SURE-P by President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration in the aftermath of the January 2012 nationwide fuel subsidy protests that nearly paralysed the country.

    The eight-man ad-hoc committee set up by the speaker of the house of assembly, John Clark Dabwan, and chaired by Dalyop Mancha has concluded investigation into the matter and submitted its interim report to the assembly. What is rather disgusting is the rigid posture of members of the executive arm that were invited to appear before the committee. It is sad that officials of the state reluctantly appeared before the committee and more contemptuous is the fact that most of them refused to give bank details of the state’s SURE-P funds. Also, the federal, zonal and state coordinators of SURE-P shunned the committee’s summons.

    The state government should refrain from acts that could project it as denigrating another arm of government. It is certain that it cannot pretend not to be aware of the uncooperative and disdainful attitudes of some of its officials, especially the accountant-general of the state, among others, that were duly summoned by the assembly. The lawmakers are accountable to the people and not to Governor Jonah Jang.  And the people have the right to compel the assembly to look into whatever they feel is going wrong in the state. This should be done without executive intimidation.

    Despite these deliberate official hiccups, we consider as commendable the fact that the committee was able to unravel some facts. For instance, it was revealed that the state has been receiving N218 million monthly since January 2012 as its share of the SURE-P funds from the Federal Government, which reportedly has amounted to over N3 billion. Also, the state government has reportedly been receiving N146 million monthly on behalf of its 17 local governments for the same period, and which has equally accumulated to over N2 billion. This could not have been achieved if this constitutional oversight had not been carried out.

    However, we condemn the assembly’s subsequent apologetic posturing before the executive by denying the probe and calling it mere investigation. Are the members afraid of the governor? What should be paramount is the interest of the people that has been served in this regard. Whatever squabbling from whatever quarters is sheer bunkum. The Plateau State assembly and others across the country must insist that it is illegal for any governor to treat public funds as his personal wealth. And that it is necessary to let them know that public funds in all circumstances must be appropriated by the state houses of assembly. The SURE-P funds should not be treated as a People’s Democratic Party (PDP) ‘family affair’. Much as we have our reservations about the programme, it is important to say that its results must be apparent for all to see and feel, more so when public funds have been disbursed.

  • Not yet uhuru

    Not yet uhuru

    LAST week, the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) released its 2012 annual report on the state of the nation’s lenders. Among its many highlights, it showed that the banking industry recorded a total of 3,380 fraud cases. The figure for 2011 was 2,352. However, there was a significant decline in the amount involved, from N28.4 billion in 2011 to N18.04 billion in 2012 – that is, 36.4 percent. In the same vein, the contingency loss rose from N4.072 billion in 2011 to N4.52 billion – a quantum jump of 10 percent.

    Among the other highlights, the banking sector’s total assets reportedly grew from N21.89 trillion in 2011 to N24.58 trillion in 2012 (10.91percent). As for the ratio of non-performing loans to total loans, this is said to have decreased from 4.95 percent in 2011 to 3.51 percent in 2012. The NDIC attributes this to the purchase of the non-performing assets of the banks by the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON). Credit to agriculture stood at 3.6 percent of the entire loan portfolio in 2012 –a slight improvement from 3.11 percent in 2011.

    In all, the NDIC rated 10 of the 24 banks as “sound”; nine were rated “satisfactory” just as one bank was rated “marginal”. It found no bank “unsound”.

    Four years after the exercise undertaken by the Sanusi Lamido Sanusi-led Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to cleanse the industry of its rot, the mere suggestion that fraud continues to fester ought to trigger alarm. If it is any indication, it is of how the internal controls instituted by the banks in the aftermath of the exercise have failed to square up to the challenge of fraud.

    And here we are dealing with a quantum jump in fraud cases from 2,352 to 3,380 all in one year! Taken together with the jump in contingency losses by as much as 10 percent, there can be no better indication of how much the system has remained fraud-ridden.

    The challenge of course is to bring fraud cases to the barest minimum. That would obviously require taking a comprehensive look at the internal controls of the banks, with a view to bringing them up to date. Investing in new technologies to fight fraud would be a positive move at this time; however, a programme of human capital development to address the problem would seem infinitely better in the long run. The challenge for the Bankers’ Committee is one of finding the right mix. What the NDIC report suggests is that it is yet to get there.

    At the heart of the NDIC report is the question of the state of the financial services sector. Most instructive is the NDIC’s rating of the financial services sector as relatively stable in spite of its findings of only 10 “sound” banks out of 24. The nation deserves more than a “relatively stable” financial sector. We say this because it’s been eight years since the first round of banking reforms – consolidation – and four since the second cycle – sanitisation – ended. Once the nation had a motley club of 84 banks; now there are 24 with the anaemic banks supposedly gone with their toxic assets.

    What Nigerians are interested in is whether anything has changed in any substantial sense. Are the banks better primed to assume their financial intermediation roles to the credit-starved economy? Are the costs of funds to the real sector any cheaper now than they were prior to the reforms? What about the plan to deepen the financial services sector? Is the informal sector now better served post-reforms? These are the questions that bother Nigerians – not some high-minded system stability.

    Above all, does anyone need other proof of the neglect of the vital agricultural sector than the paltry 3.6 percent credit extended to it in 2012?

  • Lesson from Mali

    Lesson from Mali

    THERE is every reason to jubilate over the last election in Mali. First, that country had been at war for over 18 months; in which case the prospects of a peaceful election seemed far-fetched. Second, in Africa, it is rare for a loser in an election to accept defeat, not to talk of congratulate the winner. This happened in Mali. Moreover, Mali used to be a model of democracy in West Africa; it is therefore something to cheer that the country has been able to retrace its steps to this glorious past.

    But it was a bumpy road to success. On March 21, 2012, some elements of the army, prompted by an uprising by Islamists and Tuareg separatists, staged a military coup d’etat in Mali and formed the National Committee for the Restoration of Democracy and State. Thus, Mali exploded into a civil war, having been frustrated by a lack of progress in dealing decisively with the stubborn Tuareg rebellion in the North, which was the reason the soldiers gave for sacking President Amadou Toumani Toure.

    The general turmoil and confusion in Mali’s capital, Bamako, gave the Tuareg rebels and their allies the opportunity to move swiftly and capture about two-thirds of the country, a thing that made the United States suspend aid to Mali. This and the pressure from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), followed by economic sanctions and blockade, forced the coup leader, Captain Amadou Sanogo, to announce an early restoration of the suspended constitution. This was followed by a deal also prompted by ECOWAS in Burkina Faso where the head of the military junta, Captain Sanogo, surrendered power to Dioncunda Traore as interim president. It was this interim government that organised the election largely described as free and fair.

    Altogether, there were 18 candidates, with Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, popularly known as “IBK”, Soumaila Cisse and Dramane Dembele as front runners. On July 28, presidential election was held amidst tight security, with fears of attack by the Islamic Movement for the Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA) that helped in overrunning the north in 2012. But a two-headed contest became inevitable as Keita failed to get an absolute majority in the first round.

    However, having got the support of 22 of the 25 candidates who lost out in the first round of election, Keita’s chances of winning the presidential run-off on August 11 became a foregone conclusion. He won a landslide of 2,354,693 or 71.61 percent of the total votes (3,126,521) leaving Cisse, his only opponent, with 679,258 or 22.39 percent of the total votes.

    It is noteworthy that, in spite of his comments on “some irregularities” and that “the votes had been marred by fraud and intimidation” Cisse, in an uncharacteristically African gesture on election results, conceded defeat to Keita and indeed congratulated him. Hear him: “my family and I went to congratulate Mr. Keita, the future president of Mali, on his victory. May God bless Mali”.

    We commend Cisse for rallying round the winner of the election (as it happened in Ghana before) and recommend it to other African countries, especially Nigeria.

    The new president is however faced with the task of reforming the military, curbing widespread corruption and reviving the ailing economy which shrank 1.2 percent last year, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). “IBK” must take advantage of his rival’s support and his landslide victory that showed his popularity and love by the Malians to restore the country’s democratic credentials. This would be praiseworthy for a country that battled political turmoil for almost two years, to bounce back into its past glory as a model of democracy in West Africa.

    We join the United States and other countries s to congratulate the interim government that supervised the election and Malians generally for its success. We hope Mali will sustain this tradition.

  • Russia’s Olympic Games should go on

    Russia’s Olympic Games should go on

    Russia has embarked on a series of shameful steps against homosexuals. A recently passed law lays out heavy penalties for anyone who disseminates positive information to minors about “nontraditional” relationships, a vague law that could be construed to mean that a gay couple holding hands in public would be in trouble if children were present. Another law bans adoptions not just by homosexuals but by anyone living in a country that confers marriage rights on gay and lesbian couples.

    These laws should be denounced by leaders everywhere. And if consumers worldwide decide not to indulge in Russian vodka as a form of economic protest, that’s fine too. But Russia’s homophobic actions, dismaying as they are, should not become the basis for a boycott of the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi.

    Violations of human rights are unfortunately too common in too many countries. China is among them, which didn’t stop it from successfully hosting the Games in 2008. Even the United States wouldn’t necessarily be exempt from calls for boycotts; the death penalty, for example, has been abolished in almost all European nations as a human rights violation.

    Boycotts are a time-honored way for individuals and consumer groups to pressure companies or governments to change their ways. But governments and official organizations such as the International Olympic Committee should tread far more carefully lest every major event becomes subject to boycotts and counter-boycotts.

    In 1980, the United States shunned the Summer Games in Moscow — and how many of us remember that it was over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, a country now occupied by American forces? It didn’t change Soviet policy. Four years later, the Soviet Union led a boycott of the Summer Games in Los Angeles, a move that was widely interpreted as retaliation. Athletes and the Games themselves suffered as a result. By contrast, American participation in the Berlin Games of 1936 showcased the abilities of Jesse Owens and other black athletes, and undermined Hitler’s hope of using the event as a display of Aryan superiority.

    There is one thing, though, that the IOC must secure from Russia before going ahead: The government there must ensure that athletes are protected from these repressive laws during the Games. No legal action can be allowed against athletes who openly state their sexual orientation or who kiss a same-sex partner after winning a medal. The Olympic competition is held on an international stage, no matter where it happens to be. Russia can make its own Dark Ages laws, but it cannot set policy for the modern Olympiad.

    • Los Angeles Times